#resolution foundation

[creativemedianews]

Increase in youth disability claims, data shows

Increase in youth disability claims, data shows #ADHD #ChildDisabilityLivingAllowance #disabilitybenefits #DLA

[notayesmanseconomics]

The burden of higher mortgage costs starts to arrive

Over the weekend it seems that the chattering classes and establishment caught up with something we have been noting for a while now. I recall us discussing the UK give-year yield passing 4% with the implication being that higher mortgage rates were on their way. We can also add in one of our longest-running themes. Jeremy Hunt, UK chancellor, has ruled out giving any direct fiscal support to…

[rodgermalcolmmitchell]

Uninformed debate on "national government debt" and one informed voice.

Alan Greenspan The UK government, like the US government, is Monetarily Sovereign. It has the infinite ability to create its own sovereign currency. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan: “A government cannot become insolvent with respect to obligations in its own currency. “There is nothing to prevent the federal government from creating as much money as it wants and paying it to…

[mwagneto]

HAAANK DON'T GET MAD AT SCIFI FOR NOT MAKING SENSE HAAAAANK !!! IT'S A METAPHOR FOR REAL LIFE THAT'S MEANT TO MAKE YOU ASK QUESTIONS HANK YOU DON'T NECESSARILY HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THE EXACT MECHANICS!!!! HAAAANK

[ardentpoop]

is it not exhausting how often sam ends up having to tend to the needs of beings who harmed him irreparably

these guys sent him to rescue LUCIFER lmao. i dont think i need to explain how fucked up that is given their history

[atomicwrongs]

My two incredible cringe sparkledog braincells locked in vicious battle, one is named 'Anomaly TTRPG system I've been tinkering with for 5 years' and the other is named 'colour-coded eldritch dipshits from the funny song-plays', and when the fight is over the bloodstain on the ground spells 'run a campaign where the BBEGs are the Lords in Black'

[pagesofkenna]

i wanted to make a post about a thing but the more i think about it the more i want to say and it's just going to end up being a big ramble essay, so instead i'll just give the thesis statement, thusly:

as the #1 Ratgrinders Apologist (self-appointed), of course they're the final boss fight to the death. i expected nothing less and the people trying to make discourse about it are ignoring the entire context of this being a Dungeons and Dragons game

[scpaesthetics]

SCP Aesthetics: 5999 (requested by anon, written by VolgunStrife, Woedenaz, TheeSherm, Modern_Erasmus, and S D Locke)

For the remainder of the year, personnel are to remain wary of any surfaces which contain the phrase "This is where I died.". (rust-colored, religion, bad vibes)

requests are open

[momentsbeforemass]

Day three

(because, well, you know)

It’s day three. The day I stumble.

Every year, I start out making a bunch of New Year’s resolutions. Every year, I do good for about two days.

And then? Day three. That’s when I stumble.

That is, I forget to do something that I resolved to do. Or I mess up something that I resolved to do. Maybe some of both.

I do this every year. Day three. Like clockwork.

Why?

Because I get so enthused about all of my plans. All of my good ideas. That I just start doing stuff. That I get so enthused that I (and this is pathetic in its predictability) forget to lay the proper foundation. With God.

Both by making sure that all of my big ideas are in accord with God’s will. And by starting the day with God (instead of starting the day trying to do all the things).

It gives me hope to know that I’m not alone in this. That this is nothing new. As C.S. Lewis puts it,

“The real problem in the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals.

And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.

And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind.”

Today’s Readings

[tracing-rivers]

Gotta say as I get to know Tolkien I'm more than a bit surprised that the Balrog of Khazad-Dûm doesn't have. You know. A name or five.

[countryspringtrap]

Happy New Year! 💖🎀💕

[sateurn]

😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

These sobs really limited my tags?????

I have so many more thoughts this is so so much less than 1/2. Broski. Big dislike

[theanmolkang]

Relationships in Midlife

Relationships in Midlife: Challenges & Opportunities The midlife years bring many changes, including shifts in relationships that have been established over the years. As we age, our priorities and perspectives change, leading to a reevaluation of our relationships with partners, family members, friends, and colleagues. In this blog, we will talk about the challenges and opportunities that come…

[jcmarchi]

Microscope system sharpens scientists’ view of neural circuit connections

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/microscope-system-sharpens-scientists-view-of-neural-circuit-connections/

Microscope system sharpens scientists’ view of neural circuit connections

The brain’s ability to learn comes from “plasticity,” in which neurons constantly edit and remodel the tiny connections called synapses that they make with other neurons to form circuits. To study plasticity, neuroscientists seek to track it at high resolution across whole cells, but plasticity doesn’t wait for slow microscopes to keep pace, and brain tissue is notorious for scattering light and making images fuzzy. In an open access paper in Scientific Reports, a collaboration of MIT engineers and neuroscientists describes a new microscopy system designed for fast, clear, and frequent imaging of the living brain.

The system, called “multiline orthogonal scanning temporal focusing” (mosTF), works by scanning brain tissue with lines of light in perpendicular directions. As with other live brain imaging systems that rely on “two-photon microscopy,” this scanning light “excites” photon emission from brain cells that have been engineered to fluoresce when stimulated. The new system proved in the team’s tests to be eight times faster than a two-photon scope that goes point by point, and proved to have a four-fold better signal-to-background ratio (a measure of the resulting image clarity) than a two-photon system that just scans in one direction.

“Tracking rapid changes in circuit structure in the context of the living brain remains a challenge,” says co-author Elly Nedivi, the William R. (1964) and Linda R. Young Professor of Neuroscience in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and MIT’s departments of Biology and Brain and Cognitive Sciences. “While two-photon microscopy is the only method that allows high-resolution visualization of synapses deep in scattering tissue, such as the brain, the required point-by-point scanning is mechanically slow. The mosTF system significantly reduces scan time without sacrificing resolution.”

Scanning a whole line of a sample is inherently faster than just scanning one point at a time, but it kicks up a lot of scattering. To manage that scattering, some scope systems just discard scattered photons as noise, but then they are lost, says lead author Yi Xue SM ’15, PhD ’19, an assistant professor at the University of California at Davis and a former graduate student in the lab of corresponding author Peter T.C. So, professor of mechanical engineering and biological engineering at MIT. Newer single-line and the mosTF systems produce a stronger signal (thereby resolving smaller and fainter features of stimulated neurons) by algorithmically reassigning scattered photons back to their origin. In a two-dimensional image, that process is better accomplished by using the information produced by a two-dimensional, perpendicular-direction system such as mosTF, than by a one-dimensional, single-direction system, Xue says.

“Our excitation light is a line, rather than a point — more like a light tube than a light bulb — but the reconstruction process can only reassign photons to the excitation line and cannot handle scattering within the line,” Xue explains. “Therefore, scattering correction is only performed along one dimension for a 2D image. To correct scattering in both dimensions, we need to scan the sample and correct scattering along the other dimension as well, resulting in an orthogonal scanning strategy.”

In the study the team tested their system head-to-head against a point-by-point scope (a two-photon laser scanning microscope — TPLSM) and a line-scanning temporal focusing microscope (lineTF). They imaged fluorescent beads through water and through a lipid-infused solution that better simulates the kind of scattering that arises in biological tissue. In the lipid solution, mosTF produced images with a 36-times better signal-to-background ratio than lineTF.

For a more definitive proof, Xue worked with Josiah Boivin in the Nedivi lab to image neurons in the brain of a live, anesthetized mouse, using mosTF. Even in this much more complex environment, where the pulsations of blood vessels and the movement of breathing provide additional confounds, the mosTF scope still achieved a four-fold better signal-to-background ratio. Importantly, it was able to reveal the features where many synapses dwell: the spines that protrude along the vine-like processes, or dendrites, that grow out of the neuron cell body. Monitoring plasticity requires being able to watch those spines grow, shrink, come, and go across the entire cell, Nedivi says.

“Our continued collaboration with the So lab and their expertise with microscope development has enabled in vivo studies that are unapproachable using conventional, out-of-the-box two-photon microscopes,” she adds.

So says he is already planning further improvements to the technology.

“We’re continuing to work toward the goal of developing even more efficient microscopes to look at plasticity even more efficiently,” he says. “The speed of mosTF is still limited by needing to use high-sensitivity, low-noise cameras that are often slow. We are now working on a next-generation system with new type of detectors such as hybrid photomultiplier or avalanche photodiode arrays that are both sensitive and fast.”

In addition to Xue, So, Boivin, and Nedivi, the paper’s other authors are Dushan Wadduwage and Jong Kang Park.

The National Institutes of Health, Hamamatsu Corp., Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology Center, Biosystems and Micromechanics, The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, The JPB Foundation, and The Center for Advanced Imaging at Harvard University provided support for the research.

[harmonyhealinghub]

Making a Difference: My New Year's Resolution Journey to Donate Monthly

Shaina Tranquilino

May 5, 2024

As the calendar flips to May, I find myself reflecting on the passing months, surprised by how swiftly time has flown. It feels like just yesterday I was jotting down my New Year's resolutions, determined to make positive changes in my life and in the world around me. One of those resolutions? To donate to a different organization each month. Here we are, five months in, with five donations completed and a renewed sense of purpose.

This month, my chosen organization is the Cancer Foundation of Saskatchewan. Cancer has touched the lives of so many, whether through personal battles or the experiences of loved ones. It's a disease that knows no bounds, affecting individuals of all ages, backgrounds, and walks of life. While strides have been made in research and treatment, there is still much work to be done.

The Cancer Foundation of Saskatchewan is a beacon of hope in the fight against this formidable foe. Committed to supporting cancer patients, funding research initiatives, and raising awareness, they play a crucial role in the quest for a world without cancer. From providing financial assistance to those undergoing treatment to investing in cutting-edge research, every dollar donated to the foundation makes a tangible difference in the lives of those affected by cancer.

For me, donating to the Cancer Foundation of Saskatchewan is about more than just writing a cheque or clicking a button online. It's a small but meaningful way to contribute to a cause that has touched my own life and the lives of countless others. It's a reminder that even in the face of adversity, there is power in coming together to support one another.

As I reflect on the past five months, I'm filled with gratitude for the opportunity to give back in this way. Each donation represents a step forward, a tangible manifestation of my commitment to making a difference. While there are still many organizations to support and causes to champion, I take comfort in knowing that every contribution, no matter how small, has the potential to create ripples of positive change.

So as May unfolds and I make my donation to the Cancer Foundation of Saskatchewan, I do so with a sense of purpose and hope. I may not be able to single-handedly cure cancer or solve all the world's problems, but I can do my part to support those who are fighting the good fight. And in that, I find both solace and strength to continue on this journey of giving.

As the months march on and my resolution progresses, I look forward to the opportunities that lie ahead to make a difference, one donation at a time. After all, the greatest impact often comes from the collective effort of individuals united in a common cause. Together, we can be a force for good in the world.

Here's to the next seven months of giving, of making a difference, and of turning resolutions into reality. May we never lose sight of the power we hold to shape a brighter future for all.