The Neurophile

Roger Ebert on El Topo

2007-10-07T18:08:00.000-05:00

This is sort of totally random, but Roger Ebert just put up an excellent essay on El Topo on the "Great Movies" section of his website to commemorate its long-awaited release on DVD.

Since we here at the Neurophile are avowed fans of the works of Mad Genius Alejandro Jodorowsky, I felt sort of obliged to link to it.

I'm working with people who are sane!

2007-10-04T17:16:00.001-05:00

Holy crap! The lab I'm rotating in doesn't require that our lab notebooks be the standard design with numbered pages, obvious if you ever take out any pages, etc. You know, the way everyone's always required to use them because 20 years ago everyone actually had to use notebooks because they didn't all have laptops and it was physically possible to keep your data in a non-electronic fashion.

It's so sensible!

...I have this horrible urge to go get an old-fashioned lab notebook, just so I'll be able to find everything when I need it.

Tonight's Reading Made Me Laugh

2007-10-02T22:34:00.000-05:00

from The Neuron: Cell and Molecular Biology 3E, by Irwin B. Levitan & Leonard K. Kaczmarek, chapter 3:

The plasma membrane of a nerve cell or, indeed, of any cell provides a resistance to the flow of ions between the intracellular and extracellular compartments. Accordingly, it can be thought of as an electrical resistor, with the membrane resistance, R_m, being measured in ohms (Ω). In addition, the lipid bilayer provides an extremely thin insulating layer between two conducting solutions. This allows the membrane to act as an electrical capacitor, a device that is capable of separating and storing electrical charge. The membrance capacitance, C_{m, is measured in farads (F). These considerations allow us to describe the electrical properties of the lipid bilayer membrane simply in terms of an equivalent electrical circuit, as shown in Figure 3-4a. This description is introduced not to torment the student of cell and molecular biology, but rather because it is extremely useful in understanding the electrical behavior of biological membranes under a variety of physiological conditions.}

(Bold emphasis mine)

All Kinds of Neato

2007-09-26T22:34:00.001-05:00

Arkansas nuns excommunicated for membership in a Canadian sect that claims to be founded by the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary.

This Title Sucks

2007-09-26T18:43:00.000-05:00

Well, that's a comment I wasn't expecting to see.

First day of class

2007-09-26T13:22:00.000-05:00

Just got out of my first class, NEUBEH 501A: Introduction to Neurobiology. Based on the syllabus and the first lecture; it looks like a lot of the same old, same old... but I'm sure I'll regret having said that.

After we got through the standard first class period stuff, the rest of the lecture worked its way around one simple topic:

Neurons are just like other cells... but different.

Theyre the same in that they have all of the standard cell paraphernalia and do all of the standard cell things. They have a full complement of organelles in the soma, they homeostatically regulate their living conditions, all that.

But they're different both because they have specialized functions and because the specializations lead to special needs. They need to be exceptionally long (extreme example: some sensory neurons in the dorsal root ganglion need to carry sensory information from your toes to the somatosensory cortex in your brain; those can easily top 2 meters in us tall folk, and then think about the giraffe!); but the extreme length of these processes leads to a fundamential specialized need: the need to ship proteins and assorted cell products from the soma where they are manufactured to one end or the other of your body. Neurons are also extremely polarized due to their need for fast electric signaling, which is also required for their ability to rapidly exocytose materials (exocytosis = ejecting material from a cell). In addition, neurons have an extraordinarily long life cycle: although some neurons can be replaced during the course of a human life time, they are definitely in the minority.

There was then some small discussion of the specializations underlying different types of neurons, but my battery is about to die so I'll leave it at that for now.

I don't know, man, I didn't do it!

2007-09-26T10:05:00.000-05:00

Sorry about the RSS feed crapping out like that. Don't look at me, I haven't posted in ages! It's TOTALLY blogger's fault!

Things I have that make me happy

2007-08-23T16:03:00.000-05:00

#1.) A poster proof! It's all shiny and everything!

#2.) The first figure done for my paper. And decent revisions of both the Intro & the Methods section. No Results or Discussion yet... next week is gonna be hell.

Today's Epiphany

2007-08-20T10:52:00.000-05:00

Just so you know, I finally have a legitimate excuse for horribly erratic posting habits, as I'm currently simultaneously preparing to move across the country and writing my first paper for publication.

So I'm taking a break from the latter to finish revising my poster for SfN (since I realized that the standard turnaround for posters is 5 days, which would mean that if I turn it in today it'll be back the day before we load up our PODS), and I had an epiphany about the difference between writing for a scientific audience and well, pretty much any other kind of writing I've done.

