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Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Drastic tactics to save oceans

THE UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND   
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A University of Queensland scientist is involved in an international collaboration that has proposed a new strategy for marine conservation, which involves unconventional, proactive tactics, in a paper published in Nature Climate Change.

Current actions identified in national and international policy to counter the impacts of CO2 emissions are proving inadequate, according to the authors, Greg Rau (Institute of Marine Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz), Elizabeth McLeod (The Nature Conservancy) and Ove Hoegh-Guldberg (Global Change Institute, The University of Queensland).

“It's unwise to assume we will be able to stabilize atmospheric CO2 at levels necessary to reduce or prevent ongoing damage to marine ecosystems,” said Professor Hoegh-Guldberg.

“A much broader approach to marine management and mitigation options, including manipulating the environment around corals and considering the translocation of reef-building corals, must be evaluated,” he said.

Marine conservation options may include:

- Using shade to protect corals from the heat stress which leads to coral bleaching and death, albeit at small scales.

- Actively assisting biological resilience and adaptation through spatial planning, protective culturing and possibly selective breeding

- Maintain or manage ocean chemistry by adding globally abundant base minerals such as carbonates and silicates to the ocean to neutralize acidity, and improve conditions for shell formation in marine creatures

- Convert CO2 from land-based waste into dissolved bicarbonates that could be added to the ocean to provide carbon sequestration and enhance alkalinity.

Investigating such approaches in terms of their cost, safety and effectiveness must be part of ocean conservation and management plans in the future, according to the paper's authors.

They believe more ideas need to be solicited and further research is required to determine which if any of these ideas could form the basis of safe and cost effective marine conservation strategies.

“Many of these ideas may only prove practical and effective at a local or regional scale,” said Professor Hoegh-Guldberg.

“However, they may still be important to local businesses that may value patches of coral reefs.” he said.

“In lieu of dealing with the core problem – increasing emissions of greenhouse gases – these techniques and approaches could ultimately represent the last resort. I hope we don't end up in the position but we must at least be prepared.”

Rather than waiting for damage to occur, the authors suggest that research and evaluation of non-passive measures to preserve marine communities must be undertaken before more costly and less effective restoration from CO2-related impacts is needed.

According to the paper, if current trends continue, by 2050 atmospheric CO2 is expected to increase to more than 80 per cent above pre-industrial (pre-1750) levels, with the corresponding devastation to marine environments putting trillions of dollars at risk globally.

From tropical to polar oceans, the magnitude and speed of the changes expected as a result of climate change and increasing ocean acidity is likely to exceed the ability of numerous marine species to adapt and survive. This rate of increase has few, if any, parallels in the past 300 million years of the Earth's history.

According to the authors, some species may be able to adapt to the expected changes by migrating deeper into the ocean or further away from the equator. However, such events are rare and difficult. For example, the Great Barrier Reef would have to migrate south at the rate of 15 kilometres a year to keep pace with the predicted increases in ocean temperature while at the same time preserving its tourist and fisheries values. This seems highly unlikely given the complexity of the reef ecosystem.
Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

Neuromarketing


VIRGINIA MILLEN, SWINBURNE UNIVERSITY VENTURE MAGAZINE   
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It's our emotions, not facts, that influence our purchasing choices, and marketers are now tapping into this fact to create smarter advertisements. 
Image: aluxum/iStockphoto
How do you decide which running shoes to buy? Why do you prefer the iPhone over all other smart phones? Why did smokers crave a cigarette after watching an ad designed to turn people off smoking, while non-smokers were disgusted by it? These are the questions advertisers, marketers and market researchers are constantly faced with and Swinburne Neuroscience Professor Richard Silberstein has some of the answers.

Neuromarketing or consumer neuroscience is a relatively new area of research that combines neuroscience with market research. It uses brain-measuring technology to find out what consumers really think of advertising.

Until recently, market research companies had access to limited methods to assess the effectiveness of an ad. According to Professor Silberstein, these methods rely on assessment using the right hemisphere of the brain, which focuses on details and specifics, to explain why we did or didn’t like an ad.

“Basically, the current research tools that people are using for market research are good for fact-based ads, but they are no good for advertising that is more creative and emotional, which we are getting more and more of,” he says.

“More and more advertising is directed at emotion. People are very poorly aware of their emotional processes and it’s even harder to vocalise or express them.”

Brain-measuring technology

Research is proving that emotions are the most powerful drivers of our decision-making. But there’s another reason why advertising is working to appeal to our emotions. And that is due to heavy competition between brands that have little to set them apart, except for our emotional connection to them.

Take a tube of toothpaste, for example. Why do some people buy Colgate Total White Stripe over Macleans Ultimate White Ice Sensation? Professor Silberstein explains we make these decisions based on emotion, not fact. It is important to note, however, that there are some cases when rational processes come in to play. People will often choose a home loan, for example, based on the lowest interest rate a bank can offer.

