neurotopia | August 1, 2006Argh. Why the hell am I doing this? What makes me think I'll even get this damn grant? Like Shelley, I'm in NRSA-scramble mode right now. The deadline is August 5th. This is wasted effort. I could be posting juicy research tidbits on SEED but nooooo, I have to try and procure funding.
I hate this process. HATE it. I know they're supposed to be impartial, but there's no way they're going to fund me when I already have intramural support for up to 5 years. But I have to play the game. Someday they'll hit me with their Catch-22: why didn't you receive merit-based funding? If I say I…
neurotopia | August 1, 2006The latest soon-to-be casualty to the Bush administration's attempt to break all useful government programs is 1-800-SUICIDE. Given their track record of scrubbing information oriented to LBGT youth (who happen to be a major at-risk category) from other such sites receiving government money, I think it is clear that we can't trust the Culture of Life Strife on this one. Imagine that.
Click. Read. Act.
neurotopia | August 1, 2006We haven't done enough Neuropimping this week. Go visit Encephalon and get your fill of the best neuro on the net in the last couple weeks. Just remember, cash up front.
neurotopia | July 30, 2006Inspired by Effect Measure, I thought I'd dredge up an old snarky post since the Senate is about to join the House in gutting state food standards.
The bill would stop states from adding warnings that are different from federal rules. States currently add hundreds of extra warnings, indicating the presence of arsenic in water, mercury in fish, alcohol in candy, pesticides in vegetables and more.
So what justification does the repugnican congress have for removing warnings about the dangers of mercury to pregnant women, or the lead content of your kid's candy?
"Consumers across the country…
neurotopia | July 29, 2006I refuse to see Mel Gibson's snuff film Passion because I'm pretty sure that Gibson has flipped his lid and I have no desire to see a guy in a rubber suit get flogged for 2 hours. The desire to even make such a movie suggests to me a diseased mind, and it seems like I might be getting confirmation.
Evolution Denier Mel Gibson got a DUI, having a .12 BAC as compared to the California legal limit of .08.
TMZ has learned that Deputy Mee audiotaped the entire exchange between himself and Gibson, from the time of the traffic stop to the time Gibson was put in the patrol car, and that the tape…
neurotopia | July 28, 2006I hate to do it but I gotta take serious issues with some of the things Shelley put forth in her post here.
Unfortunately, NIH training grants (T32 type NRSA) are not an answer to most financial woes. My graduate program had one, and I was on it. At the time, any one student could be carried for two years (I think that was a peculiarity of how our program chose to use the money) and it only funded half of our students. Considering that my program was pretty small (we typically admitted 6 per year), I have doubts about the ability of a T32 grant to pick up most or all students in a larger…
neurotopia | July 28, 2006Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis is a devastating disease that claims the upper and lower motor neurons, and ultimately the lives of most patients within 3-5 years of diagnosis, usually from respiratory failure. Patients lose control of voluntary muscles as the pathways that innervate them degenerate. Lou Gehrig and Stephen Hawking are two famous ALS patients.
Now a group suggests that antisense oligonucleotide therapy may be used to effectively treat some forms of the disease.
Some forms of ALS are heritable. A subset of these cases are caused by a mutation to the enzyme superoxide…
neurotopia | July 27, 2006http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060726/ap_on_go_ot/top_problems_ap_poll;_y…--
neurotopia | July 25, 2006Mixing Memory brings up some excellent points regarding mirror neurons in primates, and Frontal Cortex follows up with his thoughts. To both of them I say "bravo, but your skepticism probably doesn't go far enough".
We give Rizzolatti et al too much credit with their conclusions. After all, they've only demonstrated the existence of mirror neurons in monkeys. Due to the obvious inherent difficulties associated with recording from human neurons in vivo, no one has yet (to my knowledge) published anything that demonstrates the existence of mirror neurons in people. Instead, we stick…
neurotopia | July 23, 2006This one is a really simple, quick treat that's virtually fat-free. Can't vouch for carbs though.
