Are Motion Sickness Relief Bands Effective?

It seems that way. Motion sickness Relief Bands are thought to work by stimulating an acupressure point and interfering with nerve signals. Bear in mind that this is all theoretical. Presently, no one is absolutely sure why the product works or even if it works at all. So you may have to be the best judge as to whether it will work for you. The good news is that the electrical stimulation the Relief Bands provide is not unpleasant. Best of all, there are no side effects such as drowsiness, which is a common complaint from users of motion sickness relief medications.

There have not been any official studies to prove or disprove the effectiveness of motion sickness relief bands compared to regular medication, or even compared to a placebo. However, there are many people using them, and there is a lot of anecdotal evidence to suggest that they work. Motion sickness relief bands do not cause any of the side effects associated with traditional medication, and are thought by many people to be an effective treatment. They can be a little expensive, but they only need to be purchased once and last a very long time, whereas with medication you need to replace it every time it runs out.

The lack of side effects, and the ability to tweak the strength setting to find the right one for the situation means that motion sickness relief bands can be effective for a variety of situations. If you are a motion sickness sufferer, and find that you cannot reduce the symptoms through other means, then a motion sickness relief band could be the solution you are looking for.

http://www.submityourarticle.com/articles/Darlene-Berkel-1624/motion-sickness-relief-bands-20366.php

Producing Worst Nausea

Walter Johnson examined the question of what kinds of motion would cause the worst motion sickness. "This research culminated in a new finding, an essential finding, as to how the inner ear is maximally stimulated to produce nausea," he said. "We showed that the inner ear acts like a gyroscope. If you spin it in one plane and tilt the gyro in another plane, forces are set up to produce a stronger stimulus that is very nauseating. Say you’re in boat or plane that’s pitching up and down and your turn your head sideways—that’s the worse thing you could do. It’s more effective in causing nausea than anything."

The researchers invented diabolical machines that "would produce these terrible effects on people," said Johnson, who created a device that produced vertigo by spinning test subjects around like a top. Later, another machine, called the Precision Angular Mover, was developed; it rotated test subjects around all three axes—pitch, yaw and roll.

For vertical motion (heave), oscillation at a frequency of about 0.2 hz is the most provocative. (http://www.dizziness-and-balance.com/disorders/central/motion.htm)

http://www.space.gc.ca/asc/eng/astronauts/osm_aviation.asp

Thoughts on Sound Movement and Meaning

Rudolf Laban assumes the notion of impulse, the idea that every movement is the fruit of some
preparation, and identifies the following as effects that the dancer's initial impulse might produce :
fundamental movement, of part(s) of the body
tactile effect, a part of the body touches something else
support effect, a part of the body carries weight
prehensile effect, a part of the body grasps something
ambulatory effect, successive support-effects result in progressive movement
saltatory effect, the body is propelled into the air briefly
rebounce effect, thrusting or pushing away from
swinging or pendulum effect, passive hanging down of the body from some support.

Thoughts on Sound Movement and Meaning by Roger Reynolds, Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 16, No. 2. (Spring - Summer, 1978), pp. 181-190.

Coriolis Illusion

This involves the simultaneous stimulation of two semicircular canals and is associated with a sudden tilting (forward or backwards) of the pilot's head while the aircraft is turning. This can occur when you tilt your head down (to look at an approach chart or to write a note on your knee pad), or tilt it up (to look at an overhead instrument or switch) or tilt it sideways. This produces an almost unbearable sensation that the aircraft is rolling, pitching, and yawing all at the same time, which can be compared with the sensation of rolling down on a hillside. This illusion can make the pilot quickly become disoriented and lose control of the aircraft.

More spatial orientation illusions

The pilots' enjoyment of the spinning machines seems to come from surprises. "It's often connected to the unexpected," Bles says. Tilt the head while spinning with the eyes closed, for example, and suddenly, an intense tumbling sensation called the Coriolis illusion comes into play. "People find it fascinating," says Bles, "a very nice and unexpected sensation of movement." _Newsientist

D-BOX Quest Motion-Simulation Seat

D-BOX Seat has a 2-axis motion simulator system that's synchronized with onscreen action and sound. D-BOX actually encodes movies into their proprietary F/X motion codes that they can then download into the system. The idea is that viewers can then be physically immersed in the movie. The seating can be controlled with a Kinetron controller, or with a "Motion Controller Interface" and some PC software. There's also an Internet subscription service that allows users to access the D-BOX F/X Motion Code library, so that they can download the codes for the movie of their choice.

