INTELLIGENCE ABOUT INTELLIGENCE
Earth-Shaking News about the Brain
Two Australian researchers, Lindsay Rowe and Mike Grayson, claim that human
brains are better than seismographs - they can detect pre-earthquake
tremors which seismographs cannot.
The pair claim that corrupted images shown on a computer-aided tomography scan
of a psychiatric patient taken seventeen minutes before a fatal earthquake
wrecked the New South Wales town of Newcastle in 1989, were caused by a
pre-earthquake tremor undetected by seismologists.
Lindsay Rowe told The Times of London, "If you really nail it down, it is
the first ever demonstration of a pre-earthquake tremor by non-seismological
means."
The quake measured 5.5 on the Richter scale, and struck the city of Newcastle,
100 miles north of Sydney, in December 1989 at 10.28 am. Twelve people died
and hundreds were injured. The Medical Journal of Australia reported in its
December 1996 issue that Mike Grayson, the hospital's chief radiographer, was
conducting the brain scan at 10.00 am. Grayson noticed unusual streaks
appearing on the scans taken at 10.11 am. The scan was completed at 10.20
am.
Eight minutes later the earthquake struck, destroying the scanning room but
happily leaving the patient and staff uninjured.
Grayson confirmed, "We believe the corrupted images were caused by a
pre-earthquake tremor that was undetected by seismologists."
The radiographers went on to say that it could be argued that the brain's
reaction was similar to the instinct in many animals that alerted them to
natural disasters before they happened. Grayson said that "If I ever saw that image on a screen again, I'd be the first out of the building!"
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