Nothing so blights the lives of all-the sufferer, their families, their friends-as a disorder of the mind. Sadly, and despite the hard work of many hard-working and intelligent people, there is no simple cause-and-effect model for these problems. Not that is, in the same way as there is for diseases of the body, many of which have been tracked to causative organisms or simple deficiencies in some vital element. Instead of looking for a single, all-encompassing theory, like so many Darwins or Pasteurs, a better way ahead through small studies in limited areas, to create smaller learnings of which we can be sure.

A recent study of depression, using techniques like Nuclear Magnetic Resonance(NMR) suggests that this way pays off. It really does look as if certain areas of the brain, called Salience Networks( which seem to have something to do with directing the brain’s attention) may be directly involved. Read this from Nature Briefings, Permanent Brain Wiring Predicts Depression The link to the heavier article is well worth it-it’s quite short and clearly written

Although depression comes and goes, people who are prone to it retain a distinct pattern of brain-wiring network throughout their lives. An analysis of more than 180 functional magnetic resonance images showed that compared with healthy controls, people with clinical depression have larger brain circuits called salience networks, which shape what the brain pays attention to. These networks become more active during a depressive episode but persist even after the depression lifts. Researchers found large salience networks in children as young as nine years old, who then went on to develop depression as teenagers. This suggests that the trait could increase the risk of depression, rather than being a result of it.Nature | 4 min read
Reference: Nature paper

We liked several things about this work. It’s humble; it doesn’t try to solve everything, but defines a small area and attempts to explore only that. The sample sizes are gratifyingly large, especially in the follow up study. Above all, it provides a tangible repeatable way ahead to slowly isolate and characterise other disorders at a neurological level. One day, perhaps, and just maybe, some Historian of the future may point back and say: “this was a real step forward.”

#mental illness #depression #nmr #health #medicine

We have been having a little trouble with IT handling lately (alright, we admit it-we’re dreadful). But a number of you have made comments about the piece we riffed on by Larry Elliott of The Guardian last week. Sorry if we haven’t been able to load or reply to them, but we deeply appreciate the comments nevertheless.

However, it’s worth remembering that the real credit goes to Elliott, not us. He is always open minded, looks at evidence and tries to see things calmly and objectively. Virtues which we could all imitate. We will continue to channel his thoughts as and when we consider them to be pertinent to your interests, dearest readers.

#larry elliott #guardian #economics #germany #manufacturing #IT

LSS is a science post, by and large. The clue’s in the title. But it tends to be an applied science post. You know, this new antibiotic will do so and so, that new advance in power generation will save that many tonnes of carbon dioxide. And so on. Which is why, sometimes, we like to raise our eyes to some of the more abstract advances in pure science. After all, how long before they become applied?

Which is why we liked this one from Nature Briefings: Sniffing out the mysteries of how we smell. Someone once described the nose as ” a special kind of Gas Chromatograph” But how does it work? Is it the shape of the incoming molecules? Their weight? Something else? Remember some animals such as dogs, are much better at it than we are. And, by the way, what about taste? Before we leave you to the link, there’s this too. Like all the best modern studies, this one is multidisciplinary. Which implies a lot of different people collaborating, from lots of different countries. Could there just, possibly, be something in this multiculturalism after all?

We smell by detecting molecules around us — but knowing the chemical structure of a molecule tells you almost nothing about its odour. Even categorizing what we perceive is difficult: there is no palette of scent ‘primary colours’ as there is for vision. And olfactory receptor proteins are hard to work with, so what they look like and how they function has mostly been guesswork. But that isn’t stopping scientists from trying, with help from innovations in structural biology, data analytics and artificial intelligence.Nature | 12 min read

#olfaction #smell #taste #biology #life sciences #AI #data analytics

There’s an old school of thought, particularly in the British Centre that had a lot of time for Germany and its post-war economic miracle. Exponents as diverse as Will Hutton and Corelli Barnett pointed to its world-class education system (particularly in technical subjects), its Mittelstand of SMEs and their associated financial arrangements, and of course its superior industrial relations. Certainly it was performing far ahead of the UK for many decades. Yet, like its football team, this former world-beater is losing its schwerpunkt. It’s not just the disastrous election results in the formerly Communist east, or the disastrous dependence on Russian energy. According to Larry Elliott of the Guardian (whom we have sometimes channelled before on these pages), the problems go much, much deeper.

Too much cultural capital has been invested in engineering, he asseverates. Names like Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes were once synonymous with economic excellence. But now Germany is too embedded in the era when those names ruled the worlds’ highways, while other nations have moved on. It’s all a bit like Edwardian Britain, which remained emotionally committed to the world of coal mines and cotton spinning, while the real action was already moving elsewhere

Will Germany enter a nosedive and lose all? The world remembers the consequences of the last time that happened and too many sensible people, both at home and abroad have already reacted to the siren call of AfD and its chums. Once great nations can transition to a more humble prosperity (the UK, France and Japan are examples here) and there is every reason to think that in the long run, Germany can do the same. But the real message for us all comes from the popular musical singing group Fleetwood Mac, heavily deployed by the Clinton campaign in 1992; Don’t stop Thinking about tomorrow

[1]https://www.theguardian.com/business/article/2024/sep/01/germany-economy-problem-analogue-industries

#Will Hutton #Corelli Barnett #Germany #digital #AI #manufacture #mittelstand