There were already 1/4M registered players as of May 17, 2018 but I’m sure there’s room for more should you be inspired. A May 17, 2018 Princeton University news release (also on EurekAlert) reveals more about the game and about the neurons,
With the help of a quarter-million video game players, Princeton researchers have created and shared detailed maps of more than 1,000 neurons — and they’re just getting started.
“Working with Eyewirers around the world, we’ve made a digital museum that shows off the intricate beauty of the retina’s neural circuits,” said Sebastian Seung, the Evnin Professor in Neuroscience and a professor of computer science and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute (PNI). The related paper is publishing May 17 [2018] in the journal Cell.
Seung is unveiling the Eyewire Museum, an interactive archive of neurons available to the general public and neuroscientists around the world, including the hundreds of researchers involved in the federal Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative.
“This interactive viewer is a huge asset for these larger collaborations, especially among people who are not physically in the same lab,” said Amy Robinson Sterling, a crowdsourcing specialist with PNI and the executive director of Eyewire, the online gaming platform for the citizen scientists who have created this data set.
“This museum is something like a brain atlas,” said Alexander Bae, a graduate student in electrical engineering and one of four co-first authors on the paper. “Previous brain atlases didn’t have a function where you could visualize by individual cell, or a subset of cells, and interact with them. Another novelty: Not only do we have the morphology of each cell, but we also have the functional data, too.”
The neural maps were developed by Eyewirers, members of an online community of video game players who have devoted hundreds of thousands of hours to painstakingly piecing together these neural cells, using data from a mouse retina gathered in 2009.
Eyewire pairs machine learning with gamers who trace the twisting and branching paths of each neuron. Humans are better at visually identifying the patterns of neurons, so every player’s moves are recorded and checked against each other by advanced players and Eyewire staffers, as well as by software that is improving its own pattern recognition skills.
Since Eyewire’s launch in 2012, more than 265,000 people have signed onto the game, and they’ve collectively colored in more than 10 million 3-D “cubes,” resulting in the mapping of more than 3,000 neural cells, of which about a thousand are displayed in the museum.
Each cube is a tiny subset of a single cell, about 4.5 microns across, so a 10-by-10 block of cubes would be the width of a human hair. Every cell is reviewed by between 5 and 25 gamers before it is accepted into the system as complete.
“Back in the early years it took weeks to finish a single cell,” said Sterling. “Now players complete multiple neurons per day.” The Eyewire user experience stays focused on the larger mission — “For science!” is a common refrain — but it also replicates a typical gaming environment, with achievement badges, a chat feature to connect with other players and technical support, and the ability to unlock privileges with increasing skill. “Our top players are online all the time — easily 30 hours a week,” Sterling said.
Dedicated Eyewirers have also contributed in other ways, including donating the swag that gamers win during competitions and writing program extensions “to make game play more efficient and more fun,” said Sterling, including profile histories, maps of player activity, a top 100 leaderboard and ever-increasing levels of customizability.
“The community has really been the driving force behind why Eyewire has been successful,” Sterling said. “You come in, and you’re not alone. Right now, there are 43 people online. Some of them will be admins from Boston or Princeton, but most are just playing — now it’s 46.”
For science!
With 100 billion neurons linked together via trillions of connections, the brain is immeasurably complex, and neuroscientists are still assembling its “parts list,” said Nicholas Turner, a graduate student in computer science and another of the co-first authors. “If you know what parts make up the machine you’re trying to break apart, you’re set to figure out how it all works,” he said.
The researchers have started by tackling Eyewire-mapped ganglion cells from the retina of a mouse. “The retina doesn’t just sense light,” Seung said. “Neural circuits in the retina perform the first steps of visual perception.”
The retina grows from the same embryonic tissue as the brain, and while much simpler than the brain, it is still surprisingly complex, Turner said. “Hammering out these details is a really valuable effort,” he said, “showing the depth and complexity that exists in circuits that we naively believe are simple.”
The researchers’ fundamental question is identifying exactly how the retina works, said Bae. “In our case, we focus on the structural morphology of the retinal ganglion cells.”
“Why the ganglion cells of the eye?” asked Shang Mu, an associate research scholar in PNI and fellow first author. “Because they’re the connection between the retina and the brain. They’re the only cell class that go back into the brain.” Different types of ganglion cells are known to compute different types of visual features, which is one reason the museum has linked shape to functional data.
Using Eyewire-produced maps of 396 ganglion cells, the researchers in Seung’s lab successfully classified these cells more thoroughly than has ever been done before.
“The number of different cell types was a surprise,” said Mu. “Just a few years ago, people thought there were only 15 to 20 ganglion cell types, but we found more than 35 — we estimate between 35 and 50 types.”
Of those, six appear to be novel, in that the researchers could not find any matching descriptions in a literature search.
A brief scroll through the digital museum reveals just how remarkably flat the neurons are — nearly all of the branching takes place along a two-dimensional plane. Seung’s team discovered that different cells grow along different planes, with some reaching high above the nucleus before branching out, while others spread out close to the nucleus. Their resulting diagrams resemble a rainforest, with ground cover, an understory, a canopy and an emergent layer overtopping the rest.
All of these are subdivisions of the inner plexiform layer, one of the five previously recognized layers of the retina. The researchers also identified a “density conservation principle” that they used to distinguish types of neurons.
One of the biggest surprises of the research project has been the extraordinary richness of the original sample, said Seung. “There’s a little sliver of a mouse retina, and almost 10 years later, we’re still learning things from it.”
