So, if, like me, you formatted your hard drive, reinstalled Windows, installed Chrome, logged-in to your Google Account, and found out that not all your bookmarks are syncing, you'll be happy/sad to know that it's an acknowledged issue and they expect a fix in a few days.
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/9ftiKpBmuZ8%5B1-25-true%5D
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Reshared post from +Kaj Sotala
"When I was 15, a member of my local community approached my parents and told them she wanted to nominate me for some kind of community achievement award. My parents said, "Thanks, but there's one glaring problem with that… she hasn't actually achieved anything out of the ordinary."
"They were right. I went to school, I got good marks, I had a very low key after-school job, and I spent a lot of time watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dawson's Creek. I wasn't feeding orphaned Chlamydia-infected baby koalas before school, or setting up a soup kitchen in the main street, or reading newspapers to the elderly at the local hospital. I was doing exactly the same things as my non-disabled friends. When my parents explained all this to the well-meaning nominator, they said "yes, but she's just such an inspiration".
"And there's the rub. My everyday life in which I do exactly the same things as everyone else should not inspire people, and yet I am constantly congratulated by strangers for simply existing. It happened twice last week.
"I was on a train with my earphones shoved in my ears completely ignoring my fellow commuters (as is my want early in the morning) while reading inane things on twitter. Before getting off at her stop, a woman patted me on the arm and said "I see you on the train every morning and I just wanted to say it's great. You're an inspiration to me."
"Should I have said "you too"? Because we were doing exactly the same thing; catching public transport to our respective places of employment. I was just doing it sitting down. Should I have pointed out that, in many ways, that requires less effort, not more?
"That's the thing about those kids in the inspiration porn pictures too – they're not doing anything their peers don't do. We all learn how to use the bodies we're born with, or learn to use them in an adjusted state, whether those bodies are considered disabled or not. So that image of the kid drawing a picture with the pencil held in her mouth instead of her hand? That's just the best way for her, in her body, to do it. For her, it's normal.
"I can't help but wonder whether the source of this strange assumption that living our lives takes some particular kind of courage is the news media, an incredibly powerful tool in shaping the way we think about disability. Most journalists seem utterly incapable of writing or talking about a person with a disability without using phrases like "overcoming disability", "brave", "suffers from", "defying the odds", "wheelchair bound" or, my personal favourite, "inspirational".
"If we even begin to question the way we're labelled, we slide immediately to the other end of the scale and become "bitter" and "ungrateful". We fail to be what people expect.
"Which brings us back to Scott Hamilton and his mantra. The statement "the only disability in life is a bad attitude" puts the responsibility for our oppression squarely at the feet, prosthetic or otherwise, of people with disabilities. It's victim blaming. It says that we have complete control of the way disability impacts our lives. To that, I have one thing to say. Get stuffed."
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We’re not here for your inspiration
Pictures of people with disabilities going about their everyday lives posted on Facebook and Twitter as inspiration porn shame and objectify those they pretend to represent.
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I love these animated explanations of mathematical concepts. Â I so wish resources like this were available to me when I was in school.
Thanks Wikipedia.
Visual definition of a radian.
I love these animated explanations of mathematical concepts. Â I so wish resources like this were available to me when I was in school.
Thanks Wikipedia.
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Reshared post from +Michael Cohen
http://www.theguardian.com/business/economics-blog/2014/feb/24/second-machine-age-luddites-computers?commentpage=1
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Courtesy of the CDC, an influenza virus binds to a respiratory tract cell.
Courtesy of the CDC, an influenza virus binds to a respiratory tract cell.
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 That is, something along the lines of "We don't let our business relationships get in the way of our objectivity."
I have multiple problems with that. Â
1. Â Would a publication which did favor those whom it had a business relationship with say anything else?
2. Â I'm much less worried about explicit favoritism to advertisers than I am to much more subtle, and many times, not even intentional types of biases. Â
3. Â I'm not convinced that a publication that preemptively makes such statements is more trustworthy than one which doesn't.
The real issue publications have from my point of view is the unintentional biases. Â To me, it's pretty apparent when a review or article is nothing more than an advertisement in disguise, it's the more subtle type of article that worries me.
The type where the publication doesn't give an advertiser a free pass, but also doesn't give as much coverage to an advertisers competitors. Â The type where phrasing unintentionally makes an advertiser look better than if they weren't.
Basically, I think stating "advertising doesn't affect our editorial policy" is hopelessly naive about the way humans brains work.
