neurodudes

PLoS Biology: Scientific Illiteracy and the Partisan Takeover of Biology

On evolution:

One-third of Americans think evolution is “definitely false”; over half lean one way or another or aren’t sure. Only 14% expressed unequivocal support for evolution—a result Miller calls “shocking.”

On literacy:

“When I first started asking about DNA,” he says, “I used an open-ended question that asks, ‘If you saw the term DNA in a newspaper, would you have a clear understanding of what that means, a general sense of what it means, or not much idea?’” If respondents said they had a clear understanding, they would be asked to define DNA in their own words. “I got things like the ‘Dow Jones News Association,’” Miller says, laughing. “If you don’t know what DNA is, you can’t follow the stem-cell debate.”

And perhaps most important:

The era of nonpartisan science is gone, says Miller, who urges scientists and science educators to learn the rules of this new game and get behind moderate Republicans as well as Democrats to protect the practice and teaching of sound science. Given the partisan attack on evolution and stem-cell research, he thinks scientists need to learn more about how the political process works. They need to be willing to run for the school board, write $500 or even $5,000 checks to support moderate candidates, and defeat Christian right-wing candidates. “Scientists need to become involved in partisan politics and to oppose candidates who reject evolution or attack scientific research,” he says. “It takes time, money, and paying attention to the issues.”

Totally offtopic but cool.

”
Rehmi Post is just wrapping up his PhD. Among other things, he teaches a three month class to new students, titled “how to fabricate (almost) anything”. Students start with using CAD packages, then he takes them through fabrication of parts using machine tools, how to design circuit boards, and — literally — just about anything, up to and including MEMS, microelectromechanical machines etched out of silicon wafers using the same lithography techniques as microprocessors. “One thing we’ve learned in the course of this study is that the fabrication tools currently available all suck,” he says.

Which is why he and some other researchers are working on the Fab Lab. The goal is to build a toolkit that can be sold for under $10,000 (£6500) and that contains everything you need in order to make almost anything. “We want to take arts and crafts to a level where people can do their own prototyping, build their own radios, oscilloscopes, or computers, and do it on the cheap with full support in tools and hardware.” He’s not kidding. The Fab Lab — personal fabrication — includes a CAD workstation, a modified vinyl cutter able to carve circuit boards, a computer-controlled milling machine, an FPGA programmer, and may eventually include a 3D printer and other machine tools. One important element they’re working on is a library of electronic components, royalty-free, than the system can be used to handle various tasks. Using FPGA (field programmable gate array) chips means the system can contain sophisticated electronics — FPGAs are designed to be reconfigured at the hardware level to emulate arbitrary circuits, all the way up to an ARM processor. The Fab Lab team are trying to develop a system comprehensive enough that any one Fab Lab can be used to build copies of itself, and they’re looking at a hardware design strategy akin to the GPL (GNU General Public License) — spin offs such as Project Pengachu give a feel for how they’re thinking these tools can be used.
” — article by Charlie Stross on MIT Media lab

links:

http://fab.cba.mit.edu/
http://cba.mit.edu/projects/fablab/index.html

according to http://fab.cba.mit.edu/info.html, a fab lab currently
costs about $30k; i’m assuming it’s not self-machinable yet.

I’ve been thumbing through pubmed, online resources, and lab members’ collective consciences looking for a complete list of pharmacological agents acting on receptors (i.e. metabotropic glutamate receptors), phenomena (i.e. AMPA receptor desensitization), and any other players that can affect neurotransmission at the synapse. No such list seems to exist.

So, if you have some knowledge to contribute, please add to this list of agents and effects on a new wiki page. Warning: the current format is really simple (any improvements would be welcome), but it’s a first pass at a much needed electrophysiology resource.

— davematthews

This week’s Nature features an idea called “The Digital Universe,” which hopes to organize and present peer-reviewed content (especially science) for public consumption online.
Preview the actual site here .

There’s some important criticism, especially of the business model, in the article…and you have to wonder about the creator, a wiki-disser and alien-watcher: “The driving force behind the project is ManyOne, a company headed by Joseph Firmage, who made a fortune in the 1990s from an Internet consulting company. He resigned in 1999 after the fallout from his book claiming that he had encountered extraterrestrials. Firmage says he vehemently opposes the ‘anyone can edit’ vision of Wikipedia. ‘Wikipedia is a very uninviting place for most intellectuals,’ he adds.”

-davematthews

Google has opened a new service called Google Base that allows you to upload, publish and index arbitrary data for free. Does this mean that scientists can now share their raw data simply by uploading it to Google Base, without bothering to store and webhost it themselves?

