New Booklr Accounts :D

By tracking mRNA scientists can view chemicals within the brain creating memories for the first time. 

(x)

A portrait in blood vessels. Magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) is a specialised medical imaging technique used to visualise blood vessels. Here, tangled white tubes represent the major blood vessels of the head, neck and upper thorax. Looking at the uppermost portion of the image, one can see the silhouette of the brain whilst the aortic arch takes the center bottom. All these vessels are hard at work beneath your skin, even as you read this post. 

You know. Reading is important. Because I'm like always trying to make every line I write this groundbreaking mindfucking art but like. A book is 90% just saying what happened. "I hugged him around the waist." "The chair was brown and overstuffed." "I woke up alone." Etc etc. Like normal ass lines. I just keep comparing my boring, necessary to set a scene lines, with famous authors' absolute best lines and like.... every line doesn't have to shatter the earth. Sometimes someone just sits in a chair and the lines that wreck you come later, one at a time, here and there. It's alright.

The books I'm reading at the moment.

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius - I love this book. It puts you in the perspective of the time and space you occupy, I found a lot of my own thinking and feelings within the pages of this book. A guy born in AD 121 has very clear view on life that is still relevant today.

Great Adaptations by Kenneth Catania - A professor of biological sciences takes you on a journey with him while he studies various animals adaptive abilities. Star nosed moles, electric eels, tentacled snakes... Very interesting insight in how these creatures evolved and adapted.

What we cannot know by Marcus du Sautoy - Explains concepts from the ground up, I like the illustrations that accompany the text and practical examples. Lays foundations to the known and wonders into the future of research and the possibilities that come with it as well as limitations. Covering themes from quantum physics and cosmology to sensory perception and neuroscience.

Labyrinths of reason by William Poundstone - "Blue sky, sunshine, deja vu glazed with dread." How do you know this isn't all a dream? Is anything certain? Ontology, logic, mathematics, deduction, epistemology, memory formation, paradoxes and puzzles.

A brain for numbers by Andreas Nieder - Humans' understanding of numbers is intuitive. How are infants able to perceive numbers even before they learn the words for them? How do our brains process numbers? Can animals count? He shows how it is an adaptive ability and that plenty of animals have the number sense too. There is a variety of research and supporting evidence mentioned which I really like.

“The time available for her to submit grants and write papers decreased sharply in the year and a half after she first became a mother. And her lower productivity continued after she had two more sons, but there often wasn’t a way to explain that on her grant applications.”

—

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00252-5

I also have a hard time explaining in my grant applications my PhD period. Even though it took 6 years to finish my PhD, I actually was much faster than average. I was on full maternity leaves not working at all for 2 years (!!) and the rest I worked part time. I managed to get my PhD in total of 3 years and 2 months of full time work equivalent.

I am glad people start noticing this and Nature writes about this issue. Let’s not punish researchers for having kids!

(via miss-biophys)

Today I found a good video about merging tubes with different angles, ellipses, phase shift of sine waves, featuring sculptures by Frank Smullin.

This video is exceptionally comprehensive.

[Shared by hardm.ix on instagram: Text says: "A little more on the analytic constructivist sculpture of Frank Smullin, a professor of mine at Duke University who combined art and engineering in a way that reminded me a little of Kenneth Snelson and Tensegrity or Buckminster Fuller and geodesic domes."]

9.9.2024.

cognoscit

Birthday presents ✨️