Brain's internal clocks and timing

Let's take a look at an interesting finding on the brain - from a new Nature Reviews Neuroscience article. This report gives new meaning to "internal clock!"

"The brain is a 'time machine,' say Duke neuroscientists Catalin Buhusi and Warren Meck. And understanding how the brain tracks time is essential to understanding all its functions. The brain's internal clocks coordinate a vast array of activities from communicating, to orchestrating movement, to getting food. Buhusi and Meck discuss the current state of understanding of one of the brain's most important, and mysterious, clocks - the one governing timing intervals in the seconds to minutes range. Such interval timing occupies the middle neurological ground between two other clocks - the circadian clock that operates over the 24-hour light-dark cycle, and the millisecond clock that is crucial for such functions as motor control and speech generation and recognition."

Meck says, "We're addressing two challenges. One is to find the molecular processes that underlie this internal clock. And the second challenge is to build more realistic models of how this timing process works, with constant, parallel input from throughout the brain." In these studies, the researchers say they "face the daunting process of trying to monitor the intricate swirling of neural activity throughout the entire brain."

Nanotechnology and buckypaper

On the topic of nanotechnology, FSU researchers provide some fun facts below.

Among the possible uses for buckypaper that are being researched at FAC2T at FSU:

If exposed to an electric charge, buckypaper could be used to illuminate computer and television screens. It would be more energy-efficient, lighter, and would allow for a more uniform level of brightness than current cathode ray tube (CRT) and liquid crystal display (LCD) technology.

As one of the most thermally conductive materials known, buckypaper lends itself to the development of heat sinks that would allow computers and other electronic equipment to disperse heat more efficiently than is currently possible. This, in turn, could lead to even greater advances in electronic miniaturization.

Because it has an unusually high current-carrying capacity, a film made from buckypaper could be applied to the exteriors of airplanes. Lightning strikes then would flow around the plane and dissipate without causing damage.

Films also could protect electronic circuits and devices within airplanes from electromagnetic interference, which can damage equipment and alter settings. Similarly, such films could allow military aircraft to shield their electromagnetic "signatures," which can be detected via radar.

Neuromarketers test thoughts

According to my scan of the news, marketers already seem to know a lot about how we think, but what if they could actually watch our brains work as they test their products?

In an experiment last year, a researcher scanned volunteers' brains as they drank samples of Coke and Pepsi. When the colas were not identified, the tasters showed no particular preference for either. But when they were shown the iconic red-and-white label, they expressed a huge preference for Coke, irrespective of which cola they were actually sampling.

Coke's logo, the scans showed, lit up areas in the brain associated with pleasure expectation in a way that Pepsi's did not. Montague's conclusion: Coke's more pervasive brand marketing affected volunteers' preferences in ways they didn't realize - even if they were normally Pepsi drinkers.

And, neuroimaging is also extending into the fields of politics and commerce. FKF Applied Research, a company that uses fMRI to study decision making, found differences in brain activity between Bush and Kerry voters when they were shown political advertisements. Leadership qualities are under study by looking at how people's brains respond to an image of someone they would be willing to follow compared with that of someone they would not.

To learn more about neuromarketing, go to TIME.

AI covers doctor's post

Here is an interesting story about using artificial intelligence to mimic doctors in the an intensive care unit of a hospital.

The coverage on Biotechnology Channel says, "A team of systems engineers from the University of Sheffield is developing an intelligent computer system which imitates a doctor's brain to make treatment decisions for intensive care patients. The system will take some of the workload from emergency medical teams by monitoring patients' vital signs and then evaluating and administering the right amounts of different drugs needed - a job usually carried out by specialist medical doctors.

The system models all the possible interactions between different drugs and patients' bodies, and then makes intelligent decisions about the best way to treat patients during heart bypass operations, and post-operatively. This unique system can decide on the types and quantities of drugs to give to patients in a matter of seconds.

