The Incredibly Stunning Port Jackson Shark, Which Lives On Coastal Reefs In Australia

Walnut shells cut in half.

Apical drive—A cellular mechanism of dreaming? 2020

Jaan Aru et al

“You look at trees and called them ‘trees,’ and probably you do not think twice about the word. You call a star a ‘star,’ and think nothing more of it. But you must remember that these words, ‘tree,’ ‘star,’ were (in their original forms) names given to these objects by people with very different views from yours. To you, a tree is simply a vegetable organism, and a star simply a ball of inanimate matter moving along a mathematical course. But the first men to talk of ‘trees’ and ‘stars’ saw things very differently. To them, the world was alive with mythological beings. They saw the stars as living silver, bursting into flame in answer to the eternal music. They saw the sky as a jeweled tent, and the earth as the womb whence all living things have come. To them, the whole of creation was ‘myth-woven and elf patterned’.”

— J.R.R. Tolkien, from ‘Mythopoeia’

Really interesting part of the book I just started reading

The Myth of Dreamless Sleep

Consciousness never "switches off" because it isn't generated by the brain. Its sensory inputs can be switched off - during sleep or general anesthesia, for instance - but your consciousness is still there. For example, a small but consistent number of patients report out-of-body experiences (OOBEs) or near-death experiences (NDEs) while under general anesthesia. As someone with REM Sleep Behavior Disorder (RBD) I can attest to this, since I act out dreams that occur during the non-REM phases of sleep.

ScienceAlert

We Were Wrong About Consciousness Disappearing in Dreamless Sleep, Say Scientists

When it comes to dreamlessness, conventional wisdom states that consciousness disappears when we fall into a deep, dreamless sleep.  But res

What’s your favourite STEM related book??

Mouse brain labeled using the brainbow technique. Brainbow is a technique used to distinguish individual neurons using different-colored derivatives of GFP (green fluorescent protein). By Dr. Tamily Weissman-Unni.

Mouse embryo (day 12.5) stained for motor (red) and sensory (magenta) nerves and nerve endings (cyan)

By Dr. Gist F. Croft, Lauren Pietila, Dr. Ali H. Brivanlou (The Rockefeller University - Laboratory of Stem Cell Biology and Molecular Embryology)

Technique: Light Sheet Microscopy and Tissue Clearing (iDISCO)

Magnification 1.8x (objective lens magnification)

Starting uni again + honorable mention, my support animals