2011 blogging in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 3,300 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 55 trips to carry that many people.
Google Body: the awesome report
Google Body is gone, ladies and gentlemen. It was lost in a changeover from google labs. ”More wood behind fewer arrows,” says Google. For now, what was google body is not available for use. I hope the next version includes deep tissue zoom.
Google “google body” and you find Zygote Labs, the imaging and design firm that created the brain and heart below.
by Zygote 3D anatomy
Zygote is the company behind the 3D human anatomy displayed in Google Body. As Google Labs winds down Zygote will move forward with Zygote Body.
A “searchable and interactive 3D model of human anatomy.” Awesome.
I hope that interactive body3D incorporates agility. I imagine that one could input a movement relative to neutral position and the digital anatomy moves as it were a human body and you can zoom into deep muscle layers etc and see which ones are flexing and how much etc. zoom from whole body to biomolecular happenings. I’m thinking. It’s on now.
Imagination squared.
“enables users to use anthropometrically accurate solid 3D male and female models within their SolidWork assemblies to visualize and evaluate …[one hopes musculoskeletal] interaction [of the human body] with the human body [are these hard to read? I just wrote two varities of the incident sentence. As a reader of these thoughts some time in the future, I wonder what relevance the previous grammatical bifurcation might encourage.]“
$950 licensing fee. Google body, you were free! I think humanity is trending toward freedom of innovation. I think it compounds when shared. And the best part, action from ideas!
Welcome to my mind. 9:40 on a Tuesday evening. In between writing on this post I did 2 handstands. Relevant? Notes for future reference. I am creating a book.
What else do I do. What is a blog?
I ask questions. They give life moguls and amplitude, and curious word combinations. What does that mean, thinking differently? Relative to myself, how do my neural networks change relative to how they used to be and where and how and with whom could I explore this?
I learned recently two cognitive curiosities:
- Every neuron in your brain has its own capillary.
- Dendritic spining is an integral part of your neurons’ function and evolution.
“The modification of synaptic connections between neurons is thought to underlie our ability to form memories and acquire new behaviors. The majority of excitatory synapses in the brain are formed onto specialized cellular structures known as dendritic spines that consist of a bulbous spine head that is separated from the remainder of the dendrite by a thin neck.”
Says Neurobiology Professor Bernardo Sabatini of Harvard Medical School’s Department of Neurobiology. Dendritic spines seem to serve the purpose of spatially segmenting individual synapses such that signal transductions are not interfered with by neighboring synapses. The volume of a spine is tiny at <1 femtoliter (one quadrillionth of a liter). We have only recently been able to image them and observe their interaction in living tissue. Here is the latest comprehension of how they work:
“spines are dynamic structures that grow, structurally reorganize, and sometimes disappear within tens of minutes and spine motility has been correlated with the ability of animals of reorganize their cerebral cortex..”
This spawns a plethora of thoughts in various directions which I will think more thoroughly through then communicate the most valuable aka curious ones to you, the internet and me, myself. For now, on with the train of thought.
A blog is self notes. I think of it as making my mind social.
How do I share how I think? Is that what I actually think about? When? With most passion? Curiosity? Time? How does what I do/what I spend time thinking about (and doing) vary over time? It is in bursts. What do I think about in my spare time? Why do I suddenly experience shyness?
Finishing up, the awesome report: things interesting to me. Think and discover and enjoy!
“Non-profit global collaborative experiment to collect health and lifestyle information and share it in an open and anonymous way.”
Google Experimental. I am testing Google Instant.
“Google is always experimenting with new features aimed at improving the search experience. Take one for a spin.”
New arXiv entries into the journal of Quantitative Biology.
Look at these categories!
- molecular networks
- neurons and cognition
- subcellular processes
- biomolecules
- cell behavior
11:56 pm. Final words, thoughts? Exist mindfully and intensely.
Life is long if you know how to use it.
