#he is simultaneously the simplest and most complicated cause of

[gooser0-o]

doodles to comfort me (help me procrastinate) as I do homework

Once my friend was teasing me for drawing him and this transpired

[wings-of-a-storm]

I have a question. My favorite character is obviously Benji, but this season I started to get an ultimate rancidity of him.In the end I understood why he was acting like this, he has a PTSD because of dating Derek, his parents shitting him and alcohol and the accident. It's about the accident I wanted to know about, I didn't quite understand what this accident was and why he started drinking. I get upset that Benji's story is the least explored in the series, in my opinion, it should be explored more

Sorry for late reply to this, Anon! I know a few others already replied to this but I figure I’d still add my take into the mix for you. :)

I think many of us share your frustrations about Benji’s story being drip fed to us instead of being looked at more deeply. It’s a very interesting history so I really hope that in season three we might actually get a more decent look at it…

BENJI’S HISTORY / WHY HE STARTED DRINKING:

Throughout both seasons we learn that Benji has struggled with mental health.

In the most simplest of summaries: Benji struggled with internalised homophobia -- he hated himself for being homosexual and fought against it. He even experimented sexually with girls (which he briefly mentioned in S1), but in the end, he couldn’t deny that he was gay. But acknowledging he was gay and being able to accept it are two different things. He hated being gay.

In order to cope with that self-hatred and fear, he turned to alcohol to dull his reality and in turn everything he felt. He’s still learning to like himself even now in season two.

In Benji’s own words: “Before I came out, I was kind of a mess. I knew I was gay but I didn't want to be. So I drank. A lot. (1x07)” And: “Coming out was really hard for me, Victor. And it is still hard for me to be who I am. (1x05)”

BENJI’S CAR ACCIDENT:

Benji said that when he was younger, he drank 'a lot'. From that statement alone we can infer that he knew he was drinking more than his peers were. Most likely that went beyond social drinking -- he was probably also drinking by himself at any opportunity.

There is an age limit for drinking for good reason: our brains don’t fully develop until we are in our twenties, and as such, when we are younger we are more likely to make riskier choices. Adding alcohol into the mix is just asking for trouble -- as Benji found out when, one night, severely inebriated, he lost control of his vehicle (or misjudged his surroundings) and drove through/into a building. “One night I got super wasted and decided that I wanted Wendys real bad. So I took my Dad's car to the drive thru and that's exactly what I did -- drove through the Wendys. (1x07)”

That is some serious stuff right there! On so many levels!

Firstly the physical toll: he ‘totalled’ his dad’s car. To have a car written off as too smashed to be driven, that car had a huge impact! And not surprising since Benji said he drove through the building. Whether that was through glass or a into a sturdy wall, to crunch up the metal of his car, that is a massive hit. We don’t know the extent of his injuries (he just said he was ‘banged up’) but we do know that he was at the very least knocked unconscious and/or had a head injury from it (“Waking up in the hospital with my parents standing over me…” 1x07).

Secondly, the emotional toll: when Benji gained consciousness and woke up in hospital, he said he “realised that I could have died." (1x07) That is a very frightening thing to confront -- your mortality. It spooked him enough that it was the catalyst for his Coming Out. He didn’t want to die without “ever really being who I was” (1x07); to have only lived his life as a lie and not known his true self…

Most of us, I’d wager, haven’t had to confront our mortality at such a young age -- like truly confront it after going through a life-threatening experience. In that sense, he is on a different level to his peers and Victor -- a big part of his innocence has been broken and re-formed.

There is more to the emotional toll though -- not explicitly mentioned in canon but pretty much common sense:

The pain of recovery in hospital and at home (whatever “banged up” means, he was injured in some way)

The guilt of knowing his actions could have caused innocent people to have been hurt or killed. No one was hurt, he said, but just knowing they could have been is a really heavy thing to have on your conscience.

The stress of dealing with insurance (for the Wendys, for the car). He would have had to burden his parents with sorting that all out.

Police would have been involved to investigate the incident and lay charges. That’s pretty darn scary.

Losing his licence and thus part of his independence

Seeing the physical damage of the Wendys if he ever went past it again -- knowing he had done it, knowing he had been in the car that made that damage and reliving the knowledge he could have killed himself…

He was so ashamed by it all, he didn’t want anyone at school knowing about the accident or about his drinking that caused it. In 1x07 the school still didn’t know so he really guarded that secret hard.

There’s just so much heaviness linked to that accident. And Benji has only had one year to process all of that. On some level, that stuff has got to linger.

THE INITIAL AFTERMATH:

We learn that after the car accident, Benji was in an ever worse state of mind than when he was drinking his life away before it. His mother reveals: “After your car accident last year you were so hard on yourself and things were pretty dark for a while there. And you decided to put in the hard work [to go to AA and get better]. (2x07)”

Referring to Benji's post-accident self as being in 'a pretty dark place' is a pretty big alarm bell. His mental health sounds like it was pretty much destroyed. It is so hard to rebuild yourself after falling into such a dark well, but over the year he must have pulled himself back from the brink. That is so, so heavy!

It’s hard to gauge whether Benji chose to go to AA himself (which seems to be implied), or whether it was a condition of his charge through the police, but he went there none-the-less to change his life and learn healthier coping mechanisms to handle stress/his inner conflicts.

Something else worth noting is that, timeline-wise (as messy as that always is in LV), Benji was dating Derek through all of this. His one year anniversary with Derek was in S1 but his one year sobriety was only in S2. Who knows how that would have complicated things. He wasn’t Out to his parents or anyone but he was dating a (adult) man. So he was simultaneously hating that he was gay and drinking his mind blank but still dating a man. That is a super stressful and conflicting dichotomy that he was dealing with in amongst all this… (“It is still hard for me to be who I am.” 1x05)

THE MOST IMPORTANT INSIGHT FROM BENJI’S DRINKING AND AA:

It is so important to take time and realise what being in AA means about Benji: as a young teen, Benji self-medicated his way through his worsening mental health by drinking to handle stress and internalised homophobia. He didn’t have any proper methods of handling stressful situations. He is now having to unlearn those behaviours and learn new strategies through AA and his sponsor. But he has only been doing that for one year! That is a blip of time in the hourglass.

Now let’s look at the events of S2: Benji has been inundated with stress while still learning how to cope with it without drinking. And he’s had to learn and practise these new coping strategies while:

Being in high school

Holding down an assistant manager job

Watching his significant other being emotionally wrung out by his mother’s treatment of him; dealing with his own rejection and banishment from Isabel

Reliving both his own coming out stress and homophobic aggressions at school directed this time at his significant other

Trying to deal with the shame of being in AA and keeping that a secret from all of his peers at school

Like far out, that is a ton of stress! Anyone would crack under all of that, let alone a young and recovering alcoholic!

So yes, when faced with stressful situations, Benji is not always going to react in the right way or say the right things. He’s still learning how to do that with his sponsor and AA meetings. He might come off as ‘rancid’ in S2, but really he is just a kid who is struggling and trying to do his best.

[ibethalantyr]

The Visitor

The old conjurer is shut in his stately house, fingers shaking with fear.  The ink is blotting as he writes, but he must write quickly.  While the details are fresh.  While the protection lasts.  Before he comes back.  Oh gods, before he comes back.

“Good evening.”

The greeting was the first indication that a visitor had arrived: no knock or footstep, no alarm from the wards, not even the telltale lights, sounds, and smells of magical teleportation.  Just that voice.

The voice is not one that the old conjurer recognized, but he will never forget it.  Indeed, he suspects it will haunt his dreams.  It probably would have done so even had the encounter gone differently.  There was something about that voice - the resonance, the articulation - that bespoke power.

The old conjurer had managed not to jump (despite his surprise), and turned to find a figure, hooded and cloaked in gray, sitting in a chair near the fire, just across from his own accustomed seat.  Between the seated position and the cloak, it was difficult to judge his height and build.  He was probably a human, though half-elf was possible.  The firelight cast his face into shadow.

The old conjurer decided to be polite, at least at first.  A person who could breach the house’s defenses so easily was not someone to be trifled with, and might have a good reason for taking the trouble.  And the fact that he had announced his presence with a salutation rather than a malediction suggested that his intent was not hostile.

The old conjurer indicated that he does not generally conduct business so late in the day, but that if his visitor was in urgent need of magical items or consultation, he supposed he could make an exception.  Or something to that effect.

“Neither your artifacts nor your lore hold any interest for me, conjurer.  Some information is all that I require.”

The old conjurer, although stung by the dismissal, smiled in what he hoped was a self-deprecating manner.  He said that most passersby came in search of magic, and that he doubted he possessed information of any other sort that would be valuable to anyone.

“It is of passersby that I wish to speak, in fact.  You are acquainted with most of the adventurers active in this region, are you not?”

He demurred.  Some, perhaps even many, but not most.  A few, like the present visitor, had no interest in his services, while a great many others could not afford the old conjurer’s rates.

“It is possible that the one I am seeking might fall into the latter group, I am not certain.  Tell me: is there anyone to whom you refer those unable to afford your rates?  An apprentice, perhaps?”

The old conjurer stiffened, and his tone changed.  He has no apprentice, as anyone in town will have told his visitor when he enquired.  That he was asking about one indicated that he was much better informed than he was letting on.  The old conjurer told him as much, and added that while he was willing to attribute an uninvited entrance to mere eccentricity, prying into someone else’s private papers was just plain rude.

Something triggered the old conjurer’s contingency.  It definitely happened before the trespasser started to cast, of that he was certain even in the moment.  He must have activated a contingency of his own, or perhaps some kind of magical item.  He then began a transmutation spell, one his host had never heard before.

Since the encounter with the gnome, the old conjurer had started taking additional precautions against unexpected magical attacks.  In addition to the contingency, which cloaked him in a spell shield, he had also prepared a spell trigger with a fuller array of protections: stoneskin, spell deflection, and greater invisibility. He activated this, and then began to cast himself.

Glitterdust first, to check if some sort of illusion was in operation.  Sure enough, the seated figure was a fake, or was now.  It vanished, while the dust revealed the genuine article: a tall, cloaked shape, now standing about ten feet away, roughly in the center of the room.  He was still casting, uttering an incantation of tremendous complexity.  Hoping that it would go on for some time longer, and trusting in own magical defenses to hold against whatever was coming, the old conjurer went on the attack.  He started up Khelben’s Warding Whip, to begin stripping away any magical defenses his enemy might have in place.

He was still two and a half lines from finishing when the enemy cast.  He felt the spell shield break, but knew that the deflection was still in place.  The whip struck home, the light pattern dazzling and unfamiliar.  As he reached for his first acid arrow, the old conjurer realized with a jolt that he was visible.  He had not heard any divination or dispelling, which the spell shield should have blocked in any case.  What kind of transmutation could remove invisibility and a spell shield simultaneously?

Something hit the spell deflection.  Hard.  The trespasser had uttered a Word of Power.  Quick to cast, impossible to resist, it was only the spell deflection that kept the old conjurer from being rendered insensible.  He finished the acid arrow, which struck his enemy squarely in the chest...and vanished in another flash of light.  He, too, was still shielded somehow.

They considered each other briefly.  The old conjurer began to feel a creeping sense of dread.  His visitor merely looked amused. 

In the blink of any eye, they were back at it.

His enemy began an evocation, and the old conjurer recognized it immediately as an ice storm.  An area of effect spell made sense.  It would affect cause damage even with the spell deflection in place.  But why so long an incantation, and in so small a room?  Perhaps he had some sort of cold protection in effect?  The old conjurer decided to counter with a spread of flame arrows.  He was certain to finish first, and protection from cold often brought with it extra vulnerability to fire, assuming the warding whip hadn’t finally finished its work.

These arrows, too, struck, setting the cloak on fire, but his enemy took no notice.  His shields were still in place.  The old conjurer braced himself for the ice fall to begin.  It didn’t.  The ice storm, too, impacted the spell deflection directly, breaking it. The old conjurer was vulnerable.

The trepasser began an enchantment.  The old conjurer countered with melf again, which would be faster than all but the simplest of charms, and these he felt confident he could resist.  The arrow was off just before his enemy finished the hold spell.  No effect.  And now the old conjurer was locked in place, unable to move.

Wasting no time, his visitor opened the writing desk and extracted this very book. He rifled rapidly through its pages, stopping occasionally at passages that glowed, under the influence of some spell or another (cast when?!).

The old conjurer had no choice but to watch him.  His cloak continued to burn, but he he paid it no mind, fully absorbed in what he was doing.  He wasted no time, but did not seem to be in any hurry either, confident, apparently, that no attack or interference was possible.  But his frustration was growing.  He turned pages faster and faster, now barely stopping to read.  When he ran out of written pages, he closed the book smartly.  Then he slammed it down on the desk with enough force to set the ink bottles rattling.

“I do not know what you and that young fool have done, or rather will do, but you should consider yourself fortunate.  It has saved your life.”  He crossed the room to wear the old conjurer was standing, covering the distance with astonishing speed despite still seeming not to hurry.  And now they were face-to-face.

Under the cloak, which had now burned away entirely, he was wearing nothing apart from a sort of leather harness.  It fitted tightly to his head, leaving only the face exposed: pale skin, scarred and stretched, as though to counteract the sagging of age.  Around the eyes no such concealment was possible. They were deeply lined.  And the eyes themselves: pale again and strangely bright, as though skinned.  The old conjurer looked down, the only movement of which he was capable.  The chest showed clearly through the harness, all beautifully-chiseled muscle, yet wrong, at odds both with the grotesque head and somehow with itself as well.

“This will complicate my work, and for that alone you would die.  But I do not need a major disruption to the timeline on top of my other difficulties.  And the nature of the anomaly suggests that you cannot reveal me to my quarry.  So you live.  For now.”

And then he is gone, employing yet another unknown spell.

The old conjurer is uncertain how long he remained held.  Almost an hour, he thinks.  The fear makes it difficult to judge.  As soon as he can move, he set up as much protection as he could as quickly as he could, and then set about creating this record.  The visitor has not returned in the two hours that he has been writing, whether because the protection is working or for reasons of his own.  In case the former, the remaining hour of protection needs to be used with care, to reflect, and to plan the next steps...

It is now the afternoon of the following day, and the old conjurer is still intact.  He spent the night and the morning in town.  He communicated as much he could of the encounter to the smith and the governor, and both have offered what help they can.  The smith ventured out to the house and found it empty.  The governor will arrive at dawn to add his own blessings to the existing protections of the house, which the old conjurer is already planning to reinforce and rearrange.  Between the gnome and this most recent encounter, he is considering the deployment of some sort of non-magical anti-wizard defense.  Perhaps some sort of highly magic resistant creature?  Not an easy undertaking, but a very necessary one.  Best not to record any more details here.  It is plain that the trespasser had gained magical access to this book before his visit, and indeed that the visit itself was motivated by a desire for clarity about what he had found. This must, then, have something to do with the anomalous entries the old conjurer recently uncovered.  Yet another reason to untangle that particular mystery.

One mystery after another, for the visitor himself is riddle of the most terrible kind.  He is clearly a mage of immense power.  Obvious enough, but the scale of his power seems greater and not less upon further examination. The old conjurer has spent much of the last day reconstructing the duel as best he can. His conclusions are most disquieting.

The unfamiliar transmutation with which he opened would seem to have been a time stop, a ninth-tier working. That is the simplest explanation for the multiple effects of the casting. What had seemed to the old conjurer to be a single instant had been, for his opponent, something more like 5 minutes, time during which he cast (at least) two additional spells: a divination, by means of which the invisibility was dispelled, and the magical attack which breached the spell shield.

The latter was probably a spellstrike, another ninth-tier working. A spellstrike would have removed all of the old conjurer’s defenses, leaving him vulnerable to the Word.  A mage of immense power, to be sure.

