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• • Thursday, February
1, 2006
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"All men by nature desire to know." |
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LSD
Study Probes Hallucinogen's Effect on Brain Scientists are examining the responses of mice to learn more about how psychedelic drugs such as LSD, mescaline and "magic mushrooms" work on the brain. Besides providing new insights into hallucinogens, the study opens a door to understanding how drugs used to treat psychiatric disorders may work, too. It may even point the way to new and better medications for mental illness, the team said. " We were trying to find out why hallucinogens have their unique effects when very closely related drugs don't have similar effects on behavior and perception," explained co-researcher Dr. Stuart C. Sealfon, a professor of neurology, neuroscience, pharmacology and biological chemistry at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, in New York City. |
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'Electric'
Fish Shed Light on Ways the Brain Directs Movement Scientists have long struggled to figure out how the brain guides the complex movement of our limbs, from the graceful leaps of ballerinas to the simple everyday act of picking up a cup of coffee. Using tools from robotics and neuroscience, two Johns Hopkins University researchers have found some tantalizing clues in an unlikely mode of motion: the undulations of tropical fish. Their findings, published in the January 31 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience, shed new light on the communication that takes place between the brain and body. The fish research may contribute to important medical advances in humans, including better prosthetic limbs and improved rehabilitative techniques for people suffering from strokes, cerebral palsy and other debilitating conditions. |
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Two
Brains – One Thought Although no two brains are alike, they can display a comparable pattern of neural activity when exposed to similar sensory input. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen have now developed a mathematical method to design networks from neural cells which exhibit a predefined pattern dynamics. The researchers hope that their method will assist them in getting closer to understanding which of the possible network configurations was privileged by evolution – and why (Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena, December, 2006). |
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How
About a Bot for a Boss? Robots have historically been accused of taking jobs away from humans, so a software bot that hands out tasks for people to carry out may make a refreshing change. Suggestbot, developed by Dan Cosley at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and colleagues, could help online communities such as Wikipedia and Slashdot distribute editing tasks. Such organisations rely on members to add and edit content but, as work piles up, it can be hard even for dedicated users to pick out appropriate tasks. |
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How
Does Your Brain Tell Time? "Time" is the most popular noun in the English language, yet how would we tell time if we didn’t have access to the plethora of watches, clocks and cell phones at our disposal? For decades, scientists have believed that the brain possesses an internal clock that allows it to keep track of time. Now a UCLA study in the Feb. 1 edition of Neuron proposes a new model in which a series of physical changes to the brain’s cells helps the organ to monitor the passage of time. " The value of this research lies in understanding how the brain works," said Dean Buonomano, associate professor of neurobiology and psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a member of the university’s Brain Research Institute. "Many complex human behaviors – from understanding speech to playing catch to performing music – rely on the brain’s ability to accurately tell time. Yet no one knows how the brain does it." |
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Europe's
First Stegosaurus Discovered A Stegosaurus fossil has been discovered in Europe, marking the first time the famous plated dinosaur has been found outside of North America. The find supports a widely accepted idea that the two continents were once connected by a series of temporary land bridges which surfaced when sea levels dipped, allowing dinosaurs to cross. “Both coasts were very close and the basins between them could emerge occasionally,” said study leader Fernando Escaso of the Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain. |
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Children's
Foreheads Slashed in Muslim Saint's Name Some Shiite children learn to taste blood at an early age...their own. In a backward ritual right out of the stone age, hundreds of southern Lebanese children as young as three are having their foreheads slashed with daggers as a reminder of how the 7th-century Shiite Muslim saint, Imam Hussein, was decapitated. Their reward for suffering through the ordeal: fruit juice and cookies. |
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