Of course, it’s a mouse’s brain that you’ll be examining and while there are differences between a mouse brain and a human brain, mouse brains still provide valuable data as they did in the case of some groundbreaking research published in October 2017. James Hamblin wrote about it in an Oct. 7, 2017 article for The Atlantic (Note: Links have been removed),
Scientists Somehow Just Discovered a New System of Vessels in Our Brains
It is unclear what they do—but they likely play a central role in aging and disease.
Daniel Reich / National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
You are now among the first people to see the brain’s lymphatic system. The vessels in the photo above transport fluid that is likely crucial to metabolic and inflammatory processes. Until now, no one knew for sure that they existed.
Doctors practicing today have been taught that there are no lymphatic vessels inside the skull. Those deep-purple vessels were seen for the first time in images published this week by researchers at the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
In the rest of the body, the lymphatic system collects and drains the fluid that bathes our cells, in the process exporting their waste. It also serves as a conduit for immune cells, which go out into the body looking for adversaries and learning how to distinguish self from other, and then travel back to lymph nodes and organs through lymphatic vessels.
So how was it even conceivable that this process wasn’t happening in our brains?
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Reich (Daniel Reich, senior investigator) started his search in 2015, after a major study in Nature reported a similar conduit for lymph in mice. The University of Virginia team wrote at the time, “The discovery of the central-nervous-system lymphatic system may call for a reassessment of basic assumptions in neuroimmunology.” The study was regarded as a potential breakthrough in understanding how neurodegenerative disease is associated with the immune system.
Around the same time, researchers discovered fluid in the brains of mice and humans that would become known as the “glymphatic system.” [emphasis mine] It was described by a team at the University of Rochester in 2015 as not just the brain’s “waste-clearance system,” but as potentially helping fuel the brain by transporting glucose, lipids, amino acids, and neurotransmitters. Although since “the central nervous system completely lacks conventional lymphatic vessels,” the researchers wrote at the time, it remained unclear how this fluid communicated with the rest of the body.
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There are occasional references to the idea of a lymphatic system in the brain in historic literature. Two centuries ago, the anatomist Paolo Mascagni made full-body models of the lymphatic system that included the brain, though this was dismissed as an error. [emphases mine] A historical account in The Lancet in 2003 read: “Mascagni was probably so impressed with the lymphatic system that he saw lymph vessels even where they did not exist—in the brain.”
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I couldn’t resist the reference to someone whose work had been dismissed summarily being proved right, eventually, and with the help of mouse brains. Do read Hamblin’s article in its entirety if you have time as these excerpts don’t do it justice.
Getting back to Princeton’s research, here’s their research paper,
“Digital museum of retinal ganglion cells with dense anatomy and physiology,” by Alexander Bae, Shang Mu, Jinseop Kim, Nicholas Turner, Ignacio Tartavull, Nico Kemnitz, Chris Jordan, Alex Norton, William Silversmith, Rachel Prentki, Marissa Sorek, Celia David, Devon Jones, Doug Bland, Amy Sterling, Jungman Park, Kevin Briggman, Sebastian Seung and the Eyewirers, was published May 17 in the journal Cell with DOI 10.1016/j.cell.2018.04.040.
The research was supported by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, National Institute of Health-National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (U01NS090562 and 5R01NS076467), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (HR0011-14-2- 0004), Army Research Office (W911NF-12-1-0594), Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (D16PC00005), KT Corporation, Amazon Web Services Research Grants, Korea Brain Research Institute (2231-415) and Korea National Research Foundation Brain Research Program (2017M3C7A1048086).
This paper is behind a paywall. For the players amongst us, here’s the Eyewire website. Go forth, play, and, maybe, discover new neurons!
Caption: The 2000-year-old pipe sculpture’s bulging neck is evidence of thyroid disease as a result of iodine deficient water and soil in the ancient Ohio Valley. Credit: Kenneth Tankersley
Art often imitates life, but when University of Cincinnati anthropologist and geologist Kenneth Tankersley investigated a 2000-year-old carved statue on a tobacco pipe, he exposed a truth he says will rewrite art history.
Since its discovery in 1901, at the Adena Burial Mound in Ross County, Ohio, archaeologists have theorized that the the 8-inch pipe statue—carved into the likeness of an Ohio Valley Native American—represented an achondroplastic dwarf (AD). People with achondroplasia typically have short arms and legs, an enlarged head, and an average-sized trunk, the same condition as Emmy Award-winning actor Peter Dinklage from HBO’s “Game of Thrones.”
“During the early turn of the century, this theory was consistent with actual human remains of a Native American excavated in Kentucky, also interpreted by archaeologists as being an achondroplastic dwarf,” says Tankersley.
This theory flourished in the scientific literature until the turn of the 21st century when Tankersley looked closer.
“Here we have a carved statue and human remains, both of achondroplasia from the same time period,” says Tankersley. “But what caught my eye on this pipe statue was an obvious tumor on the neck that looked remarkably like a goiter [or goitre] or thyroid tumor.”
Tankersley collaborated with Frederic Bauduer, a visiting biological anthropologist and paleopathologist from the University of Bordeaux, UC’s sister university in France, to ultimately dispel previous academic literature claiming the sculpture as portraying achondroplasia.
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“In archaeological science, flesh does not survive, so many ancient maladies go unnoticed and are almost always impossible to get at from an archaeological standpoint,” says Tankersley. “So what struck me was how remarkably Bauduer was using ancient art from various periods of antiquity to argue for the paleopathology he presented.”
