"Bucky is not like other dogs. But he is like ..." Part III. ("Visually similar images" from Google's "search by image")

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Bucky is not like other dogs, part two.

Bucky (upper left) with "visually similar images" from Google Image Search:

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Bucky is not like other dogs. But he is like a motorcycle, or Gerald Ford, or Harry Potter... ("Visually similar images" from Google's "search by image")

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Si

"In vivo" means in a living organism; "in vitro" means "in glass" (e.g., a test tube). And now, because electronic computers use silicon chips, "in silico" has become a fancy way to refer to computer simulations. A recent google search on the phrase "In vivo, in vitro, and in silico" yielded over 35,000 results.

"Belgian-Style India Pale Ale"

Washington D.C. Pacifica radio station WPFW refers to the local professional football team as "the Washington professional football team" in order to avoid saying its name.

We would like to suggest, to those NeuroCooking friends who drink beer, that you may want to sample the remarkable 20th anniversary ale from Flying Dog brewery. But we will not print its name here.

__________

[Please note: All trademarks are property of their respective owners; their use here does not denote endorsement or sponsorship. Specifically, NeuroCooking is not supported by the good people of Flying Dog brewery, whose upcoming tour of fine establishments serving their superb ales you absolutely should attend, if you possibly can! To locate this "Belgian-Style India Pale Ale" on the Flying Dog website, see their online beer list, and click on the Latin "canis major".]

Word of the day!

Slipface.

Coffee Break => Truth Data.

We've written here (& elsewhere) about the importance of making repeated measurements in order to understand their precision & stability.

Cancer imaging researchers get this. To assess imaging approaches, they repeat scans after a brief pause – just long enough to get the patient off the scanner table, and then back on. They refer to these short interval measurements as "coffee break studies" that yield "truth data".

"Mechanisms of functional connectivity"

Having written here before about imaging resting-state functional connectivity, and its relation to the principle of integration of brain function, we are, today, grateful to a google scholar email alert for bringing to our attention what appears to be a breakthrough paper on mechanisms of functional connectivity.

Election Day!

Dear NeuroCooking friends who are Americans (and not convicted felons),

Please vote! It's important.

Thank you.

The most pressing question of our time?

"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

– Daniel J. Boorstin (1914 – 2004)

I respectfully submit that the greatest puzzle of our time is how we managed to eliminate ignorance while elevating nonsense.

If I ask you, say, how old Buddy Holly was when he died, then, using the same device you are using now to read this, you can find the answer to that question. You cannot not know how old Buddy Holly was when he died, once you've been asked, because getting the answer is just a matter of touching your smartphone or tablet or laptop or what have you the right way, and the answer will be yours.

So, we have, in a sense, eliminated ignorance. But how is it then that there so much nonsense? How is it then, that a substantial fraction of the population believes that our President's religion, or birthplace, or even nationality, are different than the truth? How does such nonsense thrive?

Dear NeuroCooking friends, I do not have an answer. I just think this is perhaps the most interesting – and pressing – question of our time. How is it that we have, simultaneously, managed to eliminate ignorance while elevating nonsense?

99 >? 100

When I was a kid I loved figuring out "brain teasers" and "one-minute mysteries" and the like.

But I am afraid that now, search engines have made such things almost passé.

Consider this one: When is 99 more than than 100?

It's a good puzzle. It's a fun puzzle. But it's also one you can solve in a flash, just by typing it into a search box. So, I suppose that we could see this as a test of character: Today, it's not enough to enjoy doing puzzles; you also need sufficient self-control to eschew the search engine, and figure things out on your own...

google translates Einstein for you, on demand

Einstein famously mocked the concept of quantum entanglement as quote

http://translate.google.com/translate_t?text=spukhafte+Fernwirkung&sl=de&tl=en#

unquote.

phrasewatch

Recently we came across a phrase we had not seen before: "To predict caseness".