dialogue, is central to socrates ' philosophy. given that in his discussions he is always the questioner, probing the opinions of his respondent and not arguing for views of his own, we never find socrates stating clearly what led him to this intellectualism. probably, however, it was considerations drawn from the generally agreed premise that each virtue is a condition motivating certain voluntary actions, chosen because they are good and fine or noble. he took it that what lies behind and produces any voluntary action is the idea under which it is done, the conception of the action in the agent ' s mind that makes it seem the thing to do just then. if so, each virtue must be some state of the mind, the possessor of which constantly has certain distinctive general ideas about how one ought to behave. furthermore, since virtues get this right, these are true ideas. and since a virtuous person acts well and correctly in a perfectly reliable way, they must be seated so deeply in the mind as to be ineradicable and unwaveringly present. the only state of mind that meets these conditions is knowledge : to know a subject is not just to be thoroughly convinced, but to have a deep, fully articulated understanding, being ready with explanations to fend off objections and apparent difficulties and to extend old principles into new situations, and being prepared to show with the full weight of reason precisely why each thing falling under it is and must be so. each virtue, then, must be knowledge about how one ought to behave in some area of life, and why - a knowledge so deep and rationally secure that those who have it can be counted upon never to change their minds, never to be argued out of or otherwise persuaded away from, or to waver in, their conviction about how to act. in plato ' s protagoras socrates goes beyond this, and identifies himself with the position, rejected by protagoras in their discussion, that the apparently separate virtues of justice, piety, self - control, courage and wisdom are somehow one and the same thing - some single knowledge ( 361a - b ). xenophon too confirms that socrates held this view ( memorabilia iii 9. 5 ). protagoras defends the position that each of the virtues is not only a distinct thing from each of the others, but so different in kind that a person could possess one of them without possessing the others ( 329d - e ). in opposing him, socrates sometimes speaks plainly of two allegedly distinct virtues being


of alternative sources of motivation that produce voluntary action on their own ( see stoicism § 19 ). in fact, during hellenistic times it was the socratic, ' unitary ' psychology of action that carried the day ; the platonic - aristotelian alternative, dominant in the ' common sense ' and the philosophy of modern times, was a minority view. the issues socrates raised about weakness of will continue to be debated today. socrates drew to himself many of the brightest and most prominent people in athens, securing their fascinated attention and their passionate friendship and support. his effectiveness as a philosopher, and the socratic ' legend ' itself, depended as much on the strength and interest of his personality as on the power of his mind. plato ' s and xenophon ' s portraits of socrates as a person differ significantly, however. plato ' s socrates is aloof and often speaks ironically, although also with unusual and deeply held moral convictions ; paradoxically, the depth and clarity of his convictions, maintained alongside the firm disclaimer to know what was true, could seem all the stronger testimony to their truth, and made them felt the more strongly as a rebuke to the superficiality of one ' s own way of living. in xenophon, socrates is also sometimes ironical and playful, especially in the symposium, but his conversation is usually direct, even didactic, and often chummy in tone ; his attitudes are for the most part conventional though earnest ; and there is nothing to unsettle anyone or make them suspect hidden depths. it is much easier to believe that the socrates of plato ' s dialogues could have had such profound effects on the lives of the brightest of his contemporaries than did the character in xenophon. that is one reason given for trusting plato ' s more than xenophon ' s portrait of the historical personage. but perhaps socrates used the more kindly and genial manner and conventional approach depicted by xenophon to draw out the best in some of his young men and his friends - ones who would have been put off by the platonic subtleties. the historical socrates may have been a more complex person than even plato presents. plato and xenophon both represent socrates as strongly attracted to good - looking young men in the ' bloom ' of their middle to late teens, just the period when they were also coming of age morally and intellectually. in both he speaks of himself as unusually ' erotic ' by temperament and constantly ' in love '. but he explains his ' erotic ' attachments in terms


' philosophy. the academic arcesilaus interpreted the platonic socrates as a sceptical inquirer, avidly searching but never satisfied that the truth on any disputed question had been finally uncovered. he could point to much about plato ' s socrates in support : his modest but firm denial that he possessed any knowledge, and his constant practice of inquiring into the truth by examining others ' opinions on the basis of ideas which they themselves accepted, without formally committing himself to these ideas even when he was the one to first suggest them. arcesilaus, however, applied his sceptical socratic dialectic to more than the questions of ethics and human life about which socrates himself had argued, making it cover the whole range of philosophical topics being investigated in his day. the stoics read the dialogues ( especially the euthydemus and protagoras ) quite differently. they found socrates espousing a complete doctrine of ethics and the psychology of human action. he posed his questions on the basis of this doctrine, leaving the respondent ( and the reader ) to recover for themselves the philosophical considerations underlying it. they thus emphasized the conceptions of virtue as knowledge, of virtue as unified in wisdom, and of voluntary action as motivated always by an agent ' s beliefs about what is best to do, that emerged through socrates ' examination of protagoras ( see § § 6 - 7 ). they thought these constituted a positive, socratic moral philosophy, and in their own moral theory they set out to revive and strengthen it with systematic arguments and with added metaphysical and physical speculations of their own. later stoics regularly referred to socrates as a genuine wise man or ' sage ', perhaps the only one who ever lived. he had brought to final, systematic perfection his knowledge, along stoic lines, of what is good and bad for human beings, and what is not, and therefore possessed all the virtues and no vices, and lived unwaveringly the best, happy life, free from emotion and all other errors about human life. it is a tribute to the complexity and enigmatic character of socrates that he could stand simultaneously as a paragon both of sceptical, non - committal inquiry and life led on that uncommitted basis, and of dogmatic knowledge of the final truth about all things human. the figure of socrates has continued to fascinate and to inspire ever - new interpretations of his innermost meaning. for montaigne, he proved that human beings can convincingly


and of dogmatic knowledge of the final truth about all things human. the figure of socrates has continued to fascinate and to inspire ever - new interpretations of his innermost meaning. for montaigne, he proved that human beings can convincingly and attractively order their own lives from their own resources of mind, without direction from god or religion or tradition. in the nineteenth century kierkegaard and nietzsche offered extensive interpretations of him, both heavily dependent upon hegel ' s absolute - idealist analysis. hegel interpreted socrates as a quintessentially negative thinker, aiming at making people vacillate in their superficial moral beliefs and endorse none of them wholeheartedly, thus hinting that the truth, although universal and objective, lies deep within the freedom of their own subjectivity. for kierkegaard he represents, on the contrary, the possibility of living wholeheartedly by occupying an unarticulated position somehow beyond the negative rejection but expressed through it : ' infinite absolute negativity '. in die geburt der tragodie ( the birth of tragedy ) nietzsche treats socrates principally as having poisoned the ' tragic ' attitude that made possible the great achievements of classical culture, by insisting that life should be grounded in rational understanding and justified by ' knowledge ' ; but his fascinated regard for socrates led him to return to him repeatedly in his writings. socrates was paradigmatically a philosopher whose thought, however taken up with logic and abstract argument, is inseparable from the search for self - understanding and from a deeply felt attachment to the concerns of human life. his power to fascinate and inspire is surely not exhausted. john m. cooper


today ’ s topic was chosen by gautum u, who attends caltech. he specifically asked for a “ serious blog post ” as opposed to a “ satire ” for this one. ( interestingly, the only other person who asked explicitly for a serious post was someone who chose the topic of free will for the 30th. it seems that philosophy is quite some serious business. ) what is the purpose of existence? it ’ s one of the most profound questions of metaphysics. it is even broader than the humanized form, what is the meaning of life? this specific one asks why we are here. but to be more general, we should ask, why is anything here? let us ask, why does earth exist? scientifically, there ’ s no real reason. take a look at the following : this image, known famously as the “ pale blue dot ” picture, was snapped by the voyager 1 spacecraft in 1991. that tiny pixel right there is earth, viewed from 4 billion miles away. indeed, from the scale of space, earth is just a speck of dust. galaxies, astronomers estimate, have 100 billion stars each. and there might be 100 billion galaxies in the visible universe. and according to the still debated multiverse theory, our universe may be only a tiny bubble in a vast sea of universes. and our earth is but one of the thousands of objects floating the sun. and humans have been on earth for only a tiny fraction of its history. it is like you are looking at an infinite beach, and you point at one grain of sand, and you ask, “ why does this grain of sand exist? ” it seems this is the wrong question. we should instead ask, “ why does this beach exist? ” why does the universe ( or multiverse ) exist? again, there doesn ’ t seem to be any intrinsic purpose. if you believe in god, you would say, the universe or multiverse exists because god created it. but then this turtles down to why does god exist? by most definitions of god, we would never be able to know. so generalizing the question does not seem like the right thing to do either, as it gets us nowhere. if it ’ s futile to ask why an atom exists, and also futile why the universe exists, then what is there to ask? why we exist. human beings. gautam ’ s topic as originally stated was “ the purpose of our existence ” ( emphasis added ). just like atoms to the entire universe, we don


martin harwit has argued that we cannot have made more than ten per cent of the crucial discoveries in astronomy. he uses what john barrow aptly calls ` the proof - readers argument '. if two independent readers look at a manuscript then it is possible to estimate, by comparing their different results, how many errors there must be in total, including those not identified. in an analogous way two independent astronomical channels ( say optical and x - ray ) can be used to examine the universe and a comparison of their separate key discoveries will yield an estimate of the numbers still to be found. in any case with so little data to work on it shouldn ' t be too difficult to devise a plausible theory to account for them. it is, however, sobering to compare the cosmological situation with the history of other sciences. take geology. men were living on the earth for millions of years, and quarrying rock, digging mines and canals and puzzling over its fossils for thousands of years, before unexpected palaeomagnetic patterns revealed for certain the key idea of continental drift. in stellar physics two thousand years elapsed between hipparcos ' s speculations and bessel ' s first measurement of a stellar distance. seventy years later the statistical patterns in the h - r diagram led to our understanding of stellar structure. however the closest comparison comes from my own field of galaxy astronomy which is, as an observational science, almost exactly contemporary with cosmology. although we now have good spectra and images of thousands of galaxies the list of fundamental things we don ' t know about them ( table 3 ) is far more striking that the list of things we do. | 1. | | how our knowledge is warped by selection effects. | | 2. | | what they are mostly made of. ( dark matter? ) | | 3. | | how they formed - and when. | | 4. | | how much internal extinction they suffer from. | | 5. | | what controls their global star - formation rates. | | 6. | | what parts their nuclei and halos play. | | 7. | | if there are genuine correlations among their global properties. | | 8. | | how they keep their gas / star balances. | of course these are only arguments by analogy. the optimistic cosmologist can always counter argue [ i don ' t know how ] that the universe in the large is a great deal simpler than its constituent parts.


