Lifeboat Foundation

Biologists from the University of Bayreuth have discovered a uniquely rapid form of regeneration in injured neurons and their function in the central nervous system of zebrafish. They studies the Mauthner cells, which are solely responsible for the escape behavior of the fish, and previously regarded as incapable of regeneration. However, their ability to regenerate crucially depends on the location of the injury. In central nervous systems of other animal species, such a comprehensive regeneration of neurons has not yet been proven beyond doubt. The scientists report their findings in the journal Communications Biology.

Mauthner cells are the largest cells found in animal brains. They are part of the central nervous system of most fish and amphibian species and trigger life-saving escape responses when predators approach. The transmission of signals in Mauthner cells to their motoneurons is only guaranteed if a certain part of these cells, the axon, is intact. The axon is an elongated structure that borders the cell body with its cell nucleus at one of its two ends. If the injury of the axon occurs close to the cell body, the Mauthner cell dies. If the axon is damaged at its opposite end, lost functions are either not restored at all or only slowly and to a limited extent. However, the Mauthner cell reacts to an injury in the middle of the axon with rapid and complete regeneration. Indeed, within a week after the injury, the axon and its function are fully restored, and the fish is able to escape approaching predators again.

“Such a rapid regeneration of a neuron was never observed anywhere in the central nervous system of other animal species until now. Here, regeneration processes usually extend over several weeks or months,” says Dr. Alexander Hecker, first author of the new study and member of the Department of Animal Physiology. This finding clearly disproves the widely accepted view in the scientific community that Mauthner cells are unable to regenerate.

Knowing how the universe looks on such large scales helps confirm our current cosmological models, Neta Bahcall, an astrophysicist at Princeton University in New Jersey who was not involved in the work, told Live Science. But determining where exactly these enormous, crisscrossing structures begin and end is tricky, she added.

“When you look at the network of filaments and voids, it becomes a semantic question of what’s connected,” she said.

In their paper, the team acknowledges that they may not have plotted yet the entirety of the vast South Pole Wall. “We will not be certain of its full extent, nor whether it is unusual, until we map the universe on a significantly grander scale,” they wrote.

Canada’s highest court has issued a ruling today upholding a federal law preventing third parties, such as employers and insurance companies, from demanding genetic information from individuals.

In a 5–4 decision, the Supreme Court of Canada has decided the Genetic Non-Discrimination Act is a constitutional exercise of federal powers.

Image Credits: Getty Images.

Scott Salandy-Defour used to make frequent stops at a battery manufacturer in southern China for his energy startup based in Hong Kong. The appeal of Hong Kong, he said, is its adjacency to the plentiful electronics suppliers in the Pearl River Delta, as well as the city’s amenities for foreign entrepreneurs, be it its well-established financial and legal system or a culture blending the East and West.

“It’s got the best of both worlds,” Salandy-Defour told TechCrunch. “But it’s not going to be the same.”

The human colon is home to a complex microbial ecosystem (microbiota), composed mostly of anaerobic organisms. Recent data suggest that gut microbes and their metabolites can affect human health through multiple mechanisms including altering the immune response , changing host cell metabolic states , and even affecting the response to immunotherapies.

The potential causative role of gut microbiota in health and disease is one of the most extraordinary findings of the past decade. Yet we are only starting to understand the multitude of mechanisms by which microbes promote changes in intestinal physiology, and how changes in the symbiotic relationship between the host and the resident microbiota contribute to the pathogenesis of both infectious and noninfectious diseases.

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An analysis of more than 17 million people in England — the largest study of its kind, according to its authors — has pinpointed a bevy of factors that can raise a person’s chances of dying from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

The paper, published Wednesday in Nature, echoes reports from other countries that identify older people, men, racial and ethnic minorities, and those with underlying health conditions among the more vulnerable populations.

“This highlights a lot of what we already know about COVID-19,” said Uchechi Mitchell, a public health expert at the University of Illinois at Chicago who was not involved in the study. “But a lot of science is about repetition. The size of the study alone is a strength, and there is a need to continue documenting disparities.”

We hear a lot of talk about the possibility of intelligent E.T.s, but in this episode, neuroscientist Lori Marino gives us the nuts and bolts of what intelligence really is; how it manifests itself on our own Earth; and why intelligent aliens won’t necessarily need ginormous brains.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A company wants to use an advanced balloon to fly customers from Earth’s surface in Alaska to the highest reaches of the planet’s atmosphere.

Florida-based startup firm Space Perspective plans to use the Pacific Spaceport Complex in Kodiak to serve as one of the launch sites for the vehicle, called the Spaceship Neptune, The Anchorage Daily News reported Sunday.

The balloon rides will be manned by a flight crew taking eight passengers in a pressurized capsule suspended beneath a hydrogen balloon the size of a football stadium.

Most cells in your body come with two genetic libraries; one in the nucleus, and the other inside structures called mitochondria — also known as the ‘powerhouses of the cell’.

Until now, we’ve only had a way to make changes to one.

A combined effort by several research teams in the US has led to a process that could one day allow us to modify the instructions making up the cell’s ‘other’ genome, and potentially treat a range of conditions that affect how we power our bodies.