Using radiocarbon dating on textile and bark samples surrounding the pipe at the site, the Adena pipe dates to approximately 2000 years ago, to the earliest evidence of tobacco.
Traditionally, tobacco is considered a sacred plant to Native Americans in this region, and smoking tobacco played an important role in their ceremonies, but he points to tobacco smoking as being long associated with an increased prevalence of goiter in low iodine intake zones worldwide.
From a medical perspective, Bauduer found the physical characteristics, such as the short forehead and long bones of the upper and lower limbs, simply not adding up as an achondroplastic dwarf.
“We found the tumor in the neck, as well as the figure’s squatted stance — not foreshortened legs as was formerly documented in the literature — were both signs and symptoms of thyroid disease,” says Tankersley.
“We already know that iodine deficiencies can lead to thyroid tumors, and the Ohio Valley area, where this artifact was found, has historically had iodine depleted soils and water relative to the advance of an Ice Age glacier about 300,000 years ago.”
Tankersley (top center) teaches archaeology students to date soil, bones and textiles using radiocarbon science.
The figure’s bulging neck (goiter) and appearance of short stature are actually results of iodine deficient thyroid disease. The legs are bent in a tilted squat likely during a Native American ceremonial dance.
Tankersley says the Ohio Valley region, before the introduction of iodized salt in the 1920s,
was part of the so-called U.S. “goiter belt” where goiter frequency was relatively high — five to 15 incidences per thousand.
The lower limbs on the statue, previously documented in the literature as short in stature, are actually normal size in bone length, according to Bauduer. Upon closer inspection, both Bauduer and Tankersley agree that the figure is also portrayed in a tilted squat, a common gait anomaly found in people with hypothyroidism.
The figure has what appears to be an abdominal six-pack, but both researchers say the detailed physical features indeed portray a normal physique except for the telltale signs of thyroid disease.
“The fact that the bones of the figure are all normal size leads us to believe the squat portrays more of an abnormal gait while likely in the stance of a typical Native American ritual dance,” says Tankersley, who is one-quarter Native American himself and regularly attends ceremonial events throughout Ohio and Kentucky.
“The regalia the figure is wearing is also strongly indicative of ancient Native Ohio Valley Shawnee, Delaware and Ojibwa to the north and Miami Nation tribes in Indiana.
“The traditional headdress, pierced ears with expanded spool earrings and loincloth with serpentine motif on the front and feathered bustle on back are also still worn by local Native tribes during ceremonial events today.”
Artistic clues
Frederic Bauduer, biological anthropologist, paleopathologist and critical collaborator on this research from the University of Bordeaux, UC’s sister university in France. photo/Frederic Bauduer
In addition to figures found in South America and Mesoamerica, Tankersley says the Adena pipe is the first known example of a goiter depicted in ancient Native North American art and one of the oldest from the Western Hemisphere.
“The other real take here is that a lot of people ask, ‘What is the value of ancient art?’” asserts Tankersley. “Well, here’s an example of ancient art that tells a deeper story. And similar indigenous art representations found in South America and Mesoamerica strengthen our hypothesis.”
Tankersley is interested in looking deeper for pathologies and maladies portrayed on other ancient artifacts from Native Americans thousands of years ago here in the Ohio Valley and elsewhere.
“Art history is beginning to help substantiate many scientific hypotheses,” says Tankersley. “Because artists are such keen students of anatomy, artisans such as this ancient Adena pipe sculptor could portray physical maladies with great accuracy, even before they were aware of what the particular disease was.”
At least once a year I highlight some work about frogs. It’s usually about a new species but this time, it’s all about frog sounds (as well as, sounds from other amphibians).
Caption: The calls of the midwife toad and other amphibians have served to test the sound classifier. Credit: Jaime Bosch (MNCN-CSIC)
The sounds of amphibians are altered by the increase in ambient temperature, a phenomenon that, in addition to interfering with reproductive behaviour, serves as an indicator of global warming. Researchers at the University of Seville have resorted to artificial intelligence to create an automatic classifier of the thousands of frog and toad sounds that can be recorded in a natural environment.
One of the consequences of climate change is its impact on the physiological functions of animals, such as frogs and toads with their calls. Their mating call, which plays a crucial role in the sexual selection and reproduction of these amphibians, is affected by the increase in ambient temperature.
When this exceeds a certain threshold, the physiological processes associated with the sound production are restricted, and some calls are even actually inhibited. In fact, the beginning, duration and intensity of calls from the male to the female are changed, which influences reproductive activity.
Taking into account this phenomenon, the analysis and classification of the sounds produced by certain species of amphibians and other animals have turned out to be a powerful indicator of temperature fluctuations and, therefore, of the existence and evolution of global warming.
To capture the sounds of frogs, networks of audio sensors are placed and connected wirelessly in areas that can reach several hundred square kilometres. The problem is that a huge amount of bio-acoustic information is collected in environments as noisy as a jungle, and this makes it difficult to identify the species and their calls.
To solve this, engineers from the University of Seville have resorted to artificial intelligence. “We’ve segmented the sound into temporary windows or audio frames and have classified them by means of decision trees, an automatic learning technique that is used in computing”, explains Amalia Luque Sendra, co-author of the work.
To perform the classification, the researchers have based it on MPEG-7 parameters and audio descriptors, a standard way of representing audiovisual information. The details are published in Expert Systems with Applications magazine.
