Riding Buddies

 

Snow Leopard

A photograph of a wild snow leopard often referred to as ‘ghost of the mountain’ camouflaging in the rocky terrain has sent the netizens scratching their heads. The image giving an optical illusion with the ferocious animal resting in the hiding has confused the viewers who have been struggling to spot the ‘phantom cat’. 

The image was shared on Tuesday by the IFS officer Ramesh Pandey on his official Twitter handle. Sharing the tricky picture, the forest officer tasked the internet to search the location of the apex predator.

The elusive big cats are known for their stealth and predatory behaviour. Often 1.8-2.3m in size, the snow leopards don’t usually roar like the lions but send the yowling cries across the mountainous regions only exceptionally during the breeding season. These cats are primarily solitary and are active hunters during the dawn and the dusk by taking a quiet ambush, meaning they are crepuscular. 

In the image shared by the Forest officer, the cat had been presumably patrolling the ridge-lines and rocky terrain searching for food. However, it’s a tough feat for anyone to locate its bearing in the depicted area.  READ MORE

Just Dancing

 

Giant DONG

 

Van Halen

 

Schools

 

Science

 

Breathe Freely

Genius Australian Device Helps Anyone With Lung Conditions Breathe Freely – Without Drugs. And It’s Finally Available Worldwide!         Sponsored by AirPhysio

If you’re one of the 1 billion people who suffer from a lung condition like asthma or COPD, then you’re going to love hearing about this recent breakthrough: A new device that cleans your lungs of mucus – along with strengthening them without the need for drugs – is now available worldwide.

Lockdowns

 

Pelosi and Hypocrisy

 ‘Epitome Of Hypocrisy’: Archbishop Rebukes Pelosi For Calling Herself A ‘Devout Catholic’ In Defense Of Abortion....

P

Blowin' 'Round

 

Just Passing By

 

Tech Entrepreneurs

So, what does it take to create a startup that succeeds? Is it knowing the art of building successful apps? Or it is all about technical skills? For many startups where non-technical founders have created award-winning tech products, nothing could be further from the truth.

For those who liken creating apps without tech knowledge to cooking in the absence of the right recipe, here’s news. Founders and CEOs with non-technical skills are shaping tech startups worldwide. Let’s start with the startup that revolutionized the concept of a home away from home: Airbnb.  READ MORE

Kiss Me

 

Safe Source of Power

China is moving ahead with development of an experimental reactor that would be the first of its kind in the world, but could prove key to the pursuit of clean and safe nuclear power. According to local news reports, the Chinese government intends to finish building a prototype molten salt nuclear reactor in the desert city of Wuwei in the coming months, with plans to establish a number of larger-scale plants in similar settings thereafter.

With an ability to generate power while producing very minimal carbon emissions, nuclear reactors have a clear upside when it comes to the sustainable generation of energy. But there are very valid reasons the technology hasn't been widely adopted across the world, many of which stem from the reliance on uranium and plutonium for fuel.

Not only is uranium expensive and rare, it can also be used to build nuclear weapons. These reactors also generate radioactive waste that needs to be safely stored, and carry the very real risk of catastrophic meltdown, as seen at Fukushima in 2011.

Since the 1940s, scientists have been exploring an alternative known as molten salt reactors, which promise a far safer way forward. In place of uranium and plutonium, these reactors use the widely abundant, silvery metal thorium, which cannot be easily used to make bombs. Furthermore, these reactors would operate in a way that doesn't pose the same dangers as conventional ones.  READ MORE

Just a Little Movement

 

Ancient Civilizationss

When Pierre-François Bouchard’s men discovered the ancient stone slab that would change the world on July 19, 1799, they weren’t on an archaeological dig; they were doing a last-minute construction job. The French soldiers occupied a run-down fort in Rosetta, Egypt, and had just days to shore up their defenses for a battle with Ottoman Empire troops.

As the men tore down a wall that had been built using the detritus of nearby ancient Egyptian sites, they discovered a large stone fragment covered in three types of writing, including ancient Greek. 

Intrigued, Bouchard wondered if the stone might say the same thing in three different languages. He shared his find with French scholars who had come to plumb Egypt for archaeological treasures.

They got more than they bargained for. The slab was the Rosetta Stone, and the letters and symbols carefully chiseled into its dark face would shed light on the glory of ancient Egyptian civilization. But first, scholars would have to crack its code.  READ MORE

James Woods

 

Cats and Dogs

 

Want Some?

 

Don't Talk Bad About the Democrats

 

Milllennials Approve of Communism

This month, 31-year-old Arizona state representative Daniel Hernandez (D-Tucson) mocked the notion that communist ideology was a threat to American society. He remarked in a jocular tone: “We keep hearing about the threat of communism,” that it’s a “great threat, it is such a bad threat. You know what’s a bigger threat? White nationalism.”

Mr. Hernandez’s comments drew the ire of state representative Quang Nguyen (R-Prescott Valley), who, at 12-years-old, left Tan Son Nhut airport in Vietnam a week before the fall of Saigon.

