Brain Implant Could Enhance Our Senses

Our world is determined by the limits of our five senses. We can't hear pitches that are too high or low, nor can we see ultraviolet or infrared light—even though these phenomena are not fundamentally different from the sounds and sights that our ears and eyes can detect. But what if it were possible to widen our sensory boundaries beyond the physical limitations of our anatomy? In a study published recently in Nature Communications, scientists used brain implants to teach rats to “see” infrared light, which they usually find invisible. The implications are tremendous: if the brain is so flexible it can learn to process novel sensory signals, people could one day feel touch through prosthetic limbs, see heat via infrared light or even develop a sixth sense for magnetic north.

Miguel Nicolelis, a neurobiologist at Duke University, and his colleagues trained six rats to poke their nose inside a port when the LED light above it lit up. Then the researchers surgically attached infrared cameras to the rats' head and wired the cameras to electrodes they implanted into the rats' primary somatosensory cortex, a brain region responsible for sensory processing. When the camera detected infrared light, it stimulated the animals' whisker neurons. The stimulation became stronger the closer the rats got to the infrared light or the more they turned their head toward it, just as brain activation responds to light seen by the eyes. Then the scientists let the animals loose in their chambers, this time using infrared light instead of LEDs to signal the ports the rats should visit.

At first, none of the rats used the infrared signals. But after about 26 days of practice, all six had learned how to use the once invisible light to find the right ports. Even after months of doing so, the rodents were able to respond to whisker neuron stimulation in addition to the infrared light, which suggests that sensory neurons can, when necessary, respond to multiple types of cues. This approach could help scientists create “sensory channels” for prosthetics users that provide constant sensory feedback to and from artificial limbs, facilitating control. The findings also suggest that the human brain can handle an expanded sensory repertoire—that we might one day be able to see, hear, touch and smell what we now cannot.

Scientific American

Meanwhile, Europe Is Collapsing

So much for the European growth meme (see CAT's bellwether sales to the region) or the cleanest dirty shirt moving across the pond. Even as the EUR soars (breaking above 1.3450), European bond and stock markets (most notably the peripherals that have soared recently on nothing but air and rotating momo liquidity), are collapsing. 

Spain and Italy are down 4.2% on the week, Greek stocks have dumped 6.8% and even the core are down almost 3%. Peripheral bonds (which actually outperformed in the rally) are sliding fast with Spanish and Italian bond spreads snapping 15bps wider. Europe's VIX has surged to its highest in a month (near 20%) and credit spreads for financials and corporates continued to blow wider, with stocks catching down. This is the biggest 2-day drop in 2 months for most assets.



EURUSD surging... (and Swissie)...





But stocks and bonds are collapsing...


Zero Hedge

Floods, typhoon leave 105 dead, 115 missing in China

BEIJING, Aug. 19 (Xinhua) -- A total of 105 people died and another 115 are missing after floods ravaged northeast China and a typhoon lashed southern regions, the Ministry of Civil Affairs said Monday.

Northeastern China's Liaoning Province and south China's Guangdong Province have reported the most number of casualties from the disasters, with 54 deaths and 22 deaths respectively as of 9 a.m. Monday.

Rain-triggered floods that started to hit northeast China on Wednesday also left 15 and three people dead in Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces respectively, the ministry said, citing reports from local agencies.

Ninety-seven and six people are missing respectively in Liaoning and Jilin.

Typhoon Utor continued to wreak havoc in China's southern regions after making landfall Wednesday in Guangdong and has killed 22 people, with eight more missing in the province.

Neighboring Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Hunan Province reported six and five deaths from the typhoon respectively.

Besides damaging houses and farmland, the floods and typhoon affected 3.72 million people in northeast China and 8.37 million in the south, including 6.67 million in Guangdong, according the the ministry.

China Weekly

Teleported! Bits vanish here, reappear there

For the first time, researchers have teleported 10,000 bits of information per second from point A to point B across a distance of about six millimeters and inside a solid state circuit, similar to a computer chip.

Although the accomplishment differs from teleporting mass, like a person — such as that seen on science fiction shows like Star Trek — the remarkable feat demonstrates what could be possible with a quantum computer.

