Molecule Of The Day: Dopamine

Hey resident neuroscientist @sixpenceee, wanna explain why the strawberries look red?

New CDC Research Debunks Agency’s Assertion That Mercury in Vaccines Is Safe

The CDC study, Alkyl Mercury-Induced Toxicity: Multiple Mechanisms of Action, appeared last month in the journal, Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. The 45-page meta-review of relevant science examines the various ways that mercury harms the human body. Its authors, John F. Risher, PhD, and Pamela Tucker, MD, are researchers in the CDC’s Division of Toxicology and Human Health Sciences, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

“This scientific paper is the one of most important pieces of research to come out of the CDC in a decade,” Paul Thomas, M.D., a Dartmouth-trained pediatrician who has been practicing medicine for 30 years, said. “It confirms what so many already suspected: that public health officials have been making a terrible mistake in recommending that we expose babies and pregnant women to this neurotoxin. I regret to say that I gave these shots to children. The CDC led us all to believe that it was perfectly safe.”

Among the findings of the CDC’s new study:

Methylmercury, the highly-regulated neurotoxin found in fish, and ethylmercury (found in medical products, including influenza and tetanus vaccines, ear drops and nasal sprays) are similarly toxic to humans. Methylmercury and ethylmercury share common chemical properties, and both significantly disrupt central nervous system development and function.

Thimerosal is extremely toxic at very low exposures and is more damaging than methylmercury in some studies. For example, ethylmercury is even more destructive to the mitochondria in cells than methylmercury.

The ethylmercury in thimerosal does not leave the body quickly as the CDC once claimed, but is metabolized into highly neurotoxic forms.

Solar System: Things to Know This Week

Add to your electronic bookshelf with these free e-books from NASA!

1. The Saturn System Through the Eyes of Cassini

This work features 100 images highlighting Cassini’s 13-year tour at the ringed giant.

2. Earth as Art 

Explore our beautiful home world as seen from space.

3. Meatballs and more 

Emblems of Exploration showcases the rich history of space and aeronautic logos.

4. Ready for Our Close Up

Hubble Focus: Our Amazing Solar System showcases the wonders of our galactic neighborhood.

5. NASA’s First A 

This book dives into the role aeronautics plays in our mission of engineering and exploration.

6. See More 

Making the Invisible Visible outlines the rich history of infrared astronomy.

7. Ready for a Deeper Dive? 

The NASA Systems Engineering Handbook describes how we get the job done.

8. Spoiler Alert

The space race really heats up in the third volume of famed Russian spacecraft designer Boris Chertok memoirs. Chertok, who worked under the legendary Sergey Korolev, continues his fascinating narrative on the early history of the Soviet space program, from 1961 to 1967 in Rockets and People III.

9. Take a Walk on the Wild Side

The second volume of Walking to Olympus explores the 21st century evolution of spacewalks.

10. No Library Card Needed 

Find your own great read in NASA’s free e-book library.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

Can the brain feel it? The world’s smallest extracellular needle-electrodes

A research team in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Information Engineering and the Electronics-Inspired Interdisciplinary Research Institute (EIIRIS) at Toyohashi University of Technology developed 5-μm-diameter needle-electrodes on 1 mm × 1 mm block modules. This tiny needle may help solve the mysteries of the brain and facilitate the development of a brain-machine interface. The research results were reported in Scientific Reports on Oct 25, 2016.

(Image caption: Extracellular needle-electrode with a diameter of 5 μm mounted on a connector)

The neuron networks in the human brain are extremely complex. Microfabricated silicon needle-electrode devices were expected to be an innovation that would be able to record and analyze the electrical activities of the microscale neuronal circuits in the brain.

However, smaller needle technologies (e.g., needle diameter < 10 μm) are necessary to reduce damage to brain tissue. In addition to the needle geometry, the device substrate should be minimized not only to reduce the total amount of damage to tissue but also to enhance the accessibility of the electrode in the brain. Thus, these electrode technologies will realize new experimental neurophysiological concepts.

A research team in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Information Engineering and the EIIRIS at Toyohashi University of Technology developed 5- μm-diameter needle-electrodes on 1 mm × 1 mm block modules.