This technique has been put to the test with real sounds of amphibians recorded in the middle of nature and provided by the National Museum of Natural Sciences. More specifically, 868 records with 369 mating calls sung by the male and 63 release calls issued by the female natterajck toad (Epidalea calamita), along with 419 mating calls and 17 distress calls of the common midwife toad (Alytesobstetricans).
“In this case we obtained a success rate close to 90% when classifying the sounds,” observes Luque Sendra, who recalls that, in addition to the types of calls, the number of individuals of certain amphibian species that are heard in a geographical region over time can also be used as an indicator of climate change.
“A temperature increase affects the calling patterns,” she says, “but since these in most cases have a sexual calling nature, they also affect the number of individuals. With our method, we still can’t directly determine the exact number of specimens in an area, but it is possible to get a first approximation.”
In addition to the image of the midwife toad, the researchers included this image to illustrate their work,
Caption: This is the architecture of a wireless sensor network. Credit: J. Luque et al./Sensors
I don’t entirely get how ReRAM (resistive random access memory) is a variant of a memristor but I’m assuming Samuel K. Moore knows what he’s writing about since his May 16, 2018 posting is on the Nanoclast blog (hosted by the IEEE [Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers]), Note: Links have been removed,
Resistive RAM technology developer Crossbar says it has inked a deal with aerospace chip maker Microsemi allowing the latter to embed Crossbar’s nonvolatile memory on future chips. The move follows selection of Crossbar’s technology by a leading foundry for advanced manufacturing nodes. Crossbar is counting on resistive RAM (ReRAM) to enable artificial intelligence systems whose neural networks are housed within the device rather than in the cloud.
ReRAM is a variant of the memristor, a nonvolatile memory device whose resistance can be set or reset by a pulse of voltage. The variant Crossbar qualified for advanced manufacturing is called a filament device. It’s built within the layers above a chip’s silicon, where the IC’s interconnects go, and it’s made up of three layers: from top to bottom—silver, amorphous silicon, and tungsten. Voltage across the amorphous silicon causes a filament of silver atoms to cross the gap to the tungsten, making the memory cell conductive. Reversing the voltage pushes the silver back into place, cutting off conduction.
“The filament itself is only three to four nanometers wide,” says Sylvain Dubois, vice president of marketing and business development at Crossbar. “So the cell itself will be able to scale below 10-nanometers.” What’s more, the ratio between the current that flows when the device is on to when it is off is 1,000 or higher. …
“The biggest challenge facing engineers for AI today is overcoming the memory speed and power bottleneck in the current architecture to get faster data access while lowering the energy cost,” said Dubois. “By enabling a new, memory-centric non-volatile architecture like ReRAM, the entire trained model or knowledge base can be on-chip, connected directly to the neural network with the potential to achieve massive energy savings and performance improvements, resulting in a greatly improved battery life and a better user experience.”
Crossbar’s May 16, 2018 news release provides more detail about their ‘strategic collaboration’ with Microsemi Products (Note: A link has been removed),
Crossbar Inc., the ReRAM technology leader, announced an agreement with Microsemi Corporation, the largest U.S. commercial supplier of military and aerospace semiconductors, in which Microsemi will license Crossbar’s ReRAM core intellectual property. As part of the agreement, Microsemi and Crossbar will collaborate in the research, development and application of Crossbar’s proprietary ReRAM technology in next generation products from Microsemi that integrate Crossbar’s embedded ReRAM with Microsemi products manufactured at the 1x nm process node.
Over the past five years, University of Chicago chemist Bozhi Tian has been figuring out how to control biology with light.
A longterm science goal is devices to serve as the interface between researcher and body—both as a way to understand how cells talk among each other and within themselves, and eventually, as a treatment for brain or nervous system disorders [emphasis mine] by stimulating nerves to fire or limbs to move. Silicon—a versatile, biocompatible material used in both solar panels and surgical implants—is a natural choice.
In a paper published April 30 in Nature Biomedical Engineering, Tian’s team laid out a system of design principles for working with silicon to control biology at three levels—from individual organelles inside cells to tissues to entire limbs. The group has demonstrated each in cells or mice models, including the first time anyone has used light to control behavior without genetic modification.
“We want this to serve as a map, where you can decide which problem you would like to study and immediately find the right material and method to address it,” said Tian, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry.
Researchers built this thin layer of silicon lace to modulate neural signals when activated by light. Courtesy of Yuanwen Jiang and Bozhi Tian
The scientists’ map lays out best methods to craft silicon devices depending on both the intended task and the scale—ranging from inside a cell to a whole animal.
For example, to affect individual brain cells, silicon can be crafted to respond to light by emitting a tiny ionic current, which encourages neurons to fire. But in order to stimulate limbs, scientists need a system whose signals can travel farther and are stronger—such as a gold-coated silicon material in which light triggers a chemical reaction.
The mechanical properties of the implant are important, too. Say researchers would like to work with a larger piece of the brain, like the cortex, to control motor movement. The brain is a soft, squishy substance, so they’ll need a material that’s similarly soft and flexible, but can bind tightly against the surface. They’d want thin and lacy silicon, say the design principles.
The team favors this method because it doesn’t require genetic modification or a power supply wired in, since the silicon can be fashioned into what are essentially tiny solar panels. (Many other forms of monitoring or interacting with the brain need to have a power supply, and keeping a wire running into a patient is an infection risk.)
They tested the concept in mice and found they could stimulate limb movements by shining light on brain implants. Previous research tested the concept in neurons.
“We don’t have answers to a number of intrinsic questions about biology, such as whether individual mitochondria communicate remotely through bioelectric signals,” said Yuanwen Jiang, the first author on the paper, then a graduate student at UChicago and now a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford. “This set of tools could address such questions as well as pointing the way to potential solutions for nervous system disorders.”
