Tracking proteins behaving badly provides insights for treatments of brain diseases

(Medical Xpress) -- A research team led by the University of Melbourne has developed a novel technique that tracks diseased proteins behaving badly by forming clusters in brain diseases such as Huntington’s and Alzheimer’s.

The technique published in Nature Methods today is the first of its kind to rapidly identify and track the location of diseased proteins inside cells and could provide insights into improved treatments for brain diseases and others such as cancer. 
  
Developed by Dr Danny Hatters and his team of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Bio21 Institute, University of Melbourne, the technique uses a flow cytometer to track the protein clusters in cells at a rate of 1000s per minute. In addition, cells with clustered proteins can be recovered for further study - neither of which had been possible before. 
  
“Being able to identify locations of diseased proteins in cells enables drugs to be developed to target different stages of disease development,” he said. 
  
He said the technique has application to many neurological diseases, which are characterised by formations of proteins clustering such as in Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases.

“A challenge for researchers has been trying to understand how proteins cluster and cause damage in diseases like Huntington’s and Alzheimer’s. This is the first approach which could enable us to answer those questions.” 
  
“Now we can see how the proteins form clusters inside a cell and can examine which cell functions are being damaged at different steps of the clustering process.”

“No drugs at this stage can stop the clustering process in Huntington’s disease for example. This sets up platforms to develop drugs that block the formation of clusters,” Dr Hatters said. 
  
The technique can also be used to examine how signaling processes occur such as when genes are switched on and off. 
  
“It has application to track events of abnormal gene signaling such as in cancer ” Dr Hatters said. 
  
“This technique offers hope in improving treatments for a range of neurological and other conditions,” he said. 
  
This work builds on Dr Hatters previous research where he and his team identified the behaviour of diseased Huntington proteins forming into clusters. 
  
The work was done in collaboration with Monash University.

Provided by University of Melbourne

"Tracking proteins behaving badly provides insights for treatments of brain diseases." March 19th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-tracking-proteins-badly-insights-treatments.html

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Robert Karl Stonjek

New research about facial recognition turns common wisdom on its head

A team of researchers that includes a USC scientist has methodically demonstrated that a face's features or constituents – more than the face per se – are the key to recognizing a person.

Their study, which goes against the common belief that brains process faces "holistically," appears this month in Psychological Science.

In addition to shedding light on the way the brain functions, these results may help scientists understand rare facial recognition disorders.

Humans are great at recognizing faces. There are even regions in the brain that are specifically associated with face perception – the most well-known one is the fusiform gyrus in the temporal lobe.

Common wisdom has it that humans recognize the face "holistically," meaning that there is something about the picture created by the entire face – the particular arrangement of a face's eyes, nose, and mouth and not just these features themselves – that makes it easier for the human brain to make a positive ID.

That common wisdom appears to be wrong.

"There is this belief that faces are special," said the study's coauthor Bosco Tjan, associate professor of psychology at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. "But why? How is the face special?"

To use an automotive metaphor, would it be easier for a car aficionado to identify a '58 Corvette by its distinctive quad headlights, chunky chrome grille and swoop on the side – or if shown the car that all these pieces make when added together?

Tjan and collaborators Jason M. Gold, associate professor of psychology at Indiana University, Bloomington and IU undergraduate student Patrick J. Mundy tested participants on how accurately they were able to identify a set of faces by the parts of those faces – the nose, left eye, right eye or mouth.

Then, using a well-established formula that Tjan developed in an earlier study, the researchers extrapolated how accurately each participant should be able to identify an entire face.

If humans were better at face recognition than nose or eye recognition, one would expect each participant to do a better job of identification when the features are all arranged together into a face. But in fact, the participants did a little worse than predicted by Tjan's formula.

Facial recognition, it appears, hinges on recognizing the face's features more than the "holistic" picture they add up to create.

