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Actually, the complexity of synaptic structure between species is not obvious (and hence, this is one reason the article made it into Nature Neuroscience, a hig

by psyklic 18y ago

Actually, the complexity of synaptic structure between species is not obvious (and hence, this is one reason the article made it into Nature Neuroscience, a highly regarded journal). Since the neuron is the fundamental unit of the nervous system in all species, it is a decent prediction that it is of the same "complexity" across all species. I do agree that articles should be published in open-access journals. However, most people here probably could not understand the article well (no offense to HN readers!). You really do need a very good biology background to even understand the experiments or to interpret the conclusions and their reliability. In addition, scientific articles are very dry, and if a journalist did not simplify it for you, you likely (1) would have missed the big ideas (which are often phrased in scientific jargon), and most importantly, (2) would have never read the article in the first place!

niels_olson 18y ago
I suspect this is in Nature Neuroscience at least as much for it the technical challenge behind the research as anything to do with the big idea. I would also hesitate to make any claim as to whether or not the average HN reader can, today, understand the article. If I was going to identify any shortcoming in their ability, I would focus on our educational systems with their obscene focus on hyper-specialization ("I specialize in the left kidney . . . no, no, I don't do right kidneys.") It has become increasingly my experience, as someone with training in physics, military, medicine, and computers, that one of our major problems as a society is how uninvolved we are with anything, anything, outside our hyperfocused domains, or the spoonfed news we get from the MSM. I like the idea PG expressed about the nature of Boston: you feel like you really should read those <classics | groundbreaking studies | revolutionary opinions>.

by psyklic 18y ago

niels_olson 18y ago

I suspect this is in Nature Neuroscience at least as much for it the technical challenge behind the research as anything to do with the big idea. I would also hesitate to make any claim as to whether or not the average HN reader can, today, understand the article. If I was going to identify any shortcoming in their ability, I would focus on our educational systems with their obscene focus on hyper-specialization ("I specialize in the left kidney . . . no, no, I don't do right kidneys.") It has become increasingly my experience, as someone with training in physics, military, medicine, and computers, that one of our major problems as a society is how uninvolved we are with anything, anything, outside our hyperfocused domains, or the spoonfed news we get from the MSM. I like the idea PG expressed about the nature of Boston: you feel like you really should read those <classics | groundbreaking studies | revolutionary opinions>.