Make sure your socks have this and say goodbye to blisters.

There has been controversy over whether adult humans grow new neurons, and some research has previously suggested that the adult brain was hard-wired and that adults did not grow new neurons. This study, to appear in the journal Cell Stem Cell on April 5, counters that notion.
Lead author Maura Boldrini, associate professor of neurobiology at Columbia University, says the findings may suggest that many senior citizens remain more cognitively and emotionally intact than commonly believed..
We found that older people have similar ability to make thousands of hippocampal new neurons from progenitor cells as younger people do Boldrini says. We also found equivalent volumes of the hippocampus (a brain structure used for emotion and cognition) across ages. Nevertheless, older individuals had less vascularization and maybe less ability of new neurons to make connections.

The researchers autopsied hippocampi from 28 previously healthy individuals aged 14-79 who had died suddenly. This is the first time researchers looked at newly formed neurons and the state of blood vessels within the entire human hippocampus soon after death.
(The researchers had determined that study subjects were not cognitively impaired and had not suffered from depression or taken antidepressants, which Boldrini and colleagues had previously found could impact the production of new brain cells.)
In rodents and primates, the ability to generate new hippocampal cells declines with age. Waning production of neurons and an overall shrinking of the dentate gyrus, part of the hippocampus thought to help form new episodic memories, was believed to occur in aging humans as well.
The researchers from Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute found that even the oldest brains they studied produced new brain cells.
We found similar numbers of intermediate neural progenitors and thousands of immature neurons they wrote.

Nevertheless, older individuals form fewer new blood vessels within brain structures and possess a smaller pool of progenitor cells, descendants of stem cells that are more constrained in their capacity to differentiate and self-renew.
Boldrini surmised that reduced cognitive-emotional resilience in old age may be caused by this smaller pool of neural stem cells, the decline in vascularization, and reduced cell-to-cell connectivity within the hippocampus.
It is possible that ongoing hippocampal neurogenesis sustains human-specific cognitive function throughout life and that declines may be linked to compromised cognitive-emotional resilience she says.
Boldrini says that future research on the aging brain will continue to explore how neural cell proliferation, maturation, and survival are regulated by hormones, transcription factors, and other inter-cellular pathways.

#F1 "Liberty Media has another deal signed as Formula 1 becomes an equity shareholder of PlayON in a strategic partnership which will see the latter as its Official Daily Fantasy Partner, while the platform will also be used as an OTT service provider in key markets - especially in the USA."

Do you think Liberty Media is on the right path to gain more fans?

Tirana, Ålesund, Vaulx-en-Velin and Bochum - what do they have in common? They choose #Nextcloud as their solution for #secure file exchange!

Regretting your Office 365 purchase? Here's how to get your money back!

Brief: If you want a smart speaker cum virtual assistant like Amazon Echo and Google Home that doesn’t spy on you, Mycroft Mark II is what you are looking for. The open source device is open for pre-order via its crowdfunding campaign.
This is the era of virtual home assistants. From setting alarms to get weather information, from playing your favorite music to play Netflix for you, these virtual assistants do it all. You just need to call their name and ask them the questions. You don’t even have to be nice to them, not that it hurts. All you need is a device that uses these virtual assistants.
Big names like Amazon, Google and Apple have their own virtual assistants coupled with their own smart speaker devices. The year 2017 has seen a big jump in the sales of smart speakers like Amazon Echo and Google Home. And the trend will continue upward.
As a tech enthusiast, I wanted to buy Echo or Mini to experience this kind of gadget trend. But there is a big problem with these smart devices and that’s privacy.

Problem with popular virtual home assistants: Privacy
Amazon Echo and Google Home listen to you and record everything you say. It was reported that these devices listen to the conversations, even when they are not active.
Moreover, Amazon will soon be using these devices to serve you ads. Imagine asking the device for the weather information and it tells you what kind of umbrella people are buying...
So, what do the privacy aware people like you and me do?
Meet Mycroft: An Open Source Virtual Assistant
Thankfully, we have an open source virtual assistant called Mycroft. It doesn’t violate your privacy, it is open and customizable. You can get the source code of Mycroft on GitHub.
Mycroft also has their own set of smart speakers range called Mark.
They have just launched a new crowdfunding campaign for its upcoming second-generation smart speaker Mark II (read Mark 2). Unlike the previous model, the Mark II is a vertical device and resembles Google Home.
Mark II is technically advanced than its predecessor. While the first version was more focused on developers and DIY enthusiasts, Mark II has been matured to become a consumer-ready product.

Hey Mycroft, What can Mark II do?
Mycroft Mark II is capable of doing 140 kinds of tasks. These tasks are called ‘skills’ in Mycroft term.
You can use it for creating shopping lists, playing music, telling jokes. You can also use it to play internet radio on Pandora and NPR or even YouTube.
It can also be used to control Philips Hue, the smart lighting from Philips.
All you need to do is to say “Hey Mycroft” and your virtual home assistant Mark II will be at your service.
New ‘skills’ are being added by an active developer’s community. You can discover those new ‘skills’ by asking it “what’s new today”. You can, of course, get the updates from Mycroft website.
Not just audio! Mark II has a screen as well
Neither of Amazon Echo and Google Home has a display on it. Mark II clearly has an advantage here with its simple and clear display.
Want to know the time or the weather, it’s simply on the display. This is a good candidate to replace your digital clock or radio.
You can customize the looks of the screen, its display color etc. Cool, isn’t it?
Mark II respects your privacy
Mycroft doesn’t store every voice snippet it hears. It deletes the recordings as they come in.
Your data is safe by nature. It won’t result in you seeing ads on the internet about pizza just because you asked it about the best pizzeria in town.
You can, of course, opt to share your data for the improved development of Mycroft but this is NOT enabled by default.

