Fascinating, but Scary
Current mood: pensive
Category: Web, HTML, Tech

A single, specific memory has been wiped from the brains of rats, leaving other recollections intact.

The study adds to our understanding of how memories are made and altered in the brain, and could help to relieve sufferers of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) of the fearful memories that disrupt their lives. The results are published in Nature Neuroscience1.

The brain secures memories by transferring them from short-term to long-term storage, through a process called reconsolidation. It has been shown before that this process can be interrupted with drugs. But Joseph LeDoux of the Center for Neural Science at New York University and his colleagues wanted to know how specific this interference was: could the transfer of one specific memory be meddled with without affecting others?

"Our concern was: would you do something really massive to their memory network?" says LeDoux.

Scary music

To find out, they trained rats to fear two different musical tones, by playing them at the same time as giving the rats an electric shock. Then, they gave half the rats a drug known to cause limited amnesia (U0126, which is not approved for use in people), and reminded all the animals, half of which were still under the influence of the drug, of one of their fearful memories by replaying just one of the tones.

When they tested the rats with both tones a day later, untreated animals were still fearful of both sounds, as if they expected a shock. But those treated with the drug were no longer afraid of the tone they had been reminded of under treatment. The process of re-arousing the rats' memory of being shocked with the one tone while they were drugged had wiped out that memory completely, while leaving their memory of the second tone intact.

LeDoux's team also confirms the idea that a part of the brain called the amygdala is central to this process - communication between neurons in this part of the brain usually increases when a fearful memory forms, but it decreases in the treated rats. This shows that the fearful memory is actually deleted, rather than simply breaking the link between the memory and a fearful response.

Greg Quirk, a neurophysiologist from the Ponce School of Medicine in Puerto Rico, thinks that psychiatrists working to treat patients with conditions such as PTSD will be encouraged by the step forward. "These drugs would be adjuncts to therapy," he says. "This is the future of psychiatry - neuroscience will provide tools to help it become more effective."

Source: http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070305/full/070305-17.html

Currently reading : Footfall By Larry Niven Release date: 12 April, 1986

10:46 AM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Top 3 Non-fiction books YOU should read, and WHY
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Life

Listed from Most to Least Important

1) Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robins

 This book is a mild `How to Get Rich' book, with one difference. Most `How to Get Rich' books pump up your enthusiam, show you the first step, and yell `GO'.  Their problem is what to do on step 3, or step 4, etc.  Your Money or Your Life lists nine steps, and by they time you get to step 9, you are retired and financially independent. P.S.- Here's some advice for any `Get Rich Quick' scheme.  To anybody who says it works, ask them to show you their bank account (check receipts, or whatever) to prove that the scheme works. If they can't, don't get in on it!

2) The Chernoybl Incident By Dean Ing

This book is not just about Surviving Nuclear Accidents, but about self-reliance in whatever social situation you find yourself in.  Also deals with all phases of life  (youth, parenting, old age, etc).

3) Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

If you don't believe you can potentially be rich, this book will prove you wrong. Lots of good general financial advice, though not a lot of specifics [See "Your Money or Your Life" for the specifics].

I had hoped to make a 'Top 10' list, but these are the only three books I have read that were truly life-changing.

3:04 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Star Trek Universal Translator, version 1.0
Current mood: chipper
Category: Web, HTML, Tech

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061011/ap_on_hi_te/techbits_military_translator;_ylt=Aml.k8Qp.i67PocQsK_0ag1j24cA;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA—

Not Universal, and too big, but it is a real-time translator.

This year the military's Joint Forces Command has been testing laptops with such software in Iraq. When someone speaks into a microphone attached to the computer, the machine translates it into Arabic and reads that translation aloud over the PC's speakers. The software then translates the Arabic speaker's response and utters it in English.

The military has had variations on this. Troops in Afghanistan had a gadget called the Phraselator that could speak a list of commonly useful phrases such as "get out of the car."
But the newer software can facilitate two-way conversations not limited to pre-chosen phrases. Recently the Joint Forces Command began testing one such system, known as IraqComm and produced by SRI International, on about 30 computers. Now the military is announcing a similar experiment is underway with software known as MASTOR from IBM Corp.
MASTOR's accuracy is not perfect, but "you can communicate a concept and you can elicit a response from someone" — a huge improvement for U.S. troops who rarely have an Arabic linguist on hand, said David Nahamoo, chief of language technologies at IBM Research.

Now, if only they could get it down to the size of a com badge.

3:37 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Intelligence Vs. Wisdom, Rebutting myself
Current mood: embarrassed
Category: Religion and Philosophy

Tying back to my 'Why should I blog?' first blog entry, one of the problems I have with blogs is that most people are repeating the same things over and over, and offering nothing new.  I had hoped to avoid that, but less than a week after my last blog on 'Wisdom Vs. Intelligence', I stumbled upon this website: http://www.mentalsoup.com/mentalsoup/basic.htm .

