Dreams are illustrations...from the book your soul is writing about you.

Dreams are illustrations...from the book your soul is writing about you.

The University of Timbuktu

The University of Timbuktu
Located in modern day Mali, the City of Timbuktu was the heart of the Mali and Songhai Empires.  At the center of the city was the University of Timbuktu, one of the oldest universities in world history, being found in the 12th century AD.  At its height the University of Timbuktu enrolled 25,000 students a year.  The university offered four different degrees; a Secondary Degree, Primary Degree, Superior Degree, and Circle of Knowledge.  Subjects offered included religion, philosophy, geography, business, astronomy, science, mathematics, and medicine.

Today the buildings that made up the University of Timbuktu serve as Mosques.  They still serve as a repository of thousands of ancient manuscripts and books.

Source:
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/119/
Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbuktu

Snow Rollers

Snow  Rollers
They are called snow rollers and they look like something out of a Stephen King travel guide to the Arctic Circle - weird, cylindrical snow formations created in the middle of nowhere without the benefit of human touch.

The “strange phenomena,”  are created under very specific conditions: The ground surface must have an icy, crusty snow, on which falling snow cannot stick. About an inch or so of loose, wet snow must accumulate. Gusty and strong winds are needed to scoop out chunks of snow.
Once the “seed” of the snow roller is formed, it begins to roll, pushed by the wind, unimpeded.
It collects additional snow from the ground as it rolls along, leaving trails behind it.

Watch video:
http://www.weather.com/video/snow-rollers-39071
Reference:
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/otx/photo_gallery/snow_rollers.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_roller
Images via Wikimedia Commons

Line-square-cube-tesseract

Line-square-cube-tesseract
Animation via reddit

Kestrel is a small falcon known for its hovering flight.

Kestrel is a small falcon known for its hovering flight. They also have the extraordinary ability to keep their head totally still, even in strong winds. This allows them to pinpoint and catch small mammals by sight alone.

Reference:
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/American_Kestrel/id
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kestrel
Image via biomorphosis

Embryonic Stem Cells Made With Acid

Embryonic Stem Cells Made With Acid
Scientists made embryonic stem cell out of white blood cells. They bathed the cells in acid or put them in low-oxygen environments to bring then to the brink of death, a process that reverted them to an embryonic stem cell. Once reverted, they placed them in a growth-promoting solution and watched how they multiply.

The discovery could revolutionize medicine by giving doctors a way to repair diseased and damaged tissue — think heart disease, blindness, skin burns — with organs and tissue grown from the patient’s own cells.

Source:
http://news.discovery.com/tech/biotechnology/groundbreaking-embryonic-stem-cells-made-with-acid-140129.htm
Reference:
http://www.nature.com/news/acid-bath-offers-easy-path-to-stem-cells-1.14600

Musical Hallucinations

Musical Hallucinations
A woman with an "iPod in her head" has helped scientists at Newcastle University and University College London identify the areas of the brain that are affected when patients experience a rare condition called musical hallucinations.

What exactly are musical hallucinations?
Hallucinations are false percepts in the waking state that are not consequences of stimuli in the external environment, and can involve any sensory modality. Musical hallucinations (MH) are a type of auditory hallucination characterized by perception of musical sounds in the absence of any external source of music. Their content is often familiar and can be instrumental, vocal or both. While hallucinations of music can occasionally result from focal brain lesions and psychiatric disorders  the most common cause is hearing loss in the absence of other pathology.

During normal perception of music what we actually ‘hear’ is a complex interplay of the sound entering the ear and our brain’s interpretations and predictions. Normally the strength and quality of the input from the ear is so high that it dominates what we actually perceive, however the brain fills in the gaps when the ears do not provide enough input.

“With hearing loss,  the signal from the ear becomes weak and noisy, like a poorly-tuned radio. The brain’s predictive mechanisms therefore have to work very hard to make sense of what we are hearing. What we have found is that these processes sometimes end up running away with themselves to cause hallucinations,” said author Dr William Sedley also of Newcastle University.

Dr Kumar added: “This also explains why listening to an external piece of music suppresses hallucinations. When external music is playing the signal entering the brain is much stronger and more reliable, which constrains the aberrant communication going on in the brain areas during hallucinations.”
This new understanding of musical hallucinations may provide better treatment in the future for this condition.

Source:
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/press.office/press.release/item/the-ipod-in-the-head-how-the-brain-processes-musical-hallucinations
Reference:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010945213003080
Image via imgur

Have you ever been in love?

Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.  ;)

Heart Transplantation

Heart Transplantation
A heart transplant is a surgical procedure performed to remove a damaged or diseased heart and replaces it with a healthy one. The healthy heart comes from a donor who has died. It is the last resort for people with heart failure when all other treatments have failed. The heart failure might have been caused by coronary heart disease, damaged heart valves or heart muscles, congenital heart defects, or viral infections of the heart.

Although heart transplant surgery is a life-saving measure, it has many risks. Careful monitoring, treatment, and regular medical care can prevent or help manage some of these risks.

Heart transplantation continues to be the "gold standard" treatment for end-stage heart failure, and a large number of patients now live 20 years or more after surgery.
Hector Rodriguez Cetina Biefer, MD and Markus J. Wilhelm, MD, from the University Hospital Zurich in Switzerland, led a research team that examined long-term outcomes in 133 patients from their institution who underwent heart transplantation from 1985 to 1991.

Among those patients, 74 (55.6%) survived at least 20 years post-transplantation. The average age at transplant for the 20-year survivors was 43.6 years.

Major causes of death in non-survivors were graft rejection (21%), malignancy (21%), cardiac allograft vasculopathy (an accelerated form of coronary artery disease; 14.5%), and infections (14.5%).

"This study underscores the excellent long-term survival that can be achieved, even among patients who received a transplant in the early 1990s," said Dr. Kirklin. "The fact that over half of patients were alive 20 years later should provide hope and the expectation that a new heart for most patients really is a 'new lease on life.' If patients take care of themselves, they can expect to have many years of good quality of life."

Source:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24140213
References:
http://www.annalsthoracicsurgery.org/article/S0003-4975(13)01910-3/abstract
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_transplantation
Image: manually pumping a heart
Image via reddit

Submerged in a pool of water at Hanford Site are 1,936 stainless-steel nuclear-waste capsules containing cesium and...

Submerged in a pool of water at Hanford Site are 1,936 stainless-steel nuclear-waste capsules containing cesium and strontium. Combined, they contain over 120 million curies of radioactivity.
It is estimated to be the most curies under one roof in the United States.

The blue glow is created by the Cherenkov Effect which describes the electromagnetic radiation emitted when a charged particle, giving off energy, moves faster than light through a transparent medium.

The temperatures of the capsules are as high as 330 degrees Fahrenheit (165,5C). The pool of water serves as a shield against radiation; a human standing one foot from an unshielded capsule would receive a lethal dose of radiation in less than 10 seconds. Hanford is among the most contaminated sites in the United States.

Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanford_Site
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_radiation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strontium-90
Image courtesy Gagosian Gallery/Steidl.
Image credit: Taryn Simon

Melanoma

Melanoma
Focusing on the cellular biology of melanocytes, this 3D visualization details the rising incidence of melanoma and the importance of early detection.

Animation via XVIVO

Radula action

Radula action
 Ahh how cute a  Gastropod using it’s radula.
The radula is an anatomical structure that is used by molluscs for feeding, sometimes compared rather inaccurately to a tongue. It is a minutely toothed, chitinous ribbon, which is typically used for scraping or cutting food before the food enters the oesophagus.

Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radula
Image source:
La rádula (cámara lenta)

Cardioid, Deltoid and Cycloid.

Cardioid, Deltoid and Cycloid.
Circles of radius 1 and 3 roll together along a straight line, tracing out a fixed cycloid along with rotating cardioids and deltoids.

Gif by Greg Egan

We were language's magpies by nature, stealing whatever sounded bright and shiny.

We were language's magpies by nature, stealing whatever sounded bright and shiny.... and I stood there resting my toes in the cold water until I could hear the night sky whispering my name.

Water Bears belong to a lesser known phylum of invertebrate animals, the Tardigrada.

Water Bears belong to a lesser known phylum of invertebrate animals, the Tardigrada. The first tardigrades were discovered by Goetz in 1773. Over 400 species have been described since that time.

Tardigrades grow only to a size of about 1mm, but they can easily be seen with a microscope. Tardigrade bodies are short, plump, and contain four pairs of lobopodial limbs (poorly articulated limbs which are typical of soft bodied animals). Each limb terminates in four to eight claws or discs. They lumber about in a slow bear-like gait over sand grains or pieces of plant material.

