Animated Neuro-Microscopy thru transparent Brains
Whoa! Wissenschaftler in Stanfort haben ein Gel entwickelt, das Gehirne transparent macht, dabei aber Zellstrukturen und sogar die Biochemie soweit erhält, dass die Gehirn-Aktivitäten sichtbar gemacht werden können. Das Ergebnis ist knallbunte Hirn-Mikroskopie auf Zellebene, die tatsächliche Strukturen des Neuronennetzes zeigt. Fantastisch!
Scientists at Stanford University reported on Wednesday that they have made a whole mouse brain, and part of a human brain, transparent so that networks of neurons that receive and send information can be highlighted in stunning color and viewed in all their three-dimensional complexity without slicing up the organ.
Even more important, experts say, is that unlike earlier methods for making the tissue of brains and other organs transparent, the new process, called Clarity by its inventors, preserves the biochemistry of the brain so well that researchers can test it over and over again with chemicals that highlight specific structures and provide clues to past activity. The researchers say this process may help uncover the physical underpinnings of devastating mental disorders like schizophrenia, autism, post-traumatic stress disorder and others.
New York Times: Brains as Clear as Jell-O for Scientists to Explore
Stanfort: Getting CLARITY: Hydrogel process developed at Stanford creates transparent brain
Wired: Scientists Make Brains Transparent to Get a Better Look Inside
Binary Structure of Perfect Numbers
Ich wusste, dass es nur sehr wenige Vollkommene Zahlen gibt, das sind Nummern, die gleich der Summe ihrer Teiler sind, also zum Beispiel 6 (3+2+1) oder 28 (14+7+4+2+1). Bis heute hat man keine ungerade Perfekte Zahl gefunden, kann aber ausschließen, dass sie kleiner als 101500 ist. Was ich allerdings nicht wusste, ist, dass Vollkommene Zahlen in Binärer Schreibweise ein ziemlich interessantes Muster aufweisen:
A number is said to be perfect if it equals the sum of its divisors: 6 is divisible by 1, 2, and 3, and 1 + 2 + 3 = 6. […]
Perfect numbers are rare. No one knows whether an infinite quantity exist, and no one knows whether any of them are odd. The early Greeks knew the first four, and in the ensuing two millennia we’ve uncovered only 44 more. But they have one thing in common — they reveal a curious harmony when expressed in base 2.
The Science of Laziness
Wissenschaftler haben herausgefunden, warum ich so ein fauler Sack bin. tl;dr: Ich kann da nix ‘für, die Gene sind schuld. Und ja, ich hab’ ein falsch geschriebenes Tag für Faulheit, aber ich hab’ grade echt keine Lust, das zu korrigieren. Meh.
“We have shown that it is possible to be genetically predisposed to being lazy,” Booth said. […]
Roberts and Booth put rats in cages with running wheels and measured how much each rat willingly ran on their wheels during a six-day period. They then bred the top 26 runners with each other and bred the 26 rats that ran the least with each other. They repeated this process through 10 generations and found that the line of running rats chose to run 10 times more than the line of “lazy” rats.
Once the researchers created their “super runner” and “couch potato” rats, they studied the levels of mitochondria in muscle cells, compared body composition and conducted thorough genetic evaluations through RNA deep sequencing of each rat.
Couch Potatoes May Be Genetically Predisposed to Being Lazy, Rat Study Suggests
Malformed Brain-Photography
Andy Deemer war im Hirnmuseum in Bangalore, Indien, und hat ein paar sehr nette Bilder mitgebracht (via BB). Und ein paar Tage vorher hatte Adam Voorhes ein paar Bilder einer Fotoserie über missgebildtete Gehirne gepostet, die er damals in der Uni Austin für Scientific American gemacht hatte. BRAINS!
Two years ago Scientific American magazine sent me to the University of Texas at Austin to borrow a human brain. They needed me to photograph a normal, adult, non-dissected brain that the university had obtained by trading a syphilitic lung with another institution. The specimen was waiting for me, but before I left they asked if I’d like to see their collection.
I walked into a storage closet filled with approximately one-hundred human brains, none of them normal, taken from patients at the Texas State Mental Hospital.
Malformed – A Collection of Human Brains from the Texas State Mental Hospital
Thoughts as Passwords
In Berkeley forschen sie grade an einem Passwort-Ersatz durch Brainwaves, die ultimative Biometrie – neurometrische Security, sozusagen.
The team conducted a series of experiments to determine whether the single EEG channel provided high enough signal quality for accurate authentication. For authentication, the computer needs to be able to accurately and consistently distinguish your brainwave patterns from someone else’s. By selecting customized tasks for each user and then customizing each user’s authentication thresholds, the team was able to reduce error rates to below 1%, comparable to the accuracy of more invasive multi-channel EEG signals.
Phys.org: Forget your password: The future is ‘passthoughts’ (via AnimalNY)
UC Berkeley School of Information: NEW RESEARCH: COMPUTERS THAT CAN IDENTIFY YOU BY YOUR THOUGHTS
Martyl Langsdorf, Designer of the Doomsday Clock, R.I.P.
Martyl Langsdorf, die die weltberühmte Apokalypsen-Uhr gestaltet und damit eine eigene Metapher geschaffen hat („5 vor 12“), verstarb vor zwei Wochen im Alter von stolzen 96 Jahren. Das Design entstand für die Juni 1947-Ausgabe des Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, zwei Jahre nach den Atombombenexplosionen von Hiroshima und Nagasaki. Die Uhr wurde seitdem in „echt“ nachgebaut und die Zeiger wurden bislang 18 mal umgestellt, derzeit steht sie wieder auf „5 vor 12“.
Die Dame war die Ehefrau von Alexander Langsdorf Jr., Mitarbeiter des Manhattan Projects, der mit dem ersten Bit tatsächlich nutzbaren Plutoniums für die Einsatzfähigkeit der ersten Atombombe sorgte – und sich danach gegen den Einsatz der Bombe eingesetzt hatte.
Nachruf bei der Washington Post, der Design Observer hatte vor zwei Jahren anlässlich der „Zeitumstellung“ ein längeres Stück zur Uhr:
Martyl had set the minute hand at seven to midnight on that first cover “simply because it looked good.” Two years later, the Soviet Union tested their own nuclear device and the arms race was officially launched. “We do not advise Americans that doomsday is near and that they can expect atomic bombs to start landing on their heads a month or a year from now,” wrote the Bulletin’s editors. “But we think they have reason to be deeply alarmed and to be prepared for grave decisions.” To emphasize the seriousness of the moment, the Clock was moved forward to three minutes to midnight. The static graphic emblem was thus transformed into a sort of political performance art, and the clock has been moved 18 times since, each time signifying an intensification or moderation of nuclear tensions.
With each change, Martyl’s Clock became more deeply entrenched in the public imagination. The Doomsday Clock has been referenced in songs by Iron Maiden, The Who, and Bright Eyes. As a theme it dominates Alan Moore’s graphic novel Watchmen and Senator Tom Harkin’s treatise Five Minutes to Midnight. Over the years, the non-specific simplicity of the symbol was able to accommodate the new threats of climate change and bioterrorism.
NASA will indeed catch an Asteroid
Gerüchte darum gab’s schon eine Weile, jetzt wurden sie bestätigt: Die NASA wird in ihrer nächsten größeren Mission einen 500-Tonnen Asteroiden einfangen, in einen Orbit um den Mond befördern und dann Astronauten da hoch schicken. Die Aktion ist noch nicht offiziell bekannt gegeben, NBC schreibt von einem offiziellen Sprecher des Weißen Hauses, der die Pläne anonym weitergegeben hat.
The asteroid retrieval mission is based on a scenario set out last year by a study group at the Keck Institute for Space Studies. NASA’s revised scenario would launch a robotic probe toward a 500-ton, 7- to 10-meter-wide (25- to 33-foot-wide) asteroid in the 2017 time frame. The probe would capture the space rock in a bag in 2019, and then pull it to a stable orbit in the vicinity of the moon, using a next-generation solar electric propulsion system. That could reduce the travel time for asteroid-bound astronauts from a matter of months to just a few days. […]
He said the plan had been under discussion for months, but quickly came together after February’s meteor blast over Russia. The meteor’s breakup injured more than 1,000 people and sparked a worldwide sensation. It also sparked a series of congressional hearings about threats from space, during which Republicans as well as Democrats hinted that they would support more funding to counter asteroid threats.
White House confirms NASA’s plan: Grab an asteroid, then focus on Mars (via Gizmo)
Human-2-Rat Brain-Interface: Interspecies Telepathy, check
Youtube Direktrat, via io9
Vor ein paar Wochen hatte ich erst über das erste Brain-2-Brain-Interface zwischen zwei Ratten gebloggt, schon isses outdated Retrotech und sowas von Februar 2013. Jetzt haben Wissenschaftler nämlich das Gehirn eines Menschen mit dem Gehirn einer Ratte verbunden und der Mann hat per Gedankenübertragung mit dem Schwanz der Ratte gewackelt. Erste Interspecies-Telepathie, sozusagen, und über telepathisches Interspecies-Schwanzwackeln kann man wahrscheinlich haufenweise Witze reißen, mir fällt nur grade keiner ein.
Now Seung-Schik Yoo of Harvard Medical School in Boston and colleagues have created a system that connects a human to a rat via a computer, without the need for the human or the rat to have brain implants. The human volunteers wore electrode caps that monitored their brain activity using electroencephalography (EEG). Meanwhile, an anaesthetised rat was hooked up to a device that made the creature’s neurons fire whenever it delivered an ultrasonic pulse to the rat’s motor cortex. […]
Yoo says it should be possible for two humans to use a similar system in the foreseeable future. Such a system could, for instance, be used to help a paralysed person relearn to use their limbs by having their therapist initially move them with their mind.
New Scientist: Interspecies telepathy: human thoughts make rat move
Paper: Non-Invasive Brain-to-Brain Interface (BBI): Establishing Functional Links between Two Brains
Vorher auf Nerdcore:
Brain 2 Brain-Interface in Rats: Check.
Cthulhu Macrofasciculumque and his Daughter
Darf ich vorstellen? Cthulhu Macrofasciculumque und Cthylla Microfasciculumque. Die beiden sind ein paar Mikrometer große Parasiten, die in Termiten leben und weil sie wie Octopusse aussehen, hat man die beiden nach Cthulhu und seiner Tochter Cthylla benannt. Iä! Iä! Shub-Niggurath! As a foulness shall ye know Them.
The researchers decided to name them after monstrous cosmic entities featured in Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos as an ode to the sometimes strange and fascinating world of the microbe. “When we first saw them under the microscope they had this unique motion, it looked almost like an octopus swimming,” says UBC researcher Erick James, lead author of the paper describing the new protists, published in the online journal PLoS ONE.
The octopus-like movements and appearance of both protists reminded James of the horrid Cthulhu and Cthylla, and the little protists were baptized after the two monsters. Cthulhu is often depicted as a giant, octopus-like entity with wings. Cthylla is his daughter, and has a similar appearance.
UBC: Tiny octopus-like microorganisms named after science fiction monsters (via The Lovecraftsman)
Paper: Cthulhu Macrofasciculumque n. g., n. sp. and Cthylla Microfasciculumque n. g., n. sp., a Newly Identified Lineage of Parabasalian Termite Symbionts
Neurofiction
Hirngesteuerte Roboter und Games sind sowas von 2010. Der neue heisse Scheiß sind Storys, die sich während des Lesens den Gehirnaktivitäten des Lesers anpassen: Neurofiction. Gibt auch bereits ein mit Open Source Neuro-Software realisiertes Beispiel.
In neurofiction, the story’s effect on the reader’s brain – electrical activity of their neurons – is captured using an electroencephalography headset. Using an algorithm that learns what themes and elements engage each reader, our neurofiction engine turns this data into a unique path through the story. The reader can be guided to one of multiple possible endings or allowed to explore a new region of the story space.
Note that neurofiction is not interactive fiction: the reader experiences the story as linear, calm and immersive, as if reading a book. But by opening themselves to be read, neurofiction readers become subconscious collaborators in the creation of a new narrative.
Neurofiction (via Waxy)
Slowmotion Duck Penis, GIF’d
Impressive, most impressive: Einmal Enten-Zeitlupen-Penis als GIF. Wer mehr über Genitalien von Federvieh wissen will, there you go:
Male ducks have elaborate corkscrew-shaped penises, the length of which correlates with the degree of forced copulation males impose on female ducks. Females are often unable to escape male coercion, but they have evolved vaginal morphology that makes it difficult for males to inseminate females close to the sites of fertilization and sperm storage. Males have counterclockwise spiraling penises, while females have clockwise spiraling vaginas and blind pockets that prevent full eversion of the male penis.
3D-Printed Kinect-Scan-Fitted Masks
Schöne Arbeit von Do The Mutation, die eine Software für individuelle Masken per Kinect-3D-Scan und 3D-Drucker entwickelt haben. Mit Collagene kann man Masken beziehungsweise dreidimensionale passgenau auf Gesichter malen.
Vimeo Direktmasks, via Designboom
This project explores the border territory between physical and virtual, connecting computer code’s abstractions with the intimate, visceral dimension of body alteration’s sense brought by the mask theme. The topographic anatomy of the face acts as input for a set of algorithms that under designer’s control generate the fibers that form the object, creating a material formation that after 3d printing perfectly fits its territory, people’s faces.
The set of objects produced represent a population of differentiated individuals, phenotypes sharing the same genotype. No matter how many masks might be produced, they all will share the same genetic code. The system is then flexible in offering possibilities of formal and diagramatic variation, in creating even highly different objects, customizable on different faces and as expression of different designers.
Für das Konzept gibt es übrigens auch eine ganz praktische, medizinische Anwendung – als Gesichtsprothese nämlich. In England haben sie grade in einem ganz ähnlichen Verfahren eine neue Gesichtshälfte produziert:
after years of having people stare and recoil at his disfigurement, surgeons have employed cutting edge three-dimensional printing technology to create a prosthetic face for Mr Moger, 60, in what is thought to be the first procedure of its kind in Britain.
By making scans of what was left of his skull and using computers to recreate what his face would look like, they were able to use a new type of printer that builds up layer upon layer of nylon plastic to produce the components they would need.
Richard Dawkins pulls a XKCD: Science works, Bitches!
Youtube Direktbitches!, via Death and Taxes
Richard Dawkins auf die Frage eines Christen bei einem Diskussionspanel im Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, der die wissenschaftliche Methode in Frage stellt: „It works, Bitches!“ Was er selbst möglicherweise – vielleicht aber hoffentlich doch – gar nicht weiß: Er hat damit einen XKCD gepullt, und zwar den hier. Randall Munroe hat dazu auch ein Wiki und ein Shirt dazu gibt’s auch.
Dawkins’s response: „It works. Planes fly, cars drive, computers compute. If you base medicine on science, you heal people. If you base the design of planes on science, they fly. If you base the design of rockets on science, they reach the moon. It works … Bitches.“
Den kompletten Vortrag gibt’s hier: Richard Dawkins, Rowan Williams, Anthony Kenny: “Human Beings & Ultimate Origin” Debate
TED-Talk about gay Duck Necrophilia
Kein Aprilscherz, passt aber wunderbar: Kees Moeliker erklärt auf der TED-Konferenz den Dead Duck Day, den sie seit dem ersten Todestag 1996 zum Gedenken einer Ente feiern, die das erste dokumentierte Opfer schwuler Enten-Nekrophilie wurde. Darüber hat Moeliker dann eine Arbeit geschrieben und den Ig-Nobelpreis gewonnen. Der Talk hat wirklich alles, von Frosch-Goldfisch-Facefuck bis Kröten-Nekrophilie in Missionarsstellung. Hilarious!
On 5 June 1995 an adult male mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) collided with the glass façade of the Natuurhistorisch Museum Rotterdam and died. An other drake mallard ‘raped’ the corpse almost continuously for 75 minutes. Then the author disturbed the scene and secured the dead duck. Dissection showed that the rape-victim indeed was of the male sex. It is concluded that the mallards were engaged in an ‘Attempted Rape Flight’ that resulted in the first described case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard.
TED: How a dead duck changed the TED audience’s life
Kees Moeliker: The Duck
Virtual Depression-Diagnosis with Kinect-Hack
Das Institute for Creative Technologies an der University of Southern California arbeitet an virtuellen Psychotherapeuten namens SimSensei, die Depressionen anhand von Körpersprache und Mimik diagnostizieren können – mittels einem gehackten Kinect. Ein bisschen wie ein invertierter Voight-Kampff-Test.
A new program called SimSensei, still in the early stages of development, logs people’s subtle body language and fleeting facial expressions to help diagnose depression, the New Scientist reported. The program even comes with an animated avatar who asks patients questions, “Hmms” at appropriates times, and guides the conversation according to patient’s answers… all while tracking the patient’s movements using Microsoft Kinect sensors and face recognition software.
Kinect-Powered Virtual Therapist Tracks Your Body Language To Help Diagnose You