In that website (go ahead, click the link and read it now.  I'll wait.),  Carlo M. Cipolla not only does a very similar analysis to mine (he analyzes stupidity instead of wisdom), but does a better job of it, and reaches a better conclusion.  Surprisingly, the opposite of Stupid isn't intelligent.  The opposite of Stupid is Wise. 
I had concluded that the intelligent but unwise person (what Mr. Cipolla defines as the 'bandit' personality) is the worst case of man.  Mr. Cipolla argues (convincingly) that the unintelligent and unwise person is worst for society, because the 'bandit' at least improves himself and his immediate environment, where the true ignoramus not only ruins you through his stupidity, but damages himself at the same time, and also doesn't realize he's doing it, thus worsening the situation.
If true (and I'm starting to think it is), then teaching wisdom in school would be less successful than I first thought (still worth doing, but you'd get less benefit from it). Unfortunately, stupid people are harder to teach, and completely unaware that learning some wisdom could improve their lives drastically.
I'll end this blog with a warning, as quoted from Mr. Cipolla:

3:46 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Star Trek Transporter Beam!
Current mood: geeky

2:31 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Intelligence Versus Wisdom
Current mood: contemplative

In many RPGs (Role-playing games), the software defines your abilities based on categories of basic skill.  Your character's Strength, for example, may be a number from 1(weak as a kitten) to 100(World's strongest man).  The typical six attributes (and I think this dates back to the paper-based Dungeons & Dragons game) are STRENGTH, DEXTERITY, INTELLIGENCE, CHARISMA, CONSTITUTION and WISDOM.  Everybody has some of each attribute, but there are people who are both very high, or very low in a given attribute (for example, Stephen Hawking would have a very high number in INTELLIGENCE, but a very low number representing STRENGTH).

I used to be confused by the terms WISDOM and INTELLIGENCE because I thought they were more-or-less the same thing.  Now I believe that they aren't.  The problem is, most people in our society still don't understand the difference (or more acurately, that there IS a difference).

Intelligence is the ability to think logically.  When you multiply 8 X 15, or wait for the 'WALK' signal before crossing the street,  you are using intelligence.  We are all taught to use intelligence in school.

Wisdom, on the other hand, is more difficult to define.  Wisdom is ...   argh!!  Let me get a dictionary.

American Heritage Dictionary: Wisdom is The ability to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting; insight. Common sense; good judgment.

OK, that's pretty close to what I think wisdom is.  Toss in intuition, and an awareness of your surroundings, and you begin to approach a definition of wisdom.

Even with defnitions in place, it's still remarkably hard to describe how the two words differ.  I can think of a million examples (Example: Intelligence tells you to wait for the WALK sign before crossing the street;  but the wise person still looks both ways before stepping off the curb).  The problem is that an example is not a definition, nor an explanation.

So why does this whole topic warrant a discussion?   Well, there are people out there who have no intelligence or wisdom (i.e., stupid people).  Unfortunately, since they are stupid, they can't / won't learn, and society is stuck with them, as-is.   Also, a stupid person has a limited ability to harm others (a stupid person can't design a nuclear bomb, for example).    At the other end of the scale, there are people who are both smart and wise.  They are unlikely to cause problems to society as well (except in the cultural sense).   There's a small bunch of people who are wise, but not smart (think 'Forrest Gump' here).  Again, most likely to benefit society rather than cause problems.

Finally, there's the last group of people, who are intelligent, but not wise.  This group accounts for most of the a$$hOles in the world.  They are intelligent, so they can leverage their actions to have major consequences,   but they can't imagine the unintended consequences of their actions.  (Jurassic Park Quote: "They were so entranced by the thought that they COULD do it, that they didn't consider whether they SHOULD").

And here's the gripping hand!  People (and especially intelligent people) CAN be taught wisdom!   The Forrest Gumps of the world (wise but not smart) were usually taught their wisdom by some adult (who probably was wise enough to realize that little retard Johnny would never be smart enough to get by in the real world on his intelligence).  And if wisdom can be learned, intelligent students should be able to learn it fastest!   Why do schools spend 12 years (or more) teaching us intelligence, but NO time teaching wisdom!?   Sure, you would need 'wise' teachers to teach wisdom, and initially, there would be more 'intelligent but unwise' teachers.   Eventually, as wisdom is taught to all, those people that "got it" would pass it on to their children, and eventually most people could have improved wisdom.   It's a societal failing that wisdom is neither valued, nor taught, and the only way to get it is to stumble over small parts of it throughout your life.

