Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Imaging Neurons



From Wired:
Masses of Neurons Coordinating Movement

Understanding neuronal connections could shed light on psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia that scientists believe arise from "wiring" problems.

"Our ultimate goal is to create automated systems that will take a sample of brain tissue as input and generate its 'circuit diagram,' a list of all its neurons and their synaptic connections, said Sebastian Seung, an MIT professor.

Left:The cerebellum is the central command for the mouse's movements. If a mouse could learn to ride a bike, these are the cells that would make it happen. The cells pictured are bringing information to the cerebellum, telling it what's going on with the muscles.

Link

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Dissecting a 53 million year old Spider - Virtually


Found in some French amber, this fossil spider could be seen with the eye, but details through the golden blurry sap were more than a little hard to make out. Now through the use of a method called ‘Very High Resolution X-Ray Computed Tomography’ (VHR-CT) the researchers were able to "digitally dissect" it, revealing details at a previously unattainable level of resolution. First developed for medical applications, these new visualization techniques are finding all sort of uses as powerful tools in other fields of inquiry...

The article:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071029083230.htm

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

"Smart Bras" & Breast Cancer

breast cancer bra

Self-breast exam? MRI? Mammogram? what about ultrasound? The debate over breast cancer screening and the best techniques of detection is by no means settled, but now a new scheme just came to town! The "Smart Bra" relies on microwave antennae in the bra you are wearing to detect changes in temperature within the breast, which may correlate with increased blood flow and thus potentially a growing cancer - that is the reasoning of the researchers at least. Using this form of "thermography" is neat, but would it really be effective? Can you just throw this thing in the wash or is it a knits/delicates or would it be a Dry Clean Only kind of thing?

Seeing your Sleepless Brain Angry

sleeping man
Wonder why you are feeling so on edge these days? Weel the scientists do as well: your lack of sleep.

one of the techniques you are reading about this week - fMRI - has been used to show people's amygdala (a part of the brain thought to be important in emotional response - is more active when shown images designed to make them angry or sad.

Is this "readings sgins" but just internally now?
What do you think??
hey! don't be so touchy! - friend, I think you need a nap.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7056611.stm

Wednesday, October 17, 2007




Included is a recent article in ArtNews Magazine Art Talk On Our Beast Behavior, October Issue 2007


NOTES from Saul's perspective-- It is interesting how all the different artists are part of this phenomena. One can include the images of the early painter Peiter Bruegel the Elder shown above Dulle Griet (Mad Meg) c. 1562 (200 Kb); Oil on panel, 117.4 x 162 cm; Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp.
Looking at the painting we can find characteristics in several personalities around the painting that can realate to the response of Cesare Lombroso about people and animals likeness.
Several of the images included in this painting can be described as the continuous reflection on how people saw the world with the expectations and asimilations of animals. Nowdays humanity still have the tendencies to relate other people as animal likeness for their looks, this can be vizualize as mockery and prefferences of perspectives towards other people.





Tuesday, October 16, 2007

.::::: This Synthetic Life :::::.

Biologist Craig Venter, known for his work on the Human Gnome Project, is believed to have created synthetic life. It is suspected that he will report his findings soon on this major step in science.

link

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Look of fear sparks fast reaction

This week American scientists demonstrate that humans repsond faster to fearful expressions than any others, including a smile.

Research much apropos to are recent discussions of physiognomy, facial cues, and the evolution of expressions this work looks clearly to evolution to help explain this phenomenon about our attention and what we react to:

Dr David Zald, associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee said: "We believe that the brain can detect certain cues even before we are aware of them, so that we can direct our attention to potentially threatening situations in our environment."

Read the whole article here fresh fron the BBC

Sunday, October 7, 2007

"Quantifying Laughter" Technology

Technology is the Cutting Edge. There is no doubt about it, we are in the midst o fa revolution, as this item taken from the September 7th , 2007 edition of the Chicago Shimpo, the city's Japanese community paper .

Apparently this company has perfected to percentile accuracy the degree of your smile, as the screen shot below shows (that lady has a "100%" smile! On the other hand the fellow is only clocking in at a 32% smile - hmm, perhaps he woke up on the wrong side of bed?

