Stellar

aauw: A super awesome infographic on abortion laws across the...

Sat, 18 May 2013 17:57:05 -0600

A super awesome infographic on abortion laws across the world

the-absolute-best-posts: instagram: The World’s Most Beautiful...

Sat, 18 May 2013 09:20:10 -0600

instagram.com/p/XB-NNzFrYL/#hausel12

instagram.com/p/YDLh4SvyzX/#sher_lock82

instagram.com/p/XpF49rCDpp/#ikeuri

instagram.com/p/UEUGONJIAY/#brunogac

instagram.com/p/VOyz71BRP1/#christinewk

instagram.com/p/W4tRy7vkSZ/#hello_steph

instagram.com/p/XBdyF8PRJM/#anhelo69

instagram.com/p/YGRvxQJiOn/#mrelastane

the-absolute-best-posts:

instagram:

The World’s Most Beautiful Libraries

“Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future.” -Ray Bradbury

For centuries, books have housed the collective knowledge of the world and formed the foundations of educational institutions. Given that these objects that contain such value, it only makes sense that throughout history people have constructed beautiful buildings to house them.

We put together a list of some of the most beautiful libraries as captured by Instagrammers around the world. For more photos from these architectural wonders, check out their linked location pages below.

Stuttgart City Library, Stuttgart, Germany

Trinity College Library, Dublin, Ireland

Library of Alexandria, Alexandria, Egypt

Real Gabinete Português de Leitura, Rio de Janiero, Brazil

The Royal Danish Library, Copenhagen, Denmark

George Peabody Library, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD

Kanazawa Umimirai Library, Kanazawa City, Japan

New York Public Library, New York City, NY

This post has been featured on a 1000notes.com blog.

astronomy-to-zoology: Titicaca Water Frog (Telmatobius...

Wed, 15 May 2013 18:43:29 -0600

astronomy-to-zoology:

Titicaca Water Frog (Telmatobius culeus)

Also known as the Andean frog or Crawford’s water frog, the Titicaca water frog is a large species of frog found only in Lake Titicaca and its rivers in South America. Like other frogs the titicaca water frog feeds mostly on small fish, insects and other small invertebrates. The Titicaca water frog has excessive skin which is an adaptation for high altitude living as the excess skin helps it breathe, as more oxygen can diffuse in. It also possesses reduced lungs, a high red blood cell count and smaller red blood cells to help it breathe in its low oxygen environment.

Phylogeny

Animalia-Chordata-Amphibia-Anura-Leptodactylidae-Telmatobiinae-Telmatobius-culeus

Image Source(s)

yaleuniversity: Yale researchers used light to probe the...

Wed, 15 May 2013 18:32:20 -0600

yaleuniversity:

Yale researchers used light to probe the actions of the neurotransmitter GABA on single synapses along the branches of a neuron.

This photo shows a mouse cortical neuron in red, with dendritic branches that are studded with synaptic spines. Surrounding the neuron are inhibitory axons or fibers (in blue) that are genetically engineered to release GABA when activated by light, a technique known as optogenetics. Learn more →

modernizing: The Hotel Bubble in France. Bubble Rooms –...

Wed, 15 May 2013 18:30:55 -0600

modernizing:

The Hotel Bubble in France.

Bubble Rooms – ideas, used by two hotels in France. Small bubbles are designed by designer Pierre-Stephane Dumas, they allow you to stay in the room, but at the same time as though and in the open air.

neuromorphogenesis: Out of sync with the world: Body clocks of...

Wed, 15 May 2013 18:30:01 -0600

neuromorphogenesis:

Out of sync with the world: Body clocks of depressed people are altered at cell level

Finding of disrupted brain gene orchestration gives first direct evidence of circadian rhythm changes in depressed brains, opens door to better treatment

Every cell in our bodies runs on a 24-hour clock, tuned to the night-day, light-dark cycles that have ruled us since the dawn of humanity. The brain acts as timekeeper, keeping the cellular clock in sync with the outside world so that it can govern our appetites, sleep, moods and much more.

But new research shows that the clock may be broken in the brains of people with depression — even at the level of the gene activity inside their brain cells.

It’s the first direct evidence of altered circadian rhythms in the brain of people with depression, and shows that they operate out of sync with the usual ingrained daily cycle. The findings, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, come from scientists from the University of Michigan Medical School and other institutions.

The discovery was made by sifting through massive amounts of data gleaned from donated brains of depressed and non-depressed people. With further research, the findings could lead to more precise diagnosis and treatment for a condition that affects more than 350 million people worldwide.

