In more news...
US Sitting at 8th Place with murders by firearms right between Costa Rica and Uruguay.

Wikipedia usually doesn't steer us wrong
US has the most Guns per Resident"

But Michael Moore addressed this with Bowling for Columbine and he was right on. They have violent video games in Japan, yet Japanese teens gun prone to violence. Modify the gun laws.

I will be the fear monger here.
Read this shit
It's scary as hell! Maybe the US needs the technology to counter people like this--the drug cartel is running havoc.

Look at history. There have been many instances where the public (not some activists lawmaker) DIDN'T want science to be self regulating. For example, when it was revealed through newspaper articles in the 1960s that scientists were conducting experiments on cats and dogs, the enraged public (we're talking tens of thousands) wrote their congressmen and pushed for regulation. Hence, the creation of the 1966 Animal Welfare Act and many other regulatory legislation pieces since then, as well as the formation of several oversight agencies, like OLAW and IACUC. If the masses wanted deregulation, with enough pressure and letters/emails it could happen. Unlikely, but it could. Okay, maybe I'm just being imaginative.

So many great discoveries happen by accident, like Penicillin for example (what if Fleming did not leave his windows open and those petri dishes out). 3% of the GDP towards R&D will not guarantee the next big thing but it sure as hell helps the chance of stumbling upon it.

If our academic scientists didn't have to spend 80% of their time writing hundreds of abstracts in the hope for one grant and could instead DO science and be in the lab, new discoveries may start to unfold left and right.

I asked some of my friends at Microsoft about that and they told me that yes Microsoft posts jobs still but there exists a hiring freeze throughout the company in almost every department. So they may accept resumes, screen, but won't hire.

"Hey Obama, your so fine, your so fine, you blow my mind....hey OBAMA!...hey OBAMA!"

-Randy

I know...I always get fMRI and PET mixed up. I guess my comment's not that informative.

This study CORRELATES high intake of caffeine to auditory/visual hallucinations--and ASSUMES caffeine came first. What if people who are already prone to having these hallucinations tend to consume more caffeine?

Another correlation of this nature is that people with schizophrenia are ~75% likely to smoke and others with mental illness are prone to this trend as well. Source Here.

Also, this study was held at a university, and their test subjects are freshmen/sophomore level psych majors looking to get extra credit in their 300 level class. These students are already stressed about exams, relationships, money, and the fact they will probably have to work at Starbucks when they graduate because they got a Pysch degree--so to suggest that the sample is not bias in that way (and is indeed not anymore stressed than the regular adult population) is unscientific.

Unfortunately, this 3D MRI can not be applied to imaging the human brain yet.

One problem is that though this machine has great spatial resolution (precision in space)....it may not have great temporal resolution (precision in time).

In regards to your curiosity about imaging dendritic connections: It may image where/how the connections are made, which is a great leap for Neuroanatomists. But it cannot measure or record the hundreds of thousands of mechanisms and live actions that the dendrites/axons/cell bodies and their connections make during every one action potential that takes place...Even if this machine could measure outside the nanoscale.

Here's why: Neurons may fire a number of action potentials in millisecond time and increase/decrease in volume as the influx of sodium brings in water into the cell causing it to expand. As enough sodium (positively charged particals) are in the cell causing a depolarization, the voltage-gated ion channels shut off and K+ outflux/Na+ influx ceases. The cell hyperpolarizes, shrinks in volume and it's morphology is changed drastically once again. To capture all this change with such fine resolution is a feat, that sadly, cannot be accoplished by this 3D Machine--since everything it measures must be fixed and perfectly still. What neuroscientist use now for "partial real time brain imaging" is a function MRI or fMRI which measure changes in metabolism (glucose metabolism to be exact) but compromises the great spatial resolution this 3D machine has for the temporal resolution.

I can see why you are cynical about pharmaceutical companies, with respect to the epilepsy you have had to deal with. Epilepsy is one of the most distressful neurological diseases there is. The drugs available are horrid and brain surgery to sever the corpus callosum for a chance to relieve seizures is so drastic. And it doesn't help that the major neurological drug companies are spending money to treat mostly psychological problems, rather than truly high risk brain diseases.