Professor Silberstein’s company Neuro-Insight uses a technology invented at Swinburne called Steady State Topography (SST) to measure the effectiveness of a piece of commercial communication by tracking rapid changes in the speed of neural processing in different parts of the brain.

“When a part of the brain becomes more active it tends to process neural information faster. SST is probably the only technology that can measure that particular feature of brain response,” he says. “The right hemisphere of our brain is concerned with imagery, but also with the emotional connection and that’s the one that’s hard to get at by using traditional market research methodologies.”

SST can measure if an ad is being stored in our long-term memories – probably the most important aspect of judging whether an ad is effective or not. “One of our measures for advertising effectiveness is if there is a high level of memory encoding during either the key message of the ad or during the branding of the ad,” says Professor Silberstein. The company can also measure whether the subject likes or dislikes something, their engagement with the ad, and emotional intensity experienced while watching an ad.

“When you put all of that together we can give a profile of psychological processes and we can see how they change on a second-by-second basis.

“We can give an insight into the mind and emotions of the people a company is trying to communicate with. We can tell not what are people thinking, but how people are thinking,” says Professor Silberstein.

Your decision-making personality

Swinburne’s Dr Joseph Ciorciari has been working in the same area, but specialises in how the biology of personality and thinking style impact decision-making.

Through their joint research, Dr Ciorciari and Dr John Gountas, from Murdoch University, recently found that there is a neurobiological validation for the four broad personality types Dr Gountas believes each of us lean towards when making decisions. These four personality types are logical, pragmatic, emotional and imaginative.

“When we make a decision we have a dominant personality [thinking style] and we may shift to another depending on the impact our environment is having on us,” says Dr Ciorciari, a senior lecturer who has taught in the biomedical sciences, biomedical engineering and psychophysiology undergraduate, honours and postgraduate programs, and is the program coordinator for the undergraduate psychology/psychophysiology course at Swinburne.

Targeted advertising

Examining consumer behaviour through the prism of these personality types allows marketers to better target advertising. Dr Ciorciari and Dr Gountas have done studies on advertisements designed to curb the road toll. “We did a couple of studies on young men watching these ads, using an EEG technique called LORETA, which looks at the source of where the electrical activity is emanating from the brain. It gives you a better estimation of which region is involved in decision-making,” says Dr Ciorciari.

The research showed that certain ads caused young men to completely switch off. “The ads had absolutely no impact. We didn’t find memory systems activating. We saw systems working because they were watching, but the information wasn’t getting in.”

However, one ad shown to the men took a completely different approach. “It pulled on the heart strings, it gave the young men who were watching it an opportunity to see the suffering of those who were left behind. It was extremely effective,” says Dr Ciorciari.

The ability of consumer neuroscience to determine whether an ad is effective is the reason more corporations, including Google, Coca-Cola and General Motors are using it to influence consumer attitudes. “If you want to put together a better ad, you can work out where the negative bits are, based on neuroscience. You can then better construct the ad to help maintain attention, to make it more effective,” says Dr Ciorciari.

This technology and research is illuminating the human mind and our decision-making processes.

It offers insight into the most effective ways companies can communicate with us and helps scientists and advertisers to understand what resonates, and therefore what is most powerful. It is shaping advertising.
Editor's Note: Original story from Swinburne's Venture magazine can be found here.

‘Switch’ for birth defects found


WALTER AND ELIZA HALL INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL RESEARCH   
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Without the Moz gene, Tbx1, a gene responsible for normal heart development, did not work properly, the researchers have found.
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The discovery of a ‘switch’ that modifies a gene known to be essential for normal heart development could explain variations in the severity of birth defects in children with DiGeorge syndrome.

Researchers from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute made the discovery while investigating foetal development in an animal model of DiGeorge syndrome. DiGeorge syndrome affects approximately one in 4000 babies.

Dr Anne Voss and Dr Tim Thomas led the study, with colleagues from the institute’s Development and Cancer division, published in the journalDevelopmental Cell.

Dr Voss said babies with DiGeorge syndrome have a characteristic DNA mutation on chromosome 22 (22q11 – chromosome 22, long arm, band 11), but exhibit a range of mild to severe birth defects, including heart and aorta defects.

“The variation in symptoms is so prominent that even identical twins, with the exact same DNA sequence, can have remarkably different conditions,” she said. “We hypothesised that environmental factors were probably responsible for the variation, via changes to the way in which genetic material is packaged in the chromatin,” Dr Voss said.

Chromatin is the genetic material that comprises DNA and associated proteins packaged together in the cell nucleus. Chemical marks that sit on the chromatin modify it to instruct when and where to switch genes on or off, making a profound difference to normal development and cellular processes.

