The beloved writer #OliverSacks, who wrote case studies on #neurologicaldisorders, #neuroscience, music and love has just passed away at the age of 82. - http://clapway.com/2015/08/30/oliver-sacks-dies-82-writer-scientist-110/

British neurologist and popular author Oliver Sacks died today at age 82 in his New York City home. Sacks was a Professor of Neurology at the New York University School of Medicine and a beloved writer whose works included collections of case studies on neurological disorders, spanning from the neuroscience of face blindness and catatonia to that of music and love.

WHAT DID OLIVER SACKS DO?

Sacks frequently incorporated musings on his own maladies into his books, such as in Migraine, The Mind’s Eye, and Hallucinations, which considered his experiences with LSD and mescaline. Sacks was a longtime contributor to NPR, often regaling audiences with personal as well as professional tales from his life. Sacks’s memoir, On the Move: A Life was released in May 2015.

A FEW MORE GOOD BOOKS

Sacks’s best known works also include the bestseller The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Awakenings. The latter, his 1973 memoir on a work with patients suffering from encephalitis lethargica, was adapted into an Academy Award-nominated film starring Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro.

Sacks announced in February 2015 that he had terminal liver cancer

LITERARY EXCELLENCE

In his writings, Sacks did not reduce people to scientific curiosities or otherwise surface-level sources of alienation, but instead as individuals capable of gaining our empathy as much as those written by Chekov (who, coincidentally, was also a doctor with great artistic vision and insight). Sacks was always concerned with how patients’ lives suffered from neurological disorders; how they had to adapt their relationships, personal lives, even simple daily routines to their developing disorders.

Instead of simply depicting his characters as victims or hapless fellows of the world, he transformed his case studies into literary narratives that were fully dramatic , detailed and aware of their readers’ thoughts. These stories did not marginalize such characters, but to the contrary placed them in an active world of flux and thriving change.

THE HUMAN CONDITION

His ability to reproduce the physiological, emotional aspects of characters juxtaposed to metaphysical desire and speculation was uncanny. Readers learn the great costs of the extreme alienation that comes with the sort of isolation such patients endured. He always made sure that there was an element of resilience and autonomy to these characters, for none of them–or their corresponding real-life patients–lived without retaining a sense of identity and personal agency.

Indeed, some who’ve suffered neurological disorders have used it as inspiration to accomplish great things.

---

 

PROTECT YOUR iPHONE SCREEN

https://youtu.be/4HY8cv3nkb0

Oliver Sacks: Brilliant Writer and Scientist Dies

#Smell is EVERYTHING to me, #ants and many other creatures - http://clapway.com/2015/08/17/ants-would-not-exist-without-their-sense-of-smell-235/

A new journal published on Cell Reports by the University of California says that ants use their sense of smell to discern differences in chemical compounds on other ants’ bodies, and they have always been using their miraculous olfaction in order to protect themselves or even communicate with each other.

ANTS USE THEIR SENSE OF SMELL FOR EVERYTHING

XAnandasankar Ray, neuroscientist and lead writer of the study, says that there was never an answer to the question: “How ants co-exist in such massive colonies having specialized tasks?”. According to Ray, ants use chemistry in order to communicate, exist and work together in a society they maintain by themselves.

Now we know that ants use odor, produced by their shells, to identify the queen, the workers, and intrudors from other colonies since every ‘ant society’ has a different, distinctive smell. Also, professor Ray claims that ants’ sense of smell is so outstanding that they can easily acknowledge who the outsider is and kill it as a team.

Olfaction, though, is not only found in ants. Many insects use pheromones, which define the behavior of other representatives of the same species, setting roles, hierarchy and breeding conditions.

THE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE STUDY

According to professor Anandasankar Ray, the two most fascinating discoveries was the extremely sizeable olfactory system ants have and their ability to distinguish very similar compounds as different.

Ray, with the help of his colleagues, noted the electrical activity appeared on the worker ants’ antennae, everytime they were being placed close to hydrocarbon chemicals. The experiment was conducted via an electrophysiology method and the researchers had trained the ants to link hydrocarbon chemicals with sugar water. The insects were able to distinguish different chemicals from one another without difficulty.