Clean, Green, Healthy Eating
Rebecca Sterling and I delivered a TEDesque presentation on clean, green, healthy eating at GreenU a couple months ago. Check out some of the visual health enlightenment we shared with the crowd:
Put this into perspective: a pound of wheat takes 155 gallons of water to produce.
An estimated 5,000 people came through the GreenU festival. Read the slide below and think what an impact we as a community could make if 1/5 of us replaced one serving of meat per week.
Our blog readers and visitors to visualizing.org will recognize this infographic. The next time you sit down for a meal, make a fist and look at it. Then look at your plate. We’re starting a small portion revolution!
When you do eat meat, do yourself and the world a favor and choose free range.
Think of food as an investment in your body. Would put your retirement money in a fund with a negative return? Go a step farther. Imagine if you could choose between earning 1% or 20% returns. While this is only a dream for financial advisors, it is a reality in the context of health. Every small decision makes a difference. For example, say you decide to eat 2 more servings of vegetables each day for a week, at the end of the year you’ve replaced about 91 pounds of your diet with healthy foods.
The next time you are faced with a decision between habit and health, remember that you are essentially a complex biochemical reaction. The food you eat, along with the air you breathe and the beverages you drink, plays a pivotal role in the function of your body, which contributes to overall well-being.
Be the Warren Buffet of your health. The big payoff comes in what we call “superfoods.” These are nutrient dense foods, which means they are low cal and loaded with vitamins, minerals and micronutrients. Vegetables and fruits top the list, along with whole grains and lean meats. Keep in mind that these foods pack a powerful punch – just one handful of blueberries delivers health benefits that help your body function and thrive (and remember the size of your stomach – grab a few almonds or walnuts plus a big cup of water and you have a superfood and super easy afternoon snack).
Delicious!
We leave you with this thought by Nobel Prize winning psysiologist A. Szent-Gyorgyi.
A bonus for the brain buffs out there: research suggests that healthy lifestyles improve cognitive function and brain efficiency.
We hope that this has inspired you to think differently about what you put into your body. Because ultimately, your life is up to you.
Relations
Decide what is important.
Perspective.
Literally, neurochemistry changes during transitions from stress to invigoration relaxation. What does that mean..do more yoga.
Life. What is it? What happens to you as time goes by?
Interaction, conversation, time as self – what do you do when you have time at your exposure? I also think, stretch, google scholar. I do side projects, like TEDx. I do not watch tv. I waste a fair amount ( trying to minimize this, practical. #qs).
I expend concentrated directional bursts of energy (thinking about).
Consciousness. What is it? How do I see that this question is explored on a daily basis? (by the way iPad keyboard is, in my opinion, more efficient to type on than a 3d keyboard, after learning curve surpassed. b. Noticed the other day in conversation it is possible to type without looking at the keyboard while simultaneously not being able to draw out a keyboard from memory {retreading before posting. Deliberate tangential example})
Time, then is the layout of how I spend it. Spatially, electrically, biochemically, what does that mean? Why do I do what I do? Make choices? I see or strive toward some perceived benefit. I know, I think I know, that my mind operates well in creative freedom occasionally expansed or compressed into torrential avalanches of nerve growth factor.
Stream of consciousness thoughts on consciousness, 2011. You, humans, this is a big thing to think about. I think about it a lot, I am blogging it. Imagine with me. Who are you? How do you exist?
You’re a biochemical thing with an electrophysiologal existence reading, thinking these sentences (concepts). Think – I am comprehensible. What does that mean?
Philosophize? Think the absurd, play with ideas. You will stir up humor, fun, intrigue, doubt, bravery, tangents, curiosity, discovery, ideas.
Try it. I do. I wonder how to share. This, is a start.
TEDxHuntsville promo video
Thanks to Hiroko Sumikura for putting together this fabulous promo for TEDxHuntsville featuring music by local artists G-Side of Slow Motion Sound.
Hammocks for Astronomical Observatories
There are over 600 astronomical observatories in the world.