| annu. rev. astron. astrophys. 1991. 29 : copyright © 1991 by. all rights reserved several major themes have emerged from the preceding discussion : | 1. | | in most or all galaxies, globular clusters are distinctly more metal - poor, by [ fe / h ] ~ - 0. 5, than the spheroid - population field stars. | | 2. | | both the average and range of cluster metallicity increase with galaxy size. these correlations parallel the ones for the metallicities of the galaxies themselves, and support the view that similar enrichment processes generated both types of halo subsystems. | | 3. | | globular clusters in all galaxies have similar, though not identical, luminosity distributions. for distance scale purposes, the calibrations of gclfs are not yet adequate for use as high - precision ( ± 0. 2 - mag ) standard candles. the present data are, however, sufficient to exert strong theoretical constraints favoring a universal cluster formation process insensitive to metallicity and with only modest later influences from dynamical evolution in most of the halo. | | 4. | | in giant ellipticals, gcss are often ( but not always ) more spatially extended than the halo light. a few have been shown to have higher velocity dispersions as well, and thus to form a dynamically different halo population than the spheroid stars. | | 5. | | in most large galaxies, the inner ~ 1 - 2 kpc of their spheroids have probably been almost totally depopulated of globular clusters through many dynamical mechanisms. at larger rgc, the effectiveness of these mechanisms falls off rapidly, leaving only gradual erosive processes. it is not yet clear if these processes act much differently in practice for disk galaxies as opposed to ellipticals. | | 6. | | in today ' s universe, few globular clusters are being formed ( that is, the formation of dense clusters with a characteristic mass ~ 105 - 6 m is extremely rare ). though there is no reason to believe that the processes of star cluster formation 15 gy ago were fundamentally different than today, the prevailing physical conditions of the protocluster gas then clearly favored more massive objects. the formation of globular clusters was an early, but secondary, process ( that is, clearly associated with their surrounding protogalaxies ). | | 7. | | arguments based on gcs spatial distributions, metallicity


more massive objects. the formation of globular clusters was an early, but secondary, process ( that is, clearly associated with their surrounding protogalaxies ). | | 7. | | arguments based on gcs spatial distributions, metallicity distributions, and dynamics suggest that the high - sn giant ellipticals such as in virgo and fornax did not form by mergers of disk galaxies or dwarfs. the merger scenario is, however, more viable for e galaxies in sparse environments ( smaller groups and the field ) and perhaps for some cd galaxies. | how else may we use gcss to understand the formation of galaxies? on the observational side, we need to fill in the many areas that are presently sketched out only with broad brush strokes : | 1. | | the metallicity distribution of gcs has proven to be an effective touchstone of interpretive models. we need to accumulate spectra of clusters in a wider variety of galaxies, combined with multicolor photometry in metallicity - sensitive indices. | | 2. | | luminosity function work has just begun to be exploited. for example, the luminosity distributions of clusters within rgc 3 kpc in giant galaxies should carry the strongest imprint of dynamical evolution ; direct observations could be straightforwardly made in many galaxies. larger samples of clusters taken from the rich virgo and fornax systems will reveal fine structure in the gclf and provide essential constraints on eventual theoretical modelling. and deep photometry of clusters in additional near - field galaxies should finally tell us how accurate gclfs can be as distance indicators. in addition, the brightest globulars in giant e galaxies may prove to be useful long - range standard candles. | | 3. | | it is possible that the globular clusters in central giant ellipticals such as m87 are the oldest visible objects in the universe. high - s / n spectra of them, compared with integrated spectra of milky way globulars and fitted with population synthesis codes, may lead to useful age determinations relative to the milky way halo and to stronger limits on the hubble time. | | 4. | | modern spectroscopic and imaging techniques are finally putting a complete and accurate understanding of the important m31 cluster system within reach. | | 5. | | the advent of large - format ccd arrays will enable us to study the large - scale structures of globular cluster systems far more quantitatively and accurately. | | 6. | | comprehensive radial velocity surveys


reach. | | 5. | | the advent of large - format ccd arrays will enable us to study the large - scale structures of globular cluster systems far more quantitatively and accurately. | | 6. | | comprehensive radial velocity surveys of gcss can place unique limits on the large - scale mass distribution of galaxies, and on the orbital characteristics of the halo clusters. for gcss at or beyond virgo - like distances, the velocity measurements do press the limits of current technology, but this field will be a rich mine for the new generation of 8 - meter - class telescopes to explore. | on the theoretical side, recommendations for future work may be easy to prescribe but will be hard to execute. a formation model specific enough to predict an initial cluster mass spectrum as a function of density and metallicity would be a major achievement. the dynamical evolution of gcss within galaxies of different types also needs to be modelled more comprehensively, with the eventual goal of predicting the full evolution of the gclf as a function of parent galaxy type and galactocentric distance. because they are virtually the only remaining witnesses to the long - vanished first epoch of galaxy formation, globular clusters stand among the most powerful cosmological probes that we have. although many intriguing new results and questions have emerged from the observational work of the past decade, we have also confirmed that globular cluster systems resemble each other rather closely. thus by extending our study of these remarkable objects, we are uncovering a common theme in the earliest history of the galaxies. it is a pleasure to give credit for projects, conversations, and ideas generated together over the years to many colleagues and friends, including david hanes, gretchen harris, hugh harris, jim hesser, chris pritchet, sidney van den bergh, malcolm smith, michael fall, and richard larson. the healthy state of our field today owes a great deal especially to the vision of rene racine, who in the 1970s first set in motion much of the work discussed above. i am pleased to acknowledge the hospitality of kitt peak national observatory, and d. and m. gehret of the orinda imac, as well as financial support from the natural sciences and engineering research council of canada.


david m. lane values of pearson ' s correlation, variance sum law, measures of variability the collection of data involves measurement. measurement of some characteristics such as height and weight are relatively straightforward. the measurement of psychological attributes such as self esteem can be complex. a good measurement scale should be both reliable and valid. these concepts will be discussed in turn. the notion of reliability revolves around whether you would get at least approximately the same result if you measure something twice with the same measurement instrument. a common way to define reliability is the correlation between parallel forms of a test. letting " test " represent a parallel form of the test, the symbol rtest, test is used to denote the reliability of the test. true scores and error assume you wish to measure a person ' s mean response time to the onset of a stimulus. for simplicity, assume that there is no learning over tests which, of course, is not really true. the person is given 1, 000 trials on the task and you obtain the response time on each trial. the mean response time over the 1, 000 trials can be thought of as the person ' s " true " score, or at least a very good approximation of it. theoretically, the true score is the mean that would be approached as the number of trials increases indefinitely. an individual response time can be thought of as being composed of two parts : the true score and the error of measurement. thus if the person ' s true score were 345 and their response on one of the trials was 358, then the error of measurement would be 13. similarly, if the response time were 340, the error of measurement would be - 5. now consider the more realistic example of a class of students taking a 100 - point true / false exam. let ' s assume that each student knows the answer to some of the questions and has no idea about the other questions. for the sake of simplicity, we are assuming there is no partial knowledge of any of the answers and for a given question a student either knows the answer or guesses. finally, assume the test is scored such that a student receives one point for a correct answer and loses a point for an incorrect answer. in this example, a student ' s true score is the number of questions they know the answer to and their error score is their score on the questions they guessed on. for example, assume a student knew 90 of the answers and guessed correctly on 7 of the remaining 10 ( and therefore incorrectly on 3 ). their true score would be 90 since that is the number


score is their score on the questions they guessed on. for example, assume a student knew 90 of the answers and guessed correctly on 7 of the remaining 10 ( and therefore incorrectly on 3 ). their true score would be 90 since that is the number of answers they knew. their error score would be 7 - 3 = 4 and therefore their actual test score would be 90 + 4. every test score can be thought of as the sum of two independent components, the true score and the error score. this can be written as : the following expression follows directly from the variance sum law : reliability in terms of true scores and error it can be shown that the reliability of a test, rtest, test, is the ratio of true - score variance to test - score variance. this can be written as : download pdf of derivation it is important to understand the implications of the role the variance of true scores plays in the definition of reliability : if a test were given in two populations for which the variance of the true scores differed, the reliability of the test would be higher in the population with the higher true - score variance. therefore, reliability is not a property of a test per se but the reliability of a test in a given population. assessing error of measurement the reliability of a test does not show directly how close the test scores are to the true scores. that is, it does not reveal how much a person ' s test score would vary across parallel forms of test. by definition, the mean over a large number of parallel tests would be the true score. the standard deviation of a person ' s test scores would indicate how much the test scores vary from the true score. this standard deviation is called the standard error of measurement. in practice, it is not practical to give a test over and over to the same person and / or assume that there are no practice effects. instead, the following formula is used to estimate the standard error of measurement. where smeasurement is the standard error of measurement, stest is the standard deviation of the test scores, and rtest, test is the reliability of the test. taking the extremes, if the reliability is 0 then the standard error of measurement is equal to the standard deviation of the test ; if the reliability is perfect ( 1. 0 ) then the standard error of measurement is 0. it is important to make measures as reliable as is practically possible. suppose an investigator is studying the relationship between spatial ability and a set of other variables. the higher the reliability of the test of spatial ability, the higher


