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Unutarnji pismonose / Internal letter-carriers by ~strybor [Croatia]
ALLEGORICAL SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATIONSYNAPSES & NEUROTRANSMITTERS
The cages are pre-synaptic vesicles,
freeing the bird-neurotransmitters, which,
when they position themselves on the branches - receptors, activate the trees which then
make their roots transfer more messages into the neuron’s body.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/4d9a0373cc43fd86067efd9818219e3a/tumblr_mlhhwivFiJ1rhb9f5o1_500.jpg)
Unutarnji pismonose / Internal letter-carriers
by ~strybor [Croatia]ALLEGORICAL SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATION
SYNAPSES & NEUROTRANSMITTERS
- The cages are pre-synaptic vesicles,
- freeing the bird-neurotransmitters, which,
- when they position themselves on the branches - receptors,
activate the trees which then- make their roots transfer more messages into the neuron’s body.
(via anothershittyscienceblog)
Biochemists Create Enzyme-Based Memory Capable of Learning
Electronic processors are highly efficient at certain types of computation. For example, a standard PC can vastly outperform any human at arithmetic. However, computer scientists have long been fascinated by the ability of biological systems to do tasks, such as face recognition, at speeds and a power efficiency that put the most powerful supercomputers to shame.
Clearly, biology is able of computing in ways that traditional processors have failed to capture, which is why there is a significant interest in unconventional methods of computing that explore new ways of processing information.
One form of unconventional computing is biochemical and involves using molecules to encode information and using chemical reactions to process it. Nature has developed highly complex machinery for doing this so much of the focus has been on exploiting biological molecules for this task, using proteins, DNA and the like.
Today, Vera Bocharova and a few pals at Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York, say they ‘ve used a set of enzymes to create a memory system that can “learn” to produce a specific output given a certain input. They says this system can even “unlearn” again later. “We report the first realization of a simple variant of associative memory in an enzymatic biochemical process,” they say.
(via First Enzyme-Based Memory Created in the Lab | MIT Technology Review)
I don’t know how much writing experience you already have. Assuming you have none or little, you must write. If you have the opportunity to take a journalism class before you complete your pharmacy degree, do it. All science and medical writers — even the ones who do not plan to become journalists or PR writers like myself — should learn the art of communicating factually, simply, and succinctly. These are great skills that can be applied to other ways of communicating, like writing lesson plans, or museum placards, etc. Ideally you will write things that don’t just end up in your tumblr, but are actually edited and published somewhere. The give-and-take you have with an editor is crucial to the writing process, and it helps you be a better communicator, too. Likewise, knowing that your writing will be published helps you take what you’re doing more seriously. You’re also going to need real, actual “clips” when you apply for internships and jobs.
Join a professional organization of medical and/or science writers. There are a gajillion medical/science writing organizations out there. Here is a list: http://www.wfsj.org/associations/. In the USA the most popular group is the National Association of Science Writers. Most if not all of these groups will provide resources and help for young writers, including fellowship and training opportunities.
Find someone who is doing what you want to do and get to know him or her. Ask questions. Meet, if possible, in a public place if that makes you nervous. Like most any business, half of this business is about knowing people.
Read. Every day. Get to know the language writers use for different types of audiences. I can’t stress enough the importance of reading. It’s like learning a language — you need to immerse yourself in writing to get good at it.
It is known as the cinnamon challenge …now doctors and poison control experts are warning people that this seemingly harmless dare is more dangerous than it appears. A report published in the journal Pediatrics on Monday found that the stunt has led to a growing number of calls to poison control centers and visits to emergency rooms. Some teenagers have suffered collapsed lungs and ended up on ventilators.
“Doctors and poison control experts” are so uncool.
Where were they two years ago when this was still a thing?
I like this permutation.
(Source: sciencejokes, via theislandbyshaz)
Might be time for kids to get their allowances in the form of debit card deposits.
Abstract
It has long been suspected that the illicit distribution of cocaine in the United States has led to a large-scale contamination of the currency supply. To investigate the extent of contamination, 418 currency samples (4174 bills) were collected from 90 locations around the United States from 1993 to 2009. The extent of their cocaine contamination was quantitated via gas chromatography/mass spectrometry or liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry. The level of cocaine contamination was determined to average 2.34 ng/bill across all denominations ($1, $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100). Levels of cocaine contamination on currency submitted to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Laboratory in criminal cases over the 1993–2001 timeframe had significantly higher contamination than currency in general circulation. A mathematical model was developed based on the background survey that indicates the likelihood of drawing a bill in specific concentration ranges. For example, there is a 0.8349 likelihood that random bill will have contamination less than 20 ng.
It upsets some young parents to learn that, according to most developmental psychologists, babies aren’t actually conscious until their first birthdays at the earliest, and possibly as late as the middle of their second years (18 months).
Abject denial is based on nothing rational, of course, just that the baby looks like a little human, and consciousness being a generally accepted and fundamental attribute of humanness, the suggestion young babies are not conscious is to diminish the humanness of the human they created. “No offense, but your baby isn’t quite human yet.”
Never mind that “consciousness” is a hard concept to define. Just roll with it for now.
A new study published in Science this week suggests consciousness — if it can be identified by brain electrical patterns during visual recognition — may start as early as five months. PI Sid Kouider showed that the infants, when presented with familiar images, demonstrated subconscious, then conscious brain recognition patters similar to those observed in adults.
In Bruce Bower’s Science News coverage, he quotes Charles Nelson of Harvard Medical School saying, “I would be reluctant to attribute the same mental operation, such as consciousness, to infants and adults simply because of similar patterns of brain activity.”
Infants, whether mice or human, love to be carried
… Scientists have previously tried to figure out what calms crying infants by studying parent diaries, but no one has examined the physiological effects of carrying babies, says study author Kumi Kuroda of Japan’s Riken Brain Science Institute.
So the team stuck heart rate monitors onto 12 healthy babies and took videos of the infants as their mothers sat holding them, carried them around a room or laid them in a crib. The babies immediately relaxed when their mothers picked them up and walked briskly…
- Meghan Rosen, Science News
Me: She doesn’t take her HIV meds because she says they make her feel bad.
K (my upper level resident): You know what else can make you feel bad? AIDS. I think I read that in a book once. In medical school.
