The original article says nothing about how these rats performed on tests of memory or intelligence as the headline seems to imply. I would conjecture that they do not do as well. The article only says that they seemed to be less anxious and less depressed. Big deal. You can get that with Prozac. It is not illegal, you know what you are getting from a trusted source, it is very well studied and does not usually impair cognition.
Here is a link to the scientific article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences which may be more informative. Abstract: Anxiety involves complex, incompletely understood interactions of genomic, environmental, and experience-derived factors, and is currently being measured by psychological criteria. Here, we report previously nonperceived interrelationships between expression variations and nucleotide polymorphisms of the chromosome 7q21-22 acetylcholinesterase-paraoxonase 1 (ACHE-PON1) locus with the trait- and state-anxiety measures of 461 healthy subjects from the Health, Risk Factors, Exercise Training, and Genetics Family Study. The AChE protein controls the termination of the stress-enhanced acetylcholine signaling, whereas the PON protein displays peroxidase-like activity, thus protecting blood proteins from oxidative stress damages. Serum AChE and PON enzyme activities were both found to be affected by demographic parameters, and showed inverse, reciprocal associations with anxiety measures. Moreover, the transient scores of state anxiety and the susceptibility score of trait anxiety both appeared to be linked to enzyme activities. This finding supported the notion of corresponding gene expression relationships. Parallel polymorphisms in the ACHE and PON1 genes displayed apparent associations with both trait- and state-anxiety scores. Our findings indicate that a significant source of anxiety feelings involves inherited and acquired parameters of acetylcholine regulation that can be readily quantified, which can help explaining part of the human variance for state and trait anxiety.
I wonder where the poster is getting their information that they use Linux. Neither the Science Digest nor the original PDF paper appear to mention it. -- IV
See how easy it is to make crap statistics up? This quote from the article is just beautiful:
'...Scientific consensus says that only about 50% of personality is influenced by genetics, so psychopaths are molded by our culture just as much as they are born among us...'
That's a nice neat package for one hell of a complex phenomenon like behavior. To say that its 50% nature vs nurture is utterly stupid from a scientific point of view. So if you only train someone as a psychopath 25% of the time you'll get only a 25% psychopath? At best the 50% statistic is a guess.
This is as much about reading thoughts as using a telescope allows you to see life on other planets. fMRI gives you a little Rorschach-like blot of areas of Blood Oxygen Level Dependent (BOLD) activation. It is a very indirect measurement of which parts of the brain are more active by measuring which parts are using oxygen at a higher rate than an increment of time before. Yeah it's cool, yeah it's fun but is it even close to reading a thought. It is much more like viewing continents from outerspace as the resolution is quite limited. Some of the newer techniques like Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) are even more interesting.
Also, this kind of 'thought reading' is hardly new. I've been doing more interesting things than this (sine wave BOLD oscillation in the motor cortex that is perfectly in synch with finger tapping) in my lab for at least a year and I got this cool stuff from people have been doing it for even longer.
"God says so, and you'll fry if you doesn't do what He says." is precisely what the New Testament says God is NOT. The religious self-righteous is precisely what it criticizes heavily in the New Testament. Misguided, self-righteous people mistreat heretics, Jews, gays, neighbors etc but the basis for Christianity is emphatically NOT and in big bold letters about mistreating others.
Good for personal control. As far as 'Christianity has enough blood on its hands' is concerned, how much blood would there be without it? I'm well aware of history. Most wars in the name of religion are really about land and resources.
Blaming poor education on 'religious extremists' is horse manure. The lunacy that pervades the extreme left is just as damaging as the extreme right. Turn on any media like TV, radio or newspapers and you'll see where the real damage occurs. Can you say 'Jerry Springers World'? Christian religions are generally a powerfully moderating influence in a society that is generally devoid of such influences.
I'm a scientist. I've worked with a number of world class scientists. Guess what, many of them are quite religious including me. Guess what 2, there is little to no conflict with scientific and religious beliefs. Shocking!
GT.M (MUMPS compiler) isn't Sanchez anymore, they were acquired by Fidelity. The Linux version *is* GNU GPL since 2000 http://www.linuxmednews.com/973641949/index_html Other platforms are proprietary licenses. GT.M is used to support mission-critical applications like banking and healthcare. The company says you've probably used GT.M with your bank account and never knew it.
That said, the *clinician* GUI is good. The VistA package is huge, absolutely huge. All the software needed to run a National health infrastructure and the only one that has been actually proven to work. However, much of it is character based for better or worse. Sometimes it is better because it really performs fast without the overhead of a GUI but then it doesn't have the convenience and polish of a GUI. On the other hand you have the functionality there it just isn't in a GUI. You cannot say the same about many proprietary packages that do not have the functionality to begin with.
Another shortcoming is the lack of a billing part that is usable in the private sector. However, the http://www.freeb.org/ project should fix that. Likewise, the vendor support infrastructure is limited to Medsphere, HP and some others but that is being addressed as well this year with the recent near $1 million CMS award to WorldVistA to train vendors http://www.linuxmednews.com/1116853791/index_html
BTW, VistA has been developed over decades within the VA despite multiple efforts to kill it. It is just now gathering recognition, momentum and federal dollars as well as support of lawmakers to be deployed privately. It has always been available by FOIA (Freedom of Information Act). However, the previous stance by VA and the federal government with regard to privatizing it has been neutral to hostile (how does this help veterans?) to it is okay to think about privatizing it to actively encouraging it.
Fantastic that is now getting the recognition, and hopefully widespread deployment, it deserves.
Windows Vista is apparently not trademarked yet according to the USPTO website. There was a little discussion of this on Linux Medical News http://www.linuxmednews.com/1122038173 about a possible trademark conflict with VistA the Veterans Administration healthcare software: '...Probably not. VistA is currently trademarked by a modem company, OpenVistA is trademarked by Medsphere, VistA by itself as healthcare software is up for grabs, as is VistAOffice. Interesting,a search on the USPTO website shows Windows Vista is NOT trademarked currently, but Vista Windows IS by a drapery company. Let the games begin!'
The plaintiff looks to me like a charter member of the book-burning crowd when it is convenient for them. It will be interesting to see if we return to medieval times when consuming history is considered legal. -- IV
VHS tapes last much longer in my house than DVD's. My two little boys aged 2 and 4 mess up DVD's pretty fast, but our VHS tapes get thrown, stepped on and kicked many times before they break.
Yes, the ex-boyfriend seems to have broken the law (IANAL). However, it also seems as though they are suing Yahoo because of its deep pockets. Per the article, the ex-boyfriend was actively responsible for the shenanigans of creating the profile, luring men to the profile and posing as the plaintiff.
A graduate degree in CS really solidified my knowledge of the field after obtaining a BS in computer science and 4 years working for IBM. It was helpful because you get boxed-in to your company's view of the world and a graduate degree broadens your horizons. It exposes you to things that you would probably never look at in a job, things like AI languages and what is up and coming 10 years before it becomes mainstream. It made me a much more competent programmer. Familiarization with theory also made me more able to spot, and avoid, doomed to failure projects at work when I saw them. Problems with going back to school for me were swallowing my pride (and income!) and becoming a student again. Professors want students, not critics or rivals. This was something I had to get used to again. As someone else mentioned, I found that with age, my ability to perform math had increased a great deal. This was good because I really sucked at math before and I was now mediocre. A tremendous improvement that allowed me good grades. Finally, buddy up with the other students. There are no extra points for toughing it out on your own. I made B's and C's until the other students felt pity and started feeding me old tests and assignments. It was straight A's after that!
