Open Science

[chachadiva]

I wanted to create a thread to discuss a variety of scientific topics.

What's on your scientific mind?

[chachadiva]

Come on...anyone? The world is so full of questions and things to understand. From botany and plant science to the environment to how the brain works to food science to medicine.

This is a space for information and to delve into theory. Where are all the STEM folks? Just toss out a question or idea.

Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

[tjolims]

Okay, I'll bite...not much of a science head, but I do read a lot.

Recently I noticed these...

A solar flare is screwing up everybody's GPS...but what other effects is it having? Also, I think the concept of space weather is fascinating...flares and such.

...and a study was just done on why people aren't any smarter...I'ma just leave that one right there...

[chachadiva]

...and a study was just done on why people aren't any smarter...I'ma just leave that one right there...

I'll have to look more into space weather.

The above article is really fascinating since I'm somewhat older and I've been looking into cognitive decline.

But I love the above article. I think it's an excellent question to ask. Apparently, it comes down to the building of neural networks in order to have a high functioning brain. From the article:

"Neuroimaging data shows that individuals with highly efficient [neural] networks have a higher IQ," Bullmore told Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site to LiveScience. "Work that I and others have done shows that it's precisely the connections that confer high IQ that will be most expensive."

As it turns out, mental leaps are literally just that: long-range jumps between disparate brain regions. "For the intelligent aspects of cognitive processing — thinking hard — the network that we need in the brain is highly distributed over space," Bullmore said. "Consciously performing some difficult model task … relies on connections forming over long anatomical distances."


This should give people some "hope" if they want to be smarter as there are exercises that can (somewhat) help with neural plasticity and the building of neural networks.

This should also give parents something to think about as they raise their very young children. From this article, we can see that exposing children to a lot of cognitive stimulation can have far reaching effects. From the article:

"Scientists believe that language is acquired most easily during the first ten years of life. During these years, the circuits in children’s brains become wired for how their own language sounds. An infant’s repeated exposure to words clearly helps her brain build the neural connections that will enable her to learn more words later on. Language can be learned a multitude of ways, like casual conversation, songs, rhymes, reading, music, story telling and much more. Early stimulation sets the stage for how children will learn and interact with others throughout life. A child’s experiences, good or bad, influence the wiring of his brain and the connection in his nervous system. Loving interactions with caring adults strongly stimulate a child’s brain, causing synapses to grow and existing connections to get stronger. Connections that are used become permanent. If a child receives little stimulation early on, the synapses will not develop, and the brain will make fewer connections."

Einstein's father was an engineer. I'm sure having that exposure to high level thinking and cognition directly aided in little Albert building an elaborate neural network.

[chachadiva]

This is kinda cool in a weird way. If you're a runner or work out a lot, I'm sure you know how important electrolytes are. Muscles work by electricity being conducted within the body.

So what happens when something dead is given a shot of electrical conductivity (via salt)? Check out the video. You have to watch BOTH the squid and the frog legs. It's cool that this effect is what brought us the story of Frankenstein.

[tjolims]

[skittles04]

^^^^Bwahahaha!

I've been looking for a spot to post this comic:



http://sci-ence.org/neutrino/

Basically, a WSJ editorial was trying to debunk the climate change theory and one of his points was that since Einstein's theory of relativity is being challenged by the scientists at CERN, then surely climate change can be debated....right?

Well, yeah....but nobody is really saying that you can't the debate the merits of climate change...they're just looking at you the same way they would look at a person that would question the existence of gravity or in much the same way as they are looking at those scientists at CERN. With a look of amused skepticism, which is their right. It's true that technically nothing in science should be taken as unwavering fact, but when you are trying to go against years and years of experiments and research you had better come strong and be prepared to depend yourself. That's true of world renowned scientists and that's definitely true of regular joes like you and me.


Mostly, though, I like the "Haters gonna hate" part. Heh.

Here's the original article and here are a couple of responses to it.

[KnottyAuthor]

....oooo a geek corner, just saw this Cha. Always interested in the correlation between menses and proximity.IE when women stay together their cycles get in sync....

[tjolims]

Let's revive this thread, shall we?

First off, I learned about bilateral gynandromorphism today...whoa.

Also, I realized that if identical twins marry another set of identical twins, their children are genetic siblings, rather than cousins. Wrap your head around that one for a sec...

[Karibana]

^Not too hard to understand since they come from the same gene pool. But wouldn't it be the same regardless if they're identical or fraternal twins or even non twin but same gender siblings?