The research team found a protein called MOZ, the ‘switch’ which is involved in chromatin modification, was a key to explaining the range of defects seen in an animal model of DiGeorge syndrome. “MOZ is what we call an chromatin modifier, which means it is responsible for making marks on the chromatin that tell genes to switch on or off,” Dr Voss said.

“In this study, we showed that MOZ regulates the major gene, called Tbx1, in the 22q11 deletion. Tbx1 is responsible for heart and aortic arch development. In mouse models that have no Moz gene, Tbx1 does not work properly, and the embryos have similar heart and aorta defects to those seen in children with DiGeorge syndrome. We showed that MOZ is crucial for normal activity of Tbx1, and the level of MOZ activity may contribute to determining how severe the defects are in children with DiGeorge syndrome,” Dr Voss said.

Dr Voss said the study also showed that the severity of birth defects in DiGeorge syndrome could be compounded by the mother’s diet, particularly if the MOZ switch is not working properly. The research team showed that reduced MOZ activity could conspire with excess retinoic acid (a type of vitamin A) to markedly increase the frequency and severity of DiGeorge syndrome.

“In our mouse model, we saw that retinoic acid exacerbated the defects seen in mice with mutations in the Moz gene. In fact, in mice that had one normal copy of MOZ and one mutated copy, the offspring look completely normal, but if the mother’s diet was high in vitamin A, the offspring developed a DiGeorge-like syndrome. This suggests that MOZ, when coupled with a diet high in vitamin A (retinoic acid), may play a role in the development of DiGeorge syndrome in some cases.

“This interaction between the chromatin modifier MOZ, the Tbx1 gene, and retinoic acid in the diet gives a rare insight of how the environment and genetic mutations can interact at the chromatin level to cause birth defects.”

The work is supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, British Heart Foundation, Australian Stem Cell Centre and the Victorian Government.
Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Research verifies a Neandertal's right-handedness, hinting at language capacity



Research verifies a Neandertal's right-handedness, hinting at language capacityScratch marks on the teeth from the Neandertal skeleton Regourdou.
(Phys.org)—There are precious few Neandertal skeletons available to science. One of the more complete was discovered in 1957 in France, roughly 900 yards away from the famous Lascaux Cave. That skeleton was dubbed "Regourdou." Then, about two decades ago, researchers examined Regourdou's arm bones and theorized that he had been right-handed.
"This skeleton had a mandible and parts of the skeleton below the neck," said David Frayer, professor of anthropology at the University of Kansas. "Twenty-plus years ago, some people studied the skeleton and argued that it was a right-handed individual based on the muscularity of the right arm versus the left arm."
Handedness, a uniquely human trait, signals brain lateralization, where each of the brain's two hemispheres is specialized. The left brain controls the right side of the body and in a human plays a primary role for language. So, if Neandertals were primarily right-handed, like modern humans, that fact could suggest a capacity for language.
Now, a new investigation by Frayer and an international team led by Virginie Volpato of the Senckenberg Institute in Frankfurt, Germany, has confirmed Regourdou's right-handedness by looking more closely at the robustness of the arms and shoulders, and comparing it with scratches on his teeth. Their findings are published today in the journal PLOS ONE.
"We've been studying scratch marks on Neandertal teeth, but in all cases they were isolated teeth, or teeth in mandibles not directly associated with skeletal material," said Frayer. "This is the first time we can check the pattern that's seen in the teeth with the pattern that's seen in the arms. We did more sophisticated analysis of the arms—the collarbone, the humerus, the radius and the ulna—because we have them on both sides. And we looked at cortical thickness and other biomechanical measurements. All of them confirmed that everything was more robust on the right side then the left."
Frayer said Neandertals used their mouths like a "third hand" and that produced more wear and tear on the front teeth than their back ones. "It's long been known the Neandertals had been heavily processing things with their incisors and canines," he said.
Frayer's research on Regourdou's teeth confirmed the individual's right-handedness.
"We looked at the cut marks on the lower incisors and canines," said the KU researcher. "The marks that are on the lip side of the incisor teeth are oblique, or angled in such away that it indicates they were gripping with the left hand and cutting with the right, and every now and then they'd hit the teeth and leave these scratch marks that were there for the life of the individual."
Frayer said that the research on Regourdou shows that 89 percent of European Neandertal fossils (16 of 18) showed clear preference for their right hands. This is very similar to the prevalence of right-handers in modern human populations—about 90 percent of people alive today favor their right hands.
Frayer and his co-authors conclude that such ratios suggest a Neandertal capacity for language.
"The long-known connection between brain asymmetry, handedness and language in living populations serves as a proxy for estimating brain lateralization in the fossil record and the likelihood of language capacity in fossils," they write.
More information: PLoS ONE 7(8): e43949. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0043949
Provided by University of Kansas
"Research verifies a Neandertal's right-handedness, hinting at language capacity." August 24th, 2012. http://phys.org/news/2012-08-neandertal-right-handedness-hinting-language-capacity.html
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Robert Karl Stonjek

