Berries keep your brain sharp

Berries are good for you, that’s no secret. But can strawberries and blueberries actually keep your brain sharp in old age? A new study by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) finds that a high intake of flavonoid rich berries, such as strawberries and blueberries, over time, can delay memory decline in older women by 2.5 years. This study is published by Annals of Neurology, a journal of the American Neurological Association and Child Neurology Society, on April 26, 2012.

“What makes our study unique is the amount of data we analyzed over such a long period of time. No other berry study has been conducted on such a large scale,” explained Elizabeth Devore, a researcher in the Channing Laboratory at BWH, who is the lead author on this study. “Among women who consumed 2 or more servings of strawberries and blueberries each week we saw a modest reduction in memory decline. This effect appears to be attainable with relatively simple dietary modifications.”

The research team used data from the Nurses’ Health Study—a cohort of 121,700 female, registered nurses between the ages of 30 and 55—who completed health and lifestyle questionnaires beginning in 1976. Since 1980, participants were surveyed every four years regarding their frequency of food consumption. Between 1995 and 2001, memory was measured in 16,010 subjects over the age of 70 years, at 2-year intervals. Women included in the present study had a mean age of 74 and mean body mass index of 26.

Findings show that increased consumption of blueberries and strawberries was associated with a slower rate of memory decline in older women. A greater intake of anthocyanidins and total flavonoids was also associated with reduced memory decline. Researchers observed that women who had higher berry intake had delayed memory decline by up to 2.5 years.

“We provide the first epidemiologic evidence that berries appear to slow progression of memory decline in elderly women,” notes Dr. Devore. “Our findings have significant public health implications as increasing berry intake is a fairly simple dietary modification to reduce memory decline in older adults.”

via Berries keep your brain sharp.

 

Learning mechanism of the adult brain revealed

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Fortunately, this is not always true. Researchers at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (NIN-KNAW) have now discovered how the adult brain can adapt to new situations. The Dutch researchers’ findings are published on Wednesday in the prestigious journal ‘Neuron’. Their study may be significant in the treatment of neurodevelopmental disorders such as epilepsy, autism and schizophrenia.

Our brain processes information in complex networks of nerve cells. The cells communicate and excite one another through special connections, called synapses. Young brains are capable of forming many new synapses, and they are consequently better at learning new things. That is why we acquire vital skills – walking, talking, hearing and seeing – early on in life. The adult brain stabilises the synapses so that we can use what we have learned in childhood for the rest of our lives.

Earlier research found that approximately one fifth of the synapses in the brain inhibit rather than excite other nerve-cell activity. Neuroscientists have now shown that many of these inhibitory synapses disappear if the adult brain is forced to learn new skills. …

via Learning mechanism of the adult brain revealed – KNAW.

Green clouds over Moscow spark disaster fears

Mysterious green clouds have been spotted over the Russian capital, sparking fears of a chemical disaster and even some doomsday theories.

­But the Emergencies Ministry is advising the public to calm down. It says the clouds are actually composed of birch pollen, not of chemicals from an allegedly burning factory in the Moscow region, as some reported.

Some people, however, got so scared that even the official comments could not convince them. Russian Twitter