Nine Lives: Cats’ Central Nervous System Can Repair Itself And Restore Function

Scientists studying a mysterious neurological affliction in cats have discovered a surprising ability of the central nervous system to repair itself and restore function.

In a study published March 30, 2009 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison reports that the restoration in cats of myelin — a fatty insulator of nerve fibers that degrades in a host of human central nervous system disorders, the most common of which is multiple sclerosis — can lead to functional recovery.

“The fundamental point of the study is that it proves unequivocally that extensive remyelination can lead to recovery from a severe neurological disorder,” says Ian Duncan, the UW-Madison neuroscientist who led the research. “It indicates the profound ability of the central nervous system to repair itself.”

The finding is important because it underscores the validity of strategies to reestablish myelin as a therapy for treating a range of severe neurological diseases associated with the loss or damage of myelin, but where the nerves themselves remain intact.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090330200722.htm

Competition May Have Led To New Dinosaur Species In Northwestern Alberta

Scientists think that the discovery of a gruesome feeding frenzy that played out 73 million years ago in Northwestern Alberta may also lead to the discovery of new dinosaur species there. (Credit: Artwork by Lucas Panzarin / Source: Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology)

University of Alberta student Tetsuto Miyashita and Frederico Fanti, a paleontology graduate student from Italy, made the discovery near Grande Prairie, 450 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.

Miyashita and Fanti came across a nesting site and found the remains of baby, plant-eating dinosaurs and the teeth of a predator. The researchers matched the teeth to a Troodon, a raptor-like dinosaur about two metres in length. This finding has opened new doors in dinosaur research on this part of the continent: “It established that dinosaurs were nesting at this high latitude,” said Miyashita. “It also shows for the first time a significant number of Troodons in the area [who] hunted hatchling dinosaurs.”

Over the course of two summers of field work Miyashita and Fanti began building a theory that Grande Prairie is a “missing link” between known dinosaur species that existed much further to the north and south. “Prior to this there were no localities with a variety of dinosaurs and other animals between Alaska and southern Alberta,” said Myiashita. The list of new finds for the area includes armoured and thick-headed plant eaters and fossilized freshwater fish and reptiles.

Miyashita says this small pocket of previously undiscovered life could have had interactions that lead to the evolution of new species.

“New dinosaurs weren’t created by interbreeding,” said Miyashita. “Having a variety of dinosaurs in one area creates new ecological interactions such as competition for food and predation.

“That can lead to the evolution of a new species.”

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090512134657.htm

New Population Of Iberian Lynx Raises Hope For Species’ Survival

Spanish authorities have announced they have discovered a previously unknown population of Iberian lynx, triggering hope for one of the world’s most endangered cat species, said World Wildlife Fund.

“We are excited and amazed by this discovery,” said Luis Suarez, head of WWF’s Species Program in Spain. “However, we are a long way from saving the Iberian lynx from imminent extinction.”

It appears that the new population was discovered in previously unsurveyed estates in Castilla – La Mancha (Central Spain). This Iberian community is one of the most sparsely populated of Spain’s autonomous communities.

At present, the exact numbers and location of the newly discovered population are being kept confidential, but the population is thought to be made up of both adults and cubs.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071023163901.htm

Spanish Lynx Reproduction Cycle

Not exactly a glamous research project, but important work to help ensure we don’t lose another wild cat.

Researcher Teresa Abáigar Ancín, of the Estación Experimental de Zonas Áridas (EEZA – CSIC) arid areas experiment station, has just finished a report which scientifically defines the reproduction cycle of the Spanish Lynx (Lynx pardinus). In order to this, experts have used a method of indirect analysis based on determining the sexual hormones concentration – oestrogen (estrogen), progesterone and testosterone -in the faeces of these mammals.

Generally speaking and watching the behaviour of these felines in the wild, we so far know that their reproduction season is between January and February. Nevertheless, this knowledge was not based on any scientific report, and researchers of Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) are pioneers in determining that the oestrogen concentration levels in the faeces of female lynxes are very low when they are sexually inactive. Usually, in January, there is an important increase in the concentration of these metabolites, which coincides with the ovulation cycle indicating the beginning of the female reproduction season.

