Mimas drifts along in its orbit against the azure backdrop of Saturn’s northern latitudes in this true color view. (via NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
“HEY MIMAS HEYYYYY, WHATCHA DOIN’?”
“OH NOTHING JUST ORBITING SATURN, YOU?”
Human Brain Loses Billions of Neurons in New Analysis
by Jennifer Welsh
The whole human race just got a little dumber: A new analysis of the number of neurons, those brain cells that transmit thoughts, in the human brain has come back with a staggeringly lower number than thought — 14 billion brain cells fewer, about the size of the babboon brain.
The highly quoted number of human brian cells, 100 billion, doesn’t stand up to actual experimental inquiry, Suzana Herculano-Houzel, an assistant professor at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, told the Nature neuroscience podcast NeuroPod.
The work was performed on four human brains, ages 50, 51, 54 and 71, from men who donated their brains to science…
(read more: Live Science) (image: idesign | Shutterstock)
Research from other laboratories is confirming that mindfulness meditation can lead to lasting positive changes in the brain. For example, a recent study by Massachusetts General -Hospital and Harvard University put 26 highly stressed adults through an eight-week mindfulness-based course in stress reduction that followed the same basic format as Goldin’s study. Brain scans were taken before and after the intervention, along with participants’ own reports of stress. The participants who reported decreased stress also showed decreases in gray -matter density in the amygdala. Previous research had revealed that trauma and chronic stress can enlarge the amygdala and make it more reactive and more connected to other areas of the brain, leading to greater stress and anxiety. This study is one of the first documented cases showing change ocurring in the opposite direction—with the brain instead becoming less reactive and more resilient.
Schrödinger’s Executive Decision Maker
Why strain your precious thoughts trying to make the right decision, instead leave the choice up to quantum flux! Ask a question with a yes or no question, then open the slot and watch as the simultaneously dead and alive kitty convulses with quantum uncertainty before its molecules arrange themselves, predicting your answer. You’ll never need to make another decision again! Thank you, science and cats of indeterminate quantum states! Available for purchase at thinkgeek for $29.99 USD.
“Add to the sum total of human knowledge.” -Dr. Brian Cox
“We do science because we think science is important.”
-Leo Laporte
Beyond Belief: Science, Reason, Religion & Survival
Really great lectures on science and its role in society with particular attention on how religion and science can co-exist or whether they can. One of the panels features Richard Dawkins and Neil DeGrasse Tyson. They have graciously put up videos of everything online.
Quantum computing device hints at powerful future | BBC
It’s about time.
It uses the strange “quantum states” of matter to perform calculations in a way that, if scaled up, could vastly outperform conventional computers.
The 6mm-by-6mm chip holds nine quantum devices, among them four “quantum bits” that do the calculations.
The team said further scaling up to 10 qubits should be possible this year.
Rather than the ones and zeroes of digital computing, quantum computers deal in what are known as superpositions - states of matter that can be thought of as both one and zero at once.
(via fuckyeahterminals)
I enjoy a lot of things like photography, writing, editing, learning languages especially dead ones, the internet, media, irony, etc. This is a place for all of that so that 