standard error of measurement is 0. it is important to make measures as reliable as is practically possible. suppose an investigator is studying the relationship between spatial ability and a set of other variables. the higher the reliability of the test of spatial ability, the higher the correlations will be. similarly, if an experimenter seeks to determine whether a particular exercise regiment decreases blood pressure, the higher the reliability of the measure of blood pressure, the more sensitive the experiment. more precisely, the higher the reliability the higher the power of the experiment. power is covered in detail here. finally, if a test is being used to select students for college admission or employees for jobs, the higher the reliability of the test the stronger will be the relationship to the criterion. two basic ways of increasing reliability are ( 1 ) to improve the quality of the items and ( 2 ) to increase the number of items. items that are either too easy so that almost everyone gets them correct or too difficult so that almost no one gets them correct are not good items : they provide very little information. in most contexts, items which about half the people get correct are the best ( other things being equal ). items that do not correlate with other items can usually be improved. sometimes the item is confusing or ambiguous. increasing the number of items increases reliability in the manner shown by the following formula : where k is the factor by which the test length is increased, rnew, new is the reliability of the new longer test, and rtest, test is the current reliability. for example, if a test with 50 items has a reliability of. 70 then the reliability of a test that is 1. 5 times longer ( 75 items ) would be calculated as follows. which equals 0. 78. thus increasing the number of items from 50 to 75 would increase the reliability from 0. 70 to 0. 78. it is important to note that this formula assumes the new items have the same characteristics as the old items. obviously adding poor items would not increase the reliability as expected and might even decrease the reliability. more information on reliability from william trochim ' s knowledge source the validity of a test refers to whether the test measures what it is supposed to measure. the three most common types of validity are face validity, empirical validity, and construct validity. we consider these types of validity below. a test ' s face validity refers to whether the test appears to measure what it is supposed to measure. that is, does the test " on its face " appear to measure what it is supposed to


validity. we consider these types of validity below. a test ' s face validity refers to whether the test appears to measure what it is supposed to measure. that is, does the test " on its face " appear to measure what it is supposed to be measuring. an asian history test consisting of a series of questions about asian history would have high face validity. if the test included primarily questions about american history then it would have little or no face validity as a test of asian history. predictive validity ( sometimes called empirical validity ) refers to a test ' s ability to predict the relevant behavior. for example, the main way in which sat tests are validated is by their ability to predict college grades. thus, to the extent these tests are successful at predicting college grades they are said to possess predictive validity. construct validity is more difficult to define. in general, a test has construct validity if its pattern of correlations with other measures is in line with the construct it is purporting to measure. construct validity can be established by showing a test has both convergent and divergent validity. a test has convergent validity if it correlates with other tests that are also measures of the construct in question. divergent validity is established by showing the test does not correlate highly with tests of other constructs. of course, some constructs may overlap so the establishment of convergent and divergent validity can be complex. to take an example, suppose one wished to establish the construct validity of a new test of spatial ability. convergent and divergent validity could be established by showing the test correlates relatively highly with other measures of spatial ability but less highly with tests of verbal ability or social intelligence. reliability and predictive validity the reliability of a test limits the size of the correlation between the test and other measures. in general, the correlation of a test with another measure will be lower than the test ' s reliability. after all, how could a test correlate with something else as high as it correlates with a parallel form of itself? theoretically it is possible for a test to correlate as high as the square root of the reliability with another measure. for example, if a test has a reliability of 0. 81 then it could correlate as high as 0. 90 with another measure. this could happen if the other measure were a perfectly reliable test of the same construct as the test in question. in practice, this is very unlikely. a correlation above the upper limit set by reliabilities can


constitutionalism : a skeptical view new york university school of law may 1, 2012 nyu school of law, public law research paper no. 10 - 87 this paper examines the ideology that goes by the name of " constitutionalism. " the first part of the paper considers the significance of " written constitutions " the second part of the paper casts a skeptical eye at conceptions of constitutionalisim that emphasize " limited " government. once " limited government " is contrasted carefully with " restrained government " ( restraints upon specific actions by government ) and with " controlled government " ( e. g. insistence upon democratic control ), we see that the association of constitutionalism with general limitations on the scope of government ought to make it a much more controversial ideal than the general anodyne acceptance of the term " constitutionalism " might lead us to expect. finally, the anti - democratic implications of constitutionalism are explored. the paper argues that, by insisting on limited government, constitutionalism downplays the important role that constitutions have to perform in the modern world in establishing and securing specifically democratic authority. number of pages in pdf file : 46 keywords : authority, constitution, constitutionalism, constitutional law, democracy, judicial review, limited government, rights, written constitutionaccepted paper series date posted : december 11, 2010 ; last revised : may 5, 2012 © 2013 social science electronic publishing, inc. all rights reserved. this page was processed by apollo4 in 0. 859 seconds


sent in by : brooke of alberta, canada and nirav of pleasanton, ca play it again, sam. - 3 glasses of each of 3 different sizes and shapes ( 9 glasses total ) - 4 glasses of the same size and shape - different liquids like vinegar, water, milk, tomato juice, maple syrup, oil or apple juice - check with a grown - up before you begin. - in the zoomsci, glass xylophone, and in the online gizmo, tunes & spoons, you can experiment with the different sounds made by glasses holding different amounts of the same liquid. - now ' s your chance to experiment with other variables like the kind of liquid in the glass or the size and shape of the glass itself. - first, find out if different kinds of liquids change the sound made by tapping the glass with a spoon. - pour the same amounts of different kinds of liquids into the same kind of glass. try liquids that are thick and gooey like maple syrup as well as liquids that are runny like water. - tap the same spot on each glass. do the different liquids produce different sounds? how are the sounds different? - touch the glass after you tap it with the spoon. do the vibrations from each glass feel different? what is it about each liquid that might change the sound the glass makes? - next, find out if the shape or size of the glass makes a difference in the sound made by tapping the glass with a spoon. - pour the same amount of the same liquid into three glasses of different sizes and shapes. tap each glass with the spoon. does it make a different sound than the other glasses? how are the sounds different? - touch the glass after you tap it with the spoon. do the vibrations from each glass feel different? what is it about the shape and size of the glass that changes the sound? ready for the science scoop? when an object vibrates, it sends a disturbance through the air in the form of waves. these are called sound waves. it ' s like when you drop a pebble into water and the waves ripple out in all directions. sound waves in the air are sort of like waves in the water in the way that they move farther and farther out from the center where the disturbance was created. when you tap a glass filled with liquid, the liquid slows down the vibrations or sound waves. different liquids slow down the sound waves by different amounts. the differences in the sounds you hear are called pitch. the pitch of a sound depends on


. when you tap a glass filled with liquid, the liquid slows down the vibrations or sound waves. different liquids slow down the sound waves by different amounts. the differences in the sounds you hear are called pitch. the pitch of a sound depends on how fast the object making the sound vibrates ( how fast the sound waves move away from the object. ) a glass that vibrates slowly produces slow sound waves and a low pitch sound. a glass that produces a high pitch vibrates quickly, making sound waves move fast. see how many different pitches you can make using glasses and liquids. can you play a song with them? give it a try and send your results to zoom! shayla, age 10 wrote : it made high sounds tre, age 14 of jefferson city, mo wrote : the glasses made different sounds no matter what the variable was. if the liquids were different, but the glasses were the same, it was different. if the liquids were the same, but the glasses were different, it was still different. when everything was different, it was completely different. we used glass containers and glass cups and they were all different sizes. we used oil, vinegar, and water. the oil was the thickest and the vinegar was the thinnest. the water was in between. we tried to use all three liquids in three different glasses and put the sounds in order. it sounded like a messed up xylophone. when we put the same liquids in three different glasses then the sounds were different. we did different liquids in the same type of glass. they all made different sounds. the oil made the lowest sound and the vinegar mad the highest sound. the water was in between. it was fun! nicki, age 11 of jefferson city, mo wrote : it made different sounds depending on the glasses we used. we used vinegar, water, and used vegetable oil. the vinegar was the highest because it was the thinest, the water was in the middle and the used vegetable oil made the lowest sound. the glasses we used were 3 tiny wine glasses, 3 glass tostitos salsa containers, and 3 regular glass cups. roslyn, age 13 of jefferson city, mo wrote : well when we did it, we could almost play a song from a commercial. it was really fun. even though our xylophone wasn ' t all the way in order, it was good enough. clara, age 11 of bexley, oh wrote : i just used water but at different levels and it made sounds that were higher when


liquid crystals, the state of matter that makes possible the flat screen technology now commonly used in televisions and computers, may have some new technological tricks in store. writing today ( may 3, 2012 ) in the journal nature, an international team of researchers led by university of wisconsin - madison professor of chemical and biological engineering juan j. de pablo reports the results of a computational study that shows liquid crystals, manipulated at the smallest scale, can unexpectedly induce the molecules they interact with to self - organize in ways that could lead to entirely new classes of materials with new properties. " from an applied perspective, once we get to very small scales, it becomes incredibly difficult to pattern the structure of materials. but here we show it is possible to use liquid crystals to spontaneously create nanoscale morphologies we didn ' t know existed, " says de pablo of computer simulations that portray liquid crystals self - organizing at the molecular scale in ways that could lead to remarkable new materials with scores of technological applications. as their name implies, liquid crystals exhibit the order of a solid crystal but flow like a liquid. used in combination with polarizers, optical filters and electric fields, liquid crystals underlie the pixels that make sharp pictures on thin computer or television displays. liquid crystal displays alone are a multibillion dollar industry. the technology has also been used to make ultrasensitive thermometers and has even been deployed in lasers, among other applications. the new study modeled the behavior of thousands of rod - shaped liquid crystal molecules packed into nano - sized liquid droplets. it showed that the confined molecules self organize as the droplets are cooled. " at elevated temperatures, the droplets are disordered and the liquid is isotropic, " de pablo explains. " as you cool them down, they become ordered and form a liquid crystal phase. the liquid crystallinity within the droplets, surprisingly, induces water and other molecules at the interface of the droplets, known as surfactants, to organize into ordered nanodomains. this is a behavior that was not known. " in the absence of a liquid crystal, the molecules at the interface of the droplet adopt a homogeneous distribution. in the presence of a liquid crystal, however, they form an ordered nanostructure. " you have two things going on at the same time : confinement of the liquid crystals and an interplay of their structure with the interface of the droplet, " notes de pablo. " as you lower the temperature the liquid crystal starts to become organized and imprints that order into the