High-tech, remote-controlled camera for neurosurgery




High-tech, remote-controlled camera for neurosurgery© Thinkstock
(Phys.org)—A small camera inserted into the body enables surgeons to perform many types of operations with minimal trauma. EU-funding enabled researchers to extend the use of such interventions to a variety of neurosurgical applications.
The medical field has made great advances in minimising trauma associated with various surgical interventions. Use of surgical microscopes has been influential in guiding a surgeon's tools to the appropriate location and reducing tissue damaged in an effort to ensure all affected areas have been treated.
Within the last 30 years, more and more procedures have lent themselves to endoscopic intervention also called minimally invasive surgery (MIS).
A very small, flexible tube with a camera at its tip is inserted into an incision or natural body opening (e.g. nasal cavity) and directed to the appropriate site for diagnosis and treatment. The camera offers a wide panoramic view superior to the traditional conical view of a surgical microscope.
In the case of neurosurgery where operative and post-operative trauma can lead to debilitating loss of brain function and even death, endoscopic intervention is particularly attractive. However, limitations of available endoscopic surgical systems have excluded their use in many important neurosurgical applications.
In order to extend the use of potentially life-saving endoscopic surgery, European scientists initiated the 'Paraendoscopic intuitive computer assisted operating system' (PICO) project.
With EU-funding, the consortium of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and research and technology development (RTD) partners produced important endoscopic neurosurgical technology.
The PICO positioning system consisted of a balanced holding-and-motion device with fine motor-driven adjustment. The holding-and-motion system could be attached either to the operating table or to the patient's head.
A novel interface for remote control enabled the surgeon to steer the endoscope without removing their hands from the surgical instruments.
Scientists also incorporated a three-dimensional (3D) visualisation system capable of feeding data to a monitor or head-mounted display. The system enabled voice-controlled delivery of additional information such as pre-operative test results and ultrasound images.
Micro-mechanical surgical instruments for a number of tasks such as suctioning, cutting and sample-taking were specifically designed for endoscopic neurosurgery.
The PICO system is a particularly important contribution to the field of endoscopic neurosurgery. Its market availability should shorten many procedures while reducing associated surgical and post-operative trauma and thus morbidity and mortality.
Provided by CORDIS
"High-tech, remote-controlled camera for neurosurgery." August 24th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-high-tech-remote-controlled-camera-neurosurgery.html
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

Researchers investigate early language acquisition in robots


Researchers investigate early language acquisition in robots(Phys.org)—Research into robotics continues to grow in Europe. And the introduction of humanoid robots has compelled scientists to investigate the acquisition of language. A case in point is a team of researchers in the United Kingdom that studied the development of robots that could acquire linguistic skills. Presented in the journal PLoS ONE, the study focused on early stages analogous to some characteristics of a human child between 6 and 14 months of age, the transition from babbling to first word forms. The results, which shed light on the potential of human-robot interaction systems in studies investigating early language acquisition, are an outcome of the ITALK ('Integration and transfer of action and language knowledge in robots') project, which received EUR 6.3 million under the 'Information and communication technologies' (ICT) Theme of the EU's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).
Scientists from the Adaptive Systems Research Group at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom have discovered that a robot analogous to a child between 6 and 14 months old has the ability to develop rudimentary linguistic skills. The robot, called DeeChee, moved from various syllabic babble to various word forms, including colours and shapes, after it 'conversed' with humans. The latter group was told to speak to the robot as if it were a small child.
'It is known that infants are sensitive to the frequency of sounds in speech, and these experiments show how this sensitivity can be modelled and contribute to the learning of word forms by a robot,' said lead author Caroline Lyon of the University of Hertfordshire.
In their paper, the authors wrote: 'We wanted to explore human-robot interaction and were deliberately not prescriptive. However, leaving participants to talk naturally opened up possibilities of a wide range of behaviour, possibilities that were certainly realised. Some participants were better teachers than others: some of the less good produced very sparse utterances, while other talkative participants praised DeeChee whatever it did, which skewed the learning process towards non-words.'
The researchers said one of the reasons that the robot learnt the words is because the teacher said the words repeatedly, an already anticipated response. The second reason is that the non-salient word strings were variable, so their frequencies were spread about. According to the team, this phenomenon is the basis of a number of automated plagiarism detectors, where precise matches of short lexical strings indicate copying. Lastly, they said the phonemic representation of speech from the teacher to the robot is not a uniformly stable mapping of sounds.
'The frequencies of syllables in words with variable phonemic forms may be attenuated compared with those in salient content words, or parts of such words,' they wrote. 'It has long been realised that there is in practice a great deal of variation in spontaneous speech. This work shows the potential of human-interaction systems to be used in studies of language acquisition, and the iterative development methodology highlights how the embodied nature of interaction may bring to light important factors in the dynamics of language acquisition that would otherwise not occur to modellers.'
More information: Lyon, C., et al. 'Interactive Language Learning by Robots: The Transition from Babbling to Word Forms'. PLoS ONE 7(6): e38236. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0038236
Provided by CORDIS
"Researchers investigate early language acquisition in robots." August 24th, 2012. http://phys.org/news/2012-08-early-language-acquisition-robots.html


