eSagan 🇮🇳 @crackurbones@qoto.org

🧠 Myelin is a fatty wrap that goes around some axons.

🔸 An unmylinated or naked axon can only transfer information at a slow rate. So the rate that it's transfers information is 0.2 to 1 meters per second.

🔸 Now, once we put on #myelin, information transfers much much faster. It can go between 2 and 120 meters per second. If it goes at 120 meters per second, the whole game is over. So very short time, imperceptible to us.

🔸 That information occurs in a 0 or a 1. There's either a point of information or not. **And so it's very much like a computer code**, where what we're seeing is a series of and what's important, the 0s are less important but the temporal pattern of these ones is very important.

🔸 And these 'ones' are actually an action potential, also called a spike. And we talk about firing spikes, neurons fire spikes. So, the timing of these spikes is what carries information.

🔸 The information spikes actually jump. That's what makes it so fast. They don't have to actually be carried through the places; with the #Myelin, they can actually jump.

🔸 And now, if we have a #DemyelinatingDisease, what we're going to end up with is some information that's spread out, because it's slower. And every once in a while, it's going to miss bits.

🔸 The neuron, that we're talking, to is getting a very incoherent message. This is very different from the original message and that is the problem with demyelination. Because axons are demyelinated, the information transfer is very degraded. It's a garbled message and that's a problem.

Image source: Screen-grab from https://www.coursera.org/learn/neurobiology/lecture/B13Z1/myelin.

**Glial Cells**
The human brain contains 86B neurons and 85B Glia.

**Different types of Glia:**

🔸 Astrocytes: Astrocytes are really important type of Glia. They're essentially responsible for keeping the environment clean, they're the sanitation worker of the brain. So they are picking up all the refuse that the neurons have let loose including excess ions, excess #neurotransmitters and their metabolites.

They also are very important during development. They allow neurons to get to where they have to go during development. #Neurons are born in one place and they have to go some place else, and what highway did they take? They hitch on a progenitor cell that is going to become an #Astrocyte.

And, in addition when synapses are formed, the synapses are not maintained without some effort, and part of that is that the synapses are enveloped in the processes of #Astrocytes. So, there's a lot of structural and metabolic support that the Astrocytes are providing for neurons.

🔸 Oligodendrocytes and Schwann Cells: The #oligodendrocytes make myelin in the CNS and the #SchwannCells make it in the Peripheral Nervous System. So all these demyelinating diseases will affect either central myelin or peripheral #myelin. They will not affect both -- central or peripheral.

Because they are made by two different types. The Oligodendrocytes in the central nervous system and a Schwann cells in the peripheral nervous system.

🔸 Microglia: #Microglia are the one exception to the rule that
nervous system, that the cells of the nervous system come from Ectoderm. These are actually essentially immune cells coming from the blood lineage. These are immune cells that have invaded into the central nervous system and their job is to be quiet. And if we're healthy and everything goes well, they are quiet. But when there is a problem these microglia react, they try to rectify things, they try and bring some attention to areas of damage and what is emerging is that sometimes they go overboard and they start to participate in making the problem as well as solving the problem.

Ancient #Mongolia'n empires sustained themselves with millet | Cosmos
https://cosmosmagazine.com/archaeology/ancient-mongolian-empires-sustained-themselves-with-millet

Researchers in #Antarctica found a thriving ecosystem of #MicrobialLife in an underground lake
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8075811/Researchers-Antarctica-thriving-ecosystem-microbial-life-underground-lake.html

Doctors use gene editing tool #Crispr inside body for first time
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/mar/04/doctors-use-gene-editing-tool-crispr-inside-body-for-first-time?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

🐤 https://twitter.com/guardianscience/status/1235248526927343616

Did #Neanderthals inbreed themselves to extinction?
https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/neanderthals-were-inbreeding-did-it-help-cause-their-extinction?utm_source=dsctwitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=dsctwitter
🐤 https://twitter.com/DiscoverMag/status/1235248892263923712

In her book “Parasites: Tales of Humanity’s Most Unwelcome Guests”, Rosemary Drisdelle advances the idea that malaria could have been the cause of death for 50 billion people in human history, with most people killed between 8000BC and 1650AD https://buff.ly/2MTMSc8

🐤 https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1235249124078997505?s=20