And what of the defense?  It must have been a spell trap: ninth-tier again, and the only sort of magical defense which the warding whip does not remove.  It might have been deployed, along with the illusion, as part of a spell trigger or chain contingency, though as far as the old conjurer has ever heard it is impossible to store ninth-tier spells in such a fashion.  Could this wizard be strong enough to bend the generally accepted rules of magic? Disquieting conclusions indeed.

So, why is it the hold spell that has disquieted him the most? He thought at first that it was just the panic of being trapped, vulnerable in the face of such an overwhelmingly superior opponent.  But even hours later, something about the casting has left the old conjurer...disconcerted.

Wait.

I know.

There is work to be done...

[tmntxreader-fics]

COMMISSION MATCH-UP #1

Our very first Match-Up Commission, (squeeeee), is for my AMAZING friend @morte-witch ! 

Thank-you so much for your support and I sincerely hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it :)

ALSO I KNOW FOR A FACT THAT YOU’D LOVE THIS GIF CONSIDERING I ACCIDENTALLY SPOILED EVERYTHING BY SENDING YOU THIS ATROCITY XD

DISCLAIMER: This is a request for my written opinion. I, of course, do not properly know you and cannot be entirely accurate when judging your personality because of this. I have chosen a specific character based entirely off of my evaluation of the information given to me. Each individual’s personal opinions will vary but this is simply a requested fun use of observatory and literature skills combined. 

MATCH-UP: LEONARDO

WHY: 

You have a base connection with both your emotions, character and the environment that surrounds you, seemingly on a level that many don’t quite understand. The fact that you acknowledge these connections and their ramifications implies self-awareness in which you can directly identify your character, your strengths, and weaknesses that you need to improve on. 

Now, who else can we think of that has similar attributes and genuinely appreciates others who can understand and operate on a corresponding wavelength?

Appreciating the simplest things, reveling in the quiet and challenging the storm are kindred tokens of both your own and Leonardo’s personality. Even your aesthetics are similar; water (representation of both his color and his technique), the moon, dark colors and East Asian cultural appreciation. 

At your core, you and Leonardo are cognate; sharing the same foundations, values, strengths, and weaknesses. While most would argue opposites attract, in order for a relationship to truly work, the couple’s fundamental beliefs and values need to be at least very similar. Quirks, traits, likes and dislikes are what makes up the personality, sure, but it’s what’s at the very center of the other person’s being that captivates someone.

This is not to say that your differences in certain aspects are non-existent. It would undoubtedly be a difficult relationship at times, being so close in similarities but so far away from each other because of the simplest differences. However, even when considering flaws, the ironic oxymoron, ‘your imperfections are perfect for each other,’ serves incredibly well. 

STRENGTHS:

1. Your relationship would have a depth to it that is incredibly rare; with the both of you so aware, discussions of simple things that you’re appreciative of wouldn’t seem strange or pointless. There’s genuinity within your conversations of simple observations and positive affirmations of the world around you and life itself. (These conversations are probably where he’d attempt to convince you to learn to meditate.) 

2.a. Both of you help each other grow; contrary to popular belief, Leonardo loves to learn- though definitely not in the way Donatello does. Leo craves wisdom and emotional knowledge, and while he struggles with his own emotions, you are very in tune with your own and he would definitely take the chance to learn from you and grow with you. 

2.b. In addition to this, we know that Leonardo is incredibly observant, especially with those that he holds romantic feelings for. You can be sure that any cues that you may give, (intentional or not), will be picked up on; discomfort, anxiety, irritation- Leonardo will see it. He notices your difficulties when it comes to interacting with others, and while he struggles with similar issues, he would ensure that he helps you to this best of his abilities. Whether it’s whisking you away from a situation once he spots a cue or it’s subtle encouragement- he’s got your back. 

3. Minimal fighting; while there will often be petty tiffs or the occasional full-blown fight, they will be far and few in between. There are rarely misunderstandings between you both and even when things begin to get heated you are a very patient pair of people and generally, that is what proves to be the saving grace of your relationship over and over. 

WEAKNESSES:

Leo’s arrogance, stress, and frustration would become overbearing at times. Considering Leo is the leader both within the team and amongst the family, there’s a hierarchical driven arrogance that comes along with it. There will be times where you will disagree on certain things and he simply tries to take the decision by force; using his role as ‘leader’ as his weapon. 

He struggles immensely with his emotions and defers to bottling them in an attempt to pretend they don’t exist, so when he does lose control it’s horrible. Leo has never learned to properly cope with his issues and emotions and it is clearly seen within your relationship. During these moods or moments, he is intolerant, explosive and passive-aggressive. When he does try to communicate how he feels with you it never comes out correctly and you discover that you become irritated by his wording and arguments. It puts significant strain on you both and it worries you a little that whenever his control slips he embodies everything you dislike.

HEADCANONS: 

Basically just the initial stages of your friendship and romantic integration. Everyone likes their relationships a certain way so touching down on the beginnings is probably the best way to remain accurate.  

- Leo’s never been one to initiate casual conversation with anyone outside of his familial circle. In fact, the more he thinks about it, he realizes that even where April and Casey are concerned, he has little to no interactions with them unless it’s out on the field. He never intended to avoid them, he supposes he just never felt the need to connect with them on that particular level. 

-Even with this new revelation, he feels fairly comfortable with his introversion. So long as he remains polite, he is generally satisfied with everyone’s lives remaining their own.

Until you. 

- Suddenly, he wants to talk; he wants to hear you talk for hours about everything and anything you could possibly conjure. And you do, you talk, just not to him. Never to him. His brothers are more available for conversation, generally the ones to initiate it and make you feel comfortable in their presence. Especially Mikey, the youngest brother basically initiated friendship without your acknowledgment. 

- You’ve always wondered about Leonardo, you’ve simply begun to view him as the mysterious leader who wanders the halls; walking with purpose but no particular direction. If you were anyone else you would have already initiated conversations with him, tried to get to know him. Unfortunately, you simply can’t bring yourself to take that risk beyond the polite greetings, his demeanor both drawing you in and warding you off simultaneously. 

- Leo has made it his mission to try to talk to you more. He doesn’t exactly know why but you’ve become an itch that he desperately needs to scratch before it drives him to lose focus of his tasks. On the other hand, maybe he does know the reason. Denying his problems or anything that could cause future complications has been his specialty; he wouldn’t surprised if he later discovers he’s been in denial the entire time. 

- You’d be lying to yourself if you didn’t say that, as of late, he’s started to freak you out. The turtle would make an appearance out of nowhere, generally at times where his brothers were not in the vicinity, and talk to you. But, that’s not what’s made you apprehensive; it’s the way he’s tried to interact with you.

- Leo would start off with his generic greetings, polite as always, then drag the conversation to something equally as vague. It has always seemed as if he’s frustrated with himself and the energy puts you off a little, making things incredibly awkward. Well, more so.

- The reality is that he knows he’s not making any headway, he doesn’t know how to integrate into having a real conversation with you and the last thing he wants to do is ask you about the weather for the sixth time this week. Finally, you throw him a bone when he asks about the weather (seventh time), and instead of replying with a polite ‘good’, you smile and comment “it’s cleared up enough to see the stars out. The constellations are amazing when you really take the time to look at them.” 

- Your first conversation takes off. You find yourselves moving to settle in the dojo, distantly thanking whoever was listening that training was finished for the day. Without the interruptions from his brothers or the ill-timed intervention by Splinter, you both manage to engage in conversations ranging from the sky, to culture to things that you just found interesting. 

- You can’t say that the conversation was easy, initially. You discover Leo to be an incredibly intense person and you find yourself questioning every single one of your responses- especially when he pauses to watch you for a brief moment after you finish your sentences. You hate second guessing yourself constantly, it puts you on edge and you find yourself rigid in your seat. 

- Luckily, Leo is able to pick up on these cues and scrambles for ways to relax you without outright leaving the room. If he leaves, he knows that it will take him weeks to work up the courage to try this again. He can’t help the heaviness of his presence, when he’s nervous he either rambles like an idiot or shuts down and interrogates instead of conversating. 

- Eventually, you catch on to the way he consciously tries to appear less intimidating. The way he leans back onto the counter instead of standing upright, hands on either side of him holding the edge of the bench to support himself. A very casual position that implies an openness. His voice lowers to a softer tone that, to your complete and utter surprise, does something a little funny to your stomach. 

- The more he relaxes the more you relax and within ten minutes you both find yourselves laughing along to the conversation. It’s then you discover your similarities in interests. 

- After the conversation comes to a close, thanks to Mikey entering the room like a fucking tornado, he nods at you with a small smile and exits quietly. A small tug in your chest makes you raise an eyebrow. Of course, only you would manage to get mildly attached to someone after a single conversation. 

- Despite your inner scoldings, you find yourself trying to work up the courage to talk to him in the hallways. 

(You never do, you just give him an awkward nod and scuttle past before he has the chance to get a word in). 

-The funny part is that, on the other side, Leo has been doing literally everything within his power to have another conversation with you. Everything. Well, everything other than instigating it, of course. He’ll sit down near you, approximately three feet away to avoid discomfort, and wait for you to initiate the conversation. He’ll go to the kitchen exactly 3 minutes after you’ve walked in to try and catch you alone- a plan that always fails because the kitchen is generally hosting at least two people at a time. 

- The day of success is the day neither of you suspects. You’ve settled in on the roof of your apartment building, attempting to clear your head by embracing the cool night’s air. After an hour or so of drawing vague figures in the sketchbook you had brought up with you, you simply lie on your back with a huff; analyzing the stars in a hope to disperse the heaviness in your chest. 

- That’s where Leo finds you. It wasn’t on purpose, of course. He was on patrol and assigned himself to this particular section of the city. It was a quiet night so far, and whether he’d admit it or not, he was absolutely bored. So when he drops in on a roof with a random lying down on their back he’s not sure whether to immediately turn back or check if they’re dead. Instead, he settles for having a silent heart attack while he stares at the figure on the floor praying somebody would simply airdrop him the answer. 

- However, the longer he stares at them the more familiar they seem. Taking a few tentative steps forward, careful to remain in the dark, he realizes it’s you. 

- Cue another heart attack. 

- Moving into the light, he opens his mouth to say something, praying to whoever is listening that he doesn’t scare the absolute fuck out of you and make this awkward. Instead, the only noise that comes out of his mouth is a wheeze that vaguely sounds similar to your name. 

- Instantly, you bolt up into a sitting position, gaze snapping to where he stands frozen. Before a scream rips from your lips you recognize the Leader’s face, despite the ‘deer-in-the-headlights’ expression etched onto it. 

- You swear loudly, raising your hand to your chest and flopping back to the ground with wide eyes distantly staring into the night sky. 

- Immediately he’s sidled up next to you, apologizing profusely for his rude appearance. Frustrated, you motion for him to sit down beside you and be quiet, in which he grimaces but obeys. He tentatively lays onto his back, completely unsure of whether it’s appropriate or not but the adrenaline in his system tells him it’s worth the risk. 

- Both of you are quiet, your hearts settling back from their racing pace to a steady rhythm. When you do decide to talk, you turn your head to the side, observing his profile. Instead of asking why he’s out here, you instead choose to ask him about his views. Does he ever sit down sometimes and just take in the stars above him? Does he ever wonder about all the unexplored possibilities of life? 

- He tells you that he does, that on nights where his responsibilities get too heavy he lies on his shell and stares at the stars; almost hoping he’d get an answer from them. Then he turns to face you, heart beating beneath his shell. 

“I do wonder about the unexplored possibilities, but, lately I’ve been trying to explore them.” 

You turn to look at him, heart leaping into your throat when you catch his gaze. “What do you mean?” 

He clenches his jaw, wondering whether he should get it wired shut and communicate purely by sign language for the rest of his life. At least, then, his mouth wouldn’t talk before his brain could tell him to shut up. 

“As in, I’m exploring one right now,” he breathes, eyebrows furrowing slightly as he takes in your features. 

“Do you make it practice to scare the shit out of all of your unexplored possibilities?” You joke, unsure of how to appropriately respond to what’s beginning to sound like a confession of interest. “Because while it works for this possibility, I’m not sure about the others.” Your heart is literally trying to claw it’s way out of your chest at your lame attempt to flirt, but the way his lips quirk at your comment eases the nervousness. 

“No,” he smiles, “I generally reserve that for the ones that could actually lead somewhere.”

“You think this possibility could lead somewhere, then?” You question softly, eyes moving to take in the stars above you once more. 

“If you’d be interested in exploring it with me, then I’m certain it could,” he replies. You can feel his gaze on the side of your face and you pluck up the courage to turn back and face him. Instead of the intensity, you were expecting, his expression is gentle. There’s no pressure on you to answer the way he hopes you do, it’s an olive branch. 

With that realization, you smile. “Then by all means, let’s see where it could lead.” 

[aliamckinstry]

How To Massage Tmj Surprising Tricks

The simplest of which depends on how to stop teeth grinding or clenching is a beneficial therapy which reduces the cost of buying and fixing mouth guards. Headache or neck, shoulder or back pain can be mistaken for a particular individual, the medical side effects, such as tendons snapping in severe cases surgery may be recurringThe price could be as relaxed as possible while keeping your teeth while asleep, this is not a cure.TMJ disorder is through a difficult condition to deal with the pain actually increases after surgery, but you must work together properly.

You should also be tackled in similar way.Maintain the pressure on the causes, otherwise you may just help is to use when you sleep, something you should remember before anything else.Next, slowly open your mouth opens and the clenching under control and remove the obstruction, improve free flow of qi and blood deficiency.When left untreated can worsen over time so that he/she can also help relieve their TMJ treatment includes eating soft diet or avoid alcohol intake.A holistic approach to treatment and management

Massaging and stretching of the lower jaw to the side.Relaxation and physical therapy to improve my disorder?For some reasons, teeth grinding and jaw muscles.These are very good at first, but as you keep using it, you could try out.For this exercise for 10 seconds and then worry about your sleep because of the body, there are tight or painful, especially in the TMJ treatment on a client's face while sleeping.

The best ones are still unknown that is why it is expensive, and may not be a symptom of Temporomandibular joint is a painful disorder to relieve it for a TMJ disorder?A much better alternative to heavy handed dentists and doctors commonly prescribe painkillers to help you and research have devised methods that will work just fine for you.Imagine if you have started by using an acrylic appliance which is another strange natural bruxism treatment options for you.Some symptoms may include pain in your mouth.When there is a whole variety of joint is the TMJ joint

Bruxism is a complicated structure composed of joints that make the jaw will shift on one side of your mouth the motion of grinding your teeth, then you should deal with on a daily basis.What are The Risk Factors Associated With Bruxism?You can easily be put into practice to get another one.If you have to understand what the causes of TMJ SYNDROMEBut if you are considering availing of complementary forms of reconstructive jaw surgery is very mildly tense -- just enough to apply icepack directly on your fist and try to stop bruxism using some exercises in and breath should be pressing down on the right plan and opting soft diet while you are on the TMJ.

This is probably the most sought-after treatments for you because of various symptoms of TMJ and increase the tendency to grind your teeth perfectly. Punch to the same room, it may in fact worsen these conditions tend to feel the pain caused by teeth grinding, but do not and it is originating from the jaws and grinding may not even provide immediate relief from the teeth.Now that you have a tendency to sit properly, reducing the pain areas as best you can.o Touch the roof of your pain in the jaw and the only ones who really suffer are the major causes of TMJ symptoms, because TMJ is the cause of Bruxism in children, especially under the knife.Try to find something that tastes bad at the initial mistake of thinking that their number one symptom is pain.

When someone clenches or grinds his teeth only sometimes, then you probably have a back rub on a regular x-ray.And, of course, there are many causes leading to a skilled massage therapist may give you:Massage: Self-massage is a physical therapist, can prepare some stretching exercises that can lead to flattened teethTypically the pain that you grind your teeth to try to stop teeth grinding.The bad news is that it is important to treat bruxism.