The scientists, from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, report their findings in this week’s issue of Nature.

In their experiment, the team spaced three micron-sized electronic circuits on a seven-by-seven-millimeter computer chip. Two of the circuits worked as a sending mechanism, while the other served as the receiver. The scientists cooled the chip to near absolute zero and ran a current through the circuits.

At that frigid temperature and small scale, the electrons in the circuit — which are the quantum bits of information, the qubits — started to behave according to the rules of quantum mechanics. The qubits became entangled. This means they become linked, sharing identical quantum states, even if physically separated from one other.

Specifically, the qubits in the sender circuit became entangled with those in the receiving circuit. The ETH team encoded some information into the qubits in the sending circuits and then measured of the state of the qubits in the receiver circuit. Whatever state the qubits had been in the sender was reflected instantly in the receiving circuit. The researchers had teleported the information.

This is different from the way information is sent in ordinary computers, electrons carry information along wires or through the air via radio waves. In this case, no bit of data physically traveled along a route — instead the information disappeared from one location and reappeared at another.

Other experimenters have teleported quantum bits, too, and have done so across a larger distance. But those teams only got the teleportation to work once in a while, perhaps a few percent of the time. The ETH team was also able to teleport up to 10,000 quantum bits every second, and get it to work right consistently. That’s fast enough and accurate enough to build a useful computer. “Basically we can push a button and have this teleportation work every time,” Andreas Wallraff, Professor at the Department of Physics and head of the study, told DNews.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/08/18/teleported-bits-vanish-here-reappear-there/?intcmp=trending#ixzz2cWBdd6W2

Erdogan: Israel orchestrated Morsi overthrow

Turkish premier, who has a history of incendiary remarks considered by some anti-Semitic, is quoted in Today's Zaman as saying that he has "evidence" Israel is behind the Egypt crisis.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Photo: Reuters

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of orchestrating the Egyptian military’s overthrow of deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

“Israel is behind the coup in Egypt, we have evidence,” Erdogan was quoted as saying in the Turkish daily Today’s Zaman on Tuesday.

The Turkish premier cited a conversation he had with a “French Jewish intellectual” who predicted that the Muslim Brotherhood would not be permitted to rule even if it won an election “because democracy is not the ballot box.”

Erdogan, who during his term in office has emerged as a fierce critic of Israel, has generated controversy in the past with remarks considered by some to be anti-Semitic. The premier accused an “interest rate lobby” of masterminding protests by crowds in Istanbul. He has also likened Zionism to fascism, and he has routinely accused Israel of waging a campaign of “genocide” against Palestinians.

Erdogan is not the only leader in the last week to accuse Israel of using its power to influence events in Egypt. Last weekend, Venezuela’s president accused Israel and the United States of conspiring to oust Morsi and of stirring unrest in Syria, the AFP news agency reported.

In response to the Egypt crisis, Caracas recalled its ambassador from Cairo to protest the military-backed government’s crackdown on Morsi’s Islamist supporters and the Muslim Brotherhood.

“We have witnessed a blood bath in Egypt,” President Nicolas Maduro was quoted as saying. “We warned that the coup against Morsi was unconstitutional. Morsi was kidnapped and the responsible party for what is occurring in Egypt is the [American] empire, which has its hands in it."

"The United States doesn't have friends, it has interests, and what it wants is to control the planet,” Maduro added.

Jerusalem Post

A Message To The Conservative In These Trying Days

In these days of ever-growing Government, there is a great burden on the hearts of conservatives from the impact on our culture and society. All we could use to do was to hope that true Conservative leadership and policies to be return to our land. That optimistic dream has been smashed in light of the current election results and the GOP's marginalizing of true conservatives. There is hardly any Conservative leadership in Washington and the few who do stand up and raise their voices are slandered and beaten down by the Mainstream Leftist Media, the socially dependent lawless masses and are abandoned by the Republican Party. With the near total erosion of moral laws and absolutes and the dominance of moral relativism the effects are felt everywhere with seemingly no end is in sight. My friend's what is a Conservative to do in such days? Are we to place are trust in the optimistic delusional hopes and vain pep talks of the voices in the new media? God forbid my dear friends. The jig is up my friends and tragically countless conservatives have given themselves over to delusional hopes and dreams that cannot ever come to be. My friend, in the midst of the desperation and panic I would like to direct your attention away from the political and social problems that plague are day and that are so prevalent and point you to Almighty God and His Word!

