An automated training paradigm reveals long-term memory in planaria and its persistence through head regeneration

http://jeb.biologists.org/content/ea...87809.abstract

http://www.businessinsider.com/nemat...emories-2013-7

pic or it didn't happen



worms be crazy!!

Why do animals have bilateral symmetry?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetry_in_biology

the easiest way to code instructions in DNA? fractal something....

Nah, must be to do with movement. Similar to why vehicles have it but plants not so much.

I love my job. Broke (or at least badly sprained) laws of thermodynamics, market efficiency, supply and demand, good taste and human decency today. And got thanked for it.

Excellent. Have a Miller High Life. I doubt the first, even with the sprained qualifier [this must be a jab at Riker], but all that follows sounds equally reasonable and doable.

It is the champagne (pronunciation: champ-agnee) of beers.

I paid the standard fines for breaking the laws out of the proceeds. Used part of my proceeds to make a BLT.

Most changes are just copies of crap that is common. Ease of coding has no bearing because we do tons of replication. Evolution is an exercise in over fitting back testing other than the mistakes.

That is why the changes were maintained. I am sure that there were animals that just ran around in small circles that didn't make the grade.

Plenty of people whose minds run round in circles, though. Insane people, for example. Is that a generally recognized trait of insanity?

plants have fractal structures, simple instruction to make complex stuff

Ease of coding has bearing exactly because we do tons of replication. minimal coding = minimal energy spent per replication

Pitch drop finally caught on camera.



Is the upward movement of the ratchet holding the funnel some adjustment due to the lost mass once the pitch drops?

Elephants clearly don't exist then (something I have always suspected was true).

Doubt that has much to do with symmetry. A mind running in circles is just a failed pattern recognition scheme.

dont give me that irony

evo produces all sorts of local maxim, hill climbing at its finest

Sun shines on earth. You be efficient and be a nice mat of algae. I get to be inefficient and eat you. Thanks. I do appreciate your efficiency. Thanks.

Also, water fleas, marbled lungfish and Paris Japonica.

genome puzzles make me dizzy

edit: I got it.

tho, is that confirmed somewhere or is E(x) still minimizing energy and these are outliers? I assume the correct answer is whatever works with minimal effort gets to go on living - might as well write a Hamlet in our genes for fun...

Your assumption is wrong. Whatever lives and reproduces survives another generation. Nothing more to it than that.

I know this is a big deal, but I don't get why it's a big deal.

http://www.nature.com/news/world-s-s...t-last-1.13418

From above link:

How long would you be willing to wait for a drop of the black stuff in Dublin? After 69 years, one of the longest-running laboratory investigations in the world has finally captured the fall of a drop of tar pitch on camera for the first time. A similar, better-known and older experiment in Australia missed filming its latest drop in 2000 because the camera was offline at the time.

The Dublin pitch-drop experiment was set up in 1944 at Trinity College Dublin to demonstrate the high viscosity or low fluidity of pitch — also known as bitumen or asphalt — a material that appears to be solid at room temperature, but is in fact flowing, albeit extremely slowly.

It is a younger and less well-known sibling of an experiment that has been running since 1927 at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, which Guinness World Records lists as the world’s longest-running laboratory experiment (see: Long-term research: Slow science). Physicist Thomas Parnell set it up because he wanted to illustrate that everyday materials can exhibit surprising properties. In the past 86 years that experiment has yielded eight drops, with the ninth drop now almost fully formed and about to fall....................

Watching it fall

Physicists at Trinity College recently began to monitor the experiment again. Last April they set up a webcam so that anyone could watch and try to be the first person ever to witness the drop fall live.

At around 5 o'clock in the afternoon on 11 July, physicist Shane Bergin and colleagues captured footage of one of the most eagerly anticipated and exhilarating drips in science. “We were all so excited,” Bergin says. “It’s been such a great talking point, with colleagues eager to investigate the mechanics of the break, and the viscosity of the pitch”.

The Trinity College team has estimated the viscosity of the pitch by monitoring the evolution of this one drop, and puts it in the region of 2 million times more viscous than honey, or 20 billion times the viscosity of water. The speed of formation of the drop can depend on the exact composition of the pitch, and environmental conditions such as temperature and vibration.

I was away for a long weekend visiting my brother the last few days, someplace in the mountains at high altitude with big views of the heavens. This morning before sunrise, through a pair of 12X50 binoculars mounted on a tripod, I viewed three moons of Jupiter (I assume the fourth visible moon with binoculars was behind the planet). The view was sharp and distinct (once my eyes adjusted to the light/binoculars) and really very stunning. I plan to do more viewing of the wonderful big bang debris that lights up the night sky to teach myself some astronomy, with the object of eventually purchasing a telescope.

Telescopes, much like exercise equipment, are decent for hanging clothes off of.

I highly recommend making friends with someone who owns a telescope (or just showing up at the local meeting of the astronomical society and looking through their equipment) in lieu of purchasing one.

I was thinking about buying a telescope myself recently. Some of the handy-dandy ones with automated locater systems built-in are surprisingly affordable.

I need to think about it, though, because actually using it would almost invariably mean trips out to the country. Way too much cloud here.

I got one and it's a bad investment

a) has no ROI in money ( depreciation)
b) you use it a couple of time in a year to show fancy Moon to friends and that's it
c) the resolution is a lot smaller then Hubble
d) [some negative remark I probably didn't remember]

This is not bad advice. I would also add that I would then have an opportunity to steal a telescopes through knowing who owns them and which one is the best, who is sloppy with security etc.

I would probably not directly steal the telescope however; the wonderful indirect way of blackmail would be my first choice. Outright theft is lower down on the totem pole.

How many pairs of underwear do you have hanging on your he-man upper bodybuilder BTM?

I am blessed to live in a place where I could literally use a telescope 325 days a year no problem. Right out my door or just a short distance away. That does make a huge difference in the practicality of a purchase, especially if you are dedicated to using the instrument.