by Harry Muzart:

 

July 2016 --- Open Source Science today and my future endeavours

July 2016 --- A potential cure for hippocampus-related disorders of learning and memory

Aug 2016 --- Neuroscience must be taught to every Child… and every Adult!       

Sept 2016 --- Data, Computing and Artificial Intelligence

Oct 2016 --- Google DeepMind Health  

Oct 2016 --- World University rankings 2016

Nov 2016 --- Psychiatry and Mental Health – Orthodox Medicine vs Alternative Medicine

Nov 2016 --- A review: “Free Will” by Sam Harris        

Dec 2016 --- How to learn new skills and apply them efficiently      

Jan 2017 --- Funding Biomedical Science in the Post-Brexit Post-Trump era, and the UK’s position in the world

Feb 2017 --- Neuro-Economics and making multivariate decisions in a free market of ideas

Feb 2017 --- Bill Gates and Global Micro-Innovations

Feb 2017 --- A review a daily life-hack websites

Feb 2017 --- Drugs and Addictions: The socio-legal and biomedical implications           

Mar 2017 --- Developing Smart Apps for Clinician-Patient and Teacher-Student relationships   

Mar 2017 --- Building The Neural Connectome and what this means for Human Societies around the World  

April 2017 --- The importance of freedom of expression on uni campuses, to enhance academic science.

April 2017 --- Quantum Computing        

May 2017 --- AlphaGo & AlphaZero – the new AI grandmaster of Go       

Jun 2017 --- Printing 3D Human Bionic Parts

Jun 2017 --- CRISPR gene editing – a new molecular revolution

​July 2017 --- Celebrating 1-year later and the legacy of the Olympics 2016 in Rio 

​Aug 2017 --- Guns, Weapons, Martial Arts, and the Behavioural Neuroscience of Self-Defence   

Sept 2017 --- Driving School Experiences             

Oct 2017 --- Event Review: The 2017/2016 Nobel Prize Awards

Oct 2017 --- A decade of Nobel Prize Award in Chemistry and Physiology (2007-2017) 

Nov 2017 --- Software and Python Programming in Neuroscience      

Jan 2018 --- How to learn new skills and apply them efficiently (Part 2)

Jan 2018 --- Artificial Intelligence – Education, Jobs, Peace and War.     

Feb 2017 --- The Falcon Launch: History in the Making? Elon Musk vs Neil deGrasse Tyson

Feb 2018 --- A Review of 2016/2017 and Updates for 2018/2019

April 2018 (TBC) --- Exploring the Internet, Working with People, and becoming a Neuroscientist (Part 1)

​

2018, part 2: see links to other pages

2019 and later: see links to other pages

​

​

 

 

These are very short and only there to stimulate further discussion, I will write longer essays (or video review) based on people’s requests, and my other commitments.

 

 

 

July 2016 --- Open Source Science today and my future endeavours.

 

The ‘Open’ Movement (Open Access, Open Source, Open Data, Open Science) has revolutionised the way we do Science, both in terms of research and education. Millions more people now have access, for free, to information that top intellectuals have immersed themselves into for decades.

 

This cultural shift and the rise of internet technology has propelled the ‘Open’ cause to great new heights. Transparency and free mass data, has provided more good than bad for Science in this new Age of Enlightment. Scientific research has benefited from widespread innovation at a rate unheard of before. The Open Movement is growing, and while threatened to some extent by people with their own agenda, it will only get stronger.

 

My aim in writing these blog articles is that it will encourage more people to do the same and encourage innovations; and I hope to contribute to this in many years to come.

 

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Update May 2017: So my endeavours started much earlier that expected. In fact, you can check out the other parts of this website (I have made a special section for that topic) and my other websites.

 

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References

 

Suber, P (2012) ‘Open Access’ (MIT Press)

Royal Society (2012) ‘Science as an Open Enterprise’

‘Open Science’ https://opensource.com/resources/open-science

 

 

July 2016 --- A potential cure for hippocampus-related disorders of learning and memory

 

Abnormalities (eg. caused by improper pre-natal development or trauma during adult life) in the hippocampus has long been implicated in disorders in learning and memory. Different types of memory (eg. semantic, spatial, episodic, procedural, etc) are impacted differently as well as memory timespans (eg. short-term vs short long-term vs long long-term), which gives a clue to what the functions of the hippocampus may be.