A key element of writing for a general audience is to have a host of synonyms at your disposal, so you can always insert whatever word sounds best into a given sentence. Also, you need to be able to avoid using the same words in consecutive sentences when possible as your sentences will sounds homogeneous and monotonous. But in science writing, you need to choose a some word and stick with it. Use the same term to describe the same thing every. Single. Time. Otherwise, your audience will just get confused and wonder if you're talking about different phenomena. I realize this is not a major grand epiphany for most people, and is probably a bit obvious. But it's part and parcel of explaining all of the writing problems I've had when working on things in the lab. My secret to good writing has always been to write for the ear; I just get the text out there and then revise and revise until the prose has some flow to it. But when I try to do that on my poster or in my paper, it's actually counter-productive since I'm just messing things up when I try to liven up the words.

Google Search Terms Q & A

2007-08-07T15:38:00.000-05:00

In response to the person who arrived at my blog using the google search terms "3-minute depression cure does it work?":

No. I'm pretty sure that no, it doesn't.

Your Tuesday Sort-Of SciAm Moment

2007-08-07T15:34:00.000-05:00

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn--from The Gulag Archipelago--as quoted in Michael Shermer's Skeptic column from the latest issue of Scientific American:

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

Suddenly I understand why my mom had all those Solzhenitsyn books on the shelf when I was growing up.

New Candidate for Most Useless Headline Ever

2007-08-07T12:11:00.000-05:00

Reuters: Brain chemical has key role in ADHD

Two Observations From Jamba Juice & One From an Airplane

2007-08-07T09:54:00.000-05:00

#1: The second most horrifying sentence I've heard thus far this week: "I'm gonna have to run back to get a band-aid soon because this thing fell on me again and I'm bleeding all over the place." This, from the person preparing my breakfast.

#2: I think this is the first business I've ever entered that with a sign up informing customers of their ticker symbol.

#3: The most horrifying sentence I've heard thus far this week, uttered on my flight from Charlotte by the hideously obese, greasy truck driver that is every Northerner's nightmare: "Why don't you just get out of the way so I can get my butt up in that?" And yes, he was talking to me.

FYI

2007-08-01T22:39:00.000-05:00

We had some bridge-related shenanigans in Minneapolis today; but AFAIK me and mine are all OK.

From the What-The-Hey? Department:

2007-08-01T16:21:00.000-05:00

From this AP article, in which we learn the Senate is moving (once again) to put tobacco under the FDA's jurisdiction; but we also learn the following:

The committee adopted an amendment by Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., that would ban clove cigarettes, reversing a controversial decision by Kennedy to allow the FDA to make that decision.

Kennedy, the panel's chairman, said he was responding to several senators who contacted him with concerns that a ban on cloves would not be compliant with World Trade Organization rules. But Kennedy agreed to the ban after several senators objected.

Most cloves are marketed in Asia, and Philip Morris, a unit of New York-based Altria Group Inc., recently launched a Marlboro cigarette flavored with cloves in Indonesia.

Kennedy said at the meeting that Philip Morris had "nothing to do with our decision" and he supported the clove ban as long as it is WTO compliant.

This doesn't make sense on so many levels. I think the "Marlboro cloves launched in Indonesia" is a red herring caused by bad copywriting. My guess is that the point of the clove ban is because Marlboro doesn't make money on cloves in the US--you know, where the ban would take place--which really makes the rest of the article make a lot more sense. Because otherwise: is there some extensive "ban cloves but not tobacco cigarettes" lobby I've never heard of before?

Ask a Stupid Question...

2007-08-01T16:05:00.000-05:00

Okay, so bitwise linked to this article about priming in the NYT, and true to form I got obsessively distracted halfway through... by the font for the "Mental Health & Behavior" section. Does it really jump out at anyone else that the section heading is in a different font than, well, anyone else? Or am I just deranged?

If You're Minnesotan and You Know It...

2007-08-01T14:51:00.000-05:00

Then this is the funniest thing ever. Well, if you follow the Timberwolves obsessively: T-Hud's album sells 78 copies. I think there are more posters advertising it than that on my bus ride to work. Admittedly, all of those are within a block of the Electric Fetus, but still...

No wonder they bought out his contract.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

2007-08-01T10:47:00.001-05:00

This picture makes me want to cry:

On the upside, the article reminded me that Wally is playing for Seattle now (having been traded for Jesus), so I'll get to see him up close again once we move out there. On the downside, Wally's body is falling apart so he doesn't play like he used to.

