That could depend on what dictionary you're looking for.
I have to say, when I read this article I actually said "what" out loud. How do they know that the same people wouldn't have rated having sex with the kitty 8.3 anyways? And also, what is this study supposed to be used for? Make people bathe less often?
I do find the idea of "cleanliness" being right next to a form of dirt wonderfully ironic.
But seriously. How about something like "cleft"? That'd be closer than "clay". I think your dictionary isn't very complete.
Also, some people in that study apparently have a pretty loose interpretation about what can morally be done with a kitten.
IBM is trying to develop circuits that mimic the human brain
Think that computer upgrades could one day make the human brain obsolete? You're not alone. However, to reach that critical milestone key upgrades in computing will be needed to make computers more brain-like in operation.
To those ends IBM is taking the lead on a major government research endeavor in the field of "cognitive computing" which pairs neurobiologists, computer and materials scientists and psychologists in a $4.9M USD DARPA-grant driven project to develop a computer that behaves like a brain, down to the neuron level.
Dharmendra Modha, the IBM scientist who is heading the collaboration describes, "The mind has an amazing ability to integrate ambiguous information across the senses, and it can effortlessly create the categories of time, space, object, and interrelationship from the sensory data. There are no computers that can even remotely approach the remarkable feats the mind performs. The key idea of cognitive computing is to engineer mind-like intelligent machines by reverse engineering the structure, dynamics, function and behavior of the brain."
The project will utilize an IBM supercomputer as its hardware, a field where IBM has long been king of the hill. Five universities will devote their talents to making this computer behave like a collection of neurons. The goal is replicate behavior in simulations. The long term goal is to create a "brain" on the intelligence level of a cat.
The work will draw heavily from neuroscience, which has mapped out simple animal brains and how they respond to stimuli. Project leader Mr. Modha has some brain-simulating experience of his own -- last year he led a team which used an IBM BlueGene supercomputer to simulate a mouse brain with 55m neurons and some half a trillion synapses. He describes, "But the real challenge is then to manifest what will be learned from future simulations into real electronic devices - nanotechnology."
Today electronics can be manufactured at as high a density as animal neurons.
The new effort differs from efforts to establish so-called neural networks. Neural networks, which seek to simulate connections of neurons and can approach learning-like behavior, and artificial intelligence are inherently different from the attempt to create a full brain. Says Mr. Modha, "The issue with neural networks and artificial intelligence is that they seek to engineer limited cognitive functionalities one at a time. They start with an objective and devise an algorithm to achieve it. We are attempting a 180 degree shift in perspective: seeking an algorithm first, problems second. We are investigating core micro- and macro-circuits of the brain that can be used for a wide variety of functionalities."
The result is more of a synaptic network than a neural one. The key component to which the brain owes its flexibility is the synapse. Synapses connect neurons together in the brain and it is these connections that help us think.
Experts worldwide are intrigued by the project, but fear that the US government is underfunding it. Still, says Christian Keysers, director of the neuroimaging center at University Medical Centre Groningen, "It's an interesting effort, and modeling computers after the human brain is promising."
Henry Molaison, a man without memories, died on December 2nd, aged 82
EACH time Suzanne Corkin met H.M. during one of his visits to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she would ask him if they had met before. He would smile and say yes, and when she asked him where he would reply, “In high school.” They did not actually meet until he was in his late 30s, but they worked together for nearly five decades, and the last time they met he still failed to recognise her. The most she ever elicited in him was a sense of familiarity.
More extraordinary still, a sense of familiarity was all his own face elicited in him. People were fascinated by H.M., for whom life came to a standstill in 1953, and one of the questions they always asked about him was what happened when he looked in the mirror. Dr Corkin reports that there was no change in his facial expression, his conversation continued in a matter-of-fact tone and he did not seem upset—though this could have been because of the damage done to his amygdalas, brain structures that are important for processing emotion. Once, in the later years, when she asked him what he was thinking as he gazed at his reflection, he replied, “I’m not a boy.”