What’s more, the research also reveals a previously unknown daily rhythm to the activity of many genes across many areas of the brain – expanding the sense of how crucial our master clock is.

In a normal brain, the pattern of gene activity at a given time of the day is so distinctive that the authors could use it to accurately estimate the hour of death of the brain donor, suggesting that studying this “stopped clock” could conceivably be useful in forensics. By contrast, in severely depressed patients, the circadian clock was so disrupted that a patient’s “day” pattern of gene activity could look like a “night” pattern — and vice versa.

The work was funded in large part by the Pritzker Neuropsychiatric Disorders Research Fund, and involved researchers from the University of Michigan, University of California’s Irvine and Davis campuses, Weill Cornell Medical College, the Hudson Alpha Institute for Biotechnology, and Stanford University.

The team uses material from donated brains obtained shortly after death, along with extensive clinical information about the individual. Numerous regions of each brain are dissected by hand or even with lasers that can capture more specialized cell types, then analyzed to measure gene activity. The resulting flood of information is picked apart with advanced data-mining tools.

Lead author Jun Li, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the U-M Department of Human Genetics, describes how this approach allowed the team to accurately back-predict the hour of the day when each non-depressed individual died – literally plotting them out on a 24-hour clock by noting which genes were active at the time they died. They looked at 12,000 gene transcripts isolated from six regions of 55 brains from people who did not have depression.

This provided a detailed understanding of how gene activity varied throughout the day in the brain regions studied. But when the team tried to do the same in the brains of 34 depressed individuals, the gene activity was off by hours. The cells looked as if it were an entirely different time of day.

“There really was a moment of discovery,” says Li, who led the analysis of the massive amount of data generated by the rest of the team and is a research assistant professor in U-M’s Department of Computational Medicine at Bioinformatics. “It was when we realized that many of the genes that show 24-hour cycles in the normal individuals were well-known circadian rhythm genes – and when we saw that the people with depression were not synchronized to the usual solar day in terms of this gene activity. It’s as if they were living in a different time zone than the one they died in.”

Huda Akil, Ph.D., the co-director of the U-M Molecular & Behavioral Neuroscience Institute and co-director of the U-M site of the Pritzker Neuropsychiatric Disorders Research Consortium, notes that the findings go beyond previous research on circadian rhythms, using animals or human skin cells, which were more easily accessible than human brain tissues.

“Hundreds of new genes that are very sensitive to circadian rhythms emerged from this research — not just the primary clock genes that have been studied in animals or cell cultures, but other genes whose activity rises and falls throughout the day,” she says. “We were truly able to watch the daily rhythm play out in a symphony of biological activity, by studying where the clock had stopped at the time of death. And then, in depressed people, we could see how this was disrupted.”

Now, she adds, scientists must use this information to help find new ways to predict depression, fine-tune treatment for each depressed patient, and even find new medications or other types of treatment to develop and test. One possibility, she notes, could be to identify biomarkers for depression – telltale molecules that can be detected in blood, skin or hair.

And, the challenge of determining why the circadian clock is altered in depression still remains. “We can only glimpse the possibility that the disruption seen in depression may have more than one cause. We need to learn more about whether something in the nature of the clock itself is affected, because if you could fix the clock you might be able to help people get better,” Akil notes.

The team continues to mine their data for new findings, and to probe additional brains as they are donated and dissected. The high quality of the brains, and the data gathered about how their donors lived and died, is essential to the project, Akil says. Even the pH level of the tissue, which can be affected by the dying process and the time between death and freezing tissue for research, can affect the results. The team also will have access to blood and hair samples from new donors.

Image:The researchers used gene expression patterns to try to predict the time of death for each person in the study (inner circles), and then compared it with the actual time of death (outer circles). The two matched closely in healthy people, as shown by the short lines between the two points in the left diagram. But in depressed people, the two were out of sync, as seen at right. Credit: University of Michigan.

kronosinasuit: Kerry Washington being amazing as always.

Wed, 15 May 2013 18:28:12 -0600

kronosinasuit:

Kerry Washington being amazing as always.

fuckyeahfluiddynamics: When a drop falls from a moderate height...

