capacities

Scientists want to figure out how individuals can tell whether someone or something else has a mental life. http://louisajasheehan.blogspot.कॉम Controversial studies have addressed whether chimpanzees and children with autism are capable of making such an inference about others.

However, investigators shouldn't assume that organisms perceive another's mind as a single entity, assert psychologist Heather M. Gray of Harvard University and her colleagues. Instead, people attribute to others two distinct dimensions of mental activity, Gray's team reports in the Feb. 2 Science.

The researchers dub one dimension of mind perception "experience," meaning a capacity for feeling hunger, fear, pain, rage, desire, pride, embarrassment, and joy. This dimension also implies the presence of self-awareness and a distinctive personality.

The other dimension, "agency," refers to a capacity for self-control, morality, memory, emotion recognition, planning, communication, and thought.

The researchers surveyed 2,399 people via the Internet। Participants rated pairs of characters described on the survey on one of 18 mental capacities, for example, deciding which member of the pair was more able to feel pain। The pair members were also rated in six other ways, such as which was the more likable character. Characters included a frog, a chimpanzee, a human fetus, a baby, a 5-year-old girl, a man in a persistent vegetative state, an adult woman, God, and a robot that interacts with people.http://louisajasheehan.blogspot.com

Volunteers' responses often broke down along the two mind-perception dimensions. For instance, participants felt that characters rated high in agency—such as the active adults—deserved punishment for a misdeed, but participants most wanted to avoid inflicting harm on the characters ranked high in experience, such as the young girl.

Participants perceived God as having much agency but little experience.

hearing

It may be time to rethink the stereotype of grunting, wordless Neandertals। The prehistoric humans may have been quite chatty — at least if the ear canals of their ancestors are any indication। http://louis2j2sheehan2esquire.blogspot.com

The findings suggest human speech may have originated earlier than some researchers contend. Anthropologists disagree about whether language sprang up rapidly around 50,000 years ago or emerged more gradually over a longer period of time, says Rolf Quam, a paleoanthropologist at the American Natural History Museum in New York and coauthor of the new study.

The auditory bones of 530,000-year-old skulls indicate that an early human species called Homo heidelbergensis may have heard sounds much the way people do today. H. heidelbergensis are thought to be an ancestor of Neandertals. The findings could reignite debate about whether Neandertals could speak, Quam and colleagues report. The study is the first to use a fossil to reconstruct sensory perception in any Homo species, they add.

The skulls are from a site in Atapuerca, Spain called Sima de los Huesos, or “pit of the bones.” The Atapuerca research team, which includes members from many disciplines and universities, used CT scanning of the skulls to reconstruct the size and shape of the ear canals, Quam says.

NOT HARD OF HEARINGLike in modern humans (shown in solid blue), the ear canal of H. heidelbergensis (shown in red and magenta lines) had a peak in auditory sensitivity in the frequency range from 2 kilohertz to 4 kilohertz, where much spoken information is transmitted. Chimpanzees (shown in solid green) have a dip in sensitivity in that range. I. Martinez et al

The length of the ear canal determines what frequencies of sound waves resonate, and are therefore heard more easily, says Sunil Puria of Stanford University, who models hearing patterns from ear structure.

The geometry of the ear canal reveals that the hearing patterns of H. heidelbergensis overlapped with those of modern-day humans. Both modern people and the ancient hominids have especially sharp hearing in the 2 kilohertz to 4 kilohertz frequency range, where much of the sound energy of spoken language is transmitted। http://louis2j2sheehan2esquire.blogspot.com

Chimpanzees, the closest living relatives of Homo sapiens, by contrast, have a dip in sensitivity around 4 kilohertz, says Mark Coleman of Midwestern University’s campus in Glendale, Ariz। Coleman studies primate hearing but was not involved in the study। “Of course primates can differentiate sounds related to speech — so can my dog — the key is that humans appear to have a maximum sensitivity in the range that contains a lot of overtones in speech।” http://louis2j2sheehan2esquire.blogspot.com

The results don’t necessarily show that the ancient humans could speak, Quam says. “We're saying that the ear changed for some reason and that those changes facilitated the possibility of language development,” he says. The team reported the findings July 3 in Paris during the Acoustics ’08 conference.

