Free Republic

Health and Human Services Secretary biden Becerra said Monday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” that the unvaccinated need to stop being “selfish” and get the vaccination. Mitchell said, “I want to ask you about mandating vaccinations because that’s happened in New York City, and we’re seeing protests today in Brooklyn, Becerra said, “Andrea, [cut] we have to be safe. I saw Mayor De Blasio last week, and I will tell you that the city is going to do— the city doesn’t want to go back, New York City doesn’t want to go back to what it experienced a year, two...

Neural computation occurs in large neural networks within dynamic brain states, yet it remains poorly understood if the functions are performed by a specific subset of neurons or if they occurred in specific, dynamic regions. In a recent study, Wesley Clawson and co-workers at the Institute of Neuroscience Systems in France, used high density recordings in the hippocampus, medial entorhinal and medial prefrontal cortex of the rat. Using the animal model, they identified computing substates where specific computing hub neurons performed well-defined operations on storage and sharing in a brain state-dependent manner. The scientists retrieved distinct computing substates in each...

New database could shed light on how people’s brains tick The human brain is teeming with diversity. By plucking out delicate, live tissue during neurosurgery and then studying the resident cells, researchers have revealed a partial cast of neural characters that give rise to our thoughts, dreams and memories. So far, researchers with the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle have described the intricate shapes and electrical properties of about 100 nerve cells, or neurons, taken from the brains of 36 patients as they underwent surgery for conditions such as brain tumors or epilepsy. To reach the right spot,...

A panel discussion at Center for American Progress called for brain research in the classroom and shared their remarks on mandating scientific research in the classroom. Giving a final exam-type test on the first day of class, Benedict Carey, science reporter for The New York Times and author of How We Learn, said, “[It] prepares the brain to receive the information subsequently” because “you see the topics that are coming” later in the semester. He admitted, “Pre-testing is very counterintuitive,” but claimed these pre-tests, which a majority of students fail, “help” students get higher grades on final exams. Glenn Whitman,...

Journal removes paper from website after company threatens legal action. Lie detection — an emotional issue. The Swedish Research Council is wading into an escalating row over academic freedom after a peer-reviewed journal removed a published paper — penned by two Swedish academics — from its website following a threat of legal action from the company whose technology the research criticized.The controversial paper1, entitled 'Charlatanry in forensic speech science: a problem to be taken seriously', was first published in the International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law in December 2007. In it, speech scientists Francisco Lacerda of Stockholm University...