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Reshared post from +Richard Wilson
How the Sawfish catches its prey
How the Sawfish catches its prey
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Reshared post from +Fred Herrmann
This is one of those objects that you never get tired of imaging. This bright nebula is one of the few objects where its detail can still be seen under light polluted skies using a modest telescope or a good pair of binoculars.
The Orion nebula, aka M42 is a reflection/emission nebula located in the constellation Orion at a distance of 1350 light-years. The nebula spans a distance of ~ 24 light-years.
This is one of those objects that you never get tired of imaging. This bright nebula is one of the few objects where its detail can still be seen under light polluted skies using a modest telescope or a good pair of binoculars.
The Orion nebula, aka M42 is a reflection/emission nebula located in the constellation Orion at a distance of 1350 light-years. The nebula spans a distance of ~ 24 light-years.
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Reshared post from +Akinola Emmanuel
How do gut pathologies arise and why is our immune system unable to prevent it? I am happy to say that our lab at The University of Chicago believes that the answer is the abnormal activation of an ancient pathway and its effector protein Beta-Catenin.
The Wnt/Beta-Catenin pathway is highly evolutionarily conserved and has roles in everything from embryonic development to cel-cell communication. There's a good chance that if you look at any human cancers, the Wnt/Beta-Catenin pathway is negatively affected.
Our research, spearheaded by lead author Dr. Shilpa Keerthivasan, has shown that in patients with colitis or colon cancer, Beta-Catenin is highly expressed compared to healthy patients.
Incredibly, she worked out on the cellular level that this activation corrupts the function of T-cells that regulate the immune system (Tregs). Instead of suppressing the activation of the immune system, these Tregs instead cause inflammation. What makes matters worse is that the other T cells that become activated can no longer be shut down. In the gut, activation of T cells is fairly common because T cells are constantly coming in contact with bacteria (as can be seen in the image below). The gut has the highest concentration of immune cells so you can imagine that improper activation of these cells can have catastrophic effects. This is why it's really crucial to have normally functioning Tregs. Once these Tregs become corrupted, activation of the immune system spirals out of control. In fact, if you transfer these corrupted Tregs to healthy mice, they also develop gut inflammation.
These findings are huge because now we have a good idea as to how colitis and colon cancer can seemingly develop sporadically. The next step is finding out what activates this pathway in people. Don't worry, we're on it!
The press release (less jargon) can be found here:Â http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-02/uocm-bat022414.php
The article can be found here (unfortunately, it's behind a paywall) http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/6/225/225ra28.short?rss=1
Photo credits: http://scicasts.com/disease-processes/6438-location-in-the-body-where-immune-cells-reach-maturity-is-important-for-their-later-function/#scienceeveryday  
How do gut pathologies arise and why is our immune system unable to prevent it? I am happy to say that our lab at The University of Chicago believes that the answer is the abnormal activation of an ancient pathway and its effector protein Beta-Catenin.
The Wnt/Beta-Catenin pathway is highly evolutionarily conserved and has roles in everything from embryonic development to cel-cell communication. There’s a good chance that if you look at any human cancers, the Wnt/Beta-Catenin pathway is negatively affected.
Our research, spearheaded by lead author Dr. Shilpa Keerthivasan, has shown that in patients with colitis or colon cancer, Beta-Catenin is highly expressed compared to healthy patients.
Incredibly, she worked out on the cellular level that this activation corrupts the function of T-cells that regulate the immune system (Tregs). Instead of suppressing the activation of the immune system, these Tregs instead cause inflammation. What makes matters worse is that the other T cells that become activated can no longer be shut down. In the gut, activation of T cells is fairly common because T cells are constantly coming in contact with bacteria (as can be seen in the image below). The gut has the highest concentration of immune cells so you can imagine that improper activation of these cells can have catastrophic effects. This is why it’s really crucial to have normally functioning Tregs. Once these Tregs become corrupted, activation of the immune system spirals out of control. In fact, if you transfer these corrupted Tregs to healthy mice, they also develop gut inflammation.
These findings are huge because now we have a good idea as to how colitis and colon cancer can seemingly develop sporadically. The next step is finding out what activates this pathway in people. Don’t worry, we’re on it!
The press release (less jargon) can be found here:Â http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-02/uocm-bat022414.php
The article can be found here (unfortunately, it’s behind a paywall) http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/6/225/225ra28.short?rss=1
Photo credits:Â http://scicasts.com/disease-processes/6438-location-in-the-body-where-immune-cells-reach-maturity-is-important-for-their-later-function/
#scienceeveryday Â
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