Astonishing Science Facts

[Magical Realist]

“When asked about which scientist he'd like to meet, Neil deGrasse Tyson said, "Isaac Newton. No question about it. The smartest person ever to walk the face of this earth. The man was connected to the universe in spooky ways. He discovered the laws of motion, the laws of gravity, the laws of optics. Then he turned 26.”

He also stood out in a crowd, having "canities" or premature white hair.

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[Magical Realist]

They say our pupils become dilated in darkness and when we are attracted to someone. It's like our pupils open wide to take in as much light and beauty as we can. The body knows what the mind only realizes afterwards.

[Magical Realist]

Scientists create first digitized version of the fruit fly's connectome..

"In a first, a large, international team led by multiple labs at Harvard Medical School and Princeton University has published a complete wiring diagram of all the connections between neurons in the central nervous system of an adult fruit fly.

The work, published June 8 in Nature, allows researchers to begin to study how the brain and body interact to carry out complex behaviors such as walking and flying. It also empowers deeper investigations into the basic principles of how nervous systems work.

“We can see all of the neurons and their connections as a complete unit for the first time and ask, ‘What do we learn from that?’” said study co-senior author Rachel Wilson, the Joseph B. Martin Professor of Basic Research in the Field of Neurobiology in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS.

The highly detailed diagram of neural connections — known as a connectome — adds a map of the fruit fly’s spinal cord equivalent, called a nerve cord, to a previously published connectome of the fly brain.

“It is really important to have a central nervous system connectome that is as complete as possible so we can link up the brain and body and start thinking about behavior holistically,” said study co-senior author Wei-Chung Allen Lee, associate professor of neurobiology at HMS and HMS professor of neurology at Boston Children’s Hospital.

In analyzing the connectome, the team found that many fruit fly behaviors are controlled by local neural circuits in the body parts that are involved, rather than by a central hub in the brain.

The entire connectome is now freely available online so that other scientists can use it to propel neuroscience research.

The work was supported in part by U.S. federal funding, including the BRAIN Initiative (Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies), National Institutes of Health, and National Science Foundation."

https://hms.harvard.edu/news/researchers...pinal-cord