Month: March 2019

Enlarge / Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's addresses the nation on a local news channel in New Delhi on March 27. (credit: PRAKASH SINGH/AFP/Getty Images)

India announced Wednesday that it successfully fired an anti-satellite weapon and intercepted an unidentified Indian satellite at an altitude of 300km. This test, named “Mission Shakti,” gives India the prestige of becoming only the fourth nation to shoot down a satellite, but it raises serious questions about orbital debris and the on-going militarization of space.

The country's prime minister, Narendra Modi, announced the anti-satellite test in a televised speech Wednesday, which he characterized as an, "important message for our nation." Later, on Twitter and in English, he added of this mission that it "was a highly complex one, conducted at extremely high speed with remarkable precision. It shows the remarkable dexterity of India’s outstanding scientists and the success of our space programme."

Modi stressed that the technology used to bring down the missile was entirely developed in India, and he said the test was an important demonstration of the country's prowess in space."India stands tall as a space power!" he wrote. "It will make India stronger, even more secure and will further peace and harmony."

Enlarge / Dumbo and Timothy Q. Mouse hallucinate pink elephants on parade in a famous animated sequence from Disney's Dumbo (1941). Scientists have imaged neurons of mice under the influence of a hallucinogen for a new study. (credit: YouTube/Disney)

People under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs like LSD often experience vivid visual hallucinations. But exactly what is happening within the brain to induce such a state remains a mystery. According to a new paper in Cell Reports, experiments with mice under the influence of a hallucinogenic drug showed evidence that the hallucinations may be trigged by reduced signaling between neurons in the visual cortex, along with changes in the timing at which they fire.

This might seem counterintuitive, according to co-author Cris Niell, a neuroscientist at the University of Oregon. "You might expect visual hallucinations would result from neurons in the brain firing like crazy or by mismatched signals," he said. "We were surprised to find that a hallucinogenic drug instead led to a reduction of activity in the visual cortex. But in the context of visual processing, it made sense."

In short, the brain may just be over-interpreting a lack of information. When we dream, for instance, there are no visual signals entering the brain, and yet the brain still creates visual patterns.

SAN FRANCISCO—For years, we've put one particular item on our annual Game Developers Conference itinerary: the most elaborate and inconvenient game controllers this side of a Japanese arcade.

Every year, international teams submit their craziest hardwired contraptions to GDC's Alt.Ctrl Competition, and the winners get massive booth space to let passersby grab, smack, pull, and sit on whatever custom rigs the teams have dreamed up. (We've written about these exhibits a few years running.) Some of our favorites from that booth are in the above gallery, and their captions explain what's going on in each game.

To be clear: most of these will likely never launch at either arcades or for home purchase. That's not surprising, though I would probably pay for a Hellcouch conversion kit if it existed, just to mess with house guests. (A few creators hinted at releasing their work as downloads to be applied to build-it-yourself kits, but I didn't find any yet released for the above games in my cursory search.)