Ketamine was discovered in 1956. The drug was used initially as anaesthesia and in pain relief, but researchers have been looking for new uses for the drug ever since its discovery. Last year, the drug was approved for patients with major depression but who are treatment-resistant, and compared to standard antidepressants, it proved to be very effective.
Unlike standard antidepressants, which can take several weeks to have an effect, ketamine works within hours. Until now, little was known about the molecular mechanism that triggers the antidepressant effect of ketamine on the brain.
But what makes ketamine so effective in combating depression? The answer may be found in a group of proteins called 4E-BPs, which are involved in memory formation.
With happy music in the background, and a cute hedgehog smiling as it faces the camera, try not to say “aww” on this video. A word of warning: it will be extremely difficult.
This is one of Canada’s oldest trees. Recognized as a heritage tree under Forests Ontario’s Heritage Tree Program, this tree, which is believed to be over 250 years old, spans 78 feet (about 23.8 meters) and has a trunk circumference of over 17 feet (over 5.18 meters).
A decade ago, Heritage Toronto unveiled a commemorative plaque, which captured this great oak’s place in the city’s natural heritage, which reads in part:
“The large red oak (Quercus rubra) situated in the backyard of 76 Coral Gable Drive is more than 250 years old, making it one of the oldest in the city. Before Europeans colonized this area, the Humber River branch of the Toronto Carrying Place trail system Opens in new window passed nearby. The tree was part of its delicate savannah ecosystem. This network of trails and portages was used by Indigenous peoples to travel between Lake Simcoe and Lake Ontario and to trade throughout what is now Southern Ontario and beyond. The tree survived European settlement despite logging along the Humber River, clearance of the land for agriculture, and the development of this suburban neighbourhood in the early 1960s. The Coral Gable Drive red oak is a remarkable specimen of its species.”
But when the property where the great oak tree stood was bought by a homeowner, it was put on the verge of being cut down. Thanks to the effort of the Toronto City Council, however, the tree wouldn't be cut down.
On November 26, the Toronto City Council voted to preserve this mighty oak by authorizing the purchase of the property for the creation of a mini-park.
With generous monetary support from 1,300 donors helping to raise money, the city will make up any shortfall to secure the property’s purchase and establish the space as a parkette, to preserve and showcase this beautiful oak.
That was close!
(Image Credit: Toronto City Council (Concept Illustration))
Barcodes, which you commonly see on the back of products you buy from the store, usually have a boring appearance. But it doesn’t mean that they have to be boring. Some packaging designers create barcode designs that are set apart from the rest, so keep a good eye out for them as you shop next time at your local store. For now, here are some clever barcode designs compiled by Sad and Useless.
Photographers knew a long time ago that the best way to make people look good in photos is by using secondary flash devices that are not attached to the camera. The photographer then positions these flash devices with various factors in mind, such as the angle of the subject’s face, as well as other light sources.
Google designed Portrait Light with this concept in mind. Portrait Light is a feature on Google’s Pixel phones “that can be used to enhance portraits by adding an external light source not present at the time the photo was taken.”
The engineers explain they achieved this feat using two algorithms. The first, which they call automatic directional light placement, places synthetic light into the scene as a professional photographer would. The second algorithm is called synthetic post-capture relighting. It allows for repositioning the light after the fact in a realistic and natural-looking way.
[...]
The software is available in newer Pixel phones. Older camera users can try the new software on the Google Photos online service, while it's built into newer phones. Users can either accept the automatic enhancement provided by their phone or change it manually.
This is Eddy Goldfarb. You might not have heard about him, but he’s the man behind the invention of the Yakity Yak Teeth, the game KerPlunk, and the bubble gun. Throughout his life, he has created over 800 toys, and today, at the age of 98, he still has more ideas to offer to the world.
Learn more about his life on this short documentary produced and directed by his daughter Lyn.
Having obedient children is a good thing. They will listen to what you say, and they follow your advice, and sometimes they follow it literally, just like what this boy does when his dad told him to “keep [his] eye on the ball.”
It is a common belief by many that coffee stunts growth. This is primarily the reason why kids are not allowed to drink coffee. But is it true?
Research suggests mostly no. There are a few health risks to caffeine that should be considered before drinking it. But in terms of height, there isn’t any real scientific evidence that coffee, or caffeine in general, has an actual adversarial effect.
So if scientific studies do not back up this claim, where did this belief come from? The answer goes back in the early 1900s, from the series of ads for Postum, a popular caffeine-free beverage.
December 8. Pembroke Pines, Florida. Police arrive at a men’s clothing store after responding to a call. The witness who called stated finding two men with rifles storming the place. The witness, however, did not know that the scene was staged. And so,...
… officers arrived to find a music video filming, all with the store owners’ knowledge.
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The guns were not real and the men holding them were actors in a video, said Amanda Conwell, a spokeswoman for the Pembroke Pines Police Department.
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Pembroke Pines officials said the city had not given a permit for the filming, and the shopping center’s management team said in a statement that it was also not aware of the video.