Other UChicago authors were Assoc. Profs. Chin-Tu Chen and Chien-Min Kao, Asst. Prof Xiaoyang, postdoctoral researchers Jaeseok Yi, Yin Fang, Xiang Gao, Jiping Yue, Hsiu-Ming Tsai, Bing Liu and Yin Fang, graduate students Kelliann Koehler, Vishnu Nair, and Edward Sudzilovsky, and undergraduate student George Freyermuth.
Other researchers on the paper hailed from Northwestern University, the University of Illinois at Chicago and Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
The researchers have also made this video illustrating their work,
via Gfycat Tiny silicon nanowires (in blue), activated by light, trigger activity in neurons. (Courtesy Yuanwen Jiang and Bozhi Tian)
Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,
Rational design of silicon structures for optically controlled multiscale biointerfaces by Yuanwen Jiang, Xiaojian Li, Bing Liu, Jaeseok Yi, Yin Fang, Fengyuan Shi, Xiang Gao, Edward Sudzilovsky, Ramya Parameswaran, Kelliann Koehler, Vishnu Nair, Jiping Yue, KuangHua Guo, Yin Fang, Hsiu-Ming Tsai, George Freyermuth, Raymond C. S. Wong, Chien-Min Kao, Chin-Tu Chen, Alan W. Nicholls, Xiaoyang Wu, Gordon M. G. Shepherd, & Bozhi Tian. Nature Biomedical Engineering (2018) doi:10.1038/s41551-018-0230-1 Published: 30 April 2018
How does the ‘brain’ of a living cell work, allowing an organism to function and thrive in changing and unfavourable environments?
Queensland University of Technology (QUT) researcher Dr Robyn Araujo has developed new mathematics to solve a longstanding mystery of how the incredibly complex biological networks within cells can adapt and reset themselves after exposure to a new stimulus.
Her findings, published in Nature Communications, provide a new level of understanding of cellular communication and cellular ‘cognition’, and have potential application in a variety of areas, including new targeted cancer therapies and drug resistance.
Dr Araujo, a lecturer in applied and computational mathematics in QUT’s Science and Engineering Faculty, said that while we know a great deal about gene sequences, we have had extremely limited insight into how the proteins encoded by these genes work together as an integrated network – until now.
“Proteins form unfathomably complex networks of chemical reactions that allow cells to communicate and to ‘think’ – essentially giving the cell a ‘cognitive’ ability, or a ‘brain’,” she said. “It has been a longstanding mystery in science how this cellular ‘brain’ works.
“We could never hope to measure the full complexity of cellular networks – the networks are simply too large and interconnected and their component proteins are too variable.
“But mathematics provides a tool that allows us to explore how these networks might be constructed in order to perform as they do.
“My research is giving us a new way to look at unravelling network complexity in nature.”
Dr Araujo’s work has focused on the widely observed function called perfect adaptation – the ability of a network to reset itself after it has been exposed to a new stimulus.
“An example of perfect adaptation is our sense of smell,” she said. “When exposed to an odour we will smell it initially but after a while it seems to us that the odour has disappeared, even though the chemical, the stimulus, is still present.
“Our sense of smell has exhibited perfect adaptation. This process allows it to remain sensitive to further changes in our environment so that we can detect both very feint and very strong odours.
“This kind of adaptation is essentially what takes place inside living cells all the time. Cells are exposed to signals – hormones, growth factors, and other chemicals – and their proteins will tend to react and respond initially, but then settle down to pre-stimulus levels of activity even though the stimulus is still there.
“I studied all the possible ways a network can be constructed and found that to be capable of this perfect adaptation in a robust way, a network has to satisfy an extremely rigid set of mathematical principles. There are a surprisingly limited number of ways a network could be constructed to perform perfect adaptation.
“Essentially we are now discovering the needles in the haystack in terms of the network constructions that can actually exist in nature.
“It is early days, but this opens the door to being able to modify cell networks with drugs and do it in a more robust and rigorous way. Cancer therapy is a potential area of application, and insights into how proteins work at a cellular level is key.”
Dr Araujo said the published study was the result of more than “five years of relentless effort to solve this incredibly deep mathematical problem”. She began research in this field while at George Mason University in Virginia in the US.
Her mentor at the university’s College of Science and co-author of the Nature Communications paper, Professor Lance Liotta, said the “amazing and surprising” outcome of Dr Araujo’s study is applicable to any living organism or biochemical network of any size.
“The study is a wonderful example of how mathematics can have a profound impact on society and Dr Araujo’s results will provide a set of completely fresh approaches for scientists in a variety of fields,” he said.
“For example, in strategies to overcome cancer drug resistance – why do tumours frequently adapt and grow back after treatment?
“It could also help understanding of how our hormone system, our immune defences, perfectly adapt to frequent challenges and keep us well, and it has future implications for creating new hypotheses about drug addiction and brain neuron signalling adaptation.”
It’s been quite the fascinating week in the world of physics culminating with Donna Strickland’s shiny new Nobel Prize in physics.
For my purposes, this week in physics started on Friday, September 28, 2018 with Allesanndro Strumia’s presentation at CERN’s (European Particle Physics Laboratory) “1st workshop on high energy theory and gender” where he claimed and proved ‘scientifically’ that physics has become “sexist against men.” I’ll get back to Strumia in a moment but, first, let’s celebrate Donna Strickland and her achievements.