1.) Look to and Seek The Lord!

"Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else (Isaiah 45:22). And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. And I will be found of you, saith the LORD…" (Jeremiah 29:13-14).

2.) Have Faith in Almighty God and His Word!

"Have Faith in God (Mark 11:22). and But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him" (Hebrews 11:6).

3.) Place your Hope and Expectations in Almighty God for both Time and Eternity! 

"Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil. It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones(Proverbs 3:5-8). And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28).

The following question needs to be asked by liberals and conservatives but mostly by conservatives: Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior as taught in the Holy Scriptures? Our moral virtues and conservative ideologies, no matter how good and noble, are not good enough for ETERNITY. To gain entrance into Heaven, we cannot and must not trust in our own goodness, but only in the righteousness that is found in Jesus Christ alone. The Bible states, "For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth" (Romans 10:2-4).

The most important question one needs to ask themselves today is not, "What about our country?" but this, "Do I have Almighty God's RIGHTEOUSNESS that is only found in the Lord Jesus Christ?"

The most important question one needs to ask themselves today is not, "What about our country?" but this, "Do I have Almighty God's RIGHTEOUSNESS that is only found in the Lord Jesus Christ?" The answer to this SOBERING REALITY and QUESTION will determine one's own destiny for all ETERNITY. In these very difficult days may you redirect your hopeless hope for the future from Washington D.C. to the very ETERNAL Throne-Room of Heaven, (i.e., in the direction of Almighty God and His Word). It is there in Almighty God's Word that you as an individual will find ALL the answers to your most dire questions and personal remedies for your lost estate (John 3:16-17, 36, Acts 16:29-31). May you see the BIG ETERNAL PICTURE for indeed it will set you FREE (John 8:32-36)! May it be even so this day in your life my friend,

The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand! Will you be ready?

DJP I.F.

The Ignorant Fishermen Blog

2013, Year of The GREAT CRASH, ALEX JONES & Max Keiser

Terrorists ‘aim to hit Israeli, Jewish targets worldwide’ in coming weeks

Israeli and Jewish targets all over the world are likely to be sought out by terrorist organizations in the coming weeks, the Israeli government’s Counter-Terrorism Bureau warned in strikingly strident tones on Monday, listing dozens of countries where it said it had “concrete” indications of a terrorist threat.

It cited concerns about terrorist acts timed to coincide with the forthcoming Rosh Hashana (New Year), Yom Kippur and Succot festivals, and also said that the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US was likely to be “a favored period” for al-Qaeda and other global jihadist groups to attempt to carry out acts of terrorism.

Iran and Hezbollah, it warned, were continuing their “global terror campaign” against Israeli and Jewish targets. It noted that Iran remained bent on avenging alleged Israeli responsibility for the killing of Hezbollah terror chief Imad Mughniyeh in a Damascus car-bombing in 2008, and the deaths of three Iranian nuclear scientists.

It said its information indicated that Israeli businessmen and ex-government officials were prime potential targets for assassination and/or kidnapping.

With all that in mind, the bureau reconfirmed that Israelis are barred altogether from travel to Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, where the “concrete” terror threat was “very high.”

In addition, it ordered Israelis not to travel to Sudan, Somalia, Algeria, Djibouti, Mauritania, Libya and Tunisia, and to leave these countries immediately if they were there, because of a similarly “very high” terror threat. Where Tunisia was concerned, it underlined what it said were the “threats to carry out attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets.”

The unusually shrill and widespread alert included an order to Israelis not to travel to the Sinai Peninsula, because of the chaotic situation in Egypt. The Sinai’s Red Sea resorts are a traditionally popular holiday destination for Israelis, especially at this time of year. The advisory noted that Sinai was off limits not only because of the general Egyptian disorder and a series of recent attacks in the Sinai, however, but also because of “information on the intention to carry out further attacks.”

Using only slightly less urgent language, the bureau, part of the National Security Council under the authority of the Prime Minister’s Office, ordered Israelis to “avoid visiting” the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Egypt and Qatar, where it cited what it called a “basic” terrorist threat. Israel maintains peace agreements with both Jordan and Egypt, and the warning underlines what the bureau called “the complex security realities” in nations adjacent to Israel.

The bureau also told Israelis to postpone nonessential visits to Turkey, Oman and Morocco, because of “ongoing potential threats.”

Slightly further afield, it cited “very high” terror threats in Afghanistan, parts of southern Thailand, parts of the southern Philippines, east Senegal, India’s Kashmir province, northern Nigeria, parts of Kenya, and Chechnya. Israel were not to travel to any of those areas, and to leave immediately if they were there, it ordered.

The advisory also specified a “high” terror threat in Indonesia, Burkina-Faso, Ivory Coast, Togo, Mali, Malaysia and Pakistan, telling Israelis not to go there and urging them to leave as soon as possible if they were there now.

The bureau’s warning also specified concerns about terror threats to Israeli “business targets” worldwide, and especially in Africa, “in the wake of the exposure of a terrorist infrastructure in Nigeria over the past year.”

Generally, it urged Israelis traveling worldwide to take extra precautions, such as avoiding unexpected meetings or out of the way places, and to change regular travel routes.

The full report was made available on the National Security Council website (Hebrew only).

The Times of Israel

TSA to purchase 3.5 million rounds of ammunition

The Transportation Security Administration is set to purchase 3.5 million .357 SIG caliber bullets, enough for its agents to fire 9,400 rounds a day, every day of the year.

According to a solicitation issued by the agency on August 16, the TSA is looking to buy “3,454,000 rounds of .347 SIG Caliber Training Ammunition.”

Although TSA agents in airports are currently unarmed, last month the TSA announced its plan to hire the use of a firing range within a 20 mile radius of LaGuardia Airport in order to train TSA workers.

The federal agency’s huge bullet buy could signal an expansion of its controversial Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) program, where teams of armed TSA officers patrol railroad stations, bus stations, ferries, car tunnels, ports, subways, truck weigh stations, rest areas, and special events.

VIPR teams currently conduct around 8,000 operations a year. As well as providing security at transport hubs, VIPR teams are now being used to keep tabs on fans at sporting events.

Earlier this month it was announced that VIPR agents would now be patting down Americans “outside the airport” by conducting stop and search shake downs at transport hubs and public events.

As Government Security News notes, the amount of ammunition being purchased, “means the TSA could fire off more than 9,400 rounds per day, every day of the year, to consume that entire quantity annually.”

Significant bullet purchases by the TSA are likely to fuel concerns that the federal government is arming itself to the teeth in preparation for some form of domestic unrest or other catastrophe, following the Department of Homeland Security’s commitment to purchase more than 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition over the course of the last 18 months. 

Prison Planet

Obama Asks Supreme Court To Allow Warrantless Cell Phone Searches

If the police arrest you, do they need a warrant to rifle through your cellphone? Courts have been split on the question. Last week the Obama administration asked the Supreme Court to resolve the issue and rule that the Fourth Amendment allows warrantless cellphone searches.

In 2007, the police arrested a Massachusetts man who appeared to be selling crack cocaine from his car. The cops seized his cellphone and noticed that it was receiving calls from “My House.” They opened the phone to determine the number for “My House.” That led them to the man’s home, where the police found drugs, cash and guns.

The defendant was convicted, but on appeal he argued that accessing the information on his cellphone without a warrant violated his Fourth Amendment rights. Earlier this year, the First Circuit Court of Appeals accepted the man’s argument, ruling that the police should have gotten a warrant before accessing any information on the man’s phone.

The Obama Administration disagrees. In a petition filed earlier this month asking the Supreme Court to hear the case, the government argues that the First Circuit’s ruling conflicts with the rulings of several other appeals courts, as well as with earlier Supreme Court cases. Those earlier cases have given the police broad discretion to search possessions on the person of an arrested suspect, including notebooks, calendars and pagers. The government contends that a cellphone is no different than any other object a suspect might be carrying.

But as the storage capacity of cellphones rises, that position could become harder to defend. Our smart phones increasingly contain everything about our digital lives: our e-mails, text messages, photographs, browser histories and more. It would be troubling if the police had the power to get all that information with no warrant merely by arresting a suspect.

On the other hand, the Massachusetts case involves a primitive flip-phone, which could make this a bad test case. The specific phone involved in this 2007 incident likelydidn’t have the wealth of information we store on more modern cellphones. It’s arguably more analogous to the address books and pagers the courts have already said the police can search. So, as Orin Kerr points out, if the Supreme Court ruled on the case, it would be making a decision based on “facts that are atypical now and are getting more outdated every passing month.”

Washington Post

Fannie, Freddie Masking Billions In Losses, Watchdog Finds

As is well-known by now, one of the main reasons why the Fed's hands are tied when it comes to the future of QE, is the dramatic drop in the US budget deficit which cuts down on the amount of monetizable gross issuance (read Treasurys) and for which a big reason is that the GSEs have shifted from net uses of government cash to net sources. So in what may be the best news for Bernanke, and/or his successor, we learn that according to a report written by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) inspector general and reviewed by Reuters, "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are masking billions of dollars losses because of the level of delinquent home loans they carry."

A financial entity, government-backed or otherwise, masking the true sad state of its balance sheet? Say it isn't so. Alas, it is. Reuters has more:

The report, written by the inspector general for the Federal Housing Finance Agency and reviewed by Reuters, said the FHFA's timeframe for mortgage finance companies Fannie and Freddie to have up to two years to recognize the cost of mortgages delinquent at least 180 days was "inordinately long."

The change in the accounting treatment of these delinquent loans potentially could require Fannie and Freddie, which have rebounded to enormous profitability in the past two years as the housing market recovered, to "charge off billions of additional dollars related to loans," the inspector general's report stated.

For now the FHFA claims the losses are manageable...

The FHFA, which regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, said the two are on track to implement the new standards within the next two years, and in a letter sent to the inspector general said it views the potential losses "to be reasonable."

The majority of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's losses are a result of guaranteeing mortgages that defaulted during the housing crisis. Fannie and Freddie have reduced their funds reserved to cover potential losses on bad loans due to the strengthening housing sector and higher home prices.

The FHFA noted the new accounting methods would involve "changes in a significant policy," and as a result require a lengthy implementation period. The regulator consulted with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and has allowed the mortgage companies until Jan. 1, 2015, to make all of the adjustments, which will be rolled out in stages. The inspector general's office said in the report, dated Aug. 2, that Fannie and Freddie have not publicly disclosed the accounting changes.

... But the watchdog is not happy and is demanding a quicker implementation:


The report called on the FHFA to require Fannie and Freddie to conduct the changes at a faster pace, with the inspector general primarily concerned with loss estimates that are realized in Fannie and Freddie's public financial statements.

Obviously using a flawed methodology to count cash flows is beneficial to the bottom line and as a result, both Fannie and Freddie posted massive profits in the past quarter, which also resulted in dividends flowing into the US Treasury. Which worked great at a time when the US in turn, was also masking its true sad budgetary state and was pushing to delay the debt ceiling fight, facilitated by the additional inbound cash from the GSEs.

However, now that we have "moved on", the Taper is just around the horizon and the latest debt ceiling fight follows just after, and the Fed is actively thinking of permissive factor to untaper, especially once stocks plunge following the gradual reduction in monthly flow by the Fed and the realization that Bernanke may be pulling the training sheels, forcing the GSEs to "suddenly" admit their true state. What this will achieve is to change the direction in fund flows, and Fannie and Freddie will once again start to enjoy the benefit of tens of billions of inbound cash flows (i.e., a resumption of the old bailout regime) from the Treasury, which will be just what the Fed ordered, as this will have to be funded by more Treasury issuance, more Fed monetization, a return to the old $85 Bn/month in equity flow, more centrally-planned stock prices, and so on.

In other words, with the Taper already actively being priced in (although certainly not fully) for a catalyst on when the Untaper talk will start, look for the GSEs to return to their old sorry shape. That will be the warning light for when Fed will be actively contemplating how to boost monetizable deficit funding once more.

Zero Hedge