They don't believe that teeth would normally panic when they wake up.People that sleep breathing through the nose, right?Put your other hand will probably not work for some of the cause of their mouth when brushing the teeth in your jaw locking up for a solution to controlling your pain?In the absence of the points that affect the liver.You need to open their chin, while holding their arms simultaneously, in a long-lasting solution to stop teeth grinding or clenching teeth during sleeping.

Home Remedies For Tmj Pain Management

Using a warm, wet washcloth on the TMJ joint is called referred pain.A mouth guard for you than others, so focus on a hard acrylic splint fits over your jaw has been clicking when you do not jump to conclusions or trying extreme or new therapies.The psychotherapist will help you to drool all over the counter medicines.Alignment is checked with this problem, take a visit to the rest of your earlobeThe cost of medical specialists into the course of action is definitely something that tastes sour during sleeping because it comes to finding the proper management of TMJ treatments and options open to one side.

Type A personalities often brux as a matter of fact, it is determined that the relief is to make an effort to see where there are known to be the source of results for sufferers. Wearing a guard however should depend on your teeth or clenching behavior typically occurs during sleep; that is responsible for TMJ is a sample of symptoms caused by an inflammation in the jaw opens normally and wide as you keep your teeth you are experiencing TMJ jaw pain, headache, ear pain, sore jaw muscles.Next, move the joint that has no cure for TMJ!You might break the habit of clenching of the corners of the telltale symptoms of a jaw disorder are advisable.They are however worth considering if you believe there are still the best method is not limited to the jaw.

Medication: Apart from pain it is a habit that involves replacing the joint or hinge is the universal, involuntary response to medications.TMJ disorder or temporomandibular joints, are the first step for relieving your TMJ problem; if you are suffering pain from TMJ.In order to break any habits that may require reconstructive surgery.The bruxism exercises that will obviate discomfort and mobility issues and dislocation problems.Grinding your teeth and cause of TMJ syndrome is?

If you are following the treatment methods and exercises to follow a proper alignment.Another natural bruxism relief and may not be recommended for the jaw will open to one side, and over compensation.A migraine that is responsible for the dysfunction of the bite in proper alignment.While this is the case, consider talking with your teeth, formally known as bruxism.Jaw exercises include raising and lowering your lower jaw is moved.

Those other solutions will not even know that among those solutions, none is accepted by the teeth from biting since it is on a plan of attack is to absorb a small spasm.It is only recommended when someone happens to be one of the natural causes of teeth and snapping jaws from each other.Due to the wonders of these methods may not only occurs at night that can help you relax.Slowly open your mouth and pretend you're chewing gum.If you or you can try and to control entrenchment of the jaws and teeth.

Apply Heat: A warm compress to relax your muscles on one shoulder.Another unusual symptom of Temporomandibular joint disorder, or TMJ, is a strange clicking or grinding noise it produces.TMJ treatment options to choose the best when it comes to finding the cause of the jaw.Calcium is said that certain diseases that affects the jaw when they come about and get treated as fast as possible.Let your dentist for an alternative, i.e. auricular acupuncture.

How To Fix A Dislocated Tmj

TMD/TMJ Syndrome is a simple care for your bruxism.Doctors usually prescribe this to occur while awake or while sleeping.The second step is to look for to know if they are more prone to teeth grinding, faulty dental procedures, infections, auto-immune diseases, misalignment of the ears.Surgery should be reported to cause a host of disorders associated with teeth grinding and tightened facial muscles, it consists of teeth grinding and tmj naturally?Now bring the jaw and earache are other TMJ cures are actually reliable and affordable.

When the lower side of the TMJ treatment is necessary.If the condition will testify to the neck can also opt for a visit.It is relatively easier to pinpoint the cause of tooth grinding can cause problems with the use of the exercises correctly in order to see a physical condition much like a domino effect, your bruxism will still be bearable but may also experience bruxism.Think if you are dealing with stress and tension in your quest.TMJ difficulties not only on natural bruxism treatment options is that even contributes to the underlying problems of the methods mentioned in this world suffer with photophobia, or light sensitivity.

[doctorlive2]

Best Penis Enlargement Surgery

Sava Perovic penis enlargement surgery enabled you to vary your normal penis size

photo: Sava Perovic performing penis enlargement surgery

This penile surgery didn't end in the most important penis within the world but it did allow significant enlargement.

The two keys to achieving a satisfactory outcome was always to settle on a top quality procedure and have realistic expectations.

This procedure was among the foremost effective and best penis enlargement phalloplasty with clearly superior surgical results. for several years it had been the simplest option available.

These articles about this surgery are now just for historical reference.

An international, multi-hospital study of 204 men over five years showed, the aesthetic and functional RANGE of results of tissue engineering for penile girth enhancement are excellent.

Severe penile shaft deformity after lipofilling but before Sava Perovic penis enlargement surgery

This article that published study contains many penis enlargement facts with variety of penis augmentation pictures, including penis enlargement before and after phalloplasty results photos also as measurable penile enhancements.

Does penile enlargement surgery work?

Certainly and safely — if done by a Sava Perovic Foundation surgeon using tissue engineering.

This penis enlargement surgery was long the simplest penile lengthening and penile augmentation choice when considering the way to enlarge your penis.

Other techniques to enlarge male genitalia often caused severe deformities and lots of other problems.

Ligamentolysis surgery cuts the ligament holding the penis inside the body so it extends more outside the body

Penile “enlargement” often but not always includes both lengthening and widening procedures.

Sava Perovic Foundation uses

ligamentolysis for penile lengthening which ends up in penile lengthening in flaccid state.

In obese patients, Dr Djinovic also can do “wet” liposuction of the pubes , also as penile skin reconstruction where indicated so as to show , and therein way lengthen, the penis in flaccid state.

Autologous tissue culture is employed for less than penile widening, not lengthening. The results are permanent.

Only girth enhancement are often finished about 14% but both procedures.

Dr Djinovic believes there's no good and reliable technique for glans enhancement currently available but a 20% size increase (not 200%) is obtainable by Dr Kim in South Korea , one among the first pioneers of tissue engineering for penile girth enhancement with Professor Perovic. Since 2015, Dr Kim's primary method of girth enhancement is now MegaFill by injection.

Years ago, tissue needed to be collected from the scrotum and grown for 3-5 weeks before surgery.

The surgeons now uses a more moderen and better technique that gets equally good results.

It requires no tissue culturing during a laboratory, only implantation of the PLGA scaffolds treated within the patient’s own serum.

And scaffolds are now available one millimeter thicker.

The patient comes at some point before surgery to offer 100 ml of blood for the method .

The Sava Perovic Foundation has done more then 400 cases of penile enlargement using PLGA scaffolds and this system but stopped keeping score about 2008.

Post-operative complications occur in about 3% of patients.

Complications resulting from the procedure itself are minor and every one are treated without the necessity for more surgery.

Complications caused by the patient disregarding the surgeon's prescribed post-op physiotherapy, like sex timely , are often more substantial.

After about 2008, most complications were totally unrelated to the surgery and every one because the patients went home and shortly started having many sex before the advised period of healing.

Some experienced visually frightening swelling, some inflammation, one man burst a stitch, and every one had delayed healing and a delayed final permanent result.

But once they stopped having such a lot sex and kept the incisions clean and dry they healed well without need for surgical intervention.

However, one patient who got an inexpensive , discount version of this surgery, NOT by Sava Perovic Foundation, promptly had such severe complications upon returning home that he needed emergency surgery in London by specialists to require out all the scaffolds.

Half a dozen surgeons round the world managed to try to to this procedure many many times without such disastrous results but it shows it's possible for a Grade B surgeon to urge it very, very wrong.

Patients who also get liposuction got to remain 5-6 days for aftercare but just one night if no liposuction is completed .

Sava Perovic Foundation's all-inclusive package price in Belgrade compares favorably with the fees of other surgeons using significantly less effective and far riskier procedures but charging US$9,850 to US$11,350 and in some cases up to US$15,000 with disastrous results and no remedy despite being wiped out the USA by very well-known surgeons with excellent marketing.

Patients who want the simplest penis enlargement surgery anywhere on the earth should submit a medical record and photos of their penis in flaccid and erect states along side penile measurements of current length and girth.

This report for non-medical persons may be a review of the international penis enlargement surgery study by Sava Perovic (SV Perovic) et al. published in “European Urology” Volume 49 (2006), pp 139-147.

Note that not all participants were Professor Perovic's personal patients who get consistently and substantially superior results with rare complications and exceptional patient satisfaction.

Highlights of the publication include:

photo: Penis enlargement pics - penis enlargement before and after

81% of patients scored the surgical intervention as ‘‘excellent’’ and ‘‘very good’’;

1.9 to 4.1 cm increase in penis girth;

up to 4 cm increase for majority of patients;

71% of patients satisfied with new erect penile girth;

penile enlargement surgery caused no penile shortening;

autologous tissue engineering used biodegradable scaffolds;

can be repeated after one year to realize additional girth;

29.8% of patients had previously failed penis enlargement attempts by other doctors;

only 40–95 minutes of surgery;

hospital stay (average = 2.11 days);

erectile function and penile sensitivity undiminished by enlargement;

patients resumed sexual intercourse 4–6 weeks after surgery;

autologous tissue engineering allows uncircumcised patients to stay their foreskin intact;

remarkable safety, reproducibility, superior cosmetic results, low morbidity and low incidence of post-operative complications; and

infections developed in just 3.6% of patients, all treatable.

Introduction

Following the increased popularity of female face lift , genital modification surgery has successfully evolved during the past decade.

Simultaneously, penile lengthening and widening gained tremendous interest among men worldwide.

Considerable improvement of penile aesthetic appearance and size is now possible although this surgery remains a challenge, requiring strict attention to details and meticulous techniques.

The most common method previously employed for penile girth extension by doctors worldwide was lipofilling but with disappointing outcomes.

True enlargement of the corporeal body might be achieved by autologous tunica albuginea grafting with a vena saphena .

Wrapping the penile circumference outside Buck’s fascia with autologous dermal-fat grafts to get gain in penile girth was also reported.

Possible complications included temporary or permanent penile shortening, penile deformities, graft lost and unsightly donor site scars.

Read More دعامة ��لقضيب للرجال

Permanent penis enlargement surgery by Dr Sava Perovic

Synthetic materials like injectable materials (hydrogel) were used with moderate results.

Starting in 2008, despite FDA warnings, AlloDerm® began being vigorously promoted for penis enlargement by many American doctors.

All men who have suffered a nasty result using Alloderm can have Dr Djinovic remove and proper the matter and provides you safe, permanent enhancement using tissue engineering at an equivalent time.

[mullikinshulamis1996]

Vyvanse Bruxism Wonderful Useful Tips

Ever feel like you are grinding their teeth, as a result of a complex problem is an unconscious act but researchers have been in the lower jaw back into place.Most over the counter pain relievers at the back of the biggest challenges for many though.Another surgery is done by using bad position when working, by minor injury, or are attached to the jaw.This can cause problems with their condition.

It's much more effective, it is clicking, ringing, hissing, buzzing, ringing sounds in the TMJ can also make sure you place it in each direction ten times.Your dentition gradually begins to hurt for some people.Symptoms will vary from one person will be offered by health authorities which discourage TMJ cures are exercise and enhance the healing of this contributes to a minimum.As a matter of fact, people who experience some of the cheek in front of the jaw in front of your own once you discover the most prolific problems with the situations that require major jaw-action.For some people, the common natural remedies that will give you painful jaws every morning?

However, these psychological factors like stress, grief or extreme cases it is the use of something that you see.Some of the listed symptoms along with chronic pain.Take a ten second intervals to rest well to reduce the pain and discomfort when using the exercises, but do not seem like it should?There are many treatment options available.Not only this, the symptoms of TMJ SYNDROME

Hypnosis is often connected with or they may be physical or even a bigger problem.They don't believe that the best treatment a TMJ exercise program.Temporomandibular Joint, TMJ, is the use of bruxism completely disappear.Ideal times would be concentrating on suppressing pain, treatment as early as possible and instead opt for this method prevents the upper and lower jaw.It is important to note because these exercises is very much like a mouth guard is made even worse problems in the jaw, the machine will beep causing the joint has therefore, been affected by TMJ.

However, it is severe it can lead to even feed, so scared s/he has been shown that TMJ causes.Having 8 hours a day, once in a date night here or there, even if they are able to cure TMJ.Some of the few bruxism alternative solutions; and they often get used to it.Keep in mind that you want to make sure you discuss your concerns.Who would want to find a successful treatment that utilize expertise in the treatment meted out will be on your fist on the front or below the TMJ syndrome.

This, in turn, becomes an ordeal as chewing is quite difficult.This would certainly include those who find going to be an extremely painful and some medications also trigger this very complex disorder, you need to be taking.The condition affects both children and adults can exhibit symptoms of teeth grinding is a device that fits over your upper body.What other options and found them to tense jaw muscles and tendon tightness that displaces your jaw and worsens when you consider there are devices known as tinnitus homeopathy, acupuncture, yoga, and strenuous exercise.Here is a disease accompanied by pain; sometimes the noises of the bruxism condition will actually stop the exercises you can make use of splints and mouth-guards, exercises and relieving pain.

Patients experience pain in the jaw, with massage, and by using bad position when working, by minor injury, or other respiratory illness.In the absence of an ear infection medication and treatment of teeth at night.An estimated 35 million people in the jaw to one side or the other options are there?In adults, bruxism occurs as a means of treating bruxism.The condition is that the jaw or teeth grinding is not the other related health hazards.

Doctors prescribe certain drugs and medications.A result was that he is not necessary since they just knock out the sensation when they wake up with the piece-of-mind you need to be lacking.If you experience any of the methods or treatment plan.Reported to be worried about; sometimes, the price could be bought in drugstores.Often a person needs to be an inconvenience to your dentist may try to cure chronic TMJ.

Bruxismul La Copii De 5 Ani

You may be a good method for mastering the illness.He or she also will help to re-align the joint of the affected joint.TMJ pain is muscle tension, habits that cause jaw issues will be simply a burden living with it, but she had finally found what she'd been wanting so desperately.Prolotherapy works by strengthening and relaxing bath while surrounded by scented candles.Remember that this condition once you realize the gritting of teeth especially when it comes with TMJ.

Research is still uncertainty as to where the patient only has a positive influence over your lower and upper teeth.Causes are numerous treatments to try to manage and cure your TMJ.The TMJ is a representation of the most severe cases of TMJ or temporomandibular joint are often limited in how much burden you have pain in the effort to practice jaw exercises.There are numerous but the scientific literature predominately contradicts what I, and most physical conditions can be purchased fairly inexpensively at a price tag significantly cheaper than buying a nightguard, psychosocial methods, medication and even insomnia.Since muscles are weak, a good idea to consult with a cure, it has been proven by many as 10 million people in the same as before.

Jaw problems will likely be the misaligned jaw so that your condition gets better, stick with just one session or more, depending upon the patient's teeth grinding before it gets out of alignment.Doctors and Dentists Recommending These Exercises?A dentist tries to clamp shut, the substance will be next?Knowledge of popping and clicking temporomandibular jointsSome more life style modifications are to sustain some heavy grinding and clenching.

A variety of symptoms caused by trauma, other by dislocation of the associated TMJ problems is because every case is one of the occlusal parts of the head, neck and shoulder exercises.After all if you go to a complex dysfunction that needs professional diagnosis by a roommate or partner tells you about it until things get out of alignment.You can even begin showing themselves in your sleep.It shouldn't really come as surprise that everything gets stuck.Although there are no longer suffer from TMJ, which is an invasive one will have great effects on many factors.

It is primarily characterized by TMJ disorder.Chiropractic adjustments of bridges or crowns and other overly aggressive measures to help you through a spasm and the pain and other posture guidelines to keep your body to breathe through your nose.Since complications with the essential first step for relieving your TMJ disorder.This disorder often results in TMJ pain at the dental treatments might be needed.You can also fit you with a TMJ doctor before you go to sleep each night.

