Experimental support for the flowing aether concept of gravity

The article of Apffel et al. [Nature 585, 48 (2020)] reported on an experiment that produced the sight of two miniature sailboats floating upside down to each other on the two sides of a layer of glycerol that was levitated by high frequency vibrations. The vessel on the underside of the glycerol is a remarkable display of the results of simulated gravity caused by vibrations. The present article considers this and other experiments on simulated gravity and finds that they provide support for the flowing aether concept of the cause of gravity.

Preschoolers Learn New Moral and Conventional Norms from Direct Experiences

By observing others, children can learn about different types of norms, including moral norms rooted in concerns for welfare and rights, and social conventions based on directives from authority figures or social consensus. Two studies examined how preschoolers and adults constructed and applied knowledge about novel moral and conventional norms from their direct social experiences. Participants watched a video of a novel prohibited action that caused pain to a victim (moral conditions) or a sound from a box (conventional conditions), and then saw a transgressor puppet, who had either watched the video alongside the participant or not, engage in the prohibited action. Preschoolers and adults rapidly constructed distinct moral and conventional evaluations about the novel actions. These distinctions were evident across several response modalities that have often been studied separately, including judgments, reasoning, and actions. However, children did not reliably track the puppet’s knowledge of the novel norms. These studies provide experimental support for the idea that children and adults construct distinct moral and conventional norms from social experiences, which in turn guide judgments, reasoning, and behavior.

Preschoolers Learn New Moral and Conventional Norms from Direct Experiences

By observing others, children can learn about different types of norms, including moral norms rooted in concerns for welfare and rights, and social conventions based on directives from authority figures or social consensus. Two studies examined how preschoolers and adults constructed and applied knowledge about novel moral and conventional norms from their direct social experiences. Participants watched a video of a novel prohibited action that caused pain to a victim (moral conditions) or a sound from a box (conventional conditions), and then saw a transgressor puppet, who had either watched the video alongside the participant or not, engage in the prohibited action. Preschoolers and adults rapidly constructed distinct moral and conventional evaluations about the novel actions. These distinctions were evident across several response modalities that have often been studied separately, including judgments, reasoning, and actions. However, children did not reliably track the puppet’s knowledge of the novel norms. These studies provide experimental support for the idea that children and adults construct distinct moral and conventional norms from social experiences, which in turn guide judgments, reasoning, and behavior.

The Most Important Shot in Popular Cinema

In this chapter, evidence is presented that the most important shot in cinema is the reaction shot—a shot of an unspeaking character reacting to an event. In particular, those at the end of a conversation have increased dramatically during the past 70 years. Much discussion of the reaction shot has focused on the Kuleshov effect, the empathic response of viewers to the mere juxtaposition of a character’s emotionless face with content. There seems to be little experimental support for this effect in isolation. The chapter then explores the nature of reaction-shot facial expressions in movies during the past 70 years. Results show a distinctly non-Kuleshovian bent. Instead of characters being expressionless, they show mild arousal and mild displeasure. This is consistent with the notion that viewers need hints to employ theory-of-mind considerations in evaluating these shots.

Strong experimental support for the hologenome hypothesis revealed from Drosophila melanogaster selection lines

Recently it has been proposed, that the holobiont, i.e., the host and its associated microbiome, constitute a distinct biological entity, on which selection operates. This is a fascinating idea that so far has limited empirical justification. Here Drosophila melanogaster lines from a large-scale artificial selection experiment, where we selected for stress resistance traits and for longevity, were used to test the hologenome hypothesis. We raised flies from all selection regimes, including a regime where flies were kept at benign standard laboratory condition (control regime) throughout the duration of the experiment, under common garden conditions and sequenced the microbiome of the flies. We found abundant differences in microbial communities between control and selection regimes, but not between replicate lines within the regimes, and microbial diversity was higher in selected relative to control lines. Several major core Drosophila bacterial species were differentially abundant in the different selection regimes despite flies being exposed to similar nutritional and general environmental conditions. Our results support the idea that the host and microbiome genomes have evolved in concert and provide experimental support for the hologenome theory of evolution.

From Murphy’s Christian Physicalism to Lowe’s Dualism

Nancey Murphy argues that God created us as physical beings without immortal souls. She supports this Christian physicalism by arguing that neuroscience can better explain minds in terms of physical information processing than dualists can in problematic nonphysical terms. We reply that Murphy overestimates neuroscience and underestimates dualism. She doesn’t show how neuroscience can explain the mind’s characteristic qualia, unity, privacy, or causality. We argue that Lowe’s dualism can better explain minds, often with experimental support and in testable ways. Murphy’s physicalism thus serves to highlight the value of Lowe’s dualism today.

A Dual Mind Approach to Understanding the Conscious Self and Its Treatment

In this paper I will address questions about will, agency, choice, consciousness, relevant brain regions, impacts of disorders, and their therapeutics, and I will do this by referring to my theory, Dual-brain Psychology, which posits that within most of us there exist two mental agencies with different experiences, wills, choices, and behaviors. Each of these agencies is associated as a trait with one brain hemisphere (either left or right) and its composite regions. One of these agencies is more adversely affected by past traumas, and is more immature and more symptomatic, while the other is more mature and healthier. The theory has extensive experimental support through 17 peer-reviewed publications with clinical and non-clinical research. I will discuss how this theory relates to the questions about the nature of agency and I will also discuss my published theory on the physical nature of subjective experience and its relation to the brain, and how that theory interacts with Dual-Brain Psychology, leading to further insights into our human nature and its betterment.

The evolution of imprinting in plants: beyond the seed

Genomic imprinting results in the biased expression of alleles depending on if the allele was inherited from the mother or the father. Despite the prevalence of sexual reproduction across eukaryotes, imprinting is only found in placental mammals, flowering plants, and some insects, suggesting independent evolutionary origins. Numerous hypotheses have been proposed to explain the selective pressures that favour the innovation of imprinted gene expression and each differs in their experimental support and predictions. Due to the lack of investigation of imprinting in land plants, other than angiosperms with triploid endosperm, we do not know whether imprinting occurs in species lacking endosperm and with embryos developing on maternal plants. Here, we discuss the potential for uncovering additional examples of imprinting in land plants and how these observations may provide additional support for one or more existing imprinting hypotheses.