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Comment Re:Why not repeat the genome sequencing? (Score 1) 123

Well, my first response is, feel free to try it.

But remember the source material is one individual's genetic material. I believe in the original study they repeated the chemistry many times to be sure the findings were consistent. Assuming you can get this individual to give you some DNA why do you think it won't be contaminated as well. Remember that there are a large number of genes that have not been associated with some function. Personally I think it is more important to figure out what the proteins are doing and how they work together than worry about a 1% error in the bookkeeping.

Comment 50 years of ephaptic transmission (Score 2) 287

Ephaptic transmission was a buzzword in the 1950-60's, just google it. Yes it can be demonstrated to exist but it is way out of the mainstream.

In pre-digital telephones there was a phenomenon called crosstalk where you could here faintly and sporadically someone else's conversation. Imagine if you were studying the phone system to try and discover how the city or country "thinks". Would you spend a lot of time analyzing the crosstalk?

Oh, and notice that this research was done in brain slices, Perhaps the effects are even less prominent in intact brains.

Comment Re:Evolutionary perspective (Score 1) 223

From the abstract, it's a Calcium-activated Potassium channel (BK) that leads to the smooth muscle relaxation.

agonist > TAS2R (a GPCR) > Gaq > plB > IP3 > ^Ca++ > open BK > hyperpolarization > close voltage-sensitive CaV channels > relaxation

Maybe this study explains the action of Vick's Vapor Rub or the eucalyptus oil ingredient.

Comment Re:Should read: Low res grainy 2D video (Score 1) 207

The 3-D video is still in Texas. Actually they probably haven't assembled it into a "glasses version". They are probably planning to let users "focus through" and select their z-depth and see the section there. They could also allow viewing from any angle. The voxels are all in the computer, they haven't hired on the producer to make the fancy version. The viewer has to be sitting at their computer choosing the POV and depth.

Resolution here refers to the distance between two resolvable features in the specimen, not the height of the viewing screen. They claimed it to be 6 micrometers, I'd guess that refers to all three directions. The whole heart sac is about 0.2 mm across so they have about 30 "grains" across the heart. Going to 4 micrometers in the z direction should be easy, just an expensive commercial laser upgrade. Going to 2 or better in the x-y direction depends on scanners, the a-d rate and the ability to dump it into ram. I don't think anyone is doing 2 micrometer z-resolved OCT.

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