Lifeboat Foundation

Brains (mammalian, avian, reptilian) are analog, not digital/ hardwired for good evolutionary reasons (MVT). I have become interested in building synths recently — “Anyone with any passing interest in the synthesizer will have noticed not one, but three trends over the last decade. The first is a return to analogue… You can now get a phenomenal number of astounding synths — many of them ‘proper’ analogues — for an easy three digits. If you are as old as me, you’ll remember a time before when this was unthinkable. In fact, the whole idea of a return to analogue was unthinkable. “It would simply cost too much to (re) manufacture all of those analogue components,” they used to say, “and because everyone uses software, why would anyone be interested?”

Well, it turned out that analogue components could be cheap, and not everyone was interested in software (and if they were, they were also interested in hardware).”

Continue reading “Review: Korg Minilogue XD” »

Quantum mechanics arose in the 1920s, and since then scientists have disagreed on how best to interpret it. Many interpretations, including the Copenhagen interpretation presented by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, and in particular, von Neumann-Wigner interpretation, state that the consciousness of the person conducting the test affects its result. On the other hand, Karl Popper and Albert Einstein thought that an objective reality exists. Erwin Schrödinger put forward the famous thought experiment involving the fate of an unfortunate cat that aimed to describe the imperfections of quantum mechanics.

In their most recent article, Finnish civil servants Jussi Lindgren and Jukka Liukkonen, who study quantum mechanics in their free time, take a look at the uncertainty principle that was developed by Heisenberg in 1927. According to the traditional interpretation of the principle, location and momentum cannot be determined simultaneously to an arbitrary degree of precision, as the person conducting the measurement always affects the values.

However, in their study Lindgren and Liukkonen concluded that the correlation between a location and momentum, i.e., their relationship, is fixed. In other words, reality is an object that does not depend on the person measuring it. Lindgren and Liukkonen utilized stochastic dynamic optimization in their study. In their theory’s frame of reference, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle is a manifestation of thermodynamic equilibrium, in which correlations of random variables do not vanish.

Although it’s clearly NOT the approach taken for ultracold vitrification of patients undergoing life extension cryonization. (ULTRA🥶COLD being the exact opposite of ULTRA-BLOODY-H🥵T, obviously!)

Still, given the vast number of scientific and engineering discoveries and creations born on the backs of unexpected results, accidental discoveries, and outright screw up, it might have very useful data that has practical applications that would never otherwise have even been considered.

Italian scientists found intact brain cells in a man who was killed during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.

Continue reading “Volcanic eruption turned man’s brain into glass, ‘froze’ brain cells 2,000 years ago, scientists find” »

Summary: Researchers have identified a network of genes in Zebrafish that regulate the process of determining whether certain neurons will regenerate.

Source: University of Notre Dame

The death of neurons, whether in the brain or the eye, can result in a number of human neurodegenerative disorders, from blindness to Parkinson’s disease. Current treatments for these disorders can only slow the progression of the illness, because once a neuron dies, it cannot be replaced.

Terms such as ‘Artificial Intelligence’ or ‘Neurotechnology’ were new some time not so long ago. We can’t evolve faster than our language does. We think in concepts and evolution itself is a linguistic, code-theoretic process. Do yourself a humongous favor, look over these 33 transhumanist neologisms. Here’s a fairly comprehensive glossary of thirty three newly-introduced concepts and terms from The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind’s Evolution by Russian-Amer… See More.

When we talk to someone from a different socioeconomic background, our brain reacts differently than when we address someone with a similar status to our own. Researchers found higher activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain associated with language and attentional control when people speak with those of different socioeconomic status. different socioeconomic background, our brain reacts differently than when we address someone with a similar status to our own. Researchers found higher activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain associated with language and attentional control when people speak with those of different socioeconomic status. different socioeconomic background our brain reacts differently than when we address someone with a similar status to our own. Researchers found higher activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain associated with language and attentional control when people speak with those of different socioeconomic status.

When the brain forms a memory of a new experience, neurons called engram cells encode the details of the memory and are later reactivated whenever we recall it. A new MIT study reveals that this process is controlled by large-scale remodeling of cells’ chromatin.

This remodeling, which allows specific genes involved in storing memories to become more active, takes place in multiple stages spread out over several days. Changes to the density and arrangement of chromatin, a highly compressed structure consisting of DNA and proteins called histones, can control how active specific genes are within a given cell.

“This paper is the first to really reveal this very mysterious process of how different waves of genes become activated, and what is the epigenetic mechanism underlying these different waves of gene expression,” says Li-Huei Tsai, the director of MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the senior author of the study.

O,.o.

Ever wanted to get rid of a memory that holds you back or torments you? Well, you might soon be able to.

In an experiment out of the films Total Recall and Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, painful experiences have been erased from the brain.

Continue reading “Press ‘delete’ to ditch a memory” »

Summary: A patient who suffered brain injury can temporarily walk, talk, and recognize family members thanks to the sleep medication Zolpidem.

Source: Radboud University

A patient who could not move and talk spontaneously for eight years started to do so again after being administered a sleeping pill. The spectacular but temporary effect was visualized with brain scans, giving researchers from Radboud university medical center and Amsterdam UMC a better understanding of this disorder’s underlying neurophysiological processes. The article has been published in Cortex.