Omron says that this device can "help take a picture of your best smile, and can also check your smile if you work in the service industry."

No sense leaving something this importance to your intuition nor experience folks, not when science has the numbers to back it all up!

One thing that strikes me as odd is that "laughing" and smiling" seem to be used synonymously here - but really is anything as benign as a smile behind every laugh, or vice versa? Laughing at your clients might not got you the commission nor the date you were hoping for...

sciencedaily.com "Childhood Obesity May Contribute To Earlier Puberty For Girls"

In a new study published in the March issue of the journal Pediatrics, the researchers reveal that a higher body mass index (BMI) score in girls as young as age 3, and large increases in BMI between 3 years of age and first grade are associated with earlier puberty, defined as the presence of breast development by age 9. This longitudinal study is unique in that it included girls younger than age 5 to examine the association between weight status and timing of puberty.
"Our finding that increased body fatness is associated with the earlier onset of puberty provides additional evidence that growing rates of obesity among children in this country may be contributing to the trend of early maturation in girls," says lead author and U-M pediatric endocrinologist Joyce Lee, M.D, MPH.
Studies have suggested that girls in the United States are entering puberty at younger ages today than they were 30 years ago, says Lee. Since rates of childhood obesity also have significantly increased during the same time period, researchers have speculated that childhood obesity may be contributing to a trend of earlier puberty in girls.
"Previous studies had found that girls who have earlier puberty tend to have higher body mass index, but it was unclear whether puberty led to the weight gain or weight gain led to the earlier onset of puberty. Our study offers evidence that it is the latter," says Lee, a member of the Child Health Evaluation and Research (CHEAR) Unit in the U-M Division of General Pediatrics, and assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases at the U-M Medical School.
To study the association between weight in early childhood and the onset of puberty, Lee and her colleagues looked at 354 girls from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds in 10 regions of the United States using data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development study.
Along with recording BMI and weight status from ages 3 to 12, the study looked at multiple outcomes of puberty in girls, including breast development as well as children's ages at the onset of menstrual periods.
For this study, girls were classified as at risk for overweight if their BMI was between the 85th and 95th percentiles, and defined as overweight if their BMI was greater than the 95th percentile for weight based on age and height.
The study found that by fourth grade, 30 percent of the girls were either at risk for overweight or already overweight. Additionally, 168 of the study participants were considered "in puberty" by fourth grade. Nearly two dozen of the girls in the study reported having their first menstrual period by sixth grade.
Higher BMI scores at all ages were found to have a strong association with an earlier onset of puberty in girls. Earlier onset of puberty also was associated with higher BMI change between age 3 and first grade -- a period well before the onset of puberty.
Studies have shown that earlier onset of puberty can lead to higher rates of behavioral problems and psychosocial stress, as well as earlier initiation of alcohol use, sexual intercourse, and increased rates of adult obesity and reproductive cancer. That's why Lee says it is important for future studies to identify exactly how increased body fat leads to earlier puberty in girls to prevent these adverse effects.
"Beyond identifying how obesity causes early puberty, it's also important to determine whether weight control interventions at an early age have the potential to slow the progression of puberty," notes Lee.
In addition to Lee, co-authors are: from Boston University School of Public Health Danielle Appugliese, MPH; from the University of Michigan Niko Kaciroti, Ph.D., and Julie C. Lumeng, M.D.; and from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Robert F. Corwyn, Ph.D., and Robert H. Bradley, Ph.D.
The study was funded by grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the American Heart Association.
Reference: Pediatrics, Vol. 119, No. 3.

More Girls Experience Early Puberty CNN.com

By Jennifer Haupt
(WebMD) -- Like many girls who enter puberty earlier than most, Kathy Pitts was confused and scared when she got her period at 9. "My mother never mentioned the changes that go along with puberty -- maybe she thought I was too young," says Pitts, now 35 and the mother of a 9-year-old son and a 2-year-old daughter in Bellevue, Washington. "It would have really helped if my mom had talked to me about what to expect."