Provided by University of Southern California

"New research about facial recognition turns common wisdom on its head." March 19th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-facial-recognition-common-wisdom.html

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Robert Karl Stonjek

New model show how the brain is organized to process odor information

Glomeruli in the olfactory bulb (shown in green), the first waystation for incoming olfactory signals, play an important role in the processing and identifying smells. Credit: Courtesy of Limei Ma, Stowers Institute for Medical Research

Just like a road atlas faithfully maps real-word locations, our brain maps many aspects of our physical world: Sensory inputs from our fingers are mapped next to each other in the somatosensory cortex; the auditory system is organized by sound frequency; and the various tastes are signalled in different parts of the gustatory cortex.

The olfactory system was believed to map similarly, where groups of chemically related odorants - amines, ketones, or esters, for example - register with clusters of cells that are laid out next to each other.

When researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research traced individual odor molecules' signal deep into the brain, they found evidence that this "chemotopic" hypothesis of olfaction is insufficient, paving the way for a new model of how the sense of smell works, and how it came about.

"When we mapped the individual chemical features of different odorants, they mapped all over the olfactory bulb, which processes incoming olfactory information," says Associate Investigator C. Ron Yu, PhD, who led the study published in this week's online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "From the animal's perspective that makes perfect sense. The chemical structure of an odor molecule is not what's important to them. They really just want to learn about their environment and associate olfactory information with food or other relevant information."

The brain receives information about odors from olfactory receptors, which are embedded in the membrane of sensory neurons in the nasal cavity. Any time an odor molecule interacts with a receptor, an electrical signal travels to so-called glomeruli in the olfactory bulb. Each glomerulus receives input from olfactory receptor neurons expressing only one type of olfactory receptor. The overall glomerular activation patterns within the olfactory bulb are thought to represent specific odors.

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Any time an odor molecule interacts with an olfactory receptor in the nasal cavity, an electrical signal travels to so-called glomeruli in the olfactory bulb. Each glomerulus receives input from olfactory receptor neurons expressing only one type of olfactory receptor. The overall glomerular activation patterns within the olfactory bulb are thought to represent specific odors. Credit: Courtesy of Limei Ma, Stowers Institute for Medical Research

"Chemotopy is a lovely model," says Yu. But it had never been mapped accurately based on the earlier available technologies and recent experiments suggested that the chemotopic hypothesis breaks down at a fine level. To increase the resolution of the "olfactory map," Yu and his team generated a new line of transgenic mice with superb sensitivity and devised equipment to deliver hundreds of odor stimuli to a single mouse.

When the Stowers researchers examined the activation pattern at the level of single glomeruli, they found that certain odors activated glomeruli within a distinct area of the olfactory bulb, while others signaled to glomeruli located all over the map. Odors from different classes intermingled, too, suggesting that the glomeruli have not evolved to only detect the chemical shapes of specific odorants.

This makes sense, as there are hundreds of thousands of odors, says Limei Ma, PhD, a research specialist at Stowers and first author on the new study. "Many of them could be really novel to the organism, something they never encountered before," she says. "The system must have the capability to recognize and encode anything."

So if glomeruli didn't have fidelity to specific molecular shapes, as the chemotopic hypothesis suggested, what united them? The team was led to a "tonotopic" hypothesis of the olfactory system. Individual olfactory receptors are "tuned" during evolution not to one particular odorant but to a variety of molecules. In combination, these receptors can then respond to those millions of smells. Glomeruli with similar tuning properties tend to be near each other. From a computing standpoint, this arrangement helps to enhance contrast among similar odors, explains Ma.

"The evolution of these receptors is not dictated by the chemical structures that they recognize," says Yu. "Most of our receptors have descended from a few common ancestral genes. Initially, they are more likely tuned to similar odors. When receptors accumulate mutations, it adds to their repertoire of natural odors they recognize."

Imagine a roomful of musicians. In chemotopy, the musicians are clustered according to their instruments and never play with other instruments. The team's tunotopic hypothesis is closer to an actual symphony: Different instruments overlap to create many more different sounds than the individual ones could.

Yu and his team think, further, that the tunotopic hypothesis may help us understand visual, auditory, and somatosensory processing as well. In the case of olfaction, tunotopy allows the animal to better distinguish among the nuances of odors. That precision, from an evolutionary perspective, would come in handy as the animal sorted through its environment.

