Future Salon

The Top 10 Neuroscience Articles of 2005

It's that time of year again for "Year in Review" type stuff.

"The spatial and temporal (time) resolution of brain scanning is also progressing at an exponential rate, roughly doubling each year, like most everything else having to do with information."
-- Ray Kurzweil

#1. Your Body Is Younger Than You Think

This just blew me away -- the ability for scientists to actually determine how old cells in your body are -- and which cells are replaced quickly and which are replaced slowly. Not just speculate, but actually measure! It turns out that brains cells are replaced slowly, some so slowly that, well, some cells in the cerebral cortex are never replaced your whole life. Other parts of the brain, such as the cerebellum, are "younger" because their cells are replaced more slowly.

#2. 'Thoughts read' via brain scans

Rather primitive at this point -- we can tell if you're looking at red stripy lines or blue ones. There were other similar experiments, such as the one where scientists could determine from your brain scan whether you are watching "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly" or not. We are a long, long way from true full-blown mind-reading, but the first signs that it is indeed possible have arrived. Not mere "lie detection" but actually being able to tell what you are thinking, while you are thinking it.

#3 Read All About It

This surprised me -- people who read in Chinese actually have more brain structures devoted to reading than people who read in English. This applies to any "pictographic" rather than "alphabetic" language.

#4 New insights into brain cell metabolism from PET and MRI scans

This next one is a bit technical. Basically it involves a new method for measuring metabolism in mitochondria in brain cells. I put it on my list because I expect it to lead to significant improvement in brain scanning, keeping step with Kurzweil's statement above that the spatial and temporal (time) resolution of brain scanning is also progressing at an exponential rate. Most brain scanning today involves measurement of blood oxygen. In the future, methods that determine which cells are active based on direct measurements of their metabolism will lead to new insights into how the brain works. I've often heard the claim that brain imaging will hit limits set by the limits of the strengths of magnetic fields that can be used in fMRI scanners. I'm posting this article, even though it is technical, because it suggests that these limits will in fact be overcome by new and innovative ways of doing brain imaging.

#5 Introverts in an extrovert's world

This article mentions brain imaging only briefly, stating that "In using brain scans to study personality differences, researchers found introverts have more brain activity, in general, and specifically in their frontal lobes. When these areas are activated, introverts are energized by retrieving long-term memories, problem solving, introspection, complex thinking and planning." It goes on to describe the brain scans of extroverts. The rest of the article is basically about society's under-appreciation of introverts, so is basically a political rant rather than a science article. The reason I'm posting it is because it might affect the way you interpret the people around you.

I find the subject of introvert vs extrovert rather perplexing, because, you see, I took the Meyers-Briggs test twice, and both times, it said I was an extrovert (one said I was mildly extroverted and the other said I was strongly extroverted), yet as far as I can tell, everyone who meets me thinks I am an introvert.

#6 Why this brain flies on rat cunning

There are more and more articles coming out lately where brain cells are grown in a dish, outside the body. This means that scientists have figured out what chemicals are needed in a brain cell's environment for brain cells to grow, and is a sign of steady progress in understanding the brain. But these guys went a bit further, connecting the brain cells to, are you ready for this? a flight simulator.

#7 Scientists Uncover New Clues About Brain Function in Human Behavior

I'm using this article as a representative of the whole class of articles about genetics and behavior. In this article the brains of people with a genetic disease, Willis Syndrom, are analyzed. I expect to see a lot more studies where genes are connected to brain structures and behavior in the future.

#8 Modelling the mind

It seems a little premature to be trying to simulate the brain -- literally -- in a computer, but IBM is trying to do exactly that. It's called the Blue Brain project.

#9 African-Americans and Caucasians have similar emotional brain activity when seeing African-Americans

This article says that the fear that us white people have when we see African-Americans is also experienced by African-Americans. I was like, whoa! That's bizarre. But if that's not bizarre enough, when people are told to think about the words "African American" the effect goes away. This will really get you thinking about racial stereotypes.

#10 Neuromarketing: Smart Marketing Or Jedi Mind Control Trick?

There is nothing more important in life than money. And there've been a lot of articles about money and the brain -- from talk about how if you have too much oxytocin, you'll trust people with your money -- whether you should or not -- to the subject of neuromarketing -- the use of brain research techniques for marketing. There are a lot of clever marketing insights in these articles -- unfortunately for me, I can't even seem to get far enough in the marketing process to where any of these techniques would be useful. But anyway, here's an article that summarizes some of the research. I expect we'll see much more powerful marketing techniques in the future -- and at the same time we'll be less aware of their existence.

#11 The Coming Boom

11? Hey, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. But how could I skip mentioning women having orgasms in brain scanners? Whaa? Orgasms happen in the brain?

If you found these articles interesting, I've got a webpage with all the neuroscience articles, including a lot I wanted to include in the "Top 10" but didn't have room for -- articles on hypnosis, meditiation, sarcasm, even humor...

http://www.waynerad.com/neuroscience

Or subscribe to the RSS feed, and pick up all the 2006 articles:

http://www.waynerad.com/neuroscience/rss.xml

If 2006 is anything like 2005, there's likely to be a torrent of brain research, of which I'll capture some small percentage but enough to be interesting.

Raising Collective IQ Part II with Doug Engelbart

"The better we get at getting better, the faster we will get better." It is about time.

The person who coined that sentence, Doug Engelbart, is actually feeling better and is looking forward with new enthusiasm to the continuation of the Collective IQ Future Salon from last year. Check out the video on the Internet Archive. Doug did too :-)

One thing came out of my November Future Salon announcement that Firefox founder Blake Ross and Doug are connected now. Doug has a couple of ideas for some Firefox improvements and Blake is interested to hear his thoughts. May be they will have talked already until Friday the 20th of January. Wouldn't that be amazing if they would announce something at the Future Salon?

