https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/06/well/hair-wash-daily.html
Neurons are not the only brain cells that think | The Economist
September 4, 2023astrocyte
QT:{{”
Autism is one. In 2017 Ishizuka Kanako of the Nagoya Institute of Technology, in Japan, found a link between an increased risk of autism and the presence of a pair of genetic variants known to disrupt, in microglia, the expression of a protein called cx3cr1. And in 2020 Xu Zhixiang of Scripps Research, in San Diego, showed a range of microglial protein-synthesis problems cause autism-like symptoms in mice.
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Many researchers now talk of “tripartite” synapses as being standard in the brain. Their transistor-like three-element composition has one part (the astrocyte) which acts like a transistor’s “base” connection, regulating the passage of signals between the other two (the neurons, the equivalents of a transistor’s “emitter” and “collector”). Since transistors form the logic gates of computers, that is intriguing. “}}
What Happens When You Meditate | STANFORD magazine
September 4, 2023Parisian Pools, Up Close and Personal – The New York Times
September 4, 2023The Battle Over Books3 Could Change AI Forever | WIRED
September 4, 2023Hidden harms of indoor air pollution — five steps to expose them
September 4, 2023Covid Closed the Nation’s Schools. Cleaner Air Can Keep Them Open. – The New York Times
September 4, 2023Can computing clean up its act?
September 4, 2023https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2023/08/16/can-computing-clean-up-its-act
QT:{{”
For several decades one happy side-effect of Moore’s Law was that, as circuitry shrank, it also became more frugal. That effect is known as Dennard scaling, after Robert Dennard, a scientist then working at ibm who wrote a paper on the subject in 1974. During the mid-2000s, though, the tricky physics of ultra-tiny components meant that relationship began to break down. Computers are still becoming more efficient as their components shrink, but the rate at which they are doing so has slowed sharply.
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