atomic-raygun

2012-02-14T19:42:00.000-08:00

6.0 off the Oregon coast just now.

2012-02-14T19:13:00.000-08:00

Vote for meeeeeeee http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Capture-Love/Lost-Love/cns-p/1380425 or someone else!

2012-02-14T18:50:00.001-08:00

Home from Jin shinification.

Update: Well that wiped me out - I could barely move. I woke up about 45 minutesago.

2012-02-14T11:11:00.001-08:00

Lake now

2012-02-13T20:25:00.000-08:00

Hôtel-de-Michelin

2012-02-13T13:31:00.000-08:00

I've gone mesh: hoody, shorts, and feet :-D

2012-02-13T10:20:00.000-08:00

Sure, People Like Monster Films But They Think Monsters Are Imaginary

The ultimate evil, Monsanto, is out there spewing its filth on the good, green earth. Will it be possible to kill it? If so will the damage be irreparable? If corporations looked the way they act Monsanto would probably look like the Cloverfield monster.

In the news: A French court has found US biotech giant Monsanto guilty of the chemical poisoning of a French farmer, in a case that could lend weight to other health claims against pesticides.

2012-02-12T18:44:00.000-08:00

Off to the CircusEnj, Salazar, and I spent the day at the circus in New Babbage. It was a good show, but I'd'vew liked it compacted as I was there (not to mention the hour+ waiting) two hours and only left when I crashed for the fifth or more time and was too tired to go back. It had shown no signs of nearing its end, and I'd just been lagged out. Lag is exhausting. I was reminded of the post-mono paralysing lagspikes of our latter TSMGO experiences.New Babbage is looking great! I have a few photos 'though snapshottery frequently equaled crashification tout de suite.Acts I can recall are fire dancers, weight lifter, Elephant Man, tight-rope ape, dancers, dancing boy.

2012-02-11T00:38:00.000-08:00

I was a Tull fan way back when. I hadn't heard this for a while.

2012-02-10T17:20:00.000-08:00

The Journal of Neuroscience is the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience. The Journal publishes papers on a broad range of topics of general interest to those working on the nervous system.

Development/Plasticity/Repair
Exogenous Leukemia Inhibitory Factor Stimulates Oligodendrocyte Progenitor Cell Proliferation and Enhances Hippocampal Remyelination

Abstract
New CNS neurons and glia are generated throughout adulthood from endogenous neural stem and progenitor cells. These progenitors can respond to injury, but their ability to proliferate, migrate, differentiate, and survive is usually insufficient to replace lost cells and restore normal function.

Potentiating the progenitor response with exogenous factors is an attractive strategy for the treatment of nervous system injuries and neurodegenerative and demyelinating disorders. Previously, we reported that delivery of leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) to the CNS stimulates the self-renewal of neural stem cells and the proliferation of parenchymal glial progenitors. Here we identify these parenchymal glia as oligodendrocyte (OL) progenitor cells (OPCs) and show that LIF delivery stimulates their proliferation through the activation of gp130 receptor signaling within these cells.

Importantly, this effect of LIF on OPC proliferation can be harnessed to enhance the generation of OLs that express myelin proteins and reform nodes of Ranvier in the context of chronic demyelination in the adult mouse hippocampus. Our findings, considered together with the known beneficial effects of LIF on OL and neuron survival, suggest that LIF has both reparative and protective activities that make it a promising potential therapy for CNS demyelinating disorders and injuries.

Benjamin E. Deverman and Paul H. Patterson

(see current issue pages 2100–2109)

In traumatic brain injury and multiple sclerosis (MS), chronic demyelination leads to axonal damage. Although oligodendrocyte precursors proliferate, differentiate, mature, and remyelinate axons in adult brains, this happens too slowly to compensate for the loss in MS. Stimulating endogenous processes might be an effective means to treat the disease, however. Leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) stimulates oligodendrocyte precursor cell (OPC) proliferation, oligodendrocyte maturation, and myelination in cultures, and Deverman and Patterson show that it produces similar effects in vivo. Intracerebroventricular injection of adenovirus expressing LIF (Ad-LIF) increased OPC proliferation in mice.

