Stony Brook University

About: Stony Brook University is a education organization based out in Stony Brook, New York, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 32534 authors who have published 68218 publications receiving 3035131 citations. The organization is also known as: State University of New York at Stony Brook & SUNY Stony Brook.

Organics captured from comet 81P/Wild 2 by the Stardust spacecraft.

Abstract: Organics found in comet 81P/Wild 2 samples show a heterogeneous and unequilibrated distribution in abundance and composition. Some organics are similar, but not identical, to those in interplanetary dust particles and carbonaceous meteorites. A class of aromatic-poor organic material is also present. The organics are rich in oxygen and nitrogen compared with meteoritic organics. Aromatic compounds are present, but the samples tend to be relatively poorer in aromatics than are meteorites and interplanetary dust particles. The presence of deuterium and nitrogen-15 excesses suggest that some organics have an interstellar/protostellar heritage. Although the variable extent of modification of these materials by impact capture is not yet fully constrained, a diverse suite of organic compounds is present and identifiable within the returned samples.

Is Methylphenidate Like Cocaine?: Studies on Their Pharmacokinetics and Distribution in the Human Brain

Abstract: Background: The purposes of this study were to investigate the pharmacokinetics of methylphenidate hydrochloride (Ritalin) in the human brain, to compare them with those of cocaine, and to evaluate whether cocaine and methylphenidate compete for the same binding sites. Methods: We used positron emission tomography to measure the temporal and spatial distribution of carbon 11 (11C)-labeled methylphenidate. These results were compared with those obtained previously for [11C]cocaine. Eight healthy male subjects, 20 to 51 years of age, were scanned with [11C]methylphenidate. Three were tested twice to assess test-retest variability, four were tested at baseline and after administration of methylphenidate, and one was tested with [11C]methylphenidate and [11C]cocaine. Two baboons were scanned to evaluate whether there was competition between cocaine and methylphenidate for the same binding sites in the brain. Results: The uptake of [ 11 C] methylphenidate in the brain was high (mean±SD, 7.5%±1.5%), and the maximal concentration occurred in striatum. Pretreatment with methylphenidate decreased binding only in striatum (40%). Although the regional distribution of [ 11 C]methylphenidate was identical to that of [ 11 C] cocaine and they competed with each other for the same binding sites, these two drugs differed markedly in their pharmacokinetics. Clearance of [ 11 C]methlphenidate from striatum (90 minutes) was significantly slower than that of [ 11 C]cocaine (20 minutes). For both drugs, their fast uptake in striatum paralleled the experience of the "high." For methylphenidate, the high decreased very rapidly despite significant binding of the drug in the brain. In contrast, for cocaine, the decline in the high paralleled its fast rate of clearance from the brain. Conclusion: We speculate that because the experience of the high is associated with the fast uptake of cocaine and methylphenidate in the brain, the slow clearance of methylphenidate from the brain may serve as a limiting factor in promoting its frequent self-administration.

Between Geography and Philosophy: What Does It Mean to Be in the Place-World?

Abstract: remarkable convergence between geography and philosophy has become increasingly manifest in the past two decades. It is as if Strabo’s celebrated opening claim in his Geographia had finally become true two millennia later: “The science of Geography, which I now propose to investigate, is, I think, quite as much as any other science, a concern of the philosopher” (Strabo I, 3). What is new (and not in Strabo) is the growing conviction that philosophy is the concern of the geographer as well, or more exactly that philosophy and geography now need each other—and profit from this mutual need. Collaboration between the two fields has been evident ever since concerted attention to place began to emerge just over twenty years ago in, e.g., Edward Relph’s Place and Placelessness (1976) and Yi-Fu Tuan’s Space and Place (1976). Because of their emphasis on the experiential features of place—its “subjective” or “lived” aspects— such works were natural allies of phenomenology, a form of philosophy that attempts to give a direct description of first-person experience. Both geography and phenomenology have come to focus on place as experienced by human beings, in contrast to space, whose abstractness discourages experiential explorations. In the case of geography, a primary task has been to do justice to the indispensability of place in geographic theory and practice. So much is this the case that Robert David Sack (1997, 34, 30), a more recent proponent of the importance of place, can claim unhesitatingly that “[in geography] the truly important factor is place and its relationship to space.” 1

Deposition, exhumation, and paleoclimate of an ancient lake deposit, Gale crater, Mars.

Abstract: The landforms of northern Gale crater on Mars expose thick sequences of sedimentary rocks. Based on images obtained by the Curiosity rover, we interpret these outcrops as evidence for past fluvial, deltaic, and lacustrine environments. Degradation of the crater wall and rim probably supplied these sediments, which advanced inward from the wall, infilling both the crater and an internal lake basin to a thickness of at least 75 meters. This intracrater lake system probably existed intermittently for thousands to millions of years, implying a relatively wet climate that supplied moisture to the crater rim and transported sediment via streams into the lake basin. The deposits in Gale crater were then exhumed, probably by wind-driven erosion, creating Aeolis Mons (Mount Sharp).