Getting Away With It

“Just as a tree starts to blossom during the proper season, so the doer of sinful deeds inevitably reaps the horrible fruit of their actions at the appropriate time.” (Lord Rama speaking to Khara, Valmiki Ramayana, Aranya Kand, 29.8)
You arrive at the construction site in the morning, ready to continue working on the new building that has to go up. You have certain procedures that you’re supposed to follow, guidelines that must be adhered to in order to see a successful completion. This building is important, as it will house many people on each given day. Suppose, however, that on one aspect of the construction you are a little lackadaisical. You don’t give it your full attention, but you think that it doesn’t matter because the building is so complex that what harm is one incorrectly built section going to do? This same mentality is quite commonplace in other activities as well, and it is a contributing factor in the disbelief in God and a higher power.
What will the result be if the section of the building is not constructed properly? For starters, the proper construction guidelines are there for a reason. Someone did not come up with them on a whim so that they could personally serve as a dictatorial controlling figure who wants to be in charge of every aspect of the worker’s life. Rather, the instructions are there to bring about the stated objective, which in this case is a safe and sturdy building. Defiance of the guidelines due to laziness or poor judgment will obviously jeopardize the meeting of the end-goal.
Interestingly enough, the negative reaction to the spotty work may not be witnessed by the worker who perpetrated the deed. The incorrectly built section could cause a wall to collapse or a floor panel to be loose or, worse yet, the entire building to crumble. The worker may be long gone when the time arrives for this disastrous event; thereby making it difficult for them to realize the consequences to their actions. Nevertheless, in spite of how long it takes for the negative reaction to arrive and whether or not the worker himself is affected, the consequence to impious deeds comes all the same.
The Vedas, the original scriptural tradition of India, reveal that this system of cause-and-effect operates universally and at both the microscopic and macroscopic levels. Known to most as the system of karma, fruitive work undertaken has consequences, or phala. The fruits aren’t always sweet in taste, and they may not manifest immediately. With the case of the poor building procedure, the bitter fruit arrived much later on, and it affected others who weren’t involved in the initial transgression. But karma is so fair that the person who commits the horrible deed reaps their due reward at the proper time as well. Indeed, every negative reaction we encounter in life, even if it arrives seemingly due to the actions of others, is the result of past work, or karma.
In the famous Ramayana, a remark made by the lead character, the chivalrous and pious prince of Ayodhya, Lord Rama, reveals the same truth. During the time of the included events, the Treta Yuga, a band of night-rangers was terrorizing innocent sages residing in the forest of Dandaka. Imagine a priest being attacked, killed and then eaten up right as they were delivering a sermon. This is similar to what was going on, except the situation was even worse. The priests in this case, brahmanas, were alone and simply desirous of fostering God consciousness, which is the ultimate aim of life. The night-rangers had no just cause for attacking, other than their hatred for dharma, or religious principles.
The perpetrators were apparently getting away with it. They were successfully harassing the sages and eating their flesh after killing them. Then along came the prince of Ayodhya to give them their just rewards. In speaking to Khara, one of the lead night-rangers, prior to battle, Rama informed him that the sinner gets his fruit at the appropriate time, just as the trees blossom flowers during the proper season. In addition, the reward they get is as ghastly as their initial deed. Khara would get the reward due him, punishment by death, delivered personally by Rama, who was an incarnation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.
Karma is helpful to know about because it explains the many situations we encounter. Karma must span beyond the current lifetime because of the variety in circumstance in birth. We can talk all we want about the difference between matter and spirit and how the sober human being should be able to tolerate the ups and downs that material life brings, but if a person is constantly harassed by material nature, put into regular discomfort and fear over the future wellbeing of both themselves and their family members, how will they have the opportunity to sit down and peacefully contemplate the highest truths of spiritual life? How will they make the best use of their valuable human form of life, which carries the highest potential for the assimilation of wisdom that can provide the most beneficial end?

