Interesting Links 10.19.07

  • A beautiful mind – Schizophrenia is potentially a very creative tool which, as yet, has not been understood or recognised and is mistreated and so its powerful symptoms manifest as confusion and destruction.
  • Schizophrenics gain by practice, not meds – A U.S. study suggested cognitive gains in schizophrenic patients treated with newer antipsychotic medications are due to practice effects, not the drugs.
  • How schizophrenia develops: Major clues discovered – Schizophrenia may occur, in part, because of a problem in an intermittent on/off switch for a gene involved in making a key chemical messenger in the brain, scientists have found in a study of human brain tissue.
  • Brain cell growth diminishes long before old age strikes – While other research groups have made similar observations in the brains of rodents, this is the first time the decrease in new cell growth, known as neurogenesis, has been noted in a primate, the biological order that also includes apes and humans.
  • Light shone within brains of mice reveals secrets of sleep-wake cycle – By flickering a special light inside the brains of sleeping mice to wake them up, Stanford researchers have shown that they can induce behavior in a living mammal by directly controlling specific neural cells.

It’s been a crazy week between papers, quizzes, work, running 5 sessions of my independent research…Needless to say, I haven’t had an opportunity to post any of the links before now. The first group is entirely psych related links (mostly Schizophrenia), and it’s very interesting stuff that is worth the read. The article that I thought was particularly interesting/sad was the one regarding individuals with Schizophrenia showing progress based on practice effects, not the wonderful meds everyone thought were so effective. That would really suck if that’s true (which it seems like it probably is).

  • 250+ Tools and Resources For Coding the Web – We’re all living on the web, and we all seem to be starting our own websites, so it’s time we all learned the languages that make it run.
  • CSS Vertical Bar Graphs – Eric Meyer has been keeping a secret since 2005 about CSS Vertical Bar Graphs. Well, not really, but it is good that he has come out with a nifty demo on how to do this.
  • A List Apart: Findings From the Web Design Survey – In April 2007, A List Apart and An Event Apart conducted a survey of people who make websites. Close to 33,000 web professionals answered the survey’s 37 questions, providing the first data ever collected on the business of web design and development as practiced in the U.S. and worldwide.
  • 21 Facts About The Internet You Should Know – You probably use it every day but how well do you know your Internet?
  • Verizon Wireless: If you don’t opt out, we get to share your CPNI call data – Over the weekend, a small storm erupted over new legal language that Verizon Wireless is passing quietly on to its subscribers. It appears as though the cellular provider is changing its terms of service to give the company the right to share sensitive calling data with third parties.
  • BitLet – the BitTorrent Applet – download a torrent without using a desktop application. perfect when you’re at work…

The second group is the normal miscellaneous tech links. The ALA Web Design Survey is worth the read if you’re a web designer. If you are a Verizon subscriber be sure and read the article linked above. Verizon sucks my ass. There I said it. I can definitely see BitLet being very useful. I could have used it a few times in the past…