Researchers Discover Why You Recall Some Memories And Forget Others
The findings, published in Science, pioneered the initial connection between nighttime brain activity and corresponding daytime behavior in the hippocampus – part of the brain involved in emotion, learning, and short- and long-term memory.
Neuroscientists have found that reflecting on life events shortly after they occur increases the likelihood of etching them into long-term memory.
The study’s lead author, Dr. Gyorgy Buzsaki, a Briggs professor of neuroscience at NYU Langone Health, four other NYU researchers, and a data analyst from the Mila-Quebec AI Institute, focused on the hippocampus. Using advanced techniques, they monitored the activity of hundreds of neurons simultaneously in the hippocampus of lab mice navigating a maze for tasty rewards.
The scientists observed that when a mouse paused to savor its reward after successfully navigating a maze, they recorded distinct sharp wave ripples (SWRs) – rhythmic patterns generated by highly synchronized neuronal activity within the hippocampus – numbering about five to 20 each time.
According to the study team, reflecting on an event shortly after it occurs can enhance the formation of long-term memories, even though the brain’s unconscious bursts of electrical activity are responsible for this process.
During the mouse maze experiment, SWRs were detected in the mice’s brains while they slept.
As the mice slept in the lab, neurons in their hippocampus, which had previously activated during daytime maze activities, fired rapidly once more. This activity resembled the animals “playing back” the recorded events repeatedly throughout the night, occurring thousands of times.
Dr. Buzsaki and his team propose that activating hippocampus neurons is responsible for storing geographical information in memory, such as the layout of rooms or the paths taken in a maze.
“Our study finds that sharp wave ripples are the physiological mechanism used by the brain to ‘decide’ what to keep and what to discard,” Dr. Buzsaki told NBC News.
He suggested that a leisurely walk post-activity could significantly boost retention, offering a practical tip for memory enhancement.
Dr. Winnie Yang, one of the study’s co-lead authors, expressed optimism about potential therapeutic applications, particularly for individuals struggling with memory disorders or PTSD. She envisioned future interventions harnessing these insights to enhance memory function or alleviate traumatic memories.
Dr. Daphna Shohamy of Columbia University’s Zuckerman Institute (who was not part of the research) highlighted the relevance of their findings to human cognition, emphasizing the link between successful task completion and memory retention.
US Congressman Calls For ‘Hiroshima And Nagasaki’ Solution in Gaza And Ukraine
Michigan congressman Tim Walberg believes Washington should not waste money on humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza or Ukraine, and instead focus on supporting Israel and Kiev’s war efforts, to achieve “quick” victories.
Walberg made his remarks during a meeting with members of the public in Dundee, Michigan last week. In a video posted on social media on March 25, the Republican congressman criticized President Joe Biden’s policies, telling a small audience that the US should better spend Gaza aid money on supporting Israel, which he labeled Washington’s “greatest ally, arguably, anywhere in the world.”
“We shouldn’t be spending a dime on humanitarian aid. It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick,”Walberg could be heard saying.
“The same should be in Ukraine. Defeat Putin quick. Instead of 80% in Ukraine being used for humanitarian purposes, it should be 80-100% to wipe out Russian forces,” he added.
After his statements went viral, Walberg claimed that his words were misreported and misinterpreted, arguing that he was merely speaking metaphorically and did not advocate for the actual use of nuclear weapons.
“In a shortened clip, I used a metaphor to convey the need for both Israel and Ukraine to win their wars as swiftly as possible, without putting American troops in harm’s way,” Walberg said in a statementposted on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday.
“The use of this metaphor, along with the removal of context, distorted my message, but I fully stand by these beliefs and stand by our allies,” he added, arguing that the quicker these conflicts end, the “fewer innocent lives will be caught in the crossfire.”
German Establishment Parties Unite to ‘Protect’ Constitutional Court From ‘Extremists’
The German Union parties (CDU/CSU) are again considering backing an initiative by the left-globalist ‘traffic light’ coalition to amend Germany’s constitution in an attempt to keep the anti-establishment Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party from influencing the Federal Constitutional Court.
Negotiations between the Union and the governing parties concerning the latter’s proposed draft law—framed as necessary to ‘protect’ the court from ‘extremists’—began in late January but concluded shortly thereafter when the CDU and CSU stated that they found no compelling reason for the constitutional amendment.
At the time, politicians from the traffic light parties sharply criticized CDU leader Friedrich Merz’s decision to withdraw from talks, accusing him of “naivety,” “negligence,” and failing to take what they regard as the necessary action required to protect Germany’s constitutional state.
The Union, for whatever reason, has since reversed its position, with parliamentary group leader Merz last weekend asking Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP) to draft a proposal to ‘protect’ the Federal Constitutional Court from ‘extremists.’
“We are open to talking about anchoring a core of proven structures of the Federal Constitutional Court in the Basic Law,” Merz told the German press.
The Federal Ministry of Justice on Thursday, March 28th, made a draft of the proposal available to the Rheinische Post. According to the 12-page draft law, the following points are to be enshrined in Basic Law: the independence of the court, the existence of two senates, the election of eight judges each by the Bundestag and the Bundesrat, office term limits of twelve years, and an age limit of 68 years.
Most notably, the draft law proposes that changing a judge, which presently requires a simple majority, should only be possible with a two-thirds majority. This would prevent judges from being removed from office relatively easily after a change in government, and make it far more difficult for the AfD to appoint judges.
If implemented, the proposed alterations to the Basic Law would be “exempt from change with a simple majority in the future,” solidifying the party proportional representation system for appointing judges and rendering any further changes to it next to impossible through coalition efforts following the next election.
The Union faction will now scrutinize and assess the draft before further discussions. Negotiations should be finished after Easter, the faction said. Given that amendments to the German constitution require a two-thirds majority in both the Bundesrat and Bundestag, the traffic light coalition needs the Union’s support to push this through.
In Easter Ruling, Judge Orders Release of ‘Border Riot’ Migrants Who Overwhelmed National Guard
A group of migrants involved in a riot at the southern US border have been ordered to be released by an El Paso magistrate judge.
The swarm of migrants overwhelmed Texas National Guard soldiers who were trying to organize them into groups to be taken into custody by Customs and Border Protection (CBP). At one point, a migrant attempted to grab a soldier’s firearm, one National Guard source told the NY Post.
Following the riot, authorities confiscated knives and shanks from some of the migrants.
“These people were willing to assault military,” said the Post‘s source. “They were willing to assault law enforcement. They have complete disregard for our laws.“
In an Easter Sunday decision, presiding Magistrate Judge Humberto Acosta ordered the rioters released after accusing the El Paso DA’s Office of being unprepared to proceed with detention hearings for each defendant, so they should be released, the El Paso Times reports.
This is the moment when TX National Guard became overrun by migrants rioting to get across the border here in El Paso today
— Jennie Taer (@JennieSTaer) March 21, 2024
We were there and saw it all happen. Absolute chaos here. pic.twitter.com/VN6Kf663ie
“It is the ruling of the court is that all the rioting participation cases will be released on their own recognizance,” Acosta ordered, noting that they will only remain jailed if there’s a federal immigration hold blocking their release.
The arrests were made by the Texas Department of Public Safety in connection with a March 21 stampede of asylum-seeking migrants — mostly men from Venezuela — who torn down razor wire along the Rio Grande and rushed the border fence at Border Safety Initiative Marker No. 36 in the Riverside area of El Paso’s Lower Valley.
Some migrants face charges of assault of a public servant for knocking down National Guard troops before order was regained. The migrants had sought to surrender themselves to U.S. Border Patrol in bids for asylum.
It was unclear if Acosta’s decision applied only to the “riot participation” charge, or the assault and criminal mischief charges related to the border incident.
BREAKING: A riot just broke out here in El Paso
— Jennie Taer (@JennieSTaer) March 21, 2024
Hundreds of migrants decided they had enough of TX National Guard returning them to Mexico and rushed the border wall here.
Thankful to be here w/ @JamesBreeden pic.twitter.com/sY84y8QiYi
It is unknown how many migrants were booked on the charge of “riot participation,” a Class B misdemeanor – though Acosta referred to “hundreds of arrestees,” who he says are entitled to individual detention hearings within 48 hours.
The DA’s office requested a continuance to have the hearings at a later date, however Acosta rejected the request.
“So if the DA’s office is telling me that they are not ready to go, what we’re going to do is we’re going to release all these individuals on their own recognizance,” Acosta said at the hearing.
Meanwhile on Sunday, two other migrants – including a Colombian man, had separate hearings on criminal mischief charges for allegedly cutting border fencing. After being jailed with a $2,000 bond each, Magistrate Judge Antonio Aun also released them on personal recognizance bonds, however both men have immigration holds.
Last week, Texas sent 700 National Guard soldiers to El Paso, including 200 with the Texas Tactical Border Force, to reinforce the border.
As the El Paso Times notes further, ‘Operation Lone Star video shows troops boarding a transport plane and on the border with riot shields moving migrants back so crews could replace rolls of damaged razor wire along the banks of the Rio Grande.’
Looking For Aliens: Humanity Unleashes AI And The Largest Ever Telescope to Search For Life Among The Stars
Having joined up in January, India is set to be a key player among 16 nations in one of the 21st century’s grand scientific projects: humanity’s biggest-ever telescope. This confluence of radio astronomy and artificial intelligence (AI) will help observe the births and deaths of the first stars and search for habitable planets and extraterrestrial life.
The €2.2 billion ($2.4) Square Kilometer Array Observatory (SKAO) is an ambitious project whose 16 member nations also include South Africa, Australia, UK, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
For this, India has set aside Rs 12.5 billion ($150 million) for a facility in Pune (156km east of Mumbai), a city abuzz with radio astronomy research activity. This facility will be a regional data center equipped with supercomputers to process the humongous amount of scientific data amassed by the telescope.
With the help of radio interferometry, astronomers can combine signals from many antennas or telescopes to create an image that is sharper and brighter than what would be possible from a single antenna dish. This technology effectively helps scan large swathes of the sky with radio telescope dish antennas spread many kilometers apart but functioning as a single observatory.
The global observatory, with thousands of units spread over two continents – in South Africa and in Western Australia – and its nerve center in a third continent, near Manchester, England, has thousands of scientists and engineers worldwide networking to develop innovative technologies. They will use SKAO to document cosmic data to fill 1.5 million laptops every year.
“The idea is to start training this year (using AI to decode scientific information) with approximately two petabytes of data archived through GMRT. We will use this to develop a small model demonstrating that India is ready to receive and analyze the data,” Prof Yashwant Gupta, director of the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA) in Pune, told RT.
One component of the SKAO telescope is being built in South Africa’s Karoo region, the Northern Cape Province: an array of 197 traditional dish antennas separated by 150 km. The other half is an array of 131,072 two-meter-high Christmas-tree-like antennas in Western Australia separated by 65km. These sites were chosen far away from human habitation to prevent the disturbance of signals.
Six stations of the ‘Array Assembly 0.5’, on a remote site on the traditional lands of the Australian Wajarri Yamaji, were mounted on March 7. Components for the first six dish arrays at the Meerkat National Park in the arid Northern Cape, arrived at the end of February and efforts are underway to assemble them by the end of March.
SKAO will help understand the genesis of our universe, search for aliens or extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI), spot another potentially habitable world by identifying planets similar to ours, and pick up the birth pangs of new stars or the death throes of old ones millions of light-years away.
Astronomers worldwide estimate this observatory could pick up radio signals from every corner of the universe for at least 50 years from when it is launched in 2027-28. Radio waves, which all heavenly bodies emit, provide more accurate information than those carried by light (used by optical telescopes), which can be obstructed or diverted by dust, clouds, or rain.
This observatory will thus complement ongoing research with the help of optical telescopes and ones in space such as the James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble Space Telescope. The upshot is that it could throw up some serendipitous discoveries, too.
Most prominent of all, though, is the effort to unlock the secrets of the universe through the confluence of radio astronomy, whose foundations date back to the 1930s, and AI. The big data produced by SKAO will be an estimated 710 petabytes (a petabyte equals one quadrillion bytes, 1015) of information every year.
Leading the pack with the design of a prototype of a regional data center are Indian radio astronomers, who are set to use scientific evidence recorded by the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) located near Pune in India.
Prof Gupta said Indian astronomers and engineers are set to play a critical role in producing the Observatory Monitor and Control System – the digital electronics required for signal processing at the facility in Western Australia – and developing software for the lion’s share of SKAO systems.
“Our research organizations and the industry will get an opportunity to design and produce world-class hardware required for SKAO,” he added.
The cue to turn to AI and other tools to learn from data to make predictions or identify heavenly bodies faster than humans perhaps originated from NASA Frontier Development Lab (FDL)’s partnership with big-ticket firms such as Microsoft, Google, IBM and Nvidia in Silicon Valley to solve problems in space science and forecast extreme weather in outer space for the prevention of blackouts or damage of satellites or harm to astronauts.
With the help of this collaborative effort, the computer model DAGGER (Deep Learning Geomagnetic Perturbation) has been developed to set off a warning 30 minutes in advance about solar storms that snap electricity distribution and communication networks in North America, Canada and other countries close to the polar region.
What’s more, this collaborative effort aids even in forecasting floods, Dr. Madhulika Guhathakurta, a renowned astrophysicist and Senior Adviser at NASA Heliophysics, told RT on the sidelines of an international conference hosted by the Astronomical Society of India in Bengaluru, last month.
She said at FDL, satellite images or data collected by the Solar Dynamics Observatory and telescopes in the past are made AI-ready to demonstrate the efficacy of forecasting Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), tons of red-hot dust, sometimes a million tons, from the sun that travel across interplanetary space at 3,000km a second towards all planets, scientific probes, satellites, and the earth.
“We need a large quantity of data archived from various sources to develop AI-based products,” she said. “Even auto-calibration of instruments onboard scientific observatories, which degrade over time, is possible with the combination of archived data and AI. It saves the cost of such auto-calibration of instruments, which otherwise could be done through the launch of suborbital rockets with similar instruments. Virtual instruments, too, can be created in space as a replacement for either damaged or malfunctioning sensors with the coming together of astronomers and computer experts.”
Sci-fi or unfolding reality? Interdisciplinary teams of scientists and domain experts in AI are set to accelerate discoveries of new habitable worlds, aliens, and new organisms existing in interplanetary space besides rolling out products for applications like the early forecast of storms in space and on Earth, among others, with this combination of old data and AI tools.
Map Reveals ‘Great Migration’ Population Shift Over Last Three Years
The virus pandemic, the rise of remote and hybrid work, and a surge in violent crime across progressive cities have significantly influenced the migration patterns of Americans over the past several years.
A new report from real estate research firm ResiClub sheds more color on the migration trends, this time on a county-by-county basis. It reveals which counties in the US gained and or lost the most population between April 1, 2020, and July 1, 2023, citing data from the US Census Bureau.
ResiClub founder Lance Lambert wrote on X that the “US Southeast, Mountain West, East/central Texas” had counties with some of the largest population gains over the period. Conversely, the counties based in California, the North and South Great Plains, parts of the Inland Midwest, and the inland Northeast had some of the most significant outflows.
This map shows which counties have gained—and lost—population since 2020
— ResiClub (@ResidentialClub) March 30, 2024
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ResiClub PRO | Access to the interactive map + searchable chart for +3,000 counties: https://t.co/BYLDGWN9KW pic.twitter.com/7UjxRdBfWp
Lambert posted a list of the top 40 counties with the largest population shifts over the period.
Top Three Counties With Largest Population Increase:
- Collin, Texas
- Wake County, North Carolina
- Hillsborough, Florida
Top Three Counties With Largest Population Decrease:
- Bronx County, New York
- Kings County, New York
- Queens County, New York
We assume this data has not captured the illegal migration shifts as millions of illegal aliens invade the US via open southern borders and flood progressive cities.