HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: pwestlak@eoe.co.uk (Peter Westlake)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: "Falling" Asleep
Date: 27 Jan 93 15:57:03 GMT
Organization: EO Europe Limited, Cambridge, UK
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]

Ken Easlon (ken@iat.holonet.net) wrote:
: In article <106066@netnews.upenn.edu>,
: rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu (Mickey Rowe) writes:
: 
: >But seriously, since we're back to a public forum, does *anybody* else 
: >understand what it means to say that your "dream" head and your real 
: >head are lined up?  My dreams don't seem to exist in the same space as 
: >my waking life, which is why I've lost track of what this is supposed 
: >to mean... 
: 
: Allow me to recap.  This thread started out with Ruth Ginzberg's question: 
: 
: > Does anyone know what causes the sensation (when just falling asleep) 
: > of sudden literal falling, followed by a startle reaction that wakes 
: > you right up? 
: 

The explanation I have heard for this is that the shock is actually
a form of fit, a bit like a tiny epileptic seizure. I can offer neither
references nor a qualified opinion for this, but I do remember that the
source was a radio programme or magazine of a fairly reliable nature.
It added that the fits were not any sort of health hazard, and that
everyone had them.

On the other subject of head orientation, I have sometimes woken up
with the sensation that my bed was rotated through a right angle or
more, that the door was not in its usual position relative to the bed,
and so on. I don't know what this proves, if anything;  it may just be
that I have been dreaming of sleeping in a previous house. (Can one
dream of being asleep? Now there's a whole new thread...)

Peter.

-- 
Peter M Westlake                        EO Europe Ltd.,
Tel: +44 223-843131                     Abberley House,  Granhams Road,
Fax: +44 223-843032                     Great Shelford,
email:  pwestlak@eoe.co.uk              Cambridge CB2 5LQ,   England
Newsgroups: sci.bio
From: isaak@aurora.com (Mark Isaak)
Subject: Re: Info request, hippocampus
Followup-To: /dev/null
Summary: Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Reply-To: isaak@aurora.com (Mark Isaak)
Organization: The Aurora Group
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 17:49:47 GMT

More important, is the plural "hippocampuses" or "hippocampi"?
:-)
-- 
Mark Isaak           "Every generation thinks it has the answers, and every
isaak@aurora.com      generation is humbled by nature." - Philip Lubin
From: rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu (Mickey Rowe)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Lorenz and Number Recognition in Birds
Date: 24 Jan 93 20:49:56 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <1ju46d$fc2@spool.mu.edu> johns@m.mscs.mu.edu (John Simms) writes:

>Also, what else is known about number recognition in animals?  How much
>"mathematics" can animals do, especially chimpanzees or gorillas?

Look for recent work by Tetsuro Matsuzawa--a couple of relevant
examples:

Matsuzawa, T. (1985). "Use of Numbers by Chimpanzee", _Nature_,
     315:57-59. 

and

Matsuzawa, T., Asano, T., Kubota, K., and Murofushi, K. (1986).
     "Aquisition and Generalization of Numerical Labelling by a
     Chimpanzee", in D.M. Taub, and F.A. King, (eds.) _Current
     Perspectives in Primate Social Dynamics_ Von Nostrand: Reinhold,
     New York.

Matsuzawa studies chimpanzees both in the lab and in the wild.  In his
lab, he has not only taught a few chimpanzees to count (one of them,
Ai, was up to 9 or 10 when he was here last year--she can probably go
higher now), but he's also demonstrated that they can understand such
concepts as transitivity.  He does really good work, and I encourage
you to look into it.  It's also possible that you'll find reference to
Lorenz' bird work in Matsuzawa's papers.

>| John C. Simms                    | Internet........: johns@mscs.mu.edu  |

Mickey Rowe     (rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu)
From: rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu (Mickey Rowe)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: "Falling" Asleep
Date: 24 Jan 93 19:30:04 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <C1Avtp.6n4@iat.holonet.net> ken@iat.holonet.net 
     (Ken Easlon) writes:

>Too bad, I didn't really get into my theory of dream imagery having a large
>visual sensory component, with REM being a way of providing an enriched
>Rorschach input for the formation of dynamic dream scenes.  

Whew!  I think we've finally gotten to a point in this thread where we
can reasonably call it a night!  I just want to point you towards a
paper that relates to the above.  It was written by Marty Seligman and
(Jean ?) Yager around 1986.  If that's not enough information for you
to track it down, I'll dig it up again myself.  In any case, Seligman
and Yager surveyed a bunch of undergraduates here at Penn about the
content of their dreams.  I don't want to endorse the views S and Y
expressed in the paper, but I do think you should track it down if you
have the interest.  From what I recall (it's been a few years), they
did say some things similar to what you state in the paragraph above.

>Ken Easlon
>ken@holonet.net

Mickey Rowe     (rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu)
From: mcg2@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (Marc Gabriel)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: New listserv group - LymeNet
Date: 23 Jan 93 22:58:02 GMT
Organization: Lehigh University

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From: bcking@HQ.Ileaf.COM (Christine King)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Strongest muscle - the TONGUE?
Date: 28 Jan 93 18:17:42 GMT
Organization: Interleaf, Inc.


  "The strongest muscle in the human body is the TONGUE."

Are you sure it wasn't "most powerful"?  Do you think your 2nd-grader
could have been taking literally what was meant as a cute
figure-of-speech?  That is, you can get more work done faster by
asking a bunch of other people to help than by doing it all yourself...


-- 
 Christine King, bcking@ileaf.com
 Interleaf, Inc.      | My opinions are not  | "Time is like that,
 9 Hillside Avenue    | necessarily those of |  except for the cannon
 Waltham MA 02154 USA | Interleaf, Inc.      |  and the donut." -Dilbert
Newsgroups: sci.bio
From: ken@iat.holonet.net (Ken Easlon)
Subject: Re: MRNA
Organization: HoloNet National Internet Access BBS: 510-704-1058/modem
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 04:19:35 GMT


In article <59013@dime.cs.umass.edu>,
connolly@piglet.cs.umass.edu (Christopher Ian Connolly) writes:

>Wait up -- maybe you should use a more descriptive term, like 
>"transcription rate", i.e., what, specifically, do you consider to be 
>"bandwidth"?  Is it just the passage of mRNA out of the nucleus?  What 
>about RNA editing? 

Call it anything you want.  The idea I'm speculating on concerns the
mechanism by which the nucleus exerts some degree of control on the
operation of the cellular machinery.  The manufacture of protein being but
one step in the chain.

The particular question I'm asking, "Is it within the realm of possibility
that a large active cell suffers degradation in performance-resilience-etc
because of the smaller nucleus to mass ratio.

>Put another way: I could write a one-line program that would never 
>terminate -- it would represent an infinite amount of "computation", 
>yet only consist of one line's worth of program.  So the length of DNA 
>means nothing in that context (assuming more than just transcription 
>or similar processes). 

I'm afraid you've lost me here.  One of the things I'm trying to come to a
greater understanding of is the intelligence/smarts/computing-power of a
genetically controlled cell, or the genetically controlled processes of a
whole organism.  I suspect that a program of 750 megabytes (the human
genome) which has been under development for several billion years probably
represents a pretty fair chunk of intelligence no matter how you measure
it.


--
Ken Easlon
ken@holonet.net

Newsgroups: sci.bio
From: gordon@spot.Colorado.EDU (GORDON ALLEN R)
Subject: Re: Strongest muscle - the TONGUE?
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: 28 Jan 93 16:30:26 GMT

hhtra@usho21.hou281.chevron.com (T.M.Haddock) writes:


> Please excuse this simplistic question....

> My 2nd grader comes home and tell us what she has learned that day.
> Yesterday is was:

>   The strongest muscle in the human body is the TONGUE.


> Is that right?

> I always thought it was the muscles surrounding the uterus
> in females followed by the jaw muscles in both males and females.

> Which is it?

> Any sources I can consult for a definitive answer?


> Thanks.

> TRAVIS
> hhtra@hou281.chevron.com

I think you'll find that the quadriceps are the biggest and the strongest.  

-- 
Allen Gordon 		         *If the folly of but one of us was changed to*
Research Associate         	 *intelligence, and divided amongst a thousand*
gordon@spot.colorado.edu   	 *toads, each would be more intelligent than  *
				 *Aristotle				      *
Newsgroups: sci.bio
From: ken@iat.holonet.net (Ken Easlon)
Subject: Re: "Falling" Asleep
Organization: HoloNet National Internet Access BBS: 510-704-1058/modem
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 09:32:12 GMT

In article <106264@netnews.upenn.edu>,
rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu (Mickey Rowe) writes:

>In article <C18q4v.507@iat.holonet.net> ken@iat.holonet.net  
>     (Ken Easlon) writes: 

>>In any event, I think Mickey and I agree that the sense of "down" in
>>dreams is imaginary.  This would be consistent with my explanation of
>>Ginzberg's falling sensation as being the normal sleep-time loss of
>>gravity perception at a time before sleep has fully arrived. 
 
>It's also consistent with you losing your major source of information 
>about which direction is down when you fall asleep.  As you lose your 
>somatosensory perception you feel as if the bed, floor, chair, 
>whatever, is dropping out from under you.  That's more in line with 
>what *I* experience when I get a falling sensation when I'm on the 
>edge of sleep. 

Sounds like agreement to me.  

I was awakened from REM sleep last night and recall dreaming that I was
crawling around looking for something.   The dream body position was
consistent with my actual body position, almost fetal.  Before my thumb
starts making a bee line for my mouth I'm going to declare victory and bail
from this interminable debate.

Too bad, I didn't really get into my theory of dream imagery having a large
visual sensory component, with REM being a way of providing an enriched
Rorschach input for the formation of dynamic dream scenes.  

Then there's the idea that if the image only makes sense if it were a scene
viewed with the head at a weird angle (like looking up at a bridge), we
simply imagine ourselves looking up at the bridge.  This puts me an Mickey
in agreement about dream body and actual body having little relationship
some of the time, but I still say they are firmly connected at the head.

--
Ken Easlon
ken@holonet.net

Newsgroups: sci.bio
From: eb3@world.std.com (Edwin Barkdoll)
Subject: Re: MRNA
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 12:16:45 GMT

In article <1759@tdat.teradata.COM> swf@tools3teradata.com (Stan Friesen) writes:
>In article <104941@netnews.upenn.edu>, rowe@pender.ee.upenn.edu (Mickey Rowe) writes:
>|> >The brain statement is based on the fact that neurons have less DNA per
>|> >unit weight than other kinds of cells (eggs-cluding eggs and who knows what
>|> >other special cases).  
>|> 
>|> I suspect that this is generally untrue.
>
>Ah, but it is in fact exactly literally true!  All cells in a single body have
>the *same* amount of DNA (with a few wierd exception like the polytene
>chromosomes in the salivary glands of Drosophila).
>
>Now, since neurons are amoung the largest cells in the body,

	Neurons are also among the _smallest_ cells in the in the body
-- granule cells of the cerebellum.  Granule cells have been estimated
to number ~10^11 which I think Mickey pointed out is about that
estimated in the rest of the brain.

>except for certain muscle fibers and (as mentioned above) eggs, they must
>clearly have less DNA per unit weight than other cells.

	So this ~50% of the neurons - the granule cells - clearly has
MORE DNA per unit weight than other cells.

-- 
Edwin Barkdoll
eb3@world.std.com
Newsgroups: sci.bio
From: mueller@cage.eng.mcmaster.ca (Edna Mueller)
Subject: silver in the environment
Organization: McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 20:40:32 GMT

First International Conference 
"Transport, fate and effects of silver in the environment"

University of Wisconsin-Madison

August 8-10, 1993

For more information contact:

Prof. Anders W. Andren, UW Sea Grant Institute, University of Wisconsin-
Madison, 1800 University Ave., Madison, WI 53705-4094
Tele:(608)262-0905

or 

Prof. James R. Kramer, Department of Geology, McMaster University,
1280 Main Str. W., Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, L8S 4M1
Tele:(416)525-9140 Ext. 4514
email:kramer@mcmaster.ca
From: ljones@utkvx3.utk.edu (Where UT leads, others will follow.)
Subject: Nature Center Needs Trophies, Skulls, Skins
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: University of Tennessee Computing Center
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 04:13:00 GMT

Hello all!

     Ijams Nature Center in Knoxville, Tennessee is in need of animal
trophies, skulls and skins. Pam Petko-Seus, our wildlife biologist,
needs them for outreach programs at local schools. They will also
be used in our museum.

     Ijams was established by the Audobon Society on property
willed by the Ijams family. The center leads school groups
on educational trips on the property on most days of the school
year. Wildlife biologist Pam Petko-Sues travels to area schools
to teach children about wildlife. There is a museum and a
pavillion where UT professors and area naturalists give talks.
Ijams is a tax-exempt nonprofit organization.

     We are asking for trophies, skulls, and skins of animals native
to eastern North America north of Mexico. Until we build our new
nature center, we will not have space for exotic species. Specimens 
should already be prepared, as we can't afford to take specimens
to a taxidermist.

     Contributors will receive the Ijams newsletter and the satisfaction
of helping a good cause.

     Send me email describing any specimens you would like to
contribute and I will send you Ijams' address.

Thanks!
Leslie Jones
Ijams naturalist
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Holliday Model: (Was Re: rRNA (was Re: MRNA))
From: bpharmon@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu
Date: 27 Jan 93 20:03:07 -0500
Organization: Miami University Academic Computer Service"

In article <robison1.727971444@husc.harvard.edu>, robison1@husc10.harvard.edu (Keith Robison) writes:
> 
> But sometimes, instead of an exchange the information on one strand
> displaces the information on the other (by mechanism which are still
> under argument, I believe [corrections welcome]).  Thus, you
> could end up with:
> 
>       a-b-c-d   and
>       e-b-c-h

	Do you mean something like the Holliday model of recombination, with
gene conversion carried out by enzymes that recognize and correct base pairing
errors (like DNA pol I)?
	Is this still an acceptable model?
	If anyone is curious, I'll post what I know (don't quite know how a
text editor will make it work, but oh well)
	later.

=======================================================================
Brian Harmon           "Everything has its wonders, even darkness and
Miami University	  silence.."
(513) 529-2063			-Helen Keller
 yeech! ack!		"Music is a higher revelation than philosophy."
  ungh!				 -Beethoven
--------------bpharmon@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu--------------------------
From: barkdoll@lepomis.psych.upenn.edu (Edwin Barkdoll)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: MRNA
Date: 22 Jan 93 18:20:06 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

In article <C18Mop.3L2@iat.holonet.net> ken@iat.holonet.net (Ken Easlon) writes:
>The particular question I'm asking, "Is it within the realm of possibility
>that a large active cell suffers degradation in performance-resilience-etc
>because of the smaller nucleus to mass ratio.

	Well, there are certain cell types which are _multinucleate_,
for example multinucelated giant cell which are very phagocytically
active, and osteoclasts which are very active in the process of bone
resorption.  Whether or not the multiple nuclei are actually involved
in transcription etc and hence might not avert the "performance
degredation" you are concerned about I have no idea.

>>Put another way: I could write a one-line program that would never 
>>terminate -- it would represent an infinite amount of "computation", 
>>yet only consist of one line's worth of program.  So the length of DNA 
>>means nothing in that context (assuming more than just transcription 
>>or similar processes). 
>
>I'm afraid you've lost me here.  One of the things I'm trying to come to a
>greater understanding of is the intelligence/smarts/computing-power of a
>genetically controlled cell, or the genetically controlled processes of a
>whole organism.