Please RSVP: http://tinyurl.com/8zevs for the event. It's free.

We are collecting background information and links on our Large Scale Collective IQ Wiki page. Please add your information.

Details: Future Salon Friday 20th of January. It has the following structure: 6-7 networking with light refreshments proudly sponsored by SAP. From 7-9+pm presentation and discussion. SAP Labs North America, Building D, Room Cafeteria, 3410 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94304 [map] As always the event is free and open to the public spread the word. Improve your commute by sharing it with a fellow Futurist. Check the Ride Board for opportunities.

Please RSVP: http://tinyurl.com/8zevs

The event will be Webcasted check the Large Scale Collective IQ Wiki for the details and we will have an IRC chat too: Server: irc.freenode.net Channel: #futuresalon

Something new is that we will also stream the video into Second Life on Democracy Island. We will have three screens, one showing Doug's presentation, one for the chat and a view into Second Life. Comments made in Second Life will be part of the chat screen. Or that is the current plan.

Global Guerillas strike in London?

Update: Some say it was only a tanker driver that flipped a cut out switch ... (May be the sky is not falling. Sorry.)

One of the sites that I am following, always with a little knot in my stomach is Global Guerrillas by fellow Futurist and friend John Robb. He is a military trained fighter pilot and has lead start-ups to success, which probably is the reason for his contrarian viewpoint.

He has excellent insights and writes sharp analysis about the current terrorist threat and mode of operation. Example: 4GW -- Fourth Generation Warfare; CASCADING SYSTEM FAILURE

When I heard about the London Blast today I immediately thought that this fits into John's systems disruption scenario:

It consists of simple attacks (using ad hoc weapons) on critical nodes of infrastructure -- oil, gas, electricity, water, etc. These attacks, if properly targeted, can cause cascades of failure that sweep entire systems.

Is this the start of such a tactic in Europe? Here John's post from today (attention European notation of date DD/MM/YY or is it military date?):

7/12/05: Zawahiri video posted to the Internet: "I call on the holy warriors to concentrate their campaigns on the stolen oil of the Muslims, most of the revenues of which go to the enemies of Islam. The enemies of Islam are exploiting such vital resources with incomparable greed, and we have to stop that theft with all we can and save this fortune for the nation of Islam."

11/12/05: The Bruncefield Total/Texaco oil depot northwest of London exploded. The explosion was so intense, there is very little likelihood that any cause will be found. 400 tankers offload everyday at the facility which stores 4 million[*] gallons of gasoline, diesel, kerosine, and aviation fuel. As one of the top 5 facilities in the UK, it supplies 5% of the country's energy needs.

Currently the media claims it was an accident, and I so hope that they are right. It looks like some concerted effort is in place to keep the story on low profile. How would you otherwise explain that, although this is the biggest explosion in peacetime Europe, and the fire is still burning, probably with toxic gases all around, the front pages on BBC, CNN, New York Times and the Washington Post barely if at all mention it? I made some screen shots. 

High time to get John Robb over here for a global guerillas Future Salon :-)

[*] The BBC as well as the International Herald Tribune state that there may have been 60 Million Gallons of gasoline involved in the fire.

Above Picture  shot by Gridlock and posted on Flickr with Creative Commons license. There are other beautiful ones, but they marked them all rights reserved, so I don't even link to them :-)

The Future of Activism

Since I've now relocated to NYC, I was able to attend a panel of contributors to a remarkable new book, Letters from Young Activists : Today's Rebels Speak Out on Thursday, hosted by Demos. They sold out of copies at the event, so I still haven't had a chance to even flip through it myself, but each of the panelists read an excerpt from the letter they had contributed. I was very impressed. As the editorial reviews listed on Amazon note, many of the contributors are not seasoned, polished writers, and so from a conventional literary point of view the book is perhaps unexceptional. I, however, would prefer to characterize the excerpts that I heard (particularly, of course, as read by the authors themselves) as uncompromisingly honest, direct, and unpretentious. They are also written by activists "on the ground" themselves, not by analysts, pundits, reporters or commentators who are at least one level removed from the practice and experience of activism, as both a struggle and a collaboration. As such, I found them all quite revealing, engaging, and moving.

The book is divided into three sections, Past: Letters to the Previous Generations, Present: Letters to the Movements, and Future: Letters to the Next Generations. But the fact that they are all penned by young activists means that in truth they are all at least implicitly focused on the future, on the goals and ambitions of young people still just beginning their careers, still self-consciously in the process of becoming the people they want to be, and attempting to forge the world they want to be in.

I was also struck by just how familiar the issues and challenges they were confronting should be to almost all Future Saloners. While the context was clearly different, and they may have used different terms to name them, they were largely the same challenges discussed anywhere people are attempting to either facilitate or cope with change in communities and organizations of any kind today: grappling with very complex (multi-dimensional and tangled) problems, growing new teams and institutions and the resources to support them, suppressing turf wars and battles of egos, building trust internally and with a base of clients, transcending ideologies and narrow identities, bridging cultural divides, etc. Let's hope this book can help can help establish more dialogue and cooperation between sectors of society which we usually think of as being so distinct and incompatible, because there appears to be much common ground and common experience to be found, and lessons to be shared, if people are willing to take the time and effort to communicate them, freely and plainly, to a broad audience.

Those of you in the Bay Area will have your own opportunity to meet Kenyon Farrow (editor) and some of the local contributors tomorrow, December 11, at the Modern Times Bookstore:

888 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
Phone: 415-282-9246
4pm

I hope some of you will attend, and help establish that broad dialogue which could benefit us all.