All posts from Last Month
- April 23, 2013
- 03:26 AM
- 84 views
Vaccination has nothing to do with the rare Guillain-Barré Nerve Disorder
by Usman Paracha in SayPeople
Main point:
Researchers have found no relation between the vaccination against tetanus, hepatitis, pneumonia or flu and the Guillain-Barré Nerve Disorder.
Journal:
Clinical Infectious Diseases
Study Further:
Guillain-Barré Nerve Disorder is an autoimmune disorder, though rare, in which temporary paralysis occurs. In an autoimmune disorder, person’s own immunity starts working against the protective coating on the nerve fibers. It is usually preceded by a bacterial or viral infection and develops in a period of days to weeks. It affects one in 100,000 people.
For decades, researchers are working on whether any kind of vaccines, such as flu vaccines or other, could lead to Guillain-Barré syndrome or not. Now, in this huge study spanning to about 13 years and covering millions of patients, it is finally clear that vaccines are not causing Guillain-Barré syndrome.
"There's definitely a connection in people's minds that vaccines cause this syndrome. But if you look at the (medical) literature, that doesn't bear out," said Dr. Roger Baxter, co-director of the Vaccine Study Center at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, California, and the study’s lead author.
Researchers found 415 cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome in the hospitalized cases from Kaiser Permanente Northern California from 1995 through 2006. These cases were out of nearly 33 million person-years, an amount that shows both the number of people tracked and how long they were followed. They found that 2/3 of 415 cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome had gastrointestinal or respiratory infection in the weeks before developing the syndrome. Only 25 cases of vaccination were presented within six weeks of the onset of GBS.
"The bottom line is we think vaccines are very safe for this outcome, that they do not result in GBS, and if they do, it's so rare it's nothing to be worried about," Baxter told Reuters Health.
Researchers have also reported that the syndrome is nearly 50% more common in winter.
Source:
Reuters
Reference:
Baxter, R., Bakshi, N., Fireman, B., Lewis, E., Ray, P., Vellozzi, C., & Klein, N. (2013). Lack of Association of Guillain-Barre Syndrome with Vaccinations Clinical Infectious Diseases DOI: 10.1093/cid/cit222... Read more »
Baxter, R., Bakshi, N., Fireman, B., Lewis, E., Ray, P., Vellozzi, C., & Klein, N. (2013) Lack of Association of Guillain-Barre Syndrome with Vaccinations. Clinical Infectious Diseases. DOI: 10.1093/cid/cit222
- April 22, 2013
- 09:11 PM
- 93 views
Nature is cool but we have to take care of it
by Usman Paracha in SayPeople
Main point:
Researchers have found that rivers act as the natural “horizontal cooling towers” for thermoelectric power plants but it needs attention to take care of its environment from the artificial disturbing sources.
Journal:
Environmental Research Letters
Study Further:
In thermoelectric power plants, water is boiled to create steam to produce electricity by driving turbines. This raises the temperature and to cut the temperature, water is withdrawn and evaporated either in cooling towers or returned to the river at high temperatures. Researchers found that rivers help to cut the added heats by acting as horizontal cooling towers as water flows downstream.
According to the researchers’ estimations, the amount of heat that has been moved to the rivers only slightly more than 11% move to the atmosphere while the rest move to the coastal waters and oceans.
“We were surprised to find that relatively little of the heat to rivers is exchanged back to the atmosphere,” Wilfred Wollheim, an assistant professor and co-director of the Water Systems Analysis Group at EOS, said in a statement.
“Reliance on riverine ecosystem services to dispense waste heat alters temperature regimes, which impacts fish habitat and other aquatic ecosystem services,” Wollheim added.
Although, river acts helps in cooling the added heat but it has a “considerable” impact on fish habitat and environment.
“We can better understand the unintended consequences to other ecosystem services as we rely on rivers to support generation of electricity. Integrative, regional approaches will be needed to help plan as society adapts to changing climate and hydrology while demand for power continues to increase,” Wollheim added.
