Shannon Jiménez

"This is a poster presented by Bennett and colleagues at this year's Human Brain Mapping conference. It's about fMRI scanning on a dead fish, specifically a salmon. They put the salmon in an MRI scanner and "the salmon was shown a series of photographs depicting human individuals in social situations. The salmon was asked to determine what emotion the individual in the photo must have been experiencing." I'd say that this research was justified on comedic grounds alone, but they were also making an important scientific point. The (fish-)bone of contention here is multiple comparisons correction. The "multiple comparisons problem" is simply the fact that if you do a lot of different statistical tests, some of them will, just by chance, give interesting results.... Luckily, during the 1990s, fMRI pioneers developed techniques for dealing with the problem: multiple comparisons correction. The most popular method uses Gaussian Random Field Theory to calculate the probability of falsely "finding" activated areas just by chance, and to keep this acceptably low (details), although there are other alternatives. But not everyone uses multiple comparisons correction. This is where the fish comes in - Bennett et al show that if you don't use it, you can find "neural activation" even in the tiny brain of dead fish." - Shannon Jiménez

I used this tool: http://douweosinga.com/project.... I need to visit Africa and Asia :) - Shannon Jiménez

I hiked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu a couple years ago with my family. We also spent a few days in the Amazon looking at wildlife. It was a great trip! - Shannon Jiménez

After 10 minutes on the stupid phone tree it somehow sent me right back to where I started! - Shannon Jiménez

you're welcome - earlyadopter

"The respected international news agency Reuters published a story on Tuesday reporting that the penis of a large giraffe model at Berlin's Legoland Discovery Center had been stolen four times. The 12in appendage, which is made out of around 15,000 bricks, had been repeatedly targeted by souvenir hunters since the statue was installed in 2007, it said. But a few hours later the news wire corrected the story to clarify that the part that had proved so attractive to thieves was actually the giraffe's tail. The Lego giraffe, it turns out, does not have a penis." - Shannon Jiménez

Pretty sure this was the day they added the feature allowing you to post directly to FF :) - Shannon Jiménez

Oh is posting to FF feature is created after release of FriendFeed? You're too old at friendfeed. - AlpB.

It existed before the public launch, but wasn't always available in the private beta. - Shannon Jiménez

"Do bilinguals have an internal switch that stops their two languages from interfering with each other, or are both languages always "on"? The fact that bilinguals aren't forever spurting out words from the wrong language implies there's some kind of switch. Moreover, in 2007, brain surgeons reported evidence for a language switch when their cortical prodding with an electrode caused two bilingual patients to switch languages suddenly and involuntarily. On the other hand, there's good evidence that languages are integrated in the bilingual mind. For example, bilinguals are faster at naming an object when the word for that object is similar or the same in the two languages they speak (e.g. ship/schip in English and Dutch). Now Eva Van Assche and colleagues have provided further evidence for the idea of bilingual language integration by showing that a person's second language affects the way that they read in their native language." - Shannon Jiménez

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... - Ozgur Demir

"Four hundred years ago this month, Galileo Galilei presented his eight-powered telescope to the Venetian Senate. He was soon working with a 20-powered telescope, and later that year, he proved that the moon's surface was rough, contrary to the prevailing view. Galileo went on to become one of the most recognized names in scientific history. But why do we call him by his first name only? Because that's how he referred to himself. At the time of Galileo's birth in 1564, surnames were optional in Italy. In daily interactions, an Italian would use the name his parents gave him at birth—what we'd now call a first name—and, if further clarification were required, add on his father's name (like di Antonio, or "son of Antonio"), his birthplace (Romano, or "from Rome"), his occupation (Pannetierre, meaning "baker"), or a traditional family surname (if one existed, like Galilei)." - Shannon Jiménez

"This suggests a different way of thinking about the influence of language on thought: words are very handy mnemonics. We may not be able to remember what seventeen spools looks like, but we can remember the word seventeen. In his landmark The Language of Thought, philosopher Jerry Fodor argued that many words work like acronyms. French students use the acronym bans to remember which adjectives go before nouns ("Beauty, Age, Number, Goodneess, and Size"). Similarly, sometimes its easier to remember a word (calculus, Estonia) than what the word stands for. We use the word, knowing that should it becomes necessary, we can search through our minds -- or an encyclopedia -- and pull up the relevant information (how to calculate an integral; Estonia's population, capital and location on a map). Numbers, it seems, work the same way." - Shannon Jiménez

Nice job :) - Rodfather

rock on - Bren

That is so sweet! It's so awesome to think you made a difference in Ga Young's life. - Ayşe E.

It's amazing what a positive influence a great teacher can have on a young personality. 30 years on, I still remember a teacher who made me feel the way your student feels about you - a lady called Miss Phillips; she unraveled maths for me and made learning feel an adventure rather than a chore. - Andrew Terry

"Time was, fail was simply a verb that denoted being unsuccessful or falling short of expectations. It made occasional forays into nounhood, in fixed expressions like without fail and no-fail. That all started to change in certain online subcultures about six years ago. In July 2003, a contributor to Urbandictionary.com noted that fail could be used as an interjection “when one disapproves of something,” giving the example: “You actually bought that? FAIL.” This punchy stand-alone fail most likely originated as a shortened form of “You fail” or, more fully, “You fail it,” the taunting “game over” message in the late-’90s Japanese video game Blazing Star, notorious for its fractured English." - Shannon Jiménez

"What if the Japanese-to-English translation industry were the rocket-science industry? What if instead of clients with dubious English skills "incorrecting" your translations on the authority of high-school English textbooks and long-retired sempai, they used hoary old physics textbooks to correct your equations?" - Shannon Jiménez

This site is awesome! You enter a phrase in English and it uses Google translate to translate it into Japanese and back again over and over... until "equilibrium" is found. - Shannon Jiménez

So hilarious. I could type in phrases all day. - Bret Taylor

Wood wood wood wood? http://translationparty.com/tp... - Kelly Norton

Challenge: Find phrases that generate endless recursion: Here's one "Dogs love Cats" http://translationparty.com/tp... - Ray Cromwell

"Used in yards, farms and parks throughout the world, Roundup has long been a top-selling weed killer. But now researchers have found that one of Roundup’s inert ingredients can kill human cells, particularly embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells. The new findings intensify a debate about so-called “inerts” — the solvents, preservatives, surfactants and other substances that manufacturers add to pesticides. Nearly 4,000 inert ingredients are approved for use by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency....Until now, most health studies have focused on the safety of glyphosate, rather than the mixture of ingredients found in Roundup. But in the new study, scientists found that Roundup’s inert ingredients amplified the toxic effect on human cells—even at concentrations much more diluted than those used on farms and lawns. One specific inert ingredient, polyethoxylated tallowamine, or POEA, was more deadly to human embryonic, placental and umbilical cord cells than the herbicide itself – a finding the researchers call “astonishing.”" - Shannon Jiménez

Did no one read Silent Spring? Or at least the Cliff's Notes? I mean I'm only part way through, but this still seems like a big, glaring, flashing "Duh!" - Heather

"The country has never had easy access to human rabies vaccines, but the disease has soared in recent years: from fewer than 200 cases in the 1990s to 3,302 in 2007, and such official estimates are likely to be an undercount. That makes rabies the third-biggest infectious disease killer in China after AIDS and tuberculosis.... Lacking an effective animal vaccination program, in 2006 China began enforcing a one-dog per family policy and in a June crackdown one city culled 37,000 dogs in hopes of quelling an outbreak. Instead, officials only angered animal rights activists in China and abroad, while leaving U.S. epidemiologists scratching their heads in bemusement. "Beating dogs to death—that's just not a 21st century way of going about stopping rabies," Rupprecht says." - Shannon Jiménez

I would have thought a communist country with a totalitarian government would have a relatively easy time implementing a mandatory vaccination program, but I guess I'm wrong. I do imagine giving a dog a shot would be far easier, far less messy, and probably even cheaper than having to capture and beat a dog to death. - Victor Ganata

"There are some things in this world that will never be forgotten, this week’s 40th anniversary of the moon landing for one. But Moore’s Law and our ever-increasing quest for simpler, smaller, faster and better widgets and thingamabobs will always ensure that some of the technology we grew up with will not be passed down the line to the next generation of geeks" - Shannon Jiménez

This is a good book. I used it to help layout my garden. - Anika