Reference:
http://sun.iwu.edu/~tardisdp/tardigrade_facts.html
Gif via reddit

Maratus volans, better known as the Peacock Spider.

Maratus volans, better known as the Peacock Spider.
The brilliant colouring is not just for decoration but also to attract females. The peacock spider has earned its name when he courts with his mate through dancing. Like a peacock, he raises his two magnificently coloured flaps and dances for the female.

Reference:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2014/01/new-species-of-peacock-spider-dances-for-you-and-sex/

Know more about this little one:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0025390
Story and image via biomorphosis

Starburst cataracts caused by electric shock

Starburst cataracts caused by electric shock
Researchers recount, in the New England Journal of Medicine, the fascinating case of an electrician who, after sustaining a 14,000-volt shock to his left shoulder, developed starburst shaped cataracts.
Reference:
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMicm1213581?query=featured_home

Well interesting stats CircleCount

Well interesting stats CircleCount 
Danke,

Horned lizards

Horned lizards
Horned lizards use a wide variety of means to avoid predation. Their coloration generally serves as camouflage. When threatened, their first defense is to remain still to avoid detection. If approached too closely, they generally run in short bursts and stop abruptly to confuse the predator's visual acuity.

If this fails, they puff up their bodies to cause them to appear more horned and larger, so more difficult to swallow. At least four species are also able to squirt an aimed stream of blood from the corners of the eyes for a distance of up to five feet. They do this by restricting the blood flow leaving the head, thereby increasing blood pressure and rupturing tiny vessels around the eyelids. This not only confuses predators, but also the blood tastes foul to canine and feline predators. It appears to have no effect against predatory birds.

References:
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/reptiles/horned-toad/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horned_lizard

Watch video:
World's Weirdest - Blood-Squirting Lizard
Gif via reddit

Sometimes, reaching out and taking someone's hand is the beginning of a journey.

Sometimes, reaching out and taking someone's hand is the beginning of a journey.
At other times, it is allowing another to take yours. ;-)

New Technique Shows Living Cells In 3-D

New Technique Shows Living Cells In 3-D
A new method of creating 3-D images of living cells without disturbing them promises to open an unprecedented view into how they operate.

University of Illinois engineers say the technique, called white-light diffraction tomography, will let researchers watch cellular processes as they unfold, the effects of drugs and how stem cells change into specialized cells.
The technique uses conventional microscopes and white light, so scientists don’t have to bathe bacterial or other cells in dyes, other chemicals, radiation or mechanical forces that would destroy them.

One main focus of imaging cells is trying to understand how they function, or how they respond to treatments, for example, during cancer therapies,” said Gabriel Popescu, an electrical and computer engineering and bioengineering professor who led the team. “If you need to add dyes or contrast agents to study them, this preparation affects the cells’ function itself. It interferes with your study. With our technique, we can see processes as they happen and we don’t obstruct their normal behavior.” 

The 3-D composite is made of stacked cross-sectional images— similar to how MRI and CT scan medical imaging work— taken by changing the microscope’s focal point throughout the depth of the cell. A computer then analyzes and stitches the images together. 


Source:
http://news.illinois.edu/news/14/0121WDT_GabrielPopescu.html
Reference:
http://www.nature.com/nphoton/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nphoton.2013.350.html

Gif of a 3-D living cancer cell developed from YouTube video. Courtesy University of Illinois.
3D Imaging of Live Cells

January 27th is Holocaust Remembrance Day.

January 27th is Holocaust Remembrance Day.
It was on this day in 1945 that the soviet army liberated Auschwitz concentration camp. It is estimated that at least 1.3 million people were deported to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945. Of these, a minimum of 1.1 million were murdered.

In 1955, an exhibition at the camp opened to the public, displaying such things as prisoner mug shots; hair (of which almost eight tonnes was found by the red army) and shoes taken from murdered prisoners; and canisters of zyklon b pellets used for gassing.

The sign seen at the gates of base camp reads Arbeit Macht Frei or  “work makes you free” was built by prisoner-laborers, there is a speculation the upside down ‘B’ was done on purpose as a signal to new arrivals about what was actually happening behind the facility’s gates.
 
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz:_The_Nazis_and_%27The_Final_Solution%27
http://www.constantinereport.com/debate-the-pbs-production-america-and-the-holocaust/

Photos by Bruno Tamiozzo
http://www.brunotamiozzo.com/gallerytype/camps/

Leap Frogging Bubble Rings

Leap Frogging Bubble Rings
This animation was inspired from Kerry Mitchell's paper:
https://www.fractalus.com/kerry/articles/vortical_flow1.pdf
Animation by Paul Nylander

“...When a man first awakens, it sometimes takes several moments before he starts thinking clearly."