The researchers say the system's ability to learn, adapt, and make informed decisions is unique: This new system not only monitors and treats critical patients, but it can also learn from the experiences of medical staff, who can override the machine at any time. If overridden, the system assimilates the doctor's input and uses the new information to make decisions about similar cases in the future."

More clues on recent hurricanes' intensity

More on the recent hurricanes in the Gulf:

Scientists monitoring ocean heat and circulation in the Gulf of Mexico during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have a new understanding of how these tropical storms can gain intensity so quickly: The Gulf of Mexico's "Loop Current" is likely intensifying hurricanes that pass over eddies of warm water that spin off the main current.

The Loop Current is a horseshoe-shaped feature that flows clockwise, transferring warm subtropical waters from the Caribbean Sea through the Yucatan Straits into the Gulf of Mexico.
After Hurricane Katrina and a week before Hurricane Rita scientists deployed Airborne Expendable Conductivity, Temperature and Depth profilers; Current Profilers; and Bathythermographs to obtain information on water temperature to depths of up to 3,300 feet.

Learn more about these studies at the National Science Foundation web site.

Nanotechnology - how small?

Here is a companion item on nanotechnology to the story below.

Physicists have directly measured how close speeding atoms can come to a surface before the atoms' wavelengths change.

The scientists at the University of Arizona say, "The measurement tells nanotechnologists how small they can make extremely tiny devices before a microscopic force between atoms and surfaces, called van der Waals interaction, becomes a concern. The result is important both for nanotechnology, where the goal is to make devices as small as a few tens of billionths of a meter, and for atom optics, where the goal is to use the wave nature of atoms to make more precise sensors and study quantum mechanics."

Learn more about this interesting study by visiting the University of Arizona's news story. The work is reported in Physical Review Letters.

Nanotechnology finds cancer with a finger prick

This is important work in the detection of cancer with a simple prick of the finger for blood - and it is another win for nanotechnology. You can read about it in Nanotechnology Now ("your gateway to everything nanotech").

Scientists at Harvard say molecular markers indicating the presence of cancer in the body are readily detected in blood scanned by special arrays of silicon nanowires, even when these cancer markers constitute only one hundred-billionth of the protein present in a drop of blood. And the minuscule devices also promise to pinpoint the exact type of cancer with greater speed than exists today.

Reporting in Nature Biotechnology author Charles M. Lieber says in a press release on Eurekalert, "A nanowire array can test a mere pinprick of blood in just minutes, providing a nearly instantaneous scan for many different cancer markers. It's a device that could open up substantial new possibilities in the diagnosis of cancer and other complex diseases."

While initial rounds of cancer testing today identify only whether or not cancer is present, nanowire arrays have the potential to immediately fill in details on exactly what type of cancer is present. Nanowires could also track patients' health as treatment progresses. Because the arrays detect molecules suspended in fluids, drops of blood could be tested directly, in a physician's office, without any need for biochemical manipulation.

And to find more about what Dr. Lieber is up to with nanotechnoloy, go to the Leiber Research Group.

Intense hurricanes linked to global warming

I guess I will be covering global warming from time to time because this trend is getting front and center more and more.

A new study from the Georgia Institute of Technology and the National Center for Atmospheric Research says the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes worldwide has nearly doubled over the past 35 years, even though the total number of hurricanes has dropped since the 1990s. The shift occurred as global sea surface temperatures have increased over the same period,the scientists say.

This research appears this week in Science.

The only region that is experiencing more hurricanes overall is the North Atlantic, say the researchers, where they have become more numerous and longer-lasting, especially since 1995. The North Atlantic has averaged eight to nine hurricanes per year in the last decade, compared to the six to seven per year before the increase. Category 4 and 5 hurricanes in the North Atlantic have increased at an even faster clip: from 16 in the period of 1975-89 to 25 in the period of 1990-2004, a rise of 56 percent.

Find more about this troubling trend at the Georgia Tech hurricane research web site.