“The living entity in the material world carries his different conceptions of life from one body to another as the air carries aromas.” (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-gita, 15.8)

The fact that one person is born into peaceful circumstances and another into turmoil is the result of past karma. As the soul is the essence of identity, the death of the living being is not the end of the road. Neither is death the ultimate punishment, for consciousness pervades into the next life, just as the air carries aromas. If a person thinks they can escape troubles through the end of life, the active propensity of the soul must continue on, which means there must be a future destination. Those born into rotten circumstances, where they face tremendous hardships at every corner, obviously had bad karma from the previous life. It is unkind to mention this, but no other explanation can be given for their condition.
Indeed, when karma is taken out of the mix, all the philosophies pertaining to spirituality and even atheism crumble. For instance, if there is no karma and God just wants us to acknowledge His existence during the “one” life we get to live, what about those people who never make it out of the womb? What about the children who never mature to the point that they can acknowledge God? Are they eternally damned to hell, or are they automatically sent to heaven? The punishment to hell seems rather harsh, considering the fact that children are innocent and need guidance. The automatic ticket to heaven also seems unfair, as it would make premature death a boon rather than a tragedy.
Under atheism, there is no concern given to cause and effect. The body, a collection of material elements, is taken to be the identifying aspect, though it constantly changes. In atheism there is no regard for piety and sin, with the thought being that consequences just come on their own. Under this model, birth in the animal kingdom would actually represent advancement, for the mental worries pertaining to earning a living and maintaining a family would be absent.
Even if one wants to deny the influence of karma as a fact of spiritual life, fruitive action still proves to be the determining factor to circumstances. The person born into a poor family may not have done anything wrong, but the poverty is there for a reason. The parents that were in troublesome situations arrived there through the result of their work and the work of others. Therefore action always has consequences, regardless of whether we see them or not. The Vedas just complete the picture by revealing that the reactions to work carry over into the next life.
The concept of a life is relative, as it is sort of like a chunk of a timeline cut off and used for analysis. We break down events based on days, weeks and years, but these are just relative measurements. The time continuum hasn’t stopped nor will it in the future. We refer to last year so we can better gauge the difference in circumstances between the present and the past, but there has been no shift in identity. In a similar manner, the spirit soul has a perpetual existence, with the different “lives” serving as markers for the various body types the soul assumes.
Knowing that the thief who regularly steals will eventually get robbed later on in life is comforting, but the human brain is meant to go beyond karma. Karma manages fairness in terms of fruitive activity, but there is one person who is above the influence of karma. Not surprisingly, that person is God, who is known by many names in the Vedic tradition. Some call Him Krishna, while others refer to Him as Rama or Vishnu. Some even worship Lord Shiva as the Supreme Person, though his position is actually somewhere in between Lord Vishnu and the living entities, who are tiny expansions from the original spiritual storehouse of energy.
Karma is instituted to manage the affairs of the spirit souls not desirous of personal association with God. Think of karma as the referees in a sporting event, except its judgment is not flawed. The offensive lineman may get away with a hold every now and then in American football, but in the grand scheme of life, the higher authorities note down every action and manage to deliver the appropriate reaction at just the right time through nature’s influence. As human beings are part of nature, they sometimes unknowingly deliver someone’s due rewards to them.
Karma stops for the Krishna conscious soul, who is always desirous of connecting with the Supreme Spirit. The beginning of Krishna consciousness is hearing about Krishna and becoming familiar with His transcendental features. As Bhagavan, Lord Krishna is the wisest, most famous, most renounced, strongest, most beautiful, and wealthiest. In the beginning one will have to accept these truths on faith, but through adhering to devotional principles, Krishna’s position is validated. The knowledge of karma comes from Krishna Himself in His discourse on Vedic philosophy known as the Bhagavad-gita. Rama’s statement to Khara is another example of Bhagavan’s supreme intelligence.
If, after hearing, the seed of the creeper of devotional service is sown and further desire to connect with Krishna springs forth, the next step is to chant the holy names, “Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare”. All the saintly figures of the Vedic tradition, the most famous acharyas teaching devotional service through their example, follow the chanting routine as their life and soul. Not all recite the same mantra, but the key ingredient in their chanting is the holy name. For example, Shri Hanuman, Rama’s most faithful servant, always chants Rama’s name. In pictures Hanuman is shown to be chanting the glories of Sita and Rama. Sita is Rama’s eternal consort, and the couple’s features are fully represented in their names. Just in Rama’s name alone are found the beneficial features belonging to both the Personality of Godhead and His closest associates.
As further taste is developed in chanting, increased dedication to the path of bhakti results. Activities in bhakti look awfully similar to acts of karma, but the difference is in the nature of the consequences. In karma, the resultant reward must bear fruit, and since the nature of the activity is sense driven, the reaction must apply to the body accepted by the living being. If one is extremely pious and follows religious rituals throughout their life, the reward they get is ascension to the material heavenly planets. Thus the rewards of karma are still there for the pious, and a commensurate body is required.
In pure bhakti, the only desire is to continue bhakti, to be able to worship Krishna, chant His names, hear about Him, and speak about His glories to others. Therefore the reactions to work don’t require a material body. The work in bhakti is free of karma, but it is not free of beneficial rewards. The bhakta is guaranteed to be put into conditions which are conducive to devotional service. Externally the conditions may not appear to be auspicious, but through remembrance of Krishna even the horrible conditions end up being supremely beneficial. It is guaranteed in the Bhagavad-gita that the departing soul who is Krishna conscious attains the Lord’s nature, which is blissful, knowledgeable and eternal. That combination exists in the spiritual world, where Krishna resides.