Furthermore, after cuprizone-induced demyelination, Ad-LIF greatly increased the number of mature oligodendrocytes and the extent of myelination in the hippocampus. Interestingly, some remyelination does not depend on LIF: enhanced proliferation and maturation were not detected in white matter tracts that underwent extensive spontaneous remyelination after cuprizone treatment, and inactivating the LIF receptor blocked the effects of Ad-LIF without affecting spontaneous recovery.

2012-02-09T21:44:00.001-08:00

Some stray images on teh 'Pod.

2012-02-09T20:57:00.000-08:00

EWTN — a Catholic television network carried on thousands of cable systems in more than 100 countries — filed suit in U.S. District Court in Birmingham, Ala.

"We had no other option," said Michael Warsaw, president of EWTN, which stands for Eternal Word Television Network.

"Under the HHS mandate, EWTN is being forced by the government to make a choice: Either we provide employees coverage for contraception, sterilization and ~~abortion-inducing drugs~~ violate our conscience or offer our employees and their families no health insurance coverage at all. Neither of those choices is acceptable," Warsaw said.

"This is about whether the government of the United States should have the power to go in and tell a faith-based organization they have to pay for something that they teach their members shouldn't be doing. It`s that simple," Rubio said.

I would presume that if they hire people who aren't members of their faith that those people should not be forced to have the tenets of that faith forced upon them; I would presume that if they hire people of the same faith those people will not violate the tenets of the faith.
So STFU.

2012-02-09T12:11:00.001-08:00

Lake

2012-02-08T21:54:00.000-08:00

Art X SciFi

2012-02-08T16:30:00.000-08:00

Korean Children's Book Covers from the 40s and 50s

2012-02-08T00:37:00.000-08:00

A Zen Story

One day while walking through the wilderness a man stumbled upon a vicious tiger. He ran but soon came to the edge of a high cliff. Desperate to save himself, he climbed down a vine and dangled over the fatal precipice.

As he hung there, two mice appeared from a hole in the cliff and began gnawing on the vine.

Suddenly, he noticed on the vine a plump wild strawberry. He plucked it and popped it in his mouth. It was incredibly delicious!

2012-02-07T18:04:00.001-08:00

Outside the defunct post office.

2012-02-06T22:07:00.001-08:00

Picturesque lake scum

2012-02-06T14:00:00.000-08:00

Over 350 dead from cold in Europe’s arctic spell | euronews, world news

2012-02-06T13:38:00.000-08:00

Diy brain enhancement

Zapping your brain with a small current seems to improve everything from mathematical skills to marksmanship, but for now your best chance of experiencing this boost is to sign up for a lab experiment. Machines that provide transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) cost £5000 a pop, and their makers often sell them only to researchers.

That hasn't stopped a vibrant community of DIY tDCS enthusiasts from springing up. Their online forums are full of accounts of their home-made experiments, including hair-curling descriptions of blunders that, in one case, left someone temporarily blind.

What drives people to take such risks? Roy Hamilton, a neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, thinks it is part of a general trend he calls cosmetic neuroscience, in which people try to tailor their brains to the demands of an increasingly fast-paced world. "In a society where both students and their professors take stimulant medications to meet their academic expectations," he warns, "the potential pressure for the use of cognitive enhancing technologies of all types is very real".

---- from New Scientist

2012-02-06T13:23:00.001-08:00

2012-02-06T11:56:00.001-08:00

Moar sun! It must be 50 degrees ====:-O
Update: Phew, it' just 45.

2012-02-06T00:26:00.000-08:00

Oh, I'm going to try this. I'll report my findings :-D

Update: I had trouble going to sleep but finally dropped off at around 4. I dreamt I was driving a horse and a derailed train nearly hit me. Then I woke up and divested. Myself of the ear buds and went to proper sleep.
May try again sometime.

2012-02-05T19:47:00.000-08:00

bust
lake
a cloisonne pin
os

The wonders of 'Percolator.'

2012-02-05T17:25:00.001-08:00

Oh, ok.