Ghosts, the Paranormal, and the Big Bang

A team of German scientists examining material from the seabed beneath the Pacific Ocean think that they may have uncovered an important clue to the processes that kick-started the evolution of mankind. Drilling 15,750 feet below the surface, Gunther Korshinek and his colleagues, from the Technical University of Munich, have found deposits, dating back about 3 million years, of a rare form of iron, called iron-60, which is normally only found in exploding stars. The discovery of these rare iron deposits indicates that a massive explosion occurred close to the earth, around the same time that our earliest ancestors evolved. The team believe that such an explosion would have bombarded the Earth, for up to 300,000 years, in cosmic rays sufficiently strong to alter the climate. At precisely this time in Africa the climate did change quite abruptly - it became drier, the forests retreated, and the savannah opened up. As they lost their forest homes, our ancestors were pushed out of the trees, on to the ground, and then up on to 2 legs.

Depression seems to result from low levels of certain 'feel-good' chemicals in the brain. There are about billion nerve cells in the brain, which talk to each other using electrical signals. When these signals get to the end of one nerve cell they jump to the next at a site called a synapse, using a chemical messenger known as a neurotransmitter. One of the most important of these is a substance called serotonin, and people with depression tend to have low levels of this and similar chemicals. Antidepressants help to push up the levels of of these chemicals, helping to improve mood. St John's Wort is an example of a natural remedy that some people use, which is said to have a positive effect. Of course some people don't suffer from depression, but seasonal affective disorder (SAD), which can be worse at this time of year.

In the late 1970s scientists tackled this by using a very fast camera capable of taking 2000 pictures every second. Analysis of these images showed that a woodpecker's head tolerates a force of about 12 thousand times the force of gravity whenever it hits something, which is a considerable force going through its head, so why shouldn't it get brain damage? Well there are various woodpecker adaptations which means they are able to cope with this trauma, and one of them is that their skull bones are quite spongy which mean they can absorb shocks very well. Another adaptation is that a woodpecker's brain is small and so has a very big surface area to weight ratio, and so the force is spread over a large area. The photography also revealed that woodpeckers line their heads up very straight with whatever they tap into, so there's no rotational injury which, at least in people involved in car accidents, is a major cause of brain injury as delicate nerve fibres are torn by the brain trying to twist on itself.

There doesn't seem to be enough in this one, I'm afraid. These are things that can't be explained but it needs more for me to say yes or no whether this was a ghost. It needs more examination in more detail such as whether anyone has reported anything like this before.

This is a good point, we don't know why they can't be photographed. We don't know what ghosts are - whether they are something that has come back from the dead, or something else entirely. It would be brilliant if we could get photos, or even better would be a video. Stories of people saying they've got names from ghosts are probably not true.

It could have been something, but lots of people feel presences in houses. I would need to see a lot more to be convinced.