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Science: Nueroplasticity, Quantum, Chernobyl

By Bob Snodgrass
Posted: 05/10/2021

Attending: Sally a, Leni f, Howard r, Barbara m, Bruce g, Dave f, Lucinda h, Bob s

We enjoyed a pleasant meeting with good natured discussions. Sally had sent around two papers for us from Nature. She began with the one about tiny drums and quantum entanglement. These vibrating aluminum membranes or drum -like structures were 70 picograms in mass and 10 micrometers (millionths of a meter) in size. The review in Nature suggests that “although these structures are barely visible to the naked eye, they are enormous by quantum standards”. The scientists tickled the membranes with microwave photons to make them vibrate in sync, producing what the original paper called “two massive mechanical oscillators” and directly observed their state. Wiki lectures informs me that the normal human eye in good light is unable to distinguish two lines 0.78 millimeters, or 780 um at a distance of 185 cm, about 7.4 inches.

So, these ‘massive oscillations’ were massive in one sense (compared to atoms and molecules
studied in past studies of quantum entanglement) but not in every day casual discussion and
humans can’t see an object 10 um long. I had thought that quantum entanglement would require
one of the ‘massive vibrators ‘to be moved to another building or some distance away, but that
was simplistic. Careful reading of the paper showed that a subsequent study showed that moving one membrane with a single photon induced an opposite phase vibration in the other. If one knew that was happening with one tiny drum, one could predict what happened with the other. This is one demonstration of one kind of quantum entanglement. We should wait for others.

Howard was next; he had also mailed papers to all of us before the meeting; I found his story of
‘America’s Amazon in Alabama’ eye opening. He went through a series of aquatic species such
as Turtles – 27 kinds of freshwater turtles – 57% of all turtle species in North America,
Freshwater Mussels – 180 kinds of mussels – 59% of all mussel species in North America,
Crayfish – 85 kinds of Crayfish – 22% of all crayfish species in North America – in all these
examples, Alabama ranked in the nation. I have been to Mobile, AL twice but didn’t notice this
treasure trove of aquatic species, Minnesota has fewer lakes and rivers than Alabama.

Leni followed with a discussion taken from the book, The Brain’s Way of Healing, by Norman
Doidge. A doctor Moskowitz had years of chronic neck pain. As he became aware of studies
competitive neuroplasticity, he decided to use these principles, he concentrated on using those
ideas (no drugs) to end his pain. Initial progress was slow, but now he is more or less pain free, a remarkable story. I accept this account as possibly true. Several of the group speculated that this was a form of self-hypnosis. The main issue is: is this reproducible, or is it a one-off? I doubt
that it is reproducible. Likewise, the second chapter reports a man who walked off his Parkinsonian symptoms. Again, I think this is a one off beyond the pale of science. Many studies if exercise in Parkinsonism have been done and reported. They typically report some improvement in mood, some walking improvement, no change in falls or in overall quality of life. More than twenty studies have been done without producing any dramatic cures.

Bob finished up the presentations with a report of suspected resurgence of active nuclear fission
within the ruins and concreted over structure of Chernobyl reactor #4, which exploded
disastrously in 1986, In recent years, authorities monitoring the site have noticed increased
emission of neutrons, a hallmark of nuclear fission, and have noticed a waxing and waning of
neutron emissions after heavy rains, consistent the known ability of water to modulate fission
reactions. Chernobyl was once within the USSR, but when the Soviet Union broke up, it became
part of Ukraine. Russia has repeatedly promised to send money, experts, etc. to help but has done nothing. Now Ukraine has enlisted the help of Japan and the European union. Radiation intensity is too severe in reactor #4 to allow humans. There has been discussion of constructing a robot able to withstand the tremendous radiation, to go down into the basement and drill holes in the FCMs, fuel containing materials formed when everything melted down. It would then insert
boron cylinders which are neutron trapping materials.

Our next meeting will be Monday, June 14 th . I hope to see more people and more people with
items to present. We welcome all interested people and always benefit from comments made by
non-presenters. See you next month.

Something to think about:
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