ekitailullaby:

fuckin-man-suit:

by Megan Lara and Omega Man 5000

I want all the shirts.

(via thebearprogrammer)

neuromorphogenesis:

When Bilinguals Speak

Anyone observing bilinguals speaking to different people during any one day will notice quite readily that they keep to one language when they are communicating with people who do not know their other language(s). However, they may well code-switch into, or borrow from, their other language(s) when their interlocutors know the same languages and the situation is conducive to language intermingling.

Bilinguals navigate along a continuum with two endpoints - a monolingual language mode where only one language is fully active and a bilingual language mode where several languages can be active. The consequence of this is that the state of activation of bilinguals’ languages will vary from moment to moment. Numerous factors, both internal and external, control the level of activation at any given time.

Psycholinguists have developed very refined experimental procedures to show that bilingual language production is a dynamic process which can operate in different language activation states. Recently, Dutch researchers Daan Hermans, Ellen Ormel, Ria Besselaar and Janet van Hell undertook a study which shows that even the lexical similarity between the two languages known by the bilingual, under certain circumstances, can play a role in changing the level of activation of the bilingual’s languages. They did this by manipulating the presence of cognates, i.e. translation equivalents that have similar orthographic and phonological forms in two languages, such as “apple” in English and “appel” in Dutch.

The researchers asked Dutch-English bilinguals to look at pictures on a computer screen followed by a letter representing a phoneme (e.g. the letter “b” represents the phoneme /b/). The bilinguals had to decide whether the phoneme was part of the English name of the picture being presented; they did so by pushing on a “yes” or a “no” button. There were three conditions in this phoneme monitoring study:

a) In the affirmative condition, the phoneme was indeed part of the English name of the picture. For example, the picture was that of a bottle and it was followed by a “b” or a “t”; the answer was “yes” therefore.

b) In the cross-language condition, the phoneme was not part of the English name but rather of the Dutch name of the picture. For example, “f” was presented and it is part of “fles”, the Dutch translation equivalent of “bottle”. Here the answer was “no” therefore (recall that participants had to base themselves on the English name of the picture).

c) Finally, in the unrelated condition, the phoneme was neither part of the English nor of the Dutch name. For example, “p” is not part of “bottle” nor of “fles”.

Now came the subtlety permitted by a good experimental design. The pictures shown to the bilinguals were divided up into two categories: half the pictures were used in the experimental condition where there was an English name which had a noncognate translation equivalent in Dutch. Examples were English “bottle” and Dutch “fles”, English “pillow” and Dutch “kussen”, etc. The other half of the pictures were used in the filler condition. It is here that the experiments that were run by the researchers differed from one another (we will look at two of them). In the first, all the filler pictures also had noncognate names in Dutch and English. Hence, if one adds the two halves of the experiment, no picture was followed by a letter that corresponded to a sound in the Dutch name of the picture. In sum, the experiment was monolingual, both overtly and covertly.

The results they obtained in this first experiment showed that there was no difference between the cross-language condition and the unrelated condition (the two conditions of interest), be it in reaction times or in accuracy scores. Basically, the Dutch translation equivalents of the English names of the pictures were not active. In other words, the participants were in a monolingual English mode.

In their second experiment, all the authors did was to change the pictures in the filler condition. They now had cognate names in English and Dutch, such as “moon” and Dutch “maan”, “mouse” and Dutch “muis”, and so on. (Note that they did not change the pictures in the experimental condition). This time the two critical conditions (cross-language and unrelated) did produce different response latencies and accuracy scores. It took the participants more time to do the task in the cross-language condition than in the unrelated condition, and they were less accurate in the former condition. What was happening there was that the phonological representations of the Dutch picture names were activated and they slowed down the response regarding the presence of a phoneme in the English name.

Based on these findings, the authors concluded that the bilingual language production system is indeed dynamic and that it can operate in different activation states depending on a number of factors. The level of activation of the bilingual’s languages will be due to linguistic factors, such as in the above, but also psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic factors such as who you are talking to, whether you are using the “right language” to talk about the subject in question, how well you know the language you are speaking, how recently you have spoken the other language, the presence of speakers of the other language(s), and so on. The bilingual production process is wonderfully sensitive to all these factors and this promises many intriguing research findings in the years to come.

neuromorphogenesis:

Restless legs syndrome, insomnia and brain chemistry: A tangled mystery solved?

Johns Hopkins researchers believe they may have discovered an explanation for the sleepless nights associated with restless legs syndrome (RLS), a symptom that persists even when the disruptive, overwhelming nocturnal urge to move the legs is treated successfully with medication.

Neurologists have long believed RLS is related to a dysfunction in the way the brain uses the neurotransmitter dopamine, a chemical used by brain cells to communicate and produce smooth, purposeful muscle activity and movement. Disruption of these neurochemical signals, characteristic of Parkinson’s disease, frequently results in involuntary movements. Drugs that increase dopamine levels are mainstay treatments for RLS, but studies have shown they don’t significantly improve sleep. An estimated 5 percent of the U.S. population has RLS.

The small new study, headed by Richard P. Allen, Ph.D., an associate professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, used MRI to image the brain and found glutamate — a neurotransmitter involved in arousal — in abnormally high levels in people with RLS. The more glutamate the researchers found in the brains of those with RLS, the worse their sleep.