Gold-coated fabric that emits own light could be ultimate safety gear http://bit.ly/3cydhds
🐤 https://twitter.com/newscientist/status/1235251593941045248

People have been trying to harvest the energy of the world's oceans for centuries, but it is yet to become day-to-day renewable energy source. What's holding back the #waveenergy industry, and are the latest innovations any more promising?
https://physicsworld.com/a/turning-water-into-watts/

🐤 https://twitter.com/PhysicsWorld/status/1235251738111873024?s=20

#China's air pollutant levels dropped in February as a result of measures taken by the nation's government to reduce the risk of spreading coronavirus, the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service confirmed
https://edition.cnn.com/asia/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-03-04-20-intl-hnk/h_61bc4237cdfe1836e6e3936a33c5cf9a?utm_content=2020-03-04T17%3A18%3A43&utm_source=twCNNi&utm_term=link&utm_medium=social

🐤 https://twitter.com/cnni/status/1235253352231030784?s=20

#Coronavirus #COVID19

A small step for atoms, a giant leap for #microelectronics

https://phys.org/news/2020-03-small-atoms-giant-microelectronics.html

https://twitter.com/physorg_com/status/1235254197144227840

#Coronavirus: Sixth case confirmed, PM asks not to panic, visa suspended for 4 more nations https://in.news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-sixth-case-confirmed-pm-143704079.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=tw

The case was confirmed after the Italian patient's samples that were sent to the National Institute of Virology in #Pune tested positive. The 69-year-old man, part of a group of 20 tourists, is admitted to an isolation ward of the SMS Hospital. "The patient is in isolation and is stable," the Health Ministry said.

#IndiaNews #India #COVID19

And the anatomy of the neurons is different in appearance. But, it's also different in the sense of what is a neuron connected to, what neurons are talking to it, and what neurons is it talking to. So the inputs and the outputs of each neuron are going to be different.

In addition to the anatomy, the other differences include excitability -- and this is essentially how talkative is the neuron; how much do you have to goad it to get it to say something.
Some neurons are talking all the time; and some neurons are very laconic, very unlikely to speak.

And finally, there's how do they speak? And what we're talking about is the neurotransmitter. What is the neurotransmitter -- or what's the chemical, the substance -- that the neuron uses?

There is also a difference in both speed -- whether is something fast or slow -- or also whether it's affirmative or or negative -- 'yes' or 'no', and how fast does it take you to get to 'yes' or 'no'.

This is the axon and you can see that it gives off these little terminals, and it also has places where there's just simply a swelling on root. So these are all synaptic, these swellings are synaptic terminals. The long slender projection of the nerve cell is an axon.

Image source: screenshot at 5:44 from https://www.coursera.org/learn/neurobiology/lecture/oGT73/neuronal-uniqueness-stars-of-the-sky

@freemo Really don't want to talk politics from this account, especially about US politics (it doesn't suit me being a non-American), but Mr. Sanders through his campaign has engaged in some vicious Hinduphobia and Indophobia, even to the extent of siding with radical Islamic extremist groups like Islamic State in Khorasan, Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent and their affiliates like Popular Front of India (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Front_of_India)

Here's a 120-seconds video on how we Indians perceive of Bernie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CwqRGT16Dw
Hope you watch.

Neurons have four parts. The first is the cell body, also called the Soma. And this is the part that all cells have, this is cell central.

The cell body has coming out it from a number of dendrites, and these dendrites branch. And they continue to branch. And so, that makes a tree which we call the dendritic arbor or the dendritic tree.

And these dendrites are responsible for gathering in information. They're the sentries. They are the ears of the cell, of the neuron. They're taking in all information. So information is going in to the dendrites.

Axon carries the information along the length of it.

Neurons talk to neurons. But neurons also, go talk to muscles. And neurons talk to glands. And neurons talk to the cardiac, to the heart, to the cardiac muscle and so on.

Source of image: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-psychology/chapter/neurons/

This is how the spices look like before they are processed | The Times of India
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/food-news/this-is-how-the-spices-look-like-before-they-are-processed/photostory/74415941.cms

Your pet cannot get coronavirus. Here's why one dog tested positive
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/health-news/coronavirus-in-dogs-pets-your-pet-cannot-get-coronavirus-heres-why-one-dog-tested-positive/articleshow/74455441.cms