The individual microneedles are fabricated on the block modules, which are small enough to use in the narrow spaces present in brain tissue; as demonstrated in the recording using mouse cerebrum cortices. In addition, the block module remarkably improves the design variability in the packaging, offering numerous in vivo recording applications.

“We demonstrated the high design variability in the packaging of our electrode device, and in vivo neuronal recordings were performed by simply placing the device on a mouse’s brain. We were very surprised that high quality signals of a single unit were stably recorded over a long period using the 5-μm-diameter needle,” explained the first author, Assistant Professor Hirohito Sawahata, and co-author, researcher Shota Yamagiwa.

The leader of the research team, Associate Professor Takeshi Kawano said: “Our silicon needle technology offers low invasive neuronal recordings and provides novel methodologies for electrophysiology; therefore, it has the potential to enhance experimental neuroscience.” He added, “We expect the development of applications to solve the mysteries of the brain and the development of brain–machine interfaces.”

Curves of constant width

                                                    Source

The width of a circle is constant: its diameter.

But the circle is not the only shape that holds this pristine title. For instance let’s look at the Reuleaux triangle

Reuleaux triangle

A Reuleaux triangle is a shape formed from the intersection of three circular disks, each having its center on the boundary of the other two.

The Reuleaux triangle is the first of a sequence of Reuleaux polygons, curves of constant width formed from regular polygons with an odd number of sides.

Some of these curves have been used as the shapes of coins

To drill square holes.

They are not entirely square, their edges are fillets i.e the edges are rounded and not sharp.

This animation offers a good insight as to why that is so.

And in china, apparently on bicycles.

The man Guan Baihua shows his self-made multi-angle-wheel bicycle on May 6, 2009 in Qingdao of Shandong Province, China. Guan Baihua spent 18 months to complete this strange bicycle.

Other shapes of constant width

There are other shapes of constant width beside the Reuleaux triangle ( that has been discussed in this post ), a whole bunch of them really. Do take a look at them. ( links below )

I will leave you guys with my favorite one.

More:

If this post fascinated you, i strongly suggest you check these out. They go in-depth with the mathematics that underlies these curves and talk about other cool stuff:

An animation of non-circular rollers

Shapes and Solids of Constant Width - Numberphile  

Shapes of constant width

Reuleaux Polygons,           

Edit:

For those who are wondering if these are something that one would stumble upon on a regular basis. You may not find perfect ones but similiar ones definitely.

I found mine on a really old BMI calculator thingy. ( not sure what you would call it )

Have fun exploring !

Four years of failed harvests (1695, 1696, and 1698–99) resulted in severe famine and depopulation, particularly in the north of Scotland. Starvation killed 5 to 15 percent of the Scottish population, but in areas such as Aberdeenshire, death rates reached 25 percent.

Rarely has a natural disaster had such wide-ranging historical consequences as did the famine that struck Scotland in the mid-1690s. Little more than a decade later, as Scotland’s social elites despaired about their nation’s grinding poverty and profound structural weakness, the country’s Parliament finally voted away its age-old independence in favor of unification with England, previously Scotland’s bitterest and most enduring enemy.

The author of this sermon was a very colorful figure. A Scottish Presbyterian minister denounced as a rebel in 1674, he was restored next year but arrested again the following February. Later he was arrested for refusing to pray for the Prince of Wales, but again released. His matrimonial adventures were no less robust than his professional career. He was married seven times and fathered at least nine children.

David Williamson (1636- 1706). Scotland’s sin, danger, and duty: faithfully represented in a sermon preach’d at the West-Kirk, August 23d, 1696: being a solemn fast-day upon occasion of the great dearth and famine. Rare BT162.F3 W54 1720 

Singapore Food (in Manga/Anime) Appreciation Post!

(Also: Onion Chopping Ninja Reveals Her Timezone!)

It’s Singapore’s National Day today (9th Aug) and I was going to do a Singaporean-based Recipe, (like Hayama’s Curry Fish Head), but didn’t have time to, so here’s a Singapore Food in Manga/Anime Appreciation Post - from Kuragehime, Shokugeki no Souma, and Addicted to Curry!

The Singaporean food that is usually shown in manga/anime is usually either curry-based or chicken rice. And of course, I don’t usually make them at home because: 1. They’re easier to make in bulk 2. You can get them cheaper outside 3. My version would pale in comparison to the masters’ 4. It requires hours of preparation, except for some of the easier curry dishes in Addicted to Curry. (A manga cap of the recipe is above!)

