Most Beautifull Nature Photography Yellow

The very first unit ...

 

It is with these devices has begun the development of various gadgets, without which our modern life difficult to manage ...

ANITA - the first electronic calculator (1961)

 

Sony CDP 101 CD player first CD (1982)

Motorola DynaTAC 8000X - first cell phone (1983) The dimensions are impressive ...

Pulsar - the first electronic watch (1970)

Ibm5100 - the first portable computer (1975)

Dycam Model I - the first commercial digital camera (1990)

NeXTcube - one of the first Web server (1990)

Regency TR1 - first transistor radio (1954)

Sony TPS-L2 - first audiokassetny Player Walkman (1979)

IBM SImon - the first smartphone (1993)

Saehan / Eiger Labs F10/F20 - is the first portable MP3 player (1998)

The Telcan - first VCR that could record live TV directly from your TV (1963)

Cannabis Catch-All?

Researchers in the U.K. are looking to breed marijuana to make medicines for metabolic disorders, epilepsy, and other diseases.

By Jef Akst |

Wikimedia Commons

GW Pharmaceuticals—the United Kingdom’s only legal cannabis production facility—is already developing Sativex, a drug consisting of two principal cannabinoids (THC and CBD). Sativex is currently in Phase III trials for treating muscle spasticity in multiple sclerosis patients. But GW’s researchers are also studying how marijuana derivatives could be used to treat a much wider range of diseases, including metabolic disorders, epilepsy, ulcerative colitis, psychosis, brain injury, and cancer pain.

“As rigorous modern research with cannabinoids comes to fruition, a new era of treatment options may have arrived,” David Potter, director of Botanical Research and Cultivation at GW Pharmaceuticals who wrote about the company’s efforts this month in The Biologist, said in a press release.

GW’s strategy is to breed cannabis plants that produce varying levels of natural cannabinoids. Among the plants the team has bred are those with high levels of THCV, a cannabinoid that is structurally similar to THC, but is normally present only in low quantities. There is evidence that THCV regulates a variety of metabolic functions, including lipid deposition, cellular energy expenditure, and insulin resistance, and company researchers are hopeful it will prove an effective treatment against type II diabetes.

Stay tuned for our July feature on alternative medicines to learn more about the potential uses of medical marijuana that are being investigated, as well as the legitimacy of other non-traditional treatments, including acupuncture, probiotics, and psychedelics.

Source: TheScientist
http://the-scientist.com/2012/06/20/cannabis-catch-all/

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

THE GALAPAGOS ISLANDS

Scientists Identify Protein Required to Regrow Injured Nerves in Limbs

These are images of axon regeneration in mice two weeks after injury to the hind leg’s sciatic nerve. On the left, axons (green) of a normal mouse have regrown to their targets (red) in the muscle. On the right, a mouse lacking DLK shows no axons have regenerated, even after two weeks. (Credit: Jung Eun Shin)

ScienceDaily (June 20, 2012) — A protein required to regrow injured peripheral nerves has been identified by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

The finding, in mice, has implications for improving recovery after nerve injury in the extremities. It also opens new avenues of investigation toward triggering nerve regeneration in the central nervous system, notorious for its inability to heal.

Peripheral nerves provide the sense of touch and drive the muscles that move arms and legs, hands and feet. Unlike nerves of the central nervous system, peripheral nerves can regenerate after they are cut or crushed. But the mechanisms behind the regeneration are not well understood.

In the new study, published online June 20 in Neuron, the scientists show that a protein called dual leucine zipper kinase (DLK) regulates signals that tell the nerve cell it has been injured -- often communicating over distances of several feet. The protein governs whether the neuron turns on its regeneration program.

"DLK is a key molecule linking an injury to the nerve's response to that injury, allowing the nerve to regenerate," says Aaron DiAntonio, MD, PhD, professor of developmental biology. "How does an injured nerve know that it is injured? How does it take that information and turn on a regenerative program and regrow connections? And why does only the peripheral nervous system respond this way, while the central nervous system does not? We think DLK is part of the answer."