“We are extremely disappointed that our guests’ experience and peace of mind were compromised this morning ... and unfortunately proper protocol was not followed in this instance,” property manager Annette Alvarez said in an email obtained by The Herald. “We are very thankful for the Pembroke Pines Police Department’s immediate response and their assistance in expeditiously resolving this unfortunate situation.”
Those involved were not charged because they had permission to be in the store and did not display the fake guns in a threatening manner, Conwell said.
Whether it was real or not, the police here are worthy of praise for responding quickly to the call.
Recovery drinks are essential for those who work out regularly, as these greatly help in replenishing energy and the fluids lost during workouts. However, most recovery drinks such as chocolate milk, and fruit smoothies, are designed for warm weather, and not for the cold. So what should you drink as you work out this winter season? And how do you make that drink? Outside Online provides us with easy-to-make recipes of cold-weather protein drinks. See them over at the site.
Pets are adorable creatures when they are with humans, but you can’t say the same thing when they’re left on their own. That’s what Japanese user @muchi21067312 realized when he checked up on his cat Totoro and his two corgis, Chi and Mu.
The three animals had taken up positions on cushions arranged in a triangular pattern. In the foreground, Totoro and one of the corgis were perched almost completely motionless, with the steady curling back and forth of Totoro’s tail the only movement. Both animals were staring intently at the remaining corgi, who was spread-eagle on the third cushion, and as still as death. Watching the video, you start to think the only reason the cushions are arranged in a triangle is because there weren’t enough for a pentagram.
“They’re having some sort of strange ritual,” tweeted @muchi21067312 with the video. “Whatever they’re doing, it’s terrifying, so I’m just going to shut the door.”
As it says in its title, the game World of Warcraft is a game about war. In order for a person to level up in this game, he has to kill beasts such as dragons and boars, and he has to beat other players in battle. But while other players are leveling up via brutal means, a pandaren monk named DoubleAgent is picking flowers. Day after day, this player would do the same thing, and after 17 days, he leveled up to 60, the game’s current level cap.
What's even more impressive is that he's done it all without ever leaving the Wandering Isle, a start zone only meant for players below level 10.
The reason Doubleagent never left the Wandering Isle is because he'd have to choose one of Warcraft's two factions to enlist in: The Alliance or the Horde. That'd mean becoming a pawn in two military regimes responsible for the slaughter of millions.
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It's hard to overstate just how tedious this accomplishment is. The Wandering Isle is a zone meant for brand-new characters and only rewards a paltry amount of experience for killing creatures there or, in Doubleagent's case, picking flowers used for the herbalism skill. Every hour that Doubleagent spends playing, he simply runs in a circle, clicking on flowers as they respawn.
As a kid growing up in St. Thomas in the U.S Virgin Islands, Jelani Nelson would teach himself how to code from the textbooks he picked up during his visits to the U.S mainland. Now, he devotes a lot of time to making it easier for children to study computer science. AddisCoder, the free summer program he founded in 2011 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, has now taught computer science to over 500 high students. He now also creates cutting-edge algorithms designed to compress big data sets into smaller components — a type of system that has massive memory-saving benefits.
Learn more about Nelson’s life and work over at Quanta Magazine.
(Image Credit: Constanza Hevia for Quanta Magazine)
As climate change accelerates, heat waves have become more and more common, and with more heat waves come more coral deaths. It turns out, however, that some corals have the capacity to survive and recover from heat waves. A team of scientists published these findings recently in the journal Nature Communications.
Corals and algae have a mutually beneficial relationship. The corals are made up of colonies of tiny invertebrates, called polyps, that live in the crevices. Polyps house photosynthetic algae, and in exchange for a place to live, the algae provide them with an abundance of food and a nice touch of color. But even a small hike in the water temperature triggers corals to dispel the algae, causing them to bleach and turn a ghostly shade of white. Bleaching doesn't exactly kill the corals, but it leaves them vulnerable to disease or starvation, and the corals only have a small window to recover before it's too late.
A team of researchers zeroed in on Christmas Island, also known as Kiritimati, to study brain and star corals in the midst of a heat wave that lasted from 2015 to 2016. It is the third largest coral bleaching event in recorded history, and it lasted for an unyielding ten months, according to a press release. The team tagged, photographed and tracked individual corals around the island to see how they were faring throughout the relentless heat wave, reports Donna Lu for New Scientist.
If there was a place on Earth you would go and ask yourself “doth my eyes deceiveth me?”, that place would be the Church of St. Ignatius of Loyola in Rome, which is just a block away from the Pantheon.
The first thing most visitors do when they step inside this church dedicated to the founder of the Jesuit order is look up at the sumptuous frescoes that decorate the huge ceiling. The grandiose fresco painted by Andrea Pozzo depicts the triumph of St. Ignatius and the apostolic goals of Jesuit missionaries, eager to expand the reach of Roman Catholicism across the world. The ceiling appears to be a high and vaulted decorated with statues and populated with flying figures. In reality the roof is flat. Pozzo gave the ceiling an illusion of height using anamorphic techniques. A marble disk set into the middle of the nave floor marks the ideal spot from which observers might fully experience the illusion.