Start sleeping with behavioral therapy

Back to the basics this time - getting a good night's sleep.

According to a HealthDay story, a new online, six-week behavioral therapy program that costs $35 could help.

The HealthDay story goes on to say, "Insomnia, to a large extent, is a learned problem," explains developer Gregg Jacobs, an insomnia specialist at the Sleep Disorders Center of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston. "It is due to the way people think about their sleep and their sleep behaviors. These actually cause the insomnia, but they can be changed to eliminate the insomnia."

Although medications can help people sleep, they are no cure for insomnia, Jacobs says. He says that an NIH consensus panel of experts endorsed cognitive behavioral therapy as being more effective, and the preferred treatment for chronic insomnia over sleeping pills.

Cognitive behavioral therapy teaches poor sleepers how to modify stressful thought about their sleep, modify negative or disruptive sleep behaviors, improve relaxation skills, and improve lifestyle practices, Jacobs says.

Katrina cancer patients' resources

Many organizations are coming together to provide medical help to Katrina survivors. One of these is the American Cancer Society.

Visit the Society web site to find out where many of the resources can be found for cancer patients in need both in the areas affected by Katrina and locations where survivors have been relocated.

The web site says, "As we face the aftermath of this storm, the Society is working to continue providing patient services and programs in those areas affected by Hurricane Katrina.

"Individuals in need of American Cancer Society services in the affected area should contact our National Cancer Information Center at 1-800-ACS-2345. Cancer information specialists are available to answer calls 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. "

And, "Download a list of Hurricane Katrina Resources - This document is a list of public resources available nationally as well as in the affected regions for those displaced by the storm."

Da Vinci right, again

One of the things that interests me in science is when a theory from hundreds of years ago is finally proven - scientists have proven a theory of the great Leonardo Da Vinci, scientist and artist.

The Ames Laboratory of the US Department of Energy report says, Leonardo Da Vinci continues to inspire even 500 years after his remarkable life. His theories on friction are helping a group of scientists unlock the mystery of friction at the molecular level.

The press statement says, "In a nutshell, Da Vinci proposed that if two contacting surfaces are geometrically similar, they will have a much higher coefficient of friction than two geometrically dissimilar surfaces, due to the fact that the similar surfaces have a tendency to interlock. To test this theory at the molecular level, the research team looked at a quasicrystalline material that exhibits both periodic and aperiodic configurations in its crystal structure. What they found, and reported in the journal Science, was that friction along the periodic surface was about eight times greater than the friction along the aperiodic axis.

Okay, so it's cool to see the old guys were right most of the time, but why is understanding friction so important... well there are tons of reasons if you google "friction" and "molecular."

But here is one interesting explanation from meteorologist Jeff Haby from Weather Prediction.com: "Friction is an extremely important force to meteorology. Not only does friction decrease the wind speed, it also changes the direction of the wind. Two types of friction occur in the atmosphere. One is molecular friction (friction between individual air molecules, called viscosity) and friction between two surfaces (i.e. friction between air and land). Since air molecules are free to move about, friction by viscosity is much less significant than friction between two surfaces."

There you go - so much good science, so little time to learn more about it!

PlaceLab follows daily behaviors

This is taking big brother into the 21st century... and if you are a fan of CBS's Big Brother show this will sound familiar.

According to a story on the Technology Review web site, "Think back on the last two weeks: try to remember how you spent your time at home. How many hours did you watch television?

"How many times did you open the refrigerator, and what exactly did you eat? How much water did you use? And did you remember to take your vitamins? Out of context, these questions may seem trivial. But together, they create a comprehensive portrait of everyday activity. And that could lead to better indoor air quality and energy management, technologies that simplify - rather than complicate - everyday tasks, and advances in personalized home health care.

"The only problem is that gathering this kind of mundane data is often difficult and tedious. But MIT's PlaceLab aims to get around that problem by inviting volunteer test subjects to live in a sensor-rich apartment where researchers can monitor everything from how long they leave a window open to exactly what time they wake up. This information will make it easier for researchers not only to study everyday human behavior but also to develop better tools with which to do so."