Only three women, including Strickland, in the history (117 years) of the Nobel Prize for Physics have won it, Marie Curie in 1903, Maria Goeppert Mayer in 1963, and, now, Strickland in 2018.
Donna Strickland, a University of Waterloo professor who helped revolutionize laser physics, has been named a winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics.
Strickland, an associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, shares half the $1.4 million prize with French laser physicist Gérard Mourou. The other half was awarded to U.S. physicist Arthur Ashkin.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences stated that Mourou and Strickland paved the way toward the shortest and most intense laser pulses created by mankind. Their revolutionary article was published in 1985 and was the foundation of Strickland’s doctoral thesis.
Strickand conducted her Nobel-winning research while a PhD student under Mourou in 1989 at the University of Rochester in New York. The team’s research has a number of applications in industry and medicine.
It was great to have had the opportunity to work with one of the pioneers of ultrafast lasers, Gerard Mourou,” said Strickland. “It was a small community back then. It was a new, burgeoning field. I got to be part of that. It was very exciting.”
A Nobel committee member said billions of people make daily use of laser printers and optical scanners and millions undergo laser surgery.
“This is a tremendous day for Professor Strickland and needless to say a tremendous day for the University of Waterloo,” said Feridun Hamdullahpur, president and vice-chancellor of the University of Waterloo. “This is Waterloo’s first Nobel laureate and the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics in 55 years.”
During an interview, Strickland told the Globe and Mail [national newspaper]: “We need to celebrate women physicists because we’re out there, and hopefully in time it’ll start to move forward at a faster rate.”
Charmaine Dean, vice-president research at the University of Waterloo said: “Donna Strickland exemplifies research excellence at Waterloo. Her groundbreaking work is a testament to the importance of fundamental research as it has established the foundation for laser-based technologies that we see today from micromachining to laser eye surgery.”
Arthur Ashkin, an American physicist has been awarded half the prize for his invention of optical tweezers and their application to biological systems. His amazing tool has helped to reach the old dream of grabing [sic] particles, atoms, viruses and other living cells. The optical tweezers work with the radiation pressure of light to hold and move tiny object and are widely used to study the machinery of life.
French physicist Gérard Mourou and Canadian physicist Donna Strickland share the other half for their method of generating ultra-short and very intense optical pulses. Ultra-sharp laser beams have made possible to cut or drill holes in various materials extremely precisely – even in living matter. The technique this duo pioneered is called chirped pulse amplification or CPA and it has led to corrective eye surgeries for millions of people.
An Oct. 2, 2018 article by Marina Koren for The Atlantic is my favourite of the ones focusing on Strickland. One of Koren’s major focal points is Strickland’s new Wikipedia page (Note: Links have been removed),
It was about five in the morning in Ontario, Canada, when Donna Strickland’s phone rang. The Nobel Prize committee was on the line in Stockholm, calling to tell her she had won the prize in physics.
“We wondered if it was a prank,” Strickland said Tuesday [October 2 ,2018], in an interview with a Nobel official after the call. She had been asleep when the call arrived. “But then I knew it was the right day, and it would have been a cruel prank.”
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Lasers, focused beams of light particles, were invented in the 1960s. Scientists immediately started tinkering with them, looking for ways to harness and manipulate these powerful devices.
Strickland and [Gérard] Mourou] found a way to stretch and compress lasers to produce short, intense pulses that are now used, among other things, in delicate surgeries to fix vision problems. [Arthur] Ashkin figured out a way to maneuver laser light so that it could push small particles toward the center of the beam, hold them in place, and even move them around. This technique became the delightfully named “optical tweezer.” It allowed Ashkin to use the power of light to capture and hold living bacteria and viruses without harming the organisms.
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Unlike her fellow winners, Strickland did not have a Wikipedia page at the time of the announcement. A Wikipedia user tried to set up a page in May, but it was denied by a moderator with the message: “This submission’s references do not show that the subject qualifies for a Wikipedia article.” Strickland, it was determined, had not received enough dedicated coverage elsewhere on the internet to warrant a page.
On Tuesday, a newly created page flooded with edits: “Added in her title.” “Add Nobel-winning paper.” “Added names of other women Nobelists [sic] in physics.”
The construction of the Wikipedia page feels like a metaphor for a historic award process that has long been criticized for neglecting women in its selection, and for the shortage of women’s stories in the sciences at large. To scroll through the “history” tab of Strickland’s page, where all edits are recorded and tracked, is to witness in real time the recognition of a scientist whose story likely deserved attention long before the Nobel Prize committee called.
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Strickland’s historic win comes a day after CERN, the European organization that operates the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, suspended a senior scientist for saying that physics was “invented and built by men.” Alessandro Strumia, a professor at the University of Pisa, made the statement during a recent speech at a seminar on gender issues in physics that was attended by mostly female physicists. Strumia said “men prefer working with things and women prefer working with people,” and that between men and women there is a “difference even in children before any social influence.” His remarks were widely circulated online and prompted fierce backlash.
The remarks don’t faze Strickland, who very publicly proved them wrong on Tuesday. In an interview with the BBC on Tuesday, she called Strumia’s claims “silly.”
Not only was Alessandro Strumia being offensive when he said that physics “was invented and built by men” — he was also wrong, says physicist Jess Wade.
“Actually, women have contributed hugely to physics throughout the whole of history, but for an incredibly long time we haven’t documented or told those stories,” Wade told As It Happens host Carol Off.
And she would know. The Imperial College London research associate has made it her mission to write hundreds of Wikipedia entries about women in science and engineering.
