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Terrifying time loop: The man trapped in constant deja vu
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Terrifying time loop: The man trapped in constant deja vu

Some researchers believe deja vu is caused by neurons "misfiring" in the brain
Scientists believe the extraordinary case of a 23-year-old British man with "constant deja vu" may have been triggered by anxiety. It is the first time such a link has been made. But what is deja vu - and do we really know what causes it? 


Most of us know the feeling - the fleeting sensation that you have been somewhere or done something before, when common sense tells you that is not possible.

The term deja vu translates literally from French as "already seen".

According to research, about two thirds of us experience at least one deja vu in our lifetime, yet very little is known about what causes it. 

The group of scientists from the UK, France and Canada who studied the strange case of the man with "chronic deja vu" think one possible cause of the phenomenon could be anxiety.

The man's condition was so persistent he avoided watching television, listening to the radio and reading newspapers because he felt he had "encountered it all before".

Dr Chris Moulin, a cognitive neuropsychologist at the University of Bourgogne who worked on the study, says the man had a history of depression and anxiety, and had once taken the drug LSD whilst at university, but was otherwise completely healthy.

"This man was striking because he was young, otherwise aware, but completely traumatised by this constant sensation that his mind was playing tricks," he says.

Frightening time loop
 
For minutes, and sometimes even longer, the patient would feel that he was reliving experiences.
He likened the "frightening" episodes to being in the psychological thriller film Donnie Darko.

"There was one instance where he went to get a haircut. As he walked in, he got a feeling of deja vu. Then he had deja vu of the deja vu. He couldn't think of anything else," says Dr Moulin.

For eight years, the man felt "trapped in a time loop". The more distressed he became by the experience, the worse it seemed to get.
 
 Haven't I read this before?

 
The term deja vu was coined in 1876 by the French philosopher Emile Boirac. It is the overwhelming sense that you have already experienced something before. But there are other, lesser known, phenomena which are thought to be related.
 
Jamais vu - translated as "never seen", this is the sense that something which should be familiar is alien, for example a common word which suddenly seems strange.
Presque vu - translated as "almost seen", this is the sense of being on the edge of an epiphany or realisation, for example recalling a memory.
Déjà entendu - translated "already heard", this is the sense of feeling sure you have heard something before, like a snippet of conversation or a musical phrase.
Saturn's aurora
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Saturn's aurora


Saturn's aurora, a ghostly ultraviolet glow that illuminates the gas giant's upper atmosphere near the poles, has a heartbeat that pulses in tandem with the planet's radio emissions, scientists have discovered.

The pulsing auroras on Saturn occur about once every 11 Earth hours or so ? the length of one day on the ringed planet, researchers found.
 
"This is an important discovery for two reasons," said study leader Jonathan Nichols of the University of Leicester in England. "First, it provides a long-suspected but hitherto missing link between the radio and auroral emissions, and second, it adds a critical tool in diagnosing the cause of Saturn's irregular heartbeat."

Saturn's heartbeat

Like all magnetized planets, Saturn emits radio waves into space from its polar regions.

These emissions pulse at intervals of about 11 hours. During the twin Voyager missions, both launched in 1977, the timing of the pulses were thought to represent the planet's rotational period.

But, observations over the years noted that the pulsing of the radio emissions has varied. Since the rotation of a planet cannot easily change speed, the source of Saturn's fluctuating radio period mystified planetary scientists.

Similarly, the length of a day on Saturn has generated debate, since traditional clocks are unreliable timekeepers in determining the rotational period of a planet with no solid surface for reference.

In a new study, researchers show that, not only do radio emissions pulse, the planet's auroras also beat in tandem.

Auroras on Saturn

Nichols and his team used images of Saturn's auroras from the Hubble Space Telescope that were obtained between 2005 and 2009. The findings of the study will be published in the Aug. 6 edition of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

On Earth, auroras are caused when charged particles in space stream down the planet's magnetic field lines toward the poles. The interaction of these particles with atoms of nitrogen and oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere cause them to glow.

Auroras on Earth can occur when the planet's magnetic field is bombarded by particles emitted by the sun. On Saturn, auroras can occur when moons such as Enceladus or Io expel particulate material into the near-planet space.

It was long suspected that Saturn's radio waves were emitted by these charged particles as they traveled toward the poles, but radio-like pulsing had not been observed in Saturn's aurora. This puzzled astronomers, since the two phenomena were seemingly related.

In this recent study, however, Nichols and his team of researchers used the clock of Saturn's radio pulsing to organize the planet's aurora data.

They also stacked the results from all of Hubble's Saturn aurora images (obtained from 2005 to 2009) on top of each other. By doing this, the aurora pulsing finally revealed itself.

"This confirms that the auroras and the radio emissions are indeed physically associated, as suspected," Nichols said. "This link is important, since it implies that the pulsing of the radio emissions is being imparted by the processes driving Saturn's aurora, which in turn can be studied by the NASA/ESA spacecraft Cassini, presently in orbit around Saturn. It thus takes us a significant step toward solving the mystery of the variable radio period."


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