The Keepers of Memory

July 28, 2010

Yesterday I met someone after 35 years.

The memories that were triggered were sharp and clear but we each remembered different episodes with differing degrees of clarity. Many memories that surged to the surface were matters that I had not consciously thought of during the 35 year interval.

Why then are some memories stored in the brain with – apparently – no deterioration and a mass or surrounding detail and others are only vague recollections or even non-existent?

Perhaps the answer lies in the protein kinase PKMzeta. In The Beautiful Brain Podcast, Todd Sacktor, Professor of Physiology and Pharmacology at SUNY talks about his research regarding the mechanisms of long-term memory storage—and deletion— in the brain.

image: http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n14/mente/chaos.html

Sacktor’s research investigates the activity of a class of proteins which are very active around synapses— the protein kinases –  and they come in several varieties in the brain. They catalyze chemical reactions at the synapse, allowing a neuron to become more or less responsive to the electrical firing of its neighbor by aiding reactions that reshuffle neurotransmitter receptors.

Sacktor has identified one kinase in particular—called PKMzeta—which seems to be directly responsible for the maintenance of memory in the brain. When PKMzeta is found at a synapse, the memory encoded there is OK—it’s being maintained. When PKMzeta stops working at a synapse, the memory floats into the abyss of the brain, disassembled into its consituent cellular parts and extinguished from our recollection. In this edition of the podcast, Sacktor discusses his research and its implications on the way we understand memory storage in the brain.

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The 35$ tablet and cloud computing

July 28, 2010

Whether or not the 35$ tablet recently unveiled in India ever becomes real is irrelevant.

Kapil Sibal

It looks like an iPad, only it’s 1/14th the cost: India has unveiled the prototype of a $35 basic touchscreen tablet aimed at students, which it hopes to bring into production by 2011.

But the 20$ pc in India – the “Shaksat” has not really happened.

But the Tata Nano – as the 2000$ car – did happen even if the cost is slightly over the magic target of one lakh rupees (100,000).

The 749 rupees ($16) water purifier is a reality and $2,000 open-heart surgery has been available for some time.

What is really important is the challenging of barriers and the attitude it represents. The future of distributed computing, perhaps through a much more extensive use of the cloud, could well depend on this challenging of attitudes. Ultimately the device used by every individual would be nothing more than  a very secure interface device:

  • secure and simple regarding the individual’s identity
  • secure regarding the connection to the cloud, and
  • secure regarding the personal or sensitive material stored in the cloud.

As Tony Bradley of PC World puts it

The $35 tablet prototype from India will run a variation of the open source Linux operating system. It has 2Gb of RAM, but no internal storage–relying on a removable memory card. The device has a USB port, and built-in Wi-Fi connectivity. Seems like reasonable enough specs–especially for $35.

On the software side, the $35 tablet has a PDF reader, multimedia player, video conferencing, Web browser, and word processor. The value of the multimedia player will be contingent on its compatibility with popular audio and video file formats. The functionality of the word processor will hinge on its ability to create, view, or edit files in Microsoft Word format.

….. Many will scoff at the idea of a $35 tablet PC. Of course, many tech geeks, pundits, and power users also scoffed at the concept of a netbook, claiming it was too weak to be of any value. A year later, netbooks were cannibalizing notebook sales as students embraced the cheaper platform, and business professionals opted for smaller, lighter mobile computers.

Ultimately, it doesn’t even really matter if the “$35 PC” ever materializes. The Indian prototype illustrates what’s possible and breaks down barriers–challenging the rest of the industry to push the envelope. A Linux-based (think Android or Chrome OS), Web-connected tablet would likely still be a tremendous success in the United States at three times that $35 target.

Of course netbooks are already losing out to ipads and small tablets.

Scoffers are already out in force but even they serve a purpose in creating the challenge necessary. It is always more satisfying to do something when there are those who scoff and say it cannot be done.

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We are already in the Landscheidt minimum !!

July 27, 2010

A Massive Winter Heading for the Northern Hemisphere?

Geoff Sharp’s recent article suggests that the Landscheidt minimum is already upon us.

The winters of the past two years have been noticeably colder. The northern hemisphere in particular has experienced record cold, record snow and a rebuilding of the Arctic sea ice extent. The southern hemisphere this winter has also seen record low temperatures in South America which is resulting in many hundreds of deaths (human and livestock). There are a number of players involved which can be attributed to this cooling trend and when they come together they are capable of dropping the world’s temperatures by a significant amount.

Perhaps the most important player is the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) which is a hot and cold ocean temperature cycle in the Pacific of about 30 years. The world’s temperature trend very closely matches this cycle which has the potential to override solar activity of the day. The last major PDO cooling event was between 1946 and 1976 which experienced the highest solar cycle on record (SC19) followed by a low cycle (SC20). The deepest cold of this era was recorded when both the PDO and low solar activity teamed up, which is right where we are again today with perhaps a greater influence from the solar side with my predicted imminent grand minimum.

