Jewelry Formed Like Molecular Structures

36-year-old biochemist, Raven Hanna, designs jewelry made of sterling silver to resemble molecules, some of which affect human emotions: theobromine, caffeine, serotonin, dopamine and others. "I love the way people gravitate to the aesthetics of my jewelry," she said. Her creations often sell for $75 to $130. To purchase or find out more about Raven Hanna's jewelry, visit www.madewithmolecules.com
--from a Designer Profile in the Sunday Dec 30 SF Chronicle article by Nick Thomas

We Rewire When Learning

New Evidence in Learnings's Effect on Brain--by David Perlman, SF Chronicle Science writer
.
"Li Zuo, a neurobiologist at UC Santa Cruz, has discovered how learning and memory imprint their effects on the brain . . . that in learning a new task, the connections between specific cells in the brain are swiftly rewired, and that those fresh connections can become permanent . . . In other words, the new connections--known as synapses--remain fixed.
.
In the lab, she and her lab colleagues used some tricky, but harmless techniques available to brain researchers who study mice as models for the human condition.
.
The patiently trained scores of the mice, one at a time, to put a foreleg through a slot in a transparent plastic box and to grab a single speck of delicious birdseed no bigger than a pinhead.
Some of the mice they trained were only a few days old, while others were teenagers and adults.
Rewiring in under an hour
. After training, the scientists took high-tech movies of the living animals' brains--a procedure possible because the mice were genetically bred so their brain cell connections would show up on film glowing from fluorescence after each training exercise. It was painless to the mice.
. The synapses are formed by other tiny brain structures called dendritic spines. And in the lab, Zuo and her colleagues found that those microscopic spines not only rewired the connections in less than an hour after the mice were trained, but then remained stable permanently. After learning a different task, the mice were challenged again with the original birdseed task, and they performed almost flawlessly--proof that they hadn't forgotten, Zuo said. And a second set of movies of their brains showed that the earlier rewired synapses and dendritic spines had remained intact."

.
Jim Said: "It is also possible to feel it, or to be aware that it is occurring."

A Gilded Cherub For You

Happy Holidays To Everyone !

James K Polk--Westward Expansion

James K. Polk, the 11th President, has a reputation that languishes in obscurity, partly because he is said to be the driving force behind igniting the War with Mexico. He served only one term in office. Competing views of Polk have emerged, partly because of a new book being published this month, "A COUNTRY OF VAST DESIGNS, James K Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent", by Robert W Merry. Recent history has seen Polk relegated to the role of a shameful imperialist and seizer of territories along with being a carrier of the "slave-holder" sentiment into the formerly neutral West. With his victory in war with Mexico, he added territories comprising California, Nevada and Utah, as well as parts of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Wyoming. The book reminds historians that by 1845 The United States was the only functioning democracy in the world. The book also points out that Mexico, far from being a benevolent neighbor, was brutal and corrupt and a republic in name only. The war occurred from 1846 to 1848. Polk himself was said to be colorless and maddeninglly ambivalent in speeches, making him hard to label or characterize. He was said to be "smaller-than-life" but harboring "larger-than-life" ambitions and felt determined to act on his own counsel. He saw expansionism as the nation's work and believed that it would override all of the partisan concerns of the day. In this, he appears to have erred because the westward expansion appears to have inflamed the pro-slavery sentiments as well as the anti-slaver's belief that slavery should not go to the new territories. This unsettled the balance that was thought to have been achieved with The Missouri Comprise of 1820-21. These partision clashes led a dozen years later to the Civil War. His role as a promoter of the California Gold Rush is mentioned regularly in Haggin training. The new book plants a flag for a new thought that Polk was a shrewd expander of the American vision of itself and more than a greedy imperialist.

A Nobel Laureate Passes By

On a Saturday afternoon,
Throngs at Berkeley,
Sat Amid the Historic Stadium,
Where Andy Smith's ashes,
Were once dropped to the field,
From a small airplane,
While the stadium rested,
Draped in Black Crepe.
.
This fine autumn day,
We all sat in happy repose,
When unexpectedly,
Professor Oliver Williamson,
Winner of the 2009
Nobel Prize in Economics,
Climbed up the stairs,
In our aisle of seats on both sides,
Wearing a VIP badge slung around,
His neck, he smiled modestly,
Appearing aged--and small.
The crowd rose to its feet,
And faced him in the aisle,
As he climbed higher.
Jim said: "Bravo!"
And applauded too.

My Once-Remembered Indian Village--James Estrada

[Use frequent scene breaks]
.
Plastic maps,
Painting and wild animals,
Exfoliating granite.
UMACHA and tools on the ground,
First Julia.
Ranger's introduction,
Julia portrait,
Blessing song and Julia's biographay (coughing).
Basketry (Fire Lady Fable).
Takes coat off; truck passes by--CRACKING.
Acorns in the village--rules about acorns.
Men talk. Women talk.
Weak acorns.
Jim walks away,
To see stones and UMACHA.

Pilot, Adventurer, Role Model--with the allure of one who died in her prime

Amelia Earhart received her pilot's license in 1921, broke the women's
altitude record in 1922 . . . After her solo flight across the Altantic she
became the first pilot to fly solo to California from Hawaii in 1934. [Ted
Waitt, producer of "Amelia"] said, "The more I researched her
disappearance, the more fascinated I became with her life. What she
did, at the time she did it, is extraordinary. At the time, flying was
considered an extreme sport, and the risks that she faced took an
incredible amount of guts. She was an amazing role model . . .
. On July 22, 1937, Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan,
took off from New Guinea, 22,000 miles into their effort to
circumnavigate the earth. They aimed for Howland Island, a sliver
of an island about 2,500 miles into the Pacific. Almost everyone, even today, is aware that they never made it; they most likely ran out of
fuel and crashed into the ocean. [Director, Ms. Nair] said, "The more
I read about her, the more I thought she is like I was. Beyond the
enigma of how she died, I'm hoping people will see themselves in her
decisions to set aside her fears and live her life to the fullest."