Source:
University of New Hampshire
Reference:
Stewart, R., Wollheim, W., Miara, A., Vörösmarty, C., Fekete, B., Lammers, R., & Rosenzweig, B. (2013). Horizontal cooling towers: riverine ecosystem services and the fate of thermoelectric heat in the contemporary Northeast US Environmental Research Letters, 8 (2) DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/025010... Read more »
Stewart, R., Wollheim, W., Miara, A., Vörösmarty, C., Fekete, B., Lammers, R., & Rosenzweig, B. (2013) Horizontal cooling towers: riverine ecosystem services and the fate of thermoelectric heat in the contemporary Northeast US. Environmental Research Letters, 8(2), 25010. DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/025010
- April 22, 2013
- 08:20 PM
- 79 views
Connecting Form and Function: Serial Block-face EM
by TheCellularScale in The Cellular Scale
The retina is a beautiful and wondrous structure, and it has some really weird cells. Retina by Cajal (source)Retinal Ganglion Cells (RGC) have all sorts of differentiating characteristics. Some are directly sensitive to brightness (like rods and cones), while some are sensitive to the specific direction that a bar is traveling. I am discussing really amazing new techniques to see inside cells this month, and have already posted about the magic that is Array Tomography. Today we'll look at another amazing new technique that (like array tomography) combines nano-scale detail with a scale large enough to see many neurons at once. This technique is called Serial Block-face Electron Microscopy (SBEM), and was recently used to investigate how starburst amacrine cells control the direction-sensitivity of retinal ganglion cells.Serial Block-face EM (source)SBEM images are acquired by embedding a piece of tissue (like a retina) in some firm substance and slicing it superthin (like 10s of nanometers thick) with a diamond blade. The whole slicing apparatus is set up directly under a scanning electron microscope, so as soon as the blade cuts, an image is taken of the surface remaining. Then another thin slice is shaved off and the next image is taken, and so on.Using this technique, Briggman et al. (2011) are able to trace individual neurons and their connections for a (relatively) large section of retina. What is so great about this paper is that before they sliced up the retina, they moved bars around in front of it and measured the directional selectivity of a bunch of neurons. Then, using blood vessels and landmarks to orient themselves, they were able to find the exact same cells in the SBEM data and trace them.Briggman et al. (2011) Fig1C: Landmark blood vesselsThe colored circles above represent the cell bodies and the black 'tree' shape are the blood vessel landmarks. Once they found the cell bodies, the could trace the cells through the stacks of SBEM data. What is really neat is that you can try your hand at this yourself. This exact data set has been turned into a game called EYEWIRE by the Seung lab at MIT. Reconstructing the cells, they could not only tell which cells connected to which other cells, but they could also see exactly where on the dendrites the cells connected. This is the really amazing part. They found that specific dendritic areas made synapses with specific cells.Briggman et al. (2011) Fig4: dendrites as the computational unitThis starburst amacrine cell overlaps with many retinal ganglion cells (dotted lines represent the dendritic spread of individual RGCs)...BUT its specific dendrites (left, right, up down etc) synapse selectively onto RGCs sensitive to a particular direction. Each color represents synapses onto a specific direction-sensitivity. e.g. yellow dots are synapses from the amacrine cell onto RGCs which are sensitive to downward motion.This suggests that each individual dendritic area of these starburst amacrine cells inhibits (probably) a specific type of RGC, and that these dendrites act relatively independently of one another. "The specificity of each SAC dendritic branch for selecting a postsynaptic target goes well beyond the notion that neuron A selectively wires to neuron B, which is all that electrophysiological measurements can test. Instead the dendrite angle has an additional, perhaps dominant, role, which is consistent with SAC dendrites acting as independent computational units." -Briggman et al (2011)(discussion)These cells are weird for so many reasons, but the ability of the dendrites to act so independently of one another is a new and exciting development that I hope to see more research on soon. © TheCellularScaleBriggman KL, Helmstaedter M, & Denk W (2011). Wiring specificity in the direction-selectivity circuit of the retina. Nature, 471 (7337), 183-8 PMID: 21390125... Read more »
Briggman KL, Helmstaedter M, & Denk W. (2011) Wiring specificity in the direction-selectivity circuit of the retina. Nature, 471(7337), 183-8. PMID: 21390125
- April 22, 2013
- 07:30 PM
- 98 views
Why Hang Them Seperately When We Can Hang Them Together?
