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This article is reposted from the old Wordpress incarnation of Not Exactly Rocket Science.
The idea of an out-of-body experiences seems strange and hokey - certainly not one that would grace one of the world's top scientific journals. So it may seem surprising that two years ago, Science published not one, but two papers that considered the subject through the lens of scientific scrutiny.
Out-of-body experiences are rare and can be caused by epileptic fits, neurological conditions such as strokes and heavy drug abuse. Clearly, they are triggered when something goes wrong in our brains.…
One of the challenges we faced with our new blogosphere initiative, Silence is the Enemy, was how to mobilize people to do something about the plight of rape victims. It's not that people don't have empathy for rape victims; it's that the experience of living in a war-torn nation where rape and murder are routine facts of life is so foreign and horrifying to us, we tend to tune it out. Part of the way to deal with this is to give people a clear mission - something simple they can do; in our case, donating to Doctors without Borders (as I am for the month of June), or writing to Congress, or…