I checked out the site and it seems that Google explicitly invites all kinds of data, with no size restrictions. But I find it hard to believe that Google can really handle all the terrabytes of data that some labs generate; in fact, just a few days ago, I was thinking of uploading a few hundred gigs of imaging videos to Google Video; but do they really want that? On the other hand, maybe they can handle it; they are Google, after all.

So my opinion is that scientists should start submitting their data (all of it, including large raw data files) to Google Base until/unless Google says they changed their mind and they don’t want it.

Also, don’t forget about subject-specific databases like neurodatabase.org; until the bright future of ubiquitous cross-database integration arrives, it will be easier to search for things with the subject-specific databases, provided that enough people use the same ones.

See this news article in Nature for more commentary.

His Holiness has spoken. He wants neuro-drugs to take and electrodes stuck in his brain so that he doesn’t have to spend hours meditating each day. (Enlightenment now!) If you want to do hot stuff, study physics or brain science. His interest in neuroscience stems from a long-standing interest in body hair. Yes, body hair. Americans need to figure their own way through this whole intelligent design business. Not all antidepressants are alike; for instance, the Dalai Lama is against tranquilizers. Definitely against tranquilizers. And, perhaps most surprisingly, His Holiness, approves of animal research — when it’s done right and with respect.

Minute-by-minute liveblog follows after the jump.
(more…)

Almost Before We Spoke, We Swore - New York Times

Fun article from the NYT about swearing through the ages and its biological basis. Some relevants parts:

Reporting in The Archives of General Psychiatry, Dr. David A. Silbersweig, a director of neuropsychiatry and neuroimaging at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University, and his colleagues described their use of PET scans to measure cerebral blood flow and identify which regions of the brain are galvanized in Tourette’s patients during episodes of tics and coprolalia.

They found strong activation of the basal ganglia, a quartet of neuron clusters deep in the forebrain at roughly the level of the mid-forehead, that are known to help coordinate body movement along with activation of crucial regions of the left rear forebrain that participate in comprehending and generating speech, most notably Broca’s area.

The researchers also saw arousal of neural circuits that interact with the limbic system, the wishbone-shape throne of human emotions, and, significantly, of the “executive” realms of the brain, where decisions to act or desist from acting may be carried out: the neural source, scientists said, of whatever conscience, civility or free will humans can claim.

And some input from Frans about angry chimps:

Indeed, chimpanzees engage in what appears to be a kind of cursing match as a means of venting aggression and avoiding a potentially dangerous physical clash.

Frans de Waal, a professor of primate behavior at Emory University in Atlanta, said that when chimpanzees were angry “they will grunt or spit or make an abrupt, upsweeping gesture that, if a human were to do it, you’d recognize it as aggressive.”

Such behaviors are threat gestures, Professor de Waal said, and they are all a good sign.

Brief, interesting article: http://nytimes.com/2005/07/26/science/26monk.html

From it opening invocation describing the behavior of amygdalectomized cats (an allegory for the novel’s primary theme involving modern college life), Tom Wolfe’s newest novel, I am Charlotte Simmons, reads like a paen to modern neuroscience. I normally would not post this kind of stuff but I have been thinking that Wolfe’s novel is part of a larger phenomenon — the popularization and dissemination of neuroscience to a wider audience than ever before. For example, in the last few years, it is my impression that there have been many more articles in the NYT about neuroscience. I don’t recall seeing neuroscience-related articles there on such a frequent basis before.

Back to the topic on hand. I was especially eager to read Wolfe’s novel because he wrote it after visiting and observing students at a few colleges. Of note, he spent the most time (I think a whole year) at Stanford — my senior year there. His previous short story collection (Hooking Up), written right after his time at Stanford in 2001, does an excellent job of capturing snippets of college life, as any recent Stanford graduate can probably tell just from the title’s clever use of a popular new (well, relatively) phrase. Also, strangely enough, President Bush has repeatedly been seen reading Charlotte Simmons. With all the important world matters to read up on, why this book of college life? Between this fact and the Stanford connection, I decided to check the book out myself.

Here’s an excerpt from Charlotte talking to another student:

This class in neuroscience? It’s the most exciting subject in the world. It’s like in the future it’s going to be the key to just about everything

Ah, I agree entirely! Anyways, if you’re looking for a good read that includes some neuroscience idolatry, some crazy fraternity parties, and is recommended by none other than the President of the United States, Wolfe’s your man.

Ectopic neurotransmission is when neurotransmitters are emitted outside of synapses. This modeling study suggests that neurotransmitter release sites and also receptors can occur largely outside of synapses.

Press release (this is the only quick read out of these three links)

Science “perspectives” article

Science article