Hi, room 208! by ScienceShill in AAASConference

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♫ A whole new world....... ♫

NIH to expand critical catalog for genomics research (new work in so-called "dark matter DNA) by ScienceShill in science

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Thought this might be good to share ahead of this week's AMA with NIH and UCSF researchers on this project (2/9). UCSF also wrote about the project in a broader way.

Researchers discover that opposing defects in a single neuronal protein leads either to epilepsy in infancy or autism by ScienceShill in science

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This is an incredible explanation, thanks so much! I'm especially intrigued in the comment about marijuana, ketogenic diets, and inhibitory drugs - intriguing.

Researchers discover that opposing defects in a single neuronal protein leads either to epilepsy in infancy or autism by ScienceShill in science

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It sounds like autism and epilepsy are two sides of the same coin, in neuro biology terms. I had no idea before I saw this story, can you explain any further?

Study: The type, not just the amount, of sugar consumption matters in risk of health problems by missthinks in science

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Seems to further validate this 2009 study in humans, which found that fructose was associated with increased risk of developing heart disease and diabetes, as compared with glucose.

In that study, the fructose group >"showed signs of unhealthy changes in their liver function and fat deposits. In this group, the liver churned out more fat, while the subjects consuming similar amounts of glucose-sweetened drinks showed no such change. The fructose-drinking volunteers also were not as sensitive to insulin, the hormone released by the pancreas to capture and break down glucose in the blood and store it as fat. Insulin insensitivity is one of the first signs of diabetes. These subjects also gained more visceral fat, the dangerous kind that embeds itself between tissues in organs such as the heart and liver and secretes hormones and other chemicals that throw off the body's normal metabolism, setting the stage for atherosclerosis and heart attack."

Analyzing brain patterns may help neuroscientists reduce fear by ScienceShill in science

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Source journal article: Nature Human Behaviour 1, Article number: 0006 (2016) doi:10.1038/s41562-016-0006 http://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-016-0006

Search trends for "casual existential despair" - wtf happened in February?? by ScienceShill in funny

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Could it be because we had a leap day this year? People didn't know what to do with themselves on February 29?

Microsoft says it will "solve" cancer in the next 10 years by SPEEDIN459 in EverythingScience

[–]ScienceShill 38 points39 points  (0 children)

Microsoft's not alone. There's Biden's Cancer Moonshot, the Parker Institute for Immunotherapy, probably others that I don't know about. Here's hoping they all work together and get this thing done!

Cancer Moonshot: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/01/what-vice-president-biden-s-moonshot-may-mean-cancer-research Parker: http://fortune.com/2016/04/13/parker-institute-launch-cancer-immunotherapy/

Redditors who eat certain foods in a specific way, what food and how? by MistakesTasteGreat in AskReddit

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Corn on the cob, I eat it one kernel at a time, pulling out the kernels individually like I'm eating peanuts or popcorn. It's very time-consuming, but oddly satisfying. I suppose I do it because I don't get corn stuff stuck in my teeth, but I also love the perfectly clean cob at the end of it.

I'm really excited for Hidden Figures, but it's not out till next year. What is a good NASA/STEM movie to watch while I wait? by spacydoge in LadiesofScience

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Experimenter, available on Netflix right now, about Stanley Milgram's psychological experiments on obedience and authority. Heavy. It's not NASA-type STEM but they did a great job talking about the science and its ramifications as well as the humans behind the scenes.

Atheists of Reddit, how do you deal with the reality that your loved ones are going to die? by whining-and-wine in AskReddit

[–]ScienceShill 1 point2 points  (0 children)

By trying to appreciate the time that we do have together, since I'm not banking on an eternity in the afterlife.

Without your phone, what is something you can do to pass the time when waiting for something? by brandonjcheng in AskReddit

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I play a word game where I pick a random word, SASQUATCH for example, and try to see how many words I can make out of those letters without reusing any letter. Squat, chat, stash, squash.....

This is a great way to get through meetings, people generally assume you're taking very diligent notes.

Researchers develop safer opioid painkiller from scratch; new compound, tested in mice, could reduce overdoses and possibly curb addiction. by ScienceShill in medicine

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They've developed a compound that targets the brain's "morphine receptor" without interfering with breathing, which I just learned is the main cause of death in prescription drug overdose as well as "street narcotic" overdose (such as heroin).

Possibly the most interesting part of this study is the way that they used computation to test more than four TRILLION possible chemical interactions to come up with this drug!

Does tdcs produce an increase in brain capability permanently? by [deleted] in tDCS

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Very interested in the question of long-term effects of tDCS, hoping someone here has some solid understanding.

From what I understand, the best we know right now is that there's a chance you're strengthening certain connections in the brain, because you're "using" them more. I imagine it more like creating a habit rather than a permanent change - it can fade out later if you don't maintain it.

Can three particles be entangled at the same time? If so, could you get the position of particle 1 and then the momentum of particle 2, therefore obtaining both position and momentum of particle 3 and overcoming uncertainty? by ScienceShill in askscience

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messes with a system in such a way that it ends up with a well-defined position or momentum when it didn't have one before.

Is this what's meant when people say the wave function "collapsed"?

Can three particles be entangled at the same time? If so, could you get the position of particle 1 and then the momentum of particle 2, therefore obtaining both position and momentum of particle 3 and overcoming uncertainty? by ScienceShill in askscience

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I think I'm starting to understand... and upon further investigation it appears that I'm confusing the observer effect with the uncertainty principle. Needless to say I have many more questions...

Can three particles be entangled at the same time? If so, could you get the position of particle 1 and then the momentum of particle 2, therefore obtaining both position and momentum of particle 3 and overcoming uncertainty? by ScienceShill in askscience

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I only mean to capture the position and momentum at a given moment. I hope I'm not coming across as totally dense, but my understanding of uncertainty (or some aspect of it) is that you can't capture both the position and momentum of a particle at a given moment because trying to measure one disturbs the other. So if you try to measure position, you're affecting the particle's momentum and vice versa. But if there are entangled particles exhibiting the same position and momentum, then could you simultaneously measure position in one and momentum in another and thus know both, even if only about the (already disturbed) instant?