Robot NICO learning self awareness using mirrors


tRobot NICO learning self awareness using mirrors


(Phys.org)—Self awareness is one of the hallmarks of intelligence. We as human beings clearly understand that we are both our bodies and our minds and that others perceive us in ways differently than we perceive ourselves. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than when we look in a mirror.
In so doing we understand that the other person looking back, is really the three dimensional embodiment of who we really are as a complete person. For this reason, researchers use something called the mirror test as a means of discerning other animals' level of self awareness. They put a mark of some sort on the face without the animal knowing it, then allow the animal to look in a mirror; if the animal is able to comprehend that the mark is on its own face, and demonstrates as much by touching itself where it's been marked, than the animal is deemed to have self awareness. Thus far, very few have passed the test, some apes, dolphins and elephants. Now, researchers at Yale University are trying to program a robot that is able to pass the test as well.
The robot's name is NICO, and has been developed by Brian Scassellati and Justin Hart, who together have already taught the robot to recognize where its arm is in three dimensional space to a very fine degree, a feat never before achieved with a robot of any kind. The next step is to do the same with other body parts, the feet, legs torso and of course eventually the head, which is the most critical part in giving a robot self awareness, which is the ultimate goal of the project.
Programming a robot to have self awareness is considered to be one of the key milestones to creating robots that are truly useful in everyday life. Robots that "live" in people's homes for example, would have to have a very good understanding of where every part of itself is and what it's doing in order to prevent causing accidental harm to housemates. This is so because the movements of people are random and haphazard, so much so that people quite often accidently bump into one another. With robots, because they are likely to be stronger, such accidents would be unacceptable.
Scassellati and Hart believe they are getting close and expect NICO to be able to pass the mirror test within the next couple of months. No doubt others will be watching very closely, because if they meet with success it will be a truly historic moment.
© 2012 Phys.Org
"Robot NICO learning self awareness using mirrors." August 24th, 2012. http://phys.org/news/2012-08-robot-nico-awareness-mirrors.html
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

Astrocytes control the generation of new neurons from neural stem cells



Astrocytes are cells that have many functions in the central nervous system, such as the control of neuronal synapses, blood flow, or the brain's response to neurotrauma or stroke.
Prof. Pekny's laboratory together with collaborators have earlier demonstrated that astrocytes reduce the brain tissue damage after stroke and that the integration of transplanted neural stem cells can be largely improved by modulating the activity of astrocytes.
Generation of new neurons
In their current study, the Sahlgrenska Academy researchers show how astrocytes control the generation of new neurons in the brain. An important contribution to this project came from Åbo Academy, one of Sahlgrenska's traditional collaborative partners.
"In the brain, astrocytes control how many new neurons are formed from neural stem cells and survive to integrate into the existing neuronal networks. Astrocytes do this by secreting specific molecules but also by much less understood direct cell-cell interactions with stem cells", says Prof. Milos Pekny.
Important regulator
"Astrocytes are in physical contact with neural stem cells and we have shown that they signal through the Notch pathway to stem cells to keep the birth rate of new neurons low. We have also shown that the intermediate filament system of astrocytes is an important regulator of this process. It seems that astrocyte intermediate filaments can be used as a target to increase the birthrate of new neurons."
Target for future therapies
"We are starting to understand some of the cellular and molecular mechanisms behind the control of neurogenesis. Neurogenesis is one of the components of brain plasticity, which plays a role in the learning process as well as in the recovery after brain injury or stroke. This work helps us to understand how plasticity and regenerative response can be therapeutically promoted in the future", says Prof. Milos Pekny.
Provided by University of Gothenburg
"Astrocytes control the generation of new neurons from neural stem cells." August 24th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-astrocytes-neurons-neural-stem-cells.html
Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

Sairam

Friday, August 24, 2012

Learning One of Cancer's Tricks: Chemists Determine One Way Tumors Meet Their Growing Needs



A computational model depicts a PFK1 enzyme with the sugar GlcNAc attached (left). Comparing this model to that showing PFK1 complexed to a molecule that activates the enzyme (right) suggests how addition of GlcNAc may inhibit enzymatic activity. (Credit: Caltech/Yi et al.)

