Scientists Turn Mouse Skin Cells Into Nerve Cells

Scientists at Stanford University have succeeded in creating brain nerve cells directly out of skin cells taken from the tails of adult mice.

The new approach could revolutionize human stem cell therapy and science’s understanding of how cells choose and maintain their specialized roles in the body, the researchers said.

The findings also seem to radically upturn established thinking about how cells become cells, and potentially avoid the controversial approach of using embryonic stem cells for cellular therapy. And the research could conceivably open new doors in the future to treating diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, the researchers said.

The researchers had not actually expected to succeed in the endeavor.

“We were blown away,” said Dr. Marius Wernig, senior author of a paper appearing online Jan. 27 in Nature and a member of Stanford’s Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine.

“We wanted to ask the question, ‘Do we have to go back in development to be able to go forward or can there be a direct way,’ ” he said, adding, “This is the first direct conversion that is totally artificial. It doesn’t occur in nature.”

Paul Sanberg, a stem cell expert and distinguished professor of neurosurgery and director of the University of South Florida Center for Aging and Brain Repair in Tampa, said, “It [the new study] really changes the idea of how one cell can change to another cell and it may change the concept of how an organism develops.”

But experts were cautious in their interpretation of the findings, especially as to what they might mean for the thorny yet expanding area of stem cell research.

“From a basic point of view it’s exciting because it shows that you can go straight from one differentiated cell and transform it to a different differentiated cell. It doesn’t have to go back to being pluripotent,” Sanberg said. “But it’s still early. It will be a while until cells are made that can be used therapeutically.”

via Scientists Turn Mouse Skin Cells Into Nerve Cells – BusinessWeek.

Coincidence or Precognition?

Image: Maldives, island paradise, by daniel pozo

Sometimes it seems that ripples from the future influence the present.

I once had a vivid lucid dream where I walked through a particular tree. Years later I got a job in a building very close to that tree, and my office is straight through that particular tree in the exact direction I walked in the dream.  Years after I took the job in that office, I went away on vacation to Hawaii with someone I thought I would marry. When I returned, that tree was cut down. Now I walk through that tree every day on the way to lunch and back.

There is no way I or anyone else could have known, years before, where I would work, where my office would be or that this tree would be cut down due to disease.

Another strange coincidence has now attached itself to that dream, as if what I call “a quantum strange loop” is acting as a bridge between waking and sleeping, life and death.

I dedicated a blog post about my strange tree dream on Oct 21st to a friend of mine who killed herself.  When a friend told me she’d committed suicide, I did not wish to know the manner. I assumed until yesterday that she took her life with a gun, but I just found out yesterday Jan 27, 2010, that she lept to her death.

Coincidence or Precognition?

On July 25, 2009, three months before she died, I posted a song called “What Have I Done” about leaping. (Click the link for the lyrics.) I was thinking of myself when I wrote it, that love requires a leap of faith. I was expressing a fear of commitment that has kept me single my entire life. Now the song has a new meaning.  I don’t think she ever heard it, but if she did, “What have I done” becomes even more self-referential.

My rational mind tells me, as my friend once seemed to do, “ignore conspiracy theories” and “don’t be superstitious”.  I assume my song and the method of my friend’s death are just strange coincidence.

Magical thinking–though we may fight it–is a part of each of us. If I help create the world by what I choose to see, my brain says to me, I should fill my thoughts and time with positive things, like nice vacations in the Maldives or things nice equally.

Cops subdue sword-swinging man

A dramatic showdown between cops and a suicidal man ended without major bloodshed despite a three-story plummet through a closed window and some frightening swordplay on the street.

The man, whose name was withheld, attacked cops with a medium-sized samurai sword, police said, repeatedly lunging at them and shouting, “Kill me!”

“This situation could have ended a lot differently had it not been for the professionalism and restraint shown by the officers on B-2,” said Boston patrolmen’s union President Thomas Nee.

Police were called to the 26-year-old’s home about 5 p.m. Cops called for backup and tried to kick down the door. As one officer walked outside, the suspect came crashing through a closed third-floor window, bounced off an awning, hit the ground and ran.