The story continues, "The PlaceLab is, by all outward appearances, a typical one-bedroom, Ikea-clad Cambridge apartment near Central Square. Volunteers spend 10 to 14 days living there as they would in their own homes. But behind the sleek cabinetry and wall panels are more than 350 sensors and dozens of cameras and microphones that can record every movement and activity of the apartment's inhabitants," say the researchers.

Tune in the the last few weeks of CBS's Big Brother 6 to get a taste of the 24/7 on people's daily habits.

Heart surgery and Alzheimer's linked

I think this finding is significant, and I am certain researchers will continue to look into the link between heart surgery and Alzheimer's disease.

The Journal of Alzheimer's Disease reports that researchers have discovered that patients who have either coronary artery bypass graft surgery or coronary angioplasty are at an increased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. They say that the findings pinpoint stress and trauma of surgery as the major cause for the increased risk.

"The coronary bypass patients had a 70 percent increased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease," the scientists say. They say early cognitive impairment is an immediate reaction to the stress of surgery.

Researchers believe this early cognitive impairment is an immediate reaction to the stress of surgery. "Heart bypass surgery represents a traumatic insult to the brain, particularly by reducing oxygen supply to the brain and increasing the stress response," the scientists say.

"We believe that the compensation that occurs by one year masks an underlying deficit in the central nervous system caused by the heart surgery," says Boston University School of Medicine's Benjamin Wolozin. "As individuals age, this underlying deficit might exacerbate progressive cognitive deficits associated with mild cognitive impairment, a precursory phase before diagnosis of Alzheimer's."

Go to Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease or Eurekalert for more information.

Brain and gut linked

The New York Times covers an interesting topic this week on the connection between the brain and the gut, so check it out:

"Two brains are better than one. At least that is the rationale for the close - sometimes too close - relationship between the human body's two brains, the one at the top of the spinal cord and the hidden but powerful brain in the gut known as the enteric nervous system.

For Dr. Michael D. Gershon, the author of "The Second Brain" and the chairman of the department of anatomy and cell biology at Columbia, the connection between the two can be unpleasantly clear. 'Every time I call the National Institutes of Health to check on a grant proposal,' Dr. Gershon said, 'I become painfully aware of the influence the brain has on the gut.'

In fact, anyone who has ever felt butterflies in the stomach before giving a speech, a gut feeling that flies in the face of fact or a bout of intestinal urgency the night before an examination has experienced the actions of the dual nervous systems."

To read the whole article go to "The Other Brain Also Deals With Many Woes."

Tweaking the speed of light

This looks interesting, as it flies in the face of an expression we have heard all of our lives - traveling at the speed of light. Constant, right, something to count on.

Well now researchers have shown, for the first time, that it is possible to control the speed of light – both slowing it down and speeding it up.

Researchers were successful in controlling the speed of light in a simple optical fiber. They were able to make light go faster than the speed of light.

The press statement says that "this is not the first time that scientists have tweaked the speed of a light signal. Even light passing through a window or water is slowed down a fraction as it travels through the medium. In fact, in the right conditions, scientists have been able to slow light down to the speed of a bicycle, or even stop it altogether."

Okay, I'm listening...

"In 2003, a group from the University of Rochester made an important advance by slowing down a light signal in a room-temperature solid. But all these methods depend on special media such as cold gases or crystalline solids, and they only work at certain well-defined wavelengths." With the publication of their new method, the scientists have used a technique to slow light with "off-the-shelf optical fibers, without requiring costly experimental set-ups or special media."

Find more about tweaking the speed of light by scientists at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Applied Physics Letters.

Blogging moves to business

You are going to learn alot more about science and medicine as more blogs are started on these topics, but this story today is more on the business of blogging.