It also helps us adapt to a constantly changing world.

"When you have a new chemical synthesized, like new perfumes and food flavors, you don't have to create new brain regions to react to it," says Ma. "What you do is use the existing receptors to sense all these chemicals and then tell your brain whether this is novel, similar, or something really strange."

Provided by Stowers Institute for Medical Research

"New model show how the brain is organized to process odor information." March 19th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-brain-odor.html

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Robert Karl Stonjek

Have a lot of Facebook friends? You are probably up yourself

• Link between number of friends and narcissistic qualities
• People with more friends tend to "self-promote" more
• Researchers also attribute Facebook to rise of narcissism

CONFIRMING the suspicions of many social media sceptics, researchers have established a direct link between the number of friends a person has on Facebook and the degree to which they are a narcissist.

A study published in the journal, Personality and Individual Differences, found people who scored highly on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory questionnaire had more friends on Facebook, tagged themselves more often and updated their newsfeeds more regularly.

The study also found narcissists were more likely to take offence to derogatory comments about them and also changed their profile picture more often.

A number of previous studies have linked narcissism with Facebook use, but this is some of the first evidence of a direct relationship between Facebook friends and the most "toxic" elements of narcissistic personality disorder.

The research comes amid growing evidence that young people are becoming increasingly narcissistic and obsessed with self-image.

The researchers, from Western Illinois University, discovered two social factors of narcissism - grandiose exhibitionism and entitlement/exploitativeness.

Grandiose exhibitionism (GE) is characterised by ''self-absorption, vanity, superiority, and exhibitionistic tendencies" and people who score high on this aspect of narcissism need to be constantly at the centre of attention.

The entitlement/exploitativeness (EE) aspect includes "a sense of deserving respect and a willingness to manipulate and take advantage of others".

The research found the higher someone was to score on aspects of GE and EE, the greater the number of friends they had and the more likely they were to accept friend requests from strangers and seek social support.

Numerous researchers have attributed Facebook to the rise of narcissism among teens as it provides a platform for people to "self-promote".

Christopher Carpenter, who ran the study told The Guardian: "In general, the 'dark side' of Facebook requires more research in order to better understand Facebook's socially beneficial and harmful aspects in order to enhance the former and curtail the latter.

"If Facebook is to be a place where people go to repair their damaged ego and seek social support, it is vitally important to discover the potentially negative communication one might find on Facebook and the kinds of people likely to engage in them. Ideally, people will engage in pro-social Facebooking rather than anti-social me-booking."

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/technology/have-a-lot-of-facebook-friends-you-are-probably-up-yourself/story-e6frfro0-1226304226602#ixzz1pbRA6KOT

 

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Robert Karl Stonjek

sai baba live darshan.mp4

Marvel Avengers Assemble (2012) Watch the Official trailer | HD

Marvel's ultimate team of heroes, the Avengers, storm into UK cinemas on 26th April in 'Marvel Avengers Assemble'.

Assemble at the Avengers official UK Facebook page:http://www.facebook.com/AvengersUK

Visit the official website http://uk.marvel.com/avengers-assemble/

See the new trailer in 3D and IMAX 3D in cinemas exclusively on John Carter 3D from March 9 2012.

When an unexpected enemy emerges that threatens global safety and security, Nick Fury, Director of the international peacekeeping agency known as SHIELD, finds himself in need of a team to pull the world back from the brink of disaster. Spanning the globe, a daring recruitment effort begins.

Marvel Avengers Assemble continues the epic big-screen adventures started in "Iron Man," "The Incredible Hulk," "Iron Man 2," "Thor" and "Captain America: The First Avenger". Starring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner and Samuel L. Jackson, and directed by Joss Whedon, "Marvel Avengers Assemble" is based on the ever-popular Marvel comic book series "The Avengers," first published in 1963 and a comics institution ever since.

Prepare yourself for an exciting event movie, packed with action and spectacular special effects, when "Marvel Avengers Assemble" hits the UK on 26th April.