“...When a man first awakens, it sometimes takes several moments before he starts thinking clearly."

"And here I thought it took several years, perhaps a lifetime for the average man's intellect to kick in.” ;D

The Oldest Love Poem.

The Oldest Love Poem.
The world’s oldest known love poem. According to the Sumerian belief, it was a sacred duty for the king to marry every year a priestess instead of Inanna, the goddess of fertility and sexual love, in order to make the soil and women fertile. This poem was most probably written by a bride chosen for Shu-Sin in order to be sung at the New Year festival and it was sung at banquets and festivals accompanied by music and dance.

Its translation:
Bridegroom, dear to my heart,
Goodly is your beauty, honeysweet,
Lion, dear to my heart,
Goodly is your beauty, honeysweet.
[…]
Bridegroom, let me caress you,
My precious caress is more savory than honey,
In the bedchamber, honey-filled, In the bedchamber, honey-filled,
Let me enjoy your goodly beauty,
Lion, let me caress you,
My precious caress is more savory than honey.
Bridegroom, you have taken your pleasure of me,
Tell my mother, she will give you delicacies,
My father, he will give you gifts.
[…]
You, because you love me,
Give me pray of your caresses,
My lord god, my lord protector,
My SHU-SIN, who gladdens ENLIL’s heart,
Give my pray of your caresses.

Courtesy & currently located at the Museum Of The Ancient Orient, Istanbul Archaeology Museums.
http://www.istanbularkeoloji.gov.tr/web/30-127-1-1/muze_-_en/collections/ancient_orient_museum_artifacts/the_oldest_love_poem/s:the+oldest+love+poem
Photo taken by Yuxuan Wang.

If you’ve ever wondered when Jupiter will next be aligned with Mars, Van Cleef & Arpels has a watch that will tell...

If you’ve ever wondered when Jupiter will next be aligned with Mars, Van Cleef & Arpels has a watch that will tell you. Its new Midnight Planetarium Poetic Complication  watch has six rotating disks, each bearing a tiny sphere representing one of the six planets visible with the naked eye.

The disks rotate at different speeds so that each sphere makes one revolution around the dial in the time it takes the actual planet it represents – Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter or Saturn – to orbit the sun.  Mercury in 88 days, Venus in 224, Earth in a year, Mars in 687 days, Jupiter in 12 years and Saturn in 29. It’s a very complex watch and a true display of supreme watchmaking. Time is indicated by a shooting-star symbol rotating around the dial’s circumference. Leveraging the brand’s specialty in jewelry, each of the planets are represented by precious and semi-precious stones, ranging from red jasper to serpentine and turquoise. An even more extravagant edition is available with baguette-cut diamonds set into the bezel.

The planet module was designed by Christian van der Klaauw, renowned for his movements featuring astronomical indications. The movement is self-winding and contains 396 components.  The case is 44 mm in diameter and made of rose gold. The dial is made of aventurine and the planets of semiprecious stones.  Price: about $245,000; a diamond-set version will be about $330,000.

Watch video:
Van Cleef & Arpels Launches A Wristwatch Planetarium At SIHH 2014
Source:
http://www.vancleefarpels.com/ww/en/line/18/extraordinary-dials

Extinguish my eyes, I'll go on seeing you.

Extinguish my eyes, I'll go on seeing you.
Seal my ears, I'll go on hearing you.
And without feet I can make my way to you,
without a mouth I can swear your name.

Break off my arms, I'll take hold of you
with my heart as with a hand.
Stop my heart, and my brain will start to beat.
And if you consume my brain with fire,
I'll feel you burn in every drop of my blood.

The goblin shark (Mitsukurina owstoni) is a deep-sea shark, the sole living species in the family Mitsukurinidae.

The goblin shark (Mitsukurina owstoni) is a deep-sea shark, the sole living species in the family Mitsukurinidae. The most distinctive characteristic of the goblin shark is the unusual shape of its head. It has a long, trowel-shaped, beak-like rostrum or snout, much longer than other sharks’ snouts. Some other distinguishing characteristics of the shark are the color of its body, which is mostly pink, and its long, protrusible jaws. When the jaws are retracted, the shark resembles a pinkish sand tiger shark, Carcharias taurus, with an unusually long nose.