 

Damage to the medial temporal lobe can give rise to anterograde amnesia. Indeed cognitive behavioural therapy and pharmacotherapy remain predominant. New nano-implants which act as deep brain stimulators can be used - they use machine learning algorithms to construct memories using the healthy hippocampal tissue. Stem cell regeneration is also under way, as well as targeted gene therapy.

 

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References

 

‘Hippocampus in health and disease: An overview’

K S Anand & V Dhikav 2012

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3548359/

 

‘Physical activity delays hippocampal neurodegeneration and rescues memory deficits in an Alzheimer disease mouse model’

M Hüttenrauch et al 2016

https://www.nature.com/articles/tp201665

 

 

Aug 2016 --- Neuroscience must be taught to every Child… and every Adult!

 

According to the reports, a majority of British adults do not have significant understanding in important concepts in fundamental scientific disciplines such as Physics, Biosciences (including Neuroscience), and Economics. The overwhelming majority of 18 year olds who have completed Biology A-Level (with one of Physics, Chemistry, Psychology) at least at C grade, cannot answer basic Neuroscience questions.

 

Neuroscience is simply not taught to children (by either their parents or teachers at school). The very thing which allows them to learn new ideas and skills, is something they are not taught about. They are completely oblivious to this wonderful organ capable of perform over 1 trillions calculations per second, and which can learn anything from scratch.

 

The UK prides itself in being advanced in terms of science and education, but more work needs to be done. There is a worrying culture of scientific illiteracy amongst people. A case is made that is because of lower socio-economic grounds – which I untrue considering my situation, and many others like me who strive daily to make it to educate themselves as much as possible on every subject. But I do think there needs to be  greater case made for Interdisciplinary and Applied Neurosciences, and its practical implications.

 

Neuroscience is (as articulated in my website Scientifically.org.uk) multidisciplinary in nature and is so relevant to every other field of study. People are really missing out key understand of the world and life in general, and that needs to change.

 

http://www.pewresearch.org/

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics

 

 

Sept 2016 --- Data, Computing and Artificial Intelligence

 

Basic AI theory dates back to the 1960s, but it’s really in the 1990s which very basic AI has started to be implemented (mainly due to the considerably better processing power available). Now that processing power since mid-2000s has been less of an issue, there has been a massive surge in AI. And one main reason is the much more sophisticated algorithms developed by AI researchers.

 

This has the potential to revolutionize everything g in our lives, for the better. We have historically been replacing human labour with machines (especially when it can to physical motor tasks – now machines are more precise, faster and automated). Now our cognitive capabilities can be replaced with AI, now just in terms of calculators and basic data processing, but intelligent systems that can make sense of very complex large datasets, better than we can.

 

 

https://www.wired.com/story/guide-artificial-intelligence/

https://www.techopedia.com/definition/190/artificial-intelligence-ai

https://futureoflife.org/background/benefits-risks-of-artificial-intelligence/

https://deepmind.com/

 

 

Oct 2016 --- Google DeepMind Health

 

I attended the DeepMind Health event 2 weeks ago. I have written full report (private) but I will post another (public) one soon.

 

https://deepmind.com/applied/deepmind-health/

https://twitter.com/hashtag/DMHpatients?src=hash

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBfBiD38x34

 

 

Oct 2016 --- World University rankings 2016

 

According to the THE, QS, and SARWU world rankings, the UK has yet again made me proud – with its Golden Triangle (Cambridge, Oxford, UCL, Imperial, King’s, LSE) high up there in the top 40.

 

The methodology criteria has of course included the important bits: research quality and impact. It also included international credibility. These are criteria seldom used in National UK league tables – and so this needs to change.

