Brainpower May Lie in Complexity of Synapses

We always if we were smarter than chimps (or at least baboons).
Here is clinical proof as to why the human brain has a better handle on complexity.

This article profiles a whole new dimension of evolutionary complexity has now emerged from a cross-species study led by Dr. Seth Grant at the Sanger Institute in England.

clipped from www.nytimes.com Evolution’s recipe for making a brain more complex has long seemed simple enough. Just increase the number of nerve cells, or neurons, and the interconnections between them. A human brain, for instance, is three times the volume of a chimpanzee’s. The computing capabilities of the human brain may lie not so much in its neuronal network as in the complex calculations that its synapses perform, Dr. Grant said. Vertebrate synapses have about 1,000 different proteins, assembled into 13 molecular machines, one of which is built from 183 different proteins. These synapses are not standard throughout the brain, Dr. Grant’s group has found; each region uses different combinations of the 1,000 proteins to fashion its own custom-made synapses. Each synapse can presumably make sophisticated calculations based on messages reaching it from other neurons. The human brain has about 100 billion neurons, interconnected at 100 trillion synapses.

36 Hours in Knoxville

Along with most of my favorite people, I grew up in Knoxville. Perhaps it was the migratory instinct of the young and the restless, but just about everyone from High School has flown the coop. There has, however, always remained this sticky pride and underdog yearning for Knoxvegas to gain some street cred. That day may have come!

(And, there are no better poster-making poster children than the KnoxPopArt promoters, Yee-Haw Industries.)

clipped from travel.nytimes.com Shawn Poytner for The New York Times. Making art in the form of posters at Yee-Haw Industries. KNOXVILLE is often called “the couch” by the people who live there. It’s a place too unassuming to shout about but too comfortable to leave. The city, the third largest in Tennessee behind Nashville and Memphis, is also referred to as Knoxpatch, Knoxvegas and for those prone to irony and finger pistols, K-town, baby. The truth is, Knoxville, cheerfully ensconced in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains and banked against the Tennessee River, has an intrinsically lazy, soulful feel. The geography is soft, green and rolling. The climate is gentle, breezy and bright. Locals tend to be not just friendly — a given in most Southern towns — but chilled out, too. This is not the Old South of magnolias and seersucker so much as a modern Appalachia of roots music, locavore food, folk art and hillbilly pride. Or, as yet another city moniker aptly states, “Austin without the hype.”

FastCompany's Top Jobs

Animator, travel writer and interaction designer I've done.

"Brew Master" and "Flavorist" I pursued in the 90's as an amateur single man living in Uptown Chicago.

But "sensory brander" and "sleep instructor" sound like excuses I make around the house when I'm shirking my spousely chores.

And "Graphic Facilitator" didn't even make the list!

clipped from www.fastcompany.com

How to Unleash Your Creativity

"Experts discuss tips and tricks to let loose your inner ingenuity"
By Mariette DiChristina

clipped from www.sciam.com In a discussion with Scientific American Mind executive editor Mariette DiChristina, three noted experts on creativity, each with a very different perspective and background, reveal powerful ways to unleash your creat­ive self. John Houtz is a psychologist and professor at Fordham University. His most recent book is The Educational Psychology of Creativity (Perspectives on Creativity Research) (Hamptom Press, 2002). Julia Cameron is an award-winning poet, playwright and filmmaker. Her book The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 2002) has sold more than three million copies worldwide. Her latest book is The Writing Diet. Robert Epstein is a visiting scholar at the University of California, San Diego. Contributing editors for Scientific American Mind and former editor in chief of Psychology Today, Epstein has written several books on creativity, including The Big Book of Creativity Games (McGraw-Hill, 2000). I, too, have found the creative process to be teachable and trackable.

Twitter + Health Care

Twitter for health and healthcare

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The 7th of 8 slidesets from the invited speaker sessions with David Rothman and Patricia F. Anderson at the 2008 Medical Library Association annual meeting. Four topics were from Patricia and are here, the other four are in David's account.

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On the Road with Tony Blair

Graphic facilitator Sita Magnuson has been traveling the world, scribing as she goes.

She has scribed for groups in New Dehli, Bangkok. She has scribed for leaders such as Harmid Karzai in Kabul, and most recently, Tony Blair at the Economic World Forum in Egypt--which made Time Magazine on-line!

Visit Sita's website for more travel adventures.

clipped from www.time.com Illustrated Man During a seminar that Blair gave at the World Economic Forum in Sharm El Sheihk, his words (and those of other speakers at the event) were rendered on a white board as he spoke. The comment "You are crazy to try" was made to the former Prime Minister in regard to his effort to bring peace to Northern Ireland.

NPR: High-Tech Pen Makes Note-Taking Easier

I have just tested the LiveScribe SmartPen and might be in love.

This pen is a digital audio recorder and camera built into a large ballpoint pen. It timestamps every note I take using the special spiral-bound notebook with almost imperceptible dot-matrixed paper.

After I finish taking notes, i click the pen on the part of the image or text and the audio recorder plays back whatever was being recorded at that time.

Now, if they can just come out with a 4' x 8' whiteboard version with multiple colors and a portable Aeron chair with lumbar support, I'd be set!

clipped from www.npr.org Morning Edition, April 21, 2008 · A California company has invented a new pen. It features a camera mounted on the nib and a microphone that records audio, along with a docking cradle that allows uploads to a computer. But some note-takers still prefer quiet, old-fashioned pens and paper.

Older Brain Really May Be a Wiser Brain

In working with many diverse groups of people, coming together to solve complex problems, I am absolutely flummoxed by this paradox: young minds struggle with complex, inter-related problems, while "more mature" minds struggle to learn new concepts.

Rather than throw both brains out with the bathwater (what a badly mixed metaphor!) how best do we design collaborative projects and discussions that accommodate all brains, whether wily, worldly or wise?

clipped from www.nytimes.com Yarek Waszul When older people can no longer remember names at a cocktail party, they tend to think that their brainpower is declining. But a growing number of studies suggest that this assumption is often wrong. Instead, the research finds, the aging brain is simply taking in more data and trying to sift through a clutter of information, often to its long-term benefit. The studies are analyzed in a new edition of a neurology book, “Progress in Brain Research.” For example, in studies where subjects are asked to read passages that are interrupted with unexpected words or phrases, adults 60 and older work much more slowly than college students. Although the students plow through the texts at a consistent speed regardless of what the out-of-place words mean, older people slow down even more when the words are related to the topic at hand. That indicates that they are not just stumbling over the extra information, but are taking it in and processing it.

ManBabies.com

I have a new baby. And I am a man. But this site makes me concerned about taking any photographs with my genetic off-spring that might make it on the interweb. ManBabies.com show us a truer side of fathers, and the children we embarrass.

GET MORE AT ManBabies.com!

( Spotted on Kevin Kelly's del.icio.us page!? )