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.

Myelin is a fatty substance that forms a sheath for nerve fibers, known as axons, and facilitates the conduction of nerve signals. Its loss through disease causes impairment of sensation, movement, cognition and other functions, depending on which nerves are affected.

The new study arose from a mysterious affliction of pregnant cats. A company testing the effects on growth and development in cats using diets that had been irradiated reported that some cats developed severe neurological dysfunction, including movement disorders, vision loss and paralysis. Taken off the diet, the cats recovered slowly, but eventually all lost functions were restored.

… In cats removed from the diet, recovery was slow, but all of the previously demyelinated axons became remyelinated. The restored myelin sheaths, however, were not as thick as healthy myelin, Duncan notes.

… “We think it is extremely unlikely that [irradiated food] could become a human health problem,” Duncan explains. “We think it is species specific. It’s important to note these cats were fed a diet of irradiated food for a period of time.”

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

I suppose Duncan will be eating irradiated food from now on … since Duncan believes it is unlikely to become a human health problem?

Google’s ghostly ‘Mary Poppins’ mystery solved

THE mystery surrounding a sighting of Mary Poppins in Cardiff Bay has been solved – she was planted there by internet giant Google.

The Echo yesterday revealed how the picture of everyone’s favourite nanny was discovered on Google Street View, the new service allowing users to access 360-degree views of roads and homes in 25 British towns and cities, including Cardiff, Barry and Penarth.

Dressed to the nines and crossing a busy road outside the Wales Millennium Centre, the Disney character was captured by the Google street car which was traversing the capital’s streets last June.

No-one could explain why she was there – some suggestions even included that she could have been a ghost.

But today we can reveal that she is just one of a number of fictional characters that Google chiefs decided to cheekily place in the new map.

And while they chose Cardiff for Mary Poppins, Paddington Bear can be spotted on London’s fashionable Portobello Road, Sherlock Holmes has been caught in Oxford, and the Beefeater has been indulging in a spot of shopping at the Birmingham branch of Selfridges.

Google’s Laura Scott told the Echo: “The mystery has been revealed.

“We dressed up a real person in a Mary Poppins costume and she was photographed by the car as it went past.

“We’re always looking for fun stuff to include in our products – and well done for spotting her.”

via WalesOnline – News – Wales News – Google’s ghostly ‘Mary Poppins’ mystery solved.

Hundreds Of Natural-selection Studies Could Be Wrong, Study Demonstrates

Scientists at Penn State and the National Institute of Genetics in Japan have demonstrated that several statistical methods commonly used by biologists to detect natural selection at the molecular level tend to produce incorrect results.”Our finding means that hundreds of published studies on natural selection may have drawn incorrect conclusions,” said Masatoshi Nei, Penn State Evan Pugh Professor of Biology and the team’s leader.

… “Of course, we would never say that natural selection is not happening, but we are saying that these statistical methods can lead scientists to make erroneous inferences,” he said.

… “The methods assume that when natural selection occurs the number of nucleotide substitutions that lead to changes in amino acids is significantly higher than the number of nucleotide substitutions that do not result in amino acid changes,” he said. “But this assumption may be wrong. Actually, the majority of amino acid substitutions do not lead to functional changes, and the adaptive change of a protein often occurs by a rare amino acid substitution. For this reason, statistical methods may give erroneous conclusions.”

… To demonstrate the faultiness of the statistical methods, Nei’s team compiled data collected by their Emory University colleague, Shozo Yokoyama, on the genes that control the abilities of fish to see light at different water depths and on the genes that control color vision in a variety of animals. The team used these data to compare statistically predicted sites of natural selection with experimentally determined sites. They found that the statistical methods rarely predicted the actual sites of natural selection, which had been identified by Yokoyama through experime “In some cases, statistical method completely failed to identify the true sites where natural selection occurred …

via Hundreds Of Natural-selection Studies Could Be Wrong, Study Demonstrates.

New Theory On Largest Known Mass Extinction In Earth’s History

The largest mass extinction in the history of the earth could have been triggered off by giant salt lakes, whose emissions of halogenated gases changed the atmospheric composition so dramatically that vegetation was irretrievably damaged. At least that is what an international team of scientists has reported in the most recent edition of the Proceedings of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Dokladi Earth Sciences). At the Permian/Triassic boundary, 250 million years ago, about 90 percent of the animal and plant species ashore became extinct. Previously it was thought that volcanic eruptions, the impacts of asteroids, or methane hydrate were instigating causes.

Hypothetically speaking, large areas of the hyper saline Zechstein Sea and its direct environment could have looked like this, which in the Permian Age was situated about where present day Central Europe is. At the end of the Permian Age the Zechstein Sea was irrevocably disconnected from the open sea and the remaining sections of sea soon dried out after that. As a result the microbial-limited halogenated gases from the Zechstein Sea stopped and vegetation was able to regenerate again. The pink colour of the Zechstein Sea was probably brought about by microbes with an extreme preference for salt, as is the case with salt lakes today. In the background sand dunes can be recognised from a landscape with hardly any water. (Credit: Dr. Karsten Kotte/Universität Heidelberg)

via New Theory On Largest Known Mass Extinction In Earth’s History.

World’s Most Powerful Laser has the Energy of a Hydrogen Bomb

At a cost of $3.5 billion and more than a decade of work, the 192 laser beams are billed as the most powerful in the world.

Scientists working at the National Ignition Facility of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, have built the most powerful laser in the world, capable of simulating the energy force of a hydrogen bomb and the sun itself.

“The system already has produced 25 times more energy than any other laser system,” said NIF Director Ed Moses.

