Friday, January 29, 2016

New Scientific Proof--The Mind Is Not the Brain

Science typically asserts that human consciousness, including the sense of "I" and the observing "mind," are by-products of the material that makes up the brain. Yet, according to the Simple Explanation, scientists make a fundamental error when they equate the brain with consciousness or the mind.

Now, at last, a well-designed scientific study has proven that memory retrieval takes place far quicker than neurons can fire. A study published in the Journal of Neurosciences this month [The Journal of Neuroscience, 6 January 2016, 36(1): 251-260; doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2101-15.2016] has demonstrated using human subjects that when we remember an event, the sensory information invoked by that memory happens so quickly the study's authors named the phenomenon "very rapid reactivation." And by "rapid" they mean information is acquired faster than the brain's ability to fire and transmit signals through known neuronal channels.

Here is an excellent analysis of the scientific finding that I'm reposting from the Alternative-Doctor site, by Keith Scott-Mumby. I agree with Scott-Mumby's conclusions that this study offers proof that consciousness resides outside the brain, independent of brain function.

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Begin repost from http://alternative-doctor.com/mind-stuff/brain-science/ :

The End of Brain Science As We Know It Jim

by PROFKEITH

You have heard and read me saying for years that brain and mind are not the same; that the extended mind is outside the physical body; that memory is in the surrounding encapsulation of the body, not in our tissues (which leads to the concept of a low-level “cellular memory”).

Mechanistic brain science, on the other hand, insists that memory and cognition all take place within the brain, because “it must be so”. There is nothing non-physical, they say (which in a way is true!)

Here’s an interesting study (Nov 2015) that makes it clear that memory function (recording and retrieval) is so fast that neurons and synapses cannot possibly be involved in the process, except maybe peripherally, but certainly not as the causal agency.

Ecphory, a word you will encounter in a moment, was given us by brilliant German researcher Richard Semon (1859-1918), who also coined the term “engram” for a cellular memory trace. We all think in terms of memory recording, of course—the so-called engram, from the process of engraphy. But don’t forget there has to be memory retrieval too, otherwise it’s not available! The retrieving of memories Semon named ecphory, or awakening of the previous engramic record.

Here is a synopsis of the study findings:

They conducted two experiments with human participants. In the first, they “encoded” the memory (engraphy) with some right or left tags that would be associated with that exact memory: these are called “retrieval cues”.

There was then a memory test with the retrieval cues presented dead center, instead of to the right or left. EEG showed brain activity leapt into life very early (around 100- 200 milliseconds), on one side or the other. For completeness I should add that the activation was on the contralateral side; that would be expected if you bear in mind that the left side is processed by the right-brain and vice versa.

This showed, in the words of the researchers, there was a clear pre-conscious element to memory and it was very fast.

As a refinement, they used rhythmic transcranial magnetic stimulation to interfere with early memory retrieval processing, stimulating either the right or left brain separately. The result was interference with the memory that had its retrieval cue on the opposite side.

To quote the researchers, “These results demonstrate, for the first time, that episodic memory functionally relies on very rapid reactivation of sensory information that was present during encoding, a process termed “ecphory.”¹

What they don’t say is that this is too fast for brain-activated memory. Transmission within the nervous system across synapses (the gaps between brain cells) is ten times slower than transmission through nerve fibers; typically about 2 milliseconds to cross the gap. The 100-millisecond delay they were finding would allow connection through only 50 – 100 brain cells at most. Hardly enough to record the smell, sound, colors, emotion, words, lighting, body posture and all the other dozens of memory modalities for even a single instant of memory!

They need a new theory! They just virtually “proved” that the brain only processes memories, it does not handle or record them!

Episodic memory, by the way, means recalling experiences and events, as opposed to what we call learned memory (repetition and training of the mind).

More Information on Brain Science

The average human brain has about 21- 26 billion neurons (or nerve cells) in the cerebral cortex, not 100 billion as if often stated.²

Each neuron may be connected to up to 10,000 other neurons, passing signals to each other via as many as 1,000 trillion synaptic connections (1 billion US), and equivalent by some estimates to a computer with a 1 trillion bit per second processor. Estimates of the human mind’s memory capacity vary wildly from 1 to 1,000 terabytes (for comparison, the 19 million volumes in the US Library of Congress represents about 10 terabytes of data).