600 places where you can observe nebular gas clouds and ponder the universe. Learn a little and geek out with friends. Observatories are great places to enjoy champagne and good company, in my experience. I want to equip these wonders of science and human accomplishment with something which will make future visits all the more enjoyable: hammocks.
What better way to look at the sky than to sway in the breeze and simply open your eyes. The world is beautiful. Enjoy it. In a hammock. I am working through Huntsville Ideas, a 501(c)(3) to make side project happen. Contact me with questions or to get involved.
Indulge ideas. You might just come up with a new nonprofit venture that aims to make science a little cozier.
600 Hammocks for Astronomical Observatories. Project 600HAO.
Like it? Share it.
onformative design
Browsing Nick Feltron’s blog led me to onformative, a Berlin-based design studio that stunningly illustrates what it means to be creative. The group’s beautifully thoughtful work ranges from visualizing medicine to projection mapping to kinetic art. It’s too much just to Tweet about. Favorites:
“Create a new identity for our brand Actelion. Don’t touch the logo, but create something the world of pharma has not seen before.”
Actelion Imagery Wizard from onformative on Vimeo.
“Immateriality as material is currently being discovered, opening up a new poetic field in which to narrate with space and information. Location-based metadata waft through the space, and are thereby redefining contexts and places. A new field opens up to designers.”
Kinetic sculpture + VJing machine
Behind the Screen from onformative on Vimeo.
Me flying a hydro-powered jetpack
I’m backed up on the blog. A lot happens, quickly, and I should share more things from my curious and wonderful life with you fine internew browsers. Below, check out me on a jetpack.
This is Tim Pickens‘s creation. It works by condensing the thrust on the output of a jetski through a 300′ tube that channels it through two nosels. Rotate the handle bars to change direction. Thrust is controlled by the jetski. Awesome lake toy. And a really fun day. Rocket science in a bikini with fighter jets in the background: Huntsville, Alabama.
Infographic series on the human body
The human body fascinates me. It is beautiful that I am a biochemical system standing here thinking about how I exist. I think a lot of things about the body are fantastic, so I’ve started creatively conveying things that make me think “wow.” Here are the latest visualizations from my professional playing with Inkscapes through Sterling Health‘s Body 101 series on visualizing.org.
Your body is amazing. Over 650 skeletal muscles working together yield your bilaterally symmetrical biological frame, composed functionally of 325 working pairs of muscles and over 187 joints. How many can you feel?
I’m at about 150, up from just 100 a couple months ago. Yoga and other exercise activities that simultaneously strengthen and stretch your muscular system (including ligaments and tendons) enhance not only your posture and strength but also promote innervation and viscularization of tissue. Here’s another serving of Body 101 a la carte: during the first couple weeks of exercising a new muscle, much of the improvement is acually increased efficiency of the nervous system to communicate with muscular fibers and cells (source: hamill and knutzen, the biomechanical basis of human movement). View on visualizing.org.
It can take up to 20 minutes for the chemicals that tell your body that you are hungry to be reabsorbed and replaced by those that signal fullness. This is why doctors recommend you stop eating when you are satiated, rather than full.
Food for thought next time your belly is on your mind. View on visualizing.org
What are you? While philosophically this varies, biologically, you are a series of chemical reactions. The mighty brain is the end goal of your body: facilitating the growth of new neural connections and firing along those synapses that already exist. This “connectome” essentially IS you. Your brain never stops growing as long as you continually explore new things, challenge yourself with varied ideas, and think abstractly about how and who you are. I hope you remember every day how intricately complex and mindbogglingly beautiful it is that you are alive. View on visualizing.org.
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Designers, email me amy at healthsterling.com to take part in the Body 101 project: visualizing the human machine on healthsterling.com.
Visual guide to general awesomeness
These are but two examples of how Inkscapes can be used for fun (Glenn Clayton) or professional services (Steph’s health viz). Reagan is one of Glenn’s favorites -this does not speak for me — hmm i would probably have Ben Franklin or Marco Polo — I should make one of these for me.
