A technique called optogenetics has transformed neuroscience during the past 10 years by allowing researchers to turn specific neurons on and off in experimental animals. By flipping these neural switches, it has provided clues about which brain pathways are involved in diseases like depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. “Optogenetics is not just a flash in the pan,” says neuroscientist Robert Gereau of Washington University in Saint Louis. “It allows us to do experiments that were not doable before. This is a true game changer like few other techniques in science.” […]

The new technology relies on opsins, a type of ion channel consisting of proteins that conduct neurons’ electrical signaling. Neurons contain hundreds of different types of ion channels but opsins open in response to light. Some opsins are found in the human retina but those used in optogenetics are derived from algae and other organisms. The first opsins used in optogenetics, called channel rhodopsins, open to allow positively charged ions to enter the cell when activated by a flash of blue light, which causes the neuron to fire an electrical impulse. Other opsin proteins pass inhibitory, negatively charged ions in response to light, making it possible to silence neurons as well. […]

The main challenge before optogenetic therapies become a reality is getting opsin genes into the adult human neurons to be targeted in a treatment. In rodents researchers have employed two main strategies: transgenics, in which mice are bred to make opsins in specific neurons—an option unsuitable for use in humans. The other method uses a virus to implant a gene into a neuron. Viruses are currently being used for other types of gene therapy in humans, but challenges remain. Viruses must penetrate mature neurons and deliver their gene cargo without spurring an immune reaction. Then the neuron has to express the opsin in the right place, and it has to go on making the protein continuously—ideally forever.

{ Scientific American | Continue reading }

Under ancient Jewish law, if a suspect on trial was unanimously found guilty by all judges, then the suspect was acquitted. This reasoning sounds counterintuitive, but the legislators of the time had noticed that unanimous agreement often indicates the presence of systemic error in the judicial process, even if the exact nature of the error is yet to be discovered. They intuitively reasoned that when something seems too good to be true, most likely a mistake was made.

[A] team of researchers has further investigated this idea, which they call the “paradox of unanimity.” […] The researchers demonstrated the paradox in the case of a modern-day police line-up, in which witnesses try to identify the suspect out of a line-up of several people. The researchers showed that, as the group of unanimously agreeing witnesses increases, the chance of them being correct decreases until it is no better than a random guess.

{ Phys.org | Continue reading }

The man with a bionic penis will lose his virginity to a dominatrix who ran for parliament

Conventional wisdom and research seem to suggest that partners in dual career-couples have to decide whether they would rather risk their careers or their romantic relationship. There was no negative association between working time and relationship satisfaction.

Smart People Live Longer Than Not-Smart People, Study

The woman who can smell Parkinson’s disease

Military importance of diarrhea: lessons from the Middle East

Why more and more vultures eat their prey butt first

The Nano Membrane Toilet – a toilet which aims to treat human waste in the home without external energy or water

Hidden portrait ‘found under Mona Lisa’, says French scientist

What is a hydrogen bomb?

Just north of the San Andreas lies another fault line. Known as the Cascadia subduction zone, it runs for seven hundred miles off the coast of the Pacific Northwest, beginning near Cape Mendocino, California, continuing along Oregon and Washington, and terminating around Vancouver Island, Canada. We now know that the odds of the big Cascadia earthquake happening in the next fifty years are roughly one in three.

Suspended forest, birds and electric guitars

Data Mining Reveals How Smiling Evolved During a Century of Yearbook Photos

“Near Death by Chocolate” experience

A basic feature of psychological processes is their irreversibility. Every experience changes a person in a way that cannot be completely undone… one must assume that persons are continuously and irreversibly changing. […]

The logic of inductive inference entails that what is observed under given conditions at one time will occur again under the same conditions at a later time. But this logic can only be applied when it is possible to replicate the same initial conditions, and this is strictly impossible in the case of irreversible processes.

As a result, no psychological theory can attain the status of a “law”, and no result will be perfectly replicable.

{ Neuroskeptic | Continue reading }

Italy: Town bans pizza-making over soaring pollution

Woman whose body turns food into alcohol beats drink-drive charge

A new study has found that watching yourself eat something unhealthy, like a slice of chocolate cake, can make that food seem less tasty. And that, in turn, might make you eat less.

Hunger Promotes Fear Extinction

By one estimate, as many as 40 percent of people experience constipation while they’re away from home

Blind person to receive “bionic eyes, ” camera mounted on a pair of glasses will feed information directly to the brain.

Physicists Say Consciousness Might Be a State of Matter

How do we know when we have seen enough information, and that we should stop any further input in order to avoid some form of information overload? [PDF]

The number of active contributors in Wikipedia has been declining steadily for years, and suggests that a sharp decline in the retention of newcomers is the cause. [PDF]

On the Surfaces of Things

Apple faces $5 million lawsuit over allegedly slowing the iPhone 4S with iOS 9

What makes the drone community believe deliveries are a good idea? Assuming the technology works, do the economics make sense?

Stroboscopic kissing scenes

As Stewart Brand acutely says, most of the things that dominate the news are not really new: love, scandal, crime, and war come round again and again. Only science and invention deliver truly new stuff, like double helixes and search engines. In this respect, the new news from recent science that most intrigues me is that we may have a way to explain why certain diseases are getting worse as we get richer. We are defeating infectious diseases, slowing or managing many diseases of ageing like heart disease and cancer, but we are faced with a growing epidemic of allergy, auto-immunity, and things like autism. Some of it is due to more diagnosis, some of it is no doubt hypochondria, but there does seem to be a real increase in these kinds of problems.

Take hay fever. It is plainly a modern disease, far more common in urban, middle-class people than it used to be in peasants in the past, or still is in subsistence farmers in Africa today. There’s really good timeline data on this, chronicling the appearance of allergies as civilization advances, province by province or village by village. And there’s really good evidence that what causes this is the suppression of parasites. You can see this happen in eastern Europe and in Africa in real time: get rid of worms and a few years later children start getting hay fever. […]

But how many of our modern diseases are caused by this problem—an impoverished ecology not just of parasites but of commensal and symbiotic micro-organisms too? Do kids today in the rich world have unbalanced gut flora after an upbringing of obsessive hygiene? Probably. How many diseases and disorders are the consequence of this? More than we think, I suspect—multiple sclerosis, obesity, anorexia, perhaps autism even.

[I]f you take the gut flora from an obese person and introduce it into a mouse with no gut flora, the mouse puts on weight faster than does another mouse with gut flora introduced from the obese person’s non-obese twin.

{ Edge | Continue reading }

Many people are keen on getting a skin tan despite being aware of warnings of health hazards. The present study investigates differences between women regularly using sunbeds and a control group of non-users in the areas of self-concept, narcissistic regulatory modalities, social assertiveness and generalized self-efficacy.

Thirty women users of suntan salons and 34 women who never used one were investigated with standardized psychological questionnaires. In addition, their knowledge about the hazards of using sunbeds and attitudes to tanning were recorded.

Statistical evaluation shows that sunbed users demonstrate more object devaluation: that is, other persons are devalued so that they are not even considered worthy of affection. Furthermore, they also display greater anxiety in their feelings and relationships with others. The results of this pilot study support the hypothesis that a tanned skin, by helping sunbed users to achieve their ideal of beauty, enables them to devalue other people and thus possibly to protect themselves from close relationships.

{ British Journal of Dermatology | Continue reading }

Poor posture can have ill effects that radiate throughout the body, causing back and neck pain, muscle fatigue, breathing limitations, arthritic joints, digestive problems and mood disturbances. It can also create a bad impression when applying for a job, starting a relationship or making new friends.

Poor posture can even leave you vulnerable to street crime. Many years ago, researchers showed that women who walked sluggishly with eyes on the ground, as if carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders, were much more likely to be mugged than those who walked briskly and purposely with head erect. […]

In a study of 110 students at San Francisco State University, half of whom were told to walk in a slumped position and the other half to skip down a hall, the skippers had a lot more energy throughout the day. […]

Leaning forward or slouching can also reduce lung capacity by as much as 30 percent, reducing the amount of oxygen that reaches body tissues, including the brain.

{ NY Times | Continue reading }

The present research examined whether possessing multiple social identities (i.e., groups relevant to one’s sense of self) is associated with creativity. In Study 1, the more identities individuals reported having, the more names they generated for a new commercial product (i.e., greater idea fluency). […] Results suggest that possessing multiple social identities is associated with enhanced creativity via cognitive flexibility.

{ Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin | Continue reading }

photo { Gregory Miller }

{ Ellsworth Kelly, White Brown, 1968 | Interview with Ellsworth Kelly, October 2013 | more }

The authors identify customers, termed “Harbingers of failure,” who systematically purchase new products that flop. Their early adoption of a new product is a strong signal that a product will fail—the more they buy, the less likely the product will succeed.

Firms can identify these customers through past purchases of either new products that failed or existing products that few other customers purchase. The authors discuss how these insights can be readily incorporated into the new product development process.

The findings challenge the conventional wisdom that positive customer feedback is always a signal of future success.

{ Journal of Marketing Research }

Man trying to time travel plows car into Florida businesses

Could Evolution Ever Yield a ‘Perfect’ Organism?

Resting in a quiet room for 10 minutes without stimulation can boost our ability to remember new information

Does Science Advance One Funeral at a Time?

So impressed was Wiener that he promised Pitts a Ph.D. in mathematics at MIT, despite the fact that he had never graduated from high school—something that the strict rules at the University of Chicago prohibited.

Research has found conflicting results regarding the profitability of movies that have big-name stars

Bahamas man arrested for hacking 130 celebrities, tried to peddle 15 movie scripts to an undercover Department of Homeland Security agent.

The largest operational cassette factory in the US reports an impressive increase in demand

A new transparent metal has been developed for smartphone and TV displays

World Maps Without New Zealand

Research has found that estradiol positively and progesterone negatively predicts women’s sexual desire. […]

The current study extended these findings by examining, within a sample of 33 naturally cycling women involved in romantic relationships, hormonal correlates of sexual attraction to or interests in specific targets: women’s own primary partner [in-pair] or men other than women’s primary partner [extra-pair]. […]

Whereas estradiol levels were associated with relatively greater extra-pair sexual interests than in-pair sexual interests, progesterone levels were associated with relatively greater in-pair sexual interests.

{ Hormones and Behavior | Continue reading }

photo { Maxime Ballesteros }

In every minute we have hundreds of thousands of body language signals that are pouring out from us and broadcasting how we’re feeling and thinking to everyone around. So even when you manage to control your facial expression consciously, sooner or later what’s called a “micro-expression” is going to flash. And even if it’s as fast as 17 milliseconds, people will catch that because that is how fast people read each others’ facial expressions. So trying to control your facial expressions is not just impossible, it will even backfire. Since the micro-expressions will be incongruent with the main expression, they’ll give the impression that something is not quite right and you can end up seeming fake — which, of course, ruins trust and charisma.

{ Olivia Fox Cabane | Continue reading }

Everyone on Earth is actually your cousin (the most distant relative would be a 15th cousin)

Why is So Much Reported Science Wrong

Researchers showed the more often people imagined eating a food, the less likely they were to eat it later.

Several studies have confirmed that chicken soup helps to unblock congested noses and throats

Dole is the world’s largest producer of bananas. It operates the largest refrigerated fleet, or reeferships, in the world.

Mark Zuckerberg should spend $45 billion on undoing Facebook’s damage to democracies

Why Are Projects Always Behind Schedule?

In 1971 the performance artist Chris Burden stood against the wall of a California art gallery and ordered a friend to shoot him through the arm. That .22 rifle shot was the opening salvo of a movement that came to be called “endurance art”—an unnerving species of performance art in which the performer deliberately subjects himself to pain, deprivation, or extreme tedium. How Art Became Irrelevant

Smallest inkjet color picture of the world is as small as the cross-sectional area of a human hair

She’s got a plant that not only “remembered” what happened to it but stored that memory for almost a month

The man who just wanted to make a dog poop lamp

We used the money to purchase an original 1962 Picasso. The 150,000 people who donated now have a chance to vote: should we donate this work to the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, or should we laser-cut it into 150,000 tiny squares and send everyone their own scrap?

me^rry = x - mas

In 2012, a genetic analysis confirmed that Concetta’s enhanced color vision can be explained by a genetic quirk that causes her eyes to produce four types of cone cells, instead of the regular three which underpin colour vision in most humans. […]

Women with four cone types in their retinas are actually more common than we think. Researchers estimate that they represent as much as 12% of the female population. […] A woman has the potential to produce four cone types because she inherits two X-chromosomes. […]

The three cone types that most of us have in our retinas allow us to see millions of colours. Each cone’s membrane is packed with molecules, called opsins, which absorb lights of some wavelengths and cause the cone to send electrical signals to the brain. […]

Four cones don’t automatically grant you superior color vision. […] Only one of the seven women with four cones behaved as if she actually perceived differences between the colour mixtures that were invisible to everyone apart from her sons.

{ The Neurosphere | Continue reading }

Man Beaten to Death For Shouting Spoiler After Star Wars Movie Premiere

Eating Lettuce Is More Than Three Times Worse in Greenhouse Gas Emissions Than Eating Bacon, Study

Our results indicate that garlic consumption may have positive effects on perceived body odour hedonicity

Have you ever been presented with an opportunity to cheat, but, paradoxically, just didn’t have the energy to bother? You may have been suffering from ‘Ego-Depletion’

Forgetting is key to learning

Science’s Breakthrough of the Year: CRISPR genome-editing technology

Netflix has created ’smart’ socks that sense when you fall asleep and pause the show you’re watching

MIT algorithm can predict which photographs people will find most memorable

The long, incredibly tortuous process of creating a Chinese font

The sad economics of internet fame

iPhones are autocorrecting ‘lardass’ to ‘Kardashian’

In an unusual new paper, a group of German neuroscientists report that they scanned the brain of a Catholic bishop: Does a bishop pray when he prays? And does his brain distinguish between different religions? […]

Silveira et al. had the bishop perform some religious-themed tasks, but the most interesting result was that there was no detectable difference in brain activity when the bishop was praying, compared to when he was told to do nothing in particular.

{ Neuroskeptic | Continue reading }

related { How brain architecture leads to abstract thought }

photo { Steven Brahms }

boston/camb/brook > services > event services
Living Elf on the Shelf

For $100/hour I will come to your holiday party dressed as the Elf on the Shelf and sit in any location you assign me while I stare emptily at your guests for the duration of the event.

I specialize in holiday themed events, either yours or an un-expecting friend’s, but I also offer contracted private investigation and babysitting services. Please inquire about these rates, as they are negotiable based on the task at hand.

My services have been in high demand this season, so I now require at least 48 hours notice in advance of any bookings and appreciate your understanding.

Thank you, and happy holidays!

[whatever you want my name to be]

{ craigslist | Continue reading }

The misogynic CEO then outraged music fans when he said he has no plans to stream the new Wu-Tang album after he bought the sole copy for millions. “If Taylor Swift wants to come over and suck my d—, I’ll play it for her,” he said.

{ NY Daily News | Continue reading | More: Vanity Fair }