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Brain and Love: The unpoetic explanations

2009-02-11T22:49:00.001-08:00

Researchers say that biology of romantic love can be explained and understood through brain images, hormones and genetics.

They have found that there are four tiny areas in brain which they call "circuit of love". These regions are ventral tegmental area (VTA), the nucleus accumbens, the ventral pallidum and raphe nucleus.

When people newly in love were put in a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine and shown pictures of their beloved, the VTA lit up. Same for people still madly in love after 20 years.

The VTA is part of a key reward system in the brain. These are cells that make dopamine and send it to different brain regions. When newly love struck couples were examined, it was found that they have high levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine.

This chemical stimulates 'desire and reward' by triggering an intense rush of pleasure. It has the same effect on the brain as taking cocaine! Thus, Love works chemically in the brain like a drug addiction.

``Romantic love is an addiction; a wonderful addiction when it is going well, a horrible one when it is going poorly,' Fisher (a researcher) said. ``People kill for love. They die for love.''

Fisher suggests "couples often show the signs of surging dopamine: increased energy, less need for sleep or food, focused attention and exquisite delight in smallest details of this novel relationship" .

So what about the broken heart? So the scientists studied the brains of the recently heartbroken and found additional activity in the nucleus accumbens, which is even more strongly associated with addiction.

``The brokenhearted show more evidence of what I'll call craving,'' said Lucy Brown, a neuroscientist also at Einstein medical college. ``Similar to craving the drug cocaine.''

This happens due to serotonin level. When serotonin is dangerously low, the mind dips into depression.

By analysing blood samples from the lovers, Dr Marazitti discovered that serotonin levels of new lovers were equivalent to the low serotonin levels of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder patients.

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) can jeopardize the user's relationship with a loved one.

The raphe nucleus pumps out serotonin, which gives you a sense of calm. One of love's most important chemicals that may explain why when you're falling in love, your new lover keeps popping into your thoughts.

The team's most recent brain scans were aimed at people married about 20 years who say they are still holding hands, lovey-dovey as newlyweds, a group that is a minority of married people. In these men and women, two more areas of the brain lit up, along with the VTA: the ventral pallidum and raphe nucleus.

Attachment is stage of love that keeps couples together in marriage. Scientists think there might be two major hormones involved in this feeling of attachment; oxytocin and vasopressin.

In females, the key bonding hormone is oxytocin, also produced in humans during childbirth. Oxytocin also seems to help cement the strong bond between mum and baby.

In males, it's vasopressin.When male prairie voles were given a drug that suppresses the effect of vasopressin, the bond with their partner deteriorated immediately as they lost their devotion and failed to protect their partner from new suitors.

When vasopressin receptors put into the brains of male meadow voles a promiscuous cousin of the prairie voles, "those guys who should never, ever bond with a female, bonded with a female.'' Young.

The Neural Network

2008-10-25T09:12:00.001-07:00

Traditionally when we speak of neural network it refers to network or circuit of biological neurons. But in this modern age it refers to artificial neural networks (ANN),also called simulating neural networks (SNN) ,which is made of artificial neurons or nodes. These nodes are highly interconnected working together to solve specific problem by mimicking somehow like brain neural network. Of course brain neural network are much more complex than artificial neural networks. Neural network is used in artificial intelligence and cognitive modeling.

Thanks to neural network that it is now possible to recognize speech, analysis of image, and production of autonomous robots which can learn by own, no need to over burden a robot with huge software till its nervous break down occurs.

Neural network take a different approach to deal with problem where as conventional computer make use of algorithmic approach i.e. a sequence of instructions to solve a problem. We can say that neural network are non linear statistical data modeling or decision making tool. Neural network learn by example like our brain does. They are not been programmed to do a definite work.

Neural networks are built in by simulating the way that signals or impulses are carried by neurons in our nervous system or brain. As much is unknown about how the brain processes information the neural network model are only gross idealizations of real networks of brain.

So it's really important to understand completely the mechanism of nerve conduction. In recent year much of investigation in done in studying about neuromodulators such as dopamine, acetylcholine, and serotonin on behavior and learning. Biophysics model such as BCM theory has proved important to decipher the mechanism of neuron plasticity i.e. ability to change the strength of connection between two neurons.

Incredible thinking cap

2008-10-03T21:37:00.001-07:00

What to have superhuman abilities?

Then a gadget that will unlock the hidden genius within you :

The Thinking Cap

Mechanisim

It does so by turning on and off of certain parts of the brain. This allows specific part of gray matter to mushroom to their full potential. It may deaden a part of your brain or excite it beyond its normal level of stimulus. It looks like a hairnet like cap which uses tiny magnetic pulses to change way the brain works. It works with the principle that if one part of the brain has been sacrificed then other becomes powerful.

Experiment

The researcher used a cap with magnetic coil in it which can inhibit the left side of brain. This side of brain is logical and helps you to make decisions and is a critical thinker. Whereas right brain deals with the artistic power. So when volunteers are asked to draw a dog, horse or face from memory before and after using the cap for 10 to 15 min, 4 of 11 volunteers produced more natural pictures after wearing the cap.

But the effects of mind cap wears up after an hour. So it will only help some one to temporarily look the world differently with super abilities.

Digital Drugs

2008-08-08T10:58:00.001-07:00

Hiss………. Beeps….. Humming. iPod is on. Ear phone in ears.

Thirty min to go. Lie back and relax.

At first nothing happens.

After twenty minutes warmth in body, euphoria, as if you are in unknown blank world.

Have you got the Hand of God or you are in a trip to your soul.

It's not a joke.

Welcome to the world of DIGITAL DRUGS.

What are Digital Drugs?

Digital drugs, as they are commonly called, are gaining popularity as a safe alternative to recreational drugs. Now many CDs and mp3 formats of audio drugs are popping up all over the Internet. These drugs can mimic the effects of cocaine, marijuana, LSD, ecstasy and many others.

One of New York-based manufacturer of digital drugs is I-doser.

Nick Ashton, creator of I-Doser, said that since his company started producing digital drugs a couple of years ago, he has seen interest increase and expects that to continue as products are improved.

As with many things, however, Ashton said, using digital drugs is often a state of mind. He groups users into three categories according to their susceptibility to the doses. Some people are susceptible to binaural beats, which means it's likely that the dose will work on them. Others are originally unsusceptible to binaural beats and will become susceptible after a few uses, and still others are completely immune to the beats.

Determining whether or not you are the kind of person who will reach the highest level of effectiveness depends on your outlook and desire to feel what you think you're supposed to be feeling.

The science behind the drugs ……

The concept behind digital drugs is simple. All it takes is a pair of headphones, 35 minutes and an open mind. But while these drugs are relatively new, the science behind them is not. The audio sequences that are used for the drugs incorporate binaural beats and a complex understanding of the human mind.

Newell Decker, a professor of audiology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said that while he doesn't find the idea of digital drugs surprising, without ever having tried them he finds the their effectiveness questionable.

Decker described the binaural beat process as two sounds of different frequencies going directly into each ear. The frequencies, which are generally within 30 hertz of each other, move in and out of phase, creating a sensation of sounds moving back and forth across the head.

The difference in hertz creates a third frequency that determines how the brainwaves are synchronized: lower frequency differences produce relaxing and sleepy effects, while high frequency differences produce a more alert and anxious effect.

While most everyone can hear binaural beats there are a few factors that can enhance a person's ability to tune in to them. Men tend to hear them better than women, and a woman's ability to hear them fluctuates with her menstrual cycle, peaking at the onset of her period and around 15 days later.

These beats are the backbone of every digital drug and can be used for functions that are outside of the drug simulation realm, including meditation, learning enhancement and relaxation.

Ashton said years of research go into creating a binaural beat sequence for a digital drug to ensure its quality and safety.

"When the idea for a digital drug is being considered, the first thing we do is start a massive interview campaign. We speak to hundreds of people who have used the drug in question, and we narrow the experiences down to the most common effects they feel, physically and mentally," he said. "We then enter the design phase, where we create and continually refine a sequence, and it all goes through an exhaustive Q and A process. Testers with experience use it, record results, and we continue to refine until we believe we have the absolute best sequence possible. Some of our doses have taken two years to develop, test, refine and release."

Has it some danger??

Manufacturers of digital drugs often tout their products as a non-addictive, safe alternative to recreational drugs, but while using a digital drug
eliminates the aspect of
chemical dependency, it's difficult to say right now what the possible side effects might be.

"The risk of addiction is very low," Ashton said. "You can, technically, get addicted to anything, but we have never heard of any addiction with I-Doser simulations. As always, we suggest that you use I-Doser digital drugs wisely. Drugs are harmful chemical- or plant-based matter that you are forced to ingest, snort or inject – a dangerous, expensive and often disgusting habit. I-Doser can give close approximations to these effects safely, effectively and legally."

With little research going on outside of the actual manufacturers, the long-term effects of digital drugs are impossible to know. Jerome Barry, director of the Independence Center, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in Lincoln, said that he would like to see long-term studies done to test for the possibility of using the drugs as an aid for people with depression. But even with the possibility of the drugs being beneficial, he views them as yet another way for people to avoid dealing with the root of their problems, which is a problem in itself.

"People in our society are always looking for something outside ourselves to help us feel better without looking within," he said."There are other things out there, like yoga, like meditation, like imagery and hypnosis, that are attempting to help people achieve good feelings," Barry said. "So there are some good things out there and some negative things out there, and we just don't know where this one lands yet because it's so new."

This is only for information. I personally recommend not to use it with out consulting a experienced doctor in this field

Science Fiction in Indian Cinema

2008-07-09T22:34:00.001-07:00

Love Story 2050
After watching the film it can be said that Indian Bollywood is no less than Hollywood. It is a science fiction film with a beautiful love story.
We will find flying cars and bikes, robots talking and doing work like human being by use of artificial intelligence, and how can we forget about time machine which story is about. In it the Hero with his uncle goes to bring back his love, who is in time of 2050. The film really takes you to the world of imagination which I feel that it will be possible soon. The film is scientific.
But one thing found rubbish in the film is reincarnation or “Punarjanm” and very hard to believe. Even genetically same twins don’t have same thoughts. They are just like different individual as any two persons are. We all are made with a single cell which divides and re-divides to form out important organs and brain is one of them. Our brain stores information what we obtain from our environment. So how can is it possible to have same data on the brain between two individuals who are born in completely different environment. What ever it may be but director finds it a very interesting topic for there films. Just look at the film ‘Om Santi Om’ which is also based on Punarjanm and was also highly acclaimed and hit movie.
But what about flying cars and robots with artificial intelligence which behaves just like human being which is shown on the film. Will it be possible one day? If we shall ask this question to a scientist the answer I think will be “Yes Very Soon May be in 2050”. There is a lot of research going on artificial intelligence. And we shall soon obtain a robot, who can act and work just like human being but with super abilities.
In the film user friendly digital monitors are found every where in shops, shopping malls, streets who can speak with you. And it seems practical that we are going to have such type of malls very soon. Advertisements done by different companies were in 3D shown on the streets.
And this not all there are many things more, just like electrode chips on the head of the villain. These chips give us the reminiscence of research that is going on rats and orangutans with the help of which scientist were able to take over the control of the brain of these mammals by a computer.
At last the time machine. Will it be ever possible to build a time machine with which we can go to future or see it? According to scientist like Hawkins there is a theory that if we go faster than light we shall enter into future. But it is not possible to go faster than light. But some scientists are thinking that there may be a way out based on relativity with the help of which we can enter future.
So here is a question? Can we make a time machine ever??????............

Synesthesia

2008-05-29T07:15:00.000-07:00

Ever taste a shape, or smell a color?

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Imagine a world in which the senses fuse together; where sounds are seen and words and aromas have color; where the number 10 can be smelt, and fuchsia has flavor. That's the world of synesthesia -- loosely defined as a difficulty in distinguishing between different sensory inputs.
Synesthesia means "joined sensation," and is an automatic physical experience in which one sense triggers off an additional perception in a different sense or senses. For example, a synestheste not only sees the color red, but might "smell" it, too.
Neurologist Richard Cytowic, author of "The Man who Tasted Shapes," said a synestheste's experience forms the building blocks of perception. "They get a sampling of perception at an earlier stage before it becomes separated -- before, that was a sound, this is a color, a texture..." he explained.
The phenomenon varies in impact. It could be a disorder in some, and a perceptual curiosity in others. It is rare however, occurring in roughly one in 25,000 individuals.
But people who experience the phenomenon, the ringing of a doorbell could resemble a series of triangles, or a dog bark could seem like a circle with dots around it. For a more tangible peek into this enigma, synesthestes recommend Walt Disney's "Fantasia," an animated film that attempts to visualize music.

Artist Carol Steen, who is part of the tiny world of synesthestes, says she possesses a "wonderful gift." The shapes and colors she experiences through music and acupuncture, she said, inspire her paintings and sculptures. "I use the colors I see. I use the shapes that I see," she says. "It's like an additional form of consciousness."
Cytowic attempts to provide some insight into the enigma using a black and white placard printed with the word "weary." That same placard, he said, would appear flush with different colors for a synestheste. "For us, the touch, taste and smell, they are all separate," he said. "But for synesthestes, it is not."
For Cytowic, who has spent more than a decade studying synesthesia, it is more than just an unusual phenomenon. He thinks of synesthestes as "cognitive fossils," and believes a search to understand the condition will eventually lead to a new model of the mind.

Fight to HIV

2008-03-11T09:40:00.001-07:00

Engineered cells against HIV

Engineered Immune cells can know be used to kill HIV infected cells before they become HIV virus producing factories. Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine made a breakthrough in fight against HIV by transforming genetically engineered immune cells into potent weapons against the disease.

A subgroup of immune cells known as CD8 cytotoxic T lymphocytes or CTLs, recognize cells infected with HIV and kill them before they become HIV-producing factories. This CTL activity initially keeps the infection in check.

However, CTLs may not bind tightly enough to the infected cells or because HIV mutates so rapidly, the virus subdues the immune system, thus boosting the virus in the absence of drug therapy and resulting in AIDS.

The idea……

Certain of the CTLs of elite controllers may be genetically equipped to bind tightly to HIV-infected cells and destroy them and thereby suppress the infection indefinitely.

The idea was first to identify the elite controllers "super" CTLs and to isolate the genes that enable these cells to bind tightly to HIV-infected cells and kill them efficiently; then this gene
would be
transfer into CTLs that do not recognize HIV- infected cells and convert them into potent killers of those cells.

The breakthrough…….

CTLs T-cell receptor(TCR) has two chains- alpha and beta, that the researchers isolated the genes that code for each of the two "chains" from potent HIV-specific CTL.

The genes were combined and packaged inside a special type of virus, called a lentivirus. The lentiviruses the inserted these genes into chromosomes of naive CTLs obtained from a naïve donor's (not infected by HIV) blood and reprogrammed them into potent HIV-specific CTLs.

During the study, the researchers injected mice with both HIV infected human cells and with reprogrammed naïve CTLs into which the HIV recognizing T-cell receptor genes had been inserted using the lentiviral delivery system.

The findings revealed that after on week the infected cells had virtually been eliminated. Researchers found that these genetically reprogrammed CTLs have very strong activity in terms of killing HIV-infected cells in both test-tubes and an animal model. Researchers believe that the novel strategy could lead to and entirely new approach for combating AIDS and other viral diseases.

Abzymes

2008-03-06T07:04:00.001-08:00

Abzymes

Upps… Enzyme Antibody Abzymes confuses me….

The binding of an antibody to its antigen is similar in many ways to the binding of an enzyme to its substrate. In both cases the binding involves weak, noncovalent interactions and exhibits high specificity and often high affinity. What distinguishes an antibody-antigen interaction from an enzyme-substrate interaction is that the antibody does not alter the antigen, whereas the enzyme catalyzes a chemical change in its substrate. However, like enzymes, antibodies of appropriate specificity can stabilize the transition state of a bound substrate, thus reducing the activation energy for chemical modification of the substrate.

Discovery…

The similarities between antigen-antibody interactions and enzyme-substrate interactions raised the question of whether some antibodies could behave like enzymes and catalyze chemical reactions. To investigate this possibility, a hapten-carrier complex was synthesized in which the hapten structurally resembled the transition state of an ester undergoing hydrolysis. Spleen cells from mice immunized with this transition state analogue were fused with myeloma cells to generate monoclonal antihapten monoclonal antibodies. When these monoclonal antibodies were incubated with an ester substrate, some of them accelerated hydrolysis by about 1000-fold; that is, they acted like the enzyme that normally catalyzes the substrate’s hydrolysis. The catalytic activity of these antibodies was highly specific; that is, they hydrolyzed only esters whose transition-state structure closely resembled the transition state analogue used as a hapten in the immunizing conjugate. These catalytic antibodies have been called abzymes in reference to their dual role as antibody and enzyme.

What’s in Research??

A central goal of catalytic antibody research is the derivation of a battery of abzymes that cut peptide bonds at specific amino acid residues, much as restriction enzymes cut DNA at specific sites. Such abzymes would be invaluable tools in the structural and functional analysis of proteins. Additionally, it may be possible to generate abzymes with the ability to dissolve blood clots or to cleave viral glycoproteins at specific sites, thus blocking viral infectivity. Unfortunately, catalytic antibodies that cleave the peptide bonds of proteins have been exceedingly difficult to derive. Much of the research currently being pursued in this field is devoted to the solution of this important but difficult problem.

Supercomputer-A Small Chip

2007-12-11T11:29:00.001-08:00

Your Supercomputer just in a small chip

Imagine what if your computer can compute 100 times faster using energy just as an electric bulb would require glowing. This will be soon possible. Thanks to IBM, the world leader in supercomputer.

IBM says it has discovered the way of converting electrical signals into light pulses that can be used to send information between the cores instead of wires.

By this method sending information will be 100 times faster and use 10 times less power than wires.

IBM said that it has produced electro-optic modulators 100 to 1,000 times smaller than comparable silicon photonics modulators and small enough to fit on a processor chip.

It also said that it had reached a milestone to connect hundreds or thousands of processing cores on a tiny chip. But up to now hardly 9 processing cores can be connected by a sophisticated chip.

Future tiny supercomputers will pave the way for enormous reduction in cost, energy, heat and space required.

Problem requiring intensive calculations, for example in quantum physics, weather forecasting and molecular modeling will be possible to do in tremendous speed with out consuming a huge amount of energy.

Although the breakthrough is much promising, it would likely take at least a decade to be available commercially because there are many challenges ahead.

This research is published on journal 'Optics Express'.

Schizophrenia- A mental disease

2007-11-04T08:21:00.001-08:00

What is Schizophrenia?

If somebody hears imaginary voices, feels people are talking about him/her, cannot sleep, is irritable and abusive, and lacks concentration and is lost in his own thoughts, it could be schizophrenia.

It occurs in 1% of the general population

Over 80% of patients can lead near normal lives

Computer Trends

Technology called SiSi can convert spoken and written words into British Sign Language (BSL)
IBM has developed a technology that translates spoken or written words into BSL.
The technology uses speech recognition to animate a digital character or avatar.
It will help the people with impaired hearing to interpret meeting and presentations.

Power of ribonucleic acid – A new cure to AIDS and Cancer

2007-11-04T06:37:00.001-08:00

RNA Interference

A new revolutions has begin in this concealed world of molecular biology for finding cures for dreaded diseases like AIDS, cancer, hepatitis and even common cold. The cutting edge technology, RNA interference has promising solution to beat these diseases.

Due to recent discovery RNA is now no more just a messenger which carries information from DNA to protein. Now it has been found that besides doing this, RNA molecules regulate many important processes.

DNA which carries the genetic code of an organism is made of sequence of chemical species called nitrogenous bases. These nitrogenous bases consists of A, T, G and C. Each DNA is has millions of such nitrogenous bases that may code for proteins. Not all the parts of DNA are functional. Only a small part of it codes for proteins which is called as gene. The rest of DNA called as junk DNA was thought to be non-functional. But it has been discovered that even these noncoding sequence are used to create small or micro RNA molecules.

There are hundreds of such microRNA or riboswithes, floating on the cell, which perform varieties of functions. They regulate what combines with what, they switch processes on and off, and they control rates of reactions.

Scientists say that there main task in intermediate future will to find out all the functions of these hundreds of RNA in the cell.

Some of the activities of RNA have been already deciphered. One of them is RNA interference (RNAi). It has been found that introducing a double stranded RNA produces a chain of reactions that results in destruction of mRNA or messenger RNA. This effectively silences the gene, which was sending out the messenger. It is based on naturally occurring process and is very precise.

Thus using RNAi can silence any gene and thereby stop the protein encoded by them. So it used to kill off viruses, or bacteria. It can be a great tool for silencing genes rogue genes e.g. genes that cause cancer. RNAi can also be used to study the functions of gene by switching it off and observing what effect is produced in the body.

Manipulation of gene or adding new genes to the genome by the methods till now is very difficult in case of animals then in plants due to complexity of their genome. By using RNAi, manipulation of gene can be done in much more effective way in case of animal too.

Research indicates that small RNA is involved in many other crucial tasks too. But discovery requires a long way to go. All experts agree that it's early days yet. One of the issues that the scientists are grabbling is how to introduce suitable short interfering RNA at the precise place so that it can silence the required gene.

Researchers say that they have only explored the surface layer and most still lies beneath the layer. But however scientists are using new IT tools to scan and catalogue molecules to drive research at a furious pace. At last it can be said that commercialization of RNA based medicines is already on the horizon.

Flow Chart : Parts of Brain

2007-09-21T11:20:00.001-07:00

Calculate mentally in seconds

2007-09-21T11:08:00.001-07:00

Do calculation in seconds mentally.

Here is a trick to do multiply two nos. near above 90 and below 100

e.g.

98 * 97 = ?

Can you calculate it mentally? Seems impossible know.

But you can. Let's see how?

Just answer following questions and solve.

How much more you need to make 98 to 100?

Ans. 2

and for 97 we need 3

Now write the ans. below the number in the circle

98 * 97 =

Know we have to subtract diagonally.

98 -3= 95 or

97-2=95 You can subtract any one of the two you feel easy. You will have same answer for both i.e. 95 here.

Know multiply no. in circle 2*3=6

Multiply obtained 95 to 100 to get 9500

Then add 9500 to 6

9500+6=9506 Ans.

Read again to remember the steps.

Now solve these problems mentally

96*96=

97*95=

97*94=

97*92=

Ans 9216 9215 9118 8924

If you have any doubts you can live comment.

SubmitAsite Search Engine submission - FREE Submission to the top Search Engines and Directories

Memory Secrets 2

2007-09-21T10:58:00.001-07:00

Chapter 2
Neuron
Neurons or the Nerve cells are structural and functional unit of nervous tissue and hence the nervous system which controls all the activity of our body including the capacity of remembering and learning.
*Neurons are also longest cells of our body. It is said that fully formed neurons never divide.*
But is the statement is completely true? Does Human Brain undergo neurogenesis? Let's see the recent finding about neurons.
According to usual excepted theory animal (and human) brains after a brief window early in life, the brain could not grow or renew itself. The supply of neurons –the brain cells that enable us to think – was believed to be fixed almost from birth. Degeneration of brain cells starts with aging.
But new research and finding prove otherwise. Before being euthanized mice was injected with a chemical compound that incorporates itself into actively dividing cells. During autopsy, those cells could be identified by using a dye. Scientists presumed they wouldn't find such cells in the mice's brain tissue, but to astonishment, they did. Up until the point of death, the mice were creating fresh neurons. Their brains were regenerating themselves.
But on which factors does regeneration of brain depends?
Scientists found that mice kept on active environment making them exercises like running wheels produced two to three times more neurons than the mice that didn't exercise.
Like mice, the human also showed the evidence of neurogenesis.
*Thus we can conclude that exercise; particularly regular aerobic exercise can improve the performance of the brain by boosting* memory and cognitive processing speed.**
There are other several factors that can boost your memory like good diet, sociability, jubilance etc. We shall go on each topic later on.

Memory Secrets :Just don’t forget any thing

2007-09-21T10:52:00.001-07:00

Memory Secrets

What if you can remember any thing that you want to remember?

What if you don't forget any thing?

What if your start learning any thing quickly than any one?

Is this possible?

The answer is yes. This is absolutely possible.

Learn these memory secrets and intensify your memory.

Chapter 1

Before telling more about memory let us understand our brain first.

Human Brain

Scientists say that most people use less
than 10% of their mind. More than 90% remains unused.

Brain cells are called neurons. Human brain weighs from 1220 to 1400 grams and has 100 billion neurons.

Each neuron is connected with many other neurons. These neurons are very complexly interconnected to each other to transfer impulses or massages to each other. We can say that brain is a huge network of interconnected network. Scientists say that these connections are responsible for good or poor memory.

Brain can be divided into two parts – Left brain and Right brain

Or we can say Cerebrum of brain consists of two hemispheres. Each hemisphere of cerebrum is divided into four lobes:

Frontal

Controls voluntary movements of the muscles.

Involved in memory, learning and reasoning.

Involved in speech

Parietal

Sensation like pain, touch temperature and pressure etc.

Sense of taste

Speech

Temporal

Sense of smell

Hearing

Understanding speech

Occipital

Sensation of light i.e. Visual area.

Now it is also discovered that left brain and right brain are specialised in different modes of thinking and perceiving.

The left brain is the logical part. It is methodical and tends to think in step by step logical fashion. It is manager, critical thinker, accountant, etc.

The right brain is the creative part, it thinks in images and colours and it can remember complex pictures and music, songs.

The two half brains are interconnected and work with collaboration with each other.

Children use both the left and right brain. But in our schools we rely mainly on logical part
i.e. left brain and ignore right brain which is concerned with colours, pictures. Thus we don't use full capacity of brain.

I will teach many techniques soon so that you can use both your right brain and left brain. And you can use more of your mind power.

To have an example you can see the flowcharts of Brain
that helps in using both part of brain

Click Here!!

Next Chapter

Does human gene changes with the type of food we take?

2007-09-20T11:18:00.001-07:00

Expression of gene depends upon the type of diet you take.

It is know clear the human genome reacts or responds to changes in diet. But it takes generations to do so. Researcher found that enzyme amylase that converts starch to simple sugar like glucose is produce more who considerably take high-starch diet.

The reason behind it is people in high-starch countries have many extra copies of the amylase gene which makes the starch-converting enzyme.

Eco-friendly inhalers

2007-09-20T10:30:00.001-07:00

India with environment friendly CFC- free inhalers

Ozone depleting chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) with are used before in air-conditioners and refrigerators has been replaced. Perhaps CFCs in asthma inhalers were the last one to be phase-out. The new Meter dose inhalers use Hydro Fluoro Alkanes. This has required a sizeable investment of nearly Rs 100 Crore. The inhalers are already being manufactured and will be commercially available in the market soon on the next few months

Presently India has 15-20 million asthmatic patients and out of which 10-15% are 5-15 year old children. Nearly 15% of children in Delhi suffer from asthma and 10% of total population gets affected due to smoking and environmental pollution.

Thus say no to smoking and help to control environmental control. I will soon say you tricks to control or completely eliminate bad habit like smoking and replace them with good one.

Do You Know Global Warming has some good effects

2007-09-20T10:28:00.001-07:00

Good effects of Global Warming

May be we all are enraged about ill effects of Global Worming. But do you know some experts have found reasons to cheer. You may be surprised. But it's true. Because their will be no more ice ages.

An ice age naturally occur every 100,000 years or so as the pattern of Earth's orbit changes with time and alters the way the sun strikes the planet's surface. In the past ice ages, sheets of ice covered all Canada and most of the North US.

The emitted carbon dioxide isn't just going to disappear. Some of the carbon dioxide now will hang around for probably tens to even hundreds of thousands of years. So the effects of burning fossil fuels today will extend long beyond the next couple hundred years, possibly delaying onset of Earth's next ice age.

OZONE

2007-09-09T09:04:00.001-07:00

Effects of depletion

The hole allows passage of UV radiation to the earth where it causes skin cancer, eye defects like cataract, photo burning, genetic disorder, etc.
Growth and production of vegetation may decrease to an extent of 20% to 30%.
By various mutagenic disorders cause the decrease in lifespan, early aging and suffering from different physiological and genetic disorders.
It is reported that with increase in UV dose the phytoplankton of biosphere gets destroyed. The phytoplankton is affected then the small animals that feed on them will also get affected. Thus food chain gets disturbed.
Larva and young ones of aquatic animals also gets killed, resulting in decrease in output of fisheries.
One of the greatest changes that could be observed is the climatic change. Decrease in activity of phytoplankton would result in increase in concentration resulting in global warming.
Ozone depletion causes DNA breakage, inhibition and alternation of replication of DNA and cell gets dead.
Ozone causes lesions to plants. Ozone reacts with fibres like cotton, nylon, and polyesters etc.
UV radiations injure plant proteins, depletion in chlorophyll and harmful mutations can be observed.

Search Engine Optimization and SEO Tools

Can a Particle travel faster then light?

2007-09-02T07:57:00.001-07:00

According to Einstein's theory of relativity no particles can travel faster than light.

It requires an infinite amount of energy to do so. But two German physicists from University of Koblenz claim to have done the impossible finding that some photons (energy packets) have broken the speed of light.

If their findings are confirmed then they will prove Einstein's theory of relativity as wrong.

If an object can move faster than light then this will lead to very unusual consequences e.g. a spaceship moving faster then light will theoretically reach its destination before starting.

Is making artificial life possible?

2007-09-02T07:24:00.001-07:00

Many theories have put forward to explain the origin of life starting from theory of special creation (in this theory it was told that life is being created by some supernatural power. It was in accord with the Bible which specifies that the world is created in six days. 1^st day God made heaven and earth. 2^nd day He separated sky from water.3^rd day He made land and plants and so on.) to theory of spontaneous generation. Theory of spontaneous generation is also called abiogenesis with means life originated from nonliving thing spontaneous manner e.g. rotten flesh can give rise to flies.

All these theory was either non scientific or proved wrong

At last Oparin-Haldane gave a modern hypothesis which is widely excepted.

And one special thing I want to say that Haldane was born in England but migrate to India in July 1957 and settled in Bhubaneswar, Orissa which is my native state.

OK. Then let's come to the topic now. This theory can be divided in two steps of life origin which can be further divided into many more steps. Let's go each step one by one.

Chemical Evolution
1. The Atomic Phase
  Early earth was containing numerous amount of hydrogen, O, C, N, S, P and other free atoms which was essential for formation of protoplasm
2. Formation of Molecules and Simple organic molecules
  Free atom combined to form simple molecules. H was most numerous and also most reactive. So it was easy for it to combine with almost all O atoms to form H₂O. So there was no free O left behind. Thus primitive atmosphere was reducing atmosphere as it was with any free O₂. H also combined with N to form NH₃.
3. Formation of simple organic compounds
  Gases like CO₂, CO, N, H₂ etc combined with metallic atoms to form nitrides and carbides etc. These early compound interacted to form simple sugars (e.g. ribose, glucose), nitrogenous bases (e.g. Purine, Pyrimidines), amino acids, glycerol, fatty acids, etc.
  This interaction was triggered by sources like solar radiations, X-rays, lightning, high energy radiations.
4. Formation of complex compounds
  The above formed simple compounds accumulated in the ancient seas. Electric discharge, lighting, solar energy etc. might have provided the energy source for polymerisation reactions of organic synthesis. So simple sugars could form polysaccharides and fatty acids could combine to produce fats. Amino acids could form proteins.
Biological Evolution
Let's first check what should be condition for origin of life?
1. There must be self producing molecules or we can say replicator
2. Copying of these replicators should some time go error to produce some mutations which is required for evolution
3. These replicators must require continuous supply of free energy and partial isolation from general environments.
I will soon add more to it

Bioinformatics

2007-08-09T07:09:00.000-07:00

Bioinformatics
Bioinformatics and computational biology involve the use of techniques including applied mathematics, informatics, statistics, computer science, artificial intelligence, chemistry and biochemistry to solve biological problems usually on the molecular level. Research in computational biology often overlaps with systems biology.

The terms bioinformatics and computational biology are often used interchangeably.

However bioinformatics more properly refers to the creation and advancement of algorithms, computational and statistical techniques, and theory to solve formal and practical problems posed by or inspired from the management and analysis of biological data.

Computational biology, on the other hand, refers to hypothesis-driven investigation of a specific biological problem using computers, carried out with experimental and simulated data, with the primary goal of discovery and the advancement of biological knowledge.

A common general idea (thread) in projects in bioinformatics and computational biology is the use of mathematical tools to extract useful information from data produced by high-throughput biological techniques such as genome sequencing. A representative problem in bioinformatics is the assembly of high-quality genome sequences from fragmentary "shotgun" DNA sequencing. Other common problems include the study of gene regulation using data from microarrays or mass spectrometry.

Sequence alignment
Since the Phage Φ-X174 was sequenced in 1977, the DNA sequences of hundreds of organisms have been decoded and stored in databases. These data are analyzed to determine genes that code for proteins, as well as regulatory sequences.

A comparison of genes within a species or between different species can show similarities between protein functions, or relations between species (the use of molecular systematics to construct phylogenetic trees). With the growing amount of data, it long ago became impractical to analyze DNA sequences manually. Today, computer programs are used to search the genome of thousands of organisms, containing billions of nucleotides.
These programs can compensate for mutations (exchanged, deleted or inserted bases) in the DNA sequence, in order to identify sequences that are related, but not identical. A variant of this sequence alignment is used in the sequencing process itself. The so-called shotgun sequencing technique (which was used, for example, by The Institute for Genomic Research to sequence the first bacterial genome, Haemophilus influenza) does not give a sequential list of nucleotides, but instead the sequences of thousands of small DNA fragments (each about 600-800 nucleotides long). The ends of these fragments overlap and, when aligned in the right way, make up the complete genome. Shotgun sequencing yields sequence data quickly, but the task of assembling the fragments can be quite complicated for larger genomes. In the case of the Human Genome Project, it took several months of CPU time (on a circa-2000 vintage DEC Alpha computer) to assemble the fragments. Shotgun sequencing is the method of choice for virtually all genomes sequenced today, and genome assembly algorithms are a critical area of bioinformatics research.

Another aspect of bioinformatics in sequence analysis is the automatic search for genes and regulatory sequences within a genome. Not all of the nucleotides within a genome are genes. Within the genome of higher organisms, large parts of the DNA do not serve any obvious purpose. This so-called junk DNA may, however, contain unrecognized functional elements. Bioinformatics helps to bridge the gap between genome and proteome projects--for example, in the use of DNA sequences for protein identification.

Genome annotation
In the context of genomics, annotation is the process of marking the genes and other biological features in a DNA sequence. The first genome annotation software system was designed in 1995 by Owen White, who was part of the team that sequenced and analyzed the first genome of a free-living organism to be decoded, the bacterium Haemophilus influenzae. Dr. White built a software system to find the genes (places in the DNA sequence that encode a protein), the transfer RNA, and other features, and to make initial assignments of function to those genes. Most current genome annotation systems work similarly, but the programs available for analysis of genomic DNA are constantly changing and improving.

Computational evolutionary biology
Evolutionary biology is the study of the origin and descent of species, as well as their change over time. Informatics has assisted evolutionary biologists in several key ways; it has enabled researchers to:

Trace the evolution of a large number of organisms by measuring changes in their DNA, rather than through physical taxonomy or physiological observations alone,
More recently, compare entire genomes, which permits the study of more complex evolutionary events, such as gene duplication, lateral gene transfer, and the prediction of bacterial speciation factors, build complex computational models of populations to predict the outcome of the system over time track and share information on an increasingly large number of species and organisms
Future work endeavors to reconstruct the now more complex tree of life.

The area of research within computer science that uses genetic algorithms is sometimes confused with computational evolutionary biology, but the two areas are unrelated.

Measuring biodiversity
Biodiversity of an ecosystem might be defined as the total genomic complement of a particular environment, from all of the species present, whether it is a biofilm in an abandoned mine, a drop of sea water, a scoop of soil, or the entire biosphere of the planet Earth. Databases are used to collect the species names, descriptions, distributions, genetic information, status and size of populations, habitat needs, and how each organism interacts with other species. Specialized software programs are used to find, visualize, and analyze the information, and most importantly, communicate it to other people. Computer simulations model such things as population dynamics, or calculate the cumulative genetic health of a breeding pool (in agriculture) or endangered population (in conservation). One very exciting potential of this field is that entire DNA sequences, or genomes of endangered species can be preserved, allowing the results of Nature's genetic experiment to be remembered in silico, and possibly reused in the future, even if that species is eventually lost.

Important Projects: Species 2000 project; uBio Project.

Analysis of gene expression
The expression of many genes can be determined by measuring mRNA levels with multiple techniques including microarrays, expressed cDNA sequence tag (EST) sequencing, serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE) tag sequencing, massively parallel signature sequencing (MPSS), or various applications of multiplexed in-situ hybridization. All of these techniques are extremely noise-prone and/or subject to bias in the biological measurement, and a major research area in computational biology involves developing statistical tools to separate signal from noise in high-throughput gene expression studies. Such studies are often used to determine the genes implicated in a disorder: one might compare microarray data from cancerous epithelial cells to data from non-cancerous cells to determine the transcripts that are up-regulated and down-regulated in a particular population of cancer cells.

Analysis of regulation
Regulation is the complex orchestration of events starting with an extra-cellular signal and ultimately leading to an increase or decrease in the activity of one or more protein molecules. Bioinformatics techniques have been applied to explore various steps in this process. For example, promoter analysis involves the elucidation and study of sequence motifs in the genomic region surrounding the coding region of a gene. These motifs influence the extent to which that region is transcribed into mRNA. Expression data can be used to infer gene regulation: one might compare microarray data from a wide variety of states of an organism to form hypotheses about the genes involved in each state. In a single-cell organism, one might compare stages of the cell cycle, along with various stress conditions (heat shock, starvation, etc.). One can then apply clustering algorithms to that expression data to determine which genes are co-expressed. For example, the upstream regions (promoters) of co-expressed genes can be searched for over-represented regulatory elements.

Analysis of protein expression
Protein microarrays and high throughput (HT) mass spectrometry (MS) can provide a snapshot of the proteins present in a biological sample. Bioinformatics is very much involved in making sense of protein microarray and HT MS data; the former approach faces similar problems as with microarrays targeted at mRNA, the latter involves the problem of matching large amounts of mass data against predicted masses from protein sequence databases, and the complicated statistical analysis of samples where multiple, but incomplete peptides from each protein are detected.

Analysis of mutations in cancer
Massive sequencing efforts are currently underway to identify point mutations in a variety of genes in cancer. The sheer volume of data produced requires automated systems to read sequence data, and to compare the sequencing results to the known sequence of the human genome, including known germline polymorphisms.

Oligonucleotide microarrays, including comparative genomic hybridization and single nucleotide polymorphism arrays, able to probe simultaneously up to several hundred thousand sites throughout the genome are being used to identify chromosomal gains and losses in cancer. Hidden Markov model and change-point analysis methods are being developed to infer real copy number changes from often noisy data. Further informatics approaches are being developed to understand the implications of lesions found to be recurrent across many tumors.

Some modern tools (e.g. Quantum 3.1 ) provide tool for changing the protein sequence at specific sites through alterations to its amino acids and predict changes in the bioactivity after mutations.

Prediction of protein structure
Protein structure prediction is another important application of bioinformatics. The amino acid sequence of a protein, the so-called primary structure, can be easily determined from the sequence on the gene that codes for it. In the vast majority of cases, this primary structure uniquely determines a structure in its native environment. (Of course, there are exceptions, such as the bovine spongiform encephalopathy - aka Mad Cow Disease - prion.) Knowledge of this structure is vital in understanding the function of the protein. For lack of better terms, structural information is usually classified as one of secondary, tertiary and quaternary structure. A viable general solution to such predictions remains an open problem. As of now, most efforts have been directed towards heuristics that work most of the time.

One of the key ideas in bioinformatics is the notion of homology. In the genomic branch of bioinformatics, homology is used to predict the function of a gene: if the sequence of gene A, whose function is known, is homologous to the sequence of gene B, whose function is unknown, one could infer that B may share A's function. In the structural branch of bioinformatics, homology is used to determine which parts of a protein are important in structure formation and interaction with other proteins. In a technique called homology modelling, this information is used to predict the structure of a protein once the structure of a homologous protein is known. This currently remains the only way to predict protein structures reliably.

One example of this is the similar protein homology between haemoglobin in humans and the haemoglobin in legumes (leghemoglobin). Both serve the same purpose of transporting oxygen in the organism. Though both of these proteins have completely different amino acid sequences, their protein structures are virtually identical, which reflects their near identical purposes.

Other techniques for predicting protein structure include protein threading and de novo (from scratch) physics-based modeling.

See also structural motif and structural domain.

Comparative genomics
The core of comparative genome analysis is the establishment of the correspondence between genes (orthology analysis) or other genomic features in different organisms. It is these intergenomic maps that make it possible to trace the evolutionary processes responsible for the divergence of two genomes. A multitude of evolutionary events acting at various organizational levels shape genome evolution. At the lowest level, point mutations affect individual nucleotides. At a higher level, large chromosomal segments undergo duplication, lateral transfer, inversion, transposition, deletion and insertion. Ultimately, whole genomes are involved in processes of hybridization, polyploidization and endosymbiosis, often leading to rapid speciation. The complexity of genome evolution poses many exciting challenges to developers of mathematical models and algorithms, who have recourse to a spectra of algorithmic, statistical and mathematical techniques, ranging from exact, heuristics, fixed parameter and approximation algorithms for problems based on parsimony models to Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithms for Bayesian analysis of problems based on probabilistic models.

Many of these studies are based on the homology detection and protein families computation.

See also comparative genomics, bayesian network and protein family.

Modeling biological systems
Systems biology involves the use of computer simulations of cellular subsystems (such as the networks of metabolites and enzymes which comprise metabolism, signal transduction pathways and gene regulatory networks) to both analyze and visualize the complex connections of these cellular processes. Artificial life or virtual evolution attempts to understand evolutionary processes via the computer simulation of simple (artificial) life forms.

High-throughput image analysis
Computational technologies are used to accelerate or fully automate the processing, quantification and analysis of large amounts of high-information-content biomedical imagery. Modern image analysis systems augment an observer's ability to make measurements from a large or complex set of images, by improving accuracy, objectivity, or speed. A fully developed analysis system may completely replace the observer. Although these systems are not unique to biomedical imagery, biomedical imaging is becoming more important for both diagnostics and research. Some examples are:

high-throughput and high-fidelity quantification and sub-cellular localization (high-content screening, cytohistopathology)
morphometrics
clinical image analysis and visualization
determining the real-time air-flow patterns in breathing lungs of living animals
quantifying occlusion size in real-time imagery from the development of and recovery during arterial injury
making behavioural observations from extended video recordings of laboratory animals
infrared measurements for metabolic activity determination

Software tools
First generation bioinformatics tools consisted of applications, usually with a text-based interface, which performed a specific task well. The computational biology tool best-known among biologists is probably BLAST, an algorithm for searching large databases of protein or DNA sequences. The NCBI provides a popular web-based implementation that searches their massive sequence databases. Also fairly early on, due to the amassing of sequence and annotation data, keyword search engines which were able to resolve gene and protein synonyms were important. In these early days, computer scripting languages such as Perl and Python were often used to interface with biological databases and parse output from bioinformatics programs written in languages such as C or C++, and much legacy code is still in use today. Today, many other languages are used to author excellent software, and communities of bioinformatics programmers have set up free open source bioinformatics projects to develop and distribute the tools and modules they produce.

As the data sources expanded and diversified, both in content and geography, bioinformatic meta search engines, such as Sequence profiling tools, emerged to help find relevant information from several databases. These meta search engines might index data from a local server or even from a panel of third party services.

More recently, SOAP-based interfaces have been developed for a wide variety of bioinformatics applications allowing an application running on one computer in one part of the world to use algorithms, data and computing resources on servers in other parts of the world. A large availability of these SOAP-based bioinformatics web services, along with the open source bioinformatics collections, lead to the next generation of bioinformatics tools: the integrated bioinformatics platform. These tools range from a collection of standalone tools with a common data format under a single, slick standalone or web-based interface, to integrative and extensible bioinformatics workflow development environments.

An interesting novel direction for bioinformatics applications is illustrated by Q-Pharm's Quantum 3.1, an example of the bioinformatics post-QSAR technology applying quantum and molecular physics instead of statistical methods.