# s-brain: neuro-active areas during the real-time creation of funny stories

<< Unlike passive humor appreciation, the neural correlates of real-time humor creation have been unexplored. >> [!]

<< Greater comedic experience was associated with decreased activation in the striatum and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), but increased activation in temporal association regions (TMP).  Less experienced comedians manifested greater activation of mPFC, reflecting their deliberate search through TMP association space. Professionals, by contrast, tend to reap the fruits of their spontaneous associations with reduced reliance on top-down guided search. >>

Ori Amir, Irving Biederman. The Neural Correlates of Humor Creativity. Front. Hum. Neurosci., 25 Nov. 25, 2016 doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2016.00597.

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2016.00597

Michelle Boston. Researchers pinpoint the regions of the brain that spark during the telling of a funny story. Feb. 27, 2017.

https://m.medicalxpress.com/news/2017-02-regions-brain-funny-story.html

# s-phys: more about retrocausality

<<  In a new paper (..) [AA] have lent new theoretical support for the argument that, if certain reasonable-sounding assumptions are made, then quantum theory must be retrocausal >>

<< retrocausality means that, when an experimenter chooses the measurement setting with which to measure a particle, that decision can influence the properties of that particle (or another particle) in the past, even before the experimenter made their choice. In other words, a decision made in the present can influence something in the past >>

<< "Speculatively, if there is retrocausality in the universe, then it might be the case that there are certain eras, perhaps near the big bang, in which there is not a definite arrow of causality. You might imagine that a signature of such an era might show up in cosmological data, such as the cosmic microwave background. However, this is very speculative, and I have no idea what signatures we might expect yet." >> Matthew S. Leifer.

<< The physicists don't have any experiments lined up to test retrocausality—but as the idea is more an interpretation of observations rather than making new observations, what's needed most may not be a test but more theoretical support >>

Lisa Zyga. Pysicists provide support for retrocausal quantum theory, in which the future influences the past. July 5,  2017.

https://m.phys.org/news/2017-07-physicists-retrocausal-quantum-theory-future.html

Matthew S. Leifer,  Matthew F. Pusey. Is a time symmetric interpretation of quantum theory possible without retrocausality?   Proc. Royal Soc. A. June  2017 Volume 473,  issue 2202 doi: 10.1098/rspa.2016.0607 Publ. Jun. 21, 2017.

http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/473/2202/20160607

https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.07871

# s-astro: the sonic multiverse, by Gavin Starks

<< A project that explores whether there is a musical equivalent to the curvature of spacetime will be presented on Thursday 6 July by Gavin Starks at the National Astronomy Meeting at the University of Hull >>

AA << aim is to test whether mathematical relationships that describe cosmology and quantum mechanics can be applied to a sonic universe , or 'soniverse' >>

Royal Astronomical Society. Adventures in acoustic cosmology. July 6, 2017

https://m.phys.org/news/2017-07-adventures-acoustic-cosmology.html

Gavin Starks. Escape into the multiverse. Jan. 27, 2017

http://www.binarydust.org/2017/01/27/escape-into-the-multiverse/

# s-behav: mimic the sound of musk hogs to avoid being eaten

<< Bird or beast? A cuckoo seems to have learned how to mimic the sounds made by the pig-like peccaries it lives alongside, perhaps to ward off predators >>

Sandrine Ceurstemont. Cuckoos mimic the sound of musk hogs to avoid being eaten. July 3, 2017.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2139386-cuckoos-mimic-the-sound-of-musk-hogs-to-avoid-being-eaten/

<< Acoustic communication is particularly important in environments such as dense tropical forests, where the dim light constrains the efficacy of visual signals >>

<< In these environments, complex species interactions could promote the evolution of acoustic signals and result in intriguing patterns of mimicry and convergence >>

AA << demonstrate that the acoustic characteristics of bill clacking in ground-cuckoos are more similar to teeth clacking of peccaries than to bill clacking of the more closely related Geococcyx roadrunner >>

Fabio Raposo do Amaral, Gabriel Macedo, et al. Bluffing in the forest: Neotropical Neomorphus ground-cuckoos and peccaries in a possible case of acoustic mimicry. J Avian Biol doi: 10.1111/jav.01266. June 29, 2017

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jav.01266/full

# e-web: sending a message without carriers

AA << by using the quantum Zeno effect and a single-photon source, direct communication without carrier particle transmission is implemented successfully >>

Yuan Cao, Yu-Huai Li, et al. Direct counterfactual communication via quantum Zeno effect. PNAS 2017 114 (19) 4920–4924

http://m.pnas.org/content/114/19/4920.abstract?sid=6a0487b4-e711-452b-a755-7315b0a4768d

Joshua Roebke. How to Send a Message without Sending Anything at All. June 27,  2017.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nil-communication-how-to-send-a-message-without-sending-anything-at-all/

# s-brain: to distinguish between reality and imagination

<< neurons in the part of the brain found to be abnormal in psychosis are also important in helping people distinguish between reality and imagination >>

AA << investigated how the brain codes visual information in reality versus abstract information in our working memory and how those differences are distributed across neurons in the lateral prefrontal cortex region of the brain >>

Crystal Mackay. Researchers identify specific neurons that distinguish between reality and imagination. June 1, 2017

http://mediarelations.uwo.ca/2017/06/01/researchers-identify-specific-neurons-distinguish-reality-imagination/

AA << results indicate that a functionally diverse population of LPFC (lateral prefrontal cortex) neurons provides a substrate for discriminating between perceptual and mnemonic representations of visual features >>

Diego Mendoza-Halliday & Julio C. Martinez-Trujillo. Neuronal population coding of perceived and memorized visual features in the lateral prefrontal cortex. Nature Comm. 8, Article no: 15471 (2017) doi: 10.1038/ncomms15471 Publ. Jun 01,  2017

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15471

# s-gst: una immagine del reale: il gomitolo "vibrazionale"

una immagine del reale: il gomitolo "vibrazionale"  (pseudo quasi- stocastico) dalle spiccate proprieta' autoassemblanti ...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DDl3AECWAAA8qTw?format=jpg&name=small

<< Mitotic chromosome assembly remains a big mystery in biology >>

Ewa Piskadlo, Alexandra Tavares,  Raquel A Oliveira. Metaphase  chromosome structure is  dynamically maintained by condensin I-directed DNA (de)catenation. doi: 10.7554/eLife.26120 May 6, 2017

https://elifesciences.org/articles/26120

Also

immagini di "gomitolo" circa ipotetici altri scenari (espressi in rime quasistocastiche):

http://inkpi.blogspot.it/search?q=gomitolo