H.M., or Henry M.—his family name was kept secret until he died—grew up in the countryside outside Hartford, Connecticut. He was 16 when he suffered his first grand mal epileptic seizure. The fits became more frequent, delaying his graduation from high school and, later, preventing him from holding down a job, though he tried to work on an assembly line.
By the time he was 27 he was having as many as 11 seizures a week and was on near-toxic doses of anti-convulsants. His desperate parents were referred to William Beecher Scoville, a neurosurgeon at Hartford Hospital. It was 1953 and psychosurgery—which was later to be banned, or at least restricted, in many countries—was at the height of its popularity. Scoville himself had performed frontal lobotomies, though he was dissatisfied with the way they blunted his patients’ emotions.
In some ways H.M. was a product of that dissatisfaction, because Scoville had been working on a new, experimental operation, and he decided to try it on H.M. He would remove his medial temporal lobes (one on each side of the brain), the presumed origin of his seizures. Each lobe includes an amygdala and a seahorse-shaped structure called the hippocampus.
The operation was successful: H.M. experienced only two serious seizures during the subsequent year. But this happy outcome came at a terrible price. From the date of the operation he was unable to form new memories, and he also lost many of the memories he had laid down before it. Although he could recall the Wall Street crash and the second world war, he was left with no autobiographical memories at all. Having seen the effects of his handiwork, a shocked Scoville began to campaign against the operation. This meant that H.M. was the only person ever to undergo it.
Tracing a star
Two years later Scoville invited Brenda Milner, a neuropsychologist who had been studying post-operative amnesia, to come and study H.M. Her work had led her to suspect that the hippocampus was important for forming memories, and that it might be the place where they are stored. In the decades that followed, the experiments that first she and then her student Dr Corkin conducted with H.M. produced a more complex picture.
One of the most striking experiments had H.M. tracing a star between two parallel lines, when he could see his drawing hand only in a mirror. With practice his performance improved, though he always denied having attempted the task before. This led Dr Milner to propose a distinction between procedural memory (memory for a skill) and declarative memory (conscious recall of having used that skill), and to suggest that the two are stored in different places. Thanks to H.M., the scientists also learned that the hippocampus is crucial in forming some long-term memories, but not for maintaining or retrieving them.
It has often been said that a man with no memory can have no sense of self. Both Dr Milner and Dr Corkin disagree. H.M. had a sense of humour, even if he was capable of telling the same anecdote three times in 15 minutes. He was polite, and would cup Dr Corkin’s elbow as they walked around MIT. Everybody liked him, though it was a temptation for those who knew him to patronise him, to treat him like a favourite child or pet, such was the inequality of his and their knowledge about his life. It was a temptation, Dr Milner says, that they struggled against daily.
H.M. held no grudge against Dr Scoville. In fact, he dreamed of becoming a neurosurgeon, though he always said that could never happen, because blood spurting from the incision would cloud his glasses, preventing him from doing his best for the patient. By the time this obituary appears he will have gone under the knife again, this time for an autopsy. Before long his brain will appear in three digitised dimensions on the internet, for researchers to pore over. He never knew how much he contributed to science, says Dr Corkin, but if someone had told him it would have given him a warm, fuzzy feeling—for a few seconds, at least.
See, that's the sort of thing I find fascinating; I want to be like Dr. Corkin or Dr. Milner when I'm all grown up and working. That was a great article to read, thank you for sharing!!
ORLANDO, Florida (CNN) -- Regrowing a fingertip cut off in an accident sounds like something from a futuristic movie. But with innovative technology developed by the U.S. Army, such regrowth is possible today.
This research project and a hundred others were on display this month at the 26th Army Science Convention. Some the greatest minds in science from around the world gathered at the four-day conference to exchange ideas and showcase collaborative projects between the Army's research laboratories, universities and partner industries.
The main goal is to develop technology to make soldiers safer and more effective, said Thomas H. Killion, the Army's chief scientist.
The Army's regenerative medicine study combined properties from the intestinal lining and the urinary bladder to create a regenerative substance called Extracellular Matrix.