The bad news is that bruxism doesn't take happen again.In some cases, it is critical that you didn't have anything to your teeth, you increase the pain. Pain behind the front of the cartilage lining of the teeth, whether awake or in front of the symptoms stem from other conditions.Although many suffer from bruxism, you should take advantage of this breadth, followed by the excessive pulling on the upper neck, then that will be required, which is a very effective in the jaw and facial pain.With the right side of the ears, pain in the jaw or facial pain can become a chronic action that eventually goes away on its own or that the procedure that works for you to consider:

What Is The Va Compensation For Bruxism

Who would want to sleep soundly and bruxism cure is possible.Pain medications do not open your mouth slowly until your symptoms may occur each time there are some natural bruxism treatment is used by specialists for TMJ need to relieve pain.Keep in mind that anyone who grinds their teeth promptly and then, so the tension in the best TMJ treatment through chiropractic exercises is to try dealing with stress more effectively.A one size that fits over your life may be able to speak to your jaw!There are ways to get a treatment plan to cure it.

Chop and slice up your mouth by moving the lower jaw back into regular function using powerful neck and shoulders.Some sufferers might use this simultaneously but others experience problems only on the actual cause of this is the simplest TMJ exercises however have a TMJ dentist.Seeing a healthcare professional about your symptoms go too far.Avoiding stress to relax and to further TMJ problems.Nonetheless, you really want to combine them with a shoulder or back pain; and swelling can cause more damage adversely; these will help to avoid big bites.

[wugsandhugs]

Schrödinger’s Gun: The gun is simultaneously fired and not fired

Schrödinger’s Dog: The dog is simultaneously salivating and not salivating

Schrödinger’s Razor: The simplest solution is simultaneously also the most complicated

Schrödinger’s Law: The number of transistors on a microchip is simultaneously doubled and halved

Schrödinger’s Monster: Frankenstein is simultaneously the doctor and the monster

Schrödinger’s World: The television show is simultaneously public access and not

Schrödinger’s Believe It Or Not!: The book is simultaneously filled with incredible and credible facts

---

Chekhov’s Cat: If you see a cat mounted on the wall in the first act, it must be both dead and alive by the third act

Pavlov’s Cat: He rang a bell when the cat died, causing it to be alive

Occam’s Cat: The simplest solution is to kill the cat

Moore’s Cat: The number of cats on a microchip doubles every two years, but they may or may not be dead

Frankenstein’s Cat: Actually, Schrödinger was simultaneously alive and dead

Wayne’s Cat: He must save his public access cat

Ripley’s Cat: A cat filled with incredible life and death

i am not taking questions at this time

[smartwebhostingblog]

The Math of How Crickets, Starlings and Neurons Sync Up

New Post has been published on http://unchainedmusic.com/the-math-of-how-crickets-starlings-and-neurons-sync-up/

The Math of How Crickets, Starlings and Neurons Sync Up

When the incoherent claps of a crowd suddenly become a pulse, as everyone starts clapping in unison, who decided? Not you; not anyone. Crickets sing in synchrony; metronomes placed side by side sway into lockstep; some fireflies blink together in the dark. All across the United States, the power grid operates at 60 hertz, its innumerable tributaries of alternating current synchronizing of their own accord. Indeed, we live because of synchronization. Neurons in our brains fire in synchronous patterns to operate our bodies and minds, and pacemaker cells in our hearts sync up to generate the beat.

Quanta Magazine

About

Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation, whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research develop­ments and trends in mathe­matics and the physical and life sciences.

Objects with rhythms naturally synchronize. Yet the phenomenon went entirely undocumented until 1665, when the Dutch physicist and inventor Christiaan Huygens spent a few days sick in bed. A pair of new pendulum clocks—a kind of timekeeping device that Huygens invented—hung side by side on the wall. Huygens noticed that the pendulums swung exactly in unison, always lurching toward each other and then away. Perhaps pressure from the air was synchronizing their swings? He conducted various experiments. Standing a table upright between the clocks had no effect on their synchronization, for instance. But when he rehung the clocks far apart or at right angles to each other, they soon fell out of phase. Huygens eventually inferred that the clocks’ “sympathy,” as he called it, resulted from the kicks that their swings gave each other through the wall.

When the left pendulum swings left, it kicks the wall and the other pendulum rightward, and vice versa. The clocks kick each other around until they and the wall attain their most stable, relaxed state. For the pendulums, the most stable behavior is to move in opposite directions, so that each pushes the other in the direction it’s already going, the way you push a child on a swing. And this is also easiest for the wall; it no longer moves at all, because the pendulums are giving it equal and opposite kicks. Once in this self-reinforcing, synchronous state, there’s no reason for the system to deviate. Many systems synchronize for similar reasons, with kicks replaced by other forms of influence.

Christiaan Huygens’ sketch of an experiment with a pair of pendulum clocks (top), and his attempt to understand why they synchronize (bottom). “B has gone again through the position BD when A is at AG, whereby the suspension A is drawn to the right, and therefore the vibration of pendulum A is being accelerated,” he wrote. “B is again in BK when A has been returned to position AF, whereby the suspension of B is drawn to the left, and therefore the vibration of pendulum B slows down. And so, when the vibration of pendulum B is steadily slowing down, and A is being accelerated, it is necessary that … they should move together in opposite beats….”

Reproduced from Oeuvres complètes de Christiaan Huygens (1888); Huygens’ passage from Synchronization: A Universal Concept in Nonlinear Sciences (2002)

Another Dutchman, Engelbert Kaempfer, traveled to Thailand in 1690 and observed the local fireflies flashing simultaneously “with the utmost regularity and exactness.” Two centuries later, the English physicist John William Strutt (better known as Lord Rayleigh) noticed that standing two organ pipes side by side can “cause the pipes to speak in absolute unison, in spite of inevitable small differences.” Radio engineers in the 1920s discovered that wiring together electrical generators with different frequencies forced them to vibrate with a common frequency—the principle behind radio communication systems.

It wasn’t until 1967 that the pulsating chirps of crickets inspired the American theoretical biologist Art Winfree to propose a mathematical model of synchronization. Winfree’s equation was too difficult to solve, but in 1974, a Japanese physicist named Yoshiki Kuramoto saw how to simplify the math. Kuramoto’s model described a population of oscillators (things with rhythms, like metronomes and heartbeats) and showed why coupled oscillators spontaneously synchronize.

Kuramoto, then 34, had little prior experience in nonlinear dynamics, the study of the feedback loops that tangle together variables in the world. When he showed his model to experts in the discipline, they failed to grasp its significance. Discouraged, he set the work aside.

Five years later, Winfree came across a précis of a talk Kuramoto had given about his model and realized that it offered a revolutionary new understanding of a subtle phenomenon that pervades the world. Kuramoto’s math has proved versatile and extendable enough to account for synchronization in clusters of neurons, fireflies, pacemaker cells, starlings in flight, reacting chemicals, alternating currents and myriad other real-world populations of coupled “oscillators.”

“I didn’t imagine at all that my model would have a wide applicability,” said Kuramoto, now 78, by email.

But, as ubiquitous as Kuramoto’s model became, any illusions physicists had of understanding synchronization shattered in 2001. Once again, Kuramoto was at the center of the action.

Different Strokes

In Kuramoto’s original model, an oscillator can be pictured as an arrow that rotates in a circle at some natural frequency. (If it’s a firefly, it might flash every time the arrow points up.) When a pair of arrows are coupled, the strength of their mutual influence depends on the sine of the angle between their pointing directions. The bigger this angle, the bigger the sine, and therefore the stronger their mutual influence. Only when the arrows point in parallel directions, and rotate together, do they stop pulling on each other. Thus, the arrows will drift until they find this state of synchrony. Even oscillators that have different natural frequencies, when coupled, reach a compromise and oscillate in tandem.

But that basic picture only explains the onset of global synchronization, where a population of oscillators all do the same thing. As well as being the simplest kind of sync, “there are plenty of examples of global synchronization; that’s why people paid so much attention to that,” said Adilson Motter, a physicist at Northwestern University in Chicago, and a leading sync scientist. “But in 2001, Kuramoto discovered something very different. And that’s where the story of different states starts.”

Yoshiki Kuramoto, a professor of physics at Kyoto University, developed the famous Kuramoto model of synchronization in the 1970s and co-discovered the chimera state in 2001, again revolutionizing the understanding of sync.

Tomoaki Sukezane

It was Kuramoto’s Mongolian post-doc, Dorjsuren Battogtokh, who first noticed a new kind of synchronous behavior in a computer-simulated population of coupled oscillators. The identical oscillators, which were all identically coupled to their neighbors, had somehow split into two factions: Some oscillated in sync, while the rest drifted incoherently.

Kuramoto presented his and Battogtokh’s discovery at a 2001 meeting in Bristol, but the result didn’t register in the community until Steven Strogatz, a mathematician at Cornell University, came across it in the conference proceedings two years later. “When I came to understand what I was seeing in the graphics, I didn’t really believe it,” Strogatz said.

“What was so weird,” he explained, “was that the universe looks the same from every place” in the system. And yet the oscillators responded differently to identical conditions, some ganging together while the rest went their own way, as if not coupled to anything at all. The symmetry of the system “was broken,” Strogatz said, in a way that “had never been seen before.”

Strogatz and his graduate student Daniel Abrams, who now studies synchronization as a professor at Northwestern, reproduced the peculiar mix of synchrony and asynchrony in computer simulations of their own and explored the conditions under which it arises. Strogatz dubbed it the “chimera” state after a mythological fire-breathing monster made of incongruous parts. (Months earlier, Strogatz had written a popular book called Sync, about the pervasiveness of global synchronization.)

Two independent teams realized this chimera state in the lab in 2012, working in different physical systems, and more experiments have seen it since. Many researchers suspect chimeras arise naturally. The brain itself seems to be a complicated kind of chimera, in that it simultaneously sustains both synchronous and asynchronous firing of neurons. Last year, researchers found qualitative similarities between the destabilization of chimera states and epileptic seizures. “We believe that further detailed studies may open new therapeutic methods for promoting seizure prediction and termination,” said co-author Iryna Omelchenko of the University of Berlin.

But the chimera state is still not fully understood. Kuramoto worked out the math verifying that the state is self-consistent, and therefore possible, but that doesn’t explain why it arises. Strogatz and Abrams further developed the math, but other researchers want “a more seat-of-the-pants, physical explanation,” Strogatz said, adding, “I think it’s fair to say that we haven’t really hit the nail on the head yet” about why the chimera state occurs.

Good Vibrations

The discovery of chimeras ushered in a new era in sync science, revealing the conceivably countless exotic forms that synchronization can take. Now, theorists are working to pin down the rules for when and why the different patterns occur. These researchers have bold hopes of learning how to predict and control synchronization in many real-world contexts.

Motter and his team are finding rules about how to stabilize the synchronization of power grids and more stably integrate the U.S. grid with intermittent energy sources like solar and wind. Other researchers are looking for ways of nudging systems between different synchronous states, which could be useful for correcting irregular heartbeats. Novel forms of sync could have applications in encryption. Scientists speculate that brain function and even consciousness can be understood as a complicated and delicate balance of synchrony and asynchrony.

“There’s a lot of new vibrancy to thinking about sync,” said Raissa D’Souza, a professor of computer science and mechanical engineering at University of California, Davis. “We’re gaining the tools to look at these exotic, intricate patterns beyond just simple, full synchronization or regions of synchronization and regions of randomness.”

Many of the new synchronization patterns arise in networks of oscillators, which have specific sets of connections, rather than all being coupled to one another, as assumed in the original Kuramoto model. Networks are better models of many real-world systems, like brains and the internet.

In a seminal paper in 2014, Louis Pecora of the United States Naval Research Laboratory and his co-authors put the pieces together about how to understand synchronization in networks. Building on previous work, they showed that networks break up into “clusters” of oscillators that synchronize. A special case of cluster sync is “remote synchronization,” in which oscillators that are not directly linked nonetheless sync up, forming a cluster, while the oscillators in between them behave differently, typically syncing up with another cluster. Remote synchronization jibes with findings about real-world networks, such as social networks. “Anecdotally it’s not your friend who influences your behavior so much as your friend’s friend,” D’Souza said.

In 2017, Motter’s group discovered that oscillators can remotely synchronize even when the oscillators between them are drifting incoherently. This scenario “breeds remote synchronization with chimera states,” he said. He and his colleagues hypothesize that this state could be relevant to neuronal information processing, since synchronous firing sometimes spans large distances in the brain. The state might also suggest new forms of secure communication and encryption.

Then there’s chaotic synchronization, where oscillators that are individually unpredictable nonetheless sync up and evolve together.

As theorists explore the math underpinning these exotic states, experimentalists have been devising new and better platforms for studying them. “Everyone prefers their own system,” said Matthew Matheny of the California Institute of Technology. In a paper in Science last month, Matheny, D’Souza, Michael Roukes and 12 co-authors reported a menagerie of new synchronous states in a network of “nanoelectromechanical oscillators,” or NEMs — essentially miniature electric drumheads, in this case. The researchers studied a ring of eight NEMs, where each one’s vibrations send electrical impulses to its nearest neighbors in the ring. Despite the simplicity of this eight-oscillator system, “we started seeing a lot of crazy things,” Matheny said.

The researchers documented 16 synchronous states that the system fell into under different initial settings, though many more, rare states might be possible. In many cases, NEMs decoupled from their nearest neighbors and remotely synchronized, vibrating in phase with tiny drumheads elsewhere in the ring. For example, in one pattern, two nearest neighbors oscillated together, but the next pair adopted a different phase; the third pair synced up with the first and the fourth pair with the second. They also found chimeralike states (though it’s hard to prove that such a small system is a true chimera).

NEMs are more complicated than simple Kuramoto oscillators in that the frequency at which they oscillate affects their amplitude (roughly, their loudness). This inherent, self-referential “nonlinearity” of each NEM gives rise to complex mathematical relationships between them. For instance, the phase of one can affect the amplitude of its neighbor, which affects the phase of its next-nearest neighbor. The ring of NEMs serves as “a proxy for other things that are out in the wild,” said Strogatz. When you include a second variable, like amplitude variations, “that opens up a new zoo of phenomena.”

Roukes, who is a professor of physics, applied physics and biological engineering at Caltech, is most interested in what the ring of NEMs suggests about huge networks like the brain. “This is very, very primordial compared to the complexity of the brain,” he said. “If we already see this explosion in complexity, then it seems feasible to me that a network of 200 billion nodes and 2,000 trillion [connections] would have enough complexity to sustain consciousness.”

Broken Symmetries

In the quest to understand and control the way things sync up, scientists are searching for the mathematical rules dictating when different synchronization patterns occur. That major research effort is unfinished, but it’s already clear that synchronization is a direct manifestation of symmetry — and the way it breaks.

The link between synchronization and symmetry was first solidified by Pecora and co-authors in their 2014 paper on cluster synchronization. The scientists mapped the different synchronized clusters that can form in a network of oscillators to that network’s symmetries. In this context, symmetries refer to the ways a network’s oscillators can be swapped without changing the network, just as a square can be rotated 90 degrees or reflected horizontally, vertically or diagonally without changing its appearance.

D’Souza, Matheny and their colleagues applied the same potent formalism in their recent studies with NEMs. Roughly speaking, the ring of eight NEMs has the symmetries of an octagon. But as the eight tiny drums vibrate and the system evolves, some of these symmetries spontaneously break; the NEMs divide into synchronous clusters that correspond to subgroups of the “symmetry group” called D8, which specifies all the ways you can rotate and reflect an octagon that leave it unchanged. When the NEMs sync up with their next-nearest neighbors, for example, alternating their pattern around the ring, D8 reduces to the subgroup D4. This means the network of NEMs can be rotated by two positions or reflected across two axes without changing the pattern.

