World tour will kick off on October 31 in Montreal; second disc hits stores on September 30.
By Gil Kaufman
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1706831/justin-timberlake-new-album-tour-dates.jhtml
campfire Kordell Stewart cesar chavez Wichita State hbo Buckwild Steve Alford
Mathematicians from Queen Mary, University of London will bring researchers one-step closer to understanding how the structure of the brain relates to its function in two recently published studies.
Publishing in Physical Review Letters the researchers from the Complex Networks group at Queen Mary's School of Mathematics describe how different areas in the brain can have an association despite a lack of direct interaction.
The team, in collaboration with researchers in Barcelona, Pamplona and Paris, combined two different human brain networks - one that maps all the physical connections among brain areas known as the backbone network, and another that reports the activity of different regions as blood flow changes, known as the functional network. They showed that the presence of symmetrical neurons within the backbone network might be responsible for the synchronised activity of physically distant brain regions.
Lead author Vincenzo Nicosia, said "We don't fully understand how the human brain works. So far the focus has been more on the analysis of the function of single, localised regions. However, there isn't a complete model that brings the whole functionality of the brain together. Hopefully, our research will help neuroscientists to develop a more accurate map of the brain and investigate its functioning beyond single areas."
The research adds to the recent findings published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in which the QM researchers along with the Department of Psychiatry at University of Cambridge analysed the development of the brain of a small worm called Caenorhabditis elegans. In this paper, the team examined the number of links formed in the brain during the worm's lifespan, and observed an unexpected abrupt change in the pattern of growth, corresponding with the time of egg hatching.
"The research is important as it's the first time that a sharp transition in the growth of a neural network has ever been observed," added Dr Nicosia.
"Although we don't know which biological factors are responsible for the change in the growth pattern, we were able to reproduce the pattern using a simple economical model of synaptic formation. This result can pave the way to a deeper understanding of how neural networks grow in more complex organisms."
The Complex Networks group at Queen Mary is headed by Professor Vito Latora. Aside from theoretical research about the structure and function of complex networks, the group is working on the characterisation of multi-layer brain networks, aimed at reconciling and integrating different brain signals to produce a more informative picture of the human brain.
###
Queen Mary, University of London: http://www.qmul.ac.uk
Thanks to Queen Mary, University of London for this article.
This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.
This press release has been viewed 21 time(s).
Source: http://www.labspaces.net/128129/Mathematicians_help_to_unlock_brain_function
ovechkin one world trade center bks new dark knight rises trailer khloe and lamar oklahoma city thunder sunoco
This photo provided by the University of Connecticut shows a cicada in Pipestem State Park in West Virginia on May 27, 2003. Any day now, cicadas with bulging red eyes will creep out of the ground after 17 years and overrun the East Coast with the awesome power of numbers. Big numbers. Billions. Maybe even a trillion. For a few buggy weeks, residents from North Carolina to Connecticut will be outnumbered by 600 to 1. Maybe more. And the invaders will be loud. A chorus of buzzing male cicadas can rival a jet engine. (AP Photo/University of Connecticut, Chirs Simon)
This photo provided by the University of Connecticut shows a cicada in Pipestem State Park in West Virginia on May 27, 2003. Any day now, cicadas with bulging red eyes will creep out of the ground after 17 years and overrun the East Coast with the awesome power of numbers. Big numbers. Billions. Maybe even a trillion. For a few buggy weeks, residents from North Carolina to Connecticut will be outnumbered by 600 to 1. Maybe more. And the invaders will be loud. A chorus of buzzing male cicadas can rival a jet engine. (AP Photo/University of Connecticut, Chirs Simon)
A box of preserved cicadas, including emerging insects and molted exoskeletons, in storage at the Smithsonian Institution's Museum Support Center in Camp Springs, Md. on Tuesday, April 23, 2013. A brood of cicadas are expected to emerge this spring in the Washington area. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
This photo provided by the University of Connecticut, shows a cicada in Pipestem State Park in West Virginia on May 27, 2003. Any day now, cicadas with bulging red eyes will creep out of the ground after 17 years and overrun the East Coast with the awesome power of numbers. Big numbers. Billions. Maybe even a trillion. For a few buggy weeks, residents from North Carolina to Connecticut will be outnumbered by 600 to 1. Maybe more. And the invaders will be loud. A chorus of buzzing male cicadas can rival a jet engine.(AP Photo/University of Connecticut, Chirs Simon)
Gary Hevel, a research collaborator with the Dept. of Entomology at the National Museum of Natural History, holds up a preserved cicadas, a brood of which are expected to emerge this spring in the Washington area, at the Smithsonian Institution's Museum Support Center in Camp Springs, Md. on Tuesday, April 23, 2013. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Gary Hevel, a research collaborator with the Dept. of Entomology at the National Museum of Natural History, opens a case of preserved cicadas, a brood of which are expected to emerge this spring in the Washington area, from storage at the Smithsonian Institution's Museum Support Center in Camp Springs, Md. on Tuesday, April 23, 2013. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Any day now, billions of cicadas with bulging red eyes will crawl out of the earth after 17 years underground and overrun the East Coast. The insects will arrive in such numbers that people from North Carolina to Connecticut will be outnumbered roughly 600-to-1. Maybe more.