Cops chased him until he spun around, sword drawn, near Washington Park. With more than 20 cops, guns drawn, around him, he repeatedly charged, shouting “Shoot me! Kill me!” police said.

Sgt. Thomas Teahan sneaked up and tackled him. The suspect, who was treated for minor injuries, is being held at Bridgewater State Hospital.

via Cops subdue sword-swinging man – BostonHerald.com.

It is nice to be reminded that, despite the unfortunate stories we hear where an officer kills someone seemingly without need, most cops are not hungry for blood even in tense situations.

Exotic cobra bites woman in Baltimore shopping center parking lot

A Maryland woman who was bitten by an exotic cobra over the weekend may owe her life to the quick action of snake specialists at the Philadelphia Zoo.

The woman walked into a Baltimore clinic Sunday night reporting she had been in a shopping center parking lot when she bent down to pick up what she thought was a stick.

The “stick,” a two-foot monocled cobra, sank a fang into one of her fingers, said Elisa Armacost, spokeswoman for the Baltimore Fire Department.

The woman, who has not been identified by name, bagged the offending snake and took it along with her to the clinic, Armacost said. Clinic staffers called the fire department.

“They were looking for guidance on what to do with the snake,” Armacost said.

Medics took the woman to Johns Hopkins University Hospital as fire department personnel began a frantic search for a source of antivenin, Armacost said.

One of the calls reached Jason Bell, assistant curator of reptiles and amphibians at the Philadelphia Zoo.

Bell rushed to the Zoo to retrieve 30 vials of South-African made antivenin. State police met him there, planning on flying the serum by helicopter to Hopkins. But heavy rains had grounded the chopper, so troopers sped the antivenom to Maryland where they delivered it to a waiting ambulance near the state border, Bell said.

Doctors used 10 vials of the antivenin, Bell said.

The woman, who told authorities that the snake did not belong to her, was reported to be in stable condition.

The snake was transferred to a zoo in Frederick County, Md.

A bite from a cobra can cause “tremendous pain” soon after the skin is punctured, Bell said. As the venom takes hold, muscle paralysis can set in and breathing can become impossible.

“She was very lucky. She was bitten on the finger and not closer to the heart. Some cobra bites can cause rapid death.”

It’s unclear if the woman would have died from the bite if not treated with the antivenom.

“It depends on the size of the snake,” Bell said. …

via Phila. Zoo goes to the rescue of cobra bite victim | Philadelphia Inquirer | 01/28/2010.

Stopping Schizophrenia Before It Starts?

The onset of schizophrenia is not easy to predict. Although it is associated with as many as 14 genes in the human genome, the prior presence of schizophrenia in the family is not enough to determine whether one will succumb to the mind-altering condition. The disease also has a significant environmental link.

According to Prof. Ina Weiner of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Psychology, the developmental disorder, which usually manifests in early adulthood, can be triggered in the womb by an infection. But unlike developmental disorders such as autism, it takes many years for the symptoms of schizophrenia to develop.

“Pharmacological treatments for schizophrenia remain unsatisfactory, so clinicians and researchers like myself have started to dig in another direction,” says Prof. Weiner. “The big question asked in recent years is if schizophrenia can be prevented.”

Revolutionizing the treatment

In their study, recently reported in Biological Psychiatry, Prof. Weiner and her colleagues Dr. Yael Piontkewiz and Dr. Yaniv Assaf sought to discover biological cues that would help trace the progression of the disease before symptoms manifested. “If progressive brain changes occur as schizophrenia is emerging, it is possible that these changes could be prevented by early intervention,” she says. “That would revolutionize the treatment of the disorder.

“We wondered if we could use neuro-imaging to track any early-onset changes in the brains of laboratory animals,” Prof. Weiner says. “If so, could these changes and their accompanying schizophrenia-like symptoms be prevented if caught early enough?”  …

Prof. Weiner and her team gave pregnant rats a viral mimic known to induce a schizophrenia-like behavioral disorder in the offspring. This method simulates maternal infection in pregnancy, a well known risk factor for schizophrenia. Prof. Weiner demonstrated that the rat offspring were normal at birth and during adolescence. But in early adulthood, the animals, like their human counterparts, began to show schizophrenia-like symptoms.

