Hay toda una industria que se está gestando alrededor de lo que se dio en llamar Brain Fitness, que básicamente es un conjunto de técnicas y programas para ejercitar nuestra mente. Uno de los fines de estas técnicas es la neurogénesis (creación de nuevas neuronas) partiendo de los principios de la Neuropsicología.

Les recomiendo el sitio sharpbrains donde van a encontrar muchísimos artículos al respecto.

Uno de mis socios (Max) me envió un mail indicándome que escuchara algo con los auriculares y zas, lo primero que me vino a la cabeza fue “otra de esas bromas estúpidas que te gritan en la mitad del audio y te pegas un susto de puta madre” pero en el mismo mail me aclaraba que no era nada de eso y como es un tipo de confiar ;) le creí y seguí el enlace que me pasaba. Les paso el texto tal cual del blog que me paso mi socio:

Holofonía.El sonido 3D para auriculares

Esta es uno de esos inventos que, si finalmente cuajan, pueden revolucionar el modo en que veamos, o mejor dicho, oigamos el cine y la televisión en casa.

Se trata de la holofonía, una técnica mediante la cual se imita la forma en que el cerebro interpreta el sonido y procesa las distancias a las cuales se encuentran los mismos. A esto se le denomina sonido binaural.

Para conseguir este efecto se graban las secuencias de cada oído independientemente empleando una cabeza de dummy con dos micrófonos a la altura de cada oreja . Luego ambas grabaciones se recombinan usando un algoritmo llamado Cetera, y el resultado se emite por un único canal.

Con esto, se consigue que con unos simples auriculares consigamos un efecto de sonido envolvente y localizado espacialmente como si estuviéramos utilizando un sistema de Home Cinema.

A continuación os pongo una demo para que lo comprobéis por vosotros mismos. Veréis como es es simplemente espectacular.

 

Via | 10 GoTo 10

Lo más curioso e interesante de esto es que la técnica fue creada por un argentino llamado Hugo Zucarelli en la década del ’80, aca les dejo un enlace donde el propio auto cuenta mas información sobre el proceso y los avatares que sufrió por su invento, incluida la cárcel.

Tambien les dejo un enlace a un MP3 con otro efecto, recuerden usar los auriculares para que puedan experimentar bien el efecto 3D.

Ahora, todo bien, pero la ciencia no entiende nada…no me imagino tomando una Quilmes Liberty y atrás la pastillita para ponerme en pedo…o perderme el placer de tomar un buen vino…y bue, por algo dicen que los ingleses son aburridos, estas cosas lo terminan demostrando...

Now a drug that gives you that alcohol buzz, but without a hangover

By Kate Brumback

With
new research, it is possible to develop a drink that mimics the
positive effects of alcohol without the next-day headaches or long-term
health risks. The work of David Nutt, a professor of psychopharmacology
in England, could change the bar scene forever. (Rebecca Castillo/CNS)

Hangovers
may become a thing of the past. Drinks containing partial agonists
(PAs) would produce only the desirable effects of alcohol–relaxation
and increased sociability–said David Nutt, a professor of
psychopharmacology in Britain. (Rebecca Castillo/CNS)

Drinks
containing partial agonists (PAs) would produce only the desirable
effects of alcohol–relaxation and increased sociability–said David
Nutt, a professor of psychopharmacology in England. With this new
technology, those who choose to imbibe, would no longer have to deal
with nasty hangovers. (Rebecca Castillo/CNS)

Hangovers
could become a thing of the past. Drinks containing partial agonists
(PAs) would produce only the desirable effects of alcohol–relaxation
and increased sociability–said David Nutt, a professor of
psychopharmacology in Britain. (Rebecca Castillo/CNS)

A British scientist’s recent announcement that he
had found a way to develop a drug that mimics the happy effects of
alcohol–sociability and relaxation–without producing next-day
headaches or ravaging the body sparked an immediate controversy.
“Every sip of alcohol does rot your liver,” said David Nutt, a
professor of psychopharmacology at Bristol University, “and I think it
would be preferable to have something that doesn’t rot your liver” but
makes you feel happy.
Nutt said he had also come up with a way to instantly sober up from
the fake drunk feeling–by taking a drug now used to treat tranquilizer
overdoses. But while this cocktail of drugs (still in the theoretical
research phase) may seem like a dream come true for anyone who has ever
awoken with a splitting headache following a night of overindulgence,
is taking a drug to produce a “good drunk” really a good idea?
Wilkie Wilson, a professor of pharmacology and co-author of “Buzzed:
The Straight Facts About the Most Used and Abused Drugs from Alcohol to
Ecstasy,” suggested that eliminating all the bad effects of alcohol
could do more harm than good. “Right now we have a drug–alcohol–with
a built-in aversive effect if you get too much of it,” he said.
Sure, cirrhosis of the liver can kill you, and it would be nice to
have a drug to substitute for the cause of that disease, said Wilson, a
professor at Duke University. “But the aversive effects of nausea and
hangovers tend to deter a lot of people from drinking too much.”
Nutt’s findings, which will be published in May in the Journal of
Psychopharmacology, have generated much buzz in British newspapers
since a preview of his research was published on the New Scientist
magazine’s Web site in early April.
One Web site, LiveScience.com, hailed Nutt’s proposed “good drunk”
drug as a collision of science fiction and real life, likening it to
synthehol, a drink consumed on the television show “Star Trek: The Next
Generation.” The sci-fi drink allows quaffers to become intoxicated
without experiencing hangovers and to easily reverse the effects simply
by wishing to be sober.
Wilson said there was some merit to Nutt’s claim that drinks
containing the “good drunk” additives could be healthy alternatives for
people who drink cocktails or alcopops–sweet drinks which mask the
flavor of alcohol–solely for the purpose of getting smashed.
“It might be used as a drug for people who are really interested in
acute intoxication, and it would be healthier for them,” Wilson said.
“The question I have is, do we want people that intoxicated without any
negative feedback?”
The lowering of inhibitions that Nutt’s theoretical drug promises
could lead people to do all the things they do when they’re drunk:
dance on tables, sing karaoke, make inebriated phone calls to ex-lovers
and drive their cars into other cars. Wilson said fear of nausea or
hangovers can act as a healthy check on throwing inhibitions out the
window.
Marsha Bates, a professor of psychology at the Rutgers University
Center of Alcohol Studies, said alcohol-related health problems occur
most often in people who drink excessive quantities over a long period.
“A lot of studies have shown that people who drink to get intoxicated
are trying to manipulate and regulate their emotions,” she said. A drug
to mimic drunkenness won’t help with those problems.
For moderate drinkers, she said, eliminating alcohol consumption
could actually be a bad thing. “If you are a light drinker of alcohol,”
she said, “that’s actually been associated with a lot of health
benefits.”
Nutt said his research shows that thousands of lives lost to
alcohol-induced liver, heart and brain damage could be saved by
producing drinks that contain partial agonists, or PAs. When alcohol is
consumed, Nutt said, it binds to signal molecules in the brain called
GABA-A receptors. Some subtypes of these molecules are associated with
the distinct effects of alcohol. According to Nutt, PAs would bind
strongly to the good subtypes and not to the bad ones.
Drinks made with PAs would also eliminate the lack of coordination,
aggressiveness and amnesia commonly associated with drinking too much.
And then the effects could be reversed with a dose of a drug called
flumazenil. “You could, in theory, go to a party and have fun and then
take the antidote and drive home with no problem,” Nutt said.
He dismisses critics who question whether it’s ethical to market a
lifestyle drug that imitates drunkenness. Alcohol is acceptable and
legally available today, he said, only because it has been around for
so long. “It’s because it’s historical, and we’ve used it for
centuries, that people are willing to put up with the toxicity,” he
said.
Nutt said he would like to stir up enough public support to convince
drug companies to conduct research on producing drinks with PAs and to
get governments to consider making them legal. “At this stage we need
to have the political and social debate,” Nutt said. “If governments
are willing to look into an alcohol alternative, then it would be
possible.”
It’s unlikely, however, that the drugs would ever be available over
the counter–or over the bar. They would almost certainly be regulated
under strict drug laws, unlike alcohol, which is regulated under food
and drink laws.
“Alcohol has a very preferential status because it is sold as a
foodstuff,” Nutt said. “If we could change the law, 10 years or so down
the road we would have an alternative to alcohol that at least some
people would prefer.”
E-mail: kdb2108@columbia.edu