“And whoever, at the time of death, quits his body, remembering Me alone, at once attains My nature. Of this there is no doubt.” (Lord Krishna, Bg. 8.5)

The interest in karma can lead to Krishna, so the negative reactions we witness in life can actually bring us to the right place. Therefore karma, material nature, ignorance, and other things apparently not related to Krishna aren’t universally harmful. Rather, anything that brings one closer to their constitutional position of servant of the Supreme Personality of Godhead can be considered favorable. Though the thief thinks that since no one is looking he will get away with the crime, the system of karma will take care of him all the same. Taking the pure version of the same principle, even if we don’t think God is watching us while we chant, He hears our sincere recitations of the holy name and duly rewards us at the appropriate time.

In Closing:
Thinks with his crime away he is getting,
To avoid consequences world is letting.
Doesn’t know that from above being watched,
Higher authorities make sure he gets caught.
The resultant actions karma to deliver,
Severe too, can’t escape forever.
Know that karma has the final say,
From its influence can’t get away.
Know Krishna and His devotees are above reaction,
In bhakti taste sweet transcendental interaction.

Frozen Fruit Flies Come Back to Life

Feeding flies a "cryoprotectant" can save them from the cold

By Rebecca Boyle

Drosophila Melanogaster Mr.checker via Wikimedia

A larval fruit fly is hatched in the year 2011 and frozen while still pupating, half its body water solidified in frigid temperatures. After spending many generations in a state of suspended animation, the wee Drosophila melanogaster awakens and is allowed to grow up. One day, it wonders if it will ever be able to mate — but should it bring new larvae into this dystopian future?

As it turns out, the fly can successfully mate after all, and its offspring are perfectly healthy new larvae. Too bad for the fly, it dies in the lab so scientists can find out exactly how it survived this cryopreservation.

Vladimír Koštál and fellow researchers in the Czech Republic did this very experiment and they say fruit flies can survive being frozen at 23 degrees F, so long as they are fed a special pre-freeze diet containing an amino acid from their Arctic cousins.

Freeze tolerance is thought to be a highly complicated process in animals — only a few insects can do it at all, while the accumulation of ice crystals in most vertebrates’ bodies is either very harmful or fatal. Koštál and colleagues wanted to find out how complex it would be to helpD. melanogaster, one of the most important model organisms in modern biology, survive freezing temperatures. Pretty easy, actually, as long as they were fed a cocktail of cryopreservative before entering the big chill.

An Arctic fruit fly relative called Chymomyza costata can survive being submerged in liquid nitrogen — that’s -320 degrees F — and in previous research, Koštál et. al figured out they do this by accumulating an amino acid called L-proline in their bodies. In this new study, the Czech researchers fed fruit fly larvae a diet containing L-proline and glycerol, another cryoprotectant, and cooled them down. Treated larvae were able to survive after half their body water froze, which happened at 23˚ F (-5˚C). The flies were frozen for 75 minutes before being slowly warmed.

“Upon melting, these larvae were able to continue development, metamorphosed into adults, and produced viable offspring,” the researchers say.

Other researchers have been trying to make freezable fruit flies to better understand the genes underlying susceptibility to cold. Figuring out how organisms flourish in cold could help researchers understand how humans could, too — not necessarily to cryogenically preserve us, though that would be awesome, but to help organs survive on ice for longer periods so they can be transplanted. This research could have implications along those same lines, but it could also just be a handy solution for biologists working with flies — their unique genetic lines could be preserved in a deep chill, instead of requiring large and costly gene pools of live flies.

The paper was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

What we mean when we ask for the milk

New research into the different ways that English and Polish people use language in everyday family situations can help members of each community to understand each other better and avoid cultural misunderstandings.

The study from the University of Portsmouth and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) shows how ordinary ways of expressing needs in Polish could sound rude or ill mannered when Polish speakers use them to construct sentences in English.

Dr Jörg Zinken, a senior lecturer in the University's psychology department, recorded everyday domestic situations and analysed how people asked other family members to perform tasks, such as passing the milk at breakfast. He found that native English speakers tended to use questions ("can you pass the milk?") whereas Polish speakers used imperatives ("pass the milk").

The Polish form can sound impolite to native English speakers, says Dr Zinken, because the latter would almost never use an abrupt-sounding imperative or direct command in this kind of situation.

Because the English form is framed as a question, it allows the other person to feel a sense of autonomy as Dr Zinken explains: "Even if it is obvious that they will comply, by asking someone to do something rather than telling them, the English form gives the other person a choice."

Using a question also gives the other person an opportunity to say something like "yes" or "of course", he says, which means they can have the last word in the exchange. Dr Zinken found by contrast that the Polish people usually responded to a request without saying anything, or would sometimes say "juz", which means something like "already" (as in: "I'll do it in just a second")

Dr Zinken believes the fact the imperative is not seen as impolite to Polish speakers reveals something about both cultures. "When a Polish person wants a family member to pass the milk, there is a presumption that the other person will be available at that moment and will help," he says. "The fact that you can make this presumption is seen as a good thing, it says something positive about the relationship between the speaker and the other person."

The research shows how two very different cultural values - individual autonomy and collective purpose - are expressed in the ways that people use everyday language. "Every culture has its own social rules and values, but we often don't notice them because they are ingrained in the way we use language, not just in the words we use but in grammar and sentence structure," he says. "If we understand these differences better, we can understand where other people are coming from, while also reflecting on what our own language says about us and how we relate to others."

More information: This article is based on the findings from 'Sharing responsibility across languages and cultures: English, Polish and mixed couples dealing with everyday chores' carried out by Jörg Zinken at University of Portsmouth. Part of the research has recently been published in the journal Research on Language and Social Interaction.

Provided by Economic & Social Research Council

"What we mean when we ask for the milk." February 13th, 2012. http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-02-what-we-mean-when-ask.html

 

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

How to Pump Half a Million Gallons of Fuel From a Listing Cruise Liner

And just how much fuel is that?

By Clay Dillow and Paul Adams

The Costa Concordia Rvongher via Wikimedia

It’s been nearly a full month since the Costa Concordia ran aground just off the Tuscan island of Giglio, and after two weeks of delays salvage workers yesterday began pumping operations aimed at recovering most of the half million gallons of fuel aboard the badly listing Italian cruise liner. Roughly 84 percent of that fuel is stuck in 15 large tanks, and pumping that volume out of the ship will likely take another month--and that’s with the pumps running around the clock.

