Biosingularity

Researchers at the RIKEN-MIT Center for Neural Circuit Genetics have discovered an answer to the long-standing mystery of how brain cells can both remember new memories while also maintaining older ones. They found that specific neurons in a brain region called the dentate gyrus serve distinct roles in memory formation depending on whether the neural [...]

Few of our ancestors have been so thoroughly poked and prodded as Neolithic Tyrolean Iceman “Ötzi,” discovered melting out of an Alpine glacier in 1991. Researchers have probed his stomach and bowels for traces of his last meal and analyzed his teeth for cavities. Now, an international team has sequenced his entire genome, and it [...]

Doctors struggle to keep squirming children still for long scans. Now, thanks to faster magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), they may no longer have to worry about keeping their patients still for so long. The above image of the blood flow through the heart of a 6-year-old with a congenital heart defect was acquired in 10 [...]

Imagine a piece of technology that would let you control an apparatus simply by thinking about it. Lots of people, it turns out, have dreamed of just such a system, which for decades has fired the imaginations of scientists, engineers, and science fiction authors. It’s easy to see why: By transforming thought into action, a [...]

Fruit bats in Guatemala are hosting a novel subtype of influenza A virus, according to a study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The virus — designated H17 — appears to have diverged from known influenza viruses long ago, shedding light on their evolution. Therefore, it seems to pose no [...]

Jaroslav Flegr is no kook. And yet, for years, he suspected his mind had been taken over by parasites that had invaded his brain. So the prolific biologist took his science-fiction hunch into the lab. What he’s now discovering will startle you. Could tiny organisms carried by house cats be creeping into our brains, causing [...]

How many neurons are there in the human brain? It was a question that scientists thought they had nailed – and the answer was 100bn (give or take). If you went looking you would find that figure repeated widely in the neuroscience literature and beyond. But when a researcher in Brazil called Dr Suzana Herculano-Houzel [...]

Forget needles in haystacks. Try finding the tip of a needle in a virus. Scientists have long known that a group of viruses called bacteriophages have a knack for infiltrating bacteria and that some begin their attack with a protein spike. But the tip of this spike is so small that no one knew what [...]

Doctors are calling for a rethink of the use of sleeping pills after a large study showed that the drugs carry a substantially increased risk of death for those who are prescribed them. Commonly used sleeping pills, or “hypnotics”, such as temazepam and zolpidem, which is prescribed for short-term insomnia, are associated with more than [...]

The American Heart Association (AHA) recently certified almonds based on their nutrient profile to display the signature Heart-Check mark . The Heart-Check mark is overseen by AHA to help make it easier for shoppers to identify and choose heart-healthy foods. This symbol is the most consumer-trusted nutrition icon appearing on packaged foods—in fact, research shows [...]

Researchers at National Jewish Health have discovered specific molecular and signaling events by which vitamin D inhibits inflammation. In their experiments, they showed that low levels of Vitamin D, comparable to levels found in millions of people, failed to inhibit the inflammatory cascade, while levels considered adequate did inhibit inflammatory signaling. They reported their results [...]

Researchers have identified a compound found in oranges, grapefruits, and other citrus fruits that may lower a woman’s stroke risk. Previous studies suggest that eating fruits and vegetables helps protect against strokes, and many believe that antioxidant compounds known as flavonoids may explain why, because they have been shown to improve blood vessel function and [...]

“What was he thinking?” It’s the familiar cry of bewildered parents trying to understand why their teenagers act the way they do. How does the boy who can thoughtfully explain the reasons never to drink and drive end up in a drunken crash? Why does the girl who knows all about birth control find herself [...]

Hepatitis C, an infectious disease that can cause inflammation and organ failure, has different effects on different people. But no one is sure why some people are very susceptible to the infection, while others are resistant. Scientists believe that if they could study liver cells from different people in the lab, they could determine how [...]

Researchers have demonstrated a striking method to reconstruct words, based on the brain waves of patients thinking of those words. The technique reported in PLoS Biology relies on gathering electrical signals directly from patients’ brains. Based on signals from listening patients, a computer model was used to reconstruct the sounds of words that patients were [...]

As the father-to-son exchange in the old Cat Stevens song advised, “take your time, think a lot, … think of everything you’ve got.” Turns out the mellow ’70s folkie had stumbled upon what may explain a key feature of our brains that sets us apart from our closest relatives: We unhurriedly make synaptic connections through [...]

Concussion, the most common among traumatic brain injuries, which occurs 1.7 million times a year in the U.S., represents a major public-health problem. It occurs when there is a sudden acceleration or deceleration of the head, a process depicted here in this animation. A blow can produce a brief loss of consciousness, headaches and impaired [...]

A study published today provides surprising new insight into what happens in depressed brains. In people with depression, brain regions appear to be overly connected to one another, says the study, which is being published by UCLA’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. In turn, this excessive connectivity reduces the flexibility the brain needs [...]

  Proteins control nearly all of life’s functions, but how they self-assemble, or fold, is an unsolved problem in biology. Understanding how folding goes awry could lead to cures for diseases caused by protein misfolding, like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Stanford chemistry Professor Vijay Pande’s project Folding@home borrows computing time from home computers to simulate how [...]

Source: Fat cell, TEM.

A 3D printer-created lower jaw has been fitted to an 83-year-old woman’s face in what doctors say is the first operation of its kind. The transplant was carried out in June in the Netherlands, but is only now being publicised. The implant was made out of titanium powder – heated and fused together by a [...]

In June 2006 pharmaceutical giant Sanofi-Aventis began selling a new weight-loss drug called rimonabant in Europe. Rimonabant worked in part by reducing appetite, and the company claimed it could also treat addiction, harmful cholesterol, and diabetes. Lab tests even suggested the drug produced healthier sperm. But within six months, the company had received more than [...]

WITH the nation’s economy in poor health, the congressional “super” committee appointed to propose areas for cuts to reduce the national deficit offered the promise of a cure. But when it ended deliberations without a proposal, it provided instead a bitter pill — $1.2 trillion in mandatory across-the-board cuts, half from defense and half from [...]

It sounds too good to be true but new research says having dessert – along with the traditional fry up – burns off the pounds. Morning is the best time to consume sweets because that’s when the body’s metabolism is most active – and we have the rest of the day to work off the [...]

Last month, a 114-year-old former schoolteacher from Georgia named Besse Cooper became the world’s oldest living person. Her predecessor, Brazil’s Maria Gomes Valentim, was 114 when she died. So was the oldest living person before her, and the one before her. In fact, eight of the last nine “world’s oldest” titleholders were 114 when they [...]

Anyone who has felt the pressure of a weeklong sinus infection won’t be happy to hear it, but a study finds that a commonly prescribed medicine doesn’t clear up such attacks any better than the body does on its own. The findings, in the Feb. 15 Journal of the American Medical Association, don’t apply to [...]

While many of us wonder just how much exercise we really need in order to gain health and fitness, a group of scientists in Canada are turning that issue on its head and asking, how little exercise do we need? The emerging and engaging answer appears to be, a lot less than most of us [...]

Organisms that live at the frigid poles of our planet have evolved strategies to withstand temperatures that would kill most species instantly. Some secrete ice-nucleating substances that control the freezing process, for example, while others accumulate anti-freeze proteins that allow their cells to remain unfrozen even at subzero temperatures, a phenomenon known as supercooling. Now, [...]

About 15 years ago, MIT professors Robert Langer and Michael Cima had the idea to develop a programmable, wirelessly controlled microchip that would deliver drugs after implantation in a patient’s body. This week, the MIT researchers and scientists from MicroCHIPS Inc. reported that they have successfully used such a chip to administer daily doses of [...]

In a small clean room tucked into the back of San Diego–based startup Organovo, Chirag Khatiwala is building a thin layer of human skeletal muscle. He inserts a cartridge of specially prepared muscle cells into a 3-D printer, which then deposits them in uniform, closely spaced lines in a petri dish. This arrangement allows the [...]

Insects cover our planet. Filed into 750,000 different species, at any given time there are one million trillion bugs buzzing around the globe. About 14,000 of those species are blood-feeders, meaning they drink their meals by puncturing the skin of vertebrates, including humans. Besides being a nuisance, blood-feeding insects, such as certain strains of mosquitoes, [...]

A club drug called “Special K” is generating a lot of buzz among researchers who study depression. That’s because “Special K,” which is actually an FDA-approved anesthetic named ketamine, can relieve even suicidal depression in a matter of hours. And it works on many patients who haven’t responded to current antidepressants like Prozac. Those traditional [...]

Bacteria don’t normally take photographs. Nor do they attack tumor cells or produce chemicals. But with some help from biological engineer Chris Voigt, they can do all that and more. Voigt, who joined MIT’s faculty in July as an associate professor of biological engineering, likes to tinker with bacteria and other microbes to get them [...]

For decades, scientists have looked for explanations as to why certain conditions occur with age, among them memory loss, slower reaction time, insomnia and even depression. They have scrupulously investigated such suspects as high cholesterol, obesity, heart disease and an inactive lifestyle. Now a fascinating body of research supports a largely unrecognized culprit: the aging [...]

It was an ice age squirrel’s treasure chamber, a burrow containing fruit and seeds that had been stuck in the Siberian permafrost for over 30,000 years. From the fruit tissues, a team of Russian scientists managed to resurrect an entire plant in a pioneering experiment that paves the way for the revival of other species. [...]

At last, a member of the celebrated sirtuin family of proteins has been shown to extend lifespan in mammals — although it’s not the one that has received the most attention and financial investment. Sirtuin genes and the proteins they encode have intrigued many researchers who study ageing ever since they were first linked to [...]

Back in 2000, when Larry Smarr left his job as head of a celebrated supercomputer center in Illinois to start a new institute at the University of California, San Diego, and the University of California, Irvine, he rarely paid attention to his bathroom scale. He regularly drank Coke, added sugar to his coffee, and enjoyed [...]