Addicted to Curry lists Singapore as Curry Central, and I never realized how true that was until I went abroad for a couple of years and missed how we would just drown everything in curry, especially for mixed rice dishes like Chap Chye Png and Nasi Briyani. There was also a huge uproar when McDonald’s ran out of Curry Sauce for McNuggets (they have since started selling it in bottles), and a near-riot when a neighbour complained about the smell of another neighbour cooking curry. Also, Gordon Ramsay can’t beat our laksa, even though I think that particular store he challenged isn’t the best one.

(Not everything is curry, of course, but if there’s no curry, generally, there must be chili. And woe betide those who eat the wrong kind of chili with the wrong kind of food. And here’s a PSA for foreigners - Chili Crab is largely for tourists. Take Black Pepper Crab or Salted Egg Crab instead. It’s possible to live as a weak sauce who can’t take spicy foods here, but less exciting. )

Happy 51st Birthday, Singapore! Here’s to the spread of our food all over the world! And a birthday wish would be for more kinds of our food to be shown in manga/anime. :D - O.C.N.

PS: By the way, Eizan Senpai, you can get Hainanese Chicken Rice for $3, and it is considered Street Food even though there are $30+ versions at hotels. Never eaten one with Jidori Chicken, though.

A basic schematic of why the Korean alphabet is so cool, from Wright House: 

Unlike almost every other alphabet in the world, the Korean alphabet did not evolve. It was invented in 1443 (promulgated in 1446) by a team of linguists and intellectuals commissioned by King Sejong the Great.

In the diagram [above], the Korean consonants are arranged into five main linguistic groups (one per row), depending on where in the mouth contact is made. Notice that there is a graphic element common to all the consonants in a particular row. The first consonant in each row is the most basic and is graphically the simplest; this representative consonant for each group is the building block for the other characters in that group. Certain of these modifications are systematic, and yield similarly modified characters in several groups, such as adding a horizontal line to a simple consonant (a “stop” consonant–such as t/d or p/b–rather than a nasal consonant) to form the aspirated consonants (those made with extra air) and doubling simple consonants to form “tense” consonants (no real equivalent in English).

Notice that the five representative consonants (the ones in the first column in the upper part of the diagram) are also depicted in the drawings that make up the lower part of the diagram showing the relevant part of the mouth involved. Ingeniously, each of these representative consonants is a kind of simplified schematic diagram showing the position of the mouth in forming those consonants.

More details, including subsequent historical changes to Hangul, in the Wikipedia article. 

Mae’s Millinery Shop

Photo: Photograph of Mae Reeves and a group of women standing on stairs, Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift from Mae Reeves and her children, Donna Limerick and William Mincey, Jr.

African American women have been wearing fancy hats for generations to church. In 1940, Mae Reeves started Mae’s Millinery Shop in 1940 in Philadelphia, PA with a $500 bank loan. The shop stayed open until 1997 and helped dress some of the most famous African American women in the country, including iconic singers Marian Anderson, Ella Fitzgerald and Lena Horne. 

Reeves was known for making all of her customers feel welcomed and special, whether they were domestic workers, professional women, or socialites from Philadelphia’s affluent suburban Main Line. Customer’s at Mae’s would sit at her dressing table or on her settee, telling stories and sharing their troubles. 

Photo: Pink mushroom hat with flowers from Mae’s Millinery Shop, Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. In our Power of Place exhibition, we recreated a portion of Reeves’ shop to showcase this African American tradition. Our shop includes its original red-neon sign, sewing machine, antique store furniture and hats. View artifacts from Mae’s Millinery Shop in our collection: s.si.edu/2oVlbFj 

Jumps, Explained

So, going by the tags on my recent jump gifsets, the difference between jumps is apparently still a source of great bewilderment for some people. Now I could link you to some excellent posts on the topic, but since I am, as usual, an extra lil piece of dirt with too much work to do and a lifetime’s worth of procrastination, I’ve decided to put together my own layman’s guide to identifying figure skating jumps (stressed on the layman part).

First, here be a flowchart, since everybody loves flowcharts, right?

If the flowchart works as intended and you can now tell the jumps apart, great! If you need a bit more explanation and illustration, read on.

Keep reading