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Science is Fun Fridays!

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  An international research consortium has released the first complete wiring diagram of an entire fruit fly brain. Maps that show every neuron in a brain and the myriad connections between them are called connectomes.  Fruit flies have 139,255 neurons in their brain, with over 50 million synapses. That isn't a lot compared to a human brain, which has about 86 million neurons, but fruit flies do complicated things such as walk, fly, navigate, even sing. "If we want to understand how the brain works, we need a mechanistic understanding of how all the neurons fit together and let you think.  For most brains, we have no idea how these networks function," explains Dr. Gregory Jefferis. The FlyWire Consortium brought together expertise from dozens of labs around the world to achieve this.  Dr. Jefferis and other colleagues annotated the different types of neurons found - 4,500 of which were new to science. The CT1 neuron spans across an entire eye and contains 140,000 synapses

Animal Life - Moo Deng

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 You may be familiar with Moo Deng - born on July 10th at the Khao Kheow Open Zoo in Thailand, she has been an internet sensation with her playful videos and memeable faces. She's also a memecoin?  The newest in cryptocurrency.  Someone was somehow able to turn $800 into $7.5 million, and urges others to donate portions to charity. Such as the Pygmy Hippo Foundation, which works to protect the forests in southeast Liberia. The animal is listed as endangered, and actually thought to be extinct in Nigeria. Because they are mainly nocturnal, elusive, and relatively solitary it has been difficult to study them as much as their larger cousins.  They have long been part of West African folklore though. Their habitat is also shrinking.  Large areas of forest along the Ivory Coast have been destroyed in favor of commercial plantations.  A growing threat is illegal mineral extraction. The Fauna and Flora International is also supporting Liberia's conservation efforts, whose main goal is

Hump Day History

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  On this day in 1967, Ernesto "Che" Guevara was executed by the Bolivian army.  His body was buried in an unmarked grave, but in 1997 his remains were found and sent back to Cuba.  Castro held a large ceremony for the revolutionary who helped him seize power from Batista in 1959. Before that, Guevara was a medical student at the University of Buenos Aires.  He took time off to travel around South America on a motorcycle, and his memoirs were published posthumously. The Motorcycle Diaries He received his medical degree in 1953 but continued traveling, becoming more involved in left-wing organizations.  It was the mid-50's when he met Fidel and his group of exiles in Mexico. By 1963, serving as minister of industry, he and Fidel had some differences over Cuba's economic and foreign policies, so he left.  Apparently he traveled to Africa before being found in Bolivia.  The US government wanted him held for interrogation, but Bolivian officials feared a public trial woul

Painted Rock

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 We were driving a dirt road, following Sunrise Pass, when Google Maps indicated a scenic spot. There's an exit along Interstate 80 named Painted Rock, where you can see some natural colors in the mountain, so that's more what I was expecting upon seeing the name. I keep a Sharpie in my purse, so I added our name to the collective. I mentioned Sunrise Pass before, as it is the route Ku Stevens runs to honor his grandfather, who traveled this terrain while escaping the Stewart Indian School and returning to his tribe in Yerington.

Best Dressed - Week of October 7

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  Chloe Bailey Lady Gaga Zendaya Cynthia Erivo Tilda Swinton Saoirse Ronan Zoe Saldana Ayo Edebiri And a couple magazine shots. Andrew Garfield Rachel Zegler

Science is Fun Fridays!

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  A near-Earth asteroid, named 2024 PT5, has been pulled into orbit for a mini-moon! It's about the size of a school bus, so it cannot be seen with the naked eye, or even a backyard telescope. But it is within the brightness range of typical telescopes used by professional astronomers. PT5 is expected to stick around until November 25, when it should break free of Earth's influence. How cool would it be if we could actually see two moons?