	Perhaps Chris is making a distinction (or asking for a
distinction) between computational speed (throughput, total "bytes" of
information...) and diversity.  Consider a cell which produces tons of
carbonic anhydrase, which if not the fastest enzyme known certainly
in the top 10, versus a cell which produces a highly diverse set of
enzymes which are very slow.  (The enzyme is not fast per se rather
the reaction catalyzed is, but you get the point.)  Consider an active
plasma cell - it is churning out protein in prodigious quantity the
vast majority of which is all exactly the same antibody.  Is it more
or less intelligent than a [cell-of-your-choice] which is
translationally pretty inactive overall but which does produce a wider
variety of proteins?

>I suspect that a program of 750 megabytes (the human
>genome) which has been under development for several billion years probably
>represents a pretty fair chunk of intelligence no matter how you measure
>it.

	Perhaps, but no cell ever expresses all that information at
the same time or even within its lifetime, nor is each "byte" or
meaningful piece of information usually expressed as a single copy.
Which goes back to Chris's point (my interpretation of Chris's point):
What if many redundant copies are produced such that the total number
of "bytes" far exceeds that in some other more diverse but pokey cell?
What's the information being measured?

>Ken Easlon
>ken@holonet.net


-- 
Edwin Barkdoll
barkdoll@lepomis.cattell.psych.upenn.edu
eb3@world.std.com
From: ken@iat.holonet.net (Ken Easlon)
Subject: Re: MRNA
Organization: HoloNet National Internet Access BBS: 510-704-1058/modem
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 05:16:50 GMT


Another way of visualizing the genetic intelligence of an organism, say
human.

With the exceptions mentioned earlier in this thread, each of the 10^14
cells in the human body has the same DNA content.  From a functional point
of view, we can think of a single set of DNA memory controlling 10^14
parallel processors.

Each of these processors has it's own set of I/O channels representing the
information exchange across a single nuclear membrane, hormones coming in,
mRNA going out (as well as other molecules I don't know about).

The intelligence lies between the nuclear input and the nuclear output and
is under genetic control.  It may be that the computing power per cell can
be thought of as being somewhat less than 3 x 10^5 instructions per second,
once we allow for redundancy.  In total however, the 10^14 parallel
processors represent a heck of a lot of data processing.

The next argument coming down the pike will be the redundancy of identical
cells in a given type of tissue.

I'll counter in advance.  Even if all cells in the body were identical,
each is under individual control, resolution counts for something.  10^14
pixels would make a pretty high resolution computer monitor, and it would
take quite a computer to generate a animated picture with that much
resolution.

__

Ken Easlon
ken@holonet.net
From: skaamjm@uk.ac.ucl (M.Moore)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: What did 'Soapy Sam' Wilberforce say?
Date: 26 Jan 93 18:04:53 GMT
Organization: Institute_of_Neurology


 (Del Cotter) writes:

>I have been reading accounts of Thomas Huxley's famous 1860 encounter with 
>Samuel Wilberforce, but none of them say *exactly* what it was Wilberforce
>said about Huxley's descent from an ape.  Anybody know?

Wilberforce is quoted as asking if 'somebody' (Darwin, for instance), was
descended from an ape on his mother's side, or his father's, Huxley's reply
was that he would rather be descended from an ape than from one who misused
his gifts as Wilberforce did.

My recollection (not of the debate...) is that there were no verbatim
accounts of the debate, (which took place in the Union debating society),
but that it was written up, or reported, later.
From: hhtra@usho21.hou281.chevron.com (T.M.Haddock)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Strongest muscle - the TONGUE?
Date: 26 Jan 93 18:40:37 GMT
Organization: Chevron


 Please excuse this simplistic question....

 My 2nd grader comes home and tell us what she has learned that day.
 Yesterday is was:

   The strongest muscle in the human body is the TONGUE.


 Is that right?

 I always thought it was the muscles surrounding the uterus
 in females followed by the jaw muscles in both males and females.

 Which is it?

 Any sources I can consult for a definitive answer?


 Thanks.

 TRAVIS
 hhtra@hou281.chevron.com