Mr. Nguyen responded to his Democratic colleague’s comments by recounting his own experience as a refugee: “So let me tell you something about white nationalism. White nationalism didn’t drown 250,000 Vietnamese in the South China Sea. The communists did. White nationalism did not execute 86,000 South Vietnamese at the fall of Saigon. Communists did. White nationalism did not put me here. Communism did. So, don’t take it lightly. Don’t mock me. Don’t mock what I go through in life. It’s rough. I lost most of my cousins, my family members due to communism. If we don’t stand up to teach communism to our children, we’ll lose this country. So sir, don’t mock me.”  READ MORE

Clowns

 

Voltaire

 

Harris Losing Fans

The Biden-Harris administration has been in office for six months, and the American people are not fans of Vice President Kamala Harris, according to a Morning Consult-POLITICO poll released on Wednesday.

Tucked at the end of the results are favorability ratings for various political figures, including the vice president.

The poll was conducted July 16-18, with a sample size of 1,997 registered voters and a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Just 45 percent of respondents have a favorable view of Harris, compared to 47 percent who have an unfavorable view.

More men, at 48 percent, have a favorable view of Harris, compared to the 47 percent who have an unfavorable view. Women, however, are not fans of the vice president, with 43 percent having a favorable view, compared to the 47 percent who have an unfavorable view.

So few Republican women, at 3 percent, have a favorable view of Harris, that it’s possible that with the margin of error that the Vice President has virtually no support from the demographic.

Republican women have a more favorable rating of President Joe Biden, at 9 percent.

Those demographics which have equally or even more significant non-support for Harris include the 2 percent favorable ratings from those who strongly disapprove of the job Biden is doing and the 1 percent who have a very unfavorable view of Biden.

The vice president has most of her support from Democrats and Liberals, at 85 percent each, as well as from 86 percent of Democratic women. Slightly more of respondents who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, at 85 percent, have a favorable view of her than the 82 percent of respondents who voted for Joe Biden in 2020.  READ MORE

Its Just Funny

 

Manatees and Sweet Potatoes

 

Adult Brains

(Image caption: A 3-D animated image showing our synapse phagocytosis reporter in mouse hippocampus. Presynapses in green, astrocytes in white, and microglia in blue. Phagocytosed presynapses by glia were shown in red.)


Astrocytes Eat Connections to Maintain Plasticity in Adult Brains
Developing brains constantly sprout new neuronal connections called synapses as they learn and remember. Important connections — the ones that are repeatedly introduced, such as how to avoid danger — are nurtured and reinforced, while connections deemed unnecessary are pruned away. Adult brains undergo similar pruning, but it was unclear how or why synapses in the adult brain get eliminated.

Now, a team of KAIST researchers has found the mechanism underlying plasticity and, potentially, neurological disorders in adult brains. They published their findings in Nature.

“Our findings have profound implications for our understanding of how neural circuits change during learning and memory, as well as in diseases,” said paper author Won-Suk Chung, an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at KAIST. “Changes in synapse number have strong association with the prevalence of various neurological disorders, such as autism spectrum disorder, schizophrenia, frontotemporal dementia, and several forms of seizures.”

Gray matter in the brain contains microglia and astrocytes, two complementary cells that, among other things, support neurons and synapses. Microglial are a frontline immunity defense, responsible for eating pathogens and dead cells, and astrocytes are star-shaped cells that help structure the brain and maintain homeostasis by helping to control signaling between neurons. According to Professor Chung, it is generally thought that microglial eat synapses as part of its clean-up effort in a process known as phagocytosis.

“Using novel tools, we show that, for the first time, it is astrocytes and not microglia that constantly eliminate excessive and unnecessary adult excitatory synaptic connections in response to neuronal activity,” Professor Chung said. “Our paper challenges the general consensus in this field that microglia are the primary synapse phagocytes that control synapse numbers in the brain.”

Professor Chung and his team developed a molecular sensor to detect synapse elimination by glial cells and quantified how often and by which type of cell synapses were eliminated. They also deployed it in a mouse model without MEGF10, the gene that allows astrocytes to eliminate synapses. Adult animals with this defective astrocytic phagocytosis had unusually increased excitatory synapse numbers in the hippocampus. Through a collaboration with Dr. Hyungju Park at KBRI, they showed that these increased excitatory synapses are functionally impaired, which cause defective learning and memory formation in MEGF10 deleted animals.

“Through this process, we show that, at least in the adult hippocampal CA1 region, astrocytes are the major player in eliminating synapses, and this astrocytic function is essential for controlling synapse number and plasticity,” Chung said.

Professor Chung noted that researchers are only beginning to understand how synapse elimination affects maturation and homeostasis in the brain. In his group’s preliminary data in other brain regions, it appears that each region has different rates of synaptic elimination by astrocytes. They suspect a variety of internal and external factors are influencing how astrocytes modulate each regional circuit, and plan to elucidate these variables.

“Our long-term goal is understanding how astrocyte-mediated synapse turnover affects the initiation and progression of various neurological disorders,” Professor Chung said. “It is intriguing to postulate that modulating astrocytic phagocytosis to restore synaptic connectivity may be a novel strategy in treating various brain disorders.”

Bubbles

 

EGO