We describe the serial MR imaging findings in a patient with spinal decompression sickness. In the acute phase, the spinal cord was swollen, with increased T2 signal in the posterior part of the column; 1 month later, marked contrast enhancement was noted in the same location; and 2 months later, the swelling and T2 signal had decreased. MR imaging may facilitate the early diagnosis of spinal d...

Decompression sickness is not an appreciated hazard among the private pilot community. This is of growing concern with the increasing number of nonpressurized aircraft capable of flying to altitudes in excess of 5,468 m (18,000 ft). A case report is presented of a 42-year-old pilot who apparently experienced decompression sickness at flight level 250 which went unrecognized until several months...

Decrements in performance on cognitive tasks resulting from pressure to perform (i.e., choking) are thought to be caused by interference with the ability to use explicit strategies (the distraction theory). This view suggests that pressure should improve performance on tasks for which explicit strategies hamper performance. This hypothesis was tested by giving subjects one of two nearly identic...

The next major earthquake to strike the ~7 million residents of the San Francisco Bay Area will most likely result from rupture of the Hayward or Rodgers Creek faults. Until now, the relationship between these two faults beneath San Pablo Bay has been a mystery. Detailed subsurface imaging provides definitive evidence of active faulting along the Hayward fault as it traverses San Pablo Bay and ...

In three experiments, subjects made shape discriminations of three-dimensional objects differing in orientation, number of bends, and location of bends (e.g., the central arm vs. a minor subarm). In general of bends, but only after a certain threshold of bends in the objects had been reached (Experiment 1). This effect was not due to the subjects' having to search for matching ends of the objec...

Psychological research suggests that trying to avoid a negative outcome and trying to attain a positive outcome have different effects on performance (Higgins, 1997). We explored this prospect by examining free throw performance among NBA basketball players at the ends of games when the player’s team was ahead or behind in a clutch situation. Players tended to shoot worse than their career aver...

Work in compressed air is a dangerous activity, whether it is carried on under water in a conventional diving suit, in self-contained breathing apparatus or in a diving bell, or in relatively dry conditions in a caisson or an underwater tunnel. Surprisingly large numbers of men have worked at one time or another in compressed air in tunnels or caissons and it is the dangers which arise to the h...

A model for the flexibility of DNA is proposed that is based on discrete variations in the direction of propagation in going from one subunit to the next. Expansion of the local free energy in terms of the local bending gives a Gaussian distribution function. The assumption of the independence of local bends on neighbors lead to very simple formulae for the persistence length and the characteri...