Looking at brain scans and behavior, Prof. Weiner found abnormally developing lateral ventricles and the hippocampus in those rats with “schizophrenia.” Those that were at high risk for the condition could be given drugs to treat their brains, she determined. Following treatment with risperidone and clozapine, two commonly used drugs to treat schizophrenia, brain scans showed that the lateral ventricles and the hippocampus retained a healthy size.

“Clinicians have suspected that these drugs can be used to prevent the onset of schizophrenia, but this is the first demonstration that such a treatment can arrest the development of brain deterioration,” says Prof. Weiner. She says that the drugs work best when delivered during the rats’ “adolescent” period, several months before they reached full maturity.

Now, anti-psychotics are prescribed only when symptoms are present. Prof. Weiner believes that an effective non-invasive prediction method (looking at the developmental trajectory of specific changes in the brain), coupled with a low dose drug taken during adolescence, could stave off schizophrenia in those most at risk. …

via American Friends of Tel Aviv University: Stopping Schizophrenia Before It Starts?.

Better food makes high-latitude animals bigger

New research suggests that animals living at high latitudes grow better than their counterparts closer to the equator because higher-latitude vegetation is more nutritious. The study, published in the February issue of The American Naturalist, presents a novel explanation for Bergmann’s Rule, the observation that animals tend to be bigger at higher latitudes.

Ever since Christian Bergmann made his observation about latitude and size in 1847, scientists have been trying to explain it. The traditional explanation is that body temperature is the driving force. Because larger animals have less surface area compared to overall body mass, they don’t lose heat as readily as smaller animals. That would give big animals an advantage at high latitudes where temperatures are generally colder.

But biologist Chuan-Kai Ho from Texas A&M University wondered if there might be another explanation. Might plants at higher latitudes be more nutritious, enabling the animals that eat those plants to grow bigger?

To answer that question, Ho along with colleagues Steven Pennings from the University of Houston and Thomas Carefoot from the University of British Columbia, devised a series of lab experiments. They raised several groups of juvenile planthoppers on a diet of cordgrass, which was collected from high to low latitudes. Ho and his team then measured the body sizes of the planthopppers when they reached maturity. They found that the planthoppers that fed the high-latitude grass grew larger than those fed low latitude grass.

The researchers performed similar experiments using two other plant-eating species—grasshoppers and sea snails. “All three species grew better when fed plants from high versus low latitudes,” Ho said. “These results showed part of the explanation for Bergmann’s rule could be that plants from high latitudes are better food than plants from low latitudes.” Although this explanation applies only to herbivores, Ho explained that predators might also grow larger as a consequence of eating larger herbivores.

“We don’t think that this is the only explanation for Bergmann’s rule,” Ho added. “But we do think that studies of Bergmann’s rule should consider ecological interactions in addition to mechanisms based on physiological responses to temperature.”

It’s not known why the higher-latitude plants might be more nutritious. But research in Pennings’s lab at the University of Houston offers a clue. Pennings has shown that plants at low latitudes suffer more damage from herbivores than those at higher latitudes. Ho and Pennings suggest that perhaps lower nutrition and increased chemical defenses are a response to higher pressure from herbivores.

via Better food makes high-latitude animals bigger.

Paleontology news: World’s least known bird rediscovered

A species of bird, which has only been observed alive on three previous occasions since it was first discovered in 1867, has been rediscovered in a remote land corridor in north-eastern Afghanistan. The discovery was made as part of an international collaboration, which included researchers at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. During the summer of 2008, the American ornithologist Robert J Timmins was commissioned by the American aid organisation USAID to compile an inventory of bird species in the Badakshan province in north-eastern Afghanistan. He managed to record the call of a species of bird that was as yet unknown.