The findings are published in the May issue of the journal Neurology.

“We may have solved the mystery of why getting rid of patients’ urge to move their legs doesn’t improve their sleep,” Allen says. “We may have been looking at the wrong thing all along, or we may find that both dopamine and glutamate pathways play a role in RLS.”

For the study, Allen and his colleagues examined MRI images and recorded glutamate activity in the thalamus, the part of the brain involved with the regulation of consciousness, sleep and alertness. They looked at images of 28 people with RLS and 20 people without. The RLS patients included in the study had symptoms six to seven nights a week persisting for at least six months, with an average of 20 involuntary movements a night or more.

The researchers then conducted two-day sleep studies in the same individuals to measure how much rest each person was getting. In those with RLS, they found that the higher the glutamate level in the thalamus, the less sleep the subject got. They found no such association in the control group without RLS.

Previous studies have shown that even though RLS patients average less than 5.5 hours of sleep per night, they rarely report problems with excessive daytime sleepiness. Allen says the lack of daytime sleepiness is likely related to the role of glutamate, too much of which can put the brain in a state of hyperarousal — day or night.

If confirmed, the study’s results may change the way RLS is treated, Allen says, potentially erasing the sleepless nights that are the worst side effect of the condition. Dopamine-related drugs currently used in RLS do work, but many patients eventually lose the drug benefit and require ever higher doses. When the doses get too high, the medication actually can make the symptoms much worse than before treatment. Scientists don’t fully understand why drugs that increase the amount of dopamine in the brain would work to calm the uncontrollable leg movement of RLS.

Allen says there are already drugs on the market, such as the anticonvulsive gabapentin enacarbil, that can reduce glutamate levels in the brain, but they have not been given as a first-line treatment for RLS patients.

RLS wreaks havoc on sleep because lying down and trying to relax activates the symptoms. Most people with RLS have difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep. Only getting up and moving around typically relieves the discomfort. The sensations range in severity from uncomfortable to irritating to painful.

“It’s exciting to see something totally new in the field — something that really makes sense for the biology of arousal and sleep,” Allen says.

As more is understood about this neurobiology, the findings may not only apply to RLS, he says, but also to some forms of insomnia.

littlemisspaintbrush:

I made these portraits for the amazing people who helped us at Japan Lover Me~ ♥ From top left: Anggy, Jin, Christina, and Reese. ♥

(*^。^*)

satdeshret:

lightspeedsound:

manybodies:

lightspeedsound:

lunapics:

theshells:

I can’t stop laughing at Harry running the fuck away, the boy who lived ladies and gentlemen.

….You realize, of course, that Hermione Granger lit a teacher on fire when she was eleven, and kept a person alive in a jar for a year when she was fourteen, and studies dark and forbidden magics for kicks, and is one of the brightest and strongest witches of her era. If she came at me, even wandless, I would aparate to Neptune to get away from her.

Hermione Granger also: 

• punched Draco Malfoy in the nose for being an idiot 
• purposefully performed a confundus charm on whatshsface WHILE HE WAS FLYING just so Ron would win (omfg that is so fucking dangerous) 
• literally pulled a fucking Bourne Identity on her parents and managed to set them up in fucking Australia (jesus christ she literally made it so that she NEVER EXISTED wtf that’s so fucking 007)
• Convinced the Ministry of Magic to give her an incredibly dangerous and volatile device that allowed her to ALTER TIMELINES COMPLETELY (just because she was so smart, literally, that is the reason, her “potential”) 
• Has enough basic survival skills and badass magic to literally disappear to the middle of nowhere and flourish AND figure out Voldemort’s plot with Harry 
• Hermione also figures out not only what Voldemort’s plan is, but generally how to beat it, WAY BEFORE VOLDEMORT EVER DOES. Why? because she is just that much smarter and better at magic than everybody else

in conclusion: Voldemort wishes he could be as awesome as Hermione, that’s why he wants to kill her so bad. 

Can we rehave this series with hermione as the protagonist. 

Hermione Granger and “That Time I Used the Power of Research and Deductive Reasoning to Make Sure Harry Didn’t Die”

Hermione Granger and “That time I figured shit out and literally ended up petrified for the cause and it took my friends weeks to figure out that I had the research on me”

Hermione Granger and “That Time I Was a Time Lord”

Hermione Granger and “That Time I Realized I was Hot and Smart and Saved Harry’s Ass with Research. Again. All the Time. Really, He Would Have Died Without Me.” 

Hermione Granger and “That time Harry was too emo to actually do shit so I did shit in his name because I am the power behind the throne clearly also PS fought evil deatheaters and won”

Hermione Granger and “That Time I told Harry about the Dangers of Copying off Somebody’s else’s work that wasn’t mine and OH LOOK I WAS RIGHT”

Hermione Granger and “That Time I let Harry Decide Where to Go and What To do and we ended up wandering the forests of dean for like 5 months before saving his ass at Hogwarts” 

I love Hermione so much!

(Source: fallforwatson, via allnerdythings)

codeusasoftware:

I just cant 

me too

liod:

void printCaption(String s) { printCaption(“Title”) }

hahahah

(via kristinaplusplus)