Functionally related neurons connect to each other to form neural networks (also known as neural nets or assemblies). The connections between neurons are not static, they change over time. The more signals sent between two neurons, the stronger the connection grows (technically, the amplitude of the receiver neuron’s response increases), and so, with each new experience and each remembered event or fact, the brain slightly re-wires its physical structure.

We call that “brain plasticity”. But it’s about scale and size, NOT speed.

Allometry

This word just means brain measurements or the brain “numbers” (metrics). For example, the estimated 21 – 26 billion neurons in the human cortex just quoted is an allometric figure. Not so scary!

There are some amazing revelations using brain allometry that science just ignores.

For example the human brain (83 billion neurons, including cortex, cerebellum, brain stem etc.) is smaller than the generic “primate brain” (93 billion cells total), meaning the brain scaled for size and content, as opposed to an absolute count. That’s bad. But even worse, the generic rodent brain contains 12 billion cells. That means we have proportionately just over 6 times the brain size and power that rodents have. Does that make sense to you? Could a rat have around 1/6^th of the brain power of Einstein, Shakespeare or Beethoven?

What is emerging with the new science of brain allometrics is that the human brain, considering its size, is far from being as supercharged with cells and as powerful as science has always supposed.

To conclude that the human brain is a linearly scaled-up primate brain, with just the expected number of neurons, or slightly less, for a primate brain of its size, basically says that it is unremarkable in its capabilities.

However, as studies on the cognitive abilities of non-human primates and other large-brained animals (like cetaceans) progress, it becomes increasingly likely that humans do not have truly unique cognitive abilities, and hence must differ from these animals not qualitatively, but rather in the combination and extent of abilities such as theory of mind, imitation and social cognition.³

Put another way, the brain can’t really do the job that brain science has assigned to it. Our mental powers do not come from our brains, after all. It’s back to non-material Being. The brain is only a relay point or switchboard.

I agree with Suzana Herculano-Houzel at the Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, writing for the journal Frontiers of Human Neuroscience, that: “Novel quantitative data on the cellular composition of the human brain and its comparison to other primate brains strongly indicate that we need to rethink our notions about the place that the human brain holds in nature and evolution, and rewrite some of the basic concepts that are taught in textbooks.”⁴

She is not going as far as to state that mind and Being are non-material. But she makes it plain, in a very long review article that a lot of brain theory simply doesn’t stand up. It’s just dogma and tradition, not real brain science.

Still, you will admit, numbers can be interesting at times!

References:

1. Gerd T. Waldhauser, Verena Braun, and Simon Hanslmayr. Episodic Memory Retrieval Functionally Relies on Very Rapid Reactivation of Sensory Information. The Journal of Neuroscience, 6 January 2016, 36(1): 251-260; doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2101-15.2016

2. Herculano-Houzel, S. (2009). The human brain in numbers: A linearly scaled-up primate brain. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience Front. Hum. Neurosci., 3(00031).

3. PLoS Biol. 5:e139. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0050139

4. Front. Hum. Neurosci., 09 November 2009

Sunday, January 10, 2016

Bacterial Recount Update: Repost from Science News

Turns out our body's cells are not outnumbered by the bacteria that live in here with us. Read on...

Reprint:

Body’s bacteria don’t outnumber human cells so much after all

New calculations suggest roughly equal populations, not 10-to-1 ratio

EVEN ODDS In the human body, bacteria (such as Enterococcus bacteria, shown) were once thought to outnumber human cells by 10-to-1. New calculations show roughly equal numbers of each.

