Friday, August 20
Greek Mythology
According to ancient Greek mythology, the Muses are the sources of inspiration for all of the arts and of knowledge. The daughters of Zeus and Mnemosine, they were the romantic companions of Apollo’s entourage of gods.
The Muses began their lives as nymphs that manifested as whispers in the ears of those that invoked them. The ancient writer Hesiod describes how Osiris, the god of fertility, then called upon them to travel across the world as the nine muses:
Calliope
Clio
Erato
Euterpe
Melpomene
Polyhymnia
Thalia
Terpsichore
Urania
The Muses were integral to the artistic development of ancient Greece. The poets attempted to summon the Muses, who they believed would respond by giving them inspiration for their work. The ancient Greeks worshiped the Muses until Christianity became the dominant religion in Europe.
Each of the Muses is associated with her own unique form of art and knowledge. READ MORE ABOUT EACH MUSE
The Survival of Stonehenge
A new study reveals how the monument has stood the test of time so successfully: The quartz crystals that make up the sarsens form an interlocking structure that makes the boulders nearly indestructible.
"Now we've got a good idea why this stuff's still standing there," David Nash, a professor of physical geography at the University of Brighton who co-authored the study, told Insider. "The stone is incredibly durable — it's really resistant to erosion and weathering."
The study also revealed that some of Stonehenge's sarsens contain grains of rock that are between 1 billion and 1.6 billion years old.
The new research was born out of an act of repatriation.
In 1958, a team was repairing a cracked chunk of sandstone, and a driller named Robert Phillips took a 3-foot-long piece of Stonehenge.
He eventually brought the relic to his home in Florida, but after 60 years, the Phillips family repatriated it to English Heritage, a charity that preserves Stonehenge.
The rock's return offered Nash's team an opportunity to investigate the monument's geological origins. Stonehenge is protected by law, so it's impossible to extract new samples for study. READ MORE
The rock's return offered Nash's team an opportunity to investigate the monument's geological origins. Stonehenge is protected by law, so it's impossible to extract new samples for study. READ MORE
Thursday, August 19
Our Second 2021 Vacation
Today is a final relaxing day for me as tomorrow (Friday) I have to get the house and yard ready for us to go on vacation in Myrtle Beach, SC... Leaving Saturday and returning the following Friday. So, tomorrow is the day for mowing the yard, weed eating, putting extra water in the pool, vacuuming the pool, gathering up everything that I want to take with me, and then packing it all in the car, so that all that needs to be done on Saturday, is having a relaxing morning with coffee and breakfast... as we plan on leaving around 1:00 pm.
Should we have any concerns about COVID?
We should not have any but we do... even though both of us have had our vaccines... there is still concern about catching the virus and having to experience some sort of ill side effects as a result of our age and health situation where we both have compromised immune systems.
SO... we will probably avoid elevators where there is more than the two of us... being out on the beach will not be a problem... but, when we go grocery shopping or shopping in general, then we will wear our masks and make sure to sanitize our hands often...
We typically eat out at the beach but I doubt we will do much of that... mostly take out I would think...
LIfe must go on for us and everyone else... we should not have to hide away inside but when outside we should be smart... it is uncomfortable being smart but that no longer matters when it comes to protecting one's health...
This will be our second vacation in 2021 and probably our last although we have been invited to the Gulf of Mexico in September but I am not sure if we will go... we usually have at least 6 vacations each year now that we are retired, but COVID has completely altered those plans.
Populist Press
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DC BOMB SUSPECT LIVE STREAM! “REVOLUTION STARTS TODAY JOE”
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Joe Biden Fully Exposed By New Video…
Thought and Metabolism
To regulate adaptive behaviour, the brain relies on a continuous flow of cognitive and memory-related processes that require a constant energy supply. Weighing around 1,200 grams in women and 1,300 grams in men, on average, the brain consumes around 90 grams, or 340 kilocalories’ worth, of glucose per day, accounting for around half of the body’s glucose demand1,2.
The tight integration of metabolic and cognition-related signals might aid the matching of the brain’s energy supply to its energy needs, by optimizing foraging behaviour and efforts to limit energy expenditure.
The synchronization of glucose supply with brain activity has so far been considered a function of a structure called the hypothalamus, at the base of the brain. Writing in Nature, Tingley et al.3 provide evidence in rats for the role of another brain region, called the hippocampus, which is typically implicated in memory and navigation, in this equation (Fig. 1).
Figure 1 | Brain signals that regulate glucose levels in the body periphery. The hypothalamus in the brain helps to regulate glucose concentrations in the blood and in the interstitial fluid that surrounds cells in the body. This hypothalamic (feedback-mediated) regulation is activated, for example, during stress. Tingley et al.3 provide evidence in rats that another brain structure, the hippocampus, also regulates peripheral glucose concentrations. In the hippocampus, oscillatory patterns — called sharp wave-ripples (SPW-Rs) — emerge in the collective electrical potential across the membranes of neurons. They seem to signal, by way of a region called the lateral septum, to the hypothalamus to produce dips in interstitial glucose concentration about 10 minutes later. The feedback mechanism in this regulatory loop is unknown (dashed arrow). Given that hippocampal SPW-Rs are a hallmark of the reprocessing of previous experiences, they might thus control the brain’s energy supply during a ‘thought-like’ mode.