These days, Pitts would have had plenty of company. More young girls are showing signs of puberty as early as 7 or 8 and beginning to menstruate two to three years later. As a result, parents are increasingly faced with the difficult task of talking to young children about topics that had traditionally been reserved for preteens and teens.

While previous studies have found that girls typically began showing signs of puberty at 10 to 11, a new report by the Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine Society (LWPES), a nationwide network of physicians headquartered in Stanford, California, suggests that it is normal for white girls as young as 7 and black girls as young as 6 to start developing breasts. This conclusion was based on a study of 17,000 girls between the ages of 3 and 12 conducted by the Pediatric Research in Office Settings (PROS) network of 1,500 pediatricians nationwide and published in the April 1997 issue of "Pediatrics."

"This study is significant because it gives us a marker for when parents should be concerned about physical development that is truly too early and may be a sign of a hormonal imbalance," says Paul Boepple, M.D., associate professor of pediatric endocrinology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and at Harvard Medical School. "It also gives parents a heads-up that they need to talk about the physical and emotional changes of puberty with kids possibly as young as age 5."

Why is the age of puberty dropping?


Nobody knows for certain why girls are entering puberty earlier, but the most popular theory involves insecticides, which can break down into compounds that may have estrogenic activity in young girls, thus triggering the onset of puberty.

Others attribute the drop to in increase in childhood obesity. "My own bias is that a major contributor to earlier puberty is the increasing prevalence of obesity over the past 25 years ... especially in 6- to 11-year-old girls," says Paul Kaplowitz, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine in Charlottesville, Virginia, and author of the LWPES report. "It has long been known that overweight girls tend to mature earlier and thin girls tend to mature later."

As for African-American girls maturing even earlier, Boepple believes this may be due to a higher cultural tendency toward obesity, while Kaplowitz hypothesizes that there may be genetic differences within the African-American population that predispose them to an earlier onset.

If a child is showing early signs of puberty, an evaluation by an endocrinologist is recommended to rule out other risks. "In a few cases, early puberty can be indicative of a tumor of the reproductive organs or that the brain has erroneously triggered the production of estrogen," says Boepple. "The great majority of girls are just developing early. But if a girl has unusual symptoms including headaches, abdominal pain, and weight loss, or if there isn't the growth spurt associated with puberty, there may be trouble."

Preparing little girls for womanhood


While researchers speculate on reasons for the drop, parents must contend with broaching the subject of sexual development with children while they are still in grade school.

According to Helen Egger, M.D., a child psychiatrist in Duke University's department of psychiatry, once you've noticed signs, it's important to let your child take the lead. Egger's own daughter started showing signs of puberty at 8, so she gave her daughter some books about puberty geared to pre-teens as a catalyst for discussion. Then she waited for her daughter to approach her with questions.

"Our daughter wanted to talk about some of the topics that the books brought up, such as menstruation and breast development," Egger says. "She recognized on her own that her body was changing before her friends', and that naturally led to discussions about how she felt about that."

When it comes to talking about sex education with young girls, Egger suggests that parents proceed with care.

"Even though these girls' bodies are changing, they are still very much young children and emotionally are probably not ready to talk about some of things you might talk to, say, an 11-year-old about," she says. "Start by talking about the physical changes your daughter is going through, without going into details about having sexual relations. Most 8-year-olds haven't even considered dating, let alone having sex."

One bonus to talking to a child early about puberty is that she is more likely to be open to a discussion at 8 than she will be at 10.

"When my youngest girl started to enter puberty at 8, we talked a lot about the changes she was going through -- like getting hair under her arms and the beginnings of breasts," says Mary Weisnewski, the mother of two girls, 11 and 16. "But once they reach 10, they clam up and don't want to talk about these things with their parents -- they'd rather talk with their friends."

© 2000 Healtheon/WebMD. All rights reserved.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

'Storm' superworm - the adaptations of a computer virus

Storm is a new type of computer worm - a self-propagating computer virus - which has borrowed traits from nature to act successfully on its hosts and skirt the attempts to kill it by anti-virus companies and security admin.