 

https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2016

 

 

Nov 2016 --- Psychiatry and Mental Health – Orthodox Medicine vs Alternative Medicine

 

The subject of mental health is very important, to me personally, and I think to most people. When I talk about mental health I speak about it in the broadest possible way: it is not just about treating psychiatric disorders as defined by the APA’s DSMMD-X, but it is about overall mental wellbeing and welfare. There is a spectrum of cases from non-severe to severe. More importantly – there is the question of how to ‘treat’ and ‘cure’ these.

 

This is where things have gone wrong... For example, overdiagnosis of disorders and overreliance on pharmaceutics in children, down to pseudo-science activities in alternative medicine. Let’s be clear, most of the problems can be changed by lifestyle changes (evidence-based integrative complementary proven approaches which work) – science education, social support, job stability, an actual change to someone’s net value and their ability to deal with hardships, as well as the placebo effect which is very powerful. This is something I have been advocating for a long time. GPs have a role in this, but also parents and teachers. I think this starts in primary/secondary (public and private) schools – there needs to be open discussion and a curriculum on human psychology and mental health, personal responsibility, as well as practical applications.

 

I have strongly pushed for this in the past, with some success, the schools I was at started to implement this idea, but there are still many problems.

 

 

Nov 2016 --- A review: “Free Will” by Sam Harris

 

I have bought this book finally after many years of reading about it. This fascinating and beautifully written book is a must-read. See my review on Google and Amazon here:

 

[Link]

 

 

Dec 2016 --- How to learn new skills and apply them efficiently

 

Here I provide a summary of the other articles that I have read over the years that have shaped my current mindset with regards to this.

 

XXX

 

 

Update: see new blog (2017) for the edited version

 

 

Jan 2017 --- Funding Biomedical Science in the Post-Brexit Post-Trump era, and the UK’s position in the world.

​

I want to preface this with the greater context of the problem of political tribalism, and how it has affected politics, free speech, debates, mainstream media journalism, and online social media, and scientific academic discourse. The other issue is of the nature of beliefs and sociological aspects of scientific enquiry. I have never been a huge fan of Brexit or Trump (I know both are very different, though people seem to group these together), for many reason; some things I agree, and many things I disagree. However, I think we should focus on underlying circumstances that led to all this, rather than resorting to ad hominem counter-points. The opposition to these (the pro-EU and US Democrats, which I support to some extent - as the those fund scientific projects that have vast importance), do have a lot to answer for, such as the fear-mongering message that Medicine (Education, Research, Clinical Practice) will be underfunded and therefore undermined. I do not believe this will be the case - whatever political party takes power - because I believe Science is an issue of culture and education - and we need to stop politicising it - we need to empower individuals in the population, from a young age,  to embrace Science, regardless of political contexts (although this matters too). Today in 2017, Medicine and Medical Technology will only get better, and the rate of progress in the UK and USA will not be impaired significantly.

 

This is more than a problem a policy and politics, but rather of culture – people in the UK and USA must embrace their positions as world leader in this field. Certainly, other ‘world citizens’ in other countries in Western Europe (France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium), Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark), North America (Canada), and Asia (China, Hong King, Singapore, Japan, South Korea), as well as places like Brazil, Australia, Israel, Russia …. are taking the lead in outcompeting the USA and UK. But I am an optimist for the UK and its special relationship with the USA, providing the evidence and data out there justifies my optimism. I have no doubt that while there are many confounding variables that we have to take into account, immersing ourselves in a culture of ‘Medical Innovation’ is the main way to go forward.

​

On the political frontier, people who are anti-Brexit and anti-Trump should start talking more about the rise of AI over the past 20 years, which has made our lives much better in many ways, but has also threatened millions of peoples' jobs, both working and middle class, especially in these so-called 'swing states' in America and parts of the UK.

 

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncb3489

 

 

Feb 2017 --- Neuro-Economics and making multivariate decisions in a free market of ideas.

 

 

[Link]

 

 

Society for Neuro-economics

https://neuroeconomics.org/

Cato Institute for Individual Liberty and Free Markets https://www.cato.org/

 

 

Feb 2017 --- Bill Gates and Global Micro-Innovations.