Image Left: This artist’s rendering shows a NIF target pellet inside a hohlraum capsule with laser beams entering through openings on either end. The beams compress and heat the target to the necessary conditions for nuclear fusion to occur. Ignition experiments on NIF will be the culmination of more than 30 years of inertial confinement fusion research and development, opening the door to exploration of previously inaccessible physical regimes.

The Energy Department is expected to announce Tuesday that it has officially certified the National Ignition Facility, which would clear the way for a series of experiments which scientists hope will eventually will mimic the heat and pressure found at the center of the sun.

The successful completion of the laser is the culmination of more than a decade of work at a cost of $3.5 billion.

“NIF is well on its way to achieving breakthroughs in science never imagined. Through our readiness testing we will see glimpses of what that future will bring,” said Moses.

via World’s Most Powerful Laser has the Energy of a Hydrogen Bomb | Consumer Energy Report.

UFOs spotted in East End on Google Street View

The nine silver spheres hover above a row of shops, including a Coral bookies, on the internet giant’s new Street View service.

Sun reader Faye Sharpe, 18, discovered them while viewing her neighbourhood of Wolverley Street in Bethnal Green, East London.

Faye said: “I was checking out the road to see if I could spot my mates. I thought it looked very strange and zoomed in.

“I thought it was some planes but they look pretty close together for that. Maybe they are UFOs.”

Yesterday baffled ufologist Nick Pope said he was “very excited” by the image, which he labelled “truly fascinating”.

He added: “It appears to show nine objects flying in near perfect formation. About the only thing I know that can do this is the Red Arrows — and it’s not them.”

via UFOs spotted in East End on Google Street View | The Sun.

35,000 protesters turn out for G20 march in London … but police arrest just one

A demonstration by more than 35,000 protesters marching for ‘jobs, justice and climate’ ahead of the G20 summit passed off peacefully in London today.

But there are fears that trouble could flare when further protests take place as world leaders gather in the capital next week.

Thousands of police from six forces were drafted in to London today to assist the Metropolitan Police. …

The massive police operation was launched as officers warned of an “unprecedented” threat posed by the protests.

But by early evening as a rally in Hyde park ended there were no signs of problems, backing up the organisers’ earlier pledge that events would not turn violent.

via 35,000 protesters turn out for G20 march in London … but police arrest just one | Mail Online.

Conficker Worm Prepares For A New Release On April 1

The conficker worm created havoc last year when it infected over 10 million computers on a global scale. The unique design of the conficker worm allowed for this large scale attack to over 8 million business computers and scores of individual computers in 2008.

The conficker worm is periodically evolving by downloading updates that creates thousands of false domains daily to throw off security investigators. On the day it chooses to update, it selects 500 correct domains out of the 50,000 candidates to download malware and updates from.

• On the first release it tried to download and execute a file called loadav.exe. It turned out that the file was never uploaded and the next generation did away with this. This led investigators to believe it was a malware program trying to promote itself as fake antivirus software.

• The second release, the worm used Windows Services, on unpatched machines, to spread. This new release also had the power to spread over network shares by trying to log in autonomously into network machines with weak passwords. It developed the ability to infect USB sticks connected to infected machines, giving it another means of transmission.

• On the final and third release, which became know as the Downadup virus, peer-to-peer communication between infected systems was added to it’s arsenal of weapons. The virus also added new domain-generation algorithms to help it disguise where it was receiving its updates from.

Microsoft is offering a bounty for the worm’s writers and security experts are no closer to having any clue as to the individual or individuals who are writing the Conficker code.

via Conficker Worm Prepares For A New Release On April 1 | Physorg.

Vacuum Cleaner Senses Human Emotions

A specially-equipped Roomba robot vacuum cleaner can now sense human emotional states. University of Calgary researchers published their results in a paper titled “Using Bio-electrical Signals to Influence the Social Behaviours of Domesticated Robots.”

Using a special headband to capture bioelectric signals from the forehead of a human user, the system collects this data and then infers stress from muscle tension readings. Their control software reinterprets natural muscle tension as estimating the user’s stress level; the more muscle tension, the more stress is inferred.

“Two distinct robotic behaviours corresponding to two extreme emotional states, either relaxed or stressed, are triggered when the stress reading reach a threshold. Robot actions are then influenced by these stress readings. When a person shows high stress (~levels 3 & 4), the robot enters its cleaning mode but moves away from the user so as not annoy them. When a person is relaxed (~level 1), the robot (if cleaning) approaches the person and then stops, simulating a pet sitting next to its owner. If the reading is in between these two levels, the robot continues operating in its current mode until the stress reading reaches a threshold.”

via Vacuum Cleaner Senses Human Emotions | LiveScience.

Please freeze me! How scores of middle-class British couples are hoping to buy immortality for just £10 a week

It sounds like the loopiest science fiction, but – like Simon Cowell – scores of middle-class couples are paying £10 a week for their bodies to be frozen when they die. So can you really buy immortality for the price of a pizza?

… Ellen admits her first reaction was to laugh. But it quickly became clear David was not joking.

‘After the initial surprise, I had no doubt in my mind that he was serious. Most people would have been shocked, but David had always been quirky. It was what attracted me to him in the first place.

‘The next day, he handed me a computer disk with all the information about the process and I was really taken aback at what I saw. Being frozen wasn’t just a myth any more, it was really possible and with a specialist life insurance policy it wasn’t beyond my reach financially.’

Ellen was immediately taken by the idea. ‘I thought “why not?” Some people may think that it’s a bit morbid, but to me the alternatives when you die are a lot scarier.

‘I know it’s not a certainty that I will be brought back to life, but to me it’s just the natural progression of science; it is certainly not out of the realms of possibility.

via Please freeze me! How scores of middle-class British couples are hoping to buy immortality for just £10 a week | Mail Online.