Google published three videos to explain the main principles behind its three core businesses: search, ads and apps. This one is about the apps and explains the advantages of cloud computing. Beware cloud computing also has some downsides such as being unable to access data when the server is down, also security issues are always a threat, so take care.

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40 grams of dark chocolate per day reduces the urinary excretion of the stress hormone cortisol and it almost normalizes the stress related differences in energy metabolism and gut microbial activities between participants with low and high anxiety traits.

You are what you eat, it has been described how dietary preferences is associated with metabolic processes in healthy subjects. How does dark chocolate, by some considered to be a very healthy, affect the human metabolism? A number of studies have shown cardiovascular benefits of eating flavanol rich cocoa. In a recent post I discussed the possible underlying mechanisms of these cardioprotective properties of chocolate. The mechanism of action of chocolate at the molecular level are poorly understood. In this recent study the metabolic changes due to chocolate in healthy subjects was examined with metabonomics.

we have used proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) spectroscopy and mass spectrometry (MS) as complementary analytical platforms for monitoring metabolic changes associated with a daily intake of 40 g of dark chocolate over a period of 2 weeks in the urine and blood plasma of 30 individuals (11 males, 19 females) classified according to their self-reported anxiety trait.

Already after one week metabolic changes were evident in the metabolic profiles of participants compared to the baseline analyses. This became more significant after two weeks of dark chocolate at 40 grams per day. The metabolic changes in both endogenous and gut microbial metabolism was evident.

Comparing the groups with low and high anxiety traits revealed a decreased level of urinary stress hormone levels in the participants with high level trait anxiety after two weeks of dark chocolate. This suggest potential beneficial implications of dark chocolate consumption for reduction of mental and/or physical stress and improvement of the metabolic response to stress. 40 grams can be considered a low dose, still waiting for proof of dose response relationship, what do you think?

Martin, F., Rezzi, S., Peré-Trepat, E., Kamlage, B., Collino, S., Leibold, E., Kastler, J., Rein, D., Fay, L., & Kochhar, S. (2009). Metabolic Effects of Dark Chocolate Consumption on Energy, Gut Microbiota, and Stress-Related Metabolism in Free-Living Subjects Journal of Proteome Research, 8 (12), 5568-5579 DOI: 10.1021/pr900607v

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One of the most striking features of those suffering from anorexia nervosa is their perception of their bodies. You can put them in front of a mirror and they will still tell you they’re to fat when in fact they’re skinny. A recent publication in Nature Proceedings has an explanation.

This explanation is based on the fact that our spatial experience is based on the integration of two different kinds of input, two different sensory inputs within two reference frames. These two reference frames are the egocentric frame and the allocentric frame.
With the allocentric frame you can “see yourself engaged in the event as an observer would”, it’s the observer mode, you can see your self in the situation. This allocentric representation involves long term spatial memory mostly located in the hippocampus and the surrounding medial temporal lobes of the brain.

The egocentric frame is about the body being the reference of the first person experience. Seeing the event from his or her perspective as in normal perception, the field mode. So you’re not looking at your self and seeing your self in a certain situation but your looking from within your self to the outside world. These egocentric representations are modeled with the short term spatial memory located mostly in the precuneus of the brain.

These two frames have to integrate the information, the knowledge from the long term memory has to be updated with the egocentric representation that can influence the information present in long term memory. That’s needed to update the body dimensions and motor patterns. If this doesn’t happen the subject is locked to the older representation of the body, this will not be renewed, updated, the subject is locked to the old representation.

If, for some reasons, this process is impaired, the egocentric sensory inputs are no more able to update the contents of the allocentric representation of the body: the subject is locked to it. This is what apparently happens in eating disorders (ED)

The parts of the brain involved with the locking process are the medial temporal lobe, connections between hippocampus and amygdala. Stress can provoke hippoacampal damage. As suggested by some authors stress is often related to the onset of eating disorders and chronic stress is associated with the persistence of eating disorders. Neuroimaging showed some evidence for impairment of medial temporal lobe functioning in eating disorders.

Overall eating disorders are influenced by several possible factors as depicted in the graphic below. Nevertheless this theory is an interesting one and to my opinion a very promising one from a scientific point of view, what do you think?

Riva, Guiseppe (2010). Neuroscience and Eating Disorders:
The role of the medial-temporal lobe Nature Proceedings

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Last year had a post about Pi day and irrational numbers and about the beauty of pi and chocolate. Ordered a chocolate Pi but couldn’t find one this year, anyone? Why? Watch the video and see if you can resist.

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hybrid 2010 reel from hybrid medical animation on Vimeo.

This is some of the latest work of Hybrid’s illustrations and animations, beautiful, it’s almost art. I know it’s promotional demo with a collection of their favorite and latest work but it’s amazing. What do you think?

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Good discussion about the use of graphics and charts in presentations, thanks Extreme Presentation.

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Finally, what took them so long? Now you can play games in the palm of your hand.

We present Skinput, a technology that appropriates the human body for acoustic transmission, allowing the skin to be used as a finger input surface. In particular, we resolve the location of finger taps on the arm and hand by analyzing mechanical vibrations that propagate through the body. We collect these signals using a novel array of sensors worn as an armband. This approach provides an always-available, naturally-portable, and on-body interactive surface. To illustrate the potential of our approach, we developed several proof-of-concept applications on top of our sensing and classification system.

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Who retires gracefully, who adjusts to retirement easily and who doesn’t. Which personality traits play a part in successful retirement?
The five factor model of personality or the Big Five can be used to see how personality traits are linked to how people adjust to retirement. It has been done in the past for other life transitions.

The researchers not only used the Big Five but also the Satisfaction with Life Scale and questionnaires devised to measure reasons for retirement and the quality of experiences in retirement. These questionnaires were all part of an online survey on which 365 individuals responded, of whom 86 were close to retirement and 279 were already retired.

From this research extraversion was found to relate to life satisfaction while still at work but not during retirement. Extraversion seems to be less adaptive when retired. Conscientiousness and Agreeableness promote satisfaction after retirement not before. Neuroticism is the strongest related to life satisfaction both before and after retirement.

Individuals with high Neuroticism are prone to negatively appraising their life situation, and so the trait may be a cause of low satisfaction, while dispositional Neuroticism can be elevated by difficult life events and so higher levels may be an effect of a stressful retirement

These findings are from an observational study so cause and effect relations can not be found with this design, we’re in need of a longitudinal within subject design, meaning to evaluate people before and after retirement in order to find a cause effect relationship.

Why is this important?
People approaching retirement could be given a personality test that could provide information on how to cope with retirement and identify those at risk for a difficult retirement.

Robinson, O., Demetre, J., & Corney, R. (2010). Personality and retirement: Exploring the links between the Big Five personality traits, reasons for retirement and the experience of being retired Personality and Individual Differences DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2010.01.014

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Both the hidden and informal curriculum take place after or next to the theoretical teaching, the formal teaching and has an important part in the shaping of the medical students’ professionalism and professional values. Moreover, these forms of the curriculum have a major impact on the learning potential of med students. Yet little is known about this subject. A lot has been written but only from a theoretical stand point. I’ve written about the hidden and informal curriculum in a previous post. Most of the research to date has been generally focused on the undergraduate and graduate medical curricula in general. This time we’ll talk about the formal, informal, and hidden curricula of a psychiatry clerkship.

During clerkship medical students are confronted the most with the informal and hidden curriculum. In this research the researchers conducted six focus groups , four with medical students during their psychiatry rotation, one with psychiatry residents and one with teaching faculty of the psychiatry department.

After providing several examples of the kinds of curriculum phenomena we sought to identify, we asked participants a series of open-ended questions designed to prompt thinking about how they perceived and experienced the various enactments of the formal, informal, and hidden curricula reflected in the teaching environment of the psychiatry department.

Results
The formal curriculum during psychiatry clerkship was mostly perceived by all three groups besides the formal curriculum as the time with high value placed on building relationships with patients. All three groups didn’t distinguish between the informal and hidden curriculum (the informal curriculum “is the process by which a learner’s knowledge and skills become situated in the context of daily work”, hidden curriculum, which includes the ideological and subliminal messages of both the formal and informal curricula).

All three groups were similar in their perceptions of the formal curriculum. Which is amazing when you think of it. The attendings were the role models with the most significant influence on the students and residents belief about the practice of psychiatry. For students the most influential role models were the attendings, more than residents. Students and residents had no trouble in distinguishing positive and negative role models.

Similarly, all three suggested that elements of the informal and hidden curricula were expressed primarily as the values arising from attendings’ role modeling, as the nature and amount of time attendings spend with patients, and as attendings’ advice arising from experience and intuition versus “textbook learning.”

This again proves the importance of increasing the number of role model physicians in medical education. This again proofs that medical education is in need of full time faculty members with good professional qualities performing interaction with patients in the presence of students and residents. They should be devoted to teaching students and residents. But who will pay for their precious time?

Wear D, & Skillicorn J (2009). Hidden in plain sight: the formal, informal, and hidden curricula of a psychiatry clerkship. Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, 84 (4), 451-8 PMID: 19318777

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During a wedding the oxytocine of those involved in the wedding party rises, the testosterone level of only the groom rises, naughty, naughty. Watch this video and find out why people like to have a wedding.

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