 

Bill Gates’ genius has revolutionised the information technology world and our lives. His encouragement on bottom-up grassroot movements and individual accomplishment in all areas of life is very important. Now worth over $90 billion, he decides to tackle extreme poverty in the world, lack of education, and lack of sanitation & health.

 

 

https://www.gatesfoundation.org/

 

 

Feb 2017 --- A review a daily life-hack websites.

 

 

[Links]

 

 

Websites:

 

eHow

…

…

 

 

YouTube channels:

 

eHow

…

…

 

 

Mar 2017 --- Developing Smart Apps for Clinician-Patient and Teacher-Student relationships

 

e-Technology is helping change the world in a great way. Apps that can be run on mobile devices are now ubiquitous. My involvement in this field has been developing more and more …

 

[Link]

 

 

TED Ed

http://blog.ed.ted.com/2015/09/19/25-awesome-apps-for-teachers-recommended-by-teachers/

DeepMind Health

https://deepmind.com/applied/deepmind-health/

 

 

Mar 2017 --- Building The Neural Connectome and what this means for Human Societies around the World

 

Seeking to fully understand the brain, of which every human being has one, remains one of the most complex undertaking humans have.  We may all look different, but what makes us different individuals is our personalities, a result of our unique brain wiring.

 

These major brain projects are happening around the World (USA, UK, EU), now Japan have their own.

 

Some good news is the applicable results to real world policy problems and unification solutions to resolve conflicts.

 

 

April 2017 --- The importance of Freedom of Expression on university campuses and elsewhere, to enhance Academic Freedom and scientific innovations.

 

Universities have traditionally been for academic research. Debates over issues has always been a good thing. We must separate 2 variables here – serious (life-or-death) problems oppressed people are facing, versus merely disagreeing or disliking what someone has said (which really cheapens the very serious problems that some people have to go through). This has dominated the digitosphere for the last year or so and I thought I would address it to. There is a small vocal minority of millennial students who claim to be progressive, for social justice, and for science (but do not propose optimized solutions to the problems we have to solve together, given all the variables); versus another vocal minority of centrist intellectually-minded libertarian students, but some of whom have made unfortunate alliances with the so-called ‘alt-right’. For long, people on the side of social conservatives and ‘right-wing’ traditionalists have tried to stop liberal values like free expression, however now it seems that political correctness of the authoritarian political ‘left’ are now doing the same thing. Equality of opportunities/rights and multicultural diversity is very important, but we need to do this the right way, which will be beneficial on the long term. So I am all for equality of rights and opportunities and diversity of people and of thought; I think it is very important and I fully support the intentions of these 'left-leaning' initiatives; but the problem comes when the rights and free speech of some individuals are censored purely to not cause offense and not for any valid intellectual reason. Intellectual debates are supposed to critically challenge you and stress you and use evidence and data and logical arguments to get you to think, and they are not zero-sum games as people can learn more of different points of views. The solution to hate/bad speech is more speech and better speech.

 

I am from an ethnic minority background myself, and I have had to rise past stereotypes (and some individuals who have tried to hold me back) by working hard and educating myself and going up the socio-economic ladder in this great free market society that we live in, via my own will and dedication (albeit with some help from others for course)… but I find it very bizarre that we are creating a micro-system where people are then rewarded not on merit of an idea, but rather on other factors; here the slippery slope of affirmative action positive discrimination becomes more and more slippery. We are now told by some people that Newton's Laws or Darwin’s Theory of Evolution are bigoted, and cannot be taught in science classes in schools anymore --- this is political correctness gone mad, and no different than fundamentalists on the other side of the political spectrum  (and many public intellectuals like Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Robert Winston, etc, would agree with me on that). Intellectual self-dependent empowerment it seems must takes place at a much younger age. I know of scientists in genetics, cognitive neuroscience, physiological sciences, who study gender/sexuality/racial/disability/other differences, but are afraid to publish the non-biased objective scientific data they collect in case someone may not like (or misinterpret) the results from their study/experiment. These scientists are actually being threatened that they could lose grants/positions, etc. This is simply not how the scientific community should operate; and most scientists - whether they be men or women or other and whatever their ethnic background - would agree with me on this.