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The First Living Animal Ever Imaged With a Scanning Electron Microscope

Bombarded with electrons and sealed in a vacuum, the noble tick survived the ordeal

By Clay Dillow

Up Close With the First Living Animal Captured via Scanning Electron Microscopy via Not Exactly Rocket Science

You didn’t wake up this morning thinking that a tick under a scanning electron microscope was going to be the coolest thing you saw all day, and yet here you are. After discovering some ticks alive inside a vacuum drying chamber, Yasuhito Ishigaki of Kanazawa Medical University decided to see if the hardy little bloodsuckers could stand up to the electron bombardment and vacuum conditions inside a scanning electron microscope (SEM). They could, and he’s got the video to prove it.

SEM rigs are great for capturing very fine detail of very small things, but they aren’t easy on their subjects. They work by bombarding a sample with electrons and recording how they scatter to create an image. Air interferes with this electron beam, so all this takes place inside a vacuum. And samples are often stained or even coated with metal beforehand to enhance the resolution of the microscopy.

All said, life is not good for a SEM sample. In fact, putting anything living into an SEM sample chamber pretty much ensures that it won’t be living when you take it out. But this clearly isn’t true for ticks. In the video below, you can clearly see the tick moving its legs. Ishigaki did this with 20 different ticks, and all of them survived, making them the first animals to ever be scanned with SEM.

[Not Exactly Rocket Science]

For the First Time, a Message Sent With Neutrinos

Straight through 780 feet of rock

By Rebecca Boyle

Neutrino Message University of Rochester

In a major step for truly wireless communications, scientists have figured out how to send a message with neutrinos, transmitting a single word through 780 feet of bedrock and translating it at the other end. It’s just a first step, but the message suggests that someday, submarine crews and maybe average civilians will communicate by sending chargeless, ghostly particles through any obstacle. The message? “Neutrino.”

Maybe researchers from the University of Rochester and North Carolina State University could have come up with a more interesting or ominous word, but their breakthrough is pretty impressive. Using neutrinos, you could theoretically communicate between any two points without any cables or wires — through water, which is what makes them an attractive option for marine applications, or even through the entire planet. Chargeless and tiny, neutrinos are unperturbed by obstacles the way radio waves are.

The neutrino message was produced at Fermilab, using one of the institution's particle accelerators to produce a high-energy neutrino beam and then using the MINERvA detector, located in a subterranean cave, to read them. The research team translated the word “neutrino” into binary code, and fired large groups of neutrinos to ensure the detector would pick them up.

Neutrinos are incredibly hard to detect, so finding them requires enormous networks of equipment. Even with a multi-ton detector like MINERvA, only about one in 10 billion neutrinos is spotted. After MINERvA detected them, the binary signal was translated back into English, and the word “neutrino” was received loud and clear.

Using a particle accelerator and massive detector to send a single word is not exactly a practical communication system, but the fact that it worked suggests there’s ample room for further study. The researchers submitted their work to the journal Modern Physics Letters A.

[University of Rochester]

During Two-Year Personal Study, Doctor Watches Himself Get Diabetes In Close Detail

A milestone in personalized medicine

By Rebecca Boyle

Personal Omics The integrative personal omics profile took several tissue samples and required various types of analysis. Cell

For more than two years, Stanford University geneticist Michael Snyder donated his living body to science. He and fellow researchers examined his DNA, RNA, proteins and metabolites, creating an incredibly detailed profile of his personal “omics.” They watched in real-time and at the molecular level as viruses attacked his cells, and they figured out, to their shock, that he was prone to developing type 2 diabetes. And then they watched him develop it.

It’s the first study to follow the molecular processes of sickness and health in one individual, and as such, it’s a significant breakthrough for personalized medicine. It’s also the first real-time view of the birth of a disease that afflicts millions of people, according to Stanford University Medical Center.

