Category: Science

Researchers have found an algae virus in the throats of healthy humans that could alter visual processing and spatial orientation.

“This is a striking example showing that the ‘innocuous’ microorganisms we carry can affect behavior and cognition,” said lead investigator Dr. Robert Yolken, a virologist and pediatric infectious disease specialist at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center and director of the Stanley Neurovirology Laboratory at Johns Hopkins. “Many physiological differences between person A and person B are encoded in the set of genes each inherits from parents, yet some of these differences are fueled by the various microorganisms we harbor and the way they interact with our genes.”

The team made the finding by accident when analyzing the microbes in the throats of healthy patients for a non-related study; they were shocked to find Acanthocystis turfacea Chlorella virus 1 (ATCV-10), which is known to infect green algae.

The team found 40 of the 92 study participants carried the virus and those that did had a lower level of performance on a set of tasks that measured the speed and accuracy of visual processing. They performed an average of nearly nine points lower on a task in which they were asked to draw a line between sequentially numbered circles than those who did not have the virus.

To further back up their findings the researchers infected a group of mice with the virus and found they had developed similar cognitive deficits.

The virus is believed to cause changes in the hippocampus, the region of the brain responsible for cataloguing short term and long term memories as well as spatial orientation.

[via Business Insider]

Researches in California have created a proof-of-concept method to erase memories in mice using flashes of light. From Science Daily:

Optogenetics, pioneered by Karl Diesseroth at Stanford University, is a new technique for manipulating and studying nerve cells using light. The techniques of optogenetics are rapidly becoming the standard method for investigating brain function.

Kazumasa Tanaka, Brian Wiltgen and colleagues at UC Davis applied the technique to test a long-standing idea about memory retrieval. For about 40 years, Wiltgen said, neuroscientists have theorized that retrieving episodic memories — memories about specific places and events — involves coordinated activity between the cerebral cortex and the hippocampus, a small structure deep in the brain.

The scientists used genetically modified mice with nerve cells that glow florescent green and have a protein that can allow the cells to be turned on or off with pulses of light. By mapping the brain response of mice to specific events, Tanaka and Wiltgen were able to target memories for deletion. Fiber optic cables were inserted into the mouse brains and the memories were turned off with flashes of light.

In the future, it may be possible to create a similar memory deletion treatment for humans via gene therapy or through the use of pharmaceuticals. There are a number of “photodynamic therapy” drugs already in trials that have demonstrated the ability to bind to brain tumor cells and respond to light.

There is new scientific evidence suggesting that life may in fact continue after death. The prevailing theory of consciousness has long been that the brain shuts down 20-30 seconds after the heart stops beating. Now a large scale study by doctors in the UK has revealed that in nearly 40% of cases where a patient was resuscitated after “clinical death” the patient can accurately recall details from their experience up to three minutes after death.

“The evidence thus far suggests that in the first few minutes after death, consciousness is not annihilated,” said Dr. Sam Parnia, the director of resuscitation research at SUNY-Stony Brook, who spearheaded the life after death study. “Whether it fades away afterwards, we do not know, but right after death, consciousness is not lost.”

Only 9% of those reporting after-death memories likened their experience to the traditional and comforting embrace from light or heaven, and only 20% reported feelings of peacefulness. Other revived patients described feeling a great anxiety and fear… almost like they were drowning in the darkness of deep water.

[h/t] The Inquisitr

Flying Lotus – You’re Dead!

Video by Xavier Magot

Streaming free for 24 hours only (starting on Oct 3rd at 23:00 EU / 22:00 UK / 17:00 EST / 14:00 PST / 06:00 (4th) JP)

Flying Lotus‘ new album, You’re Dead!, is out October 7 in the U.S. and October 6 in the UK via Warp. After sharing a handful of tracks from the album – including “Moment of Hesitation”, “Coronus, the Terminator”, and “Never Catch Me”, which features Kendrick Lamar – the producer is partnering up with the Boiler Room to stream the LP before its release next week.

As of this afternoon, Boiler Room is offering a free invitation to that world via a 24-hour loop of the new album, which comes accompanied by a trippy, animated short film by Xavier Magot. Watch above while you can.

Awesome new music and video from Radiohead’s Thom Yorke through an innovative release via BitTorrent:

As an experiment we are using a new version of BitTorrent to distribute a new Thom Yorke record.

The new Torrent files have a pay gate to access a bundle of files..

The files can be anything, but in this case is an ‘album’.

It’s an experiment to see if the mechanics of the system are something that the general public can get its head around …

If it works well it could be an effective way of handing some control of internet commerce back to people who are creating the work.

Enabling those people who make either music, video or any other kind of digital content to sell it themselves.

Bypassing the self elected gate-keepers.

If it works anyone can do this exactly as we have done.

The torrent mechanism does not require any server uploading or hosting costs or ‘cloud’ malarkey.

It’s a self-contained embeddable shop front…

The network not only carries the traffic, it also hosts the file. The file is in the network.

Oh yes and it’s called

Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes.

Thom Yorke & Nigel Godrich

Check out the album and dark glitchy video for the single A Brain In a Bottle below:

Observations from the European Space Agency’s “SWARM” satellite array have revealed that the Earth’s magnetic field is weakening at rate 10 times faster than previously believed and is now diminishing at 5% every 100 years. The dramatic change in the magnetic field’s strength is a potential indication of a pending pole reversal. Scientists predict that the shift could begin in as little as 2,000 years as the north pole moves in the direction of Siberia.

Magnetic pole reversals are suspected to have been the cause of previous mass extinctions on earth, but the evidence is inconclusive. The greater worry may be the increased exposure of technological infrastructure to solar radiation and coronal mass ejections. The Earth is already vulnerable to bursts of solar energy–having survived a potentially catastrophic near-miss in just 2012.

Via Scientific American.