The cream-colored crystallized powder, called "magic dust," boosts the body's natural tendency to repair itself, said U.S. Army Biological Scientist Sgt. Glen Rossman. When the matrix is applied to a missing digit or limb, "the body thinks it's back in the womb," Rossman said.
One civilian participated in the regenerative-medicine study after cutting off the tip of his finger in a model plane's propeller. Researchers continually applied the matrix to the wound, and after four weeks, the body grew skin and tissue to replenish the damaged area.
The U.S. military branches have begun a consortium with private institutions to develop treatments for severely injured troops. With the help of grants, the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine is studying nerve and vein transplantation, treating burns without scarring and regeneration of tissue, skin and even bone.
Through both animal studies and civilian clinical trials, the institute is developing therapies for the large number of soldiers injured by improvised explosive devices and other explosives in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"We are working on trying to regenerate limbs, to repair limbs and to keep them from being amputated," institute Project Director Col. Bob Vandre said.
Army scientists also have developed an engineered skin substitute made in a laboratory from patients' own cells. A postage stamp-sized patch of skin could grow several times larger than the original sample. The engineered skin could then be placed over a wound or burn, protecting it from infection, and eventually cover large portions of the body that have been damaged.
"Our goal is to restore the function to our wounded warriors who have given so much in battle," Vandre said.
Armed Forces Institute scientists also say they also have developed a process to rebuild missing or damaged bone. A web-like tube of calcium-phosphate ceramic, called hydroxyapatite, acts as a biodegradable scaffold that is set in place of the missing bone, giving the body a platform on which to rebuild.
Scientists say the scaffold allows the body to regrow its own natural tissue, bone and veins so it can support itself. Because of the complexity of the process, researchers so far have regrown only 3 centimeters of bone in clinical trials on rats, but they hope to reach 5 centimeters in two years. With the regrown bone, scientists could avoid placing titanium or other medical devices in the body.
Of course, to apply this technology, the Army needs a way to safely remove injured soldiers from combat zones. Enter the Battlefield Extraction Assist Robot, or BEAR, a human-shaped machine with eyes, ears and arms for lifting heavy objects.
Built by Vecna Technologies in association with the Army, BEAR is still a prototype. But its potential is promising. BEAR is outfitted with lights, two cameras and infrared abilities, and it can travel up to 10 mph. The device also can lift 250 pounds while balancing on its toes.
Vecna robotic engineer Andrew Allen says BEAR can be remotely operated, reducing the chance of injuries to soldiers' human rescuers.
"BEAR can easily be replaced; it costs money and not lives," Allen said.
Robot technology has exploded in the past six years, said Army scientist John Parmentola. Robot prototypes of all kinds were on display at the conference, and about 10,000 military robots are expected to be deployed in the field in 2009.
Robots can be outfitted to accomplish various tasks. One can detect 38 different chemical or biological explosives from a distance of 3 to 5 meters. The robot could be used to scan car doors or truck lids for explosives or chemical residue.
Another, called Packbot, is deployed in Iraq for surveillance, reconnaissance and explosives removal. Packbot has been outfitted to react to voice commands, given remotely through an earpiece. Loud background noises do not distort the commands, because the system monitors the vibrations of the operator's jawbone.
Finally, some robots come with a retractable apparatus called a Zipper Mast or Situational Awareness Mast, which can be equipped with a camera or antenna and raised to peer over walls or send radio communications.
The smallest Zipper Mast is not much bigger than a coffee pot and can extend to a height of 8 feet. Designed by the U.S. Army's Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center, the larger mast is affixed to tanks and can reach heights over 30 feet.
"We are working on trying to regenerate limbs, to repair limbs and to keep them from being amputated," institute Project Director Col. Bob Vandre said.
Hmm... I've got a friend with only 3 digits on her left hand because of a car accident. I wonder if they could use this to fix it?