Wed, 15 May 2013 18:27:45 -0600

fuckyeahfluiddynamics:

When a drop falls from a moderate height into a shallow pool, its impact creates a complicated pattern. The photo above is a composite image showing a top-down view 100 ms after such an impact. On the left side, the flow is visualized using dye whereas the right shows a schlieren photograph, in which contrast indicates variations in density. Both methods show the same general structure - an inner vortex ring generated at the edge of the impact crater and formed mostly of drop fluid and an outer vortex ring, consisting primarily of pool fluid, formed by the spreading wave. Both regions show signs of instability and breakdown. (Photo credit: A. Wilkens et al.)

photojojo: At the intersection of science and art, Dr. Kai-hung...

Wed, 15 May 2013 18:26:38 -0600

photojojo:

At the intersection of science and art, Dr. Kai-hung Fung is using CT scans to build 3d models of the inside of the human body. He got the idea after noticing a CT scan of a woman’s nose resembled an orchid, and realized that medical images could be art as well.

The Inside of Your Body is Filled With Crazy Imagery

via Slate

mothernaturenetwork: How wind turbines kill birds Wind energy...

Wed, 15 May 2013 18:25:31 -0600

mothernaturenetwork:

How wind turbines kill birds

Wind energy may be cost efficient, but it’s costing us over half a million birds each year.

scinerds: Research suggests new approach for spinal muscular...

Wed, 15 May 2013 18:24:19 -0600

scinerds:

Research suggests new approach for spinal muscular atrophy

ALS drug effects highlights potassium channel role

There is no specific drug to treat spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), a family of motor neuron diseases that in its most severe form is the leading genetic cause of infant death in the United States and affects one in 6,000 people overall. But a new multispecies study involving a drug that treats amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has pinpointed a mechanism of SMA that drug developers might be able to exploit for a new therapy.

The research, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, reports that the drug Riluzole advanced neural cell development in a mammalian model of SMA and restored neuromuscular function and mobility in a Caenorhabditis elegans worm model of the disease.

Riluzole has already been tested as a therapy in a very small study of severely affected SMA patients. It failed to help. Nevertheless, what makes the new research encouraging, said Anne Hart, professor of neuroscience at Brown and senior author on the paper, is that the study traces the beneficial action of Riluzole to specific “SK2” potassium channels in worm neurons. Humans have these channels too, and if they can be more precisely targeted by a new drug, she said, that could make a more meaningful difference, at least for some patients.

“We’re not suggesting based on this that SMA patients should ask their doctors for Riluzole,” said Hart, who is affiliated with the Brown Institute for Brain Science, “but we are suggesting that this pathway would be useful for therapeutic development.”

How Riluzole works

Because SMA has a lot in common with ALS, Hart thought Riluzole might still be worth studying in the context of SMA. To do so, she partnered with fellow researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital. They worked in mouse neuronal cells while her team at Brown worked in the worms.

For each system, the researchers created SMA models in different ways by disabling the gene that produces the survival motor neuron (SMN) protein. Depletion of that protein causes SMA in people too.

In the mammalian neuronal cells, the Children’s Hospital researchers found that Riluzole promoted the growth of axons that was lacking in the SMN-depleted cells. However, Riluzole did this not by increasing SMN levels. Instead, the researchers found evidence that drug treatment matured the neurons more quickly in normal cells.

Most attempts to treat SMA have relied on trying to maintain or restore higher levels of SMN, Hart noted. But Riluzole, or a future drug, may instead be able to work by accelerating cell maturity.

In the worms meanwhile, the Brown researchers found that Riluzole restored two important neuromuscular behaviors of SMA worms: the pumping action that allows the worms to move food through their digestive tracts and the body bending that they perform when swimming.

To learn how Riluzole had this effect, they performed further experiments testing various potassium channels, including SK2, that Riluzole is known to act upon. Losing these channels didn’t cause more problems in animals with less SMN protein, but losing the SK2 potassium channels in particular made neuromuscular function worse. Without the SK2 channels, the drug Riluzole didn’t improve function.

“This told us that Riluzole improves motorneuron function by acting through SK2 channels, which we did not know before,” said lead author Maria Dimitriadi, a postdoctoral researcher in Hart’s group. “This is important bec

futurejournalismproject: White Men, Everyone Else: Gender and...

Wed, 15 May 2013 18:23:41 -0600

futurejournalismproject:

White Men, Everyone Else: Gender and Ethnic Diversity on Cable News

Media Matters spent the month of April reviewing evening guests on cable news. The results, unfortunately, don’t surprise: CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC “overwhelmingly host male and white guests.”

Read through for the details as the watchdog group breaks down the numbers for each network. We learn, for instance, that “Out of 1,677 total guests, CNN had the largest proportion of men — 76 percent — during the month of April;” and “Fox News had the largest proportion of white guests — 83 percent.”

