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Atomic Bombs Help Solve Brain Mystery
sciencehabit writes "The mushroom clouds produced by more than 500 nuclear bomb tests during the Cold War may have had a silver lining, after all. More than 50 years later, scientists have found a way to use radioactive carbon isotopes released into the atmosphere by nuclear testing to settle a long-standing debate in neuroscience: Does the adult human brain produce new neurons? After working to hone their technique for more than a decade, the researchers report that a small region of the human brain involved in memory makes new neurons throughout our lives — a continuous process of self-renewal that may aid learning."
I just read this in a neuroscience textbook published last year.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
"New neurons -- it's learning! What's it saying? Shhhhh!"
"The only winning move is not to play."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I'll drink to that!
It's been known since at least the '60s that brain cells regenerate, the question was whether that applied to the grey matter or just the glial cells.
And AFAIK, it's been accepted for years that neurogenesis applies to grey cells. Arguing that it doesn't apply would require one to have an alternate explanation for why and how memory and learning occur after the brain supposedly doesn't create new neurons. Or how precisely all that development happens in the brain after birth.
It doesn't sound to me like nuclear weapon research had anything to do with this. If the link between nuclear research and this has anything to do with carbon-14 vs. carbon-12 then you can link this "brain discovery" to nearly any branch of research using carbon-14 dating...
Common Sense (+1)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity
Silence is a state of mime.
It will be so easy to date from the poisonous chemicals and radiactivity, You figure up to a century earlier we didnt have all these chemicals. And a more than a century hence we will have finished cleaning up our pigsty.
I thought keeping the Cold War cold was the silver lining. Unless, we all of a sudden think that peace is bad thing?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
But I really think we could have done this more cheaply, more ethically, and more humanely through a controlled experiment. Call me jaded, but I have absolutely no romantic feelings of nostalgia towards the cold war. It was a time when the timeless "mine is bigger than yours" human defect almost destroyed human civilization.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
My very elderly Canadian neighbour, at one time associated with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and retired from teaching at an American medical school more than 15 years ago, told me that a scientist at her university came up with photo micrographic evidence of of adult mammalian neurogenesis in the late 1940s. This caused some eye rolling and denial of tenure for heresy, and the fellow eventually disappeared. It had to wait 'til the sixties to be rediscovered by Altman.
In wartime... truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies. (Churchill)
Sir, my brain is getting BIGGER! [cut to tanks, artillery etc. etc.]
On y va, qui mal y pense!
all these toxic memories locked in my head (goatse, tubgirl...) - oh, wait, they are not radio active.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
This is old news. Using an old (and fun but not novel) technique to confirm what has been known and studied for 20+ years is barely headline news.
(except for the mushroom shaped ones, which have a lining of Iridium and Strontium 90.)
capcha=oblivion!
except for the mushroom shaped ones, which have a lining of iridium and strontium.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
People turned into Mars Attacks like creatures.