Mycroft Mark II Technical Specifications
Here’s what Mark II is made of:
Xilinx quad-core processor
Far-field 6-microphone array
Hardware AEC, beamforming and noise reduction
Stereo sound with dual 2″ drivers (10W)
4″ IPS LCD touchscreen
USB Type A
MicroSD card slot
Bluetooth in
Wifi
3.5mm audio out
18W power supply with international adapters
Mark II officially speaks English. It is claimed to be working in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, and German as well, but that’s in community mode for now.
Mycroft Mark II Pricing and availability
Mycroft has just launched a crowdfunding campaign. The initial goal of 40,000 Euro has already been achieved within a day.
Mycroft Mark II costs $129 and should be available in December 2018 for those who pre-ordered it via the crowdfunding campaign.
You can find more details Mark II and pre-order it on the Kickstarter page.

#Melania_Trump style 2018: The latest news on what the #first_lady #Melania_Trump has been wearing. Now in her second year in her high profile #White_House position the former model has continued her polished, uber-luxe style. Keep scrolling for the latest on what the frist lady Melania Trump has been wearing in 2018.
https://youtu.be/2-xvwvF4VkU

Staring at these numbers, I got to thinking: I bet if you take white Evangelicals out of the picture, Trump’s standing with the rest of the population is really low. So I emailed the PRRI, and got the non-white-Evangelical numbers from the very same poll.

They’re pretty compelling. Among Americans who are not self-identified white Evangelicals, Trump’s favorability ratio is 36-60, with 41 percent expressing veryunfavorable views of the president. Among women who are not white Evangelicals, the ratio is 29-69, with about half — 49 percent — harboring a very unfavorable view of Trump. How about college-educated Americans who aren’t white Evangelicals? Trump’s at 32-65, with 47 percent holding a very unfavorable opinion of him. And outside the ranks of the white Evangelicals, even non-college-educated Americans have a dim view of the MAGA man, disliking him by a 39-58 margin (this obviously includes minority folks), though a mere 38 percent dislike him strongly.

Nobody Likes Trump Except White Evangelicals
http://amp.nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/04/trumps-really-unpopular-outside-the-white-evangelical-pews.html

“The key to adapting to a changing world, not just as individuals but as the human race, requires us to use the best tools and information at our disposal. That means paying attention to what the Earth is doing, both naturally and artificially, and using the best data available to drive our policy decisions. These 19 future missions represent the short-and-medium-term roadmap for NASA Earth Science, and every one of these missions is currently slated to go forward, as long as there aren’t unexpected cuts in the future. This Earth Day, don’t just celebrate our planet only to forget about it; keep in mind what we’re doing to learn about our world and why it’s valuable. This planet is the only Earth we’ve got, and it’s up to us to be good stewards of this world. Without quality scientific information on which to base good decisions, from a global perspective, we’d be nothing more than animals.”

When people think of NASA, they think of spaceflight, of technology, and of science. But most of the science they think of is astrophysics or planetary science, not Earth Science. Well, that’s foolish; Earth Science is one of the Science Mission Directorate’s four major realms of study, as we can learn things about our world from the air and from space that we cannot hope to learn from surface investigations alone. Over the coming months and years, NASA has 19 new missions slated to help better investigate and understand the Earth, including our weather, climate, pollution, CO2, temperature, and more. If you care about accurate information, you’ll start to understand why all of these missions are indispensable to a scientifically-minded society.

Come learn about the 19 small ways, from missions small to large, that NASA’s Earth Science directorate will try and help save the Earth.

Twitter doesn’t care that someone is building a bot army in Southeast Asia

spring at the pond

South Australian Sunset

The Adelaide metropolitan coastline happens to sit on the east side of the St Vincent gulf. Which means we are lucky enough to get sunsets over the ocean all year round. I live a couple of minutes from the beach, so when I’m in the mood for some photography, I’m always keeping an eye on the clouds in the sky. Hallett Cove beach is a local for me, and happens to have an interesting coastline with many photogenic rock and cliff formations.

New website now up and running!
*https://goo.gl/W7bbEp*

Learn more about Thanos and his deadly Black Order with these free comics on #MarvelUnlimited: http://bit.ly/2HxeXri

These numbers are crazy. #InfinityWar #Avengers

RADV Vulkan Driver Adds Vega M Support

Will You Upgrade to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS? [Poll] #ubuntu #linux

We're now a week away from the stable Ubuntu 18.04 LTS release — which means it's nearly upgrade decision time! Let us know if you plan to upgrade to Ubuntu 18.04 by voting in our poll.

Trump’s Attacks on Comey Collide With Reality https://trib.al/3drnuoZ

Files GO app is back to Beta. It was not available for OPT-INs for some time

https://www.testingcatalog.com/project/amp/663

#betatesting #androidapp #files

Pathway to Spatial Recognition

Cembrowski's primary research target is the subiculum, a sub-region of the mammalian brain located in the hippocampus, which plays an important role in memory and navigation.

The research is in Cell. (full access paywall)

Neurons Derived From Super-Obese People Respond Differently to Appetite Hormone

These neurons secreted neuropeptides that regulate feeding behavior in response to the hunger hormone ghrelin and the satiety hormone leptin.

The research is in Cell Stem Cell. (full open access)

#podcast: In episode 130, Jack & Miles are joined by comedian Dan O'Brien to discuss a new study about how friends brainwaves start to match up, an update on the raid on Michael Cohen's office, Trump being unable to keep the secret of the North Korea meeting, how MySpace was doing the same thing as Facebook, an analysis of the drug policy in America, a look at the Starbucks situation, & more! https://trib.al/sdeTE3H