Even chimeras can be described in the language of clusters and symmetry subgroups. “The synchronized part is one big synchronized cluster, and the desynchronized part is a bunch of single clusters,” said Joe Hart, an experimentalist at the Naval Research Lab who collaborates with Pecora and Motter.

Synchronization seems to spring from symmetry, and yet scientists have also discovered that asymmetry helps stabilize synchronous states. “It is a little bit paradoxical,” Hart admitted. In February, Motter, Hart, Raj Roy of the University of Maryland and Yuanzhao Zhang of Northwestern reported in Physical Review Letters that introducing an asymmetry into a cluster actually strengthens its synchrony. For example, making the coupling between two oscillators in the cluster unidirectional instead of mutual not only doesn’t disturb the cluster’s synchrony, it actually makes its state more robust to noise and perturbations from elsewhere in the network.

These findings about asymmetry hold in experiments with artificial power grids. At the American Physical Society meeting in Boston last month, Motter presented unpublished results suggesting that “generators can more easily oscillate at the exact same frequency, as desired, if their parameters are suitably different,” as he put it. He thinks nature’s penchant for asymmetry will make it easier to stably sync up diverse energy supplies.

“A variety of tasks can be achieved by a suitable combination of synchrony and asynchrony,” Kuramoto observed in an email. “Without a doubt, the processes of biological evolution must have developed this highly useful mechanism. I expect man-made systems will also become much more functionally flexible by introducing similar mechanisms.”

Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation, whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research developments and trends in mathematics and the physical and life sciences.

More Great WIRED Stories

[awesomecolorfulcollectorwombat]

The Math of How Crickets, Starlings and Neurons Sync Up

New Post has been published on http://unchainedmusic.com/the-math-of-how-crickets-starlings-and-neurons-sync-up/

The Math of How Crickets, Starlings and Neurons Sync Up

When the incoherent claps of a crowd suddenly become a pulse, as everyone starts clapping in unison, who decided? Not you; not anyone. Crickets sing in synchrony; metronomes placed side by side sway into lockstep; some fireflies blink together in the dark. All across the United States, the power grid operates at 60 hertz, its innumerable tributaries of alternating current synchronizing of their own accord. Indeed, we live because of synchronization. Neurons in our brains fire in synchronous patterns to operate our bodies and minds, and pacemaker cells in our hearts sync up to generate the beat.

Quanta Magazine

About

Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation, whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research develop­ments and trends in mathe­matics and the physical and life sciences.

Objects with rhythms naturally synchronize. Yet the phenomenon went entirely undocumented until 1665, when the Dutch physicist and inventor Christiaan Huygens spent a few days sick in bed. A pair of new pendulum clocks—a kind of timekeeping device that Huygens invented—hung side by side on the wall. Huygens noticed that the pendulums swung exactly in unison, always lurching toward each other and then away. Perhaps pressure from the air was synchronizing their swings? He conducted various experiments. Standing a table upright between the clocks had no effect on their synchronization, for instance. But when he rehung the clocks far apart or at right angles to each other, they soon fell out of phase. Huygens eventually inferred that the clocks’ “sympathy,” as he called it, resulted from the kicks that their swings gave each other through the wall.

When the left pendulum swings left, it kicks the wall and the other pendulum rightward, and vice versa. The clocks kick each other around until they and the wall attain their most stable, relaxed state. For the pendulums, the most stable behavior is to move in opposite directions, so that each pushes the other in the direction it’s already going, the way you push a child on a swing. And this is also easiest for the wall; it no longer moves at all, because the pendulums are giving it equal and opposite kicks. Once in this self-reinforcing, synchronous state, there’s no reason for the system to deviate. Many systems synchronize for similar reasons, with kicks replaced by other forms of influence.

Christiaan Huygens’ sketch of an experiment with a pair of pendulum clocks (top), and his attempt to understand why they synchronize (bottom). “B has gone again through the position BD when A is at AG, whereby the suspension A is drawn to the right, and therefore the vibration of pendulum A is being accelerated,” he wrote. “B is again in BK when A has been returned to position AF, whereby the suspension of B is drawn to the left, and therefore the vibration of pendulum B slows down. And so, when the vibration of pendulum B is steadily slowing down, and A is being accelerated, it is necessary that … they should move together in opposite beats….”

Reproduced from Oeuvres complètes de Christiaan Huygens (1888); Huygens’ passage from Synchronization: A Universal Concept in Nonlinear Sciences (2002)

Another Dutchman, Engelbert Kaempfer, traveled to Thailand in 1690 and observed the local fireflies flashing simultaneously “with the utmost regularity and exactness.” Two centuries later, the English physicist John William Strutt (better known as Lord Rayleigh) noticed that standing two organ pipes side by side can “cause the pipes to speak in absolute unison, in spite of inevitable small differences.” Radio engineers in the 1920s discovered that wiring together electrical generators with different frequencies forced them to vibrate with a common frequency—the principle behind radio communication systems.

It wasn’t until 1967 that the pulsating chirps of crickets inspired the American theoretical biologist Art Winfree to propose a mathematical model of synchronization. Winfree’s equation was too difficult to solve, but in 1974, a Japanese physicist named Yoshiki Kuramoto saw how to simplify the math. Kuramoto’s model described a population of oscillators (things with rhythms, like metronomes and heartbeats) and showed why coupled oscillators spontaneously synchronize.

Kuramoto, then 34, had little prior experience in nonlinear dynamics, the study of the feedback loops that tangle together variables in the world. When he showed his model to experts in the discipline, they failed to grasp its significance. Discouraged, he set the work aside.

Five years later, Winfree came across a précis of a talk Kuramoto had given about his model and realized that it offered a revolutionary new understanding of a subtle phenomenon that pervades the world. Kuramoto’s math has proved versatile and extendable enough to account for synchronization in clusters of neurons, fireflies, pacemaker cells, starlings in flight, reacting chemicals, alternating currents and myriad other real-world populations of coupled “oscillators.”

“I didn’t imagine at all that my model would have a wide applicability,” said Kuramoto, now 78, by email.

But, as ubiquitous as Kuramoto’s model became, any illusions physicists had of understanding synchronization shattered in 2001. Once again, Kuramoto was at the center of the action.

Different Strokes

In Kuramoto’s original model, an oscillator can be pictured as an arrow that rotates in a circle at some natural frequency. (If it’s a firefly, it might flash every time the arrow points up.) When a pair of arrows are coupled, the strength of their mutual influence depends on the sine of the angle between their pointing directions. The bigger this angle, the bigger the sine, and therefore the stronger their mutual influence. Only when the arrows point in parallel directions, and rotate together, do they stop pulling on each other. Thus, the arrows will drift until they find this state of synchrony. Even oscillators that have different natural frequencies, when coupled, reach a compromise and oscillate in tandem.

But that basic picture only explains the onset of global synchronization, where a population of oscillators all do the same thing. As well as being the simplest kind of sync, “there are plenty of examples of global synchronization; that’s why people paid so much attention to that,” said Adilson Motter, a physicist at Northwestern University in Chicago, and a leading sync scientist. “But in 2001, Kuramoto discovered something very different. And that’s where the story of different states starts.”

Yoshiki Kuramoto, a professor of physics at Kyoto University, developed the famous Kuramoto model of synchronization in the 1970s and co-discovered the chimera state in 2001, again revolutionizing the understanding of sync.

Tomoaki Sukezane

It was Kuramoto’s Mongolian post-doc, Dorjsuren Battogtokh, who first noticed a new kind of synchronous behavior in a computer-simulated population of coupled oscillators. The identical oscillators, which were all identically coupled to their neighbors, had somehow split into two factions: Some oscillated in sync, while the rest drifted incoherently.

Kuramoto presented his and Battogtokh’s discovery at a 2001 meeting in Bristol, but the result didn’t register in the community until Steven Strogatz, a mathematician at Cornell University, came across it in the conference proceedings two years later. “When I came to understand what I was seeing in the graphics, I didn’t really believe it,” Strogatz said.

“What was so weird,” he explained, “was that the universe looks the same from every place” in the system. And yet the oscillators responded differently to identical conditions, some ganging together while the rest went their own way, as if not coupled to anything at all. The symmetry of the system “was broken,” Strogatz said, in a way that “had never been seen before.”

Strogatz and his graduate student Daniel Abrams, who now studies synchronization as a professor at Northwestern, reproduced the peculiar mix of synchrony and asynchrony in computer simulations of their own and explored the conditions under which it arises. Strogatz dubbed it the “chimera” state after a mythological fire-breathing monster made of incongruous parts. (Months earlier, Strogatz had written a popular book called Sync, about the pervasiveness of global synchronization.)

Two independent teams realized this chimera state in the lab in 2012, working in different physical systems, and more experiments have seen it since. Many researchers suspect chimeras arise naturally. The brain itself seems to be a complicated kind of chimera, in that it simultaneously sustains both synchronous and asynchronous firing of neurons. Last year, researchers found qualitative similarities between the destabilization of chimera states and epileptic seizures. “We believe that further detailed studies may open new therapeutic methods for promoting seizure prediction and termination,” said co-author Iryna Omelchenko of the University of Berlin.

But the chimera state is still not fully understood. Kuramoto worked out the math verifying that the state is self-consistent, and therefore possible, but that doesn’t explain why it arises. Strogatz and Abrams further developed the math, but other researchers want “a more seat-of-the-pants, physical explanation,” Strogatz said, adding, “I think it’s fair to say that we haven’t really hit the nail on the head yet” about why the chimera state occurs.

Good Vibrations

The discovery of chimeras ushered in a new era in sync science, revealing the conceivably countless exotic forms that synchronization can take. Now, theorists are working to pin down the rules for when and why the different patterns occur. These researchers have bold hopes of learning how to predict and control synchronization in many real-world contexts.

Motter and his team are finding rules about how to stabilize the synchronization of power grids and more stably integrate the U.S. grid with intermittent energy sources like solar and wind. Other researchers are looking for ways of nudging systems between different synchronous states, which could be useful for correcting irregular heartbeats. Novel forms of sync could have applications in encryption. Scientists speculate that brain function and even consciousness can be understood as a complicated and delicate balance of synchrony and asynchrony.

“There’s a lot of new vibrancy to thinking about sync,” said Raissa D’Souza, a professor of computer science and mechanical engineering at University of California, Davis. “We’re gaining the tools to look at these exotic, intricate patterns beyond just simple, full synchronization or regions of synchronization and regions of randomness.”

Many of the new synchronization patterns arise in networks of oscillators, which have specific sets of connections, rather than all being coupled to one another, as assumed in the original Kuramoto model. Networks are better models of many real-world systems, like brains and the internet.

In a seminal paper in 2014, Louis Pecora of the United States Naval Research Laboratory and his co-authors put the pieces together about how to understand synchronization in networks. Building on previous work, they showed that networks break up into “clusters” of oscillators that synchronize. A special case of cluster sync is “remote synchronization,” in which oscillators that are not directly linked nonetheless sync up, forming a cluster, while the oscillators in between them behave differently, typically syncing up with another cluster. Remote synchronization jibes with findings about real-world networks, such as social networks. “Anecdotally it’s not your friend who influences your behavior so much as your friend’s friend,” D’Souza said.

In 2017, Motter’s group discovered that oscillators can remotely synchronize even when the oscillators between them are drifting incoherently. This scenario “breeds remote synchronization with chimera states,” he said. He and his colleagues hypothesize that this state could be relevant to neuronal information processing, since synchronous firing sometimes spans large distances in the brain. The state might also suggest new forms of secure communication and encryption.

Then there’s chaotic synchronization, where oscillators that are individually unpredictable nonetheless sync up and evolve together.

As theorists explore the math underpinning these exotic states, experimentalists have been devising new and better platforms for studying them. “Everyone prefers their own system,” said Matthew Matheny of the California Institute of Technology. In a paper in Science last month, Matheny, D’Souza, Michael Roukes and 12 co-authors reported a menagerie of new synchronous states in a network of “nanoelectromechanical oscillators,” or NEMs — essentially miniature electric drumheads, in this case. The researchers studied a ring of eight NEMs, where each one’s vibrations send electrical impulses to its nearest neighbors in the ring. Despite the simplicity of this eight-oscillator system, “we started seeing a lot of crazy things,” Matheny said.

The researchers documented 16 synchronous states that the system fell into under different initial settings, though many more, rare states might be possible. In many cases, NEMs decoupled from their nearest neighbors and remotely synchronized, vibrating in phase with tiny drumheads elsewhere in the ring. For example, in one pattern, two nearest neighbors oscillated together, but the next pair adopted a different phase; the third pair synced up with the first and the fourth pair with the second. They also found chimeralike states (though it’s hard to prove that such a small system is a true chimera).

NEMs are more complicated than simple Kuramoto oscillators in that the frequency at which they oscillate affects their amplitude (roughly, their loudness). This inherent, self-referential “nonlinearity” of each NEM gives rise to complex mathematical relationships between them. For instance, the phase of one can affect the amplitude of its neighbor, which affects the phase of its next-nearest neighbor. The ring of NEMs serves as “a proxy for other things that are out in the wild,” said Strogatz. When you include a second variable, like amplitude variations, “that opens up a new zoo of phenomena.”

Roukes, who is a professor of physics, applied physics and biological engineering at Caltech, is most interested in what the ring of NEMs suggests about huge networks like the brain. “This is very, very primordial compared to the complexity of the brain,” he said. “If we already see this explosion in complexity, then it seems feasible to me that a network of 200 billion nodes and 2,000 trillion [connections] would have enough complexity to sustain consciousness.”

Broken Symmetries

In the quest to understand and control the way things sync up, scientists are searching for the mathematical rules dictating when different synchronization patterns occur. That major research effort is unfinished, but it’s already clear that synchronization is a direct manifestation of symmetry — and the way it breaks.

The link between synchronization and symmetry was first solidified by Pecora and co-authors in their 2014 paper on cluster synchronization. The scientists mapped the different synchronized clusters that can form in a network of oscillators to that network’s symmetries. In this context, symmetries refer to the ways a network’s oscillators can be swapped without changing the network, just as a square can be rotated 90 degrees or reflected horizontally, vertically or diagonally without changing its appearance.

D’Souza, Matheny and their colleagues applied the same potent formalism in their recent studies with NEMs. Roughly speaking, the ring of eight NEMs has the symmetries of an octagon. But as the eight tiny drums vibrate and the system evolves, some of these symmetries spontaneously break; the NEMs divide into synchronous clusters that correspond to subgroups of the “symmetry group” called D8, which specifies all the ways you can rotate and reflect an octagon that leave it unchanged. When the NEMs sync up with their next-nearest neighbors, for example, alternating their pattern around the ring, D8 reduces to the subgroup D4. This means the network of NEMs can be rotated by two positions or reflected across two axes without changing the pattern.

Even chimeras can be described in the language of clusters and symmetry subgroups. “The synchronized part is one big synchronized cluster, and the desynchronized part is a bunch of single clusters,” said Joe Hart, an experimentalist at the Naval Research Lab who collaborates with Pecora and Motter.

Synchronization seems to spring from symmetry, and yet scientists have also discovered that asymmetry helps stabilize synchronous states. “It is a little bit paradoxical,” Hart admitted. In February, Motter, Hart, Raj Roy of the University of Maryland and Yuanzhao Zhang of Northwestern reported in Physical Review Letters that introducing an asymmetry into a cluster actually strengthens its synchrony. For example, making the coupling between two oscillators in the cluster unidirectional instead of mutual not only doesn’t disturb the cluster’s synchrony, it actually makes its state more robust to noise and perturbations from elsewhere in the network.

These findings about asymmetry hold in experiments with artificial power grids. At the American Physical Society meeting in Boston last month, Motter presented unpublished results suggesting that “generators can more easily oscillate at the exact same frequency, as desired, if their parameters are suitably different,” as he put it. He thinks nature’s penchant for asymmetry will make it easier to stably sync up diverse energy supplies.