by Jesse Marczyk in Pop Psychology
For those of you lucky enough to not have encountered it, there is a concept known as privilege that floats around in predominately feminist-leaning groups. The basic idea of the concept of privilege is that some groups of people have … Continue reading →... Read more »
DeScioli, P., & Kurzban, R. (2013) A solution to the mysteries of morality. Psychological Bulletin, 139(2), 477-496. DOI: 10.1037/a0029065
Uhlmann, E., Zhu, L., Pizarro, D., & Bloom, P. (2012) Blood is thicker: Moral spillover effects based on kinship. Cognition, 124(2), 239-243. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2012.04.010
- April 22, 2013
- 07:09 PM
- 52 views
Focus on Manual Skill or Action to Restore Slightly Shredded Soul
by m.c. in begin to dig (b2d)
This is the unexpected story of working to find a path to restore some shredded soul, not through power lifting masses of weights, or sprinting all out till wiped out, but through Sharpening knives, grinding coffee beans - both by hand - making espresso on the stove, latte art - all manual, all small tasks, small skill focus, all about practice of motor learning or just small motor actions as a quest to reduce stress right now.
Often, working out sits in this place, but i feel a little too drained right now for that, except for light runs. Seems there may be a reason - or at least a good thing happening - neurologically - in finding practices that focus, soothe and restore.... Read more »
Draganski, B., Gaser, C., Busch, V., Schuierer, G., Bogdahn, U., & May, A. (2004) Neuroplasticity: Changes in grey matter induced by training. Nature, 427(6972), 311-312. DOI: 10.1038/427311a
Draganski, B. (2006) Temporal and Spatial Dynamics of Brain Structure Changes during Extensive Learning. Journal of Neuroscience, 26(23), 6314-6317. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4628-05.2006
Holzel, B., Carmody, J., Evans, K., Hoge, E., Dusek, J., Morgan, L., Pitman, R., & Lazar, S. (2009) Stress reduction correlates with structural changes in the amygdala. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 5(1), 11-17. DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsp034
- April 22, 2013
- 05:59 PM
- 60 views
Knowledge is Pleasure!: Reliable reward information as a reward itself
by Grace Lindsay in Neurdiness
Pursuing rewards is a crucial part of survival for any species. The circuitry that tells us to seek out pleasure is what ensures that we find food, drink, and mates. In order to engage in this behavior, we must learn associations between rewards and the stimuli that predict them. That way we can know that [...]... Read more »
Bromberg-Martin, E., & Hikosaka, O. (2009) Midbrain Dopamine Neurons Signal Preference for Advance Information about Upcoming Rewards. Neuron, 63(1), 119-126. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2009.06.009
- April 22, 2013
- 05:24 PM
- 58 views
Let the Light Shine In: Addiction and Optogenetics
by Dirk Hanson in Addiction Inbox
Study says laser light can turn cocaine addiction on and off in rats.
Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), had one word for it: “Wow.”
Writing in the director’s blog at the online NIH site, Collins said that a team of researchers from NIH and UC San Francisco had succeeded in delivering “harmless pulses of laser light to the brains of cocaine-addicted rats, blocking their desire for the narcotic.”
Wow, indeed. It didn’t take long for the science fiction technology of optogenetics to make itself felt in addiction studies. The idea of using targeted laser light to strengthen or weaken signals along neural pathways has proven surprisingly robust. The study by the NIH and the University of California at San Francisco, published in Nature, showed that lab rats engineered to carry light-activated neurons in the prefrontal cortex could be deterred from seeking cocaine. Conversely, laser light used in a way that reduced signaling in this part of the brain led previously sober rats to develop a taste for the drug. As Collins described the work:
The researchers studied rats that were chronically addicted to cocaine. Their need for the drug was so strong that they would ignore electric shocks in order to get a hit. But when those same rats received the laser light pulses, the light activated the prelimbic cortex, causing electrical activity in that brain region to surge. Remarkably, the rat’s fear of the foot shock reappeared, and assisted in deterring cocaine seeking.
