Thiago Carvalho @cyrilpedia@social.cleverlibre.org

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.” - James Baldwin

#reading #writing #writingcommunity #jamesbaldwin

Continuing the countdown, Day 3 (of 10). Topic: Modern and fascinating ideas about the brain for us all to discuss. How likely is each idea to be true? And if true, what are the implications?

Brain idea 8: Of all the brain's functions, consciousness is one of the trickiest to study. In part, because we don't even know how to define what it is. Progress is happening around measuring levels of consciousness by combining complexity-based measures of EEG recorded brain activity (derived from physics), following noninvasive brain stimulation (TMS). These consciousness meters predict not only changes in consciousness level when we are awake versus asleep, but also which coma patients are 'locked in'. They also suggest that certain substances enhance consciousness.

The friendly version:
https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/08/25/1031776/the-hunt-for-hidden-signs-of-consciousness-in-unreachable-patients/

The deeper dive:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ejn.15800

#neuroscience
#BrainIdeasCountdown

The Alps are the hub of the global skiing industry. Increasingly they rely on artificial snow to offset retreating snow cover. On the Italian slopes 90% are managed with artificial snow. Chartbook Newsletter #180 on political economy of snow.
https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-180-do-you-ski-the-political

Thread: our latest #preprint looks at long-term #proteome #evolution phenomena and asks #macroevolutionary #LevelsOfSelection questions https://biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.10.27.514087v1 1/11 (Repeat for new server).

Ella Fitzgerald, jailed for singing to an "integrated" audience, in 1955.

What happens when you get more than one respiratory virus? My lab Yale studies this, and there are many open questions. This article discusses current research including the surprising phenomenon of interference among unrelated viruses. #COVID #flu #infectiousdisease https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/what-happens-when-you-catch-more-than-one-virus-70817

Looks like Eloff’s lawyers told him to take this tweet down. But, there is no real delete button on the internet.

Rosalind Franklin’s research was crucial to discovering DNA’s double helix structure 🧬 but it was James Watson & Francis Crick who received the credit & Nobel Prize.

Unknown to Franklin, the pair saw her unpublished data & X-ray diffraction images, inspiring their famous model. They never acknowledged her contribution until after her death.

How many discoveries & innovations of #women do we attribute to the men who took credit for their ideas?

https://theconversation.com/sexism-pushed-rosalind-franklin-toward-the-scientific-sidelines-during-her-short-life-but-her-work-still-shines-on-her-100th-birthday-139249 #history #science

New study led by Jamie Guenthoer & Julie Overbaugh identifies new broad SARS-CoV-2 antibodies: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.12.15.520606v1

To me, most interesting is C68.59, which binds outside the RBD and neutralizes all tested SARS-CoV-2 strains w decent potency. (1/2)

In 2006 a high school English teacher asked students to write to a famous author & ask for advice.

Kurt Vonnegut was the only one to respond.

His reply was a doozy.

@jaymeb @cellularmoose @DebsBookReviews @bookstodon There probably is an updated list but this older list of #sciencefiction written by #Indigenous #authors shows just how powerful this genre is among writers who come from long histories of oppression and dispossession. https://bookriot.com/sff-books-by-indigenous-authors/

How books get scanned.

My dumbass always pictured an old librarian with gloves at the copy/scanning machining having to redo it over and over because it scanned crooked.

A mini-gut intestinal #organoid imaged by #immunofluorescence confocal #microscopy ✨

#sciart #science

Readying for my first Toot! 😎 I think I am supposed to do an #Introduction so...
I am a Biology professor at the University of Nevada, Reno. I like thinking about #animalbehavior and #pollination, especially in light of anthropogenic change. I loved using Twitter as a way to find new papers, research ideas, and resources for my students. Hopefully this place will help fill that void!

The irony is that Vladmir Putin has, in the most cynical way possible, proven that black lives really do matter — by showing just what you can achieve by putting one in jeopardy.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/12/26/brittney-griner-and-the-role-of-race-in-diplomacy

Émilie du Châtelet, who hypothesized conservation of energy, established kinetic energy as distinct from momentum and proportional to (speed)², and combined work by Newton and Leibniz with her own original ideas in "Institutions de Physique," was born #OTD in 1706.

Du Châtelet is an important figure in the development of classical physics, but she is not nearly as well known as many of her male contemporaries.

Portrait: M. Q. de La Tour