Today I noticed a interesting article on Corante’s Get Real blog - on the business of blogs! Stowe Boyd says about writing blogs (and notice he has a book coming out):

"As the number of blogs and bloggers continues to double every three months, some paradoxical realities are beginning to show up. Like here, at Business Blog Summit, where I was puzzled to see that there is less and less maturity in the attendees: I don't mean that they are young, but that they are newbies. I mean, these folks don't know very much. And I am not knocking the conference folks. It's just simple numbers.

When you a show with an absolute number of attendees -- 200 or 250 attending -- and an additional 5 million blogs went live last quarter, and 10 million this quarter -- guess what? A lot more rank beginners are going to show up.

That also means that the time is right for advanced seminars and symposia to start, and that's where Corante will be pushing in the upcoming months. In an environment where six or seven of the folks speaking at this conference have "Business Blogging" books in press or in process, it is time for more specialization and depth. For example, I could see a conference dedicated just to the technical issues of blogging on Movable Type, or a one day Master Class on Blog Writing for non-newbies who want to dramatically improve the quality of their writing."

I guess it is time journalism schools started up classes on writing blogs....

Support clean water around the world

Why don't you join fellow Americans and others around the globe in supporting CARE and its efforts to help address the issues of poverty around the world.

CARE operates 150 water projects in 43 countries around the world, working to expand access to safe water and help communities manage resources for future generations.

The House of Representatives recently acknowledged the importance of this work by introducing a piece of legislation that promotes access to safe water and sanitation across the globe: The Water for the Poor Act of 2005 (H.R.1973).

Find your member of Congress and make a difference by showing support for this bill as it makes its way to the House floor and a vote for final passage.

Contact CARE Action Network now.

Still searching for women in science

I have been around the medical and science world for a couple of decades, and this is one finding that seems to repeat: "Bias has created a significant barrier to women and under-represented groups from pursuing technological or scientific careers, according to the upcoming report "More Women in Science," published in the journal Science.

The research shows that for many fields, such as biology, the balance of men and women faculty is quite uneven despite the fact that women make up almost half of their graduating PhDs.

"Evidence shows that women faculty members are more often asked to provide campus service on committees and as student advisers, not necessarily the best activity to win tenure approval in Research I institutions," the press statement on Eurekalert states.

Essentially, the climate has always been challenging for women would-be scientists, and although progress has been made in small ways, much is left to do. Recently Georgia Tech developed a tool to help address this issue with a Web-based kit called Awareness of Decisions in Evaluating Promotion and Tenure as part of a National Science Foundation grant. This program is designed to help promotion and tenure committee members, chairpersons, and deans to better understand biases related to gender, race, and disability.

Although incremental steps may seem inadequate to tackle this major problem, at least the issue is still addressed in some way.

More on Yahoo Blog for Hope

I am reading more Yahoo Blog for Hope blogs today, and I have appreciated the thoughtful way celebrities are bringing attention to cancer.

I like the post by Tom Green, who had testicular cancer. He says, "When I noticed my cancer, I personally didn't go to the doctor right away. I waited about two weeks. But they say the average young person waits as much as six months, usually hoping it will go away, before going to a doctor. This is when the cancer can spread. If you feel any sort of pain, numbness, or whatever in your er... private area... just go to a doctor."

He reached out to young men with a program on MTV, and now he is again helping men learn about testicular cancer with his blog on Yahoo. Check it out!

Yahoo Blog for Hope

You should take a minute and visit the Yahoo Blog for Hope today - sponsored by Yahoo and the American Cancer Society!

I like Deepak Chopra, one of the bloggers and a well-known health guru, and here is a short excerpt from one of his entries: "The process of releasing emotional toxins is similar to that for releasing physical ones. You must first have a clear intention that you want to replace life-depleting emotions with life-enhancing ones. The metabolism of regret and resentment into compassion and forgiveness can dramatically awaken your body, mind, and spirit to you primordial vital energy."

His premise is always that a happy heart helps support a healthy body.