THE STARS OF THE SHOW

Camponotus floridanus was the ant that was used in this study and you might know it as the Florida carpenter ant. These ants have a wider array of olfactory proteins in their genetic material than humans and they are among the largest in Florida even though they are not really aggressive.

If you can’t get enough of these hardworking creatures, find out what goes on inside Ant Hills here.

---

 

Pretend to be an ant in VR with SnailVR:

Ants Would Not Exist Without Their Sense of Smell

Could Probes Perform Brain Control by Wifi? - http://clapway.com/2015/07/17/could-probes-perform-brain-control-by-wifi435/

The Fascination with brain control

Since the studying of the brain and the mind began, it has become the subject of many science observations, as well as science fiction plots galore. The whole topic is apart of mainstream culture that it is just unavoidable to hear what someone has to say about the idea.

But what is the point? What is so important about it? Answers must be provided.

The latest in brain control

It is very important because the brain is what makes our body work. It is our livelihood. We are dependent on that fact. The idea of brain control is also an explored topic in the science community and have spurred many papers exploring the history and further research.

It wasn’t until yesterday that a press release yesterday came out from the National Institutes of Health about a brain probe that may offer the ability for wireless control of the brain. The research for this was released in the Cell journal detailing the specifics on the study and process.

No, this does not mean that you can force people to do your evil bidding. So, put those plans of global domination away, because it’s just not that type of machine.

The significance of the study

But more on the new furor is that this new tool is very innovative because it now allows one to observe the brain in a more nature way. So there isn’t too much poking and prodding by surgeons as they fiddle with your brain while you are awake, because let’s face it, you kind of feel invaded in those surgeries or exams.

Which is why the brain probe was made, to help lessen the need for those methods, make you feel more comfortable, and lessen the risk of those routes. No one wants to have their brain messed with, let alone suffer from a goof-up during a surgery or examination.

That kind of thing only leads to lawsuits. So, brain control probe for the win! Only time will tell what this little thing can tell us about our brains.

---

 

hate geting stranded with no battery on your phone? try the lepow poki external charger!

Could Probes Perform Brain Control by Wifi?

Researchers Study the Science Behind Screams - http://clapway.com/2015/07/16/researchers-study-the-science-behind-screams536/

Screams in Pop Culture

We all know screams really well from horror films in a variety of ways, some iconic, some not. Perhaps film lovers may think of Psycho, Scream, and similar films. It is one of the easiest ways to tell if someone is in danger to other characters in the film, more often than not it is the stereotype of the female lead being in danger that alerts others to the threat or danger.

The signaling of danger holds true in real life as well, but also showing distress or if your baby needs to be fed or is being fussy, needs a diaper change. Nevertheless, in the different contexts if informs you of the situation.

The point is, scream tell a lot about ourselves and our way of communication. The trick is to puzzle out what the scream is telling us. A question researchers have undertaken.

The Study about scream
Current Biology featured an article today that was sent in to the journal back in March. The team of five researchers then focused their studies on the acoustics of scream and the signals it raises, the behavior it induces, and how the pitch affects our behavior and how we react.

Origins of the study

The study came about when one of the authors of the study’s postdoctoral students had new additions to their families. What initially was a round of sympathetic shoulders to cry and lament on about the work load of being a new parent turned into a science inquiry about the nature of communication in screams.

They then began analyzing various clips of screams from film, real life, etc. to find that the scream live in a rugged terrain in the sound world. In turn, while monitoring brain activity while people listened to brain activity, the sounds stimulated the amygdala in which the most terror inducing scream came from the roughest one.

The uniqueness of the study was not lost on David Poeppel, professor of the postdoc students, when he was asked about the study and commented on the fact that the range in which screams occur is something that is done purposefully biological for the purpose of using it only when we need to—which is why screams are integral to survival and trigger a fight or flight response.

---

 

the perfect shirt for traveling is here.

Researchers Study the Science Behind Screams