Craig Overend

"[monads] are born from one moment to the next by continual flashes of lightening from the divinity" - Leibniz - Craig Overend

AIeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Lead researchers: Marvin Minsky, Patrick Winston, Gerry Sussman, Neil Gershenfeld, Ben Recht, Henry Liebermann, Newton Howard, Sebastian Seung, Ed Boyden - Craig Overend

A bunch of philosophy interview videos - Craig Overend

Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz: Dualisms to Extension and Modes, Free will, Monads - Craig Overend

The A118G polymorphism was associated with dispositional sensitivity to rejection in the entire sample and in the fMRI subsample. Consistent with these results, G allele carriers showed greater reactivity to social rejection in neural regions previously shown to be involved in processing social pain as well as the unpleasantness of physical pain, particularly the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and anterior insula. Furthermore, dACC activity mediated the relationship between the A118G polymorphism and dispositional sensitivity to rejection, suggesting that this is a critical site for mu-opioid-related influence on social pain. Taken together, these data suggest that the A118G polymorphism specifically, and the mu-opioid receptor more generally, are involved in social pain in addition to physical pain. - Craig Overend

Toxoplasma shrivels dendrites in the amygdala, rats affected lose their fear and become attracted to cat urine as the Toxoplasma produces dopamine. Human correlates. - Craig Overend

there is the beginning of a movement to bring epidemiology and ecology together - Craig Overend

Internet addicts were about 2.5 times more likely to have engaged in at least some form of self injury in the past six months. When it comes to frequent self-injury, the number rose to nearly double that rate. - Craig Overend

When the team compared the photos across the months, they observed new spines emerging in response to the beads' placement or learning to run on the wheel. They saw, too, that as the mice became improved at spinning the wheel, a minute fraction of new spines continued to persist. The researchers also noted that at the same time as these new and lasting spines were created, a corresponding number of older spines that had been formed early in the animals' development before the experiment began, disappeared. Despite the rise and fall of dendritic spines, the animals' brain circuitry remained overwhelmingly secure. A mouse neuron can carry ten thousand spines on its dendrites. Over months, about 100 spines were either gained or lost on each nerve cell after exposure to new experience while the majority of existing spines are maintained. - Craig Overend

Intel's "Single Chip" Cloud Computer & Server Farmed JavaScript. Mmm; love that latency. - Craig Overend

What made me think of a connection between Erdős-Rényi graphs and my hairball of staples? What I had in mind was something like this: The long, straight, middle part of a staple corresponds to an edge of a graph, and the bent end pieces, which can grab on to each other, are the vertices. Thus a single staple is a graph consisting of two vertices connected by one edge. When two staples hook up, two of their vertices merge and we’re left with a connected graph of three vertices and two edges. Since each staple contributes one edge and at most two vertices to the graph, the number of edges must be at least half the number of vertices. Thus the graph is always over the threshold for forming a giant component, according to Erdős and Rényi. - Craig Overend

While depressed the ventromedial part of the brain is hyperactive and activity decreases during remission of depression and the dorsolateral part is hypoactive during depression and becomes more active during remission of symptoms. - Craig Overend

In most human cell cultures genes are present in two copies: one inherited from the father and one from the mother. Gene inactivation by mutation is therefore inefficient because when one copy is inactivated, the second copy usually remains active and takes over. In yeast, researchers have it easier: they use yeast cells in which all genes are present in only one copy (haploid yeast). Now Carette and co-workers have used a similar approach and used a human cell line, in which nearly all human chromosomes are present in a single copy. In this rare cell line, Carette and co-workers generated mutations in almost all human genes and used this collection to screen for the host genes used by pathogens. By exposing those cells to influenza or to various bacterial toxins, the authors isolated mutants that were resistant to them. Carette then identified the mutated genes in the surviving cells, which code for a transporter molecule and an enzyme that the influenza virus hijacks. - Craig Overend

Insecure adolescents experience more intense pain in the form of frequent headaches, abdominal pain and joint pain. These teens are also more likely to be depressed than peers with secure attachments. "It is possible that individuals who have insecure relationships may perceive the world as more threatening or more stressful and that manifests in physical symptoms," says Dr. Sullivan. "Alternately, it is possible that individuals who feel insecure might 'express' more intense distress as a means of eliciting support from others in their social environment." - Craig Overend

Their analysis shows unequivocally that a difference of 5 g a day in habitual salt intake is associated with a 23% difference in the rate of stroke and a 17% difference in the rate of total cardiovascular disease. - Craig Overend

The researchers used this test to search for flies with an abnormally exaggerated hyperactivity response; genetic studies of these flies revealed that a mutation in a dopamine receptor (a mutation that eliminates the receptor) produced the aberrant behavior. Flies with this dopamine-receptor mutation were hypersensitive to the air puffs, and took much longer to calm down than did "normal" flies without the mutation. - Craig Overend

The researchers revealed what happens when proteins flip from the rare state to a major state in a process called interconversion. If this flip is fast, then the enzyme does its job fast, but if the flip is slow, as in the designer enzyme, then the enzyme operates slowly. "People always focused on the chemistry—accelerating the reaction through catalyzing the chemical step of the substrates. What we've shown is that protein dynamics is as important as the chemical step," said Kern, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. "Basically, all the steps need to be choreographed just right, like steps for a beautiful dancer. An enzyme can only function well with the perfect choreography of all the components." - Craig Overend

"In this environment, the particles have different kinds of interactions that depend on their shapes," Mason said. "We have shown in a systematic way how by changing the number of sides of the particles in a controlled way, we can characterize the differences in their interactions." The scientists added materials to the liquid crystal to get the particles to attract. They produced the geometric particles using the same method Mason and his UCLA used to design and mass-produce billions of fluorescent microscale particles in the shapes of all 26 letters of the alphabet, as well as geometric shapes, such as triangles, crosses and doughnuts, in 2007. Now they have watched the particles interact. - Craig Overend

Although it is not entirely clear how the females work out whose genes complement theirs, the researchers believe it might be done through smell. Monkeys know their own body smell, which is partly determined by their genes. They will sniff out the males whose body odour is different giving an indication that their genetic make up is likely to be unlike theirs, say the scientists. In addition to the potential role of smell, the researchers speculate that female mandrills may 'choose' their mates through selective fertilisation. This is where the female mates with a number of males but her body rejects sperm from males with a similar genetic makeup and 'picks' those with genes which complement the female's own. - Craig Overend

"Think of the oceans like soda," Park said. "Warm cola holds less fizz," Park said. "The same thing happens as the oceans warm up." - Craig Overend

Social networks viewed as energy landscapes. "We find that jammed states can exist at surprisingly high energies, and that the pattern of friend/enemy relationships within a jammed state has an inherent complexity that increases as we move higher up the energy landscape.” - Craig Overend

The addition of essential amino acids to the [low calorie] diet restored egg-laying capacity in fruit flies. Adding just the essential amino acid methionine restored egg-laying without reducing lifespan. - Craig Overend

These findings suggest that juggling therapy may be effective for the treatment of anxiety disorders. - Craig Overend