4:28 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Who wants to Live Forever, Part 3
Current mood: Speculative

Assumed: An immortal Mankind moves to the stars.

Immortality assumes a vast knowledge of how the human body works.  I believe implants will be quite common (I'll be first in line when they figure out how to jack a computer into the human brain).  It's likely that improved versions of body parts will become available  (Arm-assembly 2.0 will give everybody the skill and accuracy of a major-league baseball pitcher).  The challenge will be to see how much enhancement can be fitted into body parts without changing the overall shape of the body.

Of course, same as today (SEE PICTURE), some people won't really care if they no longer look human, as long as they can further improve their bodies (cosmetic and vanity enhancements could be truly spectacular).

As the centuries wear on, however, I expect individuals to become more safety-minded.  How tragic would it be for a person to live 3000 years, only to die when a piano fell on his head?   War will be increasingly waged by automation; no immortal is going to want to face death as a soldier.   One can hope that this will lead to more tolerance, but it could equally lead to immensely intelligent weapons designers (the primary feature of future weapons will be that they can NOT be turned back on the inventor of the weapon).  Eventually, belligerence will be weeded out of the population (if it can't be, then mankind will eventually die off at the hands of some super-weapon).

So in this scenario, people will become more and more powerful, using technology to control his environment until, by current standards, they are god-like.

If we move toward virtualization, we can make ourselves have as much control of the virtual environment as we wish... we can be beggars or kings, or anything inbetween.  Again, god-like power.

Final Thought:  Who wants to live forever?  =equals=  Who wants to be god?

3:49 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Who wants to live forever, part 2.

Assumed: Mankind will eventually discover the cure for Aging.

What are the consequences?  Well, as any science fiction reader can tell you, we have several possibilities:

Overcrowding: The most likely situation, knowing human nature.  We will overpopulate until forced into one or more of the alternative solutions, most likely starting with:

War: population can be controlled by being killing each other off.  It's survivial of the fittest, by way of weaponry. In ancient times this resulted in the strongest surviving.  Later, the smartest survived.  In recent times, it has meant that the most persuasive survived ("Hey, let's you and him fight, while I hide in this bunker").

Expansion: The best solution.  Move out to the planets, then the stars.  This gives us time to become smart/wise enough to live in our environment(s) without destroying them.

Virtualization: A recent addition to the possibilities.  Build a virtual world that is so real to the senses, that one's mind can be downloaded into it.  As long as the hardware runs, you live (possibly at an accelerated timeframe, if virtual reality can be maintained at faster-than-normal speeds (if your mind is in the computer, it will also run at the accelerated speed).   Living in your computer gives new meaning to the term 'Blue Screen of Death'.

War and Overcrowding lead to death. If these occur, I won't care about the future after that.  So let's assume that Expansion or Virtualization wins. What then?
(I guess I'll have to answer that in part 3).

3:20 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Who wants to live forever?
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes

"Who wants to live forever?"  -- Queen

  I DO!

I want to be immortal. I am amazed that there are people who wouldn't.  I utterly cannot comprehend why a person would take his or her own life (barring perhaps, excruciating pain).

Now I don't believe in an afterlife, so immortality will have to be here on Earth.  There are a few scientists (OK, a very few) that claim that we've basically achieved it already.

Their logic is that, if you can live for the next 20 years, you are immortal.  Here's why:

- Within the next 20 years, scientists will discover how to extend the human lifespan by 50 years.
- Within the next 50 years, scientists will discover how to extend the human lifespan by 200 years.
- Within the next 200 years, scientists will discover the cure for aging.

I have no doubt that this logic is true.  If anything, history shows that predictions of this nature are usually conservative.

What are the consequences of the cure for aging?  Tell you tommorrow.

(This topic was originally 'brought up' by Gloucester on MySpace, who has been writing some interesting fiction).

3:33 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

New Boss
Current mood: Patient

I've had a new manager at work for the last few months.

Over the years, I've found two types of successful management styles (and several dozen unsuccessful styles).

The first style, I call the Kitten Juggler.

The juggler keeps a dozen kittens on the table, and keeps going from kitten to kitten, reigning in the ones that go astray.

The second style, I call the Kitten herder.

The herder ignores all the kittens but one.  He puts a collar on the kitten, ties its collar to the table leg with a piece of string, then repeats the process with the next kitten.

My last two bosses have been herders. The first boss was the quintessential herder.  His motto was:

"Do it Once. Do it right. Move On."

Did I mention that this boss retired at age 49 as a multi-millionaire?

I'm training my current boss to be a kitten herder, but I don't think he gets it quite yet (he is a first-time manager, and the same age as me, so I'll just have to be patient).

3:31 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment