sloth unleashed

Charlotte Davis (1924-2005) (by Smithsonian Institution)

Charlotte Davis (later Charlotte Davis Mooers) worked with information retrieval and programming language research from World War II through the early 1990s.

(via Starved brains kill memory-making to survive | Ars Technica)

As the organ responsible for maintaining equilibrium in the body and the most energy-demanding of all the organs, the brain takes a lot of the body’s energy allocation. So when food is in short supply, the brain is the organ that is fed first. But what happens when there isn’t enough food to fulfill the high-energy needs of the brain and survival is threatened?

The brain does not simply self-allocate available resources on the fly; instead it “trims the fat” by turning off entire processes that are too costly. Researchers from CNRS in Paris created a true case of do-or-die, starving flies to the point where they must choose between switching off costly memory formation or dying. When flies are starved, their brains will block the formation of aversive long-term memories, which depend on costly protein synthesis and require repetitive learning.

But that doesn’t mean all long-term memories are shut down. Appetitive long-term memories, which can be formed after a single training, are enhanced during a food shortage.

In order to test the idea that the neurons responsible for long-term memory are disabled during starvation, the researchers trained starved flies to associate certain odors with jolts of electricity. They combined this training with a manipulation that activated the two neurons responsible for long-term memory formation. When these neurons were activated in starving flies, their lives were shortened by about 30 percent, suggesting the activity pushed these neurons past their energetic limits.

Although the researchers used fruit flies in their study, many of the features at play in the fly are also involved in the regulation of long-term memory in mammals.

chromeography:

Austin 1100 Mark 2 (Malta Badge) by occama

“Few people know that Malta had a car assembly plant which was in operation for over 20 years. It seems strange that in today’s world of ever increasing economies of scale and rationalisation, such a small country with a population of under 400,000 should have had such a facility.

The Mizzi plant was opened in 1960 and initially assembled Triumph Heralds. Soon after, production of Hillman Minxs was added. Later, Minis, 1100s, Marinas, and Toledos joined the lineup, and at one time over 50% of new vehicles sold in Malta came from this plant.

The little badge pictured here was fitted to the cars assembled by Mizzi.”

(via junk-yard-doll)

(via Staring at the Sun: It’s NOT a “Mass of Incandescent Gas” | Around The Mall)

Comparing older, less detailed images of the corona with Hi-C’s newer, more detailed images, researchers were able to see more than ever before. Courtesy of NASA

1943 (by x-ray delta one)

(via Lightning rod in action : pics)

…a platform that launches rockets with wires to “make” lightning strike, so they can study it…

http://www.lightning.ece.ufl.edu/

beatonna:

Punch In Canada is also a pretty great blog by the man behind Yesterday’s Papers.  Look at that picture! America is always trying to get in our pants.

(via Tiniest of Spiders Are Loaded With Brains, Researchers Find - NYTimes.com)

Nephila clavipes, a big tropical spider, has plenty of brain space.

Tiny spiders have brains so large that they fill up their body cavities and extend into their legs, a new study reports.

Researchers measured the central nervous systems of nine species of spiders in a range of sizes. While the smallest had smaller brains in absolute terms, relatively speaking their brains were enormous.

“The basic trend was that the smaller the spider, the relatively larger its brain is,” said William Eberhard, a biologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Costa Rica and an author of the study, which appears in the journal Arthropod Structure & Development.

In the smallest spiders, Dr. Eberhard and his colleagues found, the central nervous systems filled nearly 80 percent of the cephalothorax, or body cavity, including 25 percent of the legs.

“The brain tissue of the nervous tissue is metabolically expensive,” he said. “These little spiders are paying a very large price to keep these brains functioning.”

At times, that price includes a deformed body cavity bulging with brain matter, which may in turn compromise the size of the digestive system, Dr. Eberhard said….