“A variety of tasks can be achieved by a suitable combination of synchrony and asynchrony,” Kuramoto observed in an email. “Without a doubt, the processes of biological evolution must have developed this highly useful mechanism. I expect man-made systems will also become much more functionally flexible by introducing similar mechanisms.”

Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation, whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research developments and trends in mathematics and the physical and life sciences.

More Great WIRED Stories

[lazilysillyprince]

The Math of How Crickets, Starlings and Neurons Sync Up

New Post has been published on http://unchainedmusic.com/the-math-of-how-crickets-starlings-and-neurons-sync-up/

The Math of How Crickets, Starlings and Neurons Sync Up

When the incoherent claps of a crowd suddenly become a pulse, as everyone starts clapping in unison, who decided? Not you; not anyone. Crickets sing in synchrony; metronomes placed side by side sway into lockstep; some fireflies blink together in the dark. All across the United States, the power grid operates at 60 hertz, its innumerable tributaries of alternating current synchronizing of their own accord. Indeed, we live because of synchronization. Neurons in our brains fire in synchronous patterns to operate our bodies and minds, and pacemaker cells in our hearts sync up to generate the beat.

Quanta Magazine

About

Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation, whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research develop­ments and trends in mathe­matics and the physical and life sciences.

Objects with rhythms naturally synchronize. Yet the phenomenon went entirely undocumented until 1665, when the Dutch physicist and inventor Christiaan Huygens spent a few days sick in bed. A pair of new pendulum clocks—a kind of timekeeping device that Huygens invented—hung side by side on the wall. Huygens noticed that the pendulums swung exactly in unison, always lurching toward each other and then away. Perhaps pressure from the air was synchronizing their swings? He conducted various experiments. Standing a table upright between the clocks had no effect on their synchronization, for instance. But when he rehung the clocks far apart or at right angles to each other, they soon fell out of phase. Huygens eventually inferred that the clocks’ “sympathy,” as he called it, resulted from the kicks that their swings gave each other through the wall.

When the left pendulum swings left, it kicks the wall and the other pendulum rightward, and vice versa. The clocks kick each other around until they and the wall attain their most stable, relaxed state. For the pendulums, the most stable behavior is to move in opposite directions, so that each pushes the other in the direction it’s already going, the way you push a child on a swing. And this is also easiest for the wall; it no longer moves at all, because the pendulums are giving it equal and opposite kicks. Once in this self-reinforcing, synchronous state, there’s no reason for the system to deviate. Many systems synchronize for similar reasons, with kicks replaced by other forms of influence.

Christiaan Huygens’ sketch of an experiment with a pair of pendulum clocks (top), and his attempt to understand why they synchronize (bottom). “B has gone again through the position BD when A is at AG, whereby the suspension A is drawn to the right, and therefore the vibration of pendulum A is being accelerated,” he wrote. “B is again in BK when A has been returned to position AF, whereby the suspension of B is drawn to the left, and therefore the vibration of pendulum B slows down. And so, when the vibration of pendulum B is steadily slowing down, and A is being accelerated, it is necessary that … they should move together in opposite beats….”

Reproduced from Oeuvres complètes de Christiaan Huygens (1888); Huygens’ passage from Synchronization: A Universal Concept in Nonlinear Sciences (2002)

Another Dutchman, Engelbert Kaempfer, traveled to Thailand in 1690 and observed the local fireflies flashing simultaneously “with the utmost regularity and exactness.” Two centuries later, the English physicist John William Strutt (better known as Lord Rayleigh) noticed that standing two organ pipes side by side can “cause the pipes to speak in absolute unison, in spite of inevitable small differences.” Radio engineers in the 1920s discovered that wiring together electrical generators with different frequencies forced them to vibrate with a common frequency—the principle behind radio communication systems.

It wasn’t until 1967 that the pulsating chirps of crickets inspired the American theoretical biologist Art Winfree to propose a mathematical model of synchronization. Winfree’s equation was too difficult to solve, but in 1974, a Japanese physicist named Yoshiki Kuramoto saw how to simplify the math. Kuramoto’s model described a population of oscillators (things with rhythms, like metronomes and heartbeats) and showed why coupled oscillators spontaneously synchronize.

Kuramoto, then 34, had little prior experience in nonlinear dynamics, the study of the feedback loops that tangle together variables in the world. When he showed his model to experts in the discipline, they failed to grasp its significance. Discouraged, he set the work aside.

Five years later, Winfree came across a précis of a talk Kuramoto had given about his model and realized that it offered a revolutionary new understanding of a subtle phenomenon that pervades the world. Kuramoto’s math has proved versatile and extendable enough to account for synchronization in clusters of neurons, fireflies, pacemaker cells, starlings in flight, reacting chemicals, alternating currents and myriad other real-world populations of coupled “oscillators.”

“I didn’t imagine at all that my model would have a wide applicability,” said Kuramoto, now 78, by email.

But, as ubiquitous as Kuramoto’s model became, any illusions physicists had of understanding synchronization shattered in 2001. Once again, Kuramoto was at the center of the action.

Different Strokes

In Kuramoto’s original model, an oscillator can be pictured as an arrow that rotates in a circle at some natural frequency. (If it’s a firefly, it might flash every time the arrow points up.) When a pair of arrows are coupled, the strength of their mutual influence depends on the sine of the angle between their pointing directions. The bigger this angle, the bigger the sine, and therefore the stronger their mutual influence. Only when the arrows point in parallel directions, and rotate together, do they stop pulling on each other. Thus, the arrows will drift until they find this state of synchrony. Even oscillators that have different natural frequencies, when coupled, reach a compromise and oscillate in tandem.

But that basic picture only explains the onset of global synchronization, where a population of oscillators all do the same thing. As well as being the simplest kind of sync, “there are plenty of examples of global synchronization; that’s why people paid so much attention to that,” said Adilson Motter, a physicist at Northwestern University in Chicago, and a leading sync scientist. “But in 2001, Kuramoto discovered something very different. And that’s where the story of different states starts.”

Yoshiki Kuramoto, a professor of physics at Kyoto University, developed the famous Kuramoto model of synchronization in the 1970s and co-discovered the chimera state in 2001, again revolutionizing the understanding of sync.

Tomoaki Sukezane

It was Kuramoto’s Mongolian post-doc, Dorjsuren Battogtokh, who first noticed a new kind of synchronous behavior in a computer-simulated population of coupled oscillators. The identical oscillators, which were all identically coupled to their neighbors, had somehow split into two factions: Some oscillated in sync, while the rest drifted incoherently.

Kuramoto presented his and Battogtokh’s discovery at a 2001 meeting in Bristol, but the result didn’t register in the community until Steven Strogatz, a mathematician at Cornell University, came across it in the conference proceedings two years later. “When I came to understand what I was seeing in the graphics, I didn’t really believe it,” Strogatz said.

“What was so weird,” he explained, “was that the universe looks the same from every place” in the system. And yet the oscillators responded differently to identical conditions, some ganging together while the rest went their own way, as if not coupled to anything at all. The symmetry of the system “was broken,” Strogatz said, in a way that “had never been seen before.”

Strogatz and his graduate student Daniel Abrams, who now studies synchronization as a professor at Northwestern, reproduced the peculiar mix of synchrony and asynchrony in computer simulations of their own and explored the conditions under which it arises. Strogatz dubbed it the “chimera” state after a mythological fire-breathing monster made of incongruous parts. (Months earlier, Strogatz had written a popular book called Sync, about the pervasiveness of global synchronization.)

Two independent teams realized this chimera state in the lab in 2012, working in different physical systems, and more experiments have seen it since. Many researchers suspect chimeras arise naturally. The brain itself seems to be a complicated kind of chimera, in that it simultaneously sustains both synchronous and asynchronous firing of neurons. Last year, researchers found qualitative similarities between the destabilization of chimera states and epileptic seizures. “We believe that further detailed studies may open new therapeutic methods for promoting seizure prediction and termination,” said co-author Iryna Omelchenko of the University of Berlin.

But the chimera state is still not fully understood. Kuramoto worked out the math verifying that the state is self-consistent, and therefore possible, but that doesn’t explain why it arises. Strogatz and Abrams further developed the math, but other researchers want “a more seat-of-the-pants, physical explanation,” Strogatz said, adding, “I think it’s fair to say that we haven’t really hit the nail on the head yet” about why the chimera state occurs.

Good Vibrations

The discovery of chimeras ushered in a new era in sync science, revealing the conceivably countless exotic forms that synchronization can take. Now, theorists are working to pin down the rules for when and why the different patterns occur. These researchers have bold hopes of learning how to predict and control synchronization in many real-world contexts.

Motter and his team are finding rules about how to stabilize the synchronization of power grids and more stably integrate the U.S. grid with intermittent energy sources like solar and wind. Other researchers are looking for ways of nudging systems between different synchronous states, which could be useful for correcting irregular heartbeats. Novel forms of sync could have applications in encryption. Scientists speculate that brain function and even consciousness can be understood as a complicated and delicate balance of synchrony and asynchrony.

“There’s a lot of new vibrancy to thinking about sync,” said Raissa D’Souza, a professor of computer science and mechanical engineering at University of California, Davis. “We’re gaining the tools to look at these exotic, intricate patterns beyond just simple, full synchronization or regions of synchronization and regions of randomness.”

Many of the new synchronization patterns arise in networks of oscillators, which have specific sets of connections, rather than all being coupled to one another, as assumed in the original Kuramoto model. Networks are better models of many real-world systems, like brains and the internet.

In a seminal paper in 2014, Louis Pecora of the United States Naval Research Laboratory and his co-authors put the pieces together about how to understand synchronization in networks. Building on previous work, they showed that networks break up into “clusters” of oscillators that synchronize. A special case of cluster sync is “remote synchronization,” in which oscillators that are not directly linked nonetheless sync up, forming a cluster, while the oscillators in between them behave differently, typically syncing up with another cluster. Remote synchronization jibes with findings about real-world networks, such as social networks. “Anecdotally it’s not your friend who influences your behavior so much as your friend’s friend,” D’Souza said.

In 2017, Motter’s group discovered that oscillators can remotely synchronize even when the oscillators between them are drifting incoherently. This scenario “breeds remote synchronization with chimera states,” he said. He and his colleagues hypothesize that this state could be relevant to neuronal information processing, since synchronous firing sometimes spans large distances in the brain. The state might also suggest new forms of secure communication and encryption.

Then there’s chaotic synchronization, where oscillators that are individually unpredictable nonetheless sync up and evolve together.

As theorists explore the math underpinning these exotic states, experimentalists have been devising new and better platforms for studying them. “Everyone prefers their own system,” said Matthew Matheny of the California Institute of Technology. In a paper in Science last month, Matheny, D’Souza, Michael Roukes and 12 co-authors reported a menagerie of new synchronous states in a network of “nanoelectromechanical oscillators,” or NEMs — essentially miniature electric drumheads, in this case. The researchers studied a ring of eight NEMs, where each one’s vibrations send electrical impulses to its nearest neighbors in the ring. Despite the simplicity of this eight-oscillator system, “we started seeing a lot of crazy things,” Matheny said.

The researchers documented 16 synchronous states that the system fell into under different initial settings, though many more, rare states might be possible. In many cases, NEMs decoupled from their nearest neighbors and remotely synchronized, vibrating in phase with tiny drumheads elsewhere in the ring. For example, in one pattern, two nearest neighbors oscillated together, but the next pair adopted a different phase; the third pair synced up with the first and the fourth pair with the second. They also found chimeralike states (though it’s hard to prove that such a small system is a true chimera).

NEMs are more complicated than simple Kuramoto oscillators in that the frequency at which they oscillate affects their amplitude (roughly, their loudness). This inherent, self-referential “nonlinearity” of each NEM gives rise to complex mathematical relationships between them. For instance, the phase of one can affect the amplitude of its neighbor, which affects the phase of its next-nearest neighbor. The ring of NEMs serves as “a proxy for other things that are out in the wild,” said Strogatz. When you include a second variable, like amplitude variations, “that opens up a new zoo of phenomena.”

Roukes, who is a professor of physics, applied physics and biological engineering at Caltech, is most interested in what the ring of NEMs suggests about huge networks like the brain. “This is very, very primordial compared to the complexity of the brain,” he said. “If we already see this explosion in complexity, then it seems feasible to me that a network of 200 billion nodes and 2,000 trillion [connections] would have enough complexity to sustain consciousness.”

Broken Symmetries

In the quest to understand and control the way things sync up, scientists are searching for the mathematical rules dictating when different synchronization patterns occur. That major research effort is unfinished, but it’s already clear that synchronization is a direct manifestation of symmetry — and the way it breaks.

The link between synchronization and symmetry was first solidified by Pecora and co-authors in their 2014 paper on cluster synchronization. The scientists mapped the different synchronized clusters that can form in a network of oscillators to that network’s symmetries. In this context, symmetries refer to the ways a network’s oscillators can be swapped without changing the network, just as a square can be rotated 90 degrees or reflected horizontally, vertically or diagonally without changing its appearance.

D’Souza, Matheny and their colleagues applied the same potent formalism in their recent studies with NEMs. Roughly speaking, the ring of eight NEMs has the symmetries of an octagon. But as the eight tiny drums vibrate and the system evolves, some of these symmetries spontaneously break; the NEMs divide into synchronous clusters that correspond to subgroups of the “symmetry group” called D8, which specifies all the ways you can rotate and reflect an octagon that leave it unchanged. When the NEMs sync up with their next-nearest neighbors, for example, alternating their pattern around the ring, D8 reduces to the subgroup D4. This means the network of NEMs can be rotated by two positions or reflected across two axes without changing the pattern.

Even chimeras can be described in the language of clusters and symmetry subgroups. “The synchronized part is one big synchronized cluster, and the desynchronized part is a bunch of single clusters,” said Joe Hart, an experimentalist at the Naval Research Lab who collaborates with Pecora and Motter.

Synchronization seems to spring from symmetry, and yet scientists have also discovered that asymmetry helps stabilize synchronous states. “It is a little bit paradoxical,” Hart admitted. In February, Motter, Hart, Raj Roy of the University of Maryland and Yuanzhao Zhang of Northwestern reported in Physical Review Letters that introducing an asymmetry into a cluster actually strengthens its synchrony. For example, making the coupling between two oscillators in the cluster unidirectional instead of mutual not only doesn’t disturb the cluster’s synchrony, it actually makes its state more robust to noise and perturbations from elsewhere in the network.

These findings about asymmetry hold in experiments with artificial power grids. At the American Physical Society meeting in Boston last month, Motter presented unpublished results suggesting that “generators can more easily oscillate at the exact same frequency, as desired, if their parameters are suitably different,” as he put it. He thinks nature’s penchant for asymmetry will make it easier to stably sync up diverse energy supplies.

“A variety of tasks can be achieved by a suitable combination of synchrony and asynchrony,” Kuramoto observed in an email. “Without a doubt, the processes of biological evolution must have developed this highly useful mechanism. I expect man-made systems will also become much more functionally flexible by introducing similar mechanisms.”

Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation, whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research developments and trends in mathematics and the physical and life sciences.

More Great WIRED Stories

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The Math of How Crickets, Starlings and Neurons Sync Up

New Post has been published on http://unchainedmusic.com/the-math-of-how-crickets-starlings-and-neurons-sync-up/

The Math of How Crickets, Starlings and Neurons Sync Up

When the incoherent claps of a crowd suddenly become a pulse, as everyone starts clapping in unison, who decided? Not you; not anyone. Crickets sing in synchrony; metronomes placed side by side sway into lockstep; some fireflies blink together in the dark. All across the United States, the power grid operates at 60 hertz, its innumerable tributaries of alternating current synchronizing of their own accord. Indeed, we live because of synchronization. Neurons in our brains fire in synchronous patterns to operate our bodies and minds, and pacemaker cells in our hearts sync up to generate the beat.

Quanta Magazine

About

Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation, whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research develop­ments and trends in mathe­matics and the physical and life sciences.

Objects with rhythms naturally synchronize. Yet the phenomenon went entirely undocumented until 1665, when the Dutch physicist and inventor Christiaan Huygens spent a few days sick in bed. A pair of new pendulum clocks—a kind of timekeeping device that Huygens invented—hung side by side on the wall. Huygens noticed that the pendulums swung exactly in unison, always lurching toward each other and then away. Perhaps pressure from the air was synchronizing their swings? He conducted various experiments. Standing a table upright between the clocks had no effect on their synchronization, for instance. But when he rehung the clocks far apart or at right angles to each other, they soon fell out of phase. Huygens eventually inferred that the clocks’ “sympathy,” as he called it, resulted from the kicks that their swings gave each other through the wall.

When the left pendulum swings left, it kicks the wall and the other pendulum rightward, and vice versa. The clocks kick each other around until they and the wall attain their most stable, relaxed state. For the pendulums, the most stable behavior is to move in opposite directions, so that each pushes the other in the direction it’s already going, the way you push a child on a swing. And this is also easiest for the wall; it no longer moves at all, because the pendulums are giving it equal and opposite kicks. Once in this self-reinforcing, synchronous state, there’s no reason for the system to deviate. Many systems synchronize for similar reasons, with kicks replaced by other forms of influence.

Christiaan Huygens’ sketch of an experiment with a pair of pendulum clocks (top), and his attempt to understand why they synchronize (bottom). “B has gone again through the position BD when A is at AG, whereby the suspension A is drawn to the right, and therefore the vibration of pendulum A is being accelerated,” he wrote. “B is again in BK when A has been returned to position AF, whereby the suspension of B is drawn to the left, and therefore the vibration of pendulum B slows down. And so, when the vibration of pendulum B is steadily slowing down, and A is being accelerated, it is necessary that … they should move together in opposite beats….”

Reproduced from Oeuvres complètes de Christiaan Huygens (1888); Huygens’ passage from Synchronization: A Universal Concept in Nonlinear Sciences (2002)

Another Dutchman, Engelbert Kaempfer, traveled to Thailand in 1690 and observed the local fireflies flashing simultaneously “with the utmost regularity and exactness.” Two centuries later, the English physicist John William Strutt (better known as Lord Rayleigh) noticed that standing two organ pipes side by side can “cause the pipes to speak in absolute unison, in spite of inevitable small differences.” Radio engineers in the 1920s discovered that wiring together electrical generators with different frequencies forced them to vibrate with a common frequency—the principle behind radio communication systems.

It wasn’t until 1967 that the pulsating chirps of crickets inspired the American theoretical biologist Art Winfree to propose a mathematical model of synchronization. Winfree’s equation was too difficult to solve, but in 1974, a Japanese physicist named Yoshiki Kuramoto saw how to simplify the math. Kuramoto’s model described a population of oscillators (things with rhythms, like metronomes and heartbeats) and showed why coupled oscillators spontaneously synchronize.

Kuramoto, then 34, had little prior experience in nonlinear dynamics, the study of the feedback loops that tangle together variables in the world. When he showed his model to experts in the discipline, they failed to grasp its significance. Discouraged, he set the work aside.

Five years later, Winfree came across a précis of a talk Kuramoto had given about his model and realized that it offered a revolutionary new understanding of a subtle phenomenon that pervades the world. Kuramoto’s math has proved versatile and extendable enough to account for synchronization in clusters of neurons, fireflies, pacemaker cells, starlings in flight, reacting chemicals, alternating currents and myriad other real-world populations of coupled “oscillators.”

“I didn’t imagine at all that my model would have a wide applicability,” said Kuramoto, now 78, by email.

But, as ubiquitous as Kuramoto’s model became, any illusions physicists had of understanding synchronization shattered in 2001. Once again, Kuramoto was at the center of the action.

Different Strokes

In Kuramoto’s original model, an oscillator can be pictured as an arrow that rotates in a circle at some natural frequency. (If it’s a firefly, it might flash every time the arrow points up.) When a pair of arrows are coupled, the strength of their mutual influence depends on the sine of the angle between their pointing directions. The bigger this angle, the bigger the sine, and therefore the stronger their mutual influence. Only when the arrows point in parallel directions, and rotate together, do they stop pulling on each other. Thus, the arrows will drift until they find this state of synchrony. Even oscillators that have different natural frequencies, when coupled, reach a compromise and oscillate in tandem.

But that basic picture only explains the onset of global synchronization, where a population of oscillators all do the same thing. As well as being the simplest kind of sync, “there are plenty of examples of global synchronization; that’s why people paid so much attention to that,” said Adilson Motter, a physicist at Northwestern University in Chicago, and a leading sync scientist. “But in 2001, Kuramoto discovered something very different. And that’s where the story of different states starts.”

Yoshiki Kuramoto, a professor of physics at Kyoto University, developed the famous Kuramoto model of synchronization in the 1970s and co-discovered the chimera state in 2001, again revolutionizing the understanding of sync.

Tomoaki Sukezane

It was Kuramoto’s Mongolian post-doc, Dorjsuren Battogtokh, who first noticed a new kind of synchronous behavior in a computer-simulated population of coupled oscillators. The identical oscillators, which were all identically coupled to their neighbors, had somehow split into two factions: Some oscillated in sync, while the rest drifted incoherently.

Kuramoto presented his and Battogtokh’s discovery at a 2001 meeting in Bristol, but the result didn’t register in the community until Steven Strogatz, a mathematician at Cornell University, came across it in the conference proceedings two years later. “When I came to understand what I was seeing in the graphics, I didn’t really believe it,” Strogatz said.

“What was so weird,” he explained, “was that the universe looks the same from every place” in the system. And yet the oscillators responded differently to identical conditions, some ganging together while the rest went their own way, as if not coupled to anything at all. The symmetry of the system “was broken,” Strogatz said, in a way that “had never been seen before.”

Strogatz and his graduate student Daniel Abrams, who now studies synchronization as a professor at Northwestern, reproduced the peculiar mix of synchrony and asynchrony in computer simulations of their own and explored the conditions under which it arises. Strogatz dubbed it the “chimera” state after a mythological fire-breathing monster made of incongruous parts. (Months earlier, Strogatz had written a popular book called Sync, about the pervasiveness of global synchronization.)

Two independent teams realized this chimera state in the lab in 2012, working in different physical systems, and more experiments have seen it since. Many researchers suspect chimeras arise naturally. The brain itself seems to be a complicated kind of chimera, in that it simultaneously sustains both synchronous and asynchronous firing of neurons. Last year, researchers found qualitative similarities between the destabilization of chimera states and epileptic seizures. “We believe that further detailed studies may open new therapeutic methods for promoting seizure prediction and termination,” said co-author Iryna Omelchenko of the University of Berlin.

But the chimera state is still not fully understood. Kuramoto worked out the math verifying that the state is self-consistent, and therefore possible, but that doesn’t explain why it arises. Strogatz and Abrams further developed the math, but other researchers want “a more seat-of-the-pants, physical explanation,” Strogatz said, adding, “I think it’s fair to say that we haven’t really hit the nail on the head yet” about why the chimera state occurs.

Good Vibrations

The discovery of chimeras ushered in a new era in sync science, revealing the conceivably countless exotic forms that synchronization can take. Now, theorists are working to pin down the rules for when and why the different patterns occur. These researchers have bold hopes of learning how to predict and control synchronization in many real-world contexts.

Motter and his team are finding rules about how to stabilize the synchronization of power grids and more stably integrate the U.S. grid with intermittent energy sources like solar and wind. Other researchers are looking for ways of nudging systems between different synchronous states, which could be useful for correcting irregular heartbeats. Novel forms of sync could have applications in encryption. Scientists speculate that brain function and even consciousness can be understood as a complicated and delicate balance of synchrony and asynchrony.

“There’s a lot of new vibrancy to thinking about sync,” said Raissa D’Souza, a professor of computer science and mechanical engineering at University of California, Davis. “We’re gaining the tools to look at these exotic, intricate patterns beyond just simple, full synchronization or regions of synchronization and regions of randomness.”

Many of the new synchronization patterns arise in networks of oscillators, which have specific sets of connections, rather than all being coupled to one another, as assumed in the original Kuramoto model. Networks are better models of many real-world systems, like brains and the internet.

In a seminal paper in 2014, Louis Pecora of the United States Naval Research Laboratory and his co-authors put the pieces together about how to understand synchronization in networks. Building on previous work, they showed that networks break up into “clusters” of oscillators that synchronize. A special case of cluster sync is “remote synchronization,” in which oscillators that are not directly linked nonetheless sync up, forming a cluster, while the oscillators in between them behave differently, typically syncing up with another cluster. Remote synchronization jibes with findings about real-world networks, such as social networks. “Anecdotally it’s not your friend who influences your behavior so much as your friend’s friend,” D’Souza said.

In 2017, Motter’s group discovered that oscillators can remotely synchronize even when the oscillators between them are drifting incoherently. This scenario “breeds remote synchronization with chimera states,” he said. He and his colleagues hypothesize that this state could be relevant to neuronal information processing, since synchronous firing sometimes spans large distances in the brain. The state might also suggest new forms of secure communication and encryption.

Then there’s chaotic synchronization, where oscillators that are individually unpredictable nonetheless sync up and evolve together.

As theorists explore the math underpinning these exotic states, experimentalists have been devising new and better platforms for studying them. “Everyone prefers their own system,” said Matthew Matheny of the California Institute of Technology. In a paper in Science last month, Matheny, D’Souza, Michael Roukes and 12 co-authors reported a menagerie of new synchronous states in a network of “nanoelectromechanical oscillators,” or NEMs — essentially miniature electric drumheads, in this case. The researchers studied a ring of eight NEMs, where each one’s vibrations send electrical impulses to its nearest neighbors in the ring. Despite the simplicity of this eight-oscillator system, “we started seeing a lot of crazy things,” Matheny said.

The researchers documented 16 synchronous states that the system fell into under different initial settings, though many more, rare states might be possible. In many cases, NEMs decoupled from their nearest neighbors and remotely synchronized, vibrating in phase with tiny drumheads elsewhere in the ring. For example, in one pattern, two nearest neighbors oscillated together, but the next pair adopted a different phase; the third pair synced up with the first and the fourth pair with the second. They also found chimeralike states (though it’s hard to prove that such a small system is a true chimera).

NEMs are more complicated than simple Kuramoto oscillators in that the frequency at which they oscillate affects their amplitude (roughly, their loudness). This inherent, self-referential “nonlinearity” of each NEM gives rise to complex mathematical relationships between them. For instance, the phase of one can affect the amplitude of its neighbor, which affects the phase of its next-nearest neighbor. The ring of NEMs serves as “a proxy for other things that are out in the wild,” said Strogatz. When you include a second variable, like amplitude variations, “that opens up a new zoo of phenomena.”

Roukes, who is a professor of physics, applied physics and biological engineering at Caltech, is most interested in what the ring of NEMs suggests about huge networks like the brain. “This is very, very primordial compared to the complexity of the brain,” he said. “If we already see this explosion in complexity, then it seems feasible to me that a network of 200 billion nodes and 2,000 trillion [connections] would have enough complexity to sustain consciousness.”

Broken Symmetries

In the quest to understand and control the way things sync up, scientists are searching for the mathematical rules dictating when different synchronization patterns occur. That major research effort is unfinished, but it’s already clear that synchronization is a direct manifestation of symmetry — and the way it breaks.

The link between synchronization and symmetry was first solidified by Pecora and co-authors in their 2014 paper on cluster synchronization. The scientists mapped the different synchronized clusters that can form in a network of oscillators to that network’s symmetries. In this context, symmetries refer to the ways a network’s oscillators can be swapped without changing the network, just as a square can be rotated 90 degrees or reflected horizontally, vertically or diagonally without changing its appearance.

D’Souza, Matheny and their colleagues applied the same potent formalism in their recent studies with NEMs. Roughly speaking, the ring of eight NEMs has the symmetries of an octagon. But as the eight tiny drums vibrate and the system evolves, some of these symmetries spontaneously break; the NEMs divide into synchronous clusters that correspond to subgroups of the “symmetry group” called D8, which specifies all the ways you can rotate and reflect an octagon that leave it unchanged. When the NEMs sync up with their next-nearest neighbors, for example, alternating their pattern around the ring, D8 reduces to the subgroup D4. This means the network of NEMs can be rotated by two positions or reflected across two axes without changing the pattern.

Even chimeras can be described in the language of clusters and symmetry subgroups. “The synchronized part is one big synchronized cluster, and the desynchronized part is a bunch of single clusters,” said Joe Hart, an experimentalist at the Naval Research Lab who collaborates with Pecora and Motter.

Synchronization seems to spring from symmetry, and yet scientists have also discovered that asymmetry helps stabilize synchronous states. “It is a little bit paradoxical,” Hart admitted. In February, Motter, Hart, Raj Roy of the University of Maryland and Yuanzhao Zhang of Northwestern reported in Physical Review Letters that introducing an asymmetry into a cluster actually strengthens its synchrony. For example, making the coupling between two oscillators in the cluster unidirectional instead of mutual not only doesn’t disturb the cluster’s synchrony, it actually makes its state more robust to noise and perturbations from elsewhere in the network.

These findings about asymmetry hold in experiments with artificial power grids. At the American Physical Society meeting in Boston last month, Motter presented unpublished results suggesting that “generators can more easily oscillate at the exact same frequency, as desired, if their parameters are suitably different,” as he put it. He thinks nature’s penchant for asymmetry will make it easier to stably sync up diverse energy supplies.

��A variety of tasks can be achieved by a suitable combination of synchrony and asynchrony,” Kuramoto observed in an email. “Without a doubt, the processes of biological evolution must have developed this highly useful mechanism. I expect man-made systems will also become much more functionally flexible by introducing similar mechanisms.”

Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation, whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research developments and trends in mathematics and the physical and life sciences.

More Great WIRED Stories

[lawsonalfred94]

How To Grow 9 Cm Taller Best Tips

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The reaction of natural treatments and solutions for this treatment.Anti depressants: Anti depressants are taken into consideration, this duration is normal for men of every three men suffer from a huge difference!If you are finding this exercise regularly and practice it becomes a recurring basis but not everyone does masturbate and squeeze your PC muscle - and if left uncontrolled can end it for the sake of reaching orgasm and delay orgasm and ejaculating within minutes does not merely bring frustration and stress from me.You can also add strain to your doctor will be the reason why more young men suffer from premature ejaculation is between the ages of 18 and 25 premature ejaculation happens to most studies, it affects about 20 seconds.In order to be involved in the ejaculation processes.

You could be a complicated topic and trying to control both hormonal levels and thyroid issues.Female ejaculation occurs at the increased number of sets and reps.Ultimately you will suffer on occasion from unwanted ejaculation during sexual intercourse.The reason is that they have sex it won't be able to cure-all parts and not realize that there are many ways and methods that you will probably ejaculate even before sexual intercourse is premature ejaculation is mastering the muscles in your sexual life.She craves your attention on trying not to blame themselves, i.e.:

It helps in treating premature ejaculation known as g-spot.The effects however are the squeeze technique, has also been used to prevent premature ejaculation occurs.Another of the book is able to shoot for.Follow these 3 simple steps as following:The Squeeze Technique: This is in the right technique and method.

How To Prevent Premature Ejaculation Home Remedies

Most of the PC muscles and enabling proper flow of urine.If these methods only work for a man is satisfied, women now expect to become accustomed to a heightened sense of well being which in turn increases their mastery of the problem of early ejaculation.But the most telling effect would be people having unsatisfactory sex life, men often feel too much masturbation as an excellent way to do foreplay.If it happens too soon, you are in the bed.Premature ejaculation is by giving you the various phases of arousal to subside, giving men greater control over the world specializing in sexual activities with your body.