The nerve cell body containing the nucleus or "brain" of a peripheral nerve resides in the spinal cord. During early development, these nerves send long, thin, branching wires, called axons, out to the tips of the fingers and toes. Once the axons reach their targets (a muscle, for example), they stop extending and remain mostly unchanged for the life of the organism. Unless they're damaged.

If an axon is severed somewhere between the cell body in the spinal cord and the muscle, the piece of axon that is no longer connected to the cell body begins to disintegrate. Earlier work showed that DLK helps regulate this axonal degeneration. And in worms and flies, DLK also is known to govern the formation of an axon's growth cone, the structure responsible for extending the tip of a growing axon whether after injury or during development.

The formation of the growth cone is an important part of the early, local response of a nerve to injury. But a later response, traveling over greater distances, proves vital for relaying the signals that activate genes promoting regeneration. This late response can happen hours or even days after injury.

But in mice, unlike worms and flies, DiAntonio and his colleagues found that DLK is not involved in an axon's early response to injury. Even without DLK, the growth cone forms. But a lack of DLK means the nerve cell body, nestled in the spinal cord far from the injury, doesn't get the message that it's injured. Without the signals relaying the injury message, the cell body doesn't turn on its regeneration program and the growth cone's progress in extending the axon stalls.

In addition, it was shown many years ago that axons regrow faster after a second injury than axons injured only once. In other words, injury itself increases an axon's ability to regenerate. Furthering this work, first author Jung Eun Shin, graduate research assistant, and her colleagues found that DLK is required to promote this accelerated growth.

"A neuron that has seen a previous injury now has a different regenerative program than one that has never been damaged," Shin says. "We hope to be able to identify what is different between these two neurons -- specifically what factors lead to the improved regeneration after a second injury. We have found that activated DLK is one such factor. We would like to activate DLK in a newly injured neuron to see if it has improved regeneration."

In addition to speeding peripheral nerve recovery, DiAntonio and Shin see possible implications in the central nervous system. It is known for example, that some of the important factors regulated and ramped up by DLK are not activated in the central nervous system.

"Since this sort of signaling doesn't appear to happen in the central nervous system, it's possible these nerves don't 'know' when they are injured," DiAntonio says. "It's an exciting idea -- but not at all proven -- that activating DLK in the central nervous system could promote its regeneration."

###

Shin JE, Cho Y, Beirowski B, Milbrandt J, Cavalli V, DiAntonio A. Dual leucine zipper kinase is required for retrograde injury signaling and axonal regeneration. Neuron. Online June 20, 2012.

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Neuroscience Blueprint Center Core Grant (P30 NS057105) to Washington University, the HOPE Center for Neurological Disorders, the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) long-term fellowship, the Edward Mallinckrodt Jr. Foundation, and NIH grants NS060709, AG13730, NS070053 and NS065053.

Washington University School of Medicine's 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty physicians also are the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals. The School of Medicine is one of the leading medical research, teaching and patient care institutions in the nation, currently ranked sixth in the nation by U.S. News & World Report. Through its affiliations with Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals, the School of Medicine is linked to BJC HealthCare.

Source: ScienceDaily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120620132926.htm

 

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

All Things Big and Small: The Brain's Discerning Taste for Size

This figure shows brain activations while participants view pictures of large and small objects. (Credit: Image courtesy of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, CSAIL)

ScienceDaily (June 20, 2012) — The human brain can recognize thousands of different objects, but neuroscientists have long grappled with how the brain organizes object representation; in other words, how the brain perceives and identifies different objects. Now researchers at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) and the MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences have discovered that the brain organizes objects based on their physical size, with a specific region of the brain reserved for recognizing large objects and another reserved for small objects.

Their findings, to be published in the June 21 issue of Neuron, could have major implications for fields like robotics, and could lead to a greater understanding of how the brain organizes and maps information.

"Prior to this study, nobody had looked at whether the size of an object was an important factor in the brain's ability to recognize it," said Aude Oliva, an associate professor in the MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and senior author of the study.

"It's almost obvious that all objects in the world have a physical size, but the importance of this factor is surprisingly easy to miss when you study objects by looking at pictures of them on a computer screen," said Dr. Talia Konkle, lead author of the paper. "We pick up small things with our fingers, we use big objects to support our bodies. How we interact with objects in the world is deeply and intrinsically tied to their real-world size, and this matters for how our brain's visual system organizes object information."

As part of their study, Konkle and Oliva took 3D scans of brain activity during experiments in which participants were asked to look at images of big and small objects or visualize items of differing size. By evaluating the scans, the researchers found that there are distinct regions of the brain that respond to big objects (for example, a chair or a table), and small objects (for example, a paperclip or a strawberry).

By looking at the arrangement of the responses, they found a systematic organization of big to small object responses across the brain's cerebral cortex. Large objects, they learned, are processed in the parahippocampal region of the brain, an area located by the hippocampus, which is also responsible for navigating through spaces and for processing the location of different places, like the beach or a building. Small objects are handled in the inferior temporal region of the brain, near regions that are active when the brain has to manipulate tools like a hammer or a screwdriver.

The work could have major implications for the field of robotics, in particular in developing techniques for how robots deal with different objects, from grasping a pen to sitting in a chair.

"Our findings shed light on the geography of the human brain, and could provide insight into developing better machine interfaces for robots," said Oliva.

Many computer vision techniques currently focus on identifying what an object is without much guidance about the size of the object, which could be useful in recognition. "Paying attention to the physical size of objects may dramatically constrain the number of objects a robot has to consider when trying to identify what it is seeing," said Oliva.

The study's findings are also important for understanding how the organization of the brain may have evolved. The work of Konkle and Oliva suggests that the human visual system's method for organizing thousands of objects may also be tied to human interactions with the world. "If experience in the world has shaped our brain organization over time, and our behavior depends on how big objects are, it makes sense that the brain may have established different processing channels for different actions, and at the center of these may be size," said Konkle.

Oliva, a cognitive neuroscientist by training, has focused much of her research on how the brain tackles scene and object recognition, as well as visual memory. Her ultimate goal is to gain a better understanding of the brain's visual processes, paving the way for the development of machines and interfaces that can see and understand the visual world like humans do.

"Ultimately, we want to focus on how active observers move in the natural world. We think this not only matters for large-scale brain organization of the visual system, but it also matters for making machines that can see like us," said Konkle and Oliva.

This research was funded by a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship, and a National Eye Institute grant, and was conducted at the Athinoula A. Martinos Imaging Center at McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT.

Source: ScienceDaily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120620133306.htm

 

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

New Clue to Unexplained Excited Delirium Deaths

ScienceDaily (June 20, 2012) — The headlines are often filled with this scenario: a person displaying violent, bizarre and agitated behavior is subdued by law enforcement personnel and later dies in custody. It appears to be a case of police brutality -- but is it?

According to William P. Bozeman, M.D., an emergency medicine physician at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, some of these deaths may be caused by an abnormal cardiac condition called Long QT Syndrome, compounded by a situation of Excited Delirium (ExD) Syndrome.

"Why do people become confused, agitated and violent, and then suddenly drop dead? That's the big question," Bozeman said. "This has been seen for well over a century, but we don't have a clear answer. It may be an important link to investigate with future research."

Bozeman is lead author of a single case study published online last month ahead of print in the Journal of Emergency Medicine that details an individual who experienced ExD. The 30-year-old man displayed bizarre, agitated behavior and was brought to the Wake Forest Baptist emergency department by police.

The patient admitted "feeling funny" and reported recent drug use that a drug screen confirmed. The attending physician recognized an electrical abnormality on the patient's electrocardiogram and diagnosed it as Long QT Syndrome which is potentially life threatening.

Bozeman said this was a classic case of ExD, and the patient recovered because of a police sergeant's decision on the scene. "Thanks to the Winston-Salem police sergeant who had been trained to recognize Excited Delirium as a medical crisis, we had a good outcome," Bozeman said. "He made the decision to bring the patient to the emergency department rather than take him to jail. I think the police officer saved his life by making that decision."

Long QT Syndrome can be transient or temporary and can be brought on by agitated states such as ExD, Bozeman said. "The amount of adrenaline in the body can affect Long QT Syndrome. In some people, electrical abnormalities are there all the time, while in others they are transient," he said.

Bozeman said Long QT Syndrome may be a missing link that can explain some of the cases of people suffering sudden cardiac arrest after experiencing ExD. "The mechanism of people just suddenly collapsing and dying unexpectedly remains a mystery. Weeks later, even after autopsy and toxicology reports are available, there is sometimes still no clear explanation. This suggests an abnormal cardiac rhythm as a cause."

The most common cause of ExD appears to be drug use, with the second most common cause being psychiatric problems and/or medications, followed by a variety of other causes. "Excited Delirium is not a diagnosis; it's a clinical syndrome that may have a variety of causes, but they all present in a similar way -- with agitation, confusion or delirium, violence, and superhuman-like strength."

Bozeman said that American College of Emergency Physicians recently joined the National Association of Medical Examiners to categorize ExD as a clinical syndrome, an action that also points to the importance of education for law enforcement and other public safety personnel in dealing with situations like the one described in the case study. By treating ExD as a medical condition and bringing people to an emergency department instead of jail, Bozeman said it could "lead to the prevention of in-custody deaths."

The research was funded by the National Institute of Justice.

Source: ScienceDaily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120620100830.htm

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek

Confusion Can Be Beneficial for Learning

Most of us assume that confidence and certainty are preferred over uncertainty and bewilderment when it comes to learning complex information. But a new study shows that confusion when learning can be beneficial if it is properly induced, effectively regulated and ultimately resolved. (Credit: © Ana Blazic Pavlovic / Fotolia)

ScienceDaily (June 20, 2012) — Most of us assume that confidence and certainty are preferred over uncertainty and bewilderment when it comes to learning complex information. But a new study led by Sidney D'Mello of the University of Notre Dame shows that confusion when learning can be beneficial if it is properly induced, effectively regulated and ultimately resolved.

The study will be published in a forthcoming issue of the journal Learning and Instruction.

Notre Dame psychologist and computer scientist D'Mello, whose research areas include artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction and the learning sciences, together with Art Graesser of the University of Memphis, collaborated on the study, which was funded by the National Science Foundation.

They found that by strategically inducing confusion in a learning session on difficult conceptual topics, people actually learned more effectively and were able to apply their knowledge to new problems.

In a series of experiments, subjects learned scientific reasoning concepts through interactions with computer-animated agents playing the roles of a tutor and a peer learner. The animated agents and the subject engaged in interactive conversations where they collaboratively discussed the merits of sample research studies that were flawed in one critical aspect. For example, one hypothetical case study touted the merits of a diet pill, but was flawed because it did not include an appropriate control group. Confusion was induced by manipulating the information the subjects received so that the animated agents sometimes disagreed with each other and expressed contradictory or incorrect information. The agents then asked subjects to decide which opinion had more scientific merit, thereby putting the subject in the hot spot of having to make a decision with incomplete and sometimes contradictory information.

In addition to the confusion and uncertainty triggered by the contradictions, subjects who were confused scored higher on a difficult post-test and could more successfully identify flaws in new case studies.

"We have been investigating links between emotions and learning for almost a decade, and find that confusion can be beneficial to learning if appropriately regulated because it can cause learners to process the material more deeply in order to resolve their confusion," D'Mello says.

According to D'Mello, it is not advisable to intentionally confuse students who are struggling or induce confusion during high-stakes learning activities. Confusion interventions are best for higher-level learners who want to be challenged with difficult tasks, are willing to risk failure, and who manage negative emotions when they occur.

"It is also important that the students are productively instead of hopelessly confused. By productive confusion, we mean that the source of the confusion is closely linked to the content of the learning session, the student attempts to resolve their confusion, and the learning environment provides help when the student struggles. Furthermore, any misleading information in the form of confusion-induction techniques should be corrected over the course of the learning session, as was done in the present experiments."

According to D'Mello, the next step in this body of research is to apply these methods to some of the more traditional domains such as physics, where misconceptions are common.

Source: ScienceDaily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120620103233.htm

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek