Age-Related Memory Loss Reversed in Monkeys
It happens to the best of us: you walk into the kitchen to get a cup of coffee but get distracted by the mail, and then forget what you were doing in the first place. Aging makes people particularly vulnerable to this kind of forgetfulness, where we fail to maintain a thought in the face of distractions. New research from Yale University uncovers cellular changes that seem to underlie this type of memory loss in monkeys, and shows that it can be reversed with drugs. By delivering a certain chemical to the brain, researchers could make neurons in old monkeys behave like those in young monkeys. Clinical trials of a generic drug that mimics this effect are already underway. The findings support the idea that some of the brain changes that occur with aging are very specific—rather than being caused by a general decay throughout the brain—and can potentially be prevented.
Snake Oil? The scientific evidence for health supplements
See the data: bit.ly/snakeoilsupps. See the static versionSee the old flash version Check the evidence for so-called Superfoods visualized. Note: You might see multiple bubbles for certain supplements. This visualisation generates itself from this Google Doc. As ever, we welcome your thoughts, crits, comments, corrections, compliments, tweaks, new evidence, missing supps, and general feedback. » Purchase: Amazon US or Barnes & Noble | UK or Waterstones » Download: Apple iBook | Kindle (UK & US) » See inside For more graphics, visualisations and data-journalism:
Pole of inaccessibility
A pole of inaccessibility marks a location that is the most challenging to reach owing to its remoteness from geographical features that could provide access. Often it refers to the most distant point from the coastline. The term describes a geographic construct, not an actual physical phenomenon. Subject to varying definitions, it is of interest mostly to explorers. Northern pole of inaccessibility[edit] Northern pole of inaccessibility The northern pole of inaccessibility ( WikiMiniAtlas 84°03′N 174°51′W / 84.050°N 174.850°W / 84.050; -174.850 (Northern Pole of Inaccessibility)), sometimes known as the Arctic pole of inaccessibility, or just Arctic pole, is located on the Arctic Oceanpack ice at a distance farthest from any land mass. According to some reports, the first person to reach the spot on foot was Sir Wally Herbert, who arrived by dogsled in 1968. Southern pole of inaccessibility[edit] Southern pole of inaccessibility Oceanic pole of inaccessibility[edit] Eurasia[edit]
The Illusions of Psychiatry by Marcia Angell
The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth by Irving Kirsch Basic Books, 226 pp., $15.99 (paper) Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America by Robert Whitaker Crown, 404 pp., $26.00 Unhinged: The Trouble with Psychiatry—A Doctor’s Revelations About a Profession in Crisis by Daniel Carlat Free Press, 256 pp., $25.00 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) by American Psychiatric Association American Psychiatric Publishing, 992 pp., $135.00; $115.00 (paper) But with the introduction of psychoactive drugs in the 1950s, and sharply accelerating in the 1980s, the focus shifted to the brain. When psychoactive drugs were first introduced, there was a brief period of optimism in the psychiatric profession, but by the 1970s, optimism gave way to a sense of threat. In the late 1970s, the psychiatric profession struck back—hard. Such is modern psychopharmacology.
Curiosity and medical education. [Med Educ. 2011] - PubMed result
How Brain Imaging Could Help Predict Alzheimer's
Developing drugs that effectively slow the course of Alzheimer’s disease has been notoriously difficult. Scientists and drug developers believe that a large part of the problem is that they are testing these drugs too late in the progression of the disease, when significant damage to the brain makes intervention much more difficult. “Drugs like Lilly’s gamma secretase inhibitor failed because they were tested in the wrong group of patients,” says Sangram Sisodia, director of the Center for Molecular Neurobiology at the University of Chicago. People in the mid or late stages of the disease “are too far gone, there is nothing you can do.” New brain imaging research may help solve that problem. “Brain changes that predict progression will hopefully allow us to detect the disease early, before it has caused irreversible damage,” said Sarah Madsen, a graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles, at a press briefing at the conference.
Why You're Probably Less Popular Than Your Friends
Are your friends more popular than you are? There doesn’t seem to be any obvious reason to suppose this is true, but it probably is. We are all more likely to become friends with someone who has a lot of friends than we are to befriend someone with few friends. This simple realization is relevant not only to real-life friends but also to social media. The number of friends we have is typical of many situations in which the average deviates from individuals’ experience. But once again, let’s adopt the perspective of the average person and reexamine these numbers. Of course, the argument applies to many situations.
Understanding the Fourier transform » #AltDevBlogADay
Yes, I realize that after reading the title of this post, 99% of potential readers just kept scrolling. So to the few of you who clicked on it, welcome! Don’t worry, this won’t take long. A very long time ago, I was curious how to detect the strength of the bass and treble in music, in order to synchronize some graphical effects. I had no idea how to do such a thing, so I tried to figure it out, but I didn’t get very far. Eventually I learned that I needed something called a Fourier transform, so I took a trip to the library and looked it up (which is what we had to do back in those days). What I found was the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT), which looks like this: This formula, as anyone can see, makes no sense at all. Eventually, I was able to visualize how it works, which was a bit of a lightbulb for me. Disclaimer: my math skills are pitch-patch at best, and this is just intended to be an informal article, so please don’t expect a rigorous treatment.