There are already many projects and many people doing FOSS in medicine. You can read the chronology of Free and Open Source Software in medicine over the last 4 years at Linux Medical News which has been in operation since 2000 and has over 900 articles on it. There are already many FOSS medical projects with service contracts available that are being used in the real world. A very few are: VistA, OpenEMR and FreeMed. In short, FOSS in medicine is active and thriving. Why not join a project that is already in progress?
-- Ignacio Valdes, MD, MS
-- Editor: Linux Medical News
I doubt the author's predictions of 30 years time. Why? The complexity of a computer and brain biochemistry are in no way comparable. The best we can do with the best tools we have for understanding how the human brain works are approximate measurements of only 1 millimeter resolution for extremely simple brain tasks. -- IV
I have a BS and MS in computer science and worked for many years in the industry before becoming a doctor and founding Linux Medical News.
I SUCKED at math, working like a dog for C grades in calculus. My miserable performance was highlighted by a D grade in Differential Equations that I worked very hard for. This did not keep me from making straight A's in my programming classes. There is the phenomenon of mathematica 'late bloomers' and I understood it better when I hit 25-27 years old. However, I've never come close to being good or even mediocre at it.
In 20 years, I have yet to do an integral since those awful days and I have worked for IBM as a NASA contractor, the now defunct Compaq and briefly had my own software company. I am now working as a researcher in the highly technical field of functional MRI. I still suck at math. I was regarded by my peers as a good software engineer. Even though I no longer program professionally, I still have a good intuition for software problems and can write quickies without difficulty. I now use a sliver of my ability to make sophisticated spreadsheet models for successful investing. A beautiful benefit indeed.
Do not let lack of math ability deter you from an interesting field that will help you anywhere you go!
Slashdot Mirror
That's 'Dr. Fuck' to you :-) -- IV
The original article says nothing about how these rats performed on tests of memory or intelligence as the headline seems to imply. I would conjecture that they do not do as well. The article only says that they seemed to be less anxious and less depressed. Big deal. You can get that with Prozac. It is not illegal, you know what you are getting from a trusted source, it is very well studied and does not usually impair cognition.
-- IV
Here is a link to the scientific article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences which may be more informative. Abstract: Anxiety involves complex, incompletely understood interactions of genomic, environmental, and experience-derived factors, and is currently being measured by psychological criteria. Here, we report previously nonperceived interrelationships between expression variations and nucleotide polymorphisms of the chromosome 7q21-22 acetylcholinesterase-paraoxonase 1 (ACHE-PON1) locus with the trait- and state-anxiety measures of 461 healthy subjects from the Health, Risk Factors, Exercise Training, and Genetics Family Study. The AChE protein controls the termination of the stress-enhanced acetylcholine signaling, whereas the PON protein displays peroxidase-like activity, thus protecting blood proteins from oxidative stress damages. Serum AChE and PON enzyme activities were both found to be affected by demographic parameters, and showed inverse, reciprocal associations with anxiety measures. Moreover, the transient scores of state anxiety and the susceptibility score of trait anxiety both appeared to be linked to enzyme activities. This finding supported the notion of corresponding gene expression relationships. Parallel polymorphisms in the ACHE and PON1 genes displayed apparent associations with both trait- and state-anxiety scores. Our findings indicate that a significant source of anxiety feelings involves inherited and acquired parameters of acetylcholine regulation that can be readily quantified, which can help explaining part of the human variance for state and trait anxiety.
I'm not impressed until they decide to not discriminate against Artificial Intelligences. Especially in management where AI's are desperately needed.
-- IV
I wonder where the poster is getting their information that they use Linux. Neither the Science Digest nor the original PDF paper appear to mention it. -- IV
And 72.4% of scientific statistics are false.
See how easy it is to make crap statistics up? This quote from the article is just beautiful:
'...Scientific consensus says that only about 50% of personality is influenced by genetics, so psychopaths are molded by our culture just as much as they are born among us...'
That's a nice neat package for one hell of a complex phenomenon like behavior. To say that its 50% nature vs nurture is utterly stupid from a scientific point of view. So if you only train someone as a psychopath 25% of the time you'll get only a 25% psychopath? At best the 50% statistic is a guess.