Pumping fuel from a capsized and largely unstable vessel the size of the Costa Concordia isn’t going to be a simple chore. First, valves must be fixed to the tops and bottoms of each of the tanks beforehand--much of this preparation has been underway for weeks--and hoses attached to each. Then, the fuel must be heated to reduce its viscosity and get it to flow easier. Fuel then goes out via the top valve, and seawater is piped in the bottom to fill the vacuum left by the exiting fuel.

That's only half the battle. From there, salvage workers have to figure out how to deal with 500,000 gallons of potentially hazardous petroleum fuel.

500,000 gallons of diesel fuel. Just how much is that?

• 11,905 barrels full.

• About 72 standard tanker cars.

Tank Container:  

• 10,000 bathtubs of diesel.

• 32,258 beer kegs full.

• An Olympic-sized pool holds 660,000 US gallons, so just 76 percent of that.

Olympic-Sized Pool, Munich, 1972:  

• A volume equivalent to the blood of 380,000 average adult humans.

• Or the capacity of a 50-foot-diameter globe, like this one:

CNN Globe:  CNN

At $4.16 per gallon today in New York, that's a bit over $2 million worth of fuel. With that, if your diesel car gets 20 miles per gallon, you could drive around the Earth 400 times.

First-Of-Its-Kind Stem Cell Study Re-Grows Healthy Heart Muscle in Heart Attack Patients

Heart surgery. A new clinical trial show that treating heart attack patients with an infusion of their own heart-derived cells helps damaged hearts re-grow healthy muscle. (Credit: © muratolmez / Fotolia)

Science Daily  — Results from a Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute clinical trial show that treating heart attack patients with an infusion of their own heart-derived cells helps damaged hearts re-grow healthy muscle.

Patients who underwent the stem cell procedure demonstrated a significant reduction in the size of the scar left on the heart muscle by a heart attack. Patients also experienced a sizable increase in healthy heart muscle following the experimental stem cell treatments.

One year after receiving the stem cell treatment, scar size was reduced from 24 percent to 12 percent of the heart in patients treated with cells (an average drop of about 50 percent). Patients in the control group, who did not receive stem cells, did not experience a reduction in their heart attack scars.

"While the primary goal of our study was to verify safety, we also looked for evidence that the treatment might dissolve scar and regrow lost heart muscle," said Eduardo Marbán, MD, PhD, the director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute who invented the procedures and technology involved in the study. "This has never been accomplished before, despite a decade of cell therapy trials for patients with heart attacks. Now we have done it. The effects are substantial, and surprisingly larger in humans than they were in animal tests."

"These results signal an approaching paradigm shift in the care of heart attack patients," said Shlomo Melmed, MD, dean of the Cedars-Sinai medical faculty and the Helene A. and Philip E. Hixon Chair in Investigative Medicine. "In the past, all we could do was to try to minimize heart damage by promptly opening up an occluded artery. Now, this study shows there is a regenerative therapy that may actually reverse the damage caused by a heart attack."

The clinical trial, named CADUCEUS (CArdiosphere-Derived aUtologous stem CElls to Reverse ventricUlar dySfunction), was part of a Phase I investigative study approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

As an initial part of the study, in 2009, Marbán and his team completed the world's first procedure in which a patient's own heart tissue was used to grow specialized heart stem cells. The specialized cells were then injected back into the patient's heart in an effort to repair and re-grow healthy muscle in a heart that had been injured by a heart attack.

The 25 patients -- average age of 53 -- who participated in this completed study experienced heart attacks that left them with damaged heart muscle. Each patient underwent extensive imaging scans so doctors could pinpoint the exact location and severity of the scars wrought by the heart attack. Patients were treated at Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute and at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

Eight patients served as controls in the study, receiving conventional medical care for heart attack survivors, including prescription medicine, exercise recommendations and dietary advice.

The other 17 patients who were randomized to receive the stem cells underwent a minimally invasive biopsy, under local anesthesia. Using a catheter inserted through a vein in the patient's neck, doctors removed small pieces of heart tissue, about half the size of a raisin. The biopsied heart tissue was then taken to Marbán's specialized lab at Cedars-Sinai, using methods he invented to culture and multiply the cells.