CULTURA RM/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

A “standard man” weighing 70 kilograms has roughly the same number of bacteria and human cells in his body, researchers report online January 6 at bioRxiv.org. This average guy would be composed of about 40 trillion bacteria and 30 trillion human cells, calculate researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, and the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. That’s a ratio of 1.3 bacteria to every one human cell.
That estimate could be off by as much as 25 percent, with the average number of bacteria ranging from 30 trillion to 50 trillion. Among individual people, the bacterial count could vary as much as 52 percent, say Ron Sender, Shai Fuchs and Ron Milo. With a fudge factor of 10 trillion to 20 trillion bacteria, the number of microbes may pretty well match the number of human cells in the body, which also varies somewhat. “Indeed, the numbers are similar enough that each defecation event may flip the ratio to favor human cells over bacteria,” the researchers write.
Scientists who study the microbiome, the collection of microorganisms that live in and on the human body, have peppered research papers with an estimate that bacteria outnumber human cells 10-to-1 or even 100-to-1. In recent years, those estimates have come into question, with the American Academy of Microbiology suggesting in 2013 that the real figure is probably closer to three bacterial cells for each human cell.
Story continues after graphic

Judah Rosner, a molecular biologist at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases in Bethesda, Md., called the 10-to-1 ratio a “fake fact” in a 2014 issue of Microbe. It probably wormed its way into scientific literature because it sounds good, Rosner says. “Everybody likes a nice, round number. And it had such impact. It was good PR.” But Rosner and others wondered where the number had come from in the first place.
Sender and Milo at the Weizmann Institute and Fuchs now at the Hospital for Sick Children traced the figure to a single, back-of-the-envelope calculation in a 1972 paper. The researchers combed scientific literature to come up with their own estimates of bacterial and human cell numbers.
Plenty of cocktail-party fodder is buried in the results. For instance, the team finds that red blood cells are the most numerous cells in the body, accounting for 84 percent of cells in the body by number. By weight, muscle and fat are the heavy hitters, making up 75 percent of cell mass. But those cells tend to be big and represent only about 0.1 percent of the human body cell number. As expected, most of the bacteria in the body — about 39 trillion — live in the colon.
Women tend to have smaller blood volume than men, so their bacteria-to-human cell ratio may be about 30 percent higher than that of men, the researchers calculate. Growing children probably fall within the range of bacteria-to-human cell ratios of adult men. Obesity doesn’t change the ratio much, the team calculates.
These estimates haven’t been checked by other scientists yet, but microbiome researchers say they appreciate the effort to examine the ratio. “Anytime people can add more precision it’s good,” says microbiologist Martin Blaser of New York University School of Medicine. The researchers didn’t do any experiments, and Blaser says others should begin measuring bacterial and human cell numbers to get an even more accurate number.
Other researchers point out that the new paper’s calculations considered only bacteria, while viruses, fungi, archaea and other microbes are also part of the human microbiome. Viruses vastly outnumber bacteria (SN: 1/11/14, p.18) and could skew the microbe-to-human cell ratio upwards, says Julie Segre, a geneticist at the National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda, Md., and a leader of the human skin microbiome project.
Most microbiome research has focused on how relative amounts of bacteria change between health and disease, but scientists don’t yet know whether the absolute amount of bacteria is also important, says microbiologist Ran Blekhman at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
The reduced ratio in no way diminishes the effect bacteria have on human health, commenters toldScience News. Most said it doesn’t matter what the real number is, just that it’s right. Besides, “one-to-one is pretty impressive,” Rosner says. “There’s as much of them as there is of us.”

R. Sender, S. Fuchs and R. Milo. Revised estimates for the number of human and bacteria cells in the body. BioRxiv.org. Posted online January 6, 2016.

Saturday, December 26, 2015

A Simple Explanation of Extracellular Vesicles--Reprint

A Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything suggests that all entities are "units of consciousness" capable of knowledge and communication. Science is beginning to discover this. Here's a reprint of an article concerning communication by "extracellular vesicles (EVs)".

REPRINT By Dr. Mercola (redirect to Mercola Website's original article)

One way your cells communicate with each other is through the release of tiny “bubbles,” known as extracellular vesicles (EVs). These tiny cells are about the size of bacteria and viruses, and they’re only visible using an electron microscope.

