3rd Jan

Completed morning program, but could not go for walk. In chamber from 1.15 to 4 pm.

It was a chilly day with mercury going down to a minimum level of about 2' C. We are having the coldest January in last 44 years. The tempo of agitation on the gang rape issue has come down. Delhi police filed charge-sheet in Saket court today . The front pages of newspapers have  reports of rape cases in different parts of the country. The majority of them involve the victims and people known/related to them, unlike the beastly gang rape case which shook the conscience of Delhi and other parts of the country. I hope something positive will come out of the current tempo against molestation of women and people behave well with the women.
Retired to sleep at 10.45 pm.

News of the Day: "The reason we blink? Most of the time it's so our brains can switch off

• When we blink, our brains goes into idle mode where thoughts wander freely, say Japanese researchers 
• These mental breaks can last anywhere from a split second to a few seconds before attention is fully restored
• Most of us take between 15 and 20 such moments of downtime per MINUTE
• We spend around 10 per cent of our waking hours with our eyes shut.
  And while it's commonly thought that we blink to keep our eyes lubricated, it seems a lot of the time it's because our brains need a little nap.
  New research suggests that the human brain uses that tiny moment of shut-eye to power down.
  Researchers from Japan's Osaka University found that the mental break can last anywhere from a split second to a few seconds before attention is fully restored.
  Scans that track the ebb and flow of blood within the brain revealed that regions associated with paying close attention momentarily go offline.
  The brain then goes into a 'default mode network', or idle setting.
  The same setting is engaged when our attention is not required by a cognitive task such as reading or speaking and our thoughts wander freel
  During this mode we tend to contemplate our feelings; we wonder what a friend meant by a recent comment; we consider something we did last week, or imagine what we'll do tomorrow.
  While listening to another person or reading, that usually comes at the end of a sentence and while watching a film, we're most likely to blink when an actor leaves the scene or when the camera shifts.
  Most of us take between 15 and 20 such moments of downtime per minute.
  The new research, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, studied 20 healthy young subjects in a brain scanner as they watched snippets from the British comedy Mr. Bean. 
  When subjects blinked, the researchers detected a momentary stand-down within the brain's visual cortex and somatosensory cortex -- both involved with processing visual stimuli - and in areas that govern attention.
  
  
  The new research, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, studied 20 healthy young subjects in a brain scanner as they watched snippets from the British comedy Mr. Bean. 
  When subjects blinked, the researchers detected a momentary stand-down within the brain's visual cortex and somatosensory cortex -- both involved with processing visual stimuli - and in areas that govern attention.
  Separate studies on blinking have shown that  while telling a lie, people have been found to blink less.
  In the seconds after telling a lie, however, the liar will blink far more frequently than a truth-teller."Mail On Line, dt. 03.01.2013.