It's a world of pain and misery, until I remember that I'm moving to Kevin Durant country.

Today's SciAm Moment

2007-08-01T10:19:00.001-05:00

Another excerpt from the July 2007 issue of Scientific American, this time from the Fact or Fiction? column (yes, guess what I've been reading on the bus to work):

Most modern cars, however, are designed to employ a specific compression ratio, a measure of how much room is available to the fuel when the piston is at the bottom and the top of the cylinder. This compression ratio—somewhere in the neighborhood of eight to one—tolerates lower octane fuels (such as regular gasoline, good old 87 octane) without knocking. "The compression ratio is fixed by the designer of the engine," Green says. "The regular fuel will burn properly and the premium fuel will burn properly and therefore there is no reason you should pay the extra money."...

...Such high compression ratios—and the premium fuels that go with them—could be turned to efficiency, rather than speed, Green notes, especially if put into the engines of lighter cars like his Honda Civic. Other automotive fuels, such as ethanol, can also offer high octane ratings, allowing oil companies to use more volatile gasoline in such blends. But for standard cars on the road today, purchasing premium gasoline is simply paying a premium for a fuel that delivers no added benefits. "If you think you need it," Green says, "you're being very eccentric."

Holy Crap!

2007-08-01T08:33:00.000-05:00

I was just in the shower when I suddenly realized that the blood-dimmed tide is loosed and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned!

Your Mildly Amusing Comic Book Moment of the Day

2007-07-31T22:25:00.000-05:00

Manoman I wish I had a scanner right now. On the other hand, it may require a somewhat specific sense of humor to find the following caption excerpt insanely funny (emphasis from original):

Dr. Strange, mystic master--Valkyrie, woman warrior--The Hulk, big green strong person...

As found in Giant-Size Defenders #5, reprinted in Essential Defenders volume 2.

War is Funny?

2007-07-31T12:41:00.001-05:00

War Is Boring #1
Originally uploaded by david_axe

I just discovered War is Boring, a comic featuring the adventures of David Axe; war journalist, Danger Room contributor, and author of the similarly-titled blog War is Boring.

There's not a lot of it, but it's all pretty entertaining.

Once Again: Scientists Continue to Prove That Scientists Just Hate Mice

2007-07-31T09:57:00.000-05:00

From Joe Z. Tsien's article "The Memory Code" from the July 2007 issue of Scientific American (emphasis mine):

Witnessing the 9/11 terrorist attacks, surviving an earthquake or even plummeting 13 stories in Disney's Tower of Terror are things that are hard to forget. So we developed tests that would mimic this type of emotionally charged, episodic event. Such experiences should produce memories that are long-lasting and strong. And encoding such robust memories, we reasoned, might involve a large number of cells in the hippocampus, thus making it more likely that we would be able to find cells activated by the experience and gather enough data to unravel any patterns and organizing principles involved in the process.

The episodic events we chose include a lab version of an earthquake (induced by shaking a small container holding a mouse), a sudden blast of air to the animal's back (meant to mimic an owl attack from the sky) and a brief vertical free fall inside a small "elevator" (which, when we first started doing these experiments, was provided by a cookie jar we had in the lab).

Really, the part that had me ROTFLing was the image of some undergrad at Boston University who gets to explain to people that he got his research credits for picking up a mouse cage and shaking it around.

Must Read: High Amusement

2007-07-25T18:53:00.000-05:00

TPM brings us the full dirt on the scary-sounding "ice packs full of clay" being used by terrorists practicing bombing runs.

That Sound? That Was The Internet Exploding

2007-07-16T15:49:00.001-05:00

That sound you just heard? That was the internet exploding in a hail of guitars. Suddenly, everywhere on the internet is awash in the same rumor:

Emanuel Fialik of Pilgrim Management GmbH, which represents German industrial metal pioneers RAMMSTEIN, has issued the following press release:

"On the 13th of July 2007 the industrial gothic top act RAMMSTEIN announces that after the release of the next studio album, which is about to get finished, the current singer and frontman Till Lindemann will leave the band...

..."The new singer which was found and signed to be the new RAMMSTEIN frontman is the co-founder and ex-member of the electro industrial act KMFDM and current singer of SLICK IDIOT — En Esch — who recently moved to Berlin to join the band.

If true, it must be said that that's a combination with that's potential. And En Esch has desperately needed someone to rein him in since he left KMFDM. But most importantly? Given Rammstein's predilections for setting things (especially lead singers) on fire, here's a suggestion for all the metal press out there: whatever you do, DO NOT ASK En Esch about that time his apartment caught on fire.

Trust me on this.