Mitsukurina owstoni is found in the deep ocean, far below where the sun’s light can reach at depths greater than 200 m. They can be found throughout the world, from Australia in the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico in the Atlantic Ocean. They are best known from the waters around Japan, where the species was first discovered.  Goblin sharks feed on a variety of organisms that live in deep waters. Among some of their known prey are deep-sea squid, crabs, and deep-sea fish. Very little is known about the species’ life history and reproductive habits, as encounters with them have been relatively rare. 

Watch video:
The Goblin Shark, Disturbing One of a Kind Footage
References:
http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/shark-week/types-of-shark/goblin-shark.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goblin_shark

Wingtip vortices form because of the difference in pressure between the upper and lower surfaces of a wing that is...

Wingtip vortices form because of the difference in pressure between the upper and lower surfaces of a wing that is operating at a positive lift. One wingtip vortex trails from the tip of each wing. They are sometimes named trailing or lift-induced vortices because they also occur at points other than at the wing tips.

Watch video:
SWISS A340 dives into Fog - Vortex
Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wingtip_vortices
http://www.pilotfriend.com/training/flight_training/aero/wng_vort.htm
Photo credit: Vadim Savitsky

Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol II has been released.

Feynman Lectures on Physics Vol II has been released.
Vol I (mainly mechanics, radiation and heat) :
http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_toc.html
http://www.feynmanlectures.info/docroot/I_toc.html

Vol II (mainly electromagnetism and matter):
http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/II_toc.html
http://www.feynmanlectures.info/docroot/II_toc.html

Vol III (quantum mechanics):
http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/III_toc.html
http://www.feynmanlectures.info/docroot/III_toc.html

Portrait image via DeviantART
http://dosh0.deviantart.com/art/Feynman-study-363737099

False-color SEM of an egg at ovulation

False-color SEM of an egg at ovulation
The egg (pink at centre) has ruptured the external surface of the ovary (brown), known as the germinal epithelium, and has started its journey through the Fallopian tube towards the uterus. The image clearly shows the thick glycoprotein layer (pink), the zona pellucida, which entirely surrounds the egg. The egg is also partly surrounded by cells (granulosa cells) and fluid (liquor folliculi), seen here in white and turquoise, which formerly provided nutrients and protection to the egg in the ovary.

Photo credit: professors P.M. Motta & J. Van Blerkom
Photo via SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

In the brain, timing is everything

In the brain, timing is everything
Our brains like to play connect the dots with our memories. If you once heard the angry growl of a dog that was followed by a bite, you might anticipate a painful bite the next time your hear a dog growl. This shows that our brains can link sequential memories, a useful skill when it comes to staying away from harm. Scientists at MIT have identified how two different brain circuits help provide these links. In a new study published in Science, the researchers used optogenetics to show how two different regions of the brain (the hippocampus and an adjacent region known as the entorhinal cortex) interact. The researchers identified a group of excitatory neurons termed "island cells" that are part of layer 2 of the entorhinal cortex. These island cells stimulate inhibitory neurons in the CA1 region of the hippocampus, which interacts with a previously discovered monosynaptic circuit. This interaction keeps the memory of, say, a dog growl, alive long enough to be linked with the memory of the bite. Understanding how these two circuits interact will help us understand how our brains try to balance becoming paralyzed with fear and becoming overly careless, and what happens when this balance is disrupted, such as in PTSD.

Source:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2014/in-the-brain-timing-is-everything-0123.html
Journal article: Island Cells Control Temporal Association Memory. Science, 2014. DOI: 10.1126/science.1244634
Story via Neuroscience Research Techniques 
Image via reddit

Intersection of 3 Cylinders always intrigued me, because is not a sphere and when viewed from a certain angle, it...

Intersection of 3 Cylinders always intrigued me, because is not a sphere and when viewed from a certain angle, it looks like a hexagon.


Reference:
http://www.math.harvard.edu/archive/21a_summer_06/handouts/3cylinder.pdf
https://math.la.asu.edu/~nbrewer/Spring2008/MAT267/Footnote18/David%20Hilgers/DavidHilgers.html
Animation by Paul Nylander

Sochi 2014

Sochi 2014
The first ever Winter Olympic Games took place exactly 90 years ago in Chamonix. ;)
 2014 Winter Olympics will be held in Sochi Russia on Feb 7-23.
Can't wait for the ski jump, snowboard, hockey and skating.

