It seems I found my way back, and am so glad to see you all again! :grin:
Tell me stuff, tell me everything :popcorn:
Welcome back!
Well, the world is still circling the proverbial drain in "every" way it can, SpaceX finally managed not to make a complete mess out of their ""Star""ship launch, The Asmo is still God of all that is grumpy... Tank has been to Amsterdam and witnessed vehicular heresy such that The Asmo ought to bring His Smite Hammer on it immediately...
...Yeah. That's about it, methinks. :smilenod:
Quote from: xSilverPhinx on June 10, 2024, 06:42:33 AMIt seems I found my way back, and am so glad to see you all again! :grin:
Tell me stuff, tell me everything :popcorn:
I nearly died from sepsis. Spent a month in hospital on intravenous antibiotics. Got Covid when in hospital hardly any symptoms other than a runny nose. Now dogless both Sally and Katie went to the rainbow bridge. Now have a granddaughter. Pam published a book and has finished a second one now in publisher proof stage. What have you been up to?
Hi-yo, Silver! :welcomeback:
It's so nice to see you stopping by, xSilverPhinx. Been noting the heavy weather that hit your part of the world, and I hope all your family there are doing OK. :wave hi:
What a lovely surprise, xSilverPhinx. Please tell us what you've been up to.
Quote from: Asmodean on June 10, 2024, 07:53:23 AMWelcome back!
Well, the world is still circling the proverbial drain in "every" way it can, SpaceX finally managed not to make a complete mess out of their ""Star""ship launch, The Asmo is still God of all that is grumpy... Tank has been to Amsterdam and witnessed vehicular heresy such that The Asmo ought to bring His Smite Hammer on it immediately...
...Yeah. That's about it, methinks. :smilenod:
Vehicular heresy, you say? :bigspecs:
Quote from: Tank on June 10, 2024, 12:42:24 PMQuote from: xSilverPhinx on June 10, 2024, 06:42:33 AMIt seems I found my way back, and am so glad to see you all again! :grin:
Tell me stuff, tell me everything :popcorn:
I nearly died from sepsis. Spent a month in hospital on intravenous antibiotics. Got Covid when in hospital hardly any symptoms other than a runny nose. Now dogless both Sally and Katie went to the rainbow bridge. Now have a granddaughter. Pam published a book and has finished a second one now in publisher proof stage. What have you been up to?
Damm, that's a lot of stuff happening, good and bad! Congrats on the new granddaughter! Congrats to Pam, too! Sorry to hear about your dog (I remember you posting about your terriers passing some time ago). I'm sure both had great lives with you. :)
That's quite a scary hospital experience, not one I want to have myself :P Good to hear everything turned out OK...after all, you have a new granddaughter to spoil now. :grin:
Quote from: Recusant on June 10, 2024, 03:54:44 PMIt's so nice to see you stopping by, xSilverPhinx. Been noting the heavy weather that hit your part of the world, and I hope all your family there are doing OK. :wave hi:
:wave hi: Recusant! Yeah, we were hit pretty hard, like the first day raining more than the month's average hard. Water rose fast. Luckily since I live on elevated ground with independent drinking water supply I was not affected in any way besides minor inconveniences. My siblings who live near the river suffered more with power water and kitchen gas shortages, but still a far cry from the thousands who had to relocate to shelters and lost their homes and cars.
It was all very surreal. Entire towns located near river banks were swept away.
Quote from: hermes2015 on June 11, 2024, 10:50:05 AMWhat a lovely surprise, xSilverPhinx. Please tell us what you've been up to.
Hey, Hermes!
Not much, not much! :grin: Biggest thing that happened was I spent 6 months in Houston last year trying to learn how to use a miniscope (really cool stuff, I got to see individual neurons shine) but now I'm back trying to finish my PhD on time (insert excessively nervous laughter here).
Quote from: xSilverPhinx on June 13, 2024, 08:35:16 AMQuote from: hermes2015 on June 11, 2024, 10:50:05 AMWhat a lovely surprise, xSilverPhinx. Please tell us what you've been up to.
Hey, Hermes!
Not much, not much! :grin: Biggest thing that happened was I spent 6 months in Houston last year trying to learn how to use a miniscope (really cool stuff, I got to see individual neurons shine) but now I'm back trying to finish my PhD on time (insert excessively nervous laughter here).
Bloody well done on the PhD front! Would any of us understand any of it?
Quote from: xSilverPhinx on June 13, 2024, 08:29:55 AMYeah, we were hit pretty hard, like the first day raining more than the month's average hard. Water rose fast. Luckily since I live on elevated ground with independent drinking water supply I was not affected in any way besides minor inconveniences. My siblings who live near the river suffered more with power water and kitchen gas shortages, but still a far cry from the thousands who had to relocate to shelters and lost their homes and cars.
It was all very surreal. Entire towns located near river banks were swept away.
It's a genuine pleasure to hear that you and yours came through that in good to not so bad circumstances. It was a bit worrying to read about; got mention in Current Events. Living by the water can be pleasant, but there's a lot to be said for higher ground!
Quote from: xSilverPhinx on June 13, 2024, 08:35:16 AMQuote from: hermes2015 on June 11, 2024, 10:50:05 AMWhat a lovely surprise, xSilverPhinx. Please tell us what you've been up to.
Hey, Hermes!
Not much, not much! :grin: Biggest thing that happened was I spent 6 months in Houston last year trying to learn how to use a miniscope (really cool stuff, I got to see individual neurons shine) but now I'm back trying to finish my PhD on time (insert excessively nervous laughter here).
Good to hear that your Houston stay was productive. As for the PhD, are they weighty tomes in your field? I guess word processors are a great help these days.
May the saints preserve us... I/we have sorely missed Silver for a long time now.
Please visit when ever you can, dear lady.
Quote from: Icarus on June 15, 2024, 02:20:18 AMMay the saints preserve us... I/we have sorely missed Silver for a long time now.
Please visit when ever you can, dear lady.
Hear hear!
Quote from: Tank on June 13, 2024, 10:59:26 AMQuote from: xSilverPhinx on June 13, 2024, 08:35:16 AMQuote from: hermes2015 on June 11, 2024, 10:50:05 AMWhat a lovely surprise, xSilverPhinx. Please tell us what you've been up to.
Hey, Hermes!
Not much, not much! :grin: Biggest thing that happened was I spent 6 months in Houston last year trying to learn how to use a miniscope (really cool stuff, I got to see individual neurons shine) but now I'm back trying to finish my PhD on time (insert excessively nervous laughter here).
Bloody well done on the PhD front! Would any of us understand any of it?
Thanks! Yes, I'm certain you all would! :grin:
Memories change with time, right? Autobiographical memories can be divided into semantic memory, which is memory for facts, and episodic memory, which is memory for life events. So basically what happens is episodic memories can become less detailed with time and become more semantic.
For instance, if you think back on your school days, you certainly learnt facts such as "the molecular formula for water is H2O". But do you remember who taught you that? The color of clothes that teacher was wearing? What was the weather like that day? Probably not, but you remember the fact that H2O means water.
(Obviously this is an oversimplified exsmple as school facts can be taught repeatedly and memories interfere with each other, but you get the idea ;) )
So in the brain the hippocampus is important for consolidating recent episodic memories, and with time other "higher-up" cortical structures become important for remembering. As this shift from the hippocampus to cortex happens, episodic memories can become semantic. In the case of pathological and robust fear memories, that can result in mental health problems such as PTSD, because the traumatic memory becomes progressively stripped of context that surrounded that event, loses what anchors it to defined environments and situations and so can be triggered by reminders that are not part of the traumatic experience. For instance, fireworks triggering strong memories of war in a veteran during New Year celebrations, far from any war zone.
So, for my dissertation I'm comparing these processes between male and female rats and how they're modulated by sex hormones.
In Houston the idea was to see fluorescent activity of individual neurons in awake animals using a miniscope. ;D Whenever a neuron is electrically stimulated enough to communicate with another neuron it would shine :grin: The goal is to implement that technology here (which is relatively cheap and open source) to analyse that shift from the hippocampus to other brain structures as these memories are recalled.
I understood that! :frolic: :frolic: :frolic:
That's interesting!
What you said about memory made me think that it was similar to constructive interference. An example is astrophotography, where the image of a star is enhanced if one adds together many exposures. The background noise, because it is random, cancels out, while the image of the star becomes clearer as one adds more and more exposures. Another example is in environmental and forensic chemical analysis, where the sensitivity of your detector is less important than the signal to noise ratio (S/N). Ultimately, it is the S/N. not the absolute sensitivity of your sensor, that allows you to reach very low limits of detection.