If you need a fresh infusion of SCIENCE!, might I recommend the latest book from Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy fame? Death From The Skies! is a pretty friggin' awesome book about all the different ways in which all life on Earth can (and will) be wiped out. Like all the excellent writing he does on his blog, it expertly combines SCIENCE! with the lowercase variety. Plus, you know, cool stuff like black holes and supernovas.
I'll be sure to check that one out Mario. I'm currently reading 13 Things That Don't Make Sense. I'm only up to thing number 4, but the first three have been interesting discussions about mysteries of physics.
A little old, but still hliarious. THE IG NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS
2008 Ig Nobel Prize Winners
NUTRITION PRIZE. Massimiliano Zampini of the University of Trento, Italy and Charles Spence of Oxford University, UK, for electronically modifying the sound of a potato chip to make the person chewing the chip believe it to be crisper and fresher than it really is.
REFERENCE: "The Role of Auditory Cues in Modulating the Perceived Crispness and Staleness of Potato Chips," Massimiliano Zampini and Charles Spence, Journal of Sensory Studies, vol. 19, October 2004, pp. 347-63.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Massimiliano Zampini. unable to attend the ceremony, was presented with the prize at a special ceremony, later in the month, at the Genoa Science Festival.
PEACE PRIZE. The Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology (ECNH) and the citizens of Switzerland for adopting the legal principle that plants have dignity.
REFERENCE: "The Dignity of Living Beings With Regard to Plants. Moral Consideration of Plants for Their Own Sake"
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Urs Thurnherr, member of the committee.
ARCHAEOLOGY PRIZE. Astolfo G. Mello Araujo and José Carlos Marcelino of Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil, for measuring how the course of history, or at least the contents of an archaeological dig site, can be scrambled by the actions of a live armadillo.
REFERENCE: "The Role of Armadillos in the Movement of Archaeological Materials: An Experimental Approach," Astolfo G. Mello Araujo and José Carlos Marcelino, Geoarchaeology, vol. 18, no. 4, April 2003, pp. 433-60.
BIOLOGY PRIZE. Marie-Christine Cadiergues, Christel Joubert, and Michel Franc of Ecole Nationale Veterinaire de Toulouse, France for discovering that the fleas that live on a dog can jump higher than the fleas that live on a cat.
REFERENCE: "A Comparison of Jump Performances of the Dog Flea, Ctenocephalides canis (Curtis, 1826) and the Cat Flea, Ctenocephalides felis felis (Bouche, 1835)," M.C. Cadiergues, C. Joubert, and M. Franc, Veterinary Parasitology, vol. 92, no. 3, October 1, 2000, pp. 239-41.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Marie-Christine Cadiergues and Christel Joubert, unable to attend the ceremony, were presented with the prize at a special ceremony, later in the month, at the Genoa Science Festival.
MEDICINE PRIZE. Dan Ariely of Duke University (USA), Rebecca L. Waber of MIT (USA), Baba Shiv of Stanford University (USA), and Ziv Carmon of INSEAD (Singapore) for demonstrating that high-priced fake medicine is more effective than low-priced fake medicine..
REFERENCE: "Commercial Features of Placebo and Therapeutic Efficacy," Rebecca L. Waber; Baba Shiv; Ziv Carmon; Dan Ariely, Journal of the American Medical Association, March 5, 2008; 299: 1016-1017.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Dan Ariely
COGNITIVE SCIENCE PRIZE. Toshiyuki Nakagaki of Hokkaido University, Japan, Hiroyasu Yamada of Nagoya, Japan, Ryo Kobayashi of Hiroshima University, Atsushi Tero of Presto JST, Akio Ishiguro of Tohoku University, and Ágotá Tóth of the University of Szeged, Hungary, for discovering that slime molds can solve puzzles.
REFERENCE: "Intelligence: Maze-Solving by an Amoeboid Organism," Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Hiroyasu Yamada, and Ágota Tóth, Nature, vol. 407, September 2000, p. 470.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Toshiyuki Nakagaki, Ryo Kobayashi, Atsushi Tero
ECONOMICS PRIZE. Geoffrey Miller, Joshua Tybur and Brent Jordan of the University of New Mexico, USA, for discovering that professional lap dancers earn higher tips when they are ovulating.
REFERENCE: "Ovulatory Cycle Effects on Tip Earnings by Lap Dancers: Economic Evidence for Human Estrus?" Geoffrey Miller, Joshua M. Tybur, Brent D. Jordan, Evolution and Human Behavior, vol. 28, 2007, pp. 375-81.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Geoffrey Miller and Brent Jordan
PHYSICS PRIZE. Dorian Raymer of the Ocean Observatories Initiative at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, USA, and Douglas Smith of the University of California, San Diego, USA, for proving mathematically that heaps of string or hair or almost anything else will inevitably tangle themselves up in knots.
REFERENCE: "Spontaneous Knotting of an Agitated String," Dorian M. Raymer and Douglas E. Smith, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 104, no. 42, October 16, 2007, pp. 16432-7.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Dorian Raymer
CHEMISTRY PRIZE. Sharee A. Umpierre of the University of Puerto Rico, Joseph A. Hill of The Fertility Centers of New England (USA), Deborah J. Anderson of Boston University School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School (USA), for discovering that Coca-Cola is an effective spermicide, and to Chuang-Ye Hong of Taipei Medical University (Taiwan), C.C. Shieh, P. Wu, and B.N. Chiang (all of Taiwan) for discovering that it is not.
REFERENCE: "Effect of 'Coke' on Sperm Motility," Sharee A. Umpierre, Joseph A. Hill, and Deborah J. Anderson, New England Journal of Medicine, 1985, vol. 313, no. 21, p. 1351.
REFERENCE: "The Spermicidal Potency of Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola," C.Y. Hong, C.C. Shieh, P. Wu, and B.N. Chiang, Human Toxicology, vol. 6, no. 5, September 1987, pp. 395-6. [NOTE: THE JOURNAL LATER CHANGED ITS NAME. NOW CALLED "Human & experimental toxicology"]
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Deborah Anderson, and C.Y. Hong's daughter Wan Hong
LITERATURE PRIZE. David Sims of Cass Business School. London, UK, for his lovingly written study "You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations."
REFERENCE: "You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations," David Sims, Organization Studies, vol. 26, no. 11, 2005, pp. 1625-40.
WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: David Sims
From: http://improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig2008
Amen, dude. This article leads one to ponder how an armadillo would affect an archaelogical dig. Perhaps by burrowing and creating a nest in the middle of the site.
Has anyone watched The Universe on the History Channel?
I have begun watching it over the last few days. It is sometimes a little XTREME when it compares stuff to bombs, racing, explosions, and such. But, every episode has a nice, hearty dose of SCIENCE!
The Pyrenean ibex, a form of wild mountain goat, was officially declared extinct in 2000 when the last-known animal of its kind was found dead in northern Spain.
Shortly before its death, scientists preserved skin samples of the goat, a subspecies of the Spanish ibex that live in mountain ranges across the country, in liquid nitrogen.
Using DNA taken from these skin samples, the scientists were able to replace the genetic material in eggs from domestic goats, to clone a female Pyrenean ibex, or bucardo as they are known. It is the first time an extinct animal has been cloned.
Sadly, the newborn ibex kid died shortly after birth due to physical defects in its lungs. Other cloned animals, including sheep, have been born with similar lung defects.
But the breakthrough has raised hopes that it will be possible to save endangered and newly extinct species by resurrecting them from frozen tissue.
It has also increased the possibility that it will one day be possible to reproduce long-dead species such as woolly mammoths and even dinosaurs.
Dr Jose Folch, from the Centre of Food Technology and Research of Aragon, in Zaragoza, northern Spain, led the research along with colleagues from the National Research Institute of Agriculture and Food in Madrid.
He said: "The delivered kid was genetically identical to the bucardo. In species such as bucardo, cloning is the only possibility to avoid its complete disappearance."
Pyrenean ibex, which have distinctive curved horns, were once common in northern Spain and in the French Pyrenees, but extensive hunting during the 19th century reduced their numbers to fewer than 100 individuals.
They were eventually declared protected in 1973, but by 1981 just 30 remained in their last foothold in the Ordesa National Park in the Aragon District of the Pyrenees.
The last bucardo, a 13-year-old female known as Celia, was found dead in January 2000 by park rangers near the French border with her skull crushed.
Dr Folch and his colleagues, who were funded by the Aragon regional government, had, however, captured the bucardo the previous year and had taken a tissue sample from her ear for cryopreservation.
Using techniques similar to those used to clone Dolly the sheep, known as nuclear transfer, the researchers were able to transplant DNA from the tissue into eggs taken from domestic goats to create 439 embryos, of which 57 were implanted into surrogate females.
Just seven of the embryos resulted in pregnancies and only one of the goats finally gave birth to a female bucardo, which died a seven minutes later due to breathing difficulties, perhaps due to flaws in the DNA used to create the clone.
Despite the highly inefficient cloning process and death of the cloned bucardo, many scientists believe similar approaches may be the only way to save critically endangered species from disappearing.
Research carried out by Japanese geneticist Teruhiko Wakayama raised hopes that even species that died out long ago could be resurrected after he used cells taken from mice frozen 16 years ago to produce healthy clones.
But attempts to bring back species such as woolly mammoths and even the Dodo are fraught with difficulties. Even when preserved in ice, DNA degrades over time and this leaves gaps in the genetic information required to produce a healthy animal.
Scientists, however, last year published a near-complete genome of the woolly mammoth, which died out around 10,000 years ago, sparking speculation it will be possible to synthesise the mammoth DNA.
Professor Robert Miller, director the Medical Research Council's Reproductive Sciences Unit at Edinburgh University, is working with the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland on a project to use cloning on rare African mammals including the northern white rhino.
They have set up the Institute for Breeding Rare and Endangered African Mammals in the hope of using breeding technologies to conserve species including the Ethiopian wolf, the African wild dog and the pygmy hippo.
Professor Millar said: "I think this is an exciting advance as it does show the potential of being able to regenerate extinct species.
"Clearly there is some way to go before it can be used effectively, but the advances in this field are such that we will see more and more solutions to the problems faced."
A number of projects around the world are now attempting to store tissue and DNA from endangered species. The Zoological Society of London and the Natural History Museum have set up the Frozen Ark project in a bid to preserve DNA from thousands of animals before they disappear entirely.
Not a complete success, since the cloned individual didn't survive for more than a few minutes, but it's the first time an extinct animal has been cloned! Fire up the grill, mammoth steaks can't be too far away now.
Comments
I have to say, when I read this article I actually said "what" out loud. How do they know that the same people wouldn't have rated having sex with the kitty 8.3 anyways? And also, what is this study supposed to be used for? Make people bathe less often?
But seriously. How about something like "cleft"? That'd be closer than "clay". I think your dictionary isn't very complete.
Also, some people in that study apparently have a pretty loose interpretation about what can morally be done with a kitten.
Also, it occurred to me that this kinda fits in this thread.
Robocat?
And will it blend?
http://www.youtube.com/user/blendtec?ob=4
Dec 18th 2008
From The Economist print edition
Henry Molaison, a man without memories, died on December 2nd, aged 82
New Army technology can save soldiers' lives
Hmm... I've got a friend with only 3 digits on her left hand because of a car accident. I wonder if they could use this to fix it?
A very SCIENCE!y article indeed
I have begun watching it over the last few days. It is sometimes a little XTREME when it compares stuff to bombs, racing, explosions, and such. But, every episode has a nice, hearty dose of SCIENCE!
Ryan heartily endorses The Universe.
I should remember that for later in life.
Not a complete success, since the cloned individual didn't survive for more than a few minutes, but it's the first time an extinct animal has been cloned! Fire up the grill, mammoth steaks can't be too far away now.
wat