14 oz can Fat Free Sweetened Condensed Milk
1 1/2 cups Jasmine or Basmati rice
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom, or Seeds from 6 cardamom pods, ground
1-2 teaspoons Rosewater
Directions:
Empty Condensed milk into saucepan. Add 3 additional cans of water. Heat and stir, add the rice, cardamom, and rosewater. Cover and simmer until desired consistency, about 1/2 an hour. Tends to form lots of bubbles and bubble over even if only barely boiling; if this is a problem then crack the lid and keep…
neurotopia | July 23, 2006I'm not a fan of conservative ideologies. I see them as regressive and stifling. Too often there is a quasi-religious adherence to "free market" as the solution to all life's problems, usually accompanied by the corollary "lower taxes". Whether or not one agrees that these principles are bad policy, we can look at the current conservative-minded political parties and see how they employ various tactics.
On one hand we have the modern Republican party, which is supposedly conservative. On the other, the Libertarians, who are also conservative. (A smattering of other conservative parties…
neurotopia | July 23, 2006Think that sugar rush is gonna help you beat the afternoon blues? Think again.
Ten healthy adults had volunteered to restrict their sleep to 5 hours on the day before participating in the trial. An hour after eating a light lunch they were given either an energy drink (42g sugar + 30mg caffeine) or an identically tasting zero-sugar drink. They then performed a monotonous 90-minute test during the afternoon 'dip' that assessed their sleepiness and ability to concentrate.
For the first 30 minutes there was no difference in the reaction times or error rates, but 50 minutes after consuming the…
neurotopia | July 22, 2006I just don't get it. On one hand, Francis Collins is clearly a bright guy and an established researcher. He headed the Human Genome Project, for cryin' out loud. He's an evangelical Christian, which I personally don't care about one way or the other, as long as his beliefs remain his personal beliefs. An article in the Washington Post, however, has me wondering what he's thinking.
Certainly Dr. Collins is one of the more prominent advocates for the compatibility of science and religion. On one hand I admire that. Many of the extreme religious conservative persuasion have set up a…
neurotopia | July 21, 2006Today's award goes to Ralph Reed, cherubic ex-leader of the Christian Coalition, who lost his bid to be the Republican nominee for the Lt. Governorship of Georgia this week.
Apparently, Mr. Morality is blaming John McCain for calling attention to Mr. Reed's ethical lapses.
The connection was the report issued by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, chaired by McCain, that found Reed had been paid more than $5 million by two casino-owning Indian tribes -- both clients of lobbyist Jack Abramoff -- to rally Christian voters against other tribes opening competing casinos.
You must've screwed…
neurotopia | July 19, 2006The difficulty with treating spinal cord injuries arises from a number of factors. Firstly there is the primary damage to the axons of the spinal cord itself, resulting in mechanical damage that can inhibit neurotransmission and transport of cellular material to and from the distal cord. The damaged cord must also compensate for secondary damage such as the generation of free radicals, a lack of oxygen to the affected area (anoxia), glial scarring, and a host of other issues.
Your typical spinal neuron looks like this.
(Image snagged from http://www.steve.gb.com). The axon is a long…
neurotopia | July 17, 2006A new website in the fight against the ID movement's attempted takeover of the Kansas state science standards. Check it out. Nick Matzke has more here.
neurotopia | July 16, 2006Unfortunately I'm stuck with the press release on this one, my government-access VPN doesn't seem good enough to get me this article at home. Face blindness, or prosopagnosia, is a condition where a person is unable to recognize another person by their face and must rely on other features, such as gait, hair, voice, or other features.
Recognition of faces can be disrupted by damage to the fusiform gyrus of the temporal lobe. Here, it seems the researchers have found a heritable genetic defect that leads to face blindness.
The 14 participants reported that they experienced uncertainty in…
neurotopia | July 16, 2006Shelley mentioned a study last week that suggested more and more young people are getting Parkinson's Disease, and she wondered whether there was any utility in blaming our industrialized society based on the fact that certain compounds we produce can induce Parkinsonian symptoms. Let's start by giving a brief overview of the systems involved before we attempt to answer that question.
The substantia nigra contains a collection of dopaminergic neurons that project to the striatum. Integrity of this pathway is essential for normal motor function, although this nigrostriatal system is capable…
neurotopia | July 15, 2006If you weren't worried about Iraq, the Middle East, and potential for War Without End, Amen before reading this post, consider changing your mind.
In one of the few comprehensive surveys of how many Iraqis have fled their country since the US invasion, the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants said last month that there were 644,500 refugees in Syria and Jordan in 2005 -- about 2.5 per cent of Iraq's population. In total, 889,000 Iraqis had moved abroad, creating "the biggest new flow of refugees in the world", according to Lavinia Limon, the committee's president.
And the exodus may only…