New analysis reveals 24 compounds that can help reduce impact of harmful proteins in the brain

A study by Indiana University researchers has identified 24 compounds -- including caffeine -- with the potential to boost an enzyme in the brain shown to protect against dementia. The protective effect of the enzyme, called NMNAT2, was discovered last year through research conducted at IU Bloomington. The new study appears today in the journal Scientific Reports. "This work could help advance efforts to develop drugs that increase levels of this enzyme in the brain, creating a chemical 'blockade' against the debilitating effects of neurodegenerative disorders," said Hui-Chen Lu, who led the study. Lu is a Gill Professor in the Linda and Jack Gill Center for Biomolecular Science and the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, a part of the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences.

A new European study has found that soil carbon loss is more sensitive to climate change compared to carbon taken up by plants. In drier regions, soil carbon loss decreased but in wetter regions soil carbon loss increased. This could result in a positive feedback to the atmosphere leading to an additional increase of atmospheric CO2 levels. Scientists analysed data from seven climate change experiments across Europe to show how European shrubland plant biomass and soil carbon loss is affected by summer drought and year-around warming. The research was led by Dr Sabine Reinsch and Professor Bridget Emmett from the UK-based Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) in collaboration with European and US climate scientists and published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports.

Courtesy of St George's University of London

Experts from St George’s University of London, and St George’s Hospital have joined forces to investigate whether a common and cheap malaria drug can be used also against cancer. The researchers and clinicians raised more than £50,000 through a crowd funding campaign to fund the second part of their trial into whether the drug artesunate can tackle colorectal cancer and now are recruiting patients to take part in their clinical studies. In all £54,247 was raised through crowd funding to investigate whether the drug can help cancer patients by reducing the multiplication of tumour cells and decreasing the risk of cancer spreading or recurring after surgery.

Heidelberg researchers develop a new algorithm for analysing image data

Precise knowledge of the connections in the brain – the links between all the nerve cells – is a prerequisite for better understanding this most complex of organs. Researchers from Heidelberg University have now developed a new algorithm – a computational procedure – that can extract this connectivity pattern with far greater precision than previously possible from microscopic images of the brain. Prof. Dr Fred Hamprecht, head of the "Image Analysis and Learning" working group at the Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing, expects such automated image data analysis to bring about great strides in the neurosciences. It will likely lead to a circuit diagram of the brain.

L’esposizione si svolgerà dall’8 marzo al 5 aprile 2017

presso la Milano Art Gallery, via G. Alessi n. 11 – Milano

Il vernissage è previsto per mercoledì 8 marzo alle ore 18.00

1)      Sua opera esposta in mostra;

2)      Nome e opera nel prestigioso catalogo della mostra;

3)      Una copia omaggio del catalogo

4)      Assistenza alla vendita da parte del personale incaricato;

5)      Biglietto invito personalizzato;

6)      Ideazione grafica e stampa della Sua biografia che sarà esposta durante la Mostra;

7)      Ideazione, stesura e pubblicazione del comunicato stampa della mostra col Suo nome;

8)      Cocktail per la serata inaugurale;

9)      Attestato di selezione alla mostra telematico;

10)  Fotografo professionista per la serata di inaugurazione e invio delle foto;

11)  Il Comitato selezionerà 4 artisti che rispettivamente vinceranno i seguenti premi:

1º premio - Mostra presso la “Milano Art Gallery” via G. Alessi n. 11 a Milano della durata di un mese, con l’esposizione di n. 25 opere

2º premio - Mostra presso la “Milano Art Gallery” della durata di un mese, con l’esposizione di n. 15 opere

3º premio - Mostra presso la “Milano Art Gallery” della durata di un mese, con l’esposizione di n. 10 opere

Premio speciale “Margherita” - Conferimento della pregiata targa di riconoscimento per i suoi meriti artistici

anasitalia.org/larte-e-donna-in-ricordo-di-margherita-hack/

New technique removes the cause of allergic asthma: Antibodies are suctioned off

Allergies are the commonest cause of asthma. The immune system over-reacts to harmless substances such as birch or grass pollen, for example, forming immunoglobulin E antibodies (IgE). Together with the inflammatory cells in the skin and mucous membranes, the "mast cells", IgE antibodies are responsible for certain allergic diseases, such as asthma and hay fever, for example, and are also partly responsible for the development of neurodermatitis. Scientists from MedUni Vienna have now successfully developed a technique for suctioning the IgE antibodies out of the blood, thereby significantly improving the quality of life for people who suffer from severe allergic asthma.

Land tamed through generations of hard work in Mustang is threatened by unanticipated freaky weather patterns in the recent years.

Food security is a global challenge especially in developing countries with a growing population and less land to cultivate. Erratic weather patterns due to global warming in the recent years have increased uncertainty in the productivity of agricultural produce particularly in mountainous regions. New research published in Dhaulagiri Journal of Sociology and Anthropology, a journal hosted on the INASP-supported Nepal Journals Online platform, has shed light on the new aspects of climate change in Nepal's Himalayan region and has linked it with the state of food insecurity in the Trans-Himalayan land of Upper Mustang.

That old safe haven, gold, could well seal the destiny of at least part of the forests of the Guiana Shield. This is what emerged from work by researchers from CIRAD, the CNRS and the University of French Guiana, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters. For the first time, the scientists involved used maps of annual deforestation based on high-resolution satellite images to examine the impact of gold mining on the tropical rainforests of the Guiana Shield between 2001 and 2014. This new analysis, which covered Guyana, Surinam, French Guiana and the Brazilian state of Amapá, showed that when gold prices rise, deforestation increases, and that when they fall, deforestation decreases. It also revealed subtantial disparities from one country to another, which would warrant drafting more coordinated regulatory policies on the scale of the Guiana Shield, and casts doubt on the relevance of global deforestation control mechanisms such as REDD+.

During the mid-Cretaceous, angiosperms diversified from several nondiverse lineages to their current global domination [ 1 ], replacing earlier gymnosperm lineages [ 2 ]. Several hypotheses explain this extensive radiation [ 3 ], one of which involves proliferation of insect pollinator associations in the transition from gymnosperm to angiosperm dominance. However, most evidence supports gymnosperm–insect pollinator associations, buttressed by direct evidence of pollen on insect bodies, currently established for four groups: Thysanoptera (thrips), Neuroptera (lacewings), Diptera (flies), and now Coleoptera (beetles). Each group represents a distinctive pollination mode linked to a unique mouthpart type and feeding guild [ 4–9 ].

Whether it involves stopping at a traffic light or diving into freezing water to save someone from drowning: many of our everyday problems require snap decisions in the face of uncertainty. When making decisions, it has been suggested that neurochemicals rapidly flood the brain and signal how uncertain somebody is about a choice. Researchers from the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and the University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf have now found evidence of such signalling using measurements of human pupil size. Their results are published in the latest edition of Nature Communications.