Since the earliest days of human genome sequencing, personalized medicine has promised to predict a person’s propensity for disease, helping individuals and their doctors better monitor their health. But this is the first time anyone has done it to such a comprehensive degree. The study goes far beyond the “ome” we know best, the genome, to include nearly every trackable large-scale structure in the body. Stanford researchers studied Snyder’s DNA (genome), RNA (transcriptome), metabolites (metabolome), and proteins (the proteome), as well as antibodies in his cells. They called it an integrative Personal “Omics” Profile, or iPOP. The goal was to study his disease risks and the various physiological states associated with health and illness.

Snyder, who led the study, donated blood samples every two months when he was healthy, upping the samples when he fell ill, for 20 blood draws. The team performed scores of tests and came up with thousands of data points, which required using complex algorithms and other processing techniques.

To start, the team sequenced Snyder’s genome and found that he has a genetic predisposition to type 2 diabetes, despite having no family history or significant risk factors (he’s thin, doesn’t smoke, etc.). They sequenced his mother’s genome, too. When Snyder came down with a nasty viral infection, the researchers watched his blood sugar levels rise, and he immediately changed his diet and exercise regimen. Ultimately, the researchers say he could lower his glucose levels. It’s a compelling example of how genetic information can be used to improve a person’s health.

The researchers also uncovered changes in RNA transcription and gene expression between healthy and diseased states, watching the body’s changes in response to various phenomena.

“Detailed omics profiling coupled with genome sequencing can provide molecular and physiological information of medical significance,” the researchers write. “This approach can be generalized for personalized health monitoring and medicine.”

The study appears in the journal Cell.

The Electric-Car Movement Enters A Quiet, Crucial Phase

The transition from novelty to normality

By Seth Fletcher

Electric-Car Alison Seiffer

Early this year, when it became clear that the Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf had missed their 2011 sales targets, critics declared the electric-car revolution over. Yet at Detroit’s annual North American International Auto Show in January, plug-in cars abounded. BMW displayed its forthcoming i3 electric city car, along with its i8 plug-in hybrid sports car. Acura unwrapped a hybrid concept version of the NSX supercar. Tesla Motors brought its all-electric Model S sedan. But the most important car on the show floor might have been one that, on the surface, seemed much less exciting: the new Ford Fusion, which will be available in gasoline, hybrid and plug-in hybrid versions.

Carmakers long refused to build plug-in cars because they said they had no idea how many people would buy them. Then, rising oil prices and environmental concerns led governments to enact stricter emissions standards and push carmakers to build cars that could meet those standards. In the U.S., the federal government lent several carmakers (not just GM and Chrysler) money to develop electric vehicles and retool factories.

Ford used part of its $5.9-billion loan to develop a system for building gas cars, hybrids, plug-ins and electric cars all on the same line. In a renovated Detroit-area factory, it will build gas and electric versions of the Focus compact car, along with hybrid and plug-in hybrid C-Max minivans. The company will use the same strategy for the Fusion.

Compared with the ambitious e-car launches of recent years—particularly those of the Chevy Volt and the Nissan Leaf—Ford’s approach might appear noncommittal. But it could turn out to be transformative. It’s evidence that once the investments have been made, manufacturing electric cars isn’t all that hard. It’s a matter of adding a few assembly-line stations where plug-in cars get their batteries, electric motors and electronic controls. And when Ford and other automakers use the same lithium-ion batteries across a range of electrified vehicles, it will help reduce the cost of those batteries, pushing electric-vehicle sticker prices down and ultimately in line with conventional gas cars.

Drivers won’t just benefit from lower prices; they will finally get some choice. Picking a power train could eventually become as simple as opting for the premium sound-system package. And making that choice won’t have to be a lifestyle statement. Outwardly, the plug-in hybrid version of the Ford Fusion will be almost indistinguishable from the hybrid or conventional versions, with the exception of a charge-port door and a little badge that says “Energi.” Habituating Americans to the concept of plugging in should make it more likely that all manner of electrified cars receive a warm reception.

The debut of the Volt and the Leaf was just one phase of a long process. First came the high-profile launches and the saturation media coverage. Now it’s time for plug-in cars to slowly become normal, even boring—or, to put it another way, accepted.