Scientists even have a horror-movie name for the infestation: Brood II. But as ominous as that sounds, the insects are harmless. They won't hurt you or other animals. At worst, they might damage a few saplings or young shrubs. Mostly they will blanket certain pockets of the region, though lots of people won't ever see them.
"It's not like these hordes of cicadas suck blood or zombify people," says May Berenbaum, a University of Illinois entomologist.
They're looking for just one thing: sex. And they've been waiting quite a long time.
Since 1996, this group of 1-inch bugs, in wingless nymph form, has been a few feet underground, sucking on tree roots and biding their time. They will emerge only when the ground temperature reaches precisely 64 degrees. After a few weeks up in the trees, they will die and their offspring will go underground, not to return until 2030.
"It's just an amazing accomplishment," Berenbaum says. "How can anyone not be impressed?"
And they will make a big racket, too. The noise all the male cicadas make when they sing for sex can drown out your own thoughts, and maybe even rival a rock concert. In 2004, Gene Kritsky, an entomologist at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati, measured cicadas at 94 decibels, saying it was so loud "you don't hear planes flying overhead."
There are ordinary cicadas that come out every year around the world, but these are different. They're called magicicadas ? as in magic ? and are red-eyed. And these magicicadas are seen only in the eastern half of the United States, nowhere else in the world.
There are 15 U.S. broods that emerge every 13 or 17 years, so that nearly every year, some place is overrun. Last year it was a small area, mostly around the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee. Next year, two places get hit: Iowa into Illinois and Missouri; and Louisiana and Mississippi. And it's possible to live in these locations and actually never see them.
This year's invasion, Brood II, is one of the bigger ones. Several experts say that they really don't have a handle on how many cicadas are lurking underground but that 30 billion seems like a good estimate. At the Smithsonian Institution, researcher Gary Hevel thinks it may be more like 1 trillion.
Even if it's merely 30 billion, if they were lined up head to tail, they'd reach the moon and back.
"There will be some places where it's wall-to-wall cicadas," says University of Maryland entomologist Mike Raupp.
Strength in numbers is the key to cicada survival: There are so many of them that the birds can't possibly eat them all, and those that are left over are free to multiply, Raupp says.
But why only every 13 or 17 years? Some scientists think they come out in these odd cycles so that predators can't match the timing and be waiting for them in huge numbers. Another theory is that the unusual cycles ensure that different broods don't compete with each other much.
And there's the mystery of just how these bugs know it's been 17 years and time to come out, not 15 or 16 years.
"These guys have evolved several mathematically clever tricks," Raupp says. "These guys are geniuses with little tiny brains."
Past cicada invasions have seen as many as 1.5 million bugs per acre. Of course, most places along the East Coast won't be so swamped, and some places, especially in cities, may see zero, says Chris Simon of the University of Connecticut. For example, Staten Island gets this brood of cicadas, but the rest of New York City and Long Island don't, she says. The cicadas also live beneath the metro areas of Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington.
Scientists and ordinary people with a bug fetish travel to see them. Thomas Jefferson once wrote about an invasion of this very brood at Monticello, his home in Virginia.
While they stay underground, the bugs aren't asleep. As some of the world's longest-lived insects, they go through different growth stages and molt four times before ever getting to the surface. They feed on a tree fluid called xylem. Then they go aboveground, where they molt, leaving behind a crusty brown shell, and grow a half-inch bigger.
The timing of when they first come out depends purely on ground temperature. That means early May for southern areas and late May or even June for northern areas.
The males come out first ? think of it as getting to the singles bar early, Raupp says. They come out first as nymphs, which are essentially wingless and silent juveniles, climb on to tree branches and molt one last time, becoming adult winged cicadas. They perch on tree branches and sing, individually or in a chorus. Then when a female comes close, the males change their song, they do a dance and mate, he explained.
The males keep mating ("That's what puts the 'cad' in 'cicada,'" Raupp jokes) and eventually the female lays 600 or so eggs on the tip of a branch. The offspring then dive-bomb out of the trees, bounce off the ground and eventually burrow into the earth, he says.
"It's a treacherous, precarious life," Raupp says. "But somehow they make it work."