‘The variation in the faeces oestrogen concentration is so drastic -its increases up to five times- that it allows to accurately determine the exact moment of ovulation, as well as the beginning and end of adult female sexual activity’, Dr. Abáigar Ancín said.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090521084715.htm

New York City’s Dragonfly A Locavore Wet Dream

Architect Vincent Callebaut will have locavores drooling if his 128-floor vertical farm concept is actually realized.

The Dubai-esque Dragonfly addresses issues like food production and agriculture in cities that are horizontally-challenged for space like New York City. The concept supports housing, offices, laboratories and twenty-eight different agricultural fields.

The Belgium-designed Dragonfly consists of two towers and is completely Hobbit free. It’s a 2,000 foot tall structure that harnesses both solar and wind power. In fact, it’s completely self-sufficient!  

The exterior gardens are used for capturing and filtering rain water. Using the water, and domestic liquid waste, the water is recirculated and used for irrigation.

The greenhouse, which gives the structure its wing-like design, supports the load of the building and is inspired by the structural exoskeleton of dragonfly wings.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/05/new-york-city-dragonfly-a-locavore-wet-dream.php

‘Junk’ DNA Has Important Role, Researchers Find

rinceton scientists are probing the genetics of the pond organism Oxytricha, shown here in the process of reproducing. (Credit: Photo by Robert Hammersmith)

Scientists have called it “junk DNA.” They have long been perplexed by these extensive strands of genetic material that dominate the genome but seem to lack specific functions. Why would nature force the genome to carry so much excess baggage?

Now researchers from Princeton University and Indiana University who have been studying the genome of a pond organism have found that junk DNA may not be so junky after all. They have discovered that DNA sequences from regions of what had been viewed as the “dispensable genome” are actually performing functions that are central for the organism. They have concluded that the genes spur an almost acrobatic rearrangement of the entire genome that is necessary for the organism to grow. 

It all happens very quickly. Genes called transposons in the single-celled pond-dwelling organism Oxytricha produce cell proteins known as transposases. During development, the transposons appear to first influence hundreds of thousands of DNA pieces to regroup. Then, when no longer needed, the organism cleverly erases the transposases from its genetic material, paring its genome to a slim 5 percent of its original load.

“The transposons actually perform a central role for the cell,” said Laura Landweber, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton and an author of the study. “They stitch together the genes in working form.” The work appeared in the May 15 edition of Science.

In order to prove that the transposons have this reassembly function, the scientists disabled several thousand of these genes in some Oxytricha. The organisms with the altered DNA, they found, failed to develop properly.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090520140408.htm

Five-Dimensional Data Storage

Data rainbow: These six patterns were written within the same area of a new data-storage medium using three different colors and two different polarizations of laser light.   Credit: Nature Publishing Group

A new light-responsive material could lead to discs the size of today’s DVDs that store four orders of magnitude more data. Traditional DVDs and CDs store data on their surface in two dimensions, and holographic discs can store it in three. Now researchers have for the first time demonstrated what they call a five-dimensional optical material. It can record data in three spatial dimensions and in response to different wavelengths and polarizations of laser light.

The material is being developed by researchers led by Min Gu, director of the Centre for Micro-Photonics at the Swinburne University of Technology in Victoria, Australia. The material is made up of layers of gold nanorods suspended in clear plastic spun flat on a glass substrate. Multiple data patterns can be written and read within the same area in the material without interfering with each other. Using three wavelengths and two polarizations of light, the Australian researchers have written six different patterns within the same area. They’ve further increased the storage density to 1.1 terabytes per cubic centimeter by writing data to stacks of as many as 10 nanorod layers. In a paper published online today in the journal Nature, Gu’s group reports recording speeds of about a gigabit per second.

http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/22673/

Sending Genes into the Brain

Promise for Parkinson’s: Twelve months after receiving an experimental gene therapy for Parkinson’s disease developed by Neurologix, this patient has reduced metabolic activity (indicated in blue) in the brain area most damaged by the disease.   Credit: The Lancet

The brain has long presented a special challenge to drug developers: tightly enclosed by the blood brain barrier, it remains locked to many therapies delivered orally or intravenously.

However, thanks to more-precise methods of targeting the brain, advances in brain imaging, and the growing popularity of implanted stimulators for treating neurological diseases, the brain is no longer off limits. This is highlighted by a number of new clinical trials involving Parkinson’s patients, in which a therapeutic gene or another treatment is delivered directly to a specific part of the brain.

“My belief is that we’re entering into an era where instrumentation in the brain will become routine, not just for Parkinson’s, but for myriad central nervous system disorders,” says Howard Federoff, a neurologist and executive dean of the School of Medicine at Georgetown University, in Washington, DC. “I anticipate that delivery technologies will drive the development of new therapeutics and the repurposing of existing treatments, where they could be delivered directly to the part of the brain where it’s needed at the appropriate dose.”

Drugs that replace the chemical messenger dopamine have been very effective in treating Parkinson’s disease, but the benefits of these medications frequently decline over time. About a third of the more than half a million Parkinson’s patients in the United States are in the later stages of the disease and resistant to medication. One option for these patients is deep brain stimulation (DBS)–a surgical procedure in which an electrode is implanted directly into the brain. While the exact mechanism underlying the benefits of DBS is unknown, scientists believe that the electrical pulses sent to the damaged part of the brain override the abnormal neural signaling that triggers tremors, rigidity, and other symptoms of Parkinson’s.

http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/22675/

How Down Syndrome Stops Cancer

Hungry for blood: Using customized stem cells, researchers showed that Down syndrome protects against cancer by preventing tumors from forming their own blood vessels. The tumor on the top was spawned by stem cells derived from an individual with Down syndrome. It has a substantially smaller network of blood vessels (red) than the tumor on the bottom, which was generated by stem cells derived from a chromosomally normal individual.   Credit: Kwan-Hyuck Baek et al., Children’s Hospital Boston

For decades scientists have known that people with Down syndrome, who have an extra copy of chromosome 21, get certain types of cancer at dramatically lower rates than normal. Now, partly by using stem cells derived from the skin of an individual with Down syndrome, researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston have pinpointed the gene that appears to underlie the cancer-protective effect.

The researchers say the results of their study, which were published today in Nature, may point to a promising new target for future cancer treatments. And according to stem-cell biologists, the work also highlights a growing trend in the field: harnessing disease-specific stem cells not as therapies but rather as models for understanding particular genetic disorders.

Stem cells “can be useful not simply because you take them and transplant them,” says Evan Snyder, director of the stem cells and regenerative medicine program at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in San Diego. “They are useful as models of disease that reveal other kinds of therapies.” Snyder was not involved in the new study.

The late Judah Folkman, a cancer researcher renowned for pioneering the notion that blocking angiogenesis–the growth of new blood vessels–can prevent tumors from thriving, hypothesized that the lower cancer rates associated with Down syndrome might be traced to anti-angiogenesis genes on the 21st chromosome. So Sandra Ryeom, a member of the Folkman Laboratory in the Vascular Biology Program at Children’s Hospital, zeroed in on a region on chromosome 21 known to encode a regulator of blood vessel growth called DSCR1.

http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/22681/

Recliners for Gamers

Sort of computer tech, you can sit in comfort while playing on the computer.

Every serious video game junkie needs the Ultimate Gaming Chair. This leather chair is loaded with impressive features that include compatibility with multiple consoles and their features and 12 vibration motors that synchronize with the action in the game.

The Ultimate Gaming Chair has full surround sound, 3D adjustable stereo speakers, an adjustable headrest, leg rest, and a holder for beverages or remote controls. The icing on the cake is that it also massages you!

http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/video-game-junky-chairs-ultimate-gaming-chair-answers-prayers