at the same time : confinement of the liquid crystals and an interplay of their structure with the interface of the droplet, " notes de pablo. " as you lower the temperature the liquid crystal starts to become organized and imprints that order into the surfactant itself, causing it to self assemble. " it was well known that interfaces influence the order or morphology of liquid crystals. the new study shows the opposite to be true as well. " now you can think of forming these ordered nanophases, controlling them through droplet size or surfactant concentration, and then decorating them to build up structures and create new classes of materials, " says de pablo. as an example, de pablo suggested that surfactants coupled to dna molecules could be added to the surface of a liquid crystal droplets, which could then assemble through the hybridization of dna. such nanoscale engineering, he notes, could also form the basis for liquid crystal based detection of toxins, biological molecules, or viruses. a virus or protein binding to the droplet would change the way the surfactants and the liquid crystals within the droplet are organized, triggering an optical signal. such a technology would have important uses in biosecurity, health care and biology research settings. explore further : physicists develop revolutionary low - power polariton laser


a constant shower of subatomic particles rains down from space. a hundred years ago, this " cosmic radiation " was discovered by the austrian physicist victor franz hess. among other things, the discovery laid the foundation for a whole new field of research : high energy physics - which recently gave us, for instance, the first experimental evidence for the higgs boson. an anniversary conference looks at the past milestones of cosmic ray research and at future experiments. when hess landed his hydrogen balloon at bad saarow in the german state of brandenburg at lunchtime on 7 august 1912, he had on board a discovery with far - reaching consequences, which he surely wasn ' t fully aware of at that very time. at his seventh balloon voyage in the course of this year, equipped with three ionization measuring instruments, hess had just identified the existence of a pervasive radiation in 5300 metres altitude above the schwieloch lake in the southeast of brandenburg. only later it became evident that this so - called cosmic radiation was comprised mostly of energetic, electrically charged atomic nuclei. the discovery of cosmic rays won hess the nobel prize in physics 24 years later. " the detection of the cosmic radiation was the discovery of a century and brought us completely new insights into the cosmos, " says prof. christian stegmann, head of the desy institute at zeuthen near berlin. " furthermore it became a cornerstone of early particle physics. before the development of particle accelerators, cosmic ray research led to the discovery of many important elementary particles, among them the anti - particle of the electron - the positron - as well as the muon and the pion. " desy, the university of potsdam, and the max planck institute for the history of science in berlin jointly organise a symposium on the 100th anniversary of the discovery of cosmic rays. from 6 to 8 august 2012, scientists from all over the world will meet in bad saarow, where hess landed his balloon, to present and discuss the development of various sub - areas ranging from the historic beginnings up to ideas for new projects. along with physics nobelist prof. james cronin, one of the designers of today ' s largest cosmic ray observatory " pierre auger " in argentina, and the 14th astronomer royal prof. sir arnold wolfendale, hess ' grandsons william and arthur breisky have also registered for the conference. a memorial stone will be unveiled, participants may book balloon flights, and electroscopes that were then used all over the world to carry out ion


wolfendale, hess ' grandsons william and arthur breisky have also registered for the conference. a memorial stone will be unveiled, participants may book balloon flights, and electroscopes that were then used all over the world to carry out ionisation measurements will be on display. " the advent of a centenary is a time for both looking back at the development of the subject and forwards : ' where do we go from here? ', " says sir wolfendale. " cosmic ray research has led to new areas of research, including ' the new astronomies ' and the future for them is bright, indeed. neutrino astronomy is on the verge of starting and gamma ray astronomy has begun in earnest. " physicists expect to gain new insights into the nature of cosmic particle accelerators, which are a million times stronger than the best accelerators on earth, from gramma ray astronomy. single protons from the cosmic radiation may have as much energy as a powerfully - hit tennis ball, but due to their electric charge, the fast particles are deflected by numerous magnetic fields as they travel through the cosmos. this means that one cannot retrace their point of origin from their direction of flight when they hit the earth. therefore, a hundred years since their discovery, the mystery of the origin of cosmic rays is far from being solved. " the universe is full of natural particle accelerators, as for example in supernova explosions, in binary star systems, or in active galactic nuclei. so far, only 150 of these objects are known to us, and we have just an initial physical understanding of these fascinating systems, " says stegmann. in contrast to what the name might suggest, cosmic radiation is mostly comprised of particles, but a small fraction is indeed gamma radiation, which is not deflected on its way through space and thus points directly to its source. as physicists expect the sources of cosmic gamma radiation to be the same as for cosmic particles, they are on the hunt for cosmic particle accelerators with specialised gamma ray observatories. observatories like h. e. s. s. in namibia, named in honour of the discoverer of cosmic radiation, magic on the canary island la palma, and veritas in the united states, with desy participation, detected more than hundred high - energy cosmic gamma radiation sources by now. the planned cherenkov telescope array cta, for which desy is currently building a first prototype telescope will follow this path of discovery. " the


researchers at disney research, zurich, eth zurich, and cornell university have invented a system to digitize facial hair and skin. capturing facial skin and geometry is a fundamental technology for a variety of computer - based special effects for movies. conventional face capturing is well established and widely utilized in the entertainment industry to capture a three - dimensional model of an actor ' s face. however, up to now, no method was capable of reconstructing facial hair or even handling it appropriately. this omission is surprising as facial hair is an important component of our popular culture. the system developed by the disney research laboratory in zurich constitutes a significant technical breakthrough in the field of digitizing human faces and was presented at acm siggraph, the international conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques. " our method captures individual strands of facial hair and stores them separately from the actual human face. this approach allows us to ' shave ' people with facial hair virtually with the computer. " said thabo beeler, a computer scientist at disney research, zurich, who is the main inventor of the technology. the system employs several consumer - grade photo cameras to capture a face in a fraction of a second. the method then automatically detects hairs in the captured images. these hairs are being tracked and followed in the input images, much like we follow a path on a map with our fingers. a mathematical method called multi - view stereo ( mvs ) reconstructs them in three dimensions. the trick the researchers applied is to remove the hair strands from the input images similar to an artist painting over parts of a picture. this process makes the 3d skin surface to look as if it were digitally shaved. the system was applied to a large variety of different facial hair styles, ranging from designer stubbles all the way to wild mustaches, to demonstrate its robustness. the produced results look very compelling. prof. markus gross, director of disney research, zurich, stated, " the long - term goal of our research is to make facial animation and special effects more realistic and ultimately indistinguishable from reality. this method is going to be a very important step toward this long term goal ". explore further : researchers develop fast, economical method for high - definition video compositing more information : for more information, please visit the web site at www. disneyresearch. com / research / projects / cv _ reconfacialhair _ drz. htm


new a team of researchers including scientists from the university of florida has shown insect colonies follow some of the same biological " rules " as individuals, a finding that suggests insect societies operate like a single " superorganism " in terms of their physiology and life cycle. for more than a century, biologists have marveled at the highly cooperative nature of ants, bees and other social insects that work together to determine the survival and growth of a colony. the social interactions are much like cells working together in a single body, hence the term " superorganism " — an organism comprised of many organisms, according to james gillooly, ph. d., an assistant professor in the department of biology at uf ' s college of liberal arts and sciences. now, researchers from uf, the university of oklahoma and the albert einstein college of medicine have taken the same mathematical models that predict lifespan, growth and reproduction in individual organisms and used them to predict these features in whole colonies. by analyzing data from 168 different social insect species including ants, termites, bees and wasps, the authors found that the lifespan, growth rates and rates of reproduction of whole colonies when considered as superorganisms were nearly indistinguishable from individual organisms. the findings will be published online this week in the proceedings of the national academy of sciences early edition. " this pnas paper regarding the energetic basis of colonial living in social insects is notable for its originality and also for its importance, " said edward o. wilson, a professor of biology at harvard university and co - author of the book " the super - organism, " who was not involved in the research. " the research certainly adds a new perspective to our study of how insect societies are organized and to what degree they are organized. " the study may also help scientists understand how social systems have arisen through natural selection — the process by which evolution occurs. the evolution of social systems of insects in particular, where sterile workers live only to help the queen reproduce, has long been a mystery, gillooly said. " in life, two of the major evolutionary innovations have been how cells came together to function as a single organism, and how individuals joined together to function as a society, " said gillooly, who is a member of the uf genetics institute. " relatively speaking, we understand a considerable amount about how the size of multicellular organisms affects the life cycle of individuals based on metabolic theory, but now we are showing this same theoretical framework helps predict the life cycle of whole