 

My concern here is less on social issues, but more on intellectual issues and Science, and looking back since the Enlightenment and looking into the future. Science is seriously undermined in third world countries, trying to shine out away from traditional fundamentalist beliefs with science books and internet technology. But in the industrialised world, we have the resources to tackle problems that we need to work on and solve. It is very important to not conflate two things: we need to realise that we can and should address every people’s concerns, but also we cannot lose sight on the bigger picture of free expression – it cannot be used to take away other people’s free expression. I do wish here in the UK we had a constitutional article as good as the the First Amendment of US Constitution, or as they have in the Netherlands for example, which protects unpopular potentially contentious minority opinions. Even developed 'non-western' places like Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc, understand all this. Furthermore to that more activism needs to be done to show how free expression is a necessary condition for scientific innovation and progress. We cannot get to a point where scientific grants are competed for and awarded based on anything else than truth-value, reason, achievement, merit, impact power, and potential and improve life.

 

Administrators and professors at universities I believe agree with me overwhelmingly on this, but I think they may be divided as to what policy approach to take, due to PR pressure from both sides of the political debate. I understand  that universities have their own private internal policies in place, which I am fine with for the most part, but I think if we want to live in a free society, and where people are educated enough to understand the difference between a scientific fact and an opinion, we have to work harder for it. Scientific facts are always based on overwhelming evidence, while opinions are mere suppositions, which may have evidence to back it up at some point. Certainly, ‘disliking something’ or being offended by something you don't understand, is not a ground to dismiss and ban scientific facts --- and this must be emphasised to many people out there!

 

 

April 2017 --- Quantum Computing

 

[Text]

 

http://news.mit.edu/topic/quantum-computing

 

May 2017 --- AlphaGo and AlphaZero – the new AI grandmaster of Go

 

The AI computer program has taken on the world stage. Having beaten Fan Hui in 2015, Lee Sedol in 2016, and Ke Jie in 2017, it has become beyond superhuman. It used deep neural nets, a policy network, a reward network, and tree search, to become one of the greatest feats of human ingenuity, by become ingenious itself. The AlphaGo movie documents this amazing journey. Now with AlphaGo Zero, that can learn like human, and learn by itself tabula rasa with no human interactions….  we can start tackling other complex highly-cognitive problems that humans have yet been unable to deal with.

 

 

DeepMind

https://deepmind.com

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP7jMXSY2xbc3KCAE0MHQ-A

 

Other YouTube Channels:

The Official AGA Youtube Channel

nature video

Go World Video

Arxiv Insights

Siraj Raval

Computerphile

Two Minute Papers

ColdFusion

 

 

Jun 2017 --- Printing 3D Human Bionic Parts

 

Imagine a future where this will be possible …. Well, it already exists, but this future I hope will come to every household, and everyone will be able to contribute to it. Bionic – Biology and Electronic – technology will enable not just mere prosthetics and also enhancing functions, such as functional robotic hands (with skin-like tissue) for amputees, connected directly the the nerves, and glucose-detecting contact lenses for diabetics.

 

 

Jun 2017 --- CRISPR gene editing – a new molecular revolution

 

“The development of efficient and reliable ways to make precise, targeted changes to the genome of living cells is a long-standing goal for biomedical researchers. Recently, a new tool based on a bacterial CRISPR-associated protein-9 nuclease (Cas9) from Streptococcus pyogenes has generated considerable excitement . This follows several attempts over the years to manipulate gene function, including homologous recombination and RNA interference (RNAi). RNAi, in particular, became a laboratory staple enabling inexpensive and high-throughput interrogation of gene function, but it is hampered by providing only temporary inhibition of gene function and unpredictable off-target effects. Other recent approaches to targeted genome modification – zinc-finger nucleases [ZFNs,] and transcription-activator like effector nucleases [TALENs]– enable researchers to generate permanent mutations by introducing doublestranded breaks to activate repair pathways. These approaches are costly and time-consuming to engineer, limiting their widespread use, particularly for large scale, high-throughput studies.”

 

“The functions of CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) and CRISPR-associated (Cas) genes are essential in adaptive immunity in select bacteria and archaea, enabling the organisms to respond to and eliminate invading genetic material. These repeats were initially discovered in the 1980s in E. coli, but their function wasn’t confirmed until 2007 by Barrangou and colleagues, who demonstrated that S. thermophilus can acquire resistance against a bacteriophage by integrating a genome fragment of an infectious virus into its CRISPR locus.”

 

https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/genomicresearch/genomeediting

https://www.neb.com/tools-and-resources/feature-articles/crispr-cas9-and-targeted-genome-editing-a-new-era-in-molecular-biology

 

 

July 2017 --- Celebrating 1-year later and the legacy of the Olympics 2016 in Rio

 

 

With the winter Olympics coming, I reflect on the Olympics from last year. Without exaggerating, I found every single event fascinating to watch. The ones I was particularly interested in: Boxing, Archery, Badminton, Gymnastics, Fencing, Taekwondo, Cycling, Basketball, Track and Field Athletics, Pentathlon, Rowing, Shooting, Swimming, Water Polo, Relay, Long Jump, Weightlifting; with my favourite being  Sprint and 4x100 Relay. The showcasing of what the human body can do at the extreme – is something that is absolutely exhilarating. These athletes spend tens of thousands of hours training their body and mind to achieve these incredible feats. The competition element is certainly enabling this culture of outperforming and pushing limits of what was previously possible, giving us other 7 billion humans, a magnificent spectacle, and an inspiring one motivating the average person to strive for something greater. Out of all the countries that competed, 78 obtained medals, with the US, GB and China dominating the top 3 spots.

 

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/rio-2016/medals/countries

 

 

Sept 2017 --- Driving School Experiences

 

 

See blog here: [Link]

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/HarryMuzart2

 

 

Aug 2017 --- Guns, Weapons, Martial Arts, and the Behavioural Neuroscience of Self-Defence

 

This is something that I have taken an interest for many years, but I have never talked about it much. Here I will be taking the UK and USA as examples. This is an issue that is very polarised. Despite being a pacifist myself, I realise that in the world we live in, I and other good people may have to resort to violence as a means to the end of preserving life and liberty and peace and happiness. I was deeply influenced by the works of Steven Pinker (Evolutionary Biologist, Cognitive Scientist, Linguist – MIT/Harvard), Michael Shermer (Sociologist) and Sam Harris (Philosopher and Cognitive Neuroscientist) on that particular topic….

 

 

 

[…]

[…]

 

 

 

 

Oct 2017 --- Event Review: The 2017/2016 Nobel Prize Awards

 

 

The live announcements video-streamed:

https://www.nobelprize.org/

 

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2017

Rainer Weiss, Barry C. Barish and Kip S. Thorne

"for decisive contributions to the LIGO detector and the observation of gravitational waves"

 

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2017

Jacques Dubochet, Joachim Frank and Richard Henderson

"for developing cryo-electron microscopy for the high-resolution structure determination of biomolecules in solution"

 

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2017

Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young

"for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm"

 

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2017

Kazuo Ishiguro

"who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world"

 

The Nobel Peace Prize 2017

International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)

"for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons"

 

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2017

Richard H. Thaler

"for his contributions to behavioural economics"

 

2016

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2016

David J. Thouless, F. Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz

"for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter"

 

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2016

Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir J. Fraser Stoddart and Bernard L. Feringa

"for the design and synthesis of molecular machines"

 

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2016

Yoshinori Ohsumi

"for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy"

 

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2016

Bob Dylan

"for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition"

 

The Nobel Peace Prize 2016

Juan Manuel Santos

"for his resolute efforts to bring the country's more than 50-year-long civil war to an end"

 

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2016

Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström

"for their contributions to contract theory"

 

 

Oct 2017 --- A decade of Nobel Prize Award in Chemistry and Physiology (2007-2017)

 

 

 

This is original work carried out many decades ago, which is now mainstream and practically applicable.