Aside from other ocean oscillations the ENSO pattern has a large short term effect on our climate/weather system. We are just coming out of a rather warm El Nino cycle and current observations are showing the possible impact of a very strong La Nina cooling pattern taking shape.

The La Nina phase is now official with the Australian BOM records showing all the major indicators heading into continued La Nina conditions. Of particular interest is the sub surface temperatures in the Pacific showing a large area 4 deg under normal.

Another oscillation called the Antarctic Oscillation (AAO)  is showing its highest readings since records began in 1979, during the strong 1999 and 2008 La Ninas the AAO was also high.

The cooling phase of the PDO is just beginning and should reduce the strength and frequency of future El Ninos and add extra punch and frequency to upcoming La Ninas.

So the stage is set for one of the most interesting natural experiments, nearly all the cool players are in place with the exception of the Atlantic Oscillation still not in its cool phase. I predict the extra boost from my predicted solar grand minimum along with the  current oceanic conditions the next northern winter will experience conditions similar to the Little Ice Age (1250-1850).

Adolfo Giurfa points to this map showing the cooling oceans.

The winter of 2010 / 2011 could remove many uncertainties and provide a fatal blow to global warming alarmism – though doom-day scenarios will never ever die.

Current Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly Plot

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The big global ice melt is not happening

July 26, 2010

Global ice quantities are not decreasing. There is no polar meltdown at either pole.

It would seem that temperatures in the Arctic are running lower than average and the ice extent in the Antarctic continues to be higher than normal.

Perhaps the predictions of global cooling for the next 20 – 30 years are getting more probable. Moreover the sun continues to be far less active than predicted.

I cannot help feeling that global climate can only be consequent to the sun and that the primary vehicle for heat transport is the oceans. Within the atmosphere – where the heat content is puny compared to the oceans – the primary constituent of any significance is water in all its forms and the effect they have on solar radiation and the earth’s re-radiation.

The effects of man or CO2 and woefully inadequate climate models remain in the realms of the fly on the chariot wheel saying “Wow! Look at the all the dust I am raising”.

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25 years on and toxicity is still being exported….

July 23, 2010

25 years after Bhopal where the manufacture of toxic products was “exported” to India the same “export” philosophy – this time with toxic wastes to the Ivory Coast – continues.

I thought I could see signs of ethics returning to the corporate world but I was being too optimistic. “Business as usual and pay a few fines if you get caught” seems to apply. Nobody goes to jail after all.

Trafigura found guilty of exporting toxic waste

A Dutch court has found multinational Trafigura guilty of illegally exporting toxic waste from Amsterdam and concealing the nature of the cargo.

Two civil protection workers pass by a bulldozer clearing a site polluted with toxic waste at the Akouedo district in Abidjan - 19 September 2006

In 2006, Trafigura transported waste alleged to have been involved in the injury of thousands of people in Ivory Coast. The firm was fined 1m euros (£836,894) for its ship, the Probo Koala, transiting Amsterdam with its cargo.Trafigura, an oil trading company, initially tried to clean up low-grade oil by tipping caustic soda into the hold of the Probo Koala. The company tried to unload the waste in Amsterdam for treatment, declaring it as “harmless slops”.

Timeline

Sept 2006 – Thousands in Ivory Coast report falling ill from waste in Abidjan

Oct 2006 – About 1,000 Ivorians sue Trafigura

Feb 2007 – Trafigura reaches $160m out-of-court settlement with government of Ivory Coast

Oct 2008 – Ivory Coast court finds two people, not employees of Trafigura, guilty of dumping toxic waste in Abidjan

Sept 2009 – Trafigura agrees to pay $50m to people in Ivory Coast who say they were poisoned by the waste

June 2010 – Dutch prosecutors accuse Trafigura of illegally exporting hazardous waste to Ivory Coast

Trafigura denies responsibility for the dumping of the waste and any deaths or injuries caused !!

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Egyptian impact crater first spotted on Google Earth

July 23, 2010

The Kamil Crater in Egypt

(Gebel Kamil 22°01’06″N  26°05’16″E)

Analyses suggest this 45-meter-wide crater in southwestern Egypt, first spotted on Google Earth late in 2008, probably was formed in the last 5,000 years.

Image; National Museum of the Antarctic, University of Siena

download

The Crater on Google earth. http://www.ogleearth.com/2010/07/newly_discovere.html?

Although the crater was first noticed in autumn 2008, researchers have since spotted the blemish on satellite images taken as far back as 1972, says Luigi Folco, a cosmochemist at the University of Siena in Italy. He and his colleagues report their find online July 22 in Science.

During expeditions to the site early in 2009 and again this year, scientists found more than 5,000 iron meteorites that together weigh more than 1.7 tons. The team estimates that the original lump of iron weighed between 5 and 10 metric tons when it slammed into the ground at a speed of around 3.5 kilometers per second, with most of the material vaporizing during the collision. Analyses of soil samples from the site and of sand fused into glass by the impact’s intense heat and pressure may help the team estimate when the event occurred. Preliminary analyses suggest that it happened sometime during the last 10,000 years, probably no more than 5,000 years ago, Folco says.

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Silly Season continues……

July 23, 2010

The New Scientist today carries (at least ) two  Silly Season articles:

(image :noiri.blogspot.com)

1. In one, Clive Hamilton, a self-proclaimed “public intellectual” (whatever that is ) is concerned that evil is abroad and fanatics are planning to inject sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere to counter global warming. “An evil atmosphere is forming around geoengineering”

2. The second article by Stephen Battersby, a self-chartered environmental health practitioner (whatever that is) is worried that the oxygen content is decreasing to dangerously low levels. “Physical labour would become harder, for instance, and infant mortality would increase”. Fortunately he also finds that this will not matter too much because we would first encounter “the vastly greater peril of extreme climate change caused by burning all that carbon. With the ice caps rapidly melting, today’s coasts being inundated and the tropics turning into desert, the least of the world’s worries will be a few wheezing yaks”.

The silly season continues for at least another month.

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Of marmosets and dragon flies…….

July 22, 2010

The silly season continues. Mankind is apparently seriously threatened by future plagues of dragon flies which could fly in on the wings of climate change. If the plague doesn’t get us then increasing warming could lead to a tough time from mammoth marmosets.

BBC News reports that climate change has returned a long lost dragon fly to Britain.

The dainty damselfly, a smaller relative of dragonflies, was washed away from its single East Anglian pond in the severe coastal floods of 1952/3. Now, a few individuals have been found at a site in north Kent. Conservationists believe the insects were blown on the wind from France or Belgium where they have become more common, probably due to climate change.

The Telegraph is concerned with weightier matters.

Scientists claim longer summers have led to marmots – which are ground-dwelling ‘squirrels’ – waking up earlier from hibernation, giving them more time to reproduce and gain weight before the next hibernation period. The results showed that since then, the average mass of adult marmots had increased by 11 per cent or 400 grams. The population had also grown by a quarter over a 33 year period. The lead researcher in the study, Dr Arpat Ozgul of Imperial College London, said the population increase could be down to a “short-term response” to longer summers. But he explained further study was needed to shed light on how animals will be affected by climate change in the future.

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Paywalls are a real turnoff

July 21, 2010

Over the last few weeks I find I am just not visiting The Times site any more. Clearly I am not the only one as Business Week reports. After 42 years of reading The Times regularly, I find I don’t miss it much either, which I thought I might. In fact there is not a single reporter or columnist at The Times who can any longerbe classified as a “must read” . Their speed of reporting has been insufficient to lead to any scoops and their biases are not insignificant. Lately they have shown little editorial courage either. Perhaps their time has now gone.

Visits to the website of The Times newspaper have fallen to a third since Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. started asking users to pay for online access. Traffic in the week ended July 10 declined to 33 percent of that before the company demanded users register, according to data compiled by Experian Hitwise. The Times’ share of traffic to news and media websites from the U.K. fell to 1.43 percent from 4.46 percent, Experian said in an e-mailed statement.

In fact blogs even with their blatant partisanship are getting more of my visits than the Mainstream media sites. The known political slant of the blogs can be easily discounted but the MSM which claims impartiality is becoming less reliable because they are all actually quite biased but their bias is not visible.

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Back again

July 19, 2010
  1. Watched the World Cup final at a bar in Bilbao. Spain were worthy winners but watch out for Germany in the next 2 Cups. Thank goodness it did not go to penalties. The Dutch approach was a little disturbing. The celebrations in Bilbao were not as exuberant as shown on TV in Madrid. Not too many Spanish flags to be seen.
  2. Paul (Pablo) the psychic octopus can retire with flying colours. He should be granted free Spanish mussels for life. A psychic elephant (named Bua) has been discovered in Sweden!
  3. Southern hemisphere suffering from a cold wave. Even after the record winter in the Northern Hemisphere, alarmists still persist in believing that 2010 will be the hottest year ever!!! But the “homogenisation” of data to show this is less than convincing.
  4. La Nina conditions are establishing themselves and cool temperature for the next few years are likely. However, also coming is major drop of .5 to .7C in the global temps which will take us below normal for a time. In addition, the reason for the drop will easily be linked with the cooling of the Pacific, which will remain in its cool stage for the next 30 years. Once the Atlantic, still warm, goes into its cool stage in 10-15 years, global temps will fall even further, back to where they were in the 1970s. Some of the warming alarmists of today were alarmist about a coming ice age in 1976.
  5. The sun is remarkably quiet and undershooting even the low predictions for Solar Cycle 24 for flux and sunspot numbers. Perhaps SC24 will even undershoot SC5. Landscheidt minimum probability is increasing.

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