Beautiful Exotic Nature Flowers

The last Venus transit of the century

The planet Venus made a slow transit across the face of the sun on Tuesday, the last such passing that will be visible from Earth for 105 years.Transits of Venus happen in pairs, eight years apart, with more than a century between cycles. During Tuesday's pass, Venus took the form of a small black dot slowly shifting across the northern hemisphere of the sun.Armchair astronomers watched the six-hour and 40-minute transit on the Internet, with dozens of websites offering live video from around the world.Closeup views from the Prescott Observatory in Arizona, fed into Slooh.com's webcast, showed a small solar flaring in the making just beneath Venus' sphere.Tuesday's transit, completing a 2004-2012 pair, began at 6:09 p.m. EDT (2309 BST).(Reuters)

Handout image provided by NASA, the SDO satellite captures a ultra-high definition image of the Transit of Venus across the face of the sun at on June 5, 2012 from space. The last transit was in 2004 and the next pair of events will not happen again until the year 2117 and 2125. (Photo by SDO/NASA via Getty Images)

Handout image provided by NASA, the SDO satellite captures a ultra-high definition image of the Transit of Venus across the face of the sun at on June 5, 2012 from space. The last transit was in 2004 and the next pair of events will not happen again until the year 2117 and 2125. (Photo by SDO/NASA via Getty Images)

This still from a NASA video shows the positions of Venus on the face of the sun at various stages during the transit of Venus on June 5, 2012, as well as on June 4, 2004.

This still from a NASA video shows the positions of Venus on the face of the sun at various stages during the transit of Venus on June 5, 2012, as well as on June 4, 2004.

The planet Venus makes its transit across the Sun as seen from Kathmandu June 6, 2012. Venus made a slow transit across the face of the sun on Tuesday, the last such passing that will be visible from Earth for 105 years. REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar

Planet Venus crosses the Sun's path - a once-in-a-lifetime event that will not be seen for another 105 years.

The planet Venus can be seen on its transit of the Sun, from New Delhi June 6, 2012. Venus last made a visible pass in front of the sun in 2004 but will not make another visible transit until 2117. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

South Korean middle school students using solar viewers watch Venus passing between the Sun and the Earth at the Gwacheon National Science Museum in Gwacheon, south of Seoul, June 6, 2012. One of the rarest astronomical events occurs on Wednesday when Venus passes directly between the sun and Earth, a transit that won't occur again until 2117. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

Handout image courtesy of NASA shows the planet Venus transiting the Sun, June 5, 2012. One of the rarest astronomical events occurs on Tuesday and Wednesday when Venus passes directly between the sun and Earth, a transit that won't occur again until 2117. REUTERS/NASA/AIA/Solar Dynamics Observatory/Handout

Handout image courtesy of NASA shows the planet Venus transiting the Sun, June 5, 2012. One of the rarest astronomical events occurs on Tuesday and Wednesday when Venus passes directly between the sun and Earth, a transit that won't occur again until 2117. REUTERS/NASA/AIA/Solar Dynamics Observatory/Handout

The planet Venus can be seen on its transit of the Sun, from New Delhi June 6, 2012. Venus last made a visible pass in front of the sun in 2004 but will not make another visible transit until 2117. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

The planet Venus makes a transit as a person watches the sun set over the Great Salt Lake outside Salt Lake City, Utah, June 5, 2012. The planet Venus made a slow transit across the face of the sun on Tuesday, the last such passing that will be visible from Earth for 105 years. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart (UNITED STATES - Tags: SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY ENVIRONMENT)

Handout images courtesy of NASA show various views of the planet Venus transiting the Sun, June 5, 2012. One of the rarest astronomical events occurs on Tuesday and Wednesday when Venus passes directly between the sun and Earth, a transit that won't occur again until 2117. REUTERS/NASA/AIA/Solar Dynamics Observatory/Handout

On June 5, 2012 at sunset on the East Coast of North America and earlier for other parts of the U.S., the planet Venus will make its final trek across the face of the sun as seen from Earth until the year 2117. The last time this event occurred was on June 8, 2004 when it was watched by millions of people across the world. Get prepared for this once in a lifetime event!
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab

A combination picture shows the planet Venus as it transits across the face of the sun as seen from the Greenwich Observatory on June 8, 2004 in London. The rare astronomical event last occurred in 1882, while the next transit is due in 2012. (Photo by Ian Waldie/Getty Images)

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*Sana*

The power of suggestion: What we expect influences our behavior, for better or worse

A lucky rabbit foot. A glass of wine. A pill. What do these things all have in common? Their effects – whether we do well on a test, whether we mingle at the cocktail party, whether we feel better – all depend on the power of suggestion.

In a new article, psychological scientists Maryanne Garry and Robert Michael of Victoria University of Wellington, along with Irving Kirsch of Harvard Medical School and Plymouth University, delve into the phenomenon of suggestion, exploring the intriguing relationship between suggestion, cognition, and behavior. The article is published in the June issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Over their research careers, Garry and Kirsch have both studied the effects of suggestion on cognition and behavior. Kirsch focused mostly on suggestion in clinical psychology, while Garry, whose work is supported by the Marsden Fund of New Zealand, was interested in the effects of suggestion on human memory. When the two got to talking, "we realized that the effects of suggestion are wider and often more surprising than many people might otherwise think," says Garry.

Across many studies, research has shown that deliberate suggestion can influence how people perform on learning and memory tasks, which products they prefer, and how they respond to supplements and medicines, which accounts for the well-known placebo effect.

But what can explain the powerful and pervasive effect that suggestion has in our lives? The answer lies in our 'response expectancies,' or the ways in which we anticipate our responses in various situations. These expectancies set us up for automatic responses that actively influence how we get to the outcome we expect. Once we anticipate a specific outcome will occur, our subsequent thoughts and behaviors will actually help to bring that outcome to fruition.

So, if a normally shy person expects that a glass of wine or two will help him loosen up at a cocktail party, he will probably feel less inhibited, approach more people, and get involved in more conversations over the course of the party. Even though he may give credit to the wine, it is clear that his expectations of how the wine would make him feel played a major role.

But it's not just deliberate suggestion that influences our thoughts and behaviors – suggestions that are not deliberate can have the very same effects. As the authors point out, "simply observing people or otherwise making them feel special can be suggestive," a phenomenon termed the Hawthorne effect. As a result, people might work harder, or stick to a task for longer. And this case is more worrying, says Garry, "because although we might then give credit to some new drug or treatment, we don't realize that we are the ones who are actually wielding the influence."

It is for precisely this reason that the issue of unintentional suggestion has important implications for academic researchers. "In the scientific community, we need to be aware of – and control for – the suggestions we communicate to subjects," says Garry. The authors note that some recent failures to replicate previous research findings may ultimately be explained by such unintentional suggestion. "Recent research suggests that some of psychological science's most intriguing findings may be driven, at least in part, by suggestion and expectancies," Garry observes. "For example, a scientist who knows what the hypothesis of an experiment is might unwittingly lead subjects to produce the hypothesized effect—for reasons that have nothing to do with the experiment itself."

And the unintended effects of suggestion aren't just restricted to the laboratory – they cut across many real world domains, including the fields of medicine, education, and criminal justice. For example, converging evidence on eyewitness identification procedures demonstrates that the rate of false identifications is significantly higher when lineups are conducted by people who know who the suspect is than when the lineups are conducted by people who don't.

While research has provided clear evidence for the phenomenon of suggestion, there is still much more to learn about the underlying relationship between suggestion, cognition, and behavior. As the authors point out, researchers still don't know where the boundaries and limitations of these effects lie. "And, if a 'real' treatment and a 'suggestion' lead to a similar outcome, what differentiates between the two?" says Garry. Understanding these issues has important real world implications. "If we can harness the power of suggestion, we can improve people's lives."

Provided by Association for Psychological Science

"The power of suggestion: What we expect influences our behavior, for better or worse." June 6th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-power-behavior-worse.html

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek