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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsUS diplomats' brains were shrunk by sonic attacks at Cuban embassy, scientific study says
American diplomats brains shrunk following an alleged sonic attack on the US Embassy in Cuba, according to a new study.
State-of-the-art brain imaging of staff members who suffered headaches, nausea and memory loss after hearing mysterious noises reveals significant structural changes, scientists have revealed.
Blame for the spate of unusual symptoms that afflicted diplomats at the Havana embassy between late 2016 and May 2018 has ranged from a deliberate attack using a mysterious sonic weapon to an abundance of Jamaican crickets.
More than 20 American staff members complained of hearing penetrating noises in their homes or nearby hotels.
[link:https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/07/23/us-diplomats-brains-shrunk-sonic-attacks-cuban-embassy-scientific/|
whopis01
(3,523 posts)Do you think those sonic beams could have been reaching all the way to Mar-a-Lago all these years?
dewsgirl
(14,961 posts)step of the way. I wonder what they know? Brain shrinking, absolutely terrifying.
chowder66
(9,081 posts)Here the results were baffling. The diplomats brains showed the opposite of what is seen with brain damage. Instead of rising, diffusivity fell in a region called the vermis, which handles visual and auditory signals. And instead of falling, fractional anisotropy in the region rose. Verma suspects the results are due to a drop in water content in the diplomats brains, but admits this is speculation. For now all we can say is that something happened and these people should be followed up with more imaging, she said.
Prof Paul Matthews, head of brain sciences at Imperial College London, was not impressed with the work and pointed at a number of important shortcomings. This paper would not meet usual standards for publication, particularly in a high-profile journal, were it not for the topicality of the findings, he said.
The differences are small, they do not correspond to known patterns of brain injury and could not be shown to have changed in the people before and after the exposure, Matthews said. There is little that one can conclude from what is presented: does it suggest that the people who were susceptible to the symptoms were more likely to have brains with these characteristics from the start or was there some unknown and difficult to conceive effect of the directional phenomenon that changed their brains? The mystery remains unsolved.
More at the link
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jul/23/brain-scans-of-us-embassy-staff-to-cuba-show-abnormalities