Like the mathematical universe.
This video about mathematical realism will probably not benefit you in any way. Enjoy. 1) What are numbers? 2) Why Hume’s understanding of mathematics is incorrect. 3) Why Plato’s understanding of mathematics is probably incorrect. 4) Why the common sense view of mathematics is probably incorrect. See second video for more.
But what if our biological makeup limits how creative we can be? Maybe the timing of the clock that governs our introspections forces our intuitive periods—or the times of uncertainty—to be too brief. Could we use our quantum technologies to extend the wavelike processing inside our brains? I am here inspired by Aldous Huxley, who suggested in his famous book, The Doors of Perception, that drugs could alter our consciousness, revealing true reality. But rather than using drugs, I envision quantum chips designed to suppress the “noise” that induces introspection, allowing a longer interference period for our intuitive thoughts to develop. This has the potential to be far more potent than what Huxley could ever have imagined.
For my idea to work, we would first have to understand where and how these superpositions are stored and manipulated in the brain. The British physicist Roger Penrose, PhD, has speculated that this occurs within microtubules, which are dynamic, hollow, rod-like components of the eukaryotic cytoskeleton that are responsible for things such as intercellular transport. Despite some circumstantial evidence, we do not have a strong reason to believe that microtubules are capable of quantum interference, but they are certainly worth further investigation. Once we understand how our brain uses quantum effects, we could then design a quantum chip that interfaces with the relevant biological components. Theoretically, the device would be able to upload superposition states to store them for longer periods and shield them from collapse, helping us to enhance our creative wavelike thinking.
One wonders what kind of power would be unleashed by doing this. I imagine the change would not be purely quantitative, so that we merely become faster calculators or quicker problem solvers, although even that would be amazing. Instead, I think the change could be qualitative, expanding our perception into a completely different realm, effectively creating a new species. We might theoretically become more powerful than modern humans, just as we currently are with respect to other apes. Quantum-enhanced humans would see further domains of reality that would otherwise remain hidden forever from us ordinary humans.
Somewhere, out in the cold depths of space, there is a space rock that could destroy a large chunk of life on Earth. Is this fate inevitable? Could we find a way to stop it, or will we eventually suffer the same fate as the dinosaurs? And should this existential threat be keeping you up at night? Here’s what we know.
The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago was at least 10 kilometres across, big enough to cause megatsunamis, ignite enormous forest fires and darken the skies the world over. Asteroids of that size are estimated to hit Earth about every 60 million years, based on the planet’s crater record. For the next size class down, asteroids about 1 kilometre across, estimates suggest they hit Earth about every million years, and the most recent one was about 900,000 years ago. Those numbers are enough to make you nervous.
But one of the things that sets humanity apart from the dinosaurs is our ability to look out into space and interpret what we see there. Naturally, researchers around the world have used this ability to attempt to learn how many asteroids are out there and what proportion of them are on trajectories that could be dangerous.
Image: angel_nt/Getty Images.
The dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid, but does that mean we risk suffering the same fate — and should you be worried about the possibility? Leah Crane sets the matter straight.
By Leah Crane
Lipid metabolism in cancer.
Cancer cells exhibit distinct lipotypes to sustain functional states crucial for tumorigenesis.
Various lipid metabolism components like biosynthesis, uptake, storage, and degradation of lipids contribute to cancer cell fitness.
Cancer cells dynamically transition across lipotypes under microenvironmental stress.
Targeting essential nodes in lipid metabolism may offer novel cancer therapeutics. sciencenewshighlights ScienceMission https://sciencemission.com/cancer-cell-lipotypes
While the initial transformation of cancer cells is driven by genetic alterations, tumor cell behaviors and functional states are dynamically regulated by cell-intrinsic factors including proteins, metabolites and lipids, and extrinsic microenvironmental factors. Emerging multi-omics technologies highlighted that cancer cells exhibit distinct lipidome compositions and employ specific lipid metabolic circuits for chemical conversions – collectively defined as ‘lipotypes’. We review the interplay between cancer lipotypes and cellular states, focusing on interpreting how being at different positions along the spectra of representative lipid metabolic axes influences cancerous traits. We aim to instill a system biology perspective to integrate ‘lipotypes’ into the established ‘genotype–phenotype’ framework in cancer.
JNeurosci: Lu and Matsunami analyzed gene activity to find proteins that help odor-detecting receptors reach the cell surface. They identified three helper genes—Gfy, Clgn, and Syt1—that support receptor function as olfactory cells mature.
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Odor detection in mammals is primarily mediated by odorant receptors (ORs), the largest family of G-protein-coupled receptors, expressed in olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs; [Buck and Axel, 1991][1]). However, most ORs exhibit little or no cell surface expression in nonolfactory cell types ([Lu et al., 2003][2]; [Hague et al., 2004][3]). While the accessory protein RTP1 and RTP2 enhance the expression of certain ORs, we hypothesized that additional proteins coregulated with RTP1 and RTP2 during OSN maturation may further enhance OR cell surface expression ([Saito et al., 2004][4]; [Zhuang and Matsunami, 2007][5]). To test this, we developed a computational pipeline based on publicly available single-cell transcriptomic data to create an interactive tool for exploring gene expression during OSN maturation.
Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz have developed a simple, one-question screening tool that could help doctors quickly identify hoarding behaviors in patients with memory loss and other brain disorders. Early detection, they said, could lead to early intervention, helping to reduce safety risks, relieve caregiver stress and improve the quality of life for both patients and families.
The new tool was examined in a study published this month in The Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences. The study was co-led by Peter Pressman, MD and Julia Schaffer, BA. The senior author is David Arciniegas, MD, professor of neurology at CU Anschutz.
“This was really born of shared observations in the memory clinic,” said Pressman, associate professor of neurology at Oregon Health & Science University who conducted the research while at CU Anschutz. “We noticed that hoarding was very common in these patients but it was not part of any screening protocols.”
Gene therapy has been successfully used to treat a number of diseases, including immune deficiencies, hereditary blindness, hemophilia and, recently, Huntington’s disease, a fatal neurological disorder.
An advance reported in the journal Neuron adds to the technique’s growing track record of evidence supporting the view that it could unlock powerful, personalized therapies: Rice University bioengineer Jerzy Szablowski and collaborators in Vincent Costa’s lab at Emory University found that released markers of activity (RMAs) — engineered proteins designed to cross the blood-brain barrier and persist in the blood for hours at a time, providing a reliable and noninvasive way to get information about gene expression in the brain — work just as well in monkeys as they do in mice.
On the route from laboratory discovery to lifesaving treatment, large animal model studies are a critical part of the process. Most research never reaches this stage.
A new bioengineered neuronal circuit board “BioConNet” allows scientists to artificially engineer human brain-like wiring at scale and can be used to engineer any possible circuit. The fully programmable, open-source system allows generation of large-scale circuits, while maintaining the ability to focus on single connections between neurons.
This is a key advance in engineering human-like neural circuits as it allows for a new level of wiring complexity compared to previous systems. BioConNet allows scientists increased control over wiring in the culture compared to existing methods such as organoids and commercially available systems. The research is published in the journal Advanced Healthcare Materials.
“By combining engineering and neurobiology with the most recent stem cell culture techniques, we can now create human-specific, functional, large-scale complex neural circuits in the lab,” said senior author, Dr. Andrea Serio, Reader in Neural Tissue Engineering, Group Leader at the UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI) at King’s and Senior Group Leader at the Crick.