New Hampshire College Class Seeks Ghosts

Class Investigates Things That Go Bump in the Night

Newswise - When Mark Henn was in high school, he and one of his pals decided that a particularly foggy patch of swamp land on a particularly curvy road near a particularly creepy cemetery was the perfect place to invent a ghost. On one particularly dark night later, the story of the ghost of Dead Man’s Curve was born.

As Henn, who teaches psychology at the University of New Hampshire, and his friend recounted their frightening tale to classmates, an interesting thing happened. Although there had never been reports of ghost sightings there before, some of their friends started reporting that they, too, had seen the ghost of Dead Man’s Curve. And then more classmates experienced sightings. By the time Henn’s younger brother graduated from high school a few years later, spending the night at the cemetery to record sightings of the ghost had become a rite of passage.

What Henn experienced as a teenager demonstrates how people can come to believe something that does not exist. This summer, UNH students will study this psychological event in Henn’s class, “Scientific Perspectives on Belief in the Paranormal Phenomena.”

“Inventing a ghost is one thing. Having others see it is another thing. In this class, we will look at how to approach belief in something, especially when we want to believe it. In these instances, the easiest person to fool is yourself,” Henn says.

“I chose paranormal belief for the subject of this class because it is, on its face, so unbelievable and yet upwards of 80 percent of people in the United States do believe in some version of the paranormal. If we can see why we would believe in something like that, it’s a lot easier for us to understand why we believe in other things,” he says.

Henn’s course will examine open-mindedness and skepticism, with the benefit of the psychological perspective and the use of the scientific method. In the class, students will learn about the long history of the interaction between psychology and the supernatural, definitions of science and commonalities among sciences, methodology and experimental controls, and how to have an open mind and be skeptical.

Students will look at various toolkits used for critical examination, such as Carl Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit. Using these toolkits and a deeper understanding of why people hold on to extraordinary beliefs, students will evaluate various conspiracy theories and the belief in the paranormal.

Finally, students will learn how the field of psychology has contributed to the study of belief by investigating reconstructive and recovered memories, sensation and perception, physiological psychology, social cognition, and the contributions of personality, developmental psychology, and behaviorism.

“We are designed psychologically to see patterns to help us live and survive. Sometimes we see patterns where there aren’t any, and that’s what gets us in trouble,” Henn says.

“There are people who have irrational beliefs that are not backed up by evidence. We have parents who are not vaccinating their children based on an irrational belief and as a result, they are putting their children’s health at risk,” he says.

The University of New Hampshire, founded in 1866, is a world-class public research university with the feel of a New England liberal arts college. A land, sea, and space-grant university, UNH is the state's flagship public institution, enrolling more than 12,200 undergraduate and 2,200 graduate students.

VIDEO
Prof. Mark Henn discusses why he chose paranormal belief as the subject of his class.
http://vimeo.com/11742204

Prof. Mark Henn discusses why we sometimes see patterns in life.
http://vimeo.com/11742363

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Gaga for Ghosts!

Haunted Lady Gaga Ghostbuster

newsoxy-Lady Gaga admits that she bought a Ghostbuster kit. Gaga uses the Ghostbuster device for regular sweeps to fend off evil spirits that are haunting her. Gaga admits that the problem started a few weeks ago and is convinced that she needs the Ghostbuster kit to fight against negative forces.

"When I took the order for the kit I had no idea who it was for. But then I checked the listings and saw who was playing the O2. Her aide said the gear had to be robust as they were taking it on the road. So they must be doing this everywhere [...] Gaga is performing," Ghostbuster firm owner Dan Webb said in a statement. The kit she bought includes electro-magnetic field readers.

Gaga, 24, is terrified of "bad energy" and hired Dan Webb's firm to do a complete cleansing behind the stage at London's O2 Arena. Gaga originally thought she was experiencing a mental breakdown, or hallucinations, that usually come with skitzophrenia. However, she is still convinced that unseen forces are haunting her.

If the reports are true, Gaga wouldn't be the first celebrity to admit ghost sightings. Several Hollywood legends have their own story to tell after experiencing similar paranormal activity. While the subject is always up for debate, the activity is still unexplained and why it happens in the first place.

Making the big "C" a thing of the past

New blood test to spot cancer before it's development

Topnews-UK: A new testing method can be used to detect accurately the indications sent out by an individual's immune system to be something as cancerous.

Early research is of the suggestion that the indications can be detected up to five years prior to a tumor is spotted, offering doctors and patients a fundamental headstart in treating the sickness.

The test, which has been developed by clinicians in Nottingham and Kansas over a period of 15 years, is to be introduced in America in the later part of this month.

It initially had been devised, in order to detect lung cancer and is put in usage alongside conventional screening.

The technology had been developed by scientists at the University of Nottingham and Oncimmune, a medical research corporation.

The test works by recognising how the immune system reacts to the first molecular signs of cancer development.

Cancerous cells generate little amounts of protein material named as antigens, which prompts the immune system to generate great amounts of auto-antibodies.

Professor John Robertson, a Breast Cancer Specialist who led the research, said that the earliest cancer that has been seen by him and his team has been detected and yet biologically, that proved to be quite late in the road of cancer development.

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Researchers develop nanorobots to detect and kill cancer cells

Eureka-UK: Researchers are developing a molecular sized 'DNA robot' to detect disease markers on a cell, diagnose it and deliver a 'cargo of cancer killing drugs'.

Prof Milan Stojanovic at Columbia University, New York, developed the molecular sized robot to resemble a spider, with the ability to use its 'tentacles' for self propulsion. During its early development, it was capable of 'walking' though a field of DNA molecule, cutting and bonding with them to propel itself. By programming the environment with 'breadcrumbs', the robot was able to follow an established trail.

At such tiny scales, proteins like the DNA itself remained the best bet for creating such a trail. The team found the material it needed in the work of CalTech Prof Paul Rothemund, who had invented what he named DNA origami. Using 'sequence-recognition in base pairs', DNA origami are 'folded' from a long single strand of DNA, with several shorter helper strands that 'staple' the long strand into the desired shape.

Stojanovic's team made its own DNA origami bread crumbs, each measuring 2nm thick and 100nm long, programmed with a specific instruction to any walker that happens by. Together, the DNA origami bread crumbs were formed into a path that allowed Stojanovic's team to lead their DNA robots to a goal.

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OUHSC scientists seek vaccine that may prevent HIV, cancer

Oklahoma Daily: Examining different parts of the immune system, OU Health Sciences Center and Washington University in St. Louis researchers are creating a new vaccine using a protein instead of creating antibodies.

Using T-cells in the immune system, the T-cell vaccine can potentially treat and prevent applications for cancer, tuberculosis, HIV and several other viral diseases, according to a press release from OUHSC.

“No one has ever done this with a T-cell vaccine, so we’re learning; but now we are starting to get some traction. We are finding that a T-cell vaccine can work,” said William Hildebrand, the lead researcher on the project and microbiology and immunology professor.

Until now, vaccines have focused on generating antibodies in the immune system to prevent illness. Over time, the dependence on antibodies has prompted some viruses to evolve past the antibody immunity, lessening the effective of the vaccine to some viruses, according to the press release.

To develop the vaccine, Hildebrand and his team began by determining how the immune system distinguishes between a virus-infected or cancerous cell and a healthy cell.

“What are T-cells using to discriminate the healthy cell from a diseased cell? That is what we want to know in my lab,” he said.

Unlike antibody vaccines, a T-cell vaccine would be able to activate another arm of the immune system to target a specific virus in the body and kill it, as they are responsible with killing virus-infected cells in the body and can kill cells that become cancerous.

The goal is to create viable targets for vaccines that activate T-cells in the immune system, said Hildebrand.

“In the past, vaccine development hasn’t been extremely systematic or well-defined,” he said. “Vaccines have worked to raise protective T-cells but we don’t know how.”

Researchers started working with West Nile virus affect on the immune system since it doesn’t change like the flu or develop resistance like cancer or HIV. After developing the target, researchers at the HSC worked with colleagues at Washington University to create a vaccine, the release stated.

“We found a target, we put it into a vaccine and we got protection,” Hildebrand said. “Is it going to save everybody from West Nile Virus? No, but it saves maybe half the people.”

The process is now being repeated in other areas, such as cancer, where activating T-cells can be difficult.

“Now that we have demonstrated the feasibility of developing a T-cell-specific vaccine, we intend to use the same process to discover other reliable targets, validate them and develop additional vaccines,” Hildebrand said.

Hildebrand said there is still a lot of room to grow in this research area.

“I think it’s still version 1.0,” he said. “The final version will be version five or six.”

The research appears in the latest issue of The Journal of Immunology and is funded by grants and contracts totaling $15 million from the National Institutes of Health, according to the release.

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