You know what they say, conserve water and shower with a friend. ;)

You know what they say, conserve water and shower with a friend. ;)

Nacreous Clouds

Nacreous Clouds
Also called polar stratospheric clouds or mother of pearl clouds, nacreous clouds are mostly visible within two hours after sunset or before dawn. They blaze unbelievably bright with vivid, iridescent colors. These clouds are rare and occur in the polar stratosphere at altitudes of 15,000–25,000 meters. They are so bright because at those heights, they are still sunlit.

Although incredibly beautiful, they have a negative impact on our atmosphere. They create ozone holes by supporting chemical reactions that produce active chlorine which catalyzes ozone destruction.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_stratospheric_cloud
http://www.atoptics.co.uk/highsky/nacr1.htm
Images via imgur

Making memories in real time.

Making memories in real time.
Neurons are extremely sensitive to any kind of disturbance, which makes difficult for scientists to study the molecular processes which occur during memory formation. This may have been resolved by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, who published two studies in the January 24 issue of Science, which used advanced imaging techniques to provide a window into how the brain makes memories. These studies were made possible by using a mouse model developed at Einstein in which molecules crucial to making memories were given fluorescent "tags" so they could be observed traveling in real time in living brain cells.

Source:
https://www.einstein.yu.edu/news/releases/968/watching-molecules-morph-into-memories/
Reference:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140123141711.htm

Indoor Skydiving

Indoor Skydiving

More:
Indoor Skydiving Bottrop 2013
JORIS DELACROIX - AIR FRANCE (Official music video)

Jupiter Ascending

Jupiter Ascending
Must see this! ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoCyL_Pqzu8

Obesity in Mothers Alters Babies' Weight Through Brain Rewiring

Obesity in Mothers Alters Babies' Weight Through Brain Rewiring
A new study in Cell pinpoints that a mother's diet during the third trimester of pregnancy can increase the chances of her offspring developing obesity or diabetes by rewiring the hypothalamus. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Neurological Research and the University of Cologne in Germany knew that the offspring of obese mothers were much more likely to become obese themselves, and that metabolic programming of their brains was a likely culprit. The problem was that they didn't know exactly what was happening. Using a mouse model, the scientists fed a high-fat diet to lactating mice (the hypothalamus development that occurs shortly after birth in mice is equivalent to what happens during the third trimester of pregnancy in humans) and found that the offspring had abnormal neural circuits in the hypothalamus. This abnormal circuitry led to altered insulin signaling. As a result, the offspring were overweight as adults and had problems with glucose metabolism. The researchers hope that improved testing for gestational diabetes and better blood glucose control will help prevent this metabolic programming in children.

Source:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140123125524.htm
Journal article: Neonatal Insulin Action Impairs Hypothalamic Neurocircuit Formation in Response to Maternal High-Fat Feeding. Cell, 2014. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2014.01.008
Story via Neuroscience Research Techniques
Image via Wikipedia Commons

Tracking the Flight Paths of Birds

Tracking the Flight Paths of Birds
Mesmerising timelapses! Dennis Hlynsky, a film & animation professor at Rhode Island School of Design, traces the flight paths of birds, using tools like After Effects to illustrate each bird's trail. The resulting videos are truly stunning.

Source:
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/arts-and-lifestyle/2014/01/tracking-flight-paths-birds/8176/#.UuIIyRsJ8ds.facebook

I keep staring at this .....more mins

I keep staring at this .....more mins

When Doctors ‘Google’ Their Patients

When Doctors ‘Google’ Their Patients
"I remember when I first looked up a patient on Google. It was my last day on the bone marrow transplant unit, back when I was an intern. As I stood before the patient, taking her history, she told me she had been a painter and suggested I look up her work on the Internet. I did, and I found her paintings fascinating. Even though our paths crossed fleetingly, she is one of the few patients I vividly remember from that time.

Google has taught me other things, too, things that don’t come up during the routine history-taking or medication checks of my usual doctor-patient interactions. I learned recently, for example, that one of my patients had been an Olympic gold medalist and world-record holder in the 1960s. Knowing more about my patients as people helps build empathy.

Doctors do “Google” their patients. In fact, the vast majority of physicians I know have done so. To my generation, using a search engine like Google comes as naturally as sharing pictures of our children or a recent vacation on a social networking site like Facebook. But it surprises me that more physicians don’t pause and think about what it means for the patient-doctor relationship."