For many years researchers believed EVs were carrying biological debris made up of various proteins and genetic material. It’s now known EVs have a much more important role, acting as ferries to send important messages to other cells.

Now a new study using roundworms has added more insights into how these cellular messengers work.

Extracellular Vesicles May Play a Significant Role in Human Health and Disease

Researchers from Rutgers University revealed 335 genes in roundworms (C. elegans) that supply information about the biology of EVs. About 10 percent of those genes were related to the formation, release, and, possibly, function of EVs.1

EVs are found in blood, urine, cerebrospinal fluid, and more, but it’s unknown where they originate, how they’re made, or how their “cargo of molecules” is released.2 In other words, EVs remain much of a mystery.

The EVs may be good or bad. For instance, they may play a role in sending messages between cells that promote tumor growth. The study also revealed more information about how EVs are produced and why they carry certain “cargo.”

For instance, EVs are known to carry proteins responsible for polycystic kidney disease, the most commonly inherited disease in humans, but no one knows why.3 Maureen Barr, lead author and a professor in the Department of Genetics in Rutgers' School of Arts and Sciences, told Science Daily:4

"These EVs are exciting but scary because we don't know what the mechanisms are that decide what is packaged inside them … It's like getting a letter in the mail and you don't know whether it's a letter saying that you won the lottery or a letter containing anthrax."

C. elegans is the perfect vehicle for learning more about EVs because the worms have similar genes to humans. Such research could help uncover EVs’ significance for human health and disease. Barr continued 5

"When we know exactly how they work, scientists will be able to use EVs for our advantage … This means that pathological EVs that cause disease could be blocked and therapeutic EVs that can help heal can be designed to carry beneficial cargo."

Your Body Is Constantly Communicating

EVs are only one way your cells receive important information. The microorganisms in your gut also play a role. For instance, your gut’s microorganisms trigger the production of cytokines. Cytokines are involved in regulating your immune system’s response to inflammation and infection.

Much like hormones, cytokines are signaling molecules that aid cell-to-cell communication, telling your cells where to go when your inflammatory response is initiated.

There are signals between your gut and your brain, most of which travel along your vagus nerve.6 Vagus is Latin for “wandering,” aptly named as this long nerve travels from your skull down through your chest and abdomen, branching to multiple organs.

Cytokine messengers produced in your gut cruise up to your brain along the “vagus nerve highway.” Once in your brain, the cytokines tell your microglia (the immune cells in your brain) to perform certain functions, such as producing neurochemicals.

Some of these have negative effects on your mitochondria, which can impact energy production and apoptosis (cell death), as well as adversely impact the very sensitive feedback system that controls your stress hormones, including cortisol.

So, this inflammatory response that started in your gut travels to your brain, which then builds on it, and sends signals to the rest of your body in a complex feedback loop. Signals from your gut microorganisms travel elsewhere in your body to, including to your skin.

Then there are your hormones, or your body’s chemical messengers, which exert their effects throughout your body, helping to coordinate biological processes like metabolism and fertility. As reported by Frontline:7

“It is thanks to these chemicals that distant parts of the body communicate with one another during elaborate, and important, events. In response to a signal from the brain, hormones are secreted directly into the blood by the glands that produce and store them.”

Bacteria Have a Sophisticated Method of Communication

Bacteria (both good and bad) have a very sophisticated way of communicating with each other, and once they receive the signal that their numbers are sufficient to carry out their genetic function, they launch into action as a synchronized unit.

Researchers have discovered that bacteria communicate with each other using a chemical language called "quorum sensing." Every type of bacteria make and secrete small molecules. When a bacterium is alone, these molecules simply float away.

But, when there's a large enough group of bacteria, these secreted molecules increase in proportion to the number of bacteria emitting them. When the molecules reach a certain amount, the bacteria can tell how many neighbors it has, and suddenly all the bacteria begin to act as a synchronized group.

Bacteria do not only communicate in this way between their own species; they're all "multi-lingual" and can determine the presence and strength of other bacterial colonies.