Wade was in the room on Friday when Strumia, a physicist at Pisa University, made the inflammatory remarks during a gender workshop in Geneva, organized by the European nuclear research centre CERN.
CERN cut ties with Strumia after the BBC reported the content of his presentation.
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This article includes some of the slides in Strumia’s now infamous presentation.
Tommaso Dorigo in an October 1, 2018 posting on the Science 2.0 blog offers another analysis,
The world of particle physics is in turmoil because of a presentation by Alessandro Strumia, an Italian phenomenologist, at CERN’s “1st workshop on high energy theory and gender”, and its aftermath.
By now the story has been echoed by many major newscasters around the world, and discussed in public and private forums, blogs, twitter feeds. I wanted to stay away from it here, mainly because it is a sensitive issue and the situation is still evolving, but after all, why not offer to you my personal pitch on the matter? Strumia, by the way, has been an occasional commenter to this blog – you can find some of his comments signed as “AS” in threads of past articles. Usually he makes good points here, as long as physics is the subject.
Anyway, first of all let me give you a quick recall of the events. The three-day workshop, which took place on September 26-28, was meant to”focus on recent developments in theoretical high-energy physics and cosmology, and discuss issues of gender and equal opportunities in the field“; it followed three previous events which combined string theory and gender issues. Strumia’s presentation was titled “Experimental tests of a new global symmetry“, a physicist’s way of describing the issue of man-woman equality. It is important to note that the talk was not an invited one – its author had asked the organizers for a slot as he said he would be talking of bibliometrics, and indeed his contribution was listed in the agenda of September 28 with the innocuous title “Bibliometrics data about gender issues in fundamental theory“.
Strumia’s slides contain a collection of half-baked claims, coming from his analysis of InSpire data from citations and authorship of articles in theoretical physics. I consider his talk offensive on many levels. It starts by casting the woman discrimination issue in scientific academia as a test of hypothesis of whether the “man-woman” symmetry is explicitly broken (i.e. there is no symmetry) or spontaneously broken (by a difference of treatment) – something that could even raise a smile in a geeky physicist; but the fun ends there.
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Dorigo offers a detailed ‘takedown’ of Strumia’s assertions. I found the post intriguing for the insight it offers into physics. Never in a million years would I have thought this title, “Experimental tests of a new global symmetry,” would indicate a discussion on gender balance in the field of physics.
As I said in the opening, it has been quite the week in physics. On a final note, Brava to Doctor Donna Strickland!
I guess they wanted to keep it a secret? In any event, TRIUMF’s 2018 year of celebrating their 50th anniversary is almost over. Their celebratory website, TRIUMF50 lists two events (scroll down to see them) for October 2018 and nothing after that. One event is in Ottawa (which is titled ‘#DiscoverTHIS: TRIUMF, Science, and Society’ on the TRIUMF50 website) and the other in Vancouver (Canada). Then, there’s the the other 50th sciencish anniversary in Vancouver, this being celebrated by the HR MacMillan Space Centre.
TRIUMF’s two events
Weirdly, I found out about TRIUMF’s 50th anniversary after reading an October 1, 2018 Ingenium (formerly Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation) news release (received via email) and digging further. First, the announcement about the Ottawa event,
#DISCOVERTHIS: […] THE MOTHER OF INVENTION […] CANADA SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY MUSEUM
October 3, 2018
Time: 7:30 p.m. – 9 p.m. (Doors open at 7 p.m.)
FEE: FREE (REGISTRATION REQUIRED)
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH ONLY
On October 3, join a team of experts from TRIUMF […], Canada’s particle accelerator centre, for an illuminating discussion. The event will take place at the museum, and will also include a screening of a short documentary that explores the possibility for TRIUMF to take up the reins as the world’s largest producer of actinium-225 (Ac-225), a radioisotope with promising potential as an anti-cancer therapy.
If the adage is true that necessity is the mother of invention, then curiosity-driven research is the grandmother of the whole shebang. The internet, the cellphone, the PET scanner – or even further back – radio, penicillin, electricity: all these inventions and their impacts on our lives were made possible because of innovative people looking at scientific discoveries and asking, “What problem can I solve with this?”
How exactly does a scientist’s eureka moment turn into the internet, the satellite, the next generation of cancer therapy? Join a team of experts from TRIUMF, Canada’s particle accelerator centre, for an illuminating discussion that sheds light on the journey from our research to you.
The event will include a screening of “The Rarest Drug on Earth,” a short documentary that explores the possibility for TRIUMF to take up the reins as the world’s largest producer of actinium-225 (Ac-225), a radioisotope with promising potential as an anti-cancer therapy.
Hosted by science journalist Tim Lougheed, and featuring:
Kathryn Hayashi: President & CEO, TRIUMF Innovations
Morgan Dehnel: Founder and Chief Science & Innovation Officer, D-Pace
Beatrice Franke: TRIUMF Research Scientist – Physical Sciences
Andrew Robertson: PhD Student – Life Sciences
#discoverTHIS: La mère de l’invention
On dit que la nécessité est mère de l’invention. Si ce dicton est vrai, alors la curiosité qui alimente la recherche serait, elle, grand-mère de tout le processus. L’internet, le téléphone cellulaire, la tomographie par émission de positrons ou, si on remonte encore plus loin, la radio, la pénicilline et l’électricité, toutes ces inventions, qui ont changé nos vies, auraient été impossibles sans ces personnes innovatrices qui se sont intéressées aux découvertes scientifiques et qui se sont demandé quels problèmes elles pouvaient résoudre grâce à celles-ci. Mais comment l’éclair de génie d’un chercheur donne-t-il naissance à l’internet, au satellite ou à la nouvelle génération de traitement contre le cancer?
Joignez-vous à un groupe d’experts de TRIUMF, le Centre canadien d’accélération des particules, pour une discussion éclairante qui fera la lumière sur les étapes du processus, des chercheurs jusqu’à vous.
L’événement comprendra la projection du court documentaire The Rarest Drug on Earth, qui explore la possibilité que TRIUMF devienne le plus grand producteur mondial d’actinium-225 (AC-225), un radio-isotope prometteur dans le traitement contre le cancer.
La discussion, animée par le journaliste scientifique Tim Lougheed, mettra en vedette :
Kathryn Hayashi : présidente et directrice générale, TRIUMF Innovations
Morgan Dehnel : fondateur et agent en chef de la science et de l’innovation, D-Pace
Beatrice Franke : chercheuse scientifique chez TRIUMF – sciences physiques
Catching Ghosts: Using Neutrinos to Unveil the Universe
On a clear night, away from the bright lights of Vancouver, you can see the incredible expanse of the universe before you. To study these far-away celestial bodies, scientists use a “radiation toolkit” to observe our universe and understand how the galaxies we see today came to be. Some types of radiation, such as infrared radiation, can sense stars in their infancy, not yet hot enough to shine visible light. Others, like x-rays and gamma rays, can reveal matter being sucked into a black hole.
When it comes to studying the nuclear processes in the heart of stars, scientists must turn to neutrinos: subatomic particles that are currently flying unbeknownst through your body by the billions, right this second. These elusive little particles are an excellent probe into the core of the sun and distant supernovae, but they are notoriously difficult to detect. Difficult, but not impossible.
On Tuesday, October 23, join Dr. Stanley Yen, TRIUMF Research Scientist, for his talk, Detecting the Ghost Particles of the Universe.
Date: October 23, 2018 Doors open at 6:30pm
Lecture begins at 7:00pm
This lecture is presented in partnership by TRIUMF and Science World as part of the TRIUMF 50th Anniversary Unveiling the Universe Lecture Series.
Some may have noticed that I’m still referring to TRIUMF as Canada’s National Laboratory for Particle and Nuclear Physics. I know it has changed but I prefer it to the latest one, TRIUMF (Canada’s particle accelerator centre).
Life in the Universe
An evening of music and astronomy
Join the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre in celebrating their 50th anniversary with a very special evening of music under the cosmic visuals of the Planetarium Star Theatre. Composer Thomas Beckman will be premiering an original work “Life in the Universe” inspired by the unique character of the planets in our solar system and the wonders of our Universe. The suite will be performed by Thomas Beckman and the Borealis String Quartet.
Thomas Beckman, CMC [Canadian Music Centre] associate composer, has written for a wide range of ensembles that include the Borealis String Quartet, the Vancouver Symphony orchestra, the Prince George Symphony orchestra, the Postmodern Camerata and the Vancouver Youth Choir. For the past several years he has served as Festival Composer for the Artists for Conservation organization, as the in-house-composer for the Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network and as a freelance film composer for several award-winning independent documentaries. With an MMus in western classical performance from the University of British Columbia, Thomas also serves as principal violist of the Vancouver Pops Symphony and the Prince George Symphony orchestra, and performs solo with his looping project for a number of events held by the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre, Semperviva Yoga studios, and the Vancouver Maritime Museum. Thomas’ latest project has been to create the Jean Coulthard Music Video series in collaboration with the Canadian Music Centre as a means to empower local composers in BC.
The Borealis Quartet was founded in Vancouver, British Columbia in the fall of 2000 and rapidly establishing a stellar reputation. The Borealis has toured extensively in North America, Europe and Asia and performed to enthusiastic sold-out audiences in major cities, including New York, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Rome, Mainz, Shanghai, Taipei, Beijing, Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and, of course, in their home town of Vancouver. http://www.borealisstringquartet.com/
TICKETS: $35 early bird tickets until October 5th, $40 after.
Tickets available online through Eventbrite until 12:00pm on October 19th.
Tickets available for 7:30pm and 9:00pm shows.
Beer and wine will be available for purchase.
This is a 19+ event. All attendees will be required to provide photo ID upon entry.
We’re turning 50 – help us celebrate! Bring the entire family out and enjoy our programming and special activities on Saturday and Sunday. Discover more about our past 50 years of science and space education as we pull some gems from our archives and explore how producing shows in the planetarium has changed over the decades. Share your memories of the Space Centre on our memory wall and create a card for Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques as he prepares for his mission to the International Space Station in December. We’ll be testing your knowledge with trivia questions before each show in the Planetarium Star Theatre and we’ll have a birthday treat for all to eat.
$5 for general admission and children under 5 are free.
We will be open from 10:00am – 5:00pm on Saturday and Sunday for the celebration with activities running from 10:30am – 4:30pm.
Event Details
October 20, 2018 – 10:00am to October 21, 2018 – 5:00pm
1968 seems to have been quite the sciencish year in Vancouver.
One last anniversary and this is a national one, the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC) is celebrating its sesquicentennial (150th) in 2018 just one year after the country’s sesquicentennial in 2017. First mentioned here in a July 2, 2018 posting about celebratory events in Toronto, There don’t seem to be any more events planned for this year but RASC’s 150th Anniversary webpage lists resources such as podcasts and more for you delectation.
