Have AI teach you how to meditate, read you a bedtime story or maybe solve a math problem?
Did you miss the OpenAI SpringUpdate?
Here’s a link to the replay. Good stuff!
Get the latest on AI – we now have GPT-4o (o for Omni)
https://openai.com/index/spring-update/
“The Lichtman laboratory at Harvard University and the Connectomics at Google team are releasing the “H01” dataset and companion paper. H01 is a 1.4 petabyte volume of a small sample of human brain tissue.
The sample was imaged at nanoscale-resolution by serial section electron microscopy, reconstructed and annotated by automated computational techniques, and analyzed for preliminary insights into the structure of human cortex.”
http://h01-release.storage.googleapis.com/landing.html/landing.html
THE WILD IRIS
by Nobel and 12th US Poet Laureate Louise Glück
At the end of my suffering
there was a door.
Hear me out: that which you call death
I remember.
Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.
It is terrible to survive
as consciousness
buried in the dark earth.
Then it was over: that which you fear, being
a soul and unable
to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth
bending a little. And what I took to be
birds darting in low shrubs.
You who do not remember
passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice:
from the center of my life came
a great fountain, deep blue
shadows on azure sea water.
https://youtu.be/8waoQWf9aL8
https://www.themarginalian.org/2024/04/29/louse-gluck-wild-iris/
More on Louise Glück here
“Very few writers share her talent for turning water into blood.”
“Scientists believe that Alzheimer’s is caused by the abnormal buildup of proteins in and around our brain cells, although exactly what triggers this buildup is still unclear.
But what we do know is that our risk of developing Alzheimer’s is dependent on a range of genetic and environmental factors. And among these environmental factors are alcohol consumption and chronic stress.”
Good app for helping with stress issues and insomnia. It has a very positive rating and they are offering a fully featured one-year trial (just remember to cancel if you stop using it.)
Features:
• Sleep meditations and nature sounds to help you rest deeply and wake up refreshed
• A growing library of meditation Plans, personalized to your goals
• Bite-sized Singles you can use while walking, eating, commuting, and more
• Comprehensive progress tracking on 10 concrete meditation skills
• New materials each month to improve your stress, mood, focus, and more
Scientists identify the brain cells that regulate inflammation, and pinpoint how they keep tabs on the immune response.
Scientists have long known that the brain plays a part in the immune system — but how it does so has been a mystery. Now, scientists have identified cells in the brainstem that sense immune cues from the periphery of the body and act as master regulators of the body’s inflammatory response
The results in Nature suggest that the #Brain maintains a delicate balance between the molecular signals that promote inflammation and those that dampen it — a finding that could lead to treatments for autoimmune diseases and other conditions caused by an excessive immune response
The discovery is akin to a black-swan event 🧐
New research explores why some octogenarians have exceptional memories.
When it comes to aging, we tend to assume that cognition gets worse as we get older. Our thoughts may slow down or become confused, or we may start to forget things, like the name of our high school English teacher or what we meant to buy at the grocery store.
But that’s not the case for everyone.
For a little over a decade, scientists have been studying a subset of people they call “super-agers.” These individuals are age 80 and up, but they have the memory ability of a person 20 to 30 years younger.
Most research on aging and memory focuses on the other side of the equation — people who develop dementia in their later years. But, “if we’re constantly talking about what’s going wrong in aging, it’s not capturing the full spectrum of what’s happening in the older adult population,” said Emily Rogalski, a professor of neurology at the University of Chicago, who published one of the first studies on super-agers in 2012.
Some of my favorite people made the Time100 Health list. Katelyn Jetelina, Eric Topol, Peter Attia, Peter Hotez stand out for me, among others. Be sure to check out the list linked below!
Congrats to CNMRI CIO Jim Hunt’s grand daughter’s team at Caesar Rodney HS! They won the ‘National ProStart Invitational Culinary competition just held in Baltimore.
“The Caesar Rodney High School culinary team created three menu-ready recipes, including detailed cooking instructions, menu cost analysis, and then executed the dishes during the competition. Each dish was professionally plated and tasted as part of the competition. Their menu included Hand-Rolled Pork Dumplings, Pepper Crusted Steak Diane, and a Lemon Meringue Tart.”
“Until recently, the dominance of ultra-processed food and alcohol companies has seemed unassailable.
With corporate food engineers cranking out more and more hyper-palatable products, the negative health impacts seemed to only be moving in one direction. The tide might be about to turn.”
CNMRI: Neurology, Sleep Medicine, MRI 