The Frontiers publisher's blog summarizes research from its journals on neuroscience, health, plants, environment and other topics.
HN links it for summaries of studies on exercise, brain function and ethnobotany; one commenter calls a study dubious, another notes a journal's ivermectin controversy.
> please do not mention any deterministic counting machines like semiconductors - neurons are not deterministic and thought isn’t a deterministic set of calculations
I have to mention it, because it's physics, and related to the current implementation of LLMs: random numbers are possible, and used to break determinism. Intel CPUs use thermal noise to generate random numbers [1]. With silicon, randomness is a free choice, not an impossibility. LLMs front ends, like anything from OpenAI, use random numbers to get non-deterministic output, which is also the input of the next word, and the context of the next response, resulting in output that's not deterministic, with broad divergence [2]. Both systems are somewhat bound by the "sensibility"/logic of the output though, of course.
> as evidenced by how easily we are fooled by optical illusions
This isn't neccesarily unique to humans [3]. Do you have a specific illusion in mind? Many are related to active "baselining", and other time response things, that happens in our eyes, with others being an incorrect resolution of real ambiguity, from a two sensor system, that any sensor system will struggle with.
> Just because we think two things appear the same does not mean they are
I don't think anyone is suggesting they're the same, but I see many people suggesting, with seemingly undue confidence, that they're completely unrelated, which would require an understanding of either system that we don't have.
> To put your argument…
Plastic overuse/overproduction needs to die.
What Microplastics Might Be Doing to Our Intestines https://now.tufts.edu/2023/06/09/what-microplastics-might-be-doing-our-intestines
Nanoplastic Ingestion Causes Neurological Deficits https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/nanoplastic-ingestion-causes-neurological-deficits-71152
Microplastics can stick in human airways, new study finds https://www.ctvnews.ca/climate-and-environment/microplastics-can-stick-in-human-airways-new-study-finds-1.6441541
Many BPA-Free Plastics Are Toxic. Some Are Worse Than BPA https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/many-bpa-free-plastics-are-toxic-some-are-worse-than-bpa
Plastic pollution is so bad for animals it now has a disease name — 'plasticosis' https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/research-ocean-plastic-birds-plasticosis-1.6863788
Microplastics found in every sample of water taken during the Ocean Race https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/05/microplastics-found-in-every-sample-of-water-taken-during-ocean-race
Secret industry documents reveal that makers of PFAS 'forever chemicals' covered up their health dangers https://phys.org/news/2023-05-secret-industry-documents-reveal-makers.html
Forever Toxic: The science on health threats from plastic recycling https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/reports/forever-toxic/
Microplastics detected in meat, milk and blood of farm…
Archeological evidence in China indicates surface mining of coal and household usage after approximately 3490 BC. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_coal_mining
The underlying causes of this drying and desertification has previously been attributed to subtle changes in the Earth’s orbit, which in turn influenced atmospheric weather patterns and led to a reduction of the amount of rainfall in northern Africa. But Wright, whose scientific research has led him to exploring Neolithic-age archaeological sites all over the world, suggests that this is not the full picture. “In East Asia there are long established theories of how Neolithic populations changed the landscape so profoundly that monsoons stopped penetrating so far inland”, explains Wright, also noting in his paper that evidence of human-driven ecological and climatic change has been documented in Europe, North America and New Zealand. Wright believed that similar scenarios could also apply to the Sahara.
https://blog.frontiersin.org/2017/03/14/did-humans-create-the-sahara-desert/
What makes you think it will take 100,000 years?
Epigenetics allows a much faster rate of change, especially in structures which are not well preserved in the archeological record. For example, cortical folding patterns.
And "how big the brains" is a very good question. See
https://blog.frontiersin.org/2021/10/22/when-and-why-did-human-brains-decrease-in-size-3000-years-ago-new-study-may-have-found-clues-within-ants/
> Studying computational models and patterns of worker ant brain size, structure, and energy use in some ant clades, such as the Oecophylla weaver ant, Atta leafcutter ants, or the common garden ant Formica, showed that group-level cognition and division of labor may select for adaptive brain size variation. This means that within a social group where knowledge is shared or individuals are specialists at certain tasks, brains may adapt to become more efficient, such as decreasing in size.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2021.742639/full
Seems that brain physiology and health don't live in isolation but are integrally linked with aggregate body muscular physiology. In a Frontiers in Neurology report [1] a prolonged sedentary lifestyle (mouse model) resulted in a 70 pct reduction in neural stem cells compared to a free roaming control group. Specifically, leg-loading exercises (weights) result in the transmission of neurological signals which catalyze generation of healthy nerve cells. A summary of the first technical article appeared in Frontiers Blog [2] if interested.
[1] Reduction of Movement in Neurological Diseases: Effects on Neural Stem Cells Characteristics
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2018.00336/full?utm_source=G-BLO&utm_medium=WEXT&utm_campaign=ECO_FNINS_20180607_leg-exercise
[2] Leg exercise is critical to brain and nervous system health
https://blog.frontiersin.org/2018/06/07/neuroscience-leg-exercise-brain-nervous-system-health/
Another activity that I have heard as slowing down mental decline is dancing:
https://blog.frontiersin.org/2017/08/29/dancing-can-reverse-the-signs-of-aging-in-the-brain/
Regardless of this dubious study, I will continue to solve crosswords. Cryptic crossword solvers were prized in Bletchley Park, since it was seen as evidence of lateral thinking. [1] I used to look down upon quick crosswords since they were too direct, but lately I have tried to time myself solving quick crosswords, and I find that they can be challenging as well when tried in a genuine quick mode - they involve jogging the memory at a very fast rate.
[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/11151478/Could-you-have-been-a-codebreaker-at-Bletchley-Park.html