# gst: quantum chaos to approach the evolution of a dynamic system

<< A study on the evolution of dynamic systems [..] has unexpectedly led to a better understanding of the chaos in the quantum world >>

<< The tools needed to explore the rigidity of dynamic systems [..] far exceeded those currently available, forcing the team to learn from neighboring disciplines >>

<< As a by-product of this process, researchers have identified the applicability of this project to quantum mechanics, which has led them to formulate a new theorem of thermodynamic quantum chaos combining ideas from large networks. Large networks — such as Big Data, social networks, convolutional neural networks of Artificial Intelligence models — which, although commonly used today, do not yet have adequate theories to explain their operation >>

Shakes Gilles. Study of dynamical systems leads to better understanding of quantum chaos. March 27, 2018.

https://www.thetalkingdemocrat.com/2018/03/study-of-dynamical-systems-leads-to-better-understanding-of-quantum-chaos/

# lang: surface tension dynamics at boundaries to understand dialect spread and extinction

<< It has recently been proposed that the spatial evolution of dialects can be understood using surface tension at linguistic boundaries >>

J.B. << shows that the inclusion of long-range interactions in the surface tension model generates both wave-like spread, and hierarchical diffusion, and that it is surface tension that is the dominant effect in deciding the stable distribution of dialect patterns >>

J.B. << generalizes the model to allow population mixing which can induce shrinkage of linguistic domains, or destroy dialect regions from within >>

James Burridge. Unifying models of dialect spread and extinction using surface tension dynamics. R Soc Open Sci. 2018 Jan; 5(1): 171446.
doi:  10.1098/rsos.171446. Jan 3, 2018.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5792924/

# brain: strong signals to connect to consciousness

<< Unexpectedly, our model reveals that only when the signal is strong enough, above a threshold level, the signal reaches a large set of areas of the brain region called the prefrontal cortex, which plays a critical role in high-level cognition >> Madhura Joglekar.

James Devitt. From Signal Propagation to Consciousness: A Potential Connection Discovered. Neuroscience News. Mar 22, 2018.

http://neurosciencenews.com/consciousness-signal-propagation-8674/amp/  

Madhura R. Joglekar, Jorge F. Mejias, et al. Inter-areal Balanced Amplification Enhances Signal Propagation in a Large-Scale Circuit Model of the Primate Cortex. Neuron.
doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2018.02.031.
Mar 22, 2018.

http://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(18)30152-1

# zen: compassionate neanderthal

AA << review evidence for Neanderthal healthcare, drawing on a bioarchaeology of care approach and relating healthcare to other realms of Neanderthal social life. The authors argue that Neanderthal medical treatment and healthcare was widespread and part of a social context of strong pro-social bonds which was not distinctively different from healthcare seen in later contexts >>

AA << suggest that the time has come to accept Neanderthal healthcare as a compassionate and knowledgeable response to injury and illness, and to turn to other questions, such as cultural variation or the wider significance of healthcare in an evolutionary context >>

Penny Spikins, Andy Needham, et al.
Calculated or caring? Neanderthal healthcare in social context.  World Archaeology. doi: 10.1080/ 00438243.2018.1433060. Feb 22, 2018.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00438243.2018.1433060

University of York. Compassion helped Neanderthals to survive, new study reveals. Mar 13, 2018.

https://m.phys.org/news/2018-03-compassion-neanderthals-survive-reveals.html

Also

# s-ethnomed: ancient flexible eat; self-medication among Neanderthals with aspirin and penicillin like.  Mar 18, 2017.

https://flashontrack.blogspot.it/2017/03/s-ethnomed-ancient-flexible-eat-self.html

# gst: booting

<< In computing, booting (or booting up) is the initialization of a computerized system. The system can be a computer or a computer appliance. The booting process can be "hard", e.g., after electrical power to the CPU is switched from off to on (in order to diagnose particular hardware errors), or "soft", when those power-on self-tests (POST) can be avoided. On some systems a soft boot may optionally clear RAM to zero. Both hard and soft booting can be initiated by hardware such as a button press, or by software command. Booting is complete when the normal, operative, runtime environment is attained >>

Jackfork. Booting. Mar 16, 2018.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booting

# gst: transitions among metastabilities

<< Metastability, as well as the transition processes between metastable states, is ubiquitous in nature, but challenges our tools to describe such complex quantum systems >>

<< A comparison with a theoretical model confirms that the metastability originates in the competition between short- and global- range interactions >>

Lorenz Hruby, Nishant Dogra, et al. Metastability and avalanche dynamics in strongly correlated gases with long-range interactions. PNAS.  201720415; doi: org/10.1073/pnas.1720415115. Mar 8, 2018.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/03/07/1720415115

<< Several aspects of metastability are well understood, but in particular, the switching dynamics from one state to another remain unknown, as few tools are available to directly monitor such processes >>

ETH Zurich. Mastering metastable matter.  Mar 12, 2018

https://m.phys.org/news/2018-03-mastering-metastable.html

# evol: the early bird Archaeopteryx was an incidental, short-distance, active flyer

<< The wing bones of Archaeopteryx were shaped for incidental active flight, but not for the advanced style of flying mastered by today's birds >>

European Synchrotron Radiation Facility. The early bird got to fly: Archaeopteryx was an active flyer. Mar 13, 2018.

https://m.phys.org/news/2018-03-early-bird-archaeopteryx-flyer.html

AA << analyses reveal that the architecture of Archaeopteryx's wing bones consistently exhibits a combination of cross-sectional geometric properties uniquely shared with volant birds, particularly those occasionally utilising short-distance flapping >>

Dennis F. A. E. Voeten, Jorge Cubo, et al.  Wing bone geometry reveals active flight in Archaeopteryx. Nature Communications. 2018; 9 (923). doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-03296-8.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-03296-8  

# age: E3-ubiquitin ligases, the 'garbage disposal system' and the cell immortality

<< Human embryonic stem cells are considered to be immortal: they do not age, they can proliferate indefinitely >>

<< One of the mechanisms underlying immortality is the 'garbage disposal system' known as the proteasome >>

<< Of key relevance in the proteasome system are the so-called E3-ubiquitin ligases >>

AA << screened more than 600 proteins systematically and narrowed it down to 30 E3 ligases of special interest >>

AA << found that a global reduction in the proteolytic activity affects many intrinsic characteristics of embryonic stem cells, providing a link between immortality and up-regulated protein degradation >>

University of Cologne. On the immortality of stem cells. Mar 7, 2018.

https://m.phys.org/news/2018-03-immortality-stem-cells.html

Isabel Saez, Seda Koyuncu, et al. Insights into the ubiquitin-proteasome system of human embryonic stem cells. Scientific Reports. 2018; 8 (4092). doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-22384-9.     Mar 6, 2018.
   
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-22384-9

# gst: chemical waves exhibit fascinating patterns

<< Waves are known in many very different forms; as water waves, light waves or sound waves. But here we are dealing with something quite different - chemical waves >>

<< Typically, one imagines a chemical reaction like this: from specific initial reactants one obtains specific final products. But it does not need to be as simple as that. Self-sustaining oscillations may occur, i.e. periodic changes between two different states >>

<< On a polycrystalline surface, there are then different regions in which the cyclical process occurs at different frequencies. It is precisely this effect that creates those fascinating wave patterns. When a chemical wave moves across the surface and passes from the edge of one grain of crystal to another, it speeds up or slows down, similar to light passing from the air to water.  This changes the complex spiral wave structures according to the particular orientation of the grain surface >>

Vienna University of Technology. Chemical waves guide to catalysts of the future. Feb 20, 2018.

https://m.phys.org/news/2018-02-chemical-catalysts-future.html

Yuri Suchorski, Martin Datler, et al. Visualizing catalyst heterogeneity by a multifrequential oscillating reaction. Nature Communication. 2018; 9 (600). doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-03007-3. Feb 9,  2018.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-03007-3

# game: a hypothesis to test a generic "generous tit-for-tat" approach to manage a self-catalytic (a cascade of period-doubling bifurcation) social transition dynamics

<< "La grande opportunità (..) è quella di tentare una 'mossa del cavallo': una scelta inaspettata, spiazzante, al limite del temerario" >>

che proponga  << un governo con gli elementi portanti del proprio programma, la cui guida sia affidata a una personalità fuori dei partiti, che scelga ministri tutti della società civile >>

"Modello Zagrebelsky per convincere il Pd". Intervista a Paolo Flores d’Arcais. Mar 11, 2018.

http://m.huffingtonpost.it/2018/03/11/modello-zagrebelsky-per-convincere-il-pd-intervista-a-paolo-flores-d-arcais_a_23382569/

<< Adding "generous tit-for-tat" greatly increases the overall level of cooperation and can lead to long periods of steady cooperation >>

Nowak M, Sigmund K. Chaos and the evolution of cooperation.  Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 1993; 90 (11): 5091-4. Jun 1, 1993.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/8506355/

Also

<< The former child prodigy is 20 &wise beyond her years! @mohinidey17 talks to me of “when the person goes deeper than the technique” >> Jan 2, 2018

https://youtu.be/hbcW7nxcP3E

https://twitter.com/HrishiKay/status/948038183656103936

Also

<< Amico,  qualunque  cosa suonerai ... >>

2113 - soniche a ramulo. Jan 28, 2007.

http://inkpi.blogspot.it/2007/01/2113-soniche-ramulo.html

# game: an interesting question of "worth" that circulates around a pulsatile meta-cycle of kidnapping and negotiation

<< There’s an interesting question of "worth" that circulates around this cycle of kidnapping and negotiation. Harold is dismayed that his company would rather negotiate than pay a full ransom for him, and that they’ve let their kidnapping insurance lapse. When Harold continually evades capture, he suddenly accrues more worth because he’s scarce. It’s a fascinating idea that’s explored with far more depth and nuance in the Danish drama "A Hijacking." >>

Katie Walsh. Film review: 'Gringo' lacks the intelligence to make a dark comedy work. Mar 8, 2018.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/03/08/movie-review-gringo-lacks-the-intelligence-to-make-a-dark-comedy-work/

# astro: differential rotation in Jupiter

<< Jupiter's atmosphere is rotating differentially, with zones and belts rotating at speeds that differ by up to 100 metres per second >>

<< The discovery by the Juno spacecraft that Jupiter's gravity field is north–south asymmetric [..] demonstrates that the observed zonal cloud flow must persist to a depth of about 3,000 kilometres from the cloud tops >>

AA << find that the deep interior of the planet rotates nearly as a rigid body, with differential rotation decreasing by at least an order of magnitude compared to the atmosphere >>

AA << expect the outer, differentially rotating region to be at least three times deeper in Saturn and to be shallower in massive giant planets and brown dwarfs >>

Guillot T, Miguel Y, et al. A suppression of differential rotation in Jupiter’s deep interior. Nature. 2018; 555; 227 - 30.  doi: 10.1038/nature25775. Mar 8, 2018.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25775

<< Scientists have long wondered what lies beneath Jupiter's surface. Now, using data from NASA's Juno mission, four research teams have published studies revealing incredible new information about the gas giant >>

Chelsea Gohd.  We Now Know What Lies Beneath Jupiter's Clouds. Mar 7, 2018.

https://futurism.com/beneath-jupiters-clouds/

NASA Juno Findings - Jupiter's Jet - Streams Are Unearthly.  March 7, 2018.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/nasa-juno-findings-jupiter-s-jet-streams-are-unearthly

# sec: oops! also blockchain system seems to show some security vulnerabilities

<< Smart contracts - stateful executable objects hosted on blockchains like Ethereum - carry billions of dollars worth of coins and cannot be updated once deployed >>

AA << present a new systematic characterization of a class of trace vulnerabilities, which result from analyzing multiple invocations of a contract over its lifetime >>

Ivica Nikolic, Aashish Kolluri, et al. Finding The Greedy, Prodigal, and Suicidal Contracts at Scale. arXiv: 1802.06038 [cs.CR]. Feb 16, 2018.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.06038

Kristin Houser. Uh Oh: Blockchain May Not Be as Secure as We Thought. Mar 2, 2018.

https://futurism.com/blockchain-security-smart-contracts/ 

Mike Orcutt. Ethereum's smart contracts are full of holes. MIT Tech Rev. Mar 1, 2018.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610392/ethereums-smart-contracts-are-full-of-holes/

Also

# e-ai: an intriguing hypothesis: cheating that system will become near impossible. Jun 18, 2017

http://flashontrack.blogspot.it/2017/06/e-ai-intriguing-hypothesis-cheating.html

# gst: random walk to describe a interplay between the inter-chain hopping and the intra-chain hopping in amorphous Polyimide nanofibers

AA << report the observation of a crossover of heat conduction behavior from three dimensions (3D) to quasi-one dimension (1D) in Polyimide(PI) nanofibers at a given temperature. A theoretical model based on the random walk theory has been proposed to quantitatively describe the interplay between the inter-chain hopping and the intra-chain hopping in nanofibers. This model explains well the diameter dependence of thermal conductivity and also speculates the upper limit of thermal conductivity of amorphous polymers in the quasi-1D limit. >>

Lan Dong, Qing Xi, et al. Dimensional crossover of heat conduction in amorphous Polyimide nanofibers. National Science Review. nwy004.  doi: 10.1093/nsr/nwy004. Jan 09,  2018.

https://academic.oup.com/nsr/advance-article/doi/10.1093/nsr/nwy004/4794956

<< The intrinsic structure of amorphous polymers is highly disordered with long, entangled molecular chains >>

Science China Press. "Random walk" of heat carriers in amorphous polymers. Mar 01, 2018.

https://m.phys.org/news/2018-03-random-carriers-amorphous-polymers.html

# drugs: they elicit experiences with the highest semantic similarity to those of dreams

AA << investigated the semantic similarity between a large number of subjective reports of psychoactive substances and reports of high/low lucidity dreams, and found that the highest-ranking substance in terms of the similarity to high lucidity dreams was the serotonergic psychedelic lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), whereas the highest-ranking in terms of the similarity to dreams of low lucidity were plants of the Datura genus, rich in deliriant tropane alkaloids. Conversely, sedatives, stimulants, antipsychotics, and antidepressants comprised most of the lowest-ranking substances. >>

AA << confirm the hypothesis that, among all psychoactive substances, hallucinogen drugs elicit experiences with the highest semantic similarity to those of dreams. >>

Camila Sanz, Enzo Tagliazucchi. The Experience Elicited by Hallucinogens Presents the Highest Similarity to Dreaming within a Large Database of Psychoactive Substance Reports.
Front. Neurosci. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2018.00007. Jan 22, 2018.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2018.00007/full   

Eric W. Dolan. Study reveals the similarity between psychedelic states and dreaming. Feb 16, 2018.

http://www.psypost.org/2018/02/study-reveals-similarity-psychedelic-states-dreaming-50760  

# life: tre cappotti

<< L’ho portato a casa che aveva due mesi. Non sapeva abbaiare. L’ho nutrito, l’ho pulito, l’ho addormentato. L’ho portato in passeggiata, faceva freddo, gli ho comprato i cappottini. L’ho spazzolato, l’ho coccolato, mi sono dovuta sorbire le proteste di Alberto che si sentiva messo da parte. L’ho portato dal veterinario, duecento euro tra: visita, vaccino pentavalente, inoculazione del microchip, iscrizione all’anagrafe canina e, tanto per non sbagliare, puntura anti-filaria (solo quella ventotto euro). L’ho sgridato quando faceva la pipì in casa. Ho smesso di uscire con le amiche perché, i primi tempi, non stava mai fermo per la voglia di giocare e ci aveva reso impossibile andare al ristorante.
Vorrei proprio sapere quali delle suddette attività mi differenzia da una mamma. >>

Erica Tabacco. Tre cappotti per un bassotto. Tragopano Ed. 8 Feb 2018.

http://www.tragopano.it/tre-cappotti-per-un-bassotto-di-erika-tabacco-in-e-book/  

# qubit: three-qubit operation with the Toffoli gate for scalable semiconductor quantum processors

<< The Toffoli gate is a three-qubit operation that changed the state of a target qubit conditioned on the state of two control qubits. It can be used for universal reversible classical computation, (..) >>

<< As a result, a single-step Toffoli gate can reduce the number of quantum operations dramatically, which can break the limit of coherence time and improve the efficiency of quantum computing >>

University of Science and Technology of China. Experimentally demonstrated a Toffoli gate in a semiconductor three-qubit system. March 1, 2018

https://m.phys.org/news/2018-03-experimentally-toffoli-gate-semiconductor-three-qubit.html

Hai-Ou Li, Gang Cao, et al. Controlled Quantum Operations of a Semiconductor Three-Qubit System. Phys. Rev. Applied 2018; 9.024015. doi: 10.1103/ PhysRevApplied.9.024015. Feb 15, 2018.

https://journals.aps.org/prapplied/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.9.024015

# esobio: Aliens & OoL, a review

AA << explores the collaborative nature and interdisciplinarity of the origin(s) of life (OoL) research community. Although OoL research is one of the oldest topics in philosophy, religion, and science; to date there has been no review of the field utilizing bibliometric measures. A dataset of 5647 publications that are tagged as OoL, (..) >>

Arsev Umur Aydinoglu, Zehra Taskın. Origins of Life Research: a Bibliometric Approach. Orig Life Evol Biosph. 2018; 48 (1): 55. doi: 10.1007/s11084-017-9543-4.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11084-017-9543-4

Also

Nick Pope (@nickpopemod)

https://twitter.com/nickpopemod