___
Online:
http://www.cicadamania.com
http://www.magicicada.org/magicicada_ii.php
___
Seth Borenstein can be followed at http://twitter.com/borenbears
Associated Presshalle berry kurt cobain Kamala Harris URI Facebook Home Ncaa Basketball Tournament 2013 Robert Ebert
With the rate everyone's moving these days, it's nearly impossible to slow down and enjoy life even when you want to. Fortunately, you don't have to go through it alone. This week's set of Android apps are all about making your life easier, more organized, and with all the information you'll need just a finger swipe away.
     |
Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/XibD5m0uKOc/jiffy-indigo-and-more-489534812
Dave Grohl 121212 Cal State Fullerton Pacific Rim tumblr Ravi Shankar Geminid meteor shower
'Spring Breakers' star co-directed the clip, aiming for a '90s-inspired, gritty' vibe.
By Jocelyn Vena
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1706782/vanessa-hudgens-yla-video.jhtml
selection sunday NIT Tournament clay matthews Ncaa Tournament 2013 2013 NCAA Bracket leprechaun ides of march
FILE - In this July 20, 2004 file photo, Lance Armstrong reacts as he crosses the finish line to win the 15th stage of the Tour de France cycling race between Valreas, southern France, and Villard-de-Lans, French Alps. Armstrong is facing the federal government in a legal fight with tens of millions of dollars at stake, and a loss could bankrupt the cyclist who until last year ranked among the wealthiest and most popular athletes in the world. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong, File)
FILE - In this July 20, 2004 file photo, Lance Armstrong reacts as he crosses the finish line to win the 15th stage of the Tour de France cycling race between Valreas, southern France, and Villard-de-Lans, French Alps. Armstrong is facing the federal government in a legal fight with tens of millions of dollars at stake, and a loss could bankrupt the cyclist who until last year ranked among the wealthiest and most popular athletes in the world. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong, File)
FILE - In this July 20, 2004 file photo, Lance Armstrong waves from the podium after winning the 15th stage of the Tour de France cycling race between Valreas, southern France, and Villard-de-Lans, French Alps. Armstrong is facing the federal government in a legal fight with tens of millions of dollars at stake, and a loss could bankrupt the cyclist who until last year ranked among the wealthiest and most popular athletes in the world. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong, File)
MADRID (AP) ? Spanish prosecutors have opened an investigation into individuals involved in the Lance Armstrong doping scandal.
Spain's anti-doping agency said Friday that prosecutors in the eastern province of Alicante are examining the Spanish citizens mentioned in a report by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency into Armstrong's doping activities.
The USADA report that led to Armstrong's eventual confession that he had doped to win seven Tour de France titles from 1999-2005 mentions Spanish doctors Luis Garcia del Moral and Pedro Celaya and trainer Pepe Marti. Armstrong has since been stripped of his Tour titles and banned for life by USADA.
Spain's anti-doping agency said the investigation is currently limited to Alicante, although the USADA report indicates Armstrong's ring extended to other parts of Spain.
The move comes just days after a Madrid court found doctor Eufemiano Fuentes guilty of endangering the health of athletes through blood doping.
The court suspended Fuentes' one-year sentence and ordered the destruction of evidence that could implicate more athletes.
The judge's decision to destroy more than 200 blood bags has been heavily criticized by anti-doping organizations.
Armstrong's activities in Spain spanned from the mid-1990s through 2010. Doping was not considered a crime in Spain until 2006, meaning actions before then would have to be charged as endangering public health as in the Operation Puerto case against Fuentes.
Associated Pressj.k. rowling j.k. rowling axl rose google earnings pat burrell hilary rosen grilled cheese
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](http://www.eurekalert.org/images/back2e.gif){kind=small}
Public release date: 2-May-2013
Share ] Contact: Maria Jesus Delgado
MariaJesus.Delgado@uab.cat
34-935-814-049
Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona
Researchers at the Institute of Biotechnology at the Helsinki University and the Universitat Autnoma de Barcelona (UAB) have developed the first three-dimensional simulation of the evolution of morphology by integrating the mechanisms of genetic regulation that take place during embryo development. The study, published in Nature, highlights the real complexity of the genetic interactions that lead to adult organisms' phenotypes (physical forms), helps to explain how natural selection influences body form and leads towards much more realistic virtual experiments on evolution.
"Right now we have a lot of information on what changes in what genes cause what changes in form. But all this is merely descriptive. The issue is to understand the biological logic that determines which changes in form come from which changes in genes and how this can change the body", explains Isaac Salazar, a researcher at the University of Helsinki and in the Department of Genetics and Microbiology of the UAB, and lead author of the article. In nature this is determined by embryo development, during the life of each organism, and by evolution through natural selection, for each population and species.
But in the field of evolution of organisms it is practically impossible to set up experiments, given the long timescale these phenomena operate on. This means that there are still open debates, with hypotheses that are hard to prove experimentally. This difficulty is compensated for by the use of theoretical models to integrate in detail the existing experimental data, thus creating a virtual simulation of evolution.