ScienceDaily — Behaving something like ravenous monsters, tumors need plentiful supplies of cellular building blocks such as amino acids and nucleotides in order to keep growing at a rapid pace and survive under harsh conditions. How such tumors meet these burgeoning demands has not been fully understood. Now chemists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have shown for the first time that a specific sugar, known as GlcNAc ("glick-nack"), plays a key role in keeping the cancerous monsters "fed." The finding suggests new potential targets for therapeutic intervention.

The new results appear in this week's issue of the journal Science.
The research team -- led by Linda Hsieh-Wilson, professor of chemistry at Caltech -- found that tumor cells alter glycosylation, the addition of carbohydrates (in this case GlcNAc) to their proteins, in response to their surroundings. This ultimately helps the cancerous cells survive. When the scientists blocked the addition of GlcNAc to a particular protein in mice, tumor-cell growth was impaired.
The researchers used chemical tools and molecular modeling techniques developed in their laboratory to determine that GlcNAc inhibits a step in glycolysis (not to be confused with glycosylation), a metabolic pathway that involves 10 enzyme-driven steps. In normal cells, glycolysis is a central process that produces high-energy compounds that the cell needs to do work. But Hsieh-Wilson's team found that when GlcNAc attaches to the enzyme phosphofructokinase 1 (PFK1), it suppresses glycolysis at an early phase and reroutes the products of previous steps into a different pathway -- one that yields the nucleotides a tumor needs to grow, as well as molecules that protect tumor cells. So GlcNAc causes tumor cells to make a trade -- they produce fewer high-energy compounds in order to get the products they need to grow and survive.
"We have identified a novel molecular mechanism that cancer cells have co-opted in order to produce intermediates that allow them to grow more rapidly and to help them combat oxidative stress," says Hsieh-Wilson, who is also an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
This is not the first time scientists have identified a mechanism by which tumor cells might produce the intermediates they need to survive. But most other mechanisms have involved genetic alterations, or mutations -- permanent changes that lead to less active forms of enzymes, for example. "What's unique here is that the addition of GlcNAc is dynamic and reversible," says Hsieh-Wilson. "This allows a cancer cell to more rapidly alter its metabolism depending on the environment that it encounters."
In their studies, Hsieh-Wilson's team found that this glycosylation -- the addition of GlcNAc to PFK1 -- is enhanced under conditions associated with tumors, such as low oxygen levels. They also found that glycosylation of PFK1 was sensitive to the availability of nutrients. If certain nutrients were absent, glycosylation was increased, and the tumor was able to compensate for the dearth of nutrients by changing the cell's metabolism.
When the researchers analyzed human breast and lung tumor tissues, they found GlcNAc-related glycosylation was elevated two- to fourfold in the majority of tumors relative to normal tissue from the same patients. Then, working with mice injected with human lung-cancer cells, the researchers replaced the existing PFK1 enzymes with either the normal PFK1 enzyme or a mutant form that could no longer be glycosylated. The mice with the mutant form of PFK1 showed decreased tumor growth, demonstrating that blocking glycosylation impairs cancerous growth.
The work suggests at least two possible avenues for future investigations into fighting cancer. One would be to develop compounds that prevent PFK1 from becoming glycosylated, similar to the mutant PFK1 enzymes in the present study. The other would be to activate PFK1 enzymes in order to keep glycolysis operating normally and help prevent cancer cells from altering their cellular metabolism in favor of cancerous growth.
Hsieh-Wilson's group has previously studied GlcNAc-related glycosylation in the brain. They have demonstrated, for example, that the addition of GlcNAc to a protein called CREB inhibits the protein's ability to turn on genes needed for long-term memory storage. On the other hand, they have also shown that having significantly lower levels of GlcNAc in the forebrain leads to neurodegeneration. "The current thinking is that there's a balance between too little and too much glycosylation," says Hsieh-Wilson. "Being at either extreme make things go awry, whether it's in the brain or in the case of cancer cells."
Additional Caltech coauthors on the paper, "Phosphofructokinase 1 Glycosylation Regulates Cell Growth and Metabolism," were lead author Wen Yi, a postdoctoral scholar in Hsieh-Wilson's group; Peter Clark, a former graduate student in Hsieh-Wilson's group; and William Goddard III, the Charles and Mary Ferkel Professor of Chemistry, Materials Science, and Applied Physics. Daniel Mason and Eric Peters of the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation and Marie Keenan, Collin Hill, and Edward Driggers of Agios Pharmaceuticals were also coauthors.
The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program, and a Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program postdoctoral fellowship.

New molecule rearranges itself


THE UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND   
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The synthetic molecule is made up of 60 simple components that are able to reorganise themselves to produce new functions.
Image: BlackJack3D/iStockphoto
The discovery of a synthetic molecule, made up of 60 simple components that are able to reorganise themselves to produce new functions, will lead to better understanding of nature's processes.

