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Comment corrections (Score 1) 44

They record calcium activity in neurons. Calcium is a marker of neuronal activity (although the dynamics are slower than electrical ones). Calcium recording in the nematode is difficult, because the neurons are small, and the spread of calcium is very broad. The method is impressive and a great breakthrough. However...

1. A brain is a center of the nervous system. It's not strictly correct to speak of brains of nematodes. They don't have this separation of their nervous system. In the article they write of the anterior nervous system of the nematode, and say that their technique could be applied to brains of other animals. 2. The short clip is not a recording of all neurons. It's 70% of the neurons contained in the head ganglia.

Some people here speak of the mapping of the network. This was already done in 1986. The nematode is highly stereotypic. It's known what neurons there are (they all have acronyms), how many, and what they are connected to. The weight of these connections is not clear yet however. What is not clear are the associated neurotransmitters to these synapses and the strength of synapses. This determines how strongly neurons modulate each other and if the modulation is excitatory or inhibitory.

With some caveats in place, the potential of the recordings based on this technique is to help to get to the connection strengths, and to a functional connection diagram that then can potentially be used for predicting the animals behavior.

Government

Man Barred From Being Alone With Daughter After Informing Police of Porn On PC 777

First time accepted submitter robably writes "A man who informed police when he found child abuse images on his computer has not been allowed to be alone with his daughter for four months. Nigel Robinson from Hull said he called police after trying to download music but instead finding pornographic images on his laptop last November. As a result social services said he 'should not have unsupervised access with his own or other children.'"
Biotech

Submission + - Avian Flu (H5N1): Debate between Researchers and Biosecurity Advisory Board (sciencemag.org)

rackeer writes: "Exchanging research results is at the heart of the scientific method. However, there are concerns about whether investigations of pandemics, which possibly constitute a threat to the whole population of earth, should be shared. The debate about research on the avian flu was discussed on slashdot before. Now the main parties have their own 2 cents to say. On-line on the science magazine are commentaries both by by authors of the paper in question, who went ahead with the publication, and by the national advisory board for biosecurity, who advised against publishing."

Comment Re:Careful study by authors who've never met a wom (Score 2) 472

Well... you are right, partly, I think, in pointing out that there's still a lot of bullshit around. However, it is known that culture is, in fact, a very powerful mechanism (I think you can come up yourself with a bunch of examples). It is sometimes quite difficult to distinguish between cultural and biological factors, however, what is interesting in this study, I think, is that did an international comparison of boys vs girls' math scores and compared these to different socio-economic factors. I have to admit, I didn't take the time to read all of it, but they actually show a pretty convincing scatter plot between gender equality index and girls' math performance relative to boys'. If you don't look at anything else, look at that plot.

What about other factors that are different between genders?

I don't know about relative levels of aggression, I guess it is pretty much established that aggression level is at least partly determined by testosterone level and related hormones. An elevated level of aggression (btw, Lorenz defines aggression as social dominance behavior) would affect professional (or leadership) ambition, but I would guess that a lot of that (missing ambition) has to do with gender roles and legislation (parental leave, etc). Language ability? I think, somebody should do a study showing that the more time female caretakers spend with the child, the bigger the gender gap. Sounds like a challenge.

Submission + - Nobel Peace Price goes to African and Arab Women (nytimes.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The nobel peace prize for 2011 was awarded today to three women from Liberia and Yemen. The winners were Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first elected female president, liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee and Tawakul Karman of Yemen, a pro-democracy activist

Comment Re:even more damning is the guardian (Score 1) 296

I wouldn't assume is was deliberate. He's probably just incompetent and was showing off. Now he tries to give the blame to somebody else: wikileaks, Assange. Just guessing: after the relationship between the guardian and Assange got bad (after they published critical stories about the rape charges), he doesn't have to work so hard to convince people around him.

Comment Repay city? (Score 3, Informative) 488

I just RTFA. It says the money is to
repay the city for its efforts in trying to regain control over the FiberWAN network and later test it for vulnerabilities. City officials had been worried that Childs, who helped set up the network but clashed with his supervisors, might try to sabotage it.
Mind, he already spent 2 years in custody and was convicted to 4 years of jail.
Social Networks

Submission + - Wikipedia flights with retention of contributors (wikimedia.org) 1

rackeer writes: "According to wikipedia's Editor Trends Study, active contributors are leaving, and new contributors don't stay with the project and make up a continuously smaller share of the total number of contributors. A whitepaper by the wikimedia foundation proposes top priorities based on this study. One of these priorities is the creation of a climate which is positive towards newcomers. What is your opinion of what should change?"

Comment Re:I'm ok with a new toolkit, but C is a mistake. (Score 1) 115

I agree that C should not be the way to go for application programming. Developers should value their own time more than they value the computer's time, even more so that computers get so fast and interpreter implementations so good that the difference is hardly noticeable. When I am looking for applications to use and have the choice of one programmed in C/C++/C#/Java and one programmed in python, I'll choose python, because I assume that the code quality is better.

Idle

Submission + - France launches first 3D porn channel (dbune.com)

abhatt writes: A network in France has launched what is believed to be the first 3D adult film service in the country.

The service was launched by renowned French adult movie actor, Marc Dorcel. All the programs were shot in the 3D format and the creators believe that this unique channel will allow viewers to enjoy the porn in a new and exciting way.

Media

Submission + - What is Flattr and How to Use It (myoutsourcedbrain.com)

rackeer writes: Recently the story was slashdotted that Flattr was one of the very few sites that still accepted donations to wikileaks. However even on slashdot, many people haven't heard of this relatively new microdonation platform. This is because, although it has an impressive growth to show, Flattr is still young, in an early stage of development, and users are mostly European. This article explains what flattr is, why people should know about it, how to make money with it, and how to donate. It also shows how to integrate it with any website.

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