Unheard birdsong

The recording found its way to the Swedish ornithologist Lars Svensson, who was quick to note that the recorded birdsong did not resemble that of any known species of bird. But from Timmins’ description of the species, he soon began to suspect what kind of bird was on the recording.

Ornithological sensation

Lars Svensson and Urban Olsson at the Department of Zoology, University of Gothenburg, had in fact shown in a previous study that about a dozen stuffed birds in museum collections all around the world had been incorrectly classified: they were not of the common species of reed warbler the curators had assumed, but rather a far rarer species known as the Large-billed Reed Warbler (Acrocephalus orinus) – observed on just three documented occasions since 1867. In their previous study Svensson, Olsson and co-workers had pinpointed North-Eastern Afghanistan as an area where the Large-billed Reed Warbler probably bred in the 1930s. When both the Swedish colleagues heard the recording of the mysterious birdsong they realised that they were on the trail of an ornithological sensation.

World’s least known bird

A year later, in June 2009, the Afghan ornithologists Naqeebullah Mostafawi, Ali Madad Rajabi and Hafizullah Noori from the Wildlife Conservation Society Afghanistan managed to travel to the Badakshan region, despite the war and ongoing clan conflicts. They used nets to capture 15 individuals of the mysterious species of bird. They sent photographs and feather samples to Lars Svensson and Urban Olsson, who used DNA analyses to confirm that after 142 years of searching, the breeding site of perhaps the world’s least known bird had been found. …

via Paleontology news: World’s least known bird rediscovered.

Huge Mayan head found in Guatemala

Archaeologists have discovered a huge Mayan sculptured head in Guatemala that suggests a little-known site in the jungle-covered Peten region may once have been a significant city.

The stucco sculpture, which is three metres wide and 3.5 metres tall, was buried for centuries at the Chilonche ruins, close to the border with Belize.

The recent discovery of the head, which dates from the early Classic period between 300 to 600 AD, means the site is much older than previously thought.

The Maya often constructed new buildings using older ones as foundations.

“It could be an imaginary being, something from the underworld, perhaps linked to a Mayan deity,” Polytechnic University of Valencia professor Gaspar Munoz, part of the team of archeologists that found the head, said.

Unlike Guatemala’s famous Mayan cities of Tikal and El Mirador, little excavation has been carried out at Chilonche.

Looters, looking for artefacts to sell on the black market, had dug a small tunnel passing the buried sculpture, which is similar to others decorating a solar observatory at another site, Uaxactun.

Guatemala’s Peten region is home to dozens of Mayan ruins, but the largely jungle-covered area is plagued by looters, poachers and smugglers taking cocaine to Mexico.

via Huge Mayan head found in Guatemala.

I discovered a huge skull face on the side of Mt. Shasta several years ago.  I wonder if they are related.

1997-2009 Ministry of Defense UFO Reports in the UK

UFO Reports 1997-2009 in the UK, showing dates and times, location and a brief description of sighting.

• UFO Report 2009 PDF [192.7 KB] (added 11 Jan 10)
• UFO Report 2008 PDF [63.0 KB] (added 04 Feb 09)
• UFO Report 2007 PDF [29.2 KB] (added 05 Feb 08)
• UFO Report 2006 PDF [14.0 KB] (added 16 Feb 06)
• UFO Report 2005 PDF [18.0 KB] (added 16 Feb 06)
• UFO Report 2004 PDF [13.4 KB] (added 16 Feb 06)
• UFO Report 2003 PDF [16.5 KB] (added 16 Feb 06)
• UFO Report 2002 PDF [15.0 KB] (added 16 Feb 06)
• UFO Report 2001 PDF [24.9 KB] (added 25 Apr 07)
• UFO Report 2000 PDF [33.8 KB] (added 04 Jun 07)
• UFO Report 1999 PDF [37.2 KB] (added 04 Jun 07)
• UFO Report 1998 PDF [37.7 KB] (added 29 Jun 07)
• UFO Report 1997 PDF [54.2 KB] (added 04 Dec 07)

via Ministry of Defence | Freedom of Information | Publication Scheme | Search Publication Scheme | UFO Reports in the UK.