The incredibly complex structure of the pentagonal prismatic molecule was discovered when researchers working at The University of Queensland (UQ), The University of Cambridge, and Randolph-Macon College in the USA, formed the structure by transforming a tetrahedral molecule into a second structure - a barrel-like pentagonal prism.

Understanding the structure of synthetic molecules which are able to reorganise themselves is important as it helps scientists to understand natural processes in molecules such as viruses which are assembled from small parts.

The finding was published this month in the journal Nature Chemistry and the researchers have produced a movie showing the molecule and its 60 simple components to assist readers to understand its complexity.

In synthesising the molecule, the researchers used a technique known as “self-assembly”, which regulates many of the complex and functional components in biological systems like DNA, to prepare a molecular tetrahedron from twenty-two simple building blocks.

The building blocks employed were then chemically programmed to spontaneously react together to form the desired molecule.

UQ's School of Chemistry & Molecular Biosciences Dr Jack Clegg said in addition of a chemical template, the tetrahedral molecule was reconfigured into a new barrel-like structure composed of an impressive 60 smaller molecules.

“Up until now we've only be able to do this on a very basic level,” Dr Clegg said.

"We've succeeded in preparing and characterising a new chemical system that is capable of structural reconstitution on receipt of one molecular signal to create a tight binding pocket for a chloride anion." 

The study was published in Nature Chemistry (DOI:10.1038/NCHEM.1407, published online 5 August 2012).
Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

Why people reject science


THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA   
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The results showed that free-market ideology was an overwhelmingly strong determinant of the rejection of climate science.
Image: janrysavy/iStockphoto
Researchers from The University of Western Australia have examined what motivates people who are greatly involved in the climate debate to reject scientific evidence. 

The study Motivated Rejection of Science, to be published in Psychological Science, was designed to investigate what motivates the rejection of science in visitors to climate blogs who choose to participate in the ongoing public debate about climate change.

More than 1000 visitors to blogs dedicated to discussions of climate science completed a questionnaire that queried people's belief in a number of scientific questions and conspiracy theories, including:  Princess Diana's death was not an accident; the Apollo moon landings never happened; HIV causes AIDS; and smoking causes lung cancer.  The study also considered the interplay of these responses with the acceptance of climate science, free market ideology and the belief that previous environmental problems have been resolved. 

The results showed that those who subscribed to one or more conspiracy theories or who strongly supported a free market economy were more likely to reject the findings from climate science as well as other sciences.

The researchers, led by UWA School of Psychology Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, found that free-market ideology was an overwhelmingly strong determinant of the rejection of climate science.  It also predicted the rejection of the link between tobacco and lung cancer and between HIV and AIDS. Conspiratorial thinking was a lesser but still significant determinant of the rejection of all scientific propositions examined, from climate to lung cancer.

"Blogs have a huge impact on society and so it's important that we understand the motivations and the reasoning of those who visit blogs to contribute to the discussion.  There has been much research pointing to the role of free-market ideology in rejecting climate science, but this is the first time it's been shown that other scientific facts, such as the link between HIV and AIDS, are also subject to ideological rejection," Professor Lewandowsky said.

By contrast, a major determinant of the acceptance of science was the perceived consensus among scientists.  The more agreement among scientists, the more people were likely to accept the scientific findings.

"It is important to understand the role of perceived consensus because it highlights how damaging the media's handling of climate issues can be when they create the appearance of a scientific debate where there is none: More than 90 in 100 climate researchers agree on the basic fact that the globe is warming due to human greenhouse gas emissions," Professor Lewandowsky said.
Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

Milky Way twins found


THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA   
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The image shows one of the 'twin' galaxies with its neighbouring Magellenic Clouds.
Image: Dr Aaron Robotham, ICRAR/St Andrews/GAMA
Research presented at the International Astronomical Union General Assembly in Beijing has found the first group of galaxies that is just like ours, a rare sight in the local Universe.

The Milky Way is a fairly typical galaxy on its own, but when paired with its close neighbours - the Magellanic Clouds - it is very rare, and could have been one of a kind, until a survey of our local Universe found another two examples just like us.

Astronomer Dr Aaron Robotham, jointly from the University of Western Australia node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) and the University of St Andrews in Scotland, searched for groups of galaxies similar to ours in the most detailed map of the local Universe yet, the Galaxy and Mass Assembly survey (GAMA).

"We've never found another galaxy system like the Milky Way before, which is not surprising considering how hard they are to spot! It's only recently become possible to do the type of analysis that lets us find similar groups," says Dr Robotham.

"Everything had to come together at once: we needed telescopes good enough to detect not just galaxies but their faint companions, we needed to look at large sections of the sky, and most of all we needed to make sure no galaxies were missed in the survey"

Sophisticated simulations of how galaxies form don't produce many examples similar to the Milky Way and its surrounds, predicting them to be quite a rare occurrence. Astronomers haven't been able to tell just how rare until now, with the discovery of not just one but two exact matches amongst the hundreds of thousands of galaxies surveyed.