Researchers have long tried to determine whether Neandertals could speak by reconstructing their vocal tracts, Quam says. But soft tissue makes up most of the voice box, so few traces remain in the fossil record. The ear is a better candidate because the bony structure reveals more about hearing capacity.

But, says Coleman, the model Quam and colleagues used to reconstruct the ear requires researchers to input many different variables — including characteristics such as the elasticity of ligaments that are no longer present in the fossils. “You kind of have to make some assumptions, and I worry that at some point the assumptions of the models are going to break down.”

If H. heidelbergensis did have modern hearing capacity, however, it’s logical to assume they had a primitive form of human communication, he adds. Though it’s possible that H. heidelbergensis could hear in that frequency range but didn’t use that ability for anything special, “sensory systems are extremely neurologically expensive,” Coleman says. It’s unlikely that the body would invest the resources in maintaining such a system if it didn’t serve a purpose, he says.

The research comes on the heels of an April Molecular Biology and Evolution study showing that Neandertals had two genes that are similar to those implicated in language development in humans but differ from those in chimpanzees.

beta

This A-beta peptide fibril has been rendered in 3-D by a transmission electron microscope, providing the most detailed look yet at the telltale sign of Alzheimer's disease. While we still do not know just how Alzheimer's progresses or what role the fibrils play, they are always found in Alzheimer's-ridden brains and are considered diagnostic markers of the disease. Marked by the red glow, A-beta peptide may give birth to Alzheimer’s disease through mechanisms still unknown. "It could be that the fibrils are toxic outside the cells, killing the neurons," says Nikolaus Grigorieff, head of the Brandeis team that created the image। Alternatively, he says, small clumps of the peptide itself could be to blame. "With this 3-D image, we can see what path the peptide takes," he says, helping us understand the properties of the fibril and get closer to curing this disease. http://Louis-j-sheehan-esquire.us

Taking on Memory
For years people have associated Alzheimer's with amyloid-beta, or A-beta, proteins, but in a shocking study, researchers have found that young brains are creating just as much, if not more of the protein than old brains.

After taking a close look at autopsied human brains, scientists at the Buck Institute in Novato, California, found that those with Alzheimer's disease had about ten times as much cleavage in the brain, a process that Dale Bredesen, Buck Institute founder and leader of the research group describes as "molecular scissors" cutting out the amyloid-beta protein। While researchers think this act of cutting out amyloid-beta proteins in the brain is a major part of what causes Alzheimer's disease, it is apparently also part of a healthy brain that Bredesen says is made by all your brain cells all the time। "It's a normal part of plasticity," says Bredesen, or the ability to retain, form new, and lose unimportant memories. He compares the process to driving a fast sports car. Younger people can effortlessly switch gears, forward and backward—forgetting the inconsequential but also learning and remembering masses of new information. In Alzheimer's disease, however, a biochemical "switch" associated with the cleavage of the amyloid peptide seems to lock Alzheimer's brains into a reverse gear of forgetting alone. http://Louis-j-sheehan-esquire.us

The Buck Institute researchers still agree with conventional wisdom that preventing the accumulation of APP (the precursor to A-beta protein) in the brain of Alzheimer's patients is important, but they are looking for ways to add something new— a way to restore the brain's memory and forgetting balance. "We are now focusing on nerve signaling," says Breseden, "and efforts to 'disconnect' the molecular mechanism that locks memory-making in the reverse."

ज्ग्रेअत battle

MAY 31ST.—Clear, with hot sun.

Last evening there was some fighting on Lee’s right, and 125 prisoners were sent in। http://louis1j1sheehan1esquire2.blogspot.com

This morning cannon and musketry could be distinctly heard east of my dwelling; but at 3 P।M। I have not been able to learn the extent of it or the result. http://louis1j1sheehan1esquire2.blogspot.com

But the GREAT BATTLE is imminent. Troops have been coming over from the south side (Beauregard’s) for twenty hours, and marching down Main Street toward the Williamsburg road. It is doubtless a flank movement of Beauregard, and an attack on Grant may be expected any hour; and must occur, I think, tomorrow at furthest.

I have not learned that Butler has retired from his position—and if not, our communications must be in peril. But no matter, so Grant be beaten.

All the local troops are ordered to be in readiness to march at a moment’s warning, this evening or night.