In the third and final step, the now-multiplied heart-derived cells -- approximately 12 million to 25 million -- were reintroduced into the patient's coronary arteries during a second, minimally invasive [catheter] procedure.

Patients who received stem cell treatment experienced an average of 50 percent reduction in their heart attack scars 12 months after infusion while patients who received standard medical management did not experience shrinkage in the damaged tissue.

"This discovery challenges the conventional wisdom that, once established, scar is permanent and that, once lost, healthy heart muscle cannot be restored," said Marbán, The Mark S. Siegel Family Professor.

The process to grow cardiac-derived stem cells involved in the study was developed earlier by Marbán when he was on the faculty of Johns Hopkins University. The university has filed for a patent on that intellectual property and has licensed it to a company in which Dr. Marbán has a financial interest. No funds from that company were used to support the clinical study. All funding was derived from the National Institutes of Health and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Engineers Create Tandem Polymer Solar Cells That Set Record for Energy-Conversion

Tandem solar cell. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of California - Los Angeles)

Science Daily  — In the effort to convert sunlight into electricity, photovoltaic solar cells that use conductive organic polymers for light absorption and conversion have shown great potential. Organic polymers can be produced in high volumes at low cost, resulting in photovoltaic devices that are cheap, lightweight and flexible.

In the last few years, much work has been done to improve the efficiency with which these devices convert sunlight into power, including the development of new materials, device structures and processing techniques.

In a new study, available online this week in the journal Nature Photonics, researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and UCLA's California Nanosystems Institute (CNSI) report that they have significantly enhanced polymer solar cells' performance by building a device with a new "tandem" structure that combines multiple cells with different absorption bands. The device had a certified power-conversion efficiency of 8.62 percent and set a world record in July 2011.

Further, after the researchers incorporated a new infrared-absorbing polymer material provided by Sumitomo Chemical of Japan into the device, the device's architecture proved to be widely applicable and the power-conversion efficiency jumped to 10.6 percent -- a new record -- as certified by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

By using cells with different absorption bands, tandem solar cells provide an effective way to harvest a broader spectrum of solar radiation. However, the efficiency doesn't automatically increase by simply combining two cells. The materials for the tandem cells have to be compatible with each other for efficient light harvesting, the researchers said.

Until now, the performance of tandem devices lagged behind single-layer solar cells, mainly due to this lack of suitable polymer materials. UCLA Engineering researchers have demonstrated highly efficient single-layer and tandem polymer solar cells featuring a low-band-gap-conjugated polymer specially designed for the tandem structure. The band gap determines the portion of the solar spectrum a polymer absorbs.

"Envision a double-decker bus," said Yang Yang, a professor of materials science and engineering at UCLA Engineering and principal investigator on the research. "The bus can carry a certain number of passengers on one deck, but if you were to add a second deck, you could hold many more people for the same amount of space. That's what we've done here with the tandem polymer solar cell."

To use solar radiation more effectively, Yang's team stacked, in series, multiple photoactive layers with complementary absorption spectra to construct a tandem polymer solar cell. Their tandem structure consists of a front cell with a larger (or high) band gap material and a rear cell with a smaller (or low) band gap polymer, connected by a designed interlayer.

When compared to a single-layer device, the tandem device is more efficient in utilizing solar energy, particularly by minimizing other energy losses. By using more than one absorption material, each capturing a different part of the solar spectrum, the tandem cell is able to maintain the current and increase the output voltage. These factors enable the increase in efficiency, the researchers said.

"The solar spectra is very broad and covers the visible as well as the invisible, the infrared and the UV," said Shuji Doi, research group manager for Sumitomo Chemical. "We are very excited that Sumitomo's low-band gap polymer has contributed to the new record efficiency."

"We have been doing research in tandem solar cells for a much shorter length of time than in the single-junction devices," said Gang Li, a member of the research faculty at UCLA Engineering and a co-author of the Nature Photonics paper. "For us to achieve such success in improving the efficiency in this short time period truly demonstrates the great potential of tandem solar cell technology."

"Everything is done by a very low-cost wet-coating process," Yang said. "As this process is compatible with current manufacturing, I anticipate this technology will become commercially viable in the near future."

This study opens up a new direction for polymer chemists to pursue designs of new materials for tandem polymer solar cells. Furthermore, it indicates an important step towards the commercialization of polymer solar cells. Yang said his team hopes to reach 15 percent efficiency in the next few years.

Yang, who holds UCLA's Carol and Lawrence E. Tannas Jr. Endowed Chair in Engineering, is also faculty director of the Nano Renewable Energy Center at the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA.

The study was supported by the National Science Foundation, the U.S Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the U.S. Office of Naval Research and the U.S. Department of Energy, together with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

A Mitosis Mystery Solved: How Chromosomes Align Perfectly in a Dividing Cell

Rendering of mitosis. The process of mitosis is extremely precise; when it comes to manipulating DNA, cells verge on being obsessive and with good reason. Gaining or losing a chromosome during cell division can lead to cell death, developmental disorders, or cancer. (Credit: © nobeastsofierce / Fotolia)                                                         Science Daily — To solve a mystery, sometimes a great detective need only study the clues in front of him. Like Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, Tomomi Kiyomitsu used his keen powers of observation to solve a puzzle that had mystified researchers for years: in a cell undergoing mitotic cell division, what internal signals cause its chromosomes to align on a center axis?

---

"People have been looking at these proteins and players in mitosis for decades, and no one ever saw what Tomomi observed," says Whitehead Institute Member Iain Cheeseman. "And it's very clear that these things are happening. These are very strong regulatory paradigms that are setting down these cell division axes. And careful cell biology allowed him to see that this was occurring. People have been looking at this for a long time, but never with the careful eyes he brought to it."

Kiyomitsu, a postdoctoral researcher in Cheeseman's lab, published his work in a recent issue of the journalNature Cell Biology.

The process of mitotic cell division has been studied intensely for more than 50 years. Using fluorescence microscopy, today's scientists can see the tug-of-war cells undergo as they move through mitosis. Thread-like proteins, called microtubules, extend from one of two spindle poles on either side of the cell and attempt to latch onto the duplicated chromosomes. This entire "spindle" structure acts to physically distribute the chromosomes, but it is not free floating in the cell. In addition to microtubules from both spindle poles that attach to all of the chromosomes, astral microtubules that are connected to the cell cortex -- a protein layer lining the cell membrane -- act to pull the spindle poles back and forth within the cell until the spindle and chromosomes align down the center axis of the cell. Then the microtubules tear the duplicated chromosomes in half, so that ultimately one copy of each chromosome ends up in each of the new daughter cells.

The process of mitosis is extremely precise; when it comes to manipulating DNA, cells verge on being obsessive and with good reason. Gaining or losing a chromosome during cell division can lead to cell death, developmental disorders, or cancer.

As Kiyomitsu watched mitosis unfold in symmetrically dividing human cells, he noticed that when the spindle oscillates toward the cell's center, a partial halo of the protein dynein lines the cell cortex on the side farther away from the spindle. As the spindle swings to the left, dynein appears on the right, but when the spindle swing to the right, dynein vanishes and reappears on the left side.

For Kiyomitsu, the key to the alignment mystery was dynein, which is known as a motor protein that "walks" molecular cargoes along microtubules. Kiyomitsu determined that in this case, dynein is anchored to the cell cortex by a complex that includes the protein LGN, short for leucine-glycine-asparagine-enriched protein. Instead of moving along an astral microtubule, the stationary dynein acts as a winch to pull on the spindle pole, and the microtubules and chromosomes attached to it, toward the cell cortex.

Kiyomitsu found that when a spindle pole comes within close proximity to the cell cortex, a signal from a protein called Polo-like kinase 1 (Plk1) emanates from the spindle pole, knocking dynein off of LGN and the cell cortex, stopping the spindle pole's forward motion, and freeing dynein to move to the opposite side of the cell. These oscillations continue with decreasing amplitude until the spindle settles along the cell's center axis.

As he was deciphering dynein's role in spindle alignment, Kiyomitsu noticed that a layer of LGN extends all around the cell cortex, except in the areas that are closest to the chromosomes. As the chromosomes swing back and forth, the area cleared of LGN changes in response. Because dynein needs to anchor to LGN, this cleared area ensures that dynein can only attach and pull to the right and left of the aligning chromosomes, rather than from above and below.

After testing a couple of signaling molecules associated with chromosomes, Kiyomitsu determined that a signal from the chromosomes, involving the ras-related nuclear protein (Ran), blocks LGN, and therefore dynein, from attaching to the cell cortex closest to the chromosomes. Ran bound to guanosine-5'-triphosphate (Ran-GTP), which controls nuclear import in the interphase stage of mitosis, had previously been suggested to control spindle assembly during mitosis in germ cells, but roles for the Ran gradient in mitotic non-germ cells were unclear. Kiyomitsu's work suggests a key role for Ran in directing spindle orientation.

Kiyomitsu says the axis that the spindle poles travel along is crucial to cells.

"The spindle orientation is critical for maintaining the balance between stem cells and mature cells during development," he notes. "And if this orientation becomes dysregulated or misregulated, it is reported that this may contribute to causing cancer even if chromosomes are properly segregated."

This work was supported by the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, the Searle Scholars Program, and the Human Frontiers Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Institute of General Medical Sciences, and the American Cancer Society.

New World's Tallest Building Over 1 Km In Height

Posted by xenang's 

Another country joins the race to get the record for having the tallest building in the world. In this case Azerbaijan, a relatively new and has become one of the world's emerging economies. Reflecting this, the Group Avesta of the country will invest 2,000 million dollars to build that will be called 'Torre Azerbaijan' that will beat height records.

 So far, the world's tallest building is the famous Burj Dubai in Dubai with around 800 meters high, however, the new tower will reach 1,050 meters Azerbaijan, ie more than one kilometer impressive.

The tower will have a cylindrical shape with a look similar to a rocket and will be the center of a larger complex where there will be space for homes, offices, shopping centers, schools and even a Formula 1 circuit.

In older adults, fluctuating sense of control linked to cognitive ability

Everyone has moments when they feel more in control of their lives than at other times. New research from North Carolina State University shows that this sense of control fluctuates more often, and more quickly, than previously thought – and that this sense of control may actively affect cognitive abilities.

"This is the first time we've been able to see how the day-to-day changes in our sense of being in control may actually influence the way we think," says Dr. Shevaun Neupert, an associate professor of psychology at NC State and lead author of a paper on the research.

In a study focusing on older adults, Neupert and her co-author, NC State associate professor of psychology Jason Allaire, tested each participant's sense of control every 12 hours for 60 days. In the study, participants were asked questions about whether they felt in control of their lives and whether they felt able to achieve goals they set for themselves. Cognitive functioning, such as memory and inductive reasoning, was also measured. Participants ranged in age from 61 to 87, with an average age of 74.

The study found that participants' sense of control could fluctuate significantly in the course of a single day. That is particularly interesting, given that previous research has largely focused on the presumption that one's sense of control remains relatively stable.

Researchers also found that participants who normally reported having a low sense of control performed much better on inductive reasoning tests during periods when they reported feeling a higher sense of control. Inductive reasoning is a type of problem solving. For example, being shown a series of letters and being able to determine which letter should come next in the sequence.

Further, the researchers found that people who normally reported feeling a high sense of control scored higher on memory tests when feeling more in control than usual.

Based on modeling, researchers say it appears that the improved cognitive functioning stems from the feeling of improved control, not vice versa. "This wasn't part of the experimental design, so we can't say for sure," Neupert says. "But it is a first step toward determining which comes first – sense of control or improved cognition."

More information: The paper, ""I Think I Can, I Think I Can: Examining the Within-Person Coupling of Control Beliefs and Cognition in Older Adults," is published online by the journal Psychology and Aging.

Provided by North Carolina State University

"In older adults, fluctuating sense of control linked to cognitive ability." February 13th, 2012. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-older-adults-fluctuating-linked-cognitive.html

 

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

So Lovely Photography !