The researchers used a theoretical model based on experiments on embryo development, on a previous study by the same authors, also published in Nature (Salazar-Ciudad and Jernvall, 2010), and on three different mathematical models of virtual evolution by natural selection of form. Evolution takes place virtually on the computer in populations of individuals in which each individual can mutate its genes, just as this works in nature. Through the development model, these produce new morphologies and natural selection decides which ones pass on to the next generation. By repeating the process in each generation, we can see evolution in action on the computer.
This simulation enables a comparison of the different hypotheses in the field of evolution regarding which aspects of morphology evolve most easily. The first vision is that all metric aspects of form contribute to adaptation and that, consequently, all are fine-tuned by evolution over time. The second vision is that some aspects of form have greater adaptive value and that the remainder evolve collaterally from changes in these. The third is that no aspect of form is intrinsically more important, but what is important adaptively is a complex measurement of the form's roughness.
"What we have found is that the first hypothesis is not possible and that the second is possible in some cases. Even if ecology favoured this type of selection (the first vision), embryo development and the relationship between genetic and morphological variation imposed by this is too complex for every aspect of morphology to have been fine-tuned. In one way, what we are seeing is that natural selection is constantly modelling body forms, but these are still a long way from perfection in many ways", points out Salazar.
###
The study was led by Isaac Salazar-Ciudad and involved the UAB trainee researcher Miquel Marn Riera. Part of it was completed by the "evo-devo" community (embryonic evolution and development) at the Institute of Biotechnology of the University of Helsinki and another part by the Research Group on Genomics, Bioinformatics and Evolution of the UAB.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 2-May-2013 Share ] Contact: Maria Jesus Delgado
MariaJesus.Delgado@uab.cat
34-935-814-049
Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona
Researchers at the Institute of Biotechnology at the Helsinki University and the Universitat Autnoma de Barcelona (UAB) have developed the first three-dimensional simulation of the evolution of morphology by integrating the mechanisms of genetic regulation that take place during embryo development. The study, published in Nature, highlights the real complexity of the genetic interactions that lead to adult organisms' phenotypes (physical forms), helps to explain how natural selection influences body form and leads towards much more realistic virtual experiments on evolution.
"Right now we have a lot of information on what changes in what genes cause what changes in form. But all this is merely descriptive. The issue is to understand the biological logic that determines which changes in form come from which changes in genes and how this can change the body", explains Isaac Salazar, a researcher at the University of Helsinki and in the Department of Genetics and Microbiology of the UAB, and lead author of the article. In nature this is determined by embryo development, during the life of each organism, and by evolution through natural selection, for each population and species.
But in the field of evolution of organisms it is practically impossible to set up experiments, given the long timescale these phenomena operate on. This means that there are still open debates, with hypotheses that are hard to prove experimentally. This difficulty is compensated for by the use of theoretical models to integrate in detail the existing experimental data, thus creating a virtual simulation of evolution.
The researchers used a theoretical model based on experiments on embryo development, on a previous study by the same authors, also published in Nature (Salazar-Ciudad and Jernvall, 2010), and on three different mathematical models of virtual evolution by natural selection of form. Evolution takes place virtually on the computer in populations of individuals in which each individual can mutate its genes, just as this works in nature. Through the development model, these produce new morphologies and natural selection decides which ones pass on to the next generation. By repeating the process in each generation, we can see evolution in action on the computer.
This simulation enables a comparison of the different hypotheses in the field of evolution regarding which aspects of morphology evolve most easily. The first vision is that all metric aspects of form contribute to adaptation and that, consequently, all are fine-tuned by evolution over time. The second vision is that some aspects of form have greater adaptive value and that the remainder evolve collaterally from changes in these. The third is that no aspect of form is intrinsically more important, but what is important adaptively is a complex measurement of the form's roughness.
"What we have found is that the first hypothesis is not possible and that the second is possible in some cases. Even if ecology favoured this type of selection (the first vision), embryo development and the relationship between genetic and morphological variation imposed by this is too complex for every aspect of morphology to have been fine-tuned. In one way, what we are seeing is that natural selection is constantly modelling body forms, but these are still a long way from perfection in many ways", points out Salazar.
###
The study was led by Isaac Salazar-Ciudad and involved the UAB trainee researcher Miquel Marn Riera. Part of it was completed by the "evo-devo" community (embryonic evolution and development) at the Institute of Biotechnology of the University of Helsinki and another part by the Research Group on Genomics, Bioinformatics and Evolution of the UAB.
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-05/uadb-3ss050213.php
whitney houston funeral live stream kevin costner whitney houston whitney houston funeral live pat buchanan slither slither naacp