The Custom Motion Platform (lower picture) can be integrated in an existing (retrofit) or new home theater environments. It is typically configured with a recessed floor platform arrangement. Up to four seating combinations may be placed on a single platform.

Fastest Man on Earth

Col. John Paul Stapp, who rode a rocket sled to become the "fastest man on Earth" in 1954, died Saturday at his home in Alamogordo, New Mexico at age 89.

Stapp became an aerospace pioneer when he rode a rocket-driven sled to near-supersonic speeds to study the effects of extreme deceleration. As an aerospace physician, Stapp strove to understand the stresses jet pilots would face, including the rigors of ejecting during high-speed flight. He became his own test subject in 29 rocket-sled experiments. According to one aerospace historian, Stapp's Air Force Colleagues called him "one of the bravest men in the world."

He made his most famous ride on December 10, 1954. On that day, a rocket sled accelerated him from a standstill to a speed of 632 miles per hour in only five seconds. The sled was then brought to a stop in 1.4 seconds, subjecting Stapp to g-forces up to 40 times normal gravity. His expertise in medicine and biophysics allowed him to diagnose the effects of the punishing ride during and after the event.

Stapp's experiments were used to help design safer aircraft and ejection seats, and gave researchers an idea of the stresses that might be experienced by future space travelers.

His work also had more down-to-earth benefits. It demonstrated the efficacy of wearing a seatbelt or safety harness in a car or airplane, showing that people were more likely to survive the impact involved in vehicular crashes if they used such restraints.

Postliteral Society

A postliterate society is a society wherein multimedia technology has advanced to the point where literacy, the ability to read written words, is no longer necessary. Many advanced science-fiction societies are postliterate. In the Earth society in Dan Simmons's Ilium (novel), for example, only Savi and Harman can read; Savi is a relic from an earlier age, and Harman is a contemporary of the society that has taught himself how to read.

Postliterate is markedly different from preliterate. A preliterate society has not yet discovered how to read and write; a postliterate society has moved beyond the need for reading and writing. All information is either transmitted via sound or some other, more complex means. Postliteracy is sometimes considered a sign that a society is approaching the technological singularity.

Following that, it is safe to presume that postiliterate writing will be asemic:

Asemic writing is a wordless open semantic form of writing. The word asemic means “having no specific semantic content”.

Illegible, invented, or primal scripts (cave paintings, doodles, children’s drawings, etc.) are all influences upon asemic writing. But instead of being thought of as mimicry of preliterate expression, asemic writing can be considered as a postliterate style of writing that uses all forms of creativity for inspiration.

Some asemic writing has pictograms or ideograms, which suggest a meaning through their shape. Other forms are shapeless and exist as pure conception within the garden of imagination and experience.

Asemic writing has no verbal sense, though it may have clear textual sense. Through its formatting and structure, asemic writing may suggest a type of document and, thereby, suggest a meaning. The form of art is still writing, often calligraphic in form, and either depends on a reader’s sense and knowledge of writing systems for it to make sense, or can be understood through aesthetic intuition.

Asemic writing can also be seen as a relative perception, whereby unknown languages and forgotten scripts provide templates and platforms for new modes of expression.

The Brave New World

Brave New World is a novel by Aldous Huxley, first published in 1932. Set in London in 2540 (or AF 632), the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology, biological engineering, and sleep-learning that combine to change society.

The world the novel describes is a utopia, albeit an ironic one: humanity is carefree, healthy and technologically advanced. Warfare and poverty have been eliminated and everyone is permanently happy due to government-provided stimulation. The irony is that all of these things have been achieved by eliminating many things that humans consider to be central to their identity — family, culture, art, literature, science, religion, and philosophy. It is also a hedonistic society, deriving pleasure from promiscuous sex and drug use, especially the use of soma, a powerful drug taken to escape pain and bad memories through hallucinatory fantasies. Additionally, stability has been achieved and is maintained via deliberately engineered and rigidly enforced social stratification.