retrospectacle | October 26, 2006Add one more nail in the coffin. A University of Central Florida professor, Costa Efthimiou, has mathmatically proven that vampires could never really exist. His logic goes:
On Jan 1, 1600, the human population was 536,870,911. If the first vampire came into existence that day and bit one person a month, there would have been two vampires by Feb. 1, 1600. A month later there would have been four, and so on. In just two-and-a-half years the original human population would all have become vampires with nobody left to feed on.
If mortality rates were taken into consideration, the population…
retrospectacle | October 25, 2006Two little gems from Bob Abu this morning (thanks!):
First is the Allen Brain Atlas, so named after the Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, whose goal is to create...
...a detailed cellular-resolution, genome-wide map of gene expression in the mouse brain. The completion of the sequencing of the mouse brain and the availability of techniques to probe gene expression amenable to scale-up and automation have made this an achievable, albeit ambitious, goal. The Allen Brain Atlas has created an automated platform for high-throughput in situ hybridization (ISH) that allows a highly systematic approach…
retrospectacle | October 24, 2006As has been reported by myself and others, Iceland has resumed commercial whaling, killing an endangered fin whale earlier this week. However, Norway and Japan have been engaging in commercial whaling, either blatantly or under the auspices of "scientific research," for quite some time. This is quite a sensitive issue in global politics, involving high emotions on either side. Pro-whalers argue that some commercial whale populations have rebounded and are viable for sustainable hunting, while anti-whalers argue that populations are over-inflated and outdated by the IWC and that the method…
retrospectacle | October 24, 2006Men with blue eyes prefer women who themselves have blue eyes, according to a new study published in the journal of Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. The reason for this may be an (unconscious) desire to keep tabs of the partner's fidelity, as a blue-eyed couple can only have blue-eyed children. So, if a resulting child has brown eyes (which is a dominant trait), there may be some cause for concern.
The scientists asked 88 students to rate the attractiveness of models based on pictures manipulated so that half of them had blue eyes and the other half had brown eyes. The blue-eyed men in…
retrospectacle | October 23, 2006
Did Iceland not get the memo, or what?
They just broke a 21-year international moratorium on commercial whaling by killing an endangered fin whale. Last week Iceland announced that it planned to resume commercial whaling (Norway and Japan already are doing it), flouting the ban put in place by the International Whaling Commission in 1985.
Now, they aren't going to be just harpooning willy-nilly; they will only take in 9 fin whales and 30 minke whales each year. This is in comparison to Norway's quota of 1052 minke whales per year, and whatever Japan catches for "research" purposes. What's…
retrospectacle | October 23, 2006Sometimes I get excited by graphs. Take this one for example.
Mixing Memory goes into detail here, as to why the Dems are a shoe-in for a Congress majority.
Yay.
retrospectacle | October 23, 2006The military is investing heavily in labs which are studying genes related to regeneration---specifically, the ability to regenerate limbs and organs. The motivation behind this is clear. As soldiers in Iraq and beyond are surviving wounds that previously would have been fatal, often their injuries include amputations which prevent them from returning to duty. The ability to replace lost limbs would be an awesome advancement in military medicine, and medicine in general. But is it really possible?
Other animals, such as salamanders, are able to spontaneously regenerate lost limbs and heal…
retrospectacle | October 23, 2006I've been trying to convince my friends for years that salvation could be found at Taco Bell. Now, I have irrefutable proof.
Valencia Phillips said she's not crazy, not so religious either. But even though Phillips was quite hungry one evening, she didn't dare bite into what she calls the "holy burrito."
"Right here, I see an emblazoned image of Jesus Christ on a burrito," Phillips said, pointing to the blackened image near the top right corner of the burrito she cooked for dinner. "It was amazing."
Um, so your saying you're *not* crazy. Huh.
(Hat tip somilista, FCD)
retrospectacle | October 22, 2006So, now the father of the Malawian boy, whom Madonna intends to adopt, was quoted saying that he did not want Madonna to adopt his son but rather just raise him on his behalf.
Banda's statement is a major shift from his earlier remarks last week when he railed against human rights groups that have gone to court to stop Madonna from adopting his son David.
"Had they told us that Madonna wanted to adopt my son and make him her own son, we would not have agreed to that," Banda said in his local language of Chichewa.
"It would have been better for him to continue staying at the orphanage because…
retrospectacle | October 21, 2006Gwenyth Paltrow has one. So does Angelina Jolie, U2's Bono, Meg Ryan, and Mia Farrow. Now Madonna wants one too. No, I'm not talking about the latest Dior sunglasses or Fendi purse (although I'm sure it would look fab on Bono)---the "in" accessory lately seems to be African orphans.
And this is entirely a good thing.
The previous paragraph was meant to be sarcastic---however the media, and several adoption activists, genuinely seem to feel that the motivation behind celebrity adoptions is positive PR. This is ridiculous. Although I am no starry-eyed celeb fanatic, I can admire their desire…
retrospectacle | October 20, 2006
This urinal, shaped like a woman's mouth, was located near Vienna's national opera in Austria. But it won't be there much longer--politicians have demanded its removal because they think it is sexist.
"We think that it's tasteless, misogynistic and offensive," Marianne Lackner, media spokeswoman for the Vienna Department of Women's Affairs told The Associated Press.
But according to this Yahoo news piece, the urinals have been around for 3 years. So, why all the fuss now?
Apparently, a McDonalds in Amsterdam also had a few of these urinals, and was also pressured to remove them back in July…
retrospectacle | October 20, 2006These photos from Brussels and Amsterdam are long overdue. I didn't take too many of Amsterdam as I *thought* I lost my camera for a little while. Although, I did find it when i got home.
After finally arriving in Brussels (and after an unplanned night in Paris, and a week in Montpellier), I made my way to La Dixseptieme on Rue de Madelaine. It was a good thing that the cabbie at the train station had a GPS navigation system, as he had no idea how to get anywhere. A far cry from London cabbies, thats for sure.
Rue de Madelaine:
La Dixseptieme was a house built in the 17th century which has…
retrospectacle | October 20, 2006A talk I saw at SFN received a news release which was emailed to me by a reader (thanks!). I didn't take notes during the talk, so this was a nice piece of serendipity.
The title of the talk was "Role of Sleep in Human Memory Consolidation and Reconsolidation" (Sunday, Oct 15 2006 9:15 AM - 9:35 AM) by Matthew Walker of Harvard, which was part of a symposia on "The Dynamic Nature of Memory."
In a nutshell, the talk detailed the effects of all-nighters on the hippocampuses (hippocampi?) of college students. Dr. Walker paid 10 undergrads to stay up all night, and then to undertake a memory…
retrospectacle | October 19, 2006
These are a few of my friends in the UM Neuroscience Program. We went out to dinner at Dante's Down the Hatch, which was a fondue place in a PIRATE SHIP!
Left to right: Ben Johnson, Edny Gula, Me, Lisa Briand, Darren Opland. And the beautiful Jen Chikar was taking the picture!
Another dinner: Me, Edny, and Jen
And, our well-stocked fridge, with all the necessities:
Nick at the Neurocontratian has posted some other (more relevent) pictures here.
retrospectacle | October 17, 2006CNN reports a new element, Element 118 as it is tentatively called, has been made using Californium. It is the heaviest element ever recorded, and was only in existence for 1,000 of a second.
The element was created last year in Russia using a minuscule amount of Californium provided by the Americans. After a millisecond, it decayed into element 114, then into element 112 and then split in half, Moody said.
Creating a new element "is sort of the Holy Grail of nuclear physics," said Konrad Gelbke, a scientist who was not on the team but directs the National Superconducting Cyclotron…
retrospectacle | October 17, 2006Monday afternoon at SFN there was a very interesting symposia on oxytocin and vasopressin as mediators of stress and aggression called "Oxytocin and Vasopressin: Central Regulators of Emotion". 51 years ago, the Nobel Prize was awarded to Vincent du Vigneaud for the structure of the oxytocin peptide, and research as to what it does has come a long way. A very intersting talk was by Craig Ferris (of U Mass Medical School), described under the fold. But first a little bit about oxytocin and vasopresin.
Oxytocin is a hormone and neurotransmitter which is involved in a variety of behaviors:…
retrospectacle | October 17, 2006Ever want to digitize everything in your life? (If you are a blogger, you may already be doing this....) Microsoft has a project in development called "MyLifeBits," which has been around for about 5 years and is headed up by computer engineer Gordon Bell. MyLifeBits would record all papers, faxes, phone calls, photographs, and home movies in a digital form----as well as create a searchable database of all your memories.
"The quest is to essentially build a surrogate memory. Something that's as good as my own memory, that I can use it as a supplement, and will remember everything that I should…
retrospectacle | October 16, 2006Saturday night here in Atlanta, worlds collided. Jake of Pure Pedantry, Evil Monkey of Neurotopia, Nick of the Neurocontrarian, a high school friend from South Carolina, and six of my fellow UM Neurokids all went out for tapas at Fuego (excellent mojitos!) and then danced the night away at Sutra next door. We shut the club down at 3am and then went back to our condo to drink a couple more hours. For the sake of retaining the last shred of dignity of all parties involved, I'll leave the details fuzzy (although I got free Hennessey, Nick got to first, and Evil Monkey was molested). But I will…