From Wired:
  1. Storm is patient. A worm that attacks all the time is much easier to detect; a worm that attacks and then shuts off for a while hides much more easily.
  2. Storm is designed like an ant colony, with separation of duties. Only a small fraction of infected hosts spread the worm. A much smaller fraction are C2: command-and-control servers. The rest stand by to receive orders. By only allowing a small number of hosts to propagate the virus and act as command-and-control servers, Storm is resilient against attack. Even if those hosts shut down, the network remains largely intact, and other hosts can take over those duties.
  3. Storm doesn't cause any damage, or noticeable performance impact, to the hosts. Like a parasite, it needs its host to be intact and healthy for its own survival. This makes it harder to detect, because users and network administrators won't notice any abnormal behavior most of the time.
  4. Rather than having all hosts communicate to a central server or set of servers, Storm uses a peer-to-peer network for C2. This makes the Storm botnet much harder to disable. The most common way to disable a botnet is to shut down the centralized control point. Storm doesn't have a centralized control point, and thus can't be shut down that way.

    This technique has other advantages, too. Companies that monitor net activity can detect traffic anomalies with a centralized C2 point, but distributed C2 doesn't show up as a spike. Communications are much harder to detect.

    One standard method of tracking root C2 servers is to put an infected host through a memory debugger and figure out where its orders are coming from. This won't work with Storm: An infected host may only know about a small fraction of infected hosts -- 25-30 at a time -- and those hosts are an unknown number of hops away from the primary C2 servers.

    And even if a C2 node is taken down, the system doesn't suffer. Like a hydra with many heads, Storm's C2 structure is distributed.

  5. Not only are the C2 servers distributed, but they also hide behind a constantly changing DNS technique called "fast flux." So even if a compromised host is isolated and debugged, and a C2 server identified through the cloud, by that time it may no longer be active.
  6. Storm's payload -- the code it uses to spread -- morphs every 30 minutes or so, making typical AV (antivirus) and IDS techniques less effective.
  7. Storm's delivery mechanism also changes regularly. Storm started out as PDF spam, then its programmers started using e-cards and YouTube invites -- anything to entice users to click on a phony link. Storm also started posting blog-comment spam, again trying to trick viewers into clicking infected links. While these sorts of things are pretty standard worm tactics, it does highlight how Storm is constantly shifting at all levels.
  8. The Storm e-mail also changes all the time, leveraging social engineering techniques. There are always new subject lines and new enticing text: "A killer at 11, he's free at 21 and ...," "football tracking program" on NFL opening weekend, and major storm and hurricane warnings. Storm's programmers are very good at preying on human nature.
  9. Last month, Storm began attacking anti-spam sites focused on identifying it -- spamhaus.org, 419eater and so on -- and the personal website of Joe Stewart, who published an analysis of Storm. I am reminded of a basic theory of war: Take out your enemy's reconnaissance. Or a basic theory of urban gangs and some governments: Make sure others know not to mess with you.
Link

Was Lorenz right?

Apropos our discussion last week about Konrad Lorenz's theory of neotenous traits of all baby animals as being inherently cute to us (remarkably, Lorenz is referenced in the very opening of the Wikipedia entry on "cuteness") here is a local test case from this week's news:

"Three of the five new dwarf crocodiles on display at the Lincoln Park Zoo, After 67 years at Lincoln Park Zoo, its oldest living reptile is finally a father. R1, a male dwarf crocodile, first arrived at the zoo in 1940. He successfully fathered five offspring with his mate Maggie, for the first time last month. The happy parents will also be on display at the Regenstein African Journey. Dwarf crocodiles are an endangered species native to western Africa."

Are these reptilian kids cute or what. or not? They may not have the flattened face, and big forehead, nor even the particularly large eyes, but I can't help but think warm thoughts about this baby dwarfs.

- AY

Monday, October 1, 2007

Apophis - the little meteor that could...

Here is that article I spoke of in class about a very distant chance of the meteor Apophis (greek for destruction) hitting earth in 2029. At one point in 2004 , they projected the collision a 3% possibility... but since then the odds have fallen.

Link