Hat tip to Chris Hayes, whose show is the most diverse in cable evening news. And getting there isn’t very difficult. “We just would look at the board and say, ‘We already have too many white men. We can’t have more,’” Hayes told Ann Friedman at the Columbia Journalism Review back in March. “Really, that was it.”

Images: Diversity On Evening Cable News, via Media Matters. Select to embiggen.

Skepticism About the Census Voter Turnout Finding

Wed, 15 May 2013 12:43:51 -0600

Skepticism About the Census Voter Turnout Finding:

pewresearch:

The Census Bureau made big news last week when it reported that the black voter turnout rate (66.2%) exceeded the white voter turnout rate (64.1%) for the first time ever in 2012. But a closer look at the numbers raises some intriguing questions.

ilovecharts: This map shows unregistered user edits to...

Wed, 15 May 2013 09:42:52 -0600

ilovecharts:

This map shows unregistered user edits to Wikipedia articles in real time. Unregistered users account for only about 15% of English language Wikipedia edits, so this only represents a small portion of the total edits being made to Wikipedia. That being said, it is still wicked cool.

pewresearch: The U.S. receives overwhelmingly positive ratings...

Wed, 15 May 2013 09:42:18 -0600

pewresearch:

The U.S. receives overwhelmingly positive ratings in Israel, with even more Israelis now saying they have a favorable view of their country’s ally than did so two years ago, when Pew Research last conducted a survey in Israel; today, 83% express a positive opinion of the U.S., compared with 72% in 2011. In contrast, about eight-in-ten (79%) Palestinians express unfavorable views of the U.S., virtually unchanged from recent surveys. Read more.

aros: Breuer/Lundberg Cabin. LUNDBERG DESIGN livestock tank...

Wed, 15 May 2013 09:41:43 -0600

aros:

Breuer/Lundberg Cabin. LUNDBERG DESIGN

livestock tank pool. 25-feet diameter and 14-feet deep.

tselentis-arch: Palazzo Vecchio (Palazzo della Signoria),...

Wed, 15 May 2013 09:40:11 -0600

Palazzo Vecchio

Palazzo Vecchio and Piazza Signoria

The courtyard

Salone dei Cinquecento

Painting of the Piazza della Signoria in the 16th century, by Giuseppe Zocchi

tselentis-arch:

Palazzo Vecchio (Palazzo della Signoria), Florence, Italy, 14th c.

by Arnolfo di Cambio, 1298 - 1314, additions by Giorgio Vasari and Buontalenti in the late 16th century [1]

Source: The Museums of Florence

Museums

thecuratorsprints: Set of Constellation

Wed, 15 May 2013 09:38:35 -0600

thecuratorsprints:

Set of Constellation

Photo

Wed, 15 May 2013 09:38:11 -0600

unhistorical: May 15, 1536: Anne Boleyn is found guilty of...

Wed, 15 May 2013 09:37:55 -0600

unhistorical:

May 15, 1536: Anne Boleyn is found guilty of treason.

Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife after Catharine of Aragon and the wife for whom the king broke away from the Catholic Church, was arrested in May of 1536 and charged with adultery, incest, and treason. Her arrest took place only three years after her marriage to Henry, which had so far produced no male heirs and only one healthy child; the king had meanwhile taken Jane Seymour, who was to become his third wife just weeks after Anne Boleyn’s execution, as a mistress. Anne was, according to contemporary accounts, intelligent, witty, and anything but submissive. all traits that Henry found desirable, even exciting, in a mistress, but not in a wife; her confrontational nature combined with her failure to bear male heirs healthy enough to survive past infancy caused their marriage to crumble.

Anne Boleyn’s arrest was based on accusations of her illicit sexual relationships with a court musician, several aristocrats, and Anne’s own brother George; she was charged with both adultery (a form of treason when committed by a queen) and plotting the death of the king (another form of treason). Of her accused lovers, five were found guilty of treason, including George Boleyn, and executed by decapitation on May 17, 1536. Anne was held in the Tower of London and remained there until her own execution on May 19, 1536; her final words were reportedly a prayer:

To Jesus Christ I commend my soul; Lord Jesus receive my soul.

Anne Boleyn was survived by one child, who was the only one of her siblings to survive birth and infancy, who was declared illegitimate and deprived of her birthright not long after her mother’s execution in order to clear the way for her father’s male heirs, and who eventually became one of England’s most famous, most influential monarchs.