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Large glutamatergic, somatic synapses mediate temporally precise information transfer. In the ventral nucleus of the lateral lemniscus, an auditory brainstem nucleus, the signal of an excitatory large somatic synapse is sign inverted to generate rapid feedforward inhibition with high temporal acuity at sound onsets, a mechanism involved in the suppression of spurious frequency information. The mechanisms of the synaptically driven input–output functions in the ventral nucleus of the lateral lemniscus are not fully resolved. Here, we show in Mongolian gerbils of both sexes that, for stimulation frequencies up to 200 Hz, the EPSC kinetics together with short-term plasticity allow for faithful transmission with only a small increase in latency. Glutamatergic currents are exclusively mediated by AMPARs and NMDARs. Short-term plasticity is frequency-dependent and composed of an initial facilitation followed by depression. Physiologically relevant output generation is limited by the decrease in synaptic conductance through short-term plasticity (STP). At this endbulb synapse, STP acts as a low pass filter and increases the dynamic range of the conductance dependent input–output relation, while NMDAR signaling slightly increases the sensitivity of the input–output function. Our computational model shows that STP-mediated filtering limits the intensity dependence of the spike output, thus maintaining selectivity to sound transients. Our results highlight the interaction of cellular features that together give rise to the computations in the circuit.

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Auditory information processing in the brainstem is a prerequisite for generating our auditory representation of the environment. Thereby, many processing steps rely on temporally precise filtering. Precise feedforward inhibition is a key motif in auditory brainstem processing and produced through sign inversion at several large somatic excitatory synapses. A particular feature of the ventral nucleus of the lateral lemniscus is to produce temporally precise onset inhibition with little temporal variance independent of sound intensity. Our cell-physiology and modeling data explain how the synaptic characteristics of different current components and their short-term plasticity are tuned to establish sound intensity-invariant onset inhibition that is crucial for filtering out spurious frequency information.

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Did you miss a session from MetaBeat 2022? Head over to the on-demand library for all of our featured sessions here.

The software supply chain is not linear or simplistic: It is made up of many different components introduced at different times and in different phases.

And, today’s software supply chains only continue to grow in complexity — a mix of proprietary, open-source and third-party code, configurations, binaries, libraries, plugins and other dependencies.

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https://youtube.com/watch?v=VFeWQCpAeek&feature=share

“Transhumanism” — The intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally improving the human condition through applied reason, especially by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities. — whatistranshumanism.org.

“…I suppose I’ve been looking for Eden all my life. I think we all have. And I think that primeval communion between humanity and the rest of life did exist once, and perhaps still does in some pockets. But it is not available to modern people except in memory or longing. And the search can be damaging if it distracts you from the fact that, whatever horrors humanity unleashes, the world is still a wonder if we can just get out of our anxious minds long enough to see it. Which is easier written than done.
Both sides in the argument that runs through Alexandria my latest novel —nature versus culture, body versus mind, human versus machine—find that their worldview has holes in. That’s part of the point, I think. Our world is being eaten by this great, terrible machine, but the machine is a manifestation of us.
If my worldview has changed it is only to reveal to me that any “enemy” we might have is lodged firmly in each of our hearts, and that there is nowhere to escape to that doesn’t lead through it.”

About the Lecturer.

Paul Kingsnorth is an Orthodox English writer and thinker who lives in the west of Ireland. He is a former deputy-editor of The Ecologist and a co-founder of the Dark Mountain Project.

Kingsnorth’s nonfiction writing tends to address macro themes like environmentalism, globalisation, and the challenges posed to humanity by civilisation level trends. His fiction tends to be mythological and multi-layered.

Paul Kingsnorth’s debut novel, The Wake, won the 2014 Gordon Burn Prize and the Bookseller Book of the Year Award, as well as being longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Folio Prize and the Desmond Elliott Prize, and shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize. Beast, the second book in his Buckmaster Trilogy, was shortlisted for the RSL Encore Award 2017. He is also the author of the non-fiction books One No, Many Yeses, Real England, Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist and Savage Gods, as well as two poetry collections, Kidland and Songs from the Blue River.

Continue reading “**YOUTUBE Talk with Author PAUL KINGSNORTH about “The Coming Transhuman Future”” | >

Their results apply only to enhanced geothermal plants, like the ones Fervo and other companies such as Cambridge, Mass.–based Quaise Energy and Seattle-based AltaRock Energy are developing.

Conventional geothermal systems drill wells into naturally occurring hydrothermal reservoirs. But these pockets of hot water deep underground do not exist everywhere. In the United States, for instance, they are mostly located in the west.

Enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) get around this geographical limitation by creating artificial reservoirs. Developers create fractures in hot, dry rock formations by drilling into or melting the rock, and then injecting water into the fissures. Production wells bring the heated water up for producing electricity. “For scales necessary to contribute to national or global electricity decarbonization, we need to be able to extract geothermal heat outside of conventional formations,” Ricks says.

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Breakthrough AI programs can now generate videos from text input. The U.S. suicide rate and the prevalence of anxiety disorders are at all-time high. The White House has announced the “AI Bill of Rights.” What’s the connection between these 3 news items?

They all hint at how we will live our lives in the near future: As illusionists, making up imaginary worlds, fearing fabricated threats, led by conjurers, tricksters, and demagogues. For some, this prediction is already a good approximation of their present reality.

Let’s start with “AI,” the most exciting, confusing, and menacing technology of our times.

Are we already living in a “metaverse”?

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The innovative technique for the speedy repair and service of hypersonic weapons had passed stringent field tests in challenging combat settings.

IStock/estt.

Designed to be launched from an aircraft (not a carrier), these weapons can be used as anti-satellite weapons or go after a wide range of high-value targets in the air, according to the People’s Liberation Army researchers led by Xiao Jun, a scientist with the China Airborne Missile Academy in Luoyang, Henan province.

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The naturally ‘carbon-eating’ microorganisms could mean the farms will be carbon negative too.

Cultivating marine algae on land-based farms could meet future nutritional demands from society and enhance environmental sustainability, according to a new study published in Oceanography.

Protein-rich microalgae could be the answer to food insecurity.

Charles H. Greene.

The proposed development may exceed the 56 percent increase in food production needed to feed the 10 billion humans projected to be on the planet by 2050.

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A new study shows which factor plays a bigger role as we age.

There are many elements that determine how we age. This includes our genetics, the environment, and our age itself. But what key component has the most profound impact on aging?

According to a new study by researchers at the University of California — Berkeley, aging and the environment play more of a key role in determining our health in later years, than genetics. The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.

Aging affects health more than genes.

Genetics DNA

According to a new study by researchers at the University of California – Berkeley, aging and the environment play more of a key role in determining our health in later years, than genetics. The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.

Continue reading “Genetics plays less of a role than age in our health as we get older” | >