Interesting article about "Google" effect and Dr's via New York Times
Full article:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/when-doctors-google-their-patients-2/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
Article written by Matt Collins

Einstein with Einstein Puppet

Einstein with Einstein Puppet
Attributed to Harry Burnett while Yale Puppeteers were working in their theater, Teatro Torito, on Olvera Street in Los Angeles, California, circa 1931.

The photo was taken by Harry Burnett at Cal Tech in Pasadena where Albert Einstein was teaching. Einstein saw the puppet perform at the Teato Torito and was quite amused. He reached into his jacket’s breast pocket, pulled out a letter and crumpled it up. Speaking in German, he said, “The puppet wasn’t fat enough!” He laughed and stuffed the crumpled letter up under the smock to give the puppet a fatter belly. This is a wonderful photograph that Harry treasured. Harry Burnett also kept the letter in a frame and loved to retell the story and at the end give his pixish laugh.

Source:
http://www.openculture.com/2014/01/albert-einstein-holding-an-albert-einstein-puppet.html

Vanderbilt study reveals senses of sight and sound separated in children with autism

Vanderbilt study reveals senses of sight and sound separated in children with autism
Like watching a foreign movie that was badly dubbed, children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have trouble integrating simultaneous information from their eyes and their ears, according to a Vanderbilt University study published in The Journal of Neuroscience.

The study, led by Mark Wallace, Ph.D., director of the Vanderbilt Brain Institute, is the first to illustrate the link and strongly suggests that deficits in the sensory building blocks for language and communication can ultimately hamper social and communication skills in children with autism.

Reference:
http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2014/01/senses-of-sight-and-sound-separated-in-children-with-autism/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iz7ntEvB1r8

Reflective sphere Addiction #13

Reflective sphere Addiction #13
This image has 6 vanishing points and was inspired by Dick Termes' paintings of 3D worlds on a spherical “canvas” called Termespheres.

What is 6 Point Perspective?
The basic rules of traditionally defined perspective were formulated in the fifteenth century in Italy by Piero della Francesca, Leon Battista Alberti and others. In the fifteenth century view, if the horizon around you was imagined as 360 degrees, two point perspective drawings and paintings held 90 degrees of the visual world. In other words, their paintings could capture everything between the North point on the horizon to the East point. Termes has expanded this discovery of perspective in order to capture more and more of the visual world. With six point perspective, drawings and paintings reveal a total view encompassing the full 360 degrees in all directions.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_%28graphical%29
http://termespheres.com/
Animation by Paul Nylander

This is what I mean when I say I would like to swim against the stream of time: I would like to erase the...

This is what I mean when I say I would like to swim against the stream of time: I would like to erase the consequences of certain events and restore an initial condition. But every moment of my life brings with it an accumulation of new facts, and each of these new facts bring with it consequences; so the more I seek to return to the zero moment from which I set out, the further I move away from it. . . .

A South Korean designer named Jeabyun Yeon has created a conceptual scuba mask that will allow humans to breath...

A South Korean designer named Jeabyun Yeon has created a conceptual scuba mask that will allow humans to breath underwater without the aid of an oxygen tank. It is called Triton, and mimics the gills found on fish to draw oxygen from the water to supply breathable air for humans. How exciting.

TRITON is a very convenient oxygen respirator concept. It allows us to breathe under water for a long time by simply biting it. It also does not require the skill of breathing in and out while biting mouth piece like conventional respirator. It is a portal oxygen respirator for breathing under water as if being on ground by simply biting it.

Source:
http://www.behance.net/gallery/TRTON/13434535

High-tech headband gives you control over your dreams

High-tech headband gives you control over your dreams
Really? This sounds interesting =)
New technology that allows you to become a lucid dreamer is reminiscent of the sci-fi movie ‘Inception

Imagine being able to control your dreams while dreaming them. You could engineer the laws of physics in your imaginary world, give the monsters in your nightmares a makeover, or live out any of your wildest fantasies.
 
Now a new high-tech headband promises to make all of this possible, according to Fox News. Called the Aurora Dream-Enhancing Headband, the device has been fully funded on Kickstarter.
 
The device works by first measuring brain waves and eye movements to determine when its wearer is experiencing REM sleep, the state most associated with dreaming. Once it determines that REM sleep is underway, the headband begins to emit a series of subtle lights that are meant to signal to the sleeper that he is dreaming. These lights are thought to infiltrate the dream state, like a lighthouse telling the user that a dream is underway.
 