But let me defend the evil pharmaceutical companies that people like me work for. I have worked for both the public (academia) and the private sectors so I have some experience to compare. When investors put money into a company it drives research. It is something about valuing time more than money that allows these companies to attract talented researchers, the most cutting edge equipment and supplies to facilitate fast pace research. And what we are working towards, I assure you, is a cure. It is not for discovery of an obscure biological feature or to say oh neat, how interesting, and move along to the next thing. It is to make a product that has value and can be sold... quickly. That product must either cure the disease or work better than the competitors as a treatment for the disease. We cherry pick as much useful information as we can from the widely published public sector and use that as the backbone to rationalize our research, but it is the private sector that ultimately provides us with the drugs we need.

I hope that as advances in neuroscience come along, epilepsy will be a thing of the past. I am hopeful because great strides in brain imaging have and are continuing to take place and scientists are beginning to get past the tip of understanding the brain iceberg and how it works, how it can go wrong, and how we can treat problems.

I'm in the Cancer Biotech industry. For all laymens out there who don't get how this mechanism works, allow me to explain with the played out "lock and key" analogy that is taught in every biology class ever. Remember, I'm compromising some scientific accuracy to explain the concept. Everyone knows that it must be done so people can understand, even those writing for scientific journals. So for all the science geeks, please don't troll this looking to correct every nuance.

Background info....Think of these antigens the article is referring to as extremely unique binding sites ("locks"). A cell can have a variety of locks on the cell surface. Some exist to bind to only one other molecule or binding site of another specific cell. So for anything to bind this lock, it must work like an incredibly precise lock and key mechanism. Our immune's adaptive systems (that is, T cells) go around with their "set of keys"** to every cell they come across and see if they fit into the "cell's lock" (remember, that's the antigen). These T cells have keys to fit the "locks" of bacteria, viruses, tumors, or any foreign, non-human cells that's there. That is why when you come across the same flu virus you were immunized against, the T cells, already having the right "key" made, can bind to the cell and cause cell death. But if it's a new flu virus, with the lock even slightly modified by a few DNA mutations, the T-cell's keys must be made to fit once again (this takes ~2 weeks and requires B cells, antibody production, etc).

Now to get to the tumor part....Tumors with tumor-specific antigens (TSAs) will fit the keys of T-cells once the keys are made. I recall someone asking "what if the immune cells kill healthy tissue?" There are "locks" called TAAs (tumor associated antigens) that are present on normal and tumor cells...they will all be destroyed. (Thankfully you can regenerate most of your healthy tissue--the rationale behind using toxic chemotherapeutics that target healthy and cancer tissue).

Now to actually explain the article's research....So effectively what this research is trying to accomplish IS THIS: release a barrel of locks around the tumor that will ONLY bind to the tumor. ALLOW your T-cells and other immune cells to use their "keys" to BIND the huge number of locks and activate cell death of the tumor cells. Currently, most research of biologic cancer drug development is focused on producing the right "key" for the naturally occurring "locks" that are present on cancer cells. Let me say that this research is a great approach--why not make and put the locks there?

Side note and extra info for fun....It's easy to think that one method of research is going to replace another. But the new trend is hitting cancer cells with EVERYTHING at once. That is, chemotherapy + biologic + barrel of "locks" + whatever else is out there. In addition, another trend that may occur is treating cancer like a CHRONIC illness, like diabetes. You've all seen how at best we can only kill 90-99% of tumor cells (at least, our imaging technology can only pick up small malignancy, not individual tumor cells)....so imagine getting cancer treatment intermittently every 2-5 years, but never experiencing symptoms of cancer (ie sickness, death)...I just thought I'd share that extra stuff. Now that I'm done with my essay I guess I should get back to my cancer research. Thanks for reading all the way through, and please comment.

**For the science geek: Yes Yes, I know the role antibodies play as the "set of keys" T-cells use...I think it would compromise the easy of explanation if I got into all that

Star Nosed Mole