Essentially, they can count how many of its own kind there are compared to the amount of another species. They then use that information to decide what tasks to carry out, depending on who's in a minority and who's in the majority of any given population of bacteria.

Even Plants Communicate

Plants communicate with other plants — even with plants of other species — through a complex underground network that includes:

1. The plants' rhizosphere (root ball)

2. Aerial emissions (volatile gasses emitted by the plants)

3. Mycelial networks in the soil

These three systems work together forming a "plant internet" of sorts where information about each plant's status is constantly exchanged. One of the organisms responsible for this remarkable biochemical highway is a type of fungus called mycorrhizae. The name mycorrhiza literally means fungus root.8

These fungi form a symbiotic relationship with the plant, colonizing the roots and sending extremely fine filaments far out into the soil that act as root extensions.

Not only do these networks sound the alarm about invaders, but the filaments are more effective in nutrient and water absorption than the plant roots themselves — mycorrhizae increase the nutrient absorption of the plant 100 to 1,000 times.9

In one thimbleful of healthy soil, you can find several miles of fungal filaments, all releasing powerful enzymes that help dissolve tightly bound soil nutrients, such as organic nitrogen, phosphorus, and iron.

Previous research has shown that when a plant becomes infested with a pest like aphids for example, it warns surrounding plants of the attack via this network of mycorrhizal fungi.10

This "heads up" gives the other plants time to mount their chemical defenses in order to repel the aphids. Mycorrhizae fungi can even connect plants of different species, perhaps allowing interspecies communication.

Powerful Demonstration of Interspecies Communication

Entomologist Aaron Pomerantz was in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest when he discovered what’s described as a “weird relationship between butterflies, ants, and a parasitic plant.11 The plant appeared as yellow growths coating the side of a tree.

A caterpillar was eating the yellow buds, and the caterpillars were being “tended to” by ants, possibly as a form of protection. The ants, in turn, were stroking the caterpillars, which would release a bead of liquid nourishment that the ants consumed.

Butterflies were plentiful near the buds, too, and it turns out the caterpillars were the butterflies’ larval form. The butterflies, known as the Terenthina terentia species, even had yellow spots on their wings, presumably to blend in with the yellow parasitic plant.

Pomerantz found “nothing like this had ever been documented before,” but it’s a powerful demonstration of not only the symbiotic relationship between these species but also of interspecies communication.

Even though it’s unclear how the species are communicating – how do the ants know the caterpillars will provide food in exchange for protection, for instance? – it’s clear that they most certainly are.12 It’s another fascinating mystery of nature, and also shows that, just like within your body, complex communication is often occurring whether you’re aware of it or not.

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Thursday, December 10, 2015

Toroidal Tree Topper

How do you like my toroidal tree topper for Christmas? I took a green and red slinky, fastened the ends together to make a donut, then set it upon the tree. It looks like a crown up there.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!

MAY PEACE REIGN THROUGH TOLERANCE OF EACH OTHER'S DIFFERENCES

Monday, November 2, 2015

Scientists Discover Plants Don't Like Being Eaten

Here's more proof of A Simple Explanation's proposition that all of creation is fractal consciousness that works on the same principles. Humans are not alone at the top of the "I think, therefore I am" pile.

the following article is a repost from AG WEB/Farm Journal

Chewing vibrations prompt plant to react with chemical releases

Plants know and hear when they’re being eaten alive by predators. Picture a speaker at field’s edge pumping out high-frequency vibrations to corn as the rows pick up the sound and ramp up production of pest-resistant chemistry.

The plant-whispering scenario sounds futuristic, but the concept might not be as far-fetched as it first seems. Plants recognize the sound of herbivores feeding on their leaves and use information based on vibrations traveling through their tissues.

At the forefront of sound and vibration research in plants, Rex Cocroft and Heidi Appel of the University of Missouri (MU), have peeled back a significant layer on the mysteries surrounding exactly how plants “hear” signals from their environment and what they are listening for. In what might turn out to be a major building block for further discovery, Cocroft and Appel’s collaboration shows plants detect chewing sounds made by insects and can respond with defensive measures. Essentially, acoustic information allows plants to detect her-bivore attacks and counter by releasing chemicals.