-- IV
This is as much about reading thoughts as using a telescope allows you to see life on other planets. fMRI gives you a little Rorschach-like blot of areas of Blood Oxygen Level Dependent (BOLD) activation. It is a very indirect measurement of which parts of the brain are more active by measuring which parts are using oxygen at a higher rate than an increment of time before. Yeah it's cool, yeah it's fun but is it even close to reading a thought. It is much more like viewing continents from outerspace as the resolution is quite limited. Some of the newer techniques like Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) are even more interesting.
Also, this kind of 'thought reading' is hardly new. I've been doing more interesting things than this (sine wave BOLD oscillation in the motor cortex that is perfectly in synch with finger tapping) in my lab for at least a year and I got this cool stuff from people have been doing it for even longer.
-- IV
I am sorry if you have been persecuted for your belief and I wish it were not so. -- IV
"God says so, and you'll fry if you doesn't do what He says." is precisely what the New Testament says God is NOT. The religious self-righteous is precisely what it criticizes heavily in the New Testament. Misguided, self-righteous people mistreat heretics, Jews, gays, neighbors etc but the basis for Christianity is emphatically NOT and in big bold letters about mistreating others.
-- IV
Good for personal control. As far as 'Christianity has enough blood on its hands' is concerned, how much blood would there be without it? I'm well aware of history. Most wars in the name of religion are really about land and resources.
-- IV
Blaming poor education on 'religious extremists' is horse manure. The lunacy that pervades the extreme left is just as damaging as the extreme right. Turn on any media like TV, radio or newspapers and you'll see where the real damage occurs. Can you say 'Jerry Springers World'? Christian religions are generally a powerfully moderating influence in a society that is generally devoid of such influences.
I'm a scientist. I've worked with a number of world class scientists. Guess what, many of them are quite religious including me. Guess what 2, there is little to no conflict with scientific and religious beliefs. Shocking!
-- IV
GT.M (MUMPS compiler) isn't Sanchez anymore, they were acquired by Fidelity. The Linux version *is* GNU GPL since 2000 http://www.linuxmednews.com/973641949/index_html Other platforms are proprietary licenses. GT.M is used to support mission-critical applications like banking and healthcare. The company says you've probably used GT.M with your bank account and never knew it.
u x.jpg/view?display=large
There is a completely Linux/open source VistA stack available now, including the GUI CPRS client: http://www.linuxmednews.com/1112336432/index_html with a screenshot: http://www.linuxmednews.com/LMNphotos/cprs_on_lin
That said, the *clinician* GUI is good. The VistA package is huge, absolutely huge. All the software needed to run a National health infrastructure and the only one that has been actually proven to work. However, much of it is character based for better or worse. Sometimes it is better because it really performs fast without the overhead of a GUI but then it doesn't have the convenience and polish of a GUI. On the other hand you have the functionality there it just isn't in a GUI. You cannot say the same about many proprietary packages that do not have the functionality to begin with.
Another shortcoming is the lack of a billing part that is usable in the private sector. However, the http://www.freeb.org/ project should fix that. Likewise, the vendor support infrastructure is limited to Medsphere, HP and some others but that is being addressed as well this year with the recent near $1 million CMS award to WorldVistA to train vendors http://www.linuxmednews.com/1116853791/index_html
-- IV
Which means it can be any license you'd like, including GNU GPL. RMS weighed in on this topic on Linux Medical News some years back: http://www.linuxmednews.com/974769856/index_html
BTW, VistA has been developed over decades within the VA despite multiple efforts to kill it. It is just now gathering recognition, momentum and federal dollars as well as support of lawmakers to be deployed privately. It has always been available by FOIA (Freedom of Information Act). However, the previous stance by VA and the federal government with regard to privatizing it has been neutral to hostile (how does this help veterans?) to it is okay to think about privatizing it to actively encouraging it.
