Posted in neuroscience
Summary: Researchers have identified a set of heat sensing neurons that prompt both nervous system and behavioral changes that help cool the body.
Source: NIH.
The body’s temperature is closely regulated. We sense temperature changes in the environment through specialized nerve cells in the outer layers of the skin. If we are too hot or too cold, our nervous system activates responses to help change our temperature. We can sweat to cool down or shiver to generate heat. Our blood vessels can constrict to conserve heat or expand to release heat. To avoid discomfort, we sometimes seek out different environments―choosing to go into an air conditioned room or sit by a heater.
Computation is stuck in a rut. The integrated circuits that powered the past 50 years of technological revolution are reaching their physical limits.
This predicament has computer scientists scrambling for new ideas: new devices built using novel physics, new ways of organizing units within computers and even algorithms that use new or existing systems more efficiently. To help coordinate new ideas, Sandia National Laboratories has assisted organizing the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) International Conference on Rebooting Computing held Oct. 17–19.
Researchers from Sandia’s Data-driven and Neural Computing Dept. will present three papers at the conference, highlighting the breadth of potential non-traditional neural computing applications.
Classifying aging as a disease, the debate is hotting up as ICD11 at WHO draws near.
What is considered to be normal and what is considered to be diseased is strongly influenced by historical context (Moody, 2001/2002). Matters once considered to be diseases are no longer classified as such. For example, when black slaves ran away from plantations they were labeled to suffer from drapetomania and medical treatment was used to try to “cure” them (Reznek, 1987). Similarly, masturbation was seen as a disease and treated with treatments such as cutting away the clitoris or cauterizing it (Reznek, 1987). Finally, homosexuality was considered a disease as recently as 1974 (Reznek, 1987). In addition to the social and cultural influence on disease definition, new scientific and medical discoveries lead to the revision of what is a disease and what is not (Butler, 2008). For example, fever was once seen as a disease in its own right but the realization that different underlying causes would lead to the appearance of fever changed its status from disease to symptom (Reznek, 1987). Conversely, several currently recognized diseases, such as osteoporosis, isolated systolic hypertension, and senile Alzheimer’s disease, were in the past ascribed to normal aging (Izaks and Westendorp, 2003; Gems, 2011). Osteoporosis was only officially recognized as a disease in 1994 by the World Health Organization (WHO, 1994).
Disease is a complex phenomenon and a current definition must consider both a biological and social explanation. The medical definition of disease is any abnormality of bodily structure or function, other than those arising directly from physical injury; the latter, however, may open the way for disease (Marcovitch, 2009). The disorder has a specific cause and recognizable signs and symptoms, and can affect humans, other animals, and plants (Martin, 2010). The social aspect of disease is significant when trying to divide a line between a healthy and a pathological state. This is a highly context and value driven process and, considering the WHO definition of health as a “state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity,” it is not as simple as classifying disease as the opposite of health (WHO, 1946). “Someone starving to death is not taken to have a disease, but is still not considered healthy” (Reznek, 1987).
For millennia the human experience has been governed by five senses, but advances in neuroscience and technology may soon give us a far broader perspective.
What counts as a sense in the first place is not clear cut. Sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch make up the traditional five senses, but our sense of balance and the ability to track the movement of our own body (proprioception) are both key sensory inputs. While often lumped in with touch, our temperature and pain monitoring systems could potentially qualify as independent senses.
These senses are also not as concrete as we probably believe. Roughly 4.4% of the population experiences synesthesia — where the stimulation of one sense simultaneously produces sensations in another. This can result in people perceiving colors when they hear sounds or associating shapes with certain tastes, demonstrating the potential fluidity of our senses.
In Brief.
Interscatter communication has enabled the first Wi-Fi communication between implanted devices, wearables, and smart devices.
Researchers from the University of Washington have created a new form of communication that allows devices like credit cards, smart contact lenses, brain implants, and smaller wearable electronics to use Wi-Fi to talk to everyday devices like watches and smartphones. It’s called “interscatter communication,” and it works by using reflections to convert Bluetooth signals into Wi-Fi transmissions in the air that can be picked up by smart devices.