 

 

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2014

John O'Keefe, May-Britt Moser and Edvard I. Moser

"for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain"

 

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2013

Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel

"for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems"

 

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2012

Sir John B. Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka

"for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent"

 

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2011

Thomas J. Sargent and Christopher A. Sims

"for their empirical research on cause and effect in the macroeconomy"

 

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2008

Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie and Roger Y. Tsien

"for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP"

 

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2005

Robert J. Aumann and Thomas C. Schelling

"for having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis"

 

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2003

Paul C. Lauterbur and Sir Peter Mansfield

"for their discoveries concerning magnetic resonance imaging"

 

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2000

Arvid Carlsson, Paul Greengard and Eric R. Kandel

"for their discoveries concerning signal transduction in the nervous system"

 

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2000

James J. Heckman

"for his development of theory and methods for analyzing selective samples"

Daniel L. McFadden

"for his development of theory and methods for analyzing discrete choice"

 

 

https://www.nobelprize.org/

 

 

 

Nov 2017 --- Software and Python Programming in Neuroscience

 

 

 

My Experiences.

 

 

 

[see www.Bioneurotech.com]

 

 

Jan 2018 --- How to learn new skills and apply them efficiently (Part 2)

 

 

Over 12 months ago I wrote a blog on this, and I am still amazed by how my outlook has changed.

 

[…]

 

 

 

Jan 2018 --- Artificial Intelligence – Education, Jobs, Peace and War.

 

Why every human on earth must understand this issue in order to further prosperity.

 

The rise of AI over the past few years has unequivocally changed everything – I believe for the better. One the other side, the threats of AI is depressing enough, and what is worse is that most people are clueless. I myself do not claim to be an expert on the topic of AI, but I know enough about it to comment that most people do not know enough about it. The report I quoted earlier supports this assertion. I wrote a blog on this a year ago. The picture painted a year ago was of both optimism and caution, now both of these have become more polarised and amplified; on the one hand, AI developed that never thought was before possible, and the applications similarly incredible – from our new interaction with data systems to medical breakthroughs. On the other hand, if people do not adapt to this accelerative growth and find ways to complement – they might potentially lose their job and have their life threatened. Here adapt means learning. Historically, every technological revolution, predicted to be doomsday, turned out to make things better for everyone (with some very few exceptions).

 

 

https://www.wired.com/story/guide-artificial-intelligence/

https://www.techopedia.com/definition/190/artificial-intelligence-ai

https://futureoflife.org/background/benefits-risks-of-artificial-intelligence/

https://deepmind.com/

 

 

Feb 2017 --- The Falcon Launch: History in the Making? Elon Musk vs Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

While I watched the livestream alongside millions of other people, I could feel what Elon Musk must have felt. Elon Musk has changed the game for every industry: Renewable Energy (SolarCity), Transport (Tesla), Space (SpaceX), AI (OpenAI), Neuroscience (Neuralink). The research he has funded in Human Biophysics, and Astrochemistry & Exobiology, for his plans to colonise the solar system and other star systems with ‘earth-like’ planets, is amazing. It was very nice to see loving support from Obama and the Democrats for 8 years, and I am very pleased to see quite a few Republicans embrace his expertise as well. Elon Musk is one of my heroes. Some of my other scientific influencers and intellectual heroes are Neil deGrasse Tyson, and astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Musk has received some strong backlash for them as to the privatisation of Space and potential safety standards problems with SpaceX. However I am optimistic about common grounds being reached.

 

 

Falcon Heavy Test Flight (6 Feb) by SpaceX

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbSwFU6tY1c

 

 

Feb 2018 --- A Review of 2016/2017 and Updates for 2018/2019

 

 

Review and feedback: xxxxxx

 

Updates and changes: xxxxxx

 

Soon to be launched: xxxxxx

 

 

 

Next blogs to come:

 

 

(TBC) April 2018 - Exploring the Internet, Working with People, and becoming a Neuroscientist (Part 1)

 

 

Here I will talk more about x y z …

 

 

 

 

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