Fantastic that is now getting the recognition, and hopefully widespread deployment, it deserves.
-- IV
Windows Vista is apparently not trademarked yet according to the USPTO website. There was a little discussion of this on Linux Medical News http://www.linuxmednews.com/1122038173 about a possible trademark conflict with VistA the Veterans Administration healthcare software: '...Probably not. VistA is currently trademarked by a modem company, OpenVistA is trademarked by Medsphere, VistA by itself as healthcare software is up for grabs, as is VistAOffice. Interesting,a search on the USPTO website shows Windows Vista is NOT trademarked currently, but Vista Windows IS by a drapery company. Let the games begin!'
-- IV
The plaintiff looks to me like a charter member of the book-burning crowd when it is convenient for them. It will be interesting to see if we return to medieval times when consuming history is considered legal. -- IV
Say it isn't so. -- IV
VHS tapes last much longer in my house than DVD's. My two little boys aged 2 and 4 mess up DVD's pretty fast, but our VHS tapes get thrown, stepped on and kicked many times before they break.
-- IV
Yes, the ex-boyfriend seems to have broken the law (IANAL). However, it also seems as though they are suing Yahoo because of its deep pockets. Per the article, the ex-boyfriend was actively responsible for the shenanigans of creating the profile, luring men to the profile and posing as the plaintiff.
-- IV
And would it be really expensive?
-- IV
So what happens if they fail to make it? Do they give the money back? Are they brought before Lord Vader? -- IV
Are there benchmarks comparing 3 to 4 available? What benefitw would the average user eventually expect from this release? Thanks!
-- IV
A graduate degree in CS really solidified my knowledge of the field after obtaining a BS in computer science and 4 years working for IBM. It was helpful because you get boxed-in to your company's view of the world and a graduate degree broadens your horizons. It exposes you to things that you would probably never look at in a job, things like AI languages and what is up and coming 10 years before it becomes mainstream. It made me a much more competent programmer. Familiarization with theory also made me more able to spot, and avoid, doomed to failure projects at work when I saw them. Problems with going back to school for me were swallowing my pride (and income!) and becoming a student again. Professors want students, not critics or rivals. This was something I had to get used to again. As someone else mentioned, I found that with age, my ability to perform math had increased a great deal. This was good because I really sucked at math before and I was now mediocre. A tremendous improvement that allowed me good grades. Finally, buddy up with the other students. There are no extra points for toughing it out on your own. I made B's and C's until the other students felt pity and started feeding me old tests and assignments. It was straight A's after that!
-- IV
-- Ignacio Valdes, MD, MS
-- Editor: Linux Medical News
I doubt the author's predictions of 30 years time. Why? The complexity of a computer and brain biochemistry are in no way comparable. The best we can do with the best tools we have for understanding how the human brain works are approximate measurements of only 1 millimeter resolution for extremely simple brain tasks. -- IV
I have a BS and MS in computer science and worked for many years in the industry before becoming a doctor and founding Linux Medical News.
I SUCKED at math, working like a dog for C grades in calculus. My miserable performance was highlighted by a D grade in Differential Equations that I worked very hard for. This did not keep me from making straight A's in my programming classes. There is the phenomenon of mathematica 'late bloomers' and I understood it better when I hit 25-27 years old. However, I've never come close to being good or even mediocre at it.
In 20 years, I have yet to do an integral since those awful days and I have worked for IBM as a NASA contractor, the now defunct Compaq and briefly had my own software company. I am now working as a researcher in the highly technical field of functional MRI. I still suck at math. I was regarded by my peers as a good software engineer. Even though I no longer program professionally, I still have a good intuition for software problems and can write quickies without difficulty. I now use a sliver of my ability to make sophisticated spreadsheet models for successful investing. A beautiful benefit indeed.
Do not let lack of math ability deter you from an interesting field that will help you anywhere you go!
-- IV