New research from medical scientists at Johns Hopkins University linked abnormally formed proteins in the human brain with the psychiatric illness called schizophrenia, in a significant number of patients. While they’re not yet sure what the connection is, the study said that deformed proteins were found in the brains of many patients who were diagnosed with schizophrenia.
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More than 50 cases have been identified so far in an outbreak linked to the Sudan variant of Ebola virus, which has no approved treatment or vaccine.
Summary: Neurons in the memory-associated entorhinal cortex of super-agers are significantly larger than their cognitively average peers, those with MCI, and even in people up to 30 years younger. Additionally, these neurons contained no signs of Tau, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.
Source: Northwestern University.
Neurons in an area of the brain responsible for memory (known as the entorhinal cortex) were significantly larger in SuperAgers compared to cognitively average peers, individuals with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease and even individuals 20 to 30 years younger than SuperAgers — who are aged 80 years and older, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study.
Based on an analysis of just under half a million records in the UK Biobank, people who drink two to three cups of coffee each day tend to live longer and exhibit less cardiovascular disease compared with those who abstain from the beverage.
While the research doesn’t claim drinking more coffee adds years to your life, it’s nevertheless an intriguing association that scientists are keen to investigate further. It’s also important to weigh the findings against previous studies linking brain shrinkage and an increased risk of dementia with a daily habit of six or more cups of coffee.
“In this large, observational study, ground, instant and decaffeinated coffee were associated with equivalent reductions in the incidence of cardiovascular disease and death from cardiovascular disease or any cause,” says electrophysiologist Peter Kistler, from the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute in Australia.
Circa 2016 Basically this could be modified to make our own immune system more advanced to evolve to each virus by itself.
Mimivirus defence system might lead to new genome-editing tools.
Summary: SARS_CoV_2, the virus responsible for COVID-19 infects and replicates in astrocytes, reducing neural viability.
Source: FAPESP
A Brazilian study published in the journal PNAS describes some of the effects infection by SARS-CoV-2 can have on the central nervous system.
In a discovery with wide-ranging implications, researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst recently announced in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that uniformly charged macromolecules—or molecules, such as proteins or DNA, that contain a large number of atoms all with the same electrical charge—can self-assemble into very large structures. This finding upends our understanding of how some of life’s basic structures are built.
Traditionally, scientists have understood charged polymer chains as being composed of smaller, uniformly charged units. Such chains, called polyelectrolytes, display predictable behaviors of self-organization in water: They will repel each other because similarly charged objects don’t like to be close to each other. If you add salt to water containing polyelectrolytes, then molecules coil up, because the chains’ electrical repulsion is screened by the salt.
However, “the game is very different when you have dipoles,” says Murugappan Muthukumar, the Wilmer D. Barrett Professor in Polymer Science and Engineering at UMass Amherst, the study’s senior author.
An interdisciplinary team of University of Minnesota Twin Cities scientists and engineers has developed a first-of-its-kind, plant-inspired extrusion process that enables synthetic material growth. The new approach will allow researchers to build better soft robots that can navigate hard-to-reach places, complicated terrain, and potentially areas within the human body.
The paper is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary, high-impact scientific journal.
“This is the first time these concepts have been fundamentally demonstrated,” said Chris Ellison, a lead author of the paper and professor in the University of Minnesota Twin Cities Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science. “Developing new ways of manufacturing are paramount for the competitiveness of our country and for bringing new products to people. On the robotic side, robots are being used more and more in dangerous, remote environments, and these are the kinds of areas where this work could have an impact.”
Circa 2015 face_with_colon_three
Researchers have built the world’s first artificial neuron that’s capable of mimicking the function of an organic brain cell — including the ability to translate chemical signals into electrical impulses, and communicate with other human cells.
These artificial neurons are the size of a fingertip and contain no ‘living’ parts, but the team is working on shrinking them down so they can be implanted into humans. This could allow us to effectively replace damaged nerve cells and develop new treatments for neurological disorders, such as spinal cord injuries and Parkinson’s disease.
“Our artificial neuron is made of conductive polymers and it functions like a human neuron,” lead researcher Agneta Richter-Dahlfors from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden said in a press release.
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Move over, BA-4 and BA-5, there’s a new COVID-19 variant that’s spreading even as the push is on for the current round of boosters.
The word from the experts is to get the booster and don’t let your guard down. KDKA’s John Shumway spoke with CBS News medical expert Dr. David Agus — and some of what he had to say is a bit disconcerting.
Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Omicron, BA-4, BA-5, and now comes BF-7.