Cocroft, professor of biological sciences at MU, spearheaded the audio portion of multiple experiments. He recorded the sound of caterpillars feeding using a vibration microphone with laser technology. The lasers use reflected light to determine how fast a surface is moving back and forth. For example, when chewing, a caterpillar repeatedly removes a small strip of plant tissue until a hole appears. That feeding vibration is patterned—far more than when a caterpillar is moving around on a leaf. Later, when Cocroft’s recorded vibrations were played back, the Arabidopsis plant responded by increasing its production of mustard oil.

A piece of reflective tape helps record the vibrations of a cabbage butterfly caterpillar feeding on an Arabidopsis plant.

“The plant that we studied is in the mustard or cabbage family and is known for producing mustard oils in the leaves,” says Appel, who directed the chemistry side of the research. “A caterpillar that eats nothing but mustard oil plants can get poisoned if the levels get too high.”

When plants are attacked, they respond with defensive chemistry that can take from a few hours to a few days to build up. Sometimes, a plant doesn’t experience change right away but gets primed instead.

Appel, senior research scientist in the division of plant sciences in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources and the Bond Life Sciences Center at MU, uses the analogy of cocking a gun—preparing for a response to a later attack.

“That’s what we found in this case: a priming response to the feeding vibration. If a plant had received feeding vibrations before it was attacked by caterpillars, it reacted with more defense than if it hadn’t heard the feeding vibrations. A silent playback device served as a control,” Appel continues.

While the first experiment showed plants responded to chewing vibrations, but not indicating if the
response to the chewing vibration was unique, it left open the possibil-ity that plants might respond to any vibration in a similar manner. However, during the second experiment, Cocroft played some plants chewing vibrations; some plants insect songs; and other plants wind vibrations. Also in the second experiment, Appel went beyond mustard oil detection and measured levels of anthocyanins—the chemical that gives flowers and red wine their color.

The results confirmed their initial discovery: An increase in anthocyanins was exclusive to the Arabidopsis plants that heard chewing vibrations.

Science hasn’t yet shown how plants distinguish chewing vibrations from wind or other movements. However, plant cells have proteins called mechanoreceptors embedded in the membranes that signal when moved in certain ways. Appel suspects the mechanoreceptors are sensing vibration.

The next step of research will be to determine how perception and detection work inside plants.

Now that they know plants can “hear,” University of Missouri researchers Heidi Appel, left, and Rex Cocroft will study perception and detection inside a plant.

Cocroft and Appel’s first experiments centered solely on Arabidopsis, a model plant Appel compares to the white rat in the medical world or E. coli in the bacterial world. Their work also focused on a single pest, the cabbage butterfly caterpillar. The duo believes they’ve discovered a common phenomenon and plan on widening the research to include more plants and pests with a grant from the National Science Foundation.

“There are maybe 400,000 species of plants, and what are the chances that we just happened to pick the one species that has this ability to detect vibration? The ability for plants to pick up sound is pretty clear, but the advance from this study is unique,” Cocroft notes.

“Rather than playing plants a sound that is foreign to their natural environment, we approached it from a plant perspective,” he adds. “What everyday sounds would be relevant? This wasn’t Beethoven’s 5th; this was a chewing herbivore capable of doing a lot of damage to the plant.”

They hope to answer three questions during their next phase of research: Does the Arabidopsis reaction occur in other plants and with other insects? What parts of vibration do the plants use to identify the activity as feeding? Are the mechanoreceptors responsible for feeding detection?

Appel is hopeful other scientists will take the sound and vibration research and apply it in agriculture.

“Decades ago, basic research on plant hormones provided the understanding necessary for the eventual discovery of herbicides,” she says. “There may be an equally important discovery that arises from this work, and we certainly hope so.”

Cocroft echoes the possibilities for agriculture. “Could sound be played out to plants in a field causing them to respond in a beneficial way? Sure, it’s very speculative, but it’s also something that could happen in the future,” he adds.