This calls for a happy happy joy joy dance: a new track of the new album by the awesome Dangue fever. If only their success were as pandemic as the origin of their name…
Dengue fever - Cannibal courtship (Fantasy, 19-04-2011) www.denguefevermusic.com
Sample the album here: www.concordmusicgroup.com/albums/Cannibal-Courtship/
Or watch this to understand why you should be wetting your pants right about now
Sroeng Santi - Kuen kuen lueng lueng (in: Thai? Dai!: The heavier side of the Luk Thung underground (Finders keepers, 24/01/2011) www.finderskeepersrecords.com/discog_fkr044.html
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The stepkids - Shadows on behalf (2011) http://thestepkidsband.com/
object height="81" width="100%"> The Stepkids - Shadows On Behalf by stonesthrow
Princeton - To the Alps (2011) www.myspace.com/princetonmusic
Kimbra - Settle down (2011) www.myspace.com/kimbramusic
Grails – All the colors of the dark (from: Deep politics, Temporary residence 22/02/2011) http://grailsongs.com
In terms of popular science, the effect a biological field of study has on nonprofessionals, and the gap between scientific knowledge and its social perception, neurology is the direct heir of genetics. Just as genetic knowledge (even the one available at the time) has been unfortunately ridiculed and grotesquely portrayed by preposterous ideas such as the selfish gene, so does neurological knowledge get twisted and wrongfully represented to both scientists and laymen. The current state of affairs is that there are (at best) brain regions or (at worst) neurons dedicated for a single purpose (be it real or ludicrous) and virtually every aspect of behavior can be broken down to the operation of an atomistic unit. I won't go into a thorough analysis of why this representation is misguided and wrong, and for now I would like just to highlight the gap between the basic science of neurology and the extreme lengths that the thin layer of available knowledge has taken neurological theory. A team of American scientists reports a groundbreaking observation: neurons are a two-way transfer system. Neurons (nerve cells) are made of a cell body and several connections to other neurons. These connections are divided to dendrites that handle incoming electrical stimuli and to axons, which are responsible for the outgoing electrical stimuli. The axon of one neuron transmits its electrical charge to another neuron's dendrites, and thus propagate messages across the neural system. The intersection between an axon and a dendrite is called a synapse. This division of labor has been considered fundamental in neurology, but now the new research shows that axons are actually a two-way street since they can conduct current also back to the cell body. This study continues to reveal also that axons can perform autonomous computations prior to sending a current back to the cell body, and that these computations are three magnitudes slower than dendritic ones.
With computation taking place now at two different elements in the neuron (and with a considerable difference in speed) and communication being a two-way road, much of what we know about how neural systems has to be reconsidered. Basically, it was demonstrated that a neuron can continue to fire (send messages) long after the original stimuli had stopped. What it all amounts to is a form of cellular memory.
This paper also describes another novel neuronal behavior, for which the authors have no explanation: when one neuron was stimulated, firing was detected in another neuron, without any dendritic activity. That means that the axons themselves were communicating, i.e. another piece of data that goes against the grain of current knowledge.
Sheffield MEJ et al. 2011. Slow integration leads to persistent action potential firing in distal axons of coupled interneurons. Nature Neuroscience. 14 (2): 200-207
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