All this light zapping took place in a brain region known as the prelimbic cortex. In their paper, Billy T. Chen and coworkers said that they “targeted deep-layer pyramidal prelimbic cortex neurons because they project to brain structures implicated in drug-seeking behavior, including the nucleus accumbens, dorsal striatum and amygdala.” These three subcortical regions are rich in dopamine receptors. In rats that had been challenged with foot shocks before being offered cocaine, “optogenetic prelimbic cortex stimulation significantly prevented compulsive cocaine seeking, whereas optogenetic prelimbic cortex inhibition significantly increased compulsive cocaine seeking.”
What this demonstrates is that similar regions in the human prefrontal cortex, known to regulate such actions as decision-making and inhibitory response control, may be “compromised” in addicted people. This abnormally diminished excitability in turn “impairs inhibitory control over compulsive drug seeking…. We speculate that crossing a critical threshold of prelimbic cortex hypoactivity promotes compulsive behaviors”
This all sounds vaguely unsettling; sort of a cross between phrenology and lobotomy. But it is no such thing, and the study authors believe that stimulation of the prelimbic cortex “might be clinically efficacious against compulsive seeking, with few side effects on non-compulsive reward-related behaviors in addicts.” For now, the researchers confess that they don’t know whether the reduction in cocaine seeking is caused by altered emotional conditioning, or pure cognitive processing.
Actually, nobody expects optogenetics to be used in this way with humans. The thinking is that transcranial magnetic stimulation, the controversial technique that employs noninvasive electromagnetic stimulation at various points on the scalp to alter brain behavior, would be used in place of invasive zaps with lasers. Expect to hear about clinical trials to test this theory in the near future. David Shurtleff, acting deputy director at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), said in a prepared statement that the research “advances our understanding of how the recruitment, activation and the interaction among brain circuits can either restrain or increase motivation to take drugs.”
Chen B.T., Yau H.J., Hatch C., Kusumoto-Yoshida I., Cho S.L., Hopf F.W. & Bonci A. (2013). Rescuing cocaine-induced prefrontal cortex hypoactivity prevents compulsive cocaine seeking, Nature, 496 (7445) 359-362. DOI: 10.1038/nature12024
Photo credit: Billy Chen and Antonello Bonci
... Read more »
Chen Billy T., Yau Hau-Jie, Hatch Christina, Kusumoto-Yoshida Ikue, Cho Saemi L., Hopf F. Woodward, & Bonci Antonello. (2013) Rescuing cocaine-induced prefrontal cortex hypoactivity prevents compulsive cocaine seeking. Nature, 496(7445), 359-362. DOI: 10.1038/nature12024
- April 22, 2013
- 04:21 PM
- 89 views
How Dance Illuminates the Mind – The Brain Areas of Dance
by Tony Ingram in BBoy Science
Dancing beautifully integrates complex movement and motor learning, rhythmic musical synchronization, creative emotional expression, and interpersonal communication.
Because of this complexity, studying the neural basis of dance is a challenge - but it may have important implications in rehabilitation and therapy.
So how do we study the neuroscience of dance?... Read more »
Brown S, Martinez MJ, & Parsons LM. (2006) The neural basis of human dance. Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991), 16(8), 1157-67. PMID: 16221923
- April 22, 2013
- 03:51 PM
- 99 views
Family-Based Treatment for Adolescents with Anorexia Nervosa: Hype or Hope?
by Tetyana Pekar in Science of Eating Disorders
When it comes to eating disorder treatment, few (if any) approaches are as divisive as Family-Based Treatment, also known as the Maudsley Method (I’ll use the terms interchangeably) . When I first heard about Maudsley, sometime during my mid-teens, most likely through an ED recovery community on Livejournal, I thought it was scaaary. But as I’ve learned more about it, my opinion changed (although, it does still seem kind-of scary).
As a side-note: I know many people reading this post know more about Maudsley than I ever will, so your feedback will be very much appreciated, especially if I got something wrong. I should also mention that I never did FBT or any kind-of family treatment/therapy as part of my ED recovery. (I have done family therapy, but it was unrelated to my ED; it was a component of a family member’s treatment for an unrelated mental health issue.)
In this post, I want to briefly explain what the Maudsley Method entails and put it into context. I also want to discuss some of the key research studies testing the efficacy of FBT and …
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... Read more »
Smith, A., & Cook-Cottone, C. (2011) A Review of Family Therapy as an Effective Intervention for Anorexia Nervosa in Adolescents. Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings, 18(4), 323-334. DOI: 10.1007/s10880-011-9262-3
- April 22, 2013
- 03:26 PM
- 65 views
The Leiden University Ranking
by Hadas Shema in Information Culture
The new Leiden Ranking (LR) has just been published, and I would like to talk a bit about its indicators, what it represents and equally important – what it doesn’t represent. The LR is a purely bibliometrical ranking, based on data from Thomson-Reuters’ Web of Science database (there’s another bibliometrical ranking, Scimago, but it’s based [...]
... Read more »
Ludo Waltman, Clara Calero-Medina, Joost Kosten, Ed C. M. Noyons, Robert J. W. Tijssen, Nees Jan van Eck, Thed N. van Leeuwen, Anthony F. J. van Raan, Martijn S. Visser, & Paul Wouters. (2012) The Leiden Ranking 2011/2012: Data collection, indicators, and interpretation. ArXiv. arXiv: 1202.3941v1
- April 22, 2013
- 12:43 PM
- 72 views
Using Black Holes to Measure the Universe’s Rate of Expansion
by Jason Carr in Wired Cosmos
A few years ago, researchers revealed that the universe is expanding at a much faster rate than originally believed — a discovery that earned a Nobel Prize in 2011. But measuring the rate of this acceleration over large distances is still challenging and problematic, says Prof. Hagai Netzer of Tel Aviv University’s School of Physics and Astronomy. Now, Prof. … Read More →... Read more »
Wang, J., Du, P., Valls-Gabaud, D., Hu, C., & Netzer, H. (2013) Super-Eddington Accreting Massive Black Holes as Long-Lived Cosmological Standards. Physical Review Letters, 110(8). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.081301
- April 22, 2013
- 12:12 PM
- 85 views
Exercise Boosts Brain Prefrontal Cortex in Children
by William Yates, M.D. in Brain Posts
Regular aerobic exercise has been associated with enhanced cognition in both children and adults. Most of these types of studies have been cross-sectional in design. Cross-sectional studies do a good job of examining association but do not prove causality. Prospective randomized control trials are better at examining the cause-effect relationship.So an important research question in the exercise-cognition domain is: Can an exercise intervention improve cognition in a prospective randomized control trial?Chaddock-Heyman at the University of Illinois published such a study in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. Their study is strengthened by the addition of fMRI measures of regional brain activation. The key elements in their study included:Subjects: 23 eight and nine year old children selected from the Urbana, Illinois school systemIntervention: Nine month intense after-school program incorporating an average of 77 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity daily. Control children were placed on a wait list and did not participate in the after-school programPrimary outcome measures: Pre- and post-testing performance on a task of attention and interference control along with pre- and post-testing fMRI with regional analysis of change over timeThe results of the study pointed to improved cognitive performance in the intervention group compared to the control children. Improvement in cognitive tasks was also associated with a significant reduction in activation of the right prefrontal cortex. Reduction in right prefrontal cortex under task performance (without an increase in errors) is generally seen as evidence of more efficient brain processing.The authors note that in the U.S. physical education activities in school are being cut back or dropped for budgetary reasons. They propose this trend may have adverse effects on childhood brain and cognitive development. Adding a nationwide structured program to increase childhood physical activity is probably not going to happen in the near future. However, parents can use the results of the current study to plan regular physical activities for their children. Exercise targets guidelines for children are 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity daily.Readers with more interest in this topic can access the free full-text version of the study by clicking on the link below.Photo of osprey at Fort Myers Beach, Florida is from the author's files.Chaddock-Heyman, L., Erickson, K., Voss, M., Knecht, A., Pontifex, M., Castelli, D., Hillman, C., & Kramer, A. (2013). The effects of physical activity on functional MRI activation associated with cognitive control in children: a randomized controlled intervention Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00072... Read more »
Chaddock-Heyman, L., Erickson, K., Voss, M., Knecht, A., Pontifex, M., Castelli, D., Hillman, C., & Kramer, A. (2013) The effects of physical activity on functional MRI activation associated with cognitive control in children: a randomized controlled intervention. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00072
- April 22, 2013
- 11:45 AM
- 9 views
Speak to the Individual, Not the Common
by Persuasion Strategies in Persuasive Litigator
By Dr. Ken Broda-Bahm: Last week in the U.S. Senate, a measure to require universal background checks on gun purchases failed to get the 60 votes needed to survive. The arguments supporting the common good of keeping firearms out of the wrong hands were, to 45 Senators, was not as strong as the individual rights based aversion to new restrictions in any form. Though this decision was out of step with prevailing public opinion (with 86 percent of the public supporting such checks), it was quite consistent with a very common and very American tendency for common good arguments to...... Read more »
Hamedani MG, Markus HR, & Fu AS. (2013) In the land of the free, interdependent action undermines motivation. Psychological science, 24(2), 189-96. PMID: 23302297
- April 22, 2013
- 11:18 AM
- 70 views
A Moment in the Sun for Biomimicry
by Whitney Campbell in Green Screen
Already inspired by botany, solar panels imitate photosynthesizing plants with their conversion of the sun's light into usable energy. Through this process, flowers and shrubs seem effortlessly self-sustaining, but designers of solar panels must innovate ways to capture with a cell what plants can innately.... Read more »
Dang, X., Yi, H., Ham, M., Qi, J., Yun, D., Ladewski, R., Strano, M., Hammond, P., & Belcher, A. (2011) Virus-templated self-assembled single-walled carbon nanotubes for highly efficient electron collection in photovoltaic devices. Nature Nanotechnology, 377-384. DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2011.50
Barr, M., Rowehl, J., Lunt, R., Xu, J., Wang, A., Boyce, C., Im, S., Bulović, V., & Gleason, K. (2011) Direct monolithic integration of organic photovoltaic circuits on unmodified paper. Advanced Materials, 3500-3505. DOI: 10.1002/adma.201101263
Shockley, W., & Queisser, H. (1961) Detailed balance limit of efficiency of p-n junction solar cells. Journal of Applied Physics, 510. DOI: 10.1063/1.1736034
King, R., Law, D., Edmondson, K., Fetzer, C., Kinsey, G., Yoon, H., Sherif, R., & Karam, N. (2007) 40% efficient metamorphic GaInP∕GaInAs∕Ge multijunction solar cells. Applied Physics Letters, 183516. DOI: 10.1063/1.2734507
Krogstrup, P., Jørgensen, H., Heiss, M., Demichel, O., Holm, J., Aagesen, M., Nygard, J., & Fontcuberta i Morral, A. (2013) Single-nanowire solar cells beyond the Shockley–Queisser limit. Nature Photonics, 306-310. DOI: 10.1038/nphoton.2013.32
- April 22, 2013
- 10:19 AM
- 87 views
New types of immune cells have been found in the skin
by Usman Paracha in SayPeople
Main Points:
Researchers have found a new type of immune cells in the skin that works efficiently against parasites such as ticks, mites, and worms. These cells are also thought to be linked to the allergic skin diseases and eczema.
Journal:
Nature Immunology
Study Further:
These newly discovered cells belong to the family of group 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2), which are present in the gut and lungs and found to be linked to asthma.
This is the first time these cells are found in the skin and they are present in a huge amount, according to Dr Ben Roediger, a research officer in the Centenary's Immune Imaging Laboratory.
"Our data show that these skin ILC2 cells can likely supress or stimulate inflammation under different conditions," he said. "They also suggest a potential link to allergic skin diseases."
"There is a great deal we don't understand about the debilitating skin conditions of allergies and eczema, but they affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Dermal ILC2 cells could be the clue we need to start unravelling the causes of these diseases." Head of the laboratory, Professor Wolfgang Weninger said in a statement.
Researchers have not only found these new types of ILC2 cells but they have also given the new strain of mice capable of giving information about these cells.
"Using these mice, we found that ILC2 cells were the major population in the skin that produced interleukin 13, a molecule that has been linked to a number of allergic diseases, including eczema," Dr Roediger said.
"We now have experiments underway in which we are actively looking for the direct involvement of these cells in the sort of skin diseases you would predict based on these findings," Dr Roediger added.
Source:
The University of Sydney
Reference:
Roediger, B., Kyle, R., Yip, K., Sumaria, N., Guy, T., Kim, B., Mitchell, A., Tay, S., Jain, R., Forbes-Blom, E., Chen, X., Tong, P., Bolton, H., Artis, D., Paul, W., de St Groth, B., Grimbaldeston, M., Le Gros, G., & Weninger, W. (2013). Cutaneous immunosurveillance and regulation of inflammation by group 2 innate lymphoid cells Nature Immunology DOI: 10.1038/ni.2584... Read more »
Roediger, B., Kyle, R., Yip, K., Sumaria, N., Guy, T., Kim, B., Mitchell, A., Tay, S., Jain, R., Forbes-Blom, E.... (2013) Cutaneous immunosurveillance and regulation of inflammation by group 2 innate lymphoid cells. Nature Immunology. DOI: 10.1038/ni.2584
- April 22, 2013
- 08:48 AM
- 79 views
Lamb Wins G. Stanley Hall Award
by ebender in Daily Observations
APS James McKeen Cattell Fellow Michael E. Lamb, University of Cambridge, has won the 2014 G. Stanley Hall Award for Distinguished Contribution to Developmental Psychology and the 2013 Award for The post Lamb Wins G. Stanley Hall Award appeared first on Association for Psychological Science.... Read more »
Hershkowitz I, Lamb ME, & Horowitz D. (2007) Victimization of children with disabilities. The American journal of orthopsychiatry, 77(4), 629-35. PMID: 18194043
- April 22, 2013
- 08:33 AM
- 61 views
Human embryonic stem cells restore memory in mice
by beredim in Stem Cells Freak
Researchers from the University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW) announced today that they have successfully used human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) to help a group of mice regain their hindered ability to "learn and remember". The hESCs helped the mice by forming new GABA and cholinergic neurons.Read More... Read more »
Liu, Y., Weick, J., Liu, H., Krencik, R., Zhang, X., Ma, L., Zhou, G., Ayala, M., & Zhang, S. (2013) Medial ganglionic eminence–like cells derived from human embryonic stem cells correct learning and memory deficits. Nature Biotechnology. DOI: 10.1038/nbt.2565
- April 22, 2013
- 08:04 AM
- 94 views
Cellphone Microbattery That Can Jump-Start a Car Developed
by dailyfusion in The Daily Fusion
New microbatteries developed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are only a few millimeters in size, yet they are powerful enough to jump-start a dead car battery.... Read more »
Pikul, J., Gang Zhang, H., Cho, J., Braun, P., & King, W. (2013) High-power lithium ion microbatteries from interdigitated three-dimensional bicontinuous nanoporous electrodes. Nature Communications, 1732. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms2747
- April 22, 2013
- 07:49 AM
- 80 views
Frequent Multi-taskers Are Worst At It
by Katja Keuchenius in United Academics
Calling in the car, listening to the tv while cooking, checking your messages in a meeting: we modern people are all so used to multi-tasking that we actually started thinking we’re good at it. But we’re not, American researchers say.
Why do people multi-task? The first answer at hand would be because people are busy and know from experience that multi-tasking isn’t a problem for them. But this idea doesn’t pass the test of science. It appears that frequent multi-taskers have other reasons to do so.... Read more »
Sanbonmatsu, D., Strayer, D., Medeiros-Ward, N., & Watson, J. (2013) Who Multi-Tasks and Why? Multi-Tasking Ability, Perceived Multi-Tasking Ability, Impulsivity, and Sensation Seeking. PLoS ONE, 8(1). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0054402
- April 22, 2013
- 06:56 AM
- 77 views
Deep Rationality: The Evolutionary Economics of Decision Making
by Jason Collins in Evolving Economics
Even though I consider that I am across the literature at the boundary of economics and evolutionary biology, now and then an article pops up that I somehow missed. The latest article of this type is a 2009 article by Douglas Kenrick and colleagues, titled (as is this post) Deep Rationality: The Evolutionary Economics of Decision Making. [...]The post Deep Rationality: The Evolutionary Economics of Decision Making appeared first on Evolving Economics.... Read more »
Kenrick, D., Griskevicius, V., Sundie, J., Li, N., Li, Y., & Neuberg, S. (2009) Deep Rationality: The Evolutionary Economics of Decision Making. Social Cognition, 27(5), 764-785. DOI: 10.1521/soco.2009.27.5.764
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