MonthJune 2008
Drugs that encourage the growth of new neurons in the brain are now headed for clinical trials. The drugs, which have already shown success in alleviating symptoms of depression and boosting memory in animal models, are being developed by BrainCells, a San Diego-based start-up that screens drugs for their brain-growing power. The company hopes the compounds will provide an alternative to existing antidepressants and says they may also prove effective in treating cognitive disorders, such as Alzheimer’s.
“The fact that you might be able to take small molecules to stimulate specific cells to regenerate in the brain is paradigm-shifting,” says Christopher Eckman, a neuroscientist at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL. “[This approach] takes advantage of the body’s innate ability to correct itself when given appropriate cues.” Eckman studies compounds that boost brain cell growth in models of neurodegenerative disease and is not involved with BrainCells.
(via Tomorrow Museum)
See also: ergoloid, Albert Hoffman’s other invention.
“One of the other issues we’re going to be hearing a lot about in the next few months is the high cost of prescription drugs. Most of us can testify to the fact that drugs save lives. When I had heart surgery fourteen years ago, my own life was saved by a skilled surgical team, a caring wife, and some remarkable drugs. But drugs are costly -and it seems their price keeps rising. The sticker shock has sent many people -especially the elderly – across the border to Mexico and Canada in pursuit of affordable medicine.
And a report this week says that because of the cost, many middle class baby boomers are trying to do without. The pharmaceutical companies say you get what you pay for, they say it’s not cheap to develop new medicines. But in journalism as in medicine, it’s always helpful to get a second opinion. So if the cost of your daily meds leaves you feeling sad and depressed, unable to sleep or eat, I have a prescription for you – a consultation with the journalist Melody Petersen, who has written a powerful new book about what ails us.”
(via Bill Moyers Journal)
“It’s surprising to see such media exposure with these studies. Perhaps it really is the psychedelic renaissance. I would be really interested in hearing Keith Ablow’s scepticism, but it seems he was never given the chance to speak. Did his comments on psychedelics even air?”
(via Animam Recro)
“Did you know that one person in 20 has had a fight with a next-door neighbour? That one driver in four admits to committing an act of road rage? That cases of ‘air rage’ rose by 400 per cent between 1997 and 2000? That stress has overtaken the common cold as the main reason for taking time off work?
We appear to be living in an age of rage. Earlier this week there seems to have been an incidence of ‘queue rage’ in a supermarket during which a man was punched – and later died. The death raises the whole issue of apparently random acts of violence that are often the product of momentary losses of self-control.
‘Check-out rage’ is just one more to add to our already long long list of road, air, trolley, parking space and cyclist rage. It is why a motorist will follow a pedestrian on to a bus and stab him; why a shopper will break another shopper’s nose for something as trivial as bumping into his or her trolley. When I was riding in a taxi in London recently a cyclist hammered on the window in fury at a perceived (imagined, in my view) transgression by the driver. In a flurry of F-and-C-words he threw a fistful of coins at the taxi. As far as I could see nothing had happened.
Anger, humankind’s natural and healthy reaction to stressful situations, is increasingly being acted out via physical violence – even though we are richer, take more holidays and lead more comfortable lives than ever before. There are several theories as to why our society is becoming ever more infuriated. The fast pace at which we live our lives – ‘hurry sickness’, for instance, has taught us to desire and demand instant gratification.”
(via Times Online)
What do you think should be the role of the artist in society? Should art disgust people, should it be a critical mirror, an escape, entertainment…?
I think art should be all those things. I think in a world where everything human is denigrated, art becomes more crucial and more important for people making it through their life. I think that art should be your muse, what inspires you; it can help guide you.How would your visual art guide people? What would it guide them to do?
To make good choices in their daily life. I think that the best art is inspirational.[…]
Oswald Spengler, the quasi-fascist German philosopher of history wrote in The Decline of the West that ‘optimism is cowardice.’ Do you agree?
I don’t think that optimism is cowardice. In some ways, I think that Devo was optimistic. We talked about De-evolution, but we always encouraged people to be anti-stupidity and to try and make a difference. We were never praising de-evolution. We were musical reporters, saying, ‘Wait a minute. Do you see what’s going on? Do you see what you are a part of?’
Noted here earlier, the OLPC 2.0 indeed feels like the future. Really, anything else (short of the Nokia Morph concept) seems stale in comparison.
Here are some speculations at ComputerWorld about what the future may hold.
Researchers at Goldsmiths, University of London have developed technology to translate thoughts into musical notes.
The Brain Computer Interface for Music requires electrodes to be attached to the head.
They pick up electrical impulses from the brain which are passed through an electroencephalography (EEG) machine and analysed.
Full Story: BBC (includes demonstration video)
(via Grinding)
Scientists have confirmed for the first time that an important component of early genetic material which has been found in meteorite fragments is extraterrestrial in origin, in a paper published on 15 June 2008.
The finding suggests that parts of the raw materials to make the first molecules of DNA and RNA may have come from the stars.The scientists, from Europe and the USA, say that their research, published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, provides evidence that life’s raw materials came from sources beyond the Earth.
The materials they have found include the molecules uracil and xanthine, which are precursors to the molecules that make up DNA and RNA, and are known as nucleobases.
The team discovered the molecules in rock fragments of the Murchison meteorite, which crashed in Australia in 1969.
(via Warren Ellis)
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