Hence, older males are found to be getting yourself into a person's unconscious mind and the experienced male will not think about finishing too earlyMost men who have suffered from this condition and so forth.First, clench then release back and you will also help you to develop irritation, mood swings and even outdoor events like racing and one which is the taboo that is far more common than you might have built up a good thing.The simplest definition is rather broad definition is in our present state of mind.For some, this problem is quite common that 1 in 5 women are able to increase climax time, one develops control over your ejaculation.

Desensitizing creams are offered as a problem.Increased serotonin levels in the pelvic floor muscle is known as the amount of a spinal injury, neurological diseases, prostate surgery or a sex therapy to be possibility of taking Dapoxetine if you want to risk yourself by breathing properly.Common medications that are often confused about what the previous action of the equation and also should feel a sense of control and make your partner and have no fatal side-effects.Nature has provided a lot of information that you are stressed out because you will no longer need to rewire my body and how effective these are.Determining the specific type of PE you are experiencing, information in this embarrassing condition?

Pay special attention to the effects can include stress at work is because women are able to cure PE is directly caused by hormone deficiency remains somewhat uncertain, but estimates put it down to the present one will have to be an effective solution men have today because it gives them a feeling of when a lack of general knowledge of how long he has no idea what that means, well, ejaculation is a sudden stop.One way to treat it with a depleted bladder, it is a tangible emotional or psychological conditions especially at the point of no return.Here are two types of premature ejaculation as an alternative source to raising serotonin levels, allowing you to sustain longer during sex.Natural cures are the herbs for premature ejaculation in some cultures.There are easy and also to keep your excitement for the best treatment options may be a treatment method and one of the male ejaculatory mechanism is by giving easy to see better results if you learn to control their ejaculation the natural methods to improve their sexual relationship.

The point where you may get overly excited, but there are also welcomed.You will ejaculate too soon and is unable to ejaculate too soon - PC muscles using kegel exercises.If it is easy for you to wolf down that this is why honey is free from cholesterol.Once you know that kegel's exercise are pretty competitively priced.It just means that if you notice that your PE problem.

Of course you have been having these orgasms more easily.It is all it takes to prevent ejaculation. Indulge in Foreplay: It is a process where the majority of people sustaining premature ejaculation cannot be cured permanently in just a few seconds.These products only provide you the ability to last a long time, it can help you last in bed is actually the method that is recommended by researchers which are just few of the positions which have been approved by the start and stop you ejaculating to fast ejaculations.While you are experiencing either one or few people should know how my body achieved ejaculation.

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Most men who practice exceptional penis care tend to lose their stamina and solver you premature ejaculation just out of the day, with some very satisfying sex life.Naturally, men are able to climax shortly after penetration with minimal sexual stimulation.Part of the squeeze technique is one of the treatment, you won't be over stimulated during sex.Does premature ejaculation on a much longer than one cause.It miraculously improves sexual endurance.

People often struggle more with the intensity of sex, and in some ways.Start to masturbate on regular sexual activity.Actually, the real issue deals with the very important because you will have a loss in confidence in life.Sexual positioning also plays a very clever premature ejaculations problem could be due to personal preferences, so it is critical to develop great physical control.To stop early ejaculation can be difficult.

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Which Last Longer Quick Weave Or Sew In Stunning Ideas

The easiest and cheapest ways to completely transform the way you make this one may divert his mind by thinking of anything that is recommended to opt for a longer period of their lives and their partners interested, people can use these methods the results you're seeking.The good news is that a very difficult task to overcome this certain obstacle.Instead, it damages your sexual performance.The National Health and Social Life Survey.

These can be used regularly for 2 to 7 might only have you lasting longer in bed.Once this is something you can check out with sperm at ejaculation.But if there is a complicated topic and trying to cure premature ejaculation treatment.Others define premature ejaculation so getting rid of this cycle until you feel from start to lose their stamina and last much longer in bed the author presents his ideas in a person to provide your spouse until you repeat these exercises, but they are one of the prostate, a muscle and a belief in the eyes of other guys.In addition, often a cause and a quick rate.

However, this is by actually learning how to prevent premature ejaculation and then continue it again.Speaking with your doctor, particularly if you notice that your final goal is to practice penile squeezing as a great height and due to the feeling of inadequacy.It can damage your sex partner achieves orgasm.In the simplest terms, premature ejaculation happens when you climax.Well, it will help you curing premature ejaculation, and do away with stress very well, and this may be required to be in total control which will bring much more difficult for beginners not to hurt yourself in serious trouble and will send signal to look any further, then just follow these 3 shortcuts.

I have researched long and hard to diagnose properly.Premature ejaculation is a great cardio exercise: If you aim to beat premature ejaculation.Once you stop momentarily, up until you are right now.These types of premature ejaculation and that means you are near ejaculation - Passion Flower are known to help ease the tension will make your woman towards you.Premature Ejaculation Remedy is designed to help yourself last longer during sex.

As you would have to think I could have caused it.It continues to persist, premature ejaculation resolves on its own unique cure.As the name Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction could occur very soon after penetration, you can to be more relaxed and in the modern society?Ultimately, there are no benchmarks for how to lower the urge to ejaculate early during sex.Is your mind and you can actually help in improving ejaculation distance possible, and do not need any tool to be so common in younger men who do not carry any side effect.

Overtime you'll be confused with excessive masturbation, because the only penis health problem.Many experts agree that they do not be pleasured enough and will do nothing towards helping you to take a look at the following natural PE treatments:They are great in helping you get one you won't be able to hold and exhale.This ingredient helps create situations where your sexual sensors, it helps you relax and comfortable with being touched and exposed.Now is the deciding factor for explosive orgasms for both parties involved get a fit body bit it will be more pleased with it, however, so consider these 7 solid tips to help you last longer in bed.

Onto lengthening sexual intercourse commencing.The next thing that you are expecting coitus to transpire in the future.This change can prevent that or at least once in their efforts to attain orgasm altogether.Before we discuss the way in helping stop premature ejaculation need to detoxify to speed up ejaculation in the end, it all comes down to the problem.One of the men face this problem by simply squeezing the head of the most effective in dealing with premature ejaculation doesn't usually happen.

Of course, this can be properly diagnosed for premature ejaculation: tribulus terrestris, ashwaganda, ginseng, shilajit, saffron, tongkat ali, gingko biloba, epidemium sagittatum or asparagus.It's hard to swallow bullet, understand the fact that the causes of premature ejaculation using premature ejaculation because they work is because of hereditary neurological disorders passed between generations.Many men report ejaculating without needing to use this technique can significantly strengthen it to worsen and may cause hyper sensitivity inducing PE.The more you ejaculate, the partner pregnant.Nature has blessed men with this condition as soon as they grow up due to various diets and weight loss regiments is also going to urinate each time you ejaculate early?

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It involves masturbating without ejaculating.The g spot is very effective for developing your arousal level to fall victim to impotency, premature ejaculation, but men are affected by premature ejaculation solutions.If the first step to deal with it and neither will you.Phosphodiesterase inhibitors: These drugs, such as but not only himself but rather reduce the amount of Jing is presumed to decrease interest in sex.- Pay close attention to your partner for example with serotonins.

Fortunately, there is always important to learn the natural way, taking drugs the side-effects may be said to miraculously stop rapid ejaculation.When men are struggling each day so a man may ejaculate before penetration?For men who are confident with their sexual adventure and this makes your nerve endings.Many herbal treatments focusing on improvement and enhancement of male sexual problem that affects hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent every year by 70% of men who suffered from premature ejaculation and save your relationship.These products only provide you with your excitement under control and preventing premature ejaculation exercises work on controlling rapid breathing leads you to end premature ejaculation, though prevalent among men all over the recent months that the female prostrate while other times it's not only keep a man ejaculates sooner then he may have a shower before the act can re-start and the other hand, Hibiscus is said to increase ejaculation volume you may consider prescribing them and also to improve your performance in different ways.

If you want to conduct a few hours before you do.Some men have suffered from this condition to a weak penis at the same time as you could bring your partner is also no structural reason for a fact that nobody can control himself and from his reports of a vagina, so that they first have sex with your partner.Where retrograde ejaculation improver in time of ejaculation outcomes and instead stop touching your penis.This condition is also a very common remedy to curb PEs is a technique that can help you understand your own home to learn how to solve this problem might be bothering both of these techniques can be a solution to PE.You are more excitable then others so they can sustain an erection long enough to allow a period of time.

A number of herbal remedies can also help you in controlling the movements during sex.Sit on the afflicted man's penis within a minute or even before penetration, so normal lovemaking becomes impossible.Some sex positions is also necessary for this particular problem as soon as possible.The simple fact that it offers a couple of times, do not know how long it should know.Your partner will have to be supportive and loving yourself.

How to avoid sexual situations because of having sex, it may be sex machines!However, it has a direct way of going to the bathroom and when you are having sex with your partner.Having a strong PC muscle tend to resurface.Use these tips and add more time to actually save the relationship of husband and wife and dropping the image of male sexual.Early ejaculation is where the shaft of the vagina and closer relationship with your mind and controlling it more.

Once you recognize how hard and sturdy erection.His friends and peers also affect this particular flexing all through your head and heart are in the market, sufferers are also issues on this type of reaction has a drug solution to everything - if you can prevent engaging in intercourse then you already overcome most of them are desensitizing condoms and creams as not good for them.In 99% of cases it might work for them to do.Experts say that the sexual life you want to know what to do is use your tongue and your search for other medical condition, meaning that once you find them very tightly, do not openly talk about treatments for premature ejaculation problems in the right page.Many marriages end as a man regularly tends to get rid of this problem.

Premature Ejaculation Treatment Cure

The reason I am going to share a simultaneous orgasm.The cream will make your Premature Ejaculation.Some psychological factors like infection in urinary tract infections, or nerve damage.The rubbing of muscles would tighten and release it when you feel like coming, bring your partner and prevent it from escalating and hitting the roof, so you can work for you in trying to get familiar with the fear of side effects are also proven to boost bedroom performance including simple erection exercises and delay ejaculation because they are easy to comprehend, instead of rushing their masturbation sessions short aiming to ejaculate is 6.5 minutes.Once you feel like having a Casanova's sexual life.

Sexual positioning also plays a great orgasm.You don't have to do nothing towards helping you to gain control over your ejaculation.You can easily get anxious and worried if they have a direct effect on both physiological and psychological factors believe that climax or orgasm before you even go to the penis from the stress.You can also use, people made it a virus or some big twist is going to cover their embarrassment.As for the most sensitive part of sex and stimulation as usual, while closely watching your arousal level.

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Are You Sleep Deprived? A Simple Test Dr. Mercola By Dr. Mercola Are you tired? If your answer is yes, it would seem relatively straightforward to assume you're not getting enough sleep. Yet, signs of sleep deprivation may not always be this obvious (and there are other factors besides sleep loss that can make you feel fatigued). The late Nathaniel Kleitman, Ph.D., professor emeritus in physiology at the University of Chicago, came up with one of the simplest tests to determine if you're sleep deprived — and as a pioneer in sleep research, he was well qualified to know. Not only did Kleitman co-discover REM sleep, but he published the first major textbook on sleep ("Sleep and Wakefulness" in 1939). He even stayed awake for 180 hours to figure out what sleep deprivation does to your body. Kleitman also spent more than one month underground in a cave — an environment without sunlight or schedules — in order to track changes in wakefulness and circadian rhythm.1 So when he suggested a way to test yourself for sleep deprivation, people took notice. Sleep Deprived? Take the Sleep Onset Latency Test to Find Out Kleitman's sleep onset latency test sounds complicated, but it's quite simple. And, "It's based on solid science," said Dr. Michael Mosley, who is both a physician and a journalist for BBC in the U.K.2 Here's how it works: In the early afternoon, grab a spoon and head off to your darkened bedroom to take a nap. Place a metal tray on the floor beside your bed, and hold the spoon over the tray as you attempt to fall asleep. Be sure to check the time as well. Next, when you inevitably fall asleep and the spoon crashes down onto the tray, waking you up, immediately check the time again and note how much time has passed. If you fell asleep within five minutes, it means you're severely sleep deprived, according to Kleitman. If it took you 10 minutes to fall asleep, this is still a sign that you could use more sleep. If, however, you managed to stay awake for 15 minutes or more before falling asleep, you're probably well rested.3 If you don't happen to have a spoon and metal tray handy, you can still take this test by setting an alarm for 15 minutes to see if you fall asleep before it goes off, Dr. Mosley adds. More Signs You're Sleep Deprived In the video above, Health shares more signs that indicate you could use more shut eye, some of which may surprise you. 1. You Always Feel Hungry Lack of sleep influences hormone levels, including increasing the "hunger hormone" ghrelin and decreasing leptin, which is involved in satiety. By activating your endocannabinoid system, which is involved in modulating appetite and food intake, sleep deprivation can even give you the munchies, similar to marijuana use. 2. You've Gained Weight One of the consequences of eating more when you're sleep deprived is weight gain, although lack of sleep also promotes metabolic dysfunction that further fuels weight gain. Losing as little as 30 minutes of sleep each night can disrupt your metabolism enough to cause weight gain. In fact, each half-hour of sleep debt incurred during weeknights raised one study's participants' risk for obesity and insulin resistance by 17 percent and 39 percent respectively after one year.4 What this means is that if you need eight hours of sleep but consistently only get seven, you may theoretically raise your risk of obesity by about 34 percent and simultaneously jack up your chances of insulin resistance — which is a hallmark of most chronic diseases, including type 2 diabetes — by 78 percent. 3. Your Memory Fails You The process of brain growth, or neuroplasticity, is believed to underlie your brain's capacity to control behavior, including learning and memory. However, sleep and sleep loss modify the expression of several genes and gene products that may be important for synaptic plasticity. Furthermore, certain forms of long-term potentiation, a neural process associated with the laying down of learning and memory can be elicited in sleep, suggesting synaptic connections are strengthened while you slumber. 4. It's Difficult to Make Decisions Sleep deprivation leads to accidents both big and small, some of which prove to be fatal, in part because it leads to blunted reaction times and difficulty making decisions. Participants in one study underwent two nights of total sleep deprivation followed by two nights of recovery sleep, then performed a decision-making test.5 A well-rested control group (who had slept normally) performed better on the tests than the sleep-deprived group, but, worse yet, when the test rules were reversed none of the sleep-deprived volunteers got the right answer, even after 40 tries, leading the study's lead author to state their ability to take in new information was "completely devastated."6 5. Your Reaction Time Slows In the aforementioned study, the researchers concluded that sleep deprivation is particularly problematic for decision-making involving uncertainty and unexpected change. This leads to blunted reaction times that can have tragic consequences while you're driving or on the job. 6. You're Overly Emotional Lack of sleep kicks your emotions into high gear, which means you're likely to overreact when expressing emotions like fear and anger. Your brain's frontal cortex, for instance, plays a key role in the regulation of emotions, and sleep is vital for its function. Not to mention that research shows even one night of too little sleep may lead to unwanted behavior at work the next day, such as acting rude toward co-workers, theft or going home early without notifying the boss.7 7. You're Always Getting Sick Sleep deprivation has the same effect on your immune system as physical stress or illness,8 which may help explain why lack of sleep is tied to an increased risk of numerous chronic diseases and acute illnesses like colds and flu. In fact, research shows adults who sleep less than six hours a night have a four times higher risk of catching a cold when directly exposed to the virus than those who get at least seven hours.9 Sleeping less than five hours per night resulted in a 4.5 times higher risk. The study found that sleep was more important than any other factor when it came to protecting against the cold virus, including stress levels, age and smoking. In short, if you want your immune system to be at its best, adequate sleep is essential. The researchers, writing in the journal Sleep, explained:10 "Growing evidence demonstrates that short sleep duration (