"We found about 3% of galaxies similar to the Milky Way have companion galaxies like the Magellanic Clouds, which is very rare indeed. In total we found 14 galaxy systems that are similar to ours, with two of those being an almost exact match," says Dr Robotham.

The Milky Way is locked in a complex cosmic dance with its close companions the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, which are clearly visible in the southern hemisphere night sky. Many galaxies have smaller galaxies in orbit around them, but few have two that are as large as the Magellanic Clouds.

Dr Robotham's work also found that although companions like the Magellanic Clouds are rare, when they are found they're usually near a galaxy very like the Milky Way, meaning we're in just the right place at the right time to have such a great view in our night sky.

"The galaxy we live in is perfectly typical, but the nearby Magellenic Clouds are a rare, and possibly short-lived, occurrence. We should enjoy them whilst we can, they'll only be around for a few billion more years," adds Dr Robotham.

Dr Robotham and colleagues have been awarded further time on telescopes in New South Wales and Chile to study these Milky Way twin systems now that they've been found.

The Galaxy and Mass Assembly (GAMA) survey is an international collaboration led from ICRAR and the Australian Astronomical Observatory to map our local Universe in closer detail.
Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.

Mann Sai Sai Bole Sangeeta Grover [Full Song] I Sai Ki Deewani

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Lord Shiva in Geneva Science Lab


SHALIGRAM (SILA) AND ITS HISTORY*



What is SHALIGRAM? Shaligram is a dark stone found on the bank of river Gandakti in Nepal. It is considered to be representing Lord Vishnu who had decided to live in the form of Shaligram to repent for some of the deeds he had to commit for safeguarding the world and save it from the torture of the demons. These Shaligrams are in various sizes and shapes. These are eaten by insects that use their sharp teeth and leave the imprints of the chakras on these stone. Sometimes gold or stones as Kasauti are used for testing the purity of gold.

HISTORY (ORIGIN) OF SHALIGRAM

Lord Shiva

According to Puranas once a ferocious battle had broken out between Lord Shiva and the demon Jalandhara (Jallundhara). They both appeared equally matched with no one prepared to fall back, and hence the battle went forward for a long time. In fact it was not like an everyday battle between gods and demons, but it was a clash between the chastities of two virtuous women- Parvati and Vrinda. Lord Shiva knew it well that unless the chastity of Vrinda, wife of Jallundhara, was stained, Jallundhara could not be exterminated. But it was against the nature of gods- they could not spoil the chastity of a moral woman. Hence in spite of knowing everything, the gods were powerless, but for Jallundhara, nothing was forbidden. So thinking that by staining the chastity of Parvati, he could overpower Lord Shiva, Jallundhara reached Parvati in the guise of Lord Shiva. But Parvati, who is herself the absolute ruler of illusion (MAYA) knew by her merits the deceitfulness of Jallundhara. She at once ended his guise and signalled Lord Krishna (Vishnu) that it was exactly the time to blot the chastity of Jallundhara`s wife, Vrinda, and it will not be a sin. So, Lord Krishna approached Vrinda in the garb of Jallundhara. Vrinda could not understand the deceitfulness and because of Krishna`s intimate presence her chastity got deflowered.

Shaligram and Lord VISHNU

Later, when Vrinda came to know the reality, she turned furious and cursed Lord Krishna – “O Lord, despite being a learned God you have behaved like stupids. So go and turn into shapeless black stone”. Thus by the curse of an uncorrupted woman Lord Krishna turned into a black stone. But later on Vrinda felt culpable that in a surge of excitement she had cursed none other than her own custodial deity. Thus soliciting pardon from God, she sought a boon that from that moment onwards God will be worshipped in the same stone form. Saying `Tathastu`, the Lord acceded to her curse and turned into a black stone, and thereafter came to be known as Shaligrama. 

Lord Shiva further declares that, “My devotees who offer obeisances to the shalagrama-shila even negligently become fearless. Those who adore me while making a distinction between myself (Shiva) and Lord Hari will become free from this offence by offering obeisances to shalagrama-shila. Those who think themselves as my devotees, but who are proud and do not offer obeisances to my Lord Vasudeva, are actually sinful and not my devotees. O my son, I always reside in the shalagrama-shila. Being pleased with my devotion the Lord has given me a residence in His personal abode”. 

The Padma Purana speaks that gifting a shalagrama-shila is the best form of charity, equivalent to the effect of donating the entire earth together along with its forests, mountains, and everything.

The Garuda Purana describes the grandeurs of keeping a shalagrama-shila with the promising mark of a chakra in one`s home.

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