Hi friends,
Things haven’t been top-notch since the last time you found me here. Comparing where everyone else is in their life to your own not-so-happening life just gets to you eventually.
I’m finding comfort in anime this week. It was one of Tanmay Bhat’s reaction video on a Naruto episode that got me hooked to the series (I know, a very lame discovery, but hey that was the first heavy episode I saw). I finally get the hype! I’m half-surprised it was a show made for children—it’s so much more than plain entertainment! I don’t know if it is a phenomenon, with Naruto I’m observing the story taking on some very heavy themes. Loneliness (hey 2020!) is something that comes up again and again within the first 80 episodes or so. And man do I have the same emotional response every time.
That said, I’m binging on it. The fast pace, the quirky characters, the adrenaline and the layers of meaningfulness are enough to grip me. If you plan on binging the series, might I suggest watching the Japanese voice-overs with English subtitles. Hits the feels even harder ;)
Long read of the week
Tracking down hidden food—place cells in food-caching birds (A summary in roughly a hundred words).
Read the paper here.
Mammals are known to have place cells that help determine their position and orientation in space. A neuron in the hippocampus may fire if the animal is at one place, while a different neuron may do the same for a different place. Place cells then, allow spatial memory and navigation. It turns out, birds have place cells too, even though they evolved much earlier in time. Food caching birds that preserve food for trying times, have place cells that have similar properties and work in similar ways. Birds that do not use food-caching do not show similar distributions of place cells. The authors say that place cells then, may be specific to the behaviour of the organism.
Five fresh finds
If y’all haven’t watched Naruto yet (I’m pretty sure I live under a rock), you can find them here, and Naruto Shippuden episodes here. Can you tell I’m obsessed?
An AI solution to protein folding? It seems it’s very, very accurate.
Strange electron eating microorganisms were found some time in 2016. Biology is weird. Read an article covering it here.
I spent some time going through the archives of Synapse (yes, a newsletter recommendation) last week. Very share-worthy. Neuro peeps—take note!
It’s not a bad time to be called a birdbrain now. Read more about ‘big’-brained birds here. Yes, I shamelessly re-posted this from Janaki Lenin’s newsletter (which you should also subscribe to for great reads!)
That’s the end of the letter this time. Thanks for keeping me company. Till the next time we meet
-Love,
San