there are two different questions at work here, that you ' ve kind of mashed together. the first question is " what is the speed at which a change in the electric field propagates? " the answer to that is the speed of light. in qed terms, the electromagnetic interaction that we see as the electric field is mediated by photons, so any change in an established field ( say, due to shifting the position of the charge creating the field ) won ' t be felt by a distant object until enough time has passed for a photon from the source to make it to the observation point. the second question is " what is the speed of propagation of electric current? " this speed is slower than the speed of light, but still on about that order of magnitude - - the exact value depends a little on the arrangement of wires and so on, but you won ' t be far off if you assume that electrical signals propagate down a cable at the speed of light. this relates to electric field in that the charge moving through a circuit to light a light bulb has to be driven by some electric field, so you can reasonably ask how that field is established, and how much time it takes. qualitatively, the necessary field is established by excess charge on the surface of the wires, with the surface charge being generally positive near the positive terminal of a battery and generally negative near the negative terminal, and dropping off smoothly from one to the other so that the electric field is more or less piecewise constant ( that is, the field is the same everywhere inside a wire, and the field is the same everywhere inside a resistor, but the two field values are not the same ). when the circuit is first connected, there is a rapid redistribution of the charge on the surface of the wires which establishes the surface charge gradients that drive the steady - state current that will eventually do whatever it is you want it to do. the time required to establish the gradients and settle in to the steady - state condition is very fast, most likely on the order of nanoseconds for a normal circuit. there ' s a good discussion of the business of how, exactly, charges get moved around to drive a current in the textbook that we use for our introductory classes, matter and interactions, by chabay and sherwood. it doesn ' t go into enough detail to let you calculate the relevant times directly, but it lays out the basic science pretty well. ( it ' s a textbook for a first - year introductory physics class


conversations - use this space to communicate about this project only logged in users are allowed to comment. register / log in november 23, 2010 | 8 : 17 am | farewell and best wishes as this research project is now in the final stages of wrapping - up, we wish to thank everyone who participated in this inquiry ; the students, mentors, teachers and others behind the scenes. we appreciate all of your efforts and contributions to this online learning community. scientific exploration is a process of discovery that can be fun! there are many unanswered questions about plants just waiting for new scientists to consider, investigate, and share. please come back and visit the plantingscience research gallery archive anytime to view this project in the future. you can search the archive by key word, team name, topic, or school name. good bye for now. the plantingscience team november 19, 2010 | 8 : 07 am | 3 things confusing : - the time allotted was too short - the refraction of the light made it difficult to see which disks were in fact, floating... - the disks didn ' t seem to really want to float at all 3 ways to improve : - add more time to our experiment - have an environment with a smaller diameter for the experiment ( as in test tube as opposed to beaker ) - have all materials ( i. e. crushed ice ) prepared before you start the procedure 2 things we learned about experimentation : - if everyone cooperates and puts in effort then the experiment could be done more efficiently - you should never start something you can ' t finish 2 things we learned about photosynthesis : - excessive heat prevents photosynthesis - a chilled environment lets photosynthesis occur more rapidly 1 thing we ' liked ' : 1 thing we disliked : - preparing thirty small diameter spinach disks everyday november 15, 2010 | 8 : 05 am | ran out of time sorry, last response we left was brief due to time limit. we came to a conclusion on which research question we would extrapolate and explore. we posted it above in the research information. i guess we ' ll try to make this thing exciting? so what are your ideas? kayla, brittany, and blake november 10, 2010 | 1 : 47 pm | dr. kevin folta what is your hypothesis? how to test it? i was a vegetarian for 16 years!! until this march. let me know your ideas. the project should have tremendous purpose and lots of direction. let ' s do a great project that is truly exciting. i


hypothesis? how to test it? i was a vegetarian for 16 years!! until this march. let me know your ideas. the project should have tremendous purpose and lots of direction. let ' s do a great project that is truly exciting. i ' d like to hear your ideas first before i start giving mine! november 10, 2010 | 8 : 08 am | re : hi everybody 1. are you a vegetarian? 2. we are 3 students taking bio honors. 3. this project doesn ' t have much purpose. 4. we have 3 testable research questions to discuss with you. november 8, 2010 | 9 : 19 am | dr. kevin folta i ' m glad to be part of the team. i hope that you ' ll keep in touch with me frequently via this forum. i ' m a scientist in plant biology and am really excited to be assisting you. plant science is extremely important. the experiments you are doing today are similar to those being done all over the world to help meet major challenges to the future of food. even the most simple basic experiments could give new information that could feed millions of people in the future. get excited - you are participating in something very important! november 5, 2010 | 11 : 53 am | dr. claire hemingway we are delighted to welcome you to this community of plant researchers. your team has the opportunity to be mentored by a scientist to help you plan and think through your own project investigating photosynthesis. the mentor ' s role is to encourage and guide you through the scientific process of discovery. your role is to share what your team is doing in class. the more you share your ideas and research information online, the more your mentor can help. your scientist mentor for this project will be dr. kevin folta from university of florida. please introduce yourself and post some possible research topic ideas to get a conversation rolling. these resources are available to help you get started : thinking like a scientist / working like a scientist guide to using a spreadsheet best wishes as you start this scientific journey. we are all pleased to share this experience with you. the plantingscience team


individual differences | methods | statistics | clinical | educational | industrial | professional items | world psychology | it was a subject - oriented adjective that was used to label the harmful, injurious, unpleasant, or undesirable reactions ( or responses ) that a subject manifested ( thus, " nocebo reactions " ( or " nocebo responses " ) as a result administering an inert dummy drug, where these responses had not been chemically generated, and were entirely due to the subject ' s pessimistic belief and expectation that the inert drug would produce harmful, injurious, unpleasant, or undesirable consequences. in these cases, there is no " real " drug involved, but the actual harmful, injurious, unpleasant or undesirable biochemical, physiological, behavioural, emotional, and / or cognitive consequences of the administration of the inert drug are very real. one severe example of nocebo effect is someone who dies of fright after being bitten by a non - poisonous snake. the term " nocebo " edit the term nocebo ( " i shall harm " ) was chosen by walter kennedy, in 1961, to denote the counterpart of one of the more recent applications of the term " placebo " ( = " i shall please " ) ; namely, that of a placebo being a drug that produced a beneficial, healthy, pleasant, or desirable consequence in a subject, as a direct result of that subject ' s beliefs and expectations. today, in the same way that the term placebo ( or " placebo drug " ) is often used wrongly in an agent - oriented way to denote an active drug that produces an entirely predictable, and intentionally sought after outcome that is experienced as pleasant or desirable ( e. g., analgesia ), the term nocebo ( or nocebo drug ) is often used wrongly to denote its counterpart, an active drug that produces an entirely predictable, and intentionally sought outcome that is experienced as unpleasant or undesirable ( e. g., nausea ). houston may have been the first to have spoken of a doctor ' s deliberate application of harmful " placebo " procedures, as distinct from the other, harmless sort of " placebo " procedures a doctor might apply and whose " usefulness was in direct proportion to the faith that the doctor had and the faith that he was able to inspire in his patients ". houston ( 1938, p. 1418 ) wrote : -... [ and


doctor might apply and whose " usefulness was in direct proportion to the faith that the doctor had and the faith that he was able to inspire in his patients ". houston ( 1938, p. 1418 ) wrote : -... [ and while the efficacy of the placebo procedure ] is believed in by the doctor, [ the placebo procedure itself ] is no longer harmless but harmful, sometimes very dangerous. it would seem peculiarly contradictory to speak of the painful and dangerous placebo, yet men are so constituted that they feel the need in dire extremity of resorting to dread measures. nervous patients in particular, feel that a certain standing and sanction is bestowed upon their maladies when violent therapeutic measures are used. " houston spoke of three significantly different categories of placebo ( pp. 1417 - 1418 ) : - the drug that the physician knows to be inert, but which the subject believes to be potent. - the drug which is believed to be potent by both subject and physician, but which later investigation proves to have been totally inert. - the drug which is believed to be potent by both subject and physician, but is actually harmful and dangerous, rather than being inert and harmless. the term " nocebo response " originally only meant an unpredictable unintentional belief - generated injurious response to an inert procedure. but there is an emerging practice of labelling drugs that produce unpleasant consequences as " nocebo drugs " means that the term " nocebo response " may be being used to label an intentional, entirely pharmacologically - generated and quite predictably injurious outcome that has ensued from the administration of an active ( nocebo ) drug. anthropologists use the term " nocebo ritual " to describe a procedure, or treatment, or ritual that has been performed ( or a herbal remedy or medication that has been administered ) with malicious intent, by contrast with a placebo procedure or treatment or ritual that is performed with a benevolent intent. the nocebo effectedit because the original meaning of " nocebo " specifically referred to a subject ' s response to an inert drug, the term nocebo effect can really only refer to the consequences of the application of a " harm - producing " " nocebo drug " ( however, the concept of a " harm - producing " " nocebo drug " is a much later concept than either that of a " nocebo response " or of a " nocebo