The hippocampus receives many types of sensory and metabolic information, and projections from neuronal cells in the hippocampus extend to various parts of the brain, including the hypothalamus. Thus, the hippocampus might indeed represent a hub in which metabolic signals are integrated with cognitive processes3.
Figure 1 | Brain signals that regulate glucose levels in the body periphery. The hypothalamus in the brain helps to regulate glucose concentrations in the blood and in the interstitial fluid that surrounds cells in the body. This hypothalamic (feedback-mediated) regulation is activated, for example, during stress. Tingley et al.3 provide evidence in rats that another brain structure, the hippocampus, also regulates peripheral glucose concentrations. In the hippocampus, oscillatory patterns — called sharp wave-ripples (SPW-Rs) — emerge in the collective electrical potential across the membranes of neurons. They seem to signal, by way of a region called the lateral septum, to the hypothalamus to produce dips in interstitial glucose concentration about 10 minutes later. The feedback mechanism in this regulatory loop is unknown (dashed arrow). Given that hippocampal SPW-Rs are a hallmark of the reprocessing of previous experiences, they might thus control the brain’s energy supply during a ‘thought-like’ mode.
The hippocampus receives many types of sensory and metabolic information, and projections from neuronal cells in the hippocampus extend to various parts of the brain, including the hypothalamus. Thus, the hippocampus might indeed represent a hub in which metabolic signals are integrated with cognitive processes3.
To examine this possibility, Tingley and colleagues recorded oscillatory patterns called sharp wave-ripples (SPW-Rs), reflecting changes in electrical potential across the cell membranes of neuronal-cell ensembles in the hippocampi of rats. They did this while using a sensor inserted under the skin of the animals’ backs to continuously measure glucose levels in the interstitial fluid surrounding the cells there. READ MORE
Underpinnings of Consciousness
Consciousness is arguably the most important scientific topic there is. Without consciousness, there would after all be no science.
But while we all know what it is like to be conscious – meaning that we have personal awareness and respond to the world around us – it has turned out to be near impossible to explain exactly how it arises from the hardware of the brain.
This is dubbed the “hard” problem of consciousness.
Solving the hard problem is a matter of great scientific curiosity. But so far, we haven’t even solved the “easy” problems of explaining which brain systems give rise to conscious experiences in general – in humans or other animals.
This is of huge clinical importance. Disorders of consciousness are a common consequence of severe brain injury and include comas and vegetative states. And we all experience temporary loss of awareness when under anaesthesia during an operation.
In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, we have now shown that conscious brain activity seems to be linked to the brain’s “pleasure chemical”, dopamine. READ MORE
Solving the hard problem is a matter of great scientific curiosity. But so far, we haven’t even solved the “easy” problems of explaining which brain systems give rise to conscious experiences in general – in humans or other animals.
This is of huge clinical importance. Disorders of consciousness are a common consequence of severe brain injury and include comas and vegetative states. And we all experience temporary loss of awareness when under anaesthesia during an operation.
In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science, we have now shown that conscious brain activity seems to be linked to the brain’s “pleasure chemical”, dopamine. READ MORE
Ancient Genetics
A joint research team led by Prof. FU Qiaomei from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences sequenced the ancient genomes of 31 individuals from southern East Asia, thus unveiling a missing piece of human prehistory.
The study was recently published in the journal Cell.
Prof. FU’s team used DNA capture techniques to retrieve ancient DNA from Guangxi and Fujian, two provincial-level regions in southern China.
They sequenced genome-wide DNA from 31 individuals dating back 11,747 to 194 years ago. Of these, two date back to more than 10,000 years ago, making them the oldest genomes sampled from southern East Asia and Southeast Asia to date.
Previous ancient DNA studies showed that ~8,000-4,000-year-old Southeast Asian Hòabìnhian hunter-gatherers possessed deeply divergent Asian ancestry, whereas the first Southeast Asian farmers beginning ~4,000 years ago show a mixture of ancestry associated with Hòabìnhian hunter-gatherers and present-day southern Chinese populations.
Previous ancient DNA studies showed that ~8,000-4,000-year-old Southeast Asian Hòabìnhian hunter-gatherers possessed deeply divergent Asian ancestry, whereas the first Southeast Asian farmers beginning ~4,000 years ago show a mixture of ancestry associated with Hòabìnhian hunter-gatherers and present-day southern Chinese populations.
In coastal southern China, ~9,000-4,000-year-old individuals from Fujian province show ancestry not as deeply divergent as the Hòabìnhian. READ MORE
Wednesday, August 18
Afghanistan
How Obama freed key Taliban leader in 2014 in prisoner swap despite pentagon warnings only for him to spearhead steaming take-over of Kabul
- Former president released five Taliban commanders from Guantanamo in 2014
- He promised US public Taliban Five would be stopped from harming Afghanistan
- But one of them ended up brokering terms of US troop withdrawal this year
- Khairullah Khairkhwa was sent to Qatar after detention camp but formed regime
- He promised Biden's Afghanistan envoy that Taliban wouldn't launch offensive
- But the warlords are now trying to track down Afghans who sided with allies
- US soldier they were exchanged for has since been dishonourably discharged
By ISABELLA NIKOLIC FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 10:36 EDT, 17 August 2021 | UPDATED: 18:43 EDT, 17 August 2021
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