"The easiest way ,to induce a state of lucid dreaming, is to have what we call a reality check," said Aurora headband co-founder Daniel Schoonover. "You need something that makes you question the reality you are in."
 
Lucid dreaming is what scientists call the experience of being aware that you are dreaming. It is a rare event, but lucid dreamers claim to be able to gain "Matrix"-like control over their dreams.

More about this:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/iwinks/the-aurora-dream-enhancing-headband
Story via Mother Nature Network
Image via kickstarter

Toilet Paper in Ancient China

Toilet Paper in Ancient China
As historians make new discoveries we are finding more and more that things which were once considered western inventions are merely re-discoveries of ancient Chinese technology.  One invention, perhaps one of the most important inventions of modern day civilizations, is the development of toilet paper.  Seriously, imagine the burden of living without such an amenity.  Before the introduction of toilet paper people wiped their bottoms with a wide variety of items, including leaves, grass, corn cobs, snow, seashells, sponges, sticks, and rags.  Sometimes even the trusty old bare hand was used.

The Chinese are credited with the invention of paper in the early 2nd century AD. The first recorded instance of paper being used for hygiene purposes occurred in 589 AD when the scholar Yan Zhitui wrote, “Paper on which there are quotations or commentaries from the Five Classics or the names of sages, I dare not use for toilet purposes”.  By 851 an Arab traveler notes that the use of toilet paper was quite common in China. 
An incredibly useful commodity, by the late middle ages records show that toilet paper was being mass produced by the Chinese.  In Zhejiang Province paper makers were producing 10 million packages (consisting of 1,000-10,000 2x3 ft. sheets) annually.  Records also show that the court of Nanjing consumed 720,000 specially perfumed sheets per year, of which the Imperial family used 15,000 sheets.
Incredibly the introduction of toilet paper in the West didn’t occur until the mid 19th century. 

Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper
Images via Wikipedia Commons

Give them pleasure. The same pleasure they have when they wake up from a nightmare.

Give them pleasure. The same pleasure they have when they wake up from a nightmare.

Meteoroid, Meteor & Meteorite

Meteoroid, Meteor & Meteorite

A meteoroid is a small rocky or metallic body travelling through space. Meteoroids are significantly smaller than asteroids, and range in size from small grains to 1 meter-wide objects. Most are fragments from comets or asteroids, while others are collision impact debris ejected from bodies such as the Moon or Mars.

A meteor or "shooting star" is the visible streak of light from a meteoroid or micrometeoroid, heated and glowing from entering the Earth's atmosphere, as it sheds glowing material in its wake. Meteors typically occur in the mesosphere at altitudes between 76 km to 100 km (46–62 miles).

A meteorite is a solid piece of debris, from such sources as asteroids or comets, that originates in outer space and survives its impact with the Earth's surface. 

References:
http://thedarkcosmos.com/meteors/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteorite
Animated illustration of different phases as a meteoroid enters the Earth’s atmosphere to become visible as a meteor and land as a meteorite.

Older Brains Slow Due to Greater Experience, Rather Than Cognitive Decline

Older Brains Slow Due to Greater Experience, Rather Than Cognitive Decline
Older adults often require more time to process or recall information. New research published in Topics in Cognitive Science shows that this may be due, not to cognitive decline, but instead to the wealth of information accumulated throughout a lifespan. Researchers at the University of Tuebingen reviewed data examining age-related cognition, and found that many of the standard tests measuring this appeared to be flawed. So they programmed a computer to act like a human, 'reading' a certain amount each day and learning new things. At the beginning, the computer performed exactly like a young adult. When the computer had accumulated a 'lifetime' of experience, its processing speed began to slow down because it had accumulated much more information over time. Thus, they concluded that an elderly individual's difficulty in recalling words may be caused by the simple fact that they know more words and it's harder to differentiate such a large vocabulary. If validated, these findings could reflect a shift in how we think about memory and cognition in older adults.

Source:
http://www.scientificcomputing.com/news/2014/01/older-brains-slow-due-greater-experience-rather-cognitive-decline
Journal article: The Myth of Cognitive Decline: Non-Linear Dynamics of Lifelong Learning. Topics in Cognitive Science, 2014. DOI: 10.1111/tops.12078
Story via Neuroscience Research Techniques
Image via imgur