Islands swarming with tens of millions of red crabs. Yellow crazy ants. Vicious arthropod battles for dominance. Cats are freakin’ boring.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Islands swarming with tens of millions of red crabs. Yellow crazy ants. Vicious arthropod battles for dominance. Cats are freakin’ boring.
This story is some kind of awesome:
For those who don’t want to watch the whole thing, the observation in brief is that color perception is affected by color language. The investigators compare Westerners with our familiar language categories for color (red, blue, green, yellow, etc.) to the people of the Himba tribe in Africa who have very different categories: they use “zoozu”, for instance, for dark colors, which includes reds, greens, blues, and purples, “vapa” for white and some yellows, “borou” for specific shades of green and blue. Linguistically, they lump together some colors for which we have distinct names, and they also discriminate other colors that we lump together as one.
The cool thing about it all is that when they give adults a color discrimination test, there are differences in how readily we process and recognize different colors that corresponds well to our language categories. Perception in the brain is colored (see what I did there?) by our experiences while growing up.
The study is still missing one part, though. It’s presented as an example of plasticity in wiring the brain, where language modulates color perception…but we don’t know whether people of the Himba tribe might also have subtle genetic differences that effect color processing. The next cool experiment would be to raise a European/American child in a Himba home, or a Himba child in a Western home (this latter experiment is more likely to occur than the former, admittedly) and see if the differences are due entirely to language, or whether there are some actual inherited differences. It would also be interesting to see if adults who learned to be bilingual late experience any shifts in color perception.
(Also on Sb)
What do you know…I just got back from a morning spent lecturing on the historical evidence for an old earth, and James Kakalios has a post on the contemporary evidence for an old earth. We all agree! The earth is very, very old! And we’ve known this for at least two centuries.
Could someone get the word to Rick Perry? They might need to do it on horseback with a missive written on parchment using a quill, because I don’t think he believes in anything newer. Other than cameras.
(Also on FtB)
What do you know…I just got back from a morning spent lecturing on the historical evidence for an old earth, and James Kakalios has a post on the contemporary evidence for an old earth. We all agree! The earth is very, very old! And we’ve known this for at least two centuries.
Could someone get the word to Rick Perry? They might need to do it on horseback with a missive written on parchment using a quill, because I don’t think he believes in anything newer. Other than cameras.
(Also on Sb)
I’m teaching an upper-level course in neurobiology this term, and as I usually do, I made all the poor suffering students go out and create blogs, and I also told them they had to write one post a week about neuroscience. Today I was asked if I was going to pharyngulate their blogs, and of course I said I would. So go forth and harrass them! A word of warning, though: as many people learned last time I did this, these are not passive, cowed students, but feisty upperclassmen who are comfortable with biting back; the worst thing you can do is be condescending or patronizing.
neurobiology wants to know if you’d like a younger brain. These kids…yeah, sure, gloat.
Another blog titled Neurobiology discusses schizophrenia and GABA.
MandieGirl writes about the Brainbow technique. I’m not going to get to that for a few more weeks! It’s beautiful stuff, though.
thoughts of neuro writes about neuronal migration. This is a developmental neuroscience course, they’ll be hearing much more about that.
Dkmecik needs to post something. I shall nag!
Neuro-Tick has two posts up: a review of the paper we discussed in class last week, and something on the induction of demyelination, relevant to anyone interested in MS.
Synapse is about rats…rats infected with parasites. Awesome.
A Heathen’s Attempt at Reason tackles Notch and Delta, already getting in the spirit of molecular neurodevelopment.
Noggin Bloggin’ discusses recent reports on the googlization of our brains.
Bailey’s Blog also has two entries already: pain (why would a student think of that in the first week of classes?) and brains and the universe.
Jenni talks about Parkinson’s Disease.
Neurobiology Thoughts considers bilingualism and dementia. Learning a second language can save your brain!
Ginger Synapse discusses optogenetics. Let’s control our brains with the light switch!
(Also on Sb)
All right, so you don’t think you can flit off to some conference somewhere whenever you feel like it. This is the 21st Century! Do it virtually! You may not be aware of this, but the Howard Hughes Medical Institute is an awesome resource that provides tons of information for free to the public. Among those resources are their annual holiday lectures, presented live on the web, and this year featuring Bones, Stones, and Genes: The Origin of Modern Humans.
Where and when did humans arise? What distinguishes us from other species? Did our distant ancestors look and behave like us?
When Darwin proposed that humans evolved from a common ancestor with the great apes, he lacked fossil evidence to support his idea. One hundred and fifty years later, the evidence for human evolution is plentiful and growing, including detailed molecular genetics data, an impressive fossil record, and artifacts of early human culture like stone tools.
Leading scientists John Shea of Stony Brook University, Sarah Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania, and Tim White of the University of California, Berkeley, will guide us on a global exploration spanning millions of years to illuminate the rise of modern humans.
Live Webcast October 6 & 7, 2011 10:00 a.m. ET. Re-webcast 11:00 a.m. PT
I know some of you are homeschoolers (I cluck disapprovingly in your direction…), but here’s a chance to get quality, high end instruction from prominent experts in the field right in your home, for no additional cost. How can you turn it down?
Also, I’ve mentioned this before but it’s worth mentioning again: the HHMI also provides a whole library of free DVDs, including all of the past Holiday Lectures, that you can have shipped to your home. For free. Did I say this was free? Yes it is, and you’re crazy not to take advantage of this offer.
(Also on FtB)
All right, so you don’t think you can flit off to some conference somewhere whenever you feel like it. This is the 21st Century! Do it virtually! You may not be aware of this, but the Howard Hughes Medical Institute is an awesome resource that provides tons of information for free to the public. Among those resources are their annual holiday lectures, presented live on the web, and this year featuring Bones, Stones, and Genes: The Origin of Modern Humans.
Where and when did humans arise? What distinguishes us from other species? Did our distant ancestors look and behave like us?
When Darwin proposed that humans evolved from a common ancestor with the great apes, he lacked fossil evidence to support his idea. One hundred and fifty years later, the evidence for human evolution is plentiful and growing, including detailed molecular genetics data, an impressive fossil record, and artifacts of early human culture like stone tools.
Leading scientists John Shea of Stony Brook University, Sarah Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania, and Tim White of the University of California, Berkeley, will guide us on a global exploration spanning millions of years to illuminate the rise of modern humans.
Live Webcast October 6 & 7, 2011 10:00 a.m. ET. Re-webcast 11:00 a.m. PT
I know some of you are homeschoolers (I cluck disapprovingly in your direction…), but here’s a chance to get quality, high end instruction from prominent experts in the field right in your home, for no additional cost. How can you turn it down?
Also, I’ve mentioned this before but it’s worth mentioning again: the HHMI also provides a whole library of free DVDs, including all of the past Holiday Lectures, that you can have shipped to your home. For free. Did I say this was free? Yes it is, and you’re crazy not to take advantage of this offer.
(Also on Sb)
We’re finally rid of Jerry Lewis and his smarmy, condescending sponsorship of a telethon for muscular dystrophy. I think he meant well, but he had the wrong ideas: this article celebrating his absence makes a significant point. There are many diseases for which there can be no cure short of magically rebuilding entire bodies and brains — that is, no cure short of changing essentially the entirety of who the person is.
All that money was supposed to find what Jerry called “a cure.” Every year he said “We’re closer than ever to a cure.” But every doctor and nurse will tell you the same thing: there is no cure. In the program for the 2011 annual meeting of the Muscular Dystrophy Coordinating Committee, the word “cure” does not appear.
What people with the disability need is help with their symptoms and with mobility. Their quality of life can be improved, their symptoms can be reduced. They also need “accessible public transportation and housing, employment opportunities and other civil rights that a democratic society should ensure for all its citizens.” That’s what Mike Ervin says—he calls himself “a renegade Jerry’s Kid” who was an official telethon poster child in the 1960s.
That’s not a message of hopelessness. To the contrary, it’s saying there are positive improvements that can be made that don’t involve relegating the disabled to the rubbish bin of ‘God’s mistakes’.
(Also on Sb)