- producing " " nocebo drug " ( however, the concept of a " harm - producing " " nocebo drug " is a much later concept than either that of a " nocebo response " or of a " nocebo reaction " ). the nocebo responseedit according to current pharmacological knowledge and the current understanding of cause and effect, a placebo contains no chemical ( or any other agent ) that could possibly cause any of the observed worsening in the subject ' s symptoms. thus, any change for the worse must be due to some subject - internal factor. the worsening of the subject ' s symptoms is a direct consequence of their exposure to the placebo, but those symptoms have not been chemically generated by the placebo. because this generation of symptoms entails a complex of " subject - internal " activities, in the strictest sense, we can never speak in terms of simulator - centred " nocebo effects ", but only in terms of subject - centred " nocebo responses ". although some attribute nocebo responses ( or placebo responses ) to a subject ' s gullibility, there is no evidence that an individual who manifests a nocebo / placebo response to one treatment will manifest a nocebo / placebo response to any other treatment ; i. e., there is no fixed nocebo / placebo - responding trait or propensity. - mcglashan, evans & orne ( 1969, p. 319 ) found no evidence of what they termed a " placebo personality ". also, in a carefully designed study, lasagna, mosteller, von felsinger & beecher ( 1954 ), found that there was no way that any observer could determine, by testing or by interview, which subject would manifest a placebo reaction and which would not. why a nocebo response? edit he had observed that another, entirely different and unrelated, and far more recent meaning of the term placebo was emerging into far more common usage in the technical literature ( see homonym ) ; namely that a " placebo response " ( or " placebo reaction " ) was a " pleasant " response to a real or sham / dummy treatment ( this new and entirely different usage was based on the latin meaning of the word placebo, " i shall please " ). kennedy chose the latin word nocebo ( " i shall harm " ) because it was the opposite of the latin word placebo


new and entirely different usage was based on the latin meaning of the word placebo, " i shall please " ). kennedy chose the latin word nocebo ( " i shall harm " ) because it was the opposite of the latin word placebo ( " i shall please " ), and used it to denote the counterpart of the placebo response : namely, an " unpleasant " response to the application of real or sham treatment. kennedy very strongly emphasized that his specific usage of the term nocebo did not refer to " the iatrogenic action of drugs " : in other words, according to kennedy, there was no such thing as a " nocebo effect ", there was only a " nocebo response ". he insisted that a nocebo reaction was subject - centred, and he was emphatic that the term nocebo reaction specifically referred to " a quality inherent in the patient rather than in the remedy ". even more significantly, kennedy also stated that whilst " nocebo reactions do occur [ they should never be confused ] with true pharmaceutical effects, such as the ringing in the ears caused by quinine ". this is strong, clear and very persuasive evidence that kennedy was precisely speaking of an outcome that had been totally generated by a subject ' s negative expectation of a drug or ritual ' s administration ; which was the exact counterpart of a placebo response that would have been generated by a subject ' s positive expectation. and, finally, and most definitely, kennedy was not speaking of an active drug ' s unwanted, but pharmacologically predictable negative side - effects ( something for which the term nocebo is being increasingly used in current literature ). ambiguity of medical usageedit in an important recent paper, stewart - williams and podd argue that using the contrasting terms " placebo " and " nocebo " to label inert agents that produce pleasant, health - improving or desirable outcomes, or unpleasant, health - diminishing, or undesirable outcomes ( respectively ), is extremely counterproductive. a second problem is that precisely the same effect, such as immunosuppression, may be quite desirable for a subject with an autoimmune disorder, but be quite undesirable for most other subjects. thus, in the first case, the effect would be a placebo, and in the second, a nocebo. a third problem is that the prescriber does not know whether the relevant subjects consider the effects that they


most other subjects. thus, in the first case, the effect would be a placebo, and in the second, a nocebo. a third problem is that the prescriber does not know whether the relevant subjects consider the effects that they experience to be subjectively desirable or undesirable until some time after the drugs have actually been administered. a fourth problem is that, in cases such as this, precisely the same phenomena are being generated in all of the subjects, and these are being generated by precisely the same drug, which is acting in all of the subjects through precisely the same mechanism. yet, just because the phenomena in question have been subjectively considered to be desirable to one group, but not the other, the phenomena are now being labelled in two mutually exclusive ways ( i. e., placebo and nocebo ) ; and this is giving the false impression that the drug in question has produced two entirely different phenomena. these sorts of argument produce a strong case that — despite the fact that, in some of its applications, the term " placebo " is used to denote something that pleases ( compared with it denoting an inert sumulator ) — the desirability ( placeboic nature ) or undesirability ( noceboic nature ) of the phenomena that have been manifested by a subject, after a drug has been administered, should never be part of the definition of what constitutes either " a placebo " or " a placebo response ". ambiguity of anthropological usageedit some people maintain that belief kills ( e. g., " voodoo death " : cannon ( 1942 ) describes a number of " voodoo deaths " from a variety of different cultures ) and belief heals ( e. g., faith healing ). a " self - willed " death ( due to voodoo hex, evil eye, pointing the bone procedure, etc. ) is an extreme form of a culture - specific syndrome or sociogenic illness, that produces a particular form of psychosomatic or psychophysiological disorder, which results in a psychogenic death. - there are many recorded instances of self - willed psychogenic death. for example, the death of ananias, as recorded in acts 5 : 1 - 6 ; see ananias and sapphira. - rubel ( 1964 ) spoke of " culture bound " syndromes, which were those " from which members of a particular group claim to suffer and for which their culture provides an etiology, diagnosis, preventive measures, and


sapphira. - rubel ( 1964 ) spoke of " culture bound " syndromes, which were those " from which members of a particular group claim to suffer and for which their culture provides an etiology, diagnosis, preventive measures, and regimens of healing ” ( p. 268 ). it is important to distinguish these " self - willed deaths " from other " self - imposed " sorts of death, such as : - the " self - inflicted deaths " of suicide, voluntary euthanasia, or the refusal of life - extending treatment ; - the " heroic " " self - inflicted death " of a soldier who throws himself on a hand grenade to save his mates, or that of the antarctic explorer captain lawrence oates ( “ i am just going outside and may be some time ” ) ; or - the " religious self - inflicted death " ' of the self - immolating suttee, or the mors voluntaria religiosa ( = " voluntary religious death " ) of the aged person, who religious elders have permitted to voluntarily, peacefully, and slowly die by fasting. certain anthropologists, such as robert hahn and arthur kleinman have extended the placebo / nocebo distinction into this realm in order to allow a distinction to be made between rituals, like faith healing, that are performed in order to heal, cure, or bring benefit ( placebo rituals ) and others, like " pointing the bone ", that are performed in order to kill, injure or bring harm ( nocebo rituals ). as the meaning of the two inter - related and opposing terms has extended, we now find anthropologists speaking, in various contexts, of nocebo or placebo ( harmful or helpful ) rituals : - - that might entail nocebo or placebo ( unpleasant or pleasant ) procedures, - about which subjects might have nocebo or placebo ( harmful or beneficial ) beliefs, - that are delivered by operators that might have nocebo or placebo ( pathogenic, disease - generating or salutogenic, health - promoting ) expectations, - that are delivered to subjects that might have nocebo or placebo ( negative, fearful, despairing or positive, hopeful, confident ) expectations about the ritual, - which are delivered by operators who might have nocebo or placebo ( malevolent or benevolent ) intentions, in the hope that the rituals will generate nocebo or placebo ( lethal, injurious, harmful or restorative,


are delivered by operators who might have nocebo or placebo ( malevolent or benevolent ) intentions, in the hope that the rituals will generate nocebo or placebo ( lethal, injurious, harmful or restorative, curative, healthy ) outcomes ; and, that all of this depends upon the operator ' s overall beliefs in the harmful nature of the nocebo ritual or the beneficial nature of the placebo ritual. yet, it may become even more terminologically complex ; for, as hahn and kleinman indicate, there can also be cases where there are paradoxical nocebo outcomes from placebo rituals ( e. g. the tgn1412 drug trial ), as well as paradoxical placebo outcomes from nocebo rituals ( see also unintended consequences ). writing from his extensive experience of treating cancer ( including more than 1, 000 melanoma cases ) at sydney hospital, milton ( 1973 ) warned of the impact of the delivery of a prognosis, and how many of his patients, upon receiving their prognosis, simply turned their face to the wall and died an extremely premature death : "... there is a small group of patients in whom the realisation of impending death is a blow so terrible that they are quite unable to adjust to it, and they die rapidly before the malignancy seems to have developed enough to cause death. this problem of self - willed death is in some ways analogous to the death produced in primitive peoples by witchcraft ( “ pointing the bone ” ). " ( p. 1435 ) - ↑ miller ( 2003 ) - ↑ mcglashan, evans & orne ( 1969 ) ; stam ( 1984 ) ; stam & spanos ( 1987 ). - ↑ 3. 0 3. 1 3. 2 kennedy ( 1961 ), p. 204 - ↑ stewart - williams & podd ( 2004 ), p. 326 - ↑ zusne & jones ( 1989 ), p. 57 ; roheim ( 1925 ). - barber, t. x., " death by suggestion : a critical note ", psychosomatic medicine, vol. 23, no. 2, ( march - april 1961 ), pp. 153 - 155. - barker, j. c., scared to death : an examination of fear, its cause and effects, frederick muller, ( london ), 1968. - barrett, g. v. & franke, r. h., " " psychogenic " death


j. c., scared to death : an examination of fear, its cause and effects, frederick muller, ( london ), 1968. - barrett, g. v. & franke, r. h., " " psychogenic " death : a reappraisal ", science, vol. 167, no. 3916, ( 16 january 1970 ), pp. 304 - 306. - barsky, a. j., saintfort, r., rogers, m. p. & borus, j. f., " nonspecific medication side effects and the nocebo phenomenon ", journal of the american medical association, vol. 287, no. 5, ( 6 february 2002 ), pp. 622 - 627. - cannon, w. b., " “ voodoo ” death ", american anthropologist, vol. 44, no. 2, ( april - june 1942 ), pp. 169 - 181. - charcot, j. m., " the faith - cure ", the new review, vol. viii, ( january 1893 ), pp. 18 - 31. - cohen, s. i., " psychosomatic death : voodoo death in a modern perspective ", integrative psychiatry, vol. 3, no. 1, ( march 1985 ), pp. 46 - 51. - dein, s., " psychogenic death : individual effects of sorcery and taboo violation ", mental health, religion and culture, vol. 6, no. 3, ( november 2003 ), pp. 195 - 202. - di blasi, z., harkness, e., edzard, e., georgiou, a. & kleijnen, j., " influence of context effects on health outcomes : a systematic review ", the lancet, vol. 357, no. 9258, ( 10 march 2001 ), pp. 757 - 762. - goddard, h. h., " the effects of mind on body as evidenced by faith cures ", american journal of psychology, vol. 10, no. 3, ( april 1899 ), pp. 431 - 502. - hahn, r. a., " the nocebo phenomenon : concept, evidence, and implications for public health ", preventive medicine, vol. 26, no. 5, ( september 1997 ), pp. 607 - 611. - hahn, r. a. & klein


nocebo phenomenon : concept, evidence, and implications for public health ", preventive medicine, vol. 26, no. 5, ( september 1997 ), pp. 607 - 611. - hahn, r. a. & kleinman, a, " belief as pathogen, belief as medicine : " voodoo death " and the " placebo phenomenon " in anthropological perspective ", medical anthropology quarterly, vol. 14, no. 4, ( august 1983 ), pp. 3, 16 - 19. - harrington, e. r., the nocebo effect : a meta - analysis of the effect of suggestion on reports of physical symptoms, ( ph. d. dissertation ), temple university, 1998. - houston, w. r., " the doctor himself as a therapeutic agent ", annals of internal medicine, vol. 11, no. 8, ( february 1938 ), pp. 1416 - 1425. - kennedy, w p., " the nocebo reaction ", medical world, vol. 95, ( september 1961 ), pp. 203 - 205. - kirsch, i., " response expectancy as a determinant of experience and behavior ", american psychologist, vol. 40, no. 11, ( november 1985 ), pp. 1189 - 1202. - kirsch, i., " response expectancy theory and application : a decennial review ", applied and preventive psychology, vol. 6, no. 2, ( spring 1997 ), pp. 69 - 79. - lasagna, l., mosteller, f., von felsinger, j. m. & beecher, h. k., " a study of the placebo response ", american journal of medicine, vol. 16, no. 6, ( june 1954 ), pp. 770 - 779. - lorenz, j., hauck, m., paura, r. c., nakamura, y., zimmermann, r., bromm, b. & engela, a. k., " cortical correlates of false expectations during pain intensity judgments — a possible manifestation of placebo / nocebo cognitions ", brain, behavior, and immunity, vol. 19, no. 4, ( july 2005 ), pp. 283 - 295. - mcglashan, t. h., evans, f. j. & orne, m. t., "


, and immunity, vol. 19, no. 4, ( july 2005 ), pp. 283 - 295. - mcglashan, t. h., evans, f. j. & orne, m. t., " the nature of hypnotic analgesia and placebo response to experimental pain ", psychosomatic medicine, vol. 31, no. 3, ( may - june 1969 ), pp. 227 - 246. - merton, r. k., " the unanticipated consequences of purposive social action ", american sociological review, vol. 1, no. 6, ( december 1936 ), pp. 894 - 904. - miller, f. g., " william james, faith, and the placebo effect ", perspectives in biology and medicine, vol. 48, no. 2, ( spring 2005 ), pp. 273 - 281. - miller, f. g., " sham surgery : an ethical analysis ", the american journal of bioethics, vol. 3, no. 4, ( fall 2003 ), pp. 41 - 48. - milton, g. w., " self - willed death or the bone - pointing syndrome ", the lancet, ( 23 june, 1973 ), pp. 1435 – 1436. - perlman, l, " nonspecific, unintended, and serendipitous effects in psychotherapy ", professional psychology : research and practice, vol. 32, no. 3, ( june 2001 ), pp. 283 – 288. - phillips, d. p., liu, g. c., kwok, k., jarvinen, j. r., zhang, w. & abramson, i. s., " the hound of the baskervilles effect : natural experiment on the influence of psychological stress on timing of death ", british medical journal, vol. 324, no. 7327, ( 22 - 29 december 2001 ), pp. 1443 - 1446. - pyysiainen, i., " mind and miracles ", zygon, vol. 37, no. 3, ( september 2002 ), pp. 729 - 740. - rief, w., avorn, j. & barsky, arthur j., " medication - attributed adverse effects in placebo groups : implications for assessment of adverse effects ", archives of internal medicine, vol. 166, no


. - rief, w., avorn, j. & barsky, arthur j., " medication - attributed adverse effects in placebo groups : implications for assessment of adverse effects ", archives of internal medicine, vol. 166, no. 2 ), ( 23 january 2006 ), pp. 155 - 160. - richter, c. p., " on the phenomenon of sudden death in animals and man ", psychosomatic medicine, vol. xix, no. 3, ( may - june 1957 ), pp. 191 – 198. - roheim, g., " the pointing bone ", the journal of the royal anthropological institute of great britain and ireland, vol. 55, ( january - june 1925 ), pp. 90 - 114. - rubel, a. j., " the epidemiology of a folk illness : susto in hispanic america ", ethnology, vol. 3, no. 3, ( july 1964 ), pp. 268 - 283. - shapiro, a. k., " a contribution to a history of the placebo effect ", behavioral science, vol. 5, no. 2 ( april 1960 ) pp. 109 - 135. - shapiro, a. k., " semantics of the placebo ", psychiatric quarterly, vol. 42, no. 4, ( december 1968 ), pp. 653 – 695. - south, r., " a sermon delivered at christ - church, oxon., before the university, octob. 14. 1688 : prov. xii. 22 lying lips are abomination to the lord ", pp. 519 - 657 in south, r., twelve sermons preached upon several occasions ( second edition ), volume i, printed by s. d. for thomas bennet, ( london ), 1697. - spiegel, h., " nocebo : the power of suggestibility ", preventive medicine, vol. 26, no. 5, ( 1 september 1997 ), pp. 616 - 621. - staats, p., hekmatb, h. & staats, a., " suggestion / placebo effects on pain : negative as well as positive ", journal of pain and symptom management, vol. 15, no. 4, ( april 1998 ), pp. 235 - 243. - stam, h. j., hypnotic analgesia and the placebo effect : controlling


", journal of pain and symptom management, vol. 15, no. 4, ( april 1998 ), pp. 235 - 243. - stam, h. j., hypnotic analgesia and the placebo effect : controlling ischemic pain, ( ph. d. dissertation ), carleton university, ( ottawa, canada ), 1984. - stam, h. j. & spanos, n., " hypnotic analgesia, placebo analgesia, and ischemic pain : the effects of contextual variables ", journal of abnormal psychology, vol. 96, no. 4, ( november 1987 ), pp. 313 – 320. - stewart - williams, s. & podd, j., " the placebo effect : dissolving the expectancy versus conditioning debate ", psychological bulletin, vol. 130, no. 2, ( march 2004 ), pp. 324 - 340. - wilson, i., the bleeding mind : an investigation into the mysterious phenomenon of stigmata, paladin, ( london ), 1991. - zusne, l. & jones, w. h., anomalistic psychology : a study of magical thinking ( second edition ), lawrence erlbaum associates, ( new york ), 1989. - nocebo and nocebo effect - the nocebo response - the nocebo effect : placebo ' s evil twin - what modifies a healing responsenl : nocebo - effectsv : noceboeffekt | this page uses creative commons licensed content from wikipedia ( view authors ). |


of the 594 children randomised, 571 started the study, receiving either milk containing lactobacillus gg ( n = 282 ) or control milk ( n = 289 ) ( figure ). fifty eight children did not complete the follow up period. progress of participants during seven month study table details characteristics of the children before treatment. the block randomisation resulted in a similar distribution of children in the age groups under 3 years and 3 years and over : 51 ( 18 % ) and 231 ( 82 % ) in the lactobacillus group and 55 ( 19 % ) and 234 ( 81 % ) in the control group. detailed analysis of age distribution, however, showed that there were differences between the groups. also, there were more children in the control group who had had five or more respiratory infections during the preceding 12 months. age and preceding infections both have an effect on the incidence of infections and as they were strongly correlated we adjusted only for age in comparisons of treatment. characteristics before treatment of children allocated to probiotic milk ( lactobacillus gg ) and control groups. figures are means ( ranges ) or numbers ( percentage ) of children intention to treat analysis symptoms of illness as reported by parents — there were no significant differences between the groups in the number of days with respiratory and gastrointestinal symptoms ( table ). however, in the lactobacillus group there were fewer days of absence because of illness — a lactobacillus : control ratio of 0. 85 ( 95 % confidence interval 0. 73 to 0. 98 ) — and thus a reduction of 15 %. the time without respiratory symptoms was significantly longer in the lactobacillus group compared with the control group ( 5 ( 4. 1 to 5. 9 ) v 4 ( 3. 5 to 4. 6 ) weeks, p = 0. 03, fig ). time without diarrhoea was not significantly different ( 25 ( 24 to 26 ) v 24 ( 23 to 25 ) weeks, respectively, p = 0. 20, fig ). table 2 details of symptoms, absence, and symptom score during seven month treatment period. unadjusted and age adjusted results based on intention to treat population, with children who completed intervention. figures are geometric means ( 95 % confidence ( more... ) proportion of children without infection during seven month study ( respiratory symptoms and diarrhoea ) upper and lower respiratory tract infections diagnosed by doctor — the number of children with respiratory infections ( otitis media,


an encyclopedia of claims, frauds, and hoaxes of the occult and supernatural introduction | " r " reading | curse of the pharaoh | end - of - the - world prophecies index | a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | i | j | k | l | m | n | o | p | q | r | s | t | u | v | w | y | z zener, dr. karl ( 1903 - 1963 ) in the early 1930s, a swiss psychologist named zener, a partner of dr. joseph banks rhine, designed a set of cards bearing five symbols which he felt were sufficiently different from one another that they would be ideal for conducting certain tests, among them extrasensory perception ( esp ) tests. these symbols are : circle, plus sign, wavy lines, square, and star. the five symbols developed by dr. karl zener for use in tests of extrasensory perception. these are normally used in a deck of twenty - five cards, five of each symbol. for decades, zener cards have been employed in parapsychological laboratories in the search for the ever - elusive powers called telepathy and clairvoyance. so far, in spite of millions of bits of data gathered through that extensive exploration, experiments with zener cards have failed to yield convincing, replicable results. after a few years of association with dr. rhine, zener began efforts to have him removed from the campus of duke university, fearing the burden that the university would have to bear for being connected with parapsychology. click here to order a copy of the original hardcover edition of this encyclopedia. copyright ( c ) 1995 - 2007 james randi. created and maintained with the dictionary compilation software tshwanelex.


dragons and dragon lore, by ernest ingersoll,, at sacred - texts. com the dragon ' s precious pearl a most curious, interesting, and at the same time obscure feature of this whole baffling subject is that of the so - called pearl which accompanies the dragon in pictures and legends from the earliest times, and is common to the religious traditions of the whole east - - india, china and japan. necklaces of pearls are a regular part of the regalia of naga - queens in their submarine palaces ; and we read often in the old vedic books of a magical jewel of good luck, ' which was in custody of the naga - maidens but was lost by them through terror of their monstrous enemy, the bird garuda. there are traces of it in early taoism, but it is best preserved in buddhism as the jewel in the lotus, the mani of the mystic, ecstatic, formula om mani padme hum - - the " jewel that grants all desires, " the ' divine pearl ' of the buddhists throughout the orient. koreans commonly believe that the yellow ( chief ) dragon carries on his forehead ( as also in japan ) a pear - shaped pearl having supernatural properties and healing power. in china alone, however, is this mystical accessory of the dragon made a significant part of pictures and decorative designs. some say that originally every proper dragon carried a pearl under his chin ; others that it was a special mark of imperial rank. a sixth - century writer asserts that such pearls are " spit out of dragons like snake - pearls out of snakes, " and have enormous value. this extraordinary gem is represented as a spherical object, or ball, half as big, or quite as large, as the head of the dragon with which it is associated, for it is never depicted quite by itself. the gem is white or bluish with a reddish or golden halo, and usually has an antler - shaped ' flame ' rising from its surface. almost invariably there hangs downward from the centre of the sphere a dark - coloured, comma - like appendage, frequently branched, wavering below the periphery. a biologist might easily at first glance conclude that the whole affair represented the entry of a spermatozoon into an ovum ; and the chinese commonly interpret the ball with its comma - mark as a symbol of yang and yin, male and female elements, combined in the earth - - which seems pretty close to the biologist ' s view. such is the dragon - pearl. in purely decorative work


interpret the ball with its comma - mark as a symbol of yang and yin, male and female elements, combined in the earth - - which seems pretty close to the biologist ' s view. such is the dragon - pearl. in purely decorative work, where the figure of a dragon is writhing in clouds or adapting its lithe body under an artist ' s hand to the shape or purpose of a piece of porcelain, a bronze article, or a silken garment, the pearl may be drawn close to the dragon, or wherever convenient. when, however, it is desirable to express the significance of this sacred adjunct of dragonhood, it is treated with strict attention to reverence and tradition. then are pictured celestial dragons ascending and descending through the upper air, tearing a path, perhaps, through swirling mists and shadows, " in pursuit of effulgent jewels or orbs that appear to be whirling in space, and that were supposed to be of magic efficiency, granting every wish. " a passion for gems is a well - known characteristic of these beings, and that it has ' always ' been so is shown by a fable recorded by joly. t ' an t ' ai mieh ming, a disciple of confucius, was attacked, at the instigation of the god of the yellow river, by two dragons seeking to rob him of a valuable gem ; but t ' an t ' ai slew the dragons and then, to show his contempt for worldly goods, threw the treasure into the river. twice it leaped back into his boat, but at last he broke it in pieces and scattered the fragments. can these be the two dragons so often depicted facing one another in the air, and apparently rushing, as if in eager play, toward a pearl floating like an iridescent bubble between them? nothing in the decorative art of china has occasioned more guessing and controversy than this. an eighteenth century vase described by chait is " decorated with nine dragons ( a mystic number ) whirling through scrolled clouds enveloping parts of their serpentine bodies in pursuit of jewels of omnipotence, which appear in the midst of clouds as revolving disks emitting branched rays of effulgence. " ball points out that in books issued under imperial auspices " two dragons encircle the title, striving... for a pearl. " japanese designers like to form the handles of bells, whether big temple - bells or tiny ones, of two dragons affrontes, with the tam


auspices " two dragons encircle the title, striving... for a pearl. " japanese designers like to form the handles of bells, whether big temple - bells or tiny ones, of two dragons affrontes, with the tama between them. one japanese carving represents a snake - like dragon coiled tightly around a ball, marked with spiral lines, illustrating devotion to the tama. " a great ball of gilded glass, " writes visser, " is said to hang from the centre of the roof of the great hall of the buddhist temple fa ( h ) - yu - sze, or temple of the reign of law, while eight dragons, curved around the ' hanging pillars, ' eagerly stretch their claws towards the ' pearl of perfection. '... dragons trying to seize a fiery ' pearl, ' which is hanging in a gate, are represented twice in the same temple.... we may be sure that the chinese buddhists, identifying the dragon with the naga, also identified the ball with their cintamani or ' precious pearl which grants all desires. ' " in these and many similar examples we, as outsiders, may grasp little of the significance or symbolism in this conspicuous ' ball ' or ' pearl, ' but we may approach an understanding of it through dr. de groot ' s investigation of chinese religion. ' he describes the ceremonial dress of the wuist priests as having a " broad border of blue silk around the neck stitched with two ascending dragons which are belching out a ball probably representing thunder. " de groot explains further that " the ball between two dragons is often delineated as a spiral, " and adds that ' in an ancient charm... a spiral denotes the rolling of thunder from which issues a flash of lightning. " in japanese prints a dragon is frequently accompanied by a huge spiral indicating a thunderstorm caused by him. are the antler - shaped appendages rising above the ' ball ' intended to represent lightning - flames? dr. visser discusses this hypothesis at length, pointing out that the whole attitude of the two dragons in such art - productions displays great eagerness to catch and swallow the gleaming sphere. this attitude and avidity become clear, visser thinks, when one sees a chinese picture like that in blacker ' s chats on oriental china, of two dragons rushing at a fiery spiral ball above the legend : " two dragons facing the moon. " sometimes two dragons confront each other, each having a flaming pearl floating just in front of


that in blacker ' s chats on oriental china, of two dragons rushing at a fiery spiral ball above the legend : " two dragons facing the moon. " sometimes two dragons confront each other, each having a flaming pearl floating just in front of their faces. there is nothing absurd about this suggestion of swallowing the moon. celestial dragons are, in reality, personifications of clouds ; and among the most primitive and widespread impressions respecting lunar eclipses is the notion that a monster is devouring the moon. dark and writhing clouds advancing as if alive, and finally extinguishing its light, might easily suggest a similar thought ; and it was a matter of early experience that after these hungry cloud - dragons had completed their feast, fertilizing rain usually blessed the thirsty fields and pastures, so that the dragons got the credit. hence artists liked to represent these public benefactors playfully contending for the opportunity to devour the ' queen of night ' and so produce a crop - saving fall of showers for which they ( the dragons ) would enjoy grateful appreciation. incidentally, artists note that a pair of their graceful figures make a well - balanced composition. the moon and water are closely connected in all mythologies ; hence the moon is closely linked with fertilizing agencies in general. faith in the moon ' s influence on the weather lingers strongly in the mind of rural communities even in these progressive united states of america ; and it is easy to believe that the dragon - thanking agriculturists and shepherds of china felt assured that the rain - giving will and power of their celestial friends were refreshed by frequently absorbing this bright and stimulating object in the sky. that these reflections are not ' all moonshine ' is shown by evidence in the writings of the old philosophers of the east, who assure us that the actual mundane pearl taken from the oyster in whose shell it is formed beneath the salt waters is the " concrete essence of the moon " distilled through the system of the mollusk - - an emanation from the moon - goddess herself. " the pearls found in the oyster, " as one student interprets it, " were supposed to be little moons, drops of the moon - substance ( or dew ) which fell from the sky into the gaping oyster. hence pearls acquired the reputation of shining by night, like to the moon from which they were believed to have come. " all this tends to demonstrate that the theory that the moon is the mani, the ' pearl of great price, ' the divine essence of


pearls acquired the reputation of shining by night, like to the moon from which they were believed to have come. " all this tends to demonstrate that the theory that the moon is the mani, the ' pearl of great price, ' the divine essence of the gods, is not unreasonable ; and its probability is reinforced by the stated fact that in both chinese and japanese dictionaries an ideograph combined of elements meaning respectively ' jewel ' and ' moon ' is defined as ' moon - pearl. ' i am inclined to regard this as a better explanation of the puzzling object so constantly associated with dragons in chinese decorative art than is the ' thunder ' hypothesis. at the same time it is to be noted that the spiral character of the pearl, ' and of the ' tag ' that springs from its centre, is the widely recognized symbol for thunder ; while the antler - like appendages indicate accompanying lightnings ; therefore the identification of the ' pearl ' with the moon need not preclude its co - association with thunderstorms, for the dragon is a rain - controller, and in a fair sense is the deity heard and seen in thunder and lightning, who is in particular the storm - god of sailormen. in japan, whose dragon - mythology has been strongly tinctured with indian notions, as we have seen, the pearl appears mainly in connection with mythical tales of the ocean - - a very natural connection. in the nihongi, an ancient japanese historical work, it is related that in the second year of the emperor chaui ' s reign ( a. d. 193 ) the empress jingo - kogo found in the sea " a jewel which grants all desires, " apparently the same lost by the frightened naga maidens. she also obtained from the submarine palace of the dragon - king the ebb - jewel ( kan - ja ) and the flood - jewel ( man - ja ), by which she was able, on at least one important occasion, to control the tides ; they are described in the nihongi as about five sun long, the former white and the latter blue - - the colour of the east, whence rain comes ; and the moon is controller of the oceanic tides! japanese legends relating to this matter, as briefly given by joly, in his elaborate work on the legendary art of japan, are connected with the mythical character riujin, the ruler of the waters of the globe, whose home is beneath the sea, or in deep lakes, and who is represented as a very old