Author of sci-fi/fantasy, horror and adventure/thriller fiction

What Science Says About Reading Fiction

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readingIt’s Science Thursday! This week’s topic: Studies show that reading is good for your brain.

Specifically, they show that reading produces powerful mental imagery and emotions. It’s a form of experience.

Even more, they show that by exposing readers to different people and situations, reading can cultivate empathy, which affects how people see others and relate to them.

One study, for example, showed that children who read HARRY POTTER books and identify with Potter as a character respond to his sympathy for people who are marginalized (e.g., “mudbloods”), leading to them becoming more sympathetic towards corresponding groups in society, such as immigrants and LGBT individuals.

One conclusion is that while reading is good for you, picking more sophisticated reads with more sophisticated characters is even better due to this effect.

Learn more here.

Romanian Cave Reveals Insect Kingdom

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A lost world for Science Tuesday!

About five million years ago, while humans were evolving in Africa, Movile Cave in Romania became cut off from the surface world, leading to a dramatic turn in evolution for its insect populations.

In the late 1980s, the cave was discovered and opened, and now offers scientists a look at a different world, though only some scientists have been allowed in out of fear of destroying the ecosystem’s balance.

With only half the oxygen as the surface atmosphere, the cave’s atmosphere is poisonous, rank with carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide. The air temperature is very warm. These conditions are very similar to what the surface on Earth was like billions of years ago. The ecosystem is based on bacteria that pull carbon from the air without the use of light. The bacteria form slime on water and walls that is eaten by small creatures that are in turn eaten by larger ones, everything in competition.

The cave’s denizens include spiders, water scorpions, centipedes, leeches and more. Most insects evolved to adapt to the darkness by losing their eyes while developing longer legs and antennae.

Learn more at Geek.com here, including some photos of the creatures.

Near Death Experience

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A number of people have died and been resuscitated but report having a lucid experience during death, which have been popularly dubbed near-death experiences (NDEs).

Science offers several theories but still cannot properly account for why this happens. If all experience occurs in the brain, how can such lucid experiences occur when the brain is starved of oxygen and there’s little to no activity? And if an NDE occurs under certain physical conditions, why isn’t the effect consistent?

The writer of this Salon article reviews the phenomenon and science in a very even-handed way and proposes that brain and consciousness may capable of operating separately, suggesting the possibility of consciousness living on after death.

It’s a fascinating subject. The review of the research is worth the read alone. I’m not sure I would agree with the conclusion. Our inability to find a consistent physical cause-effect isn’t proof of consciousness and brain being separate things. If that were true, wouldn’t all people get NDEs instead of a minority? We should let scientists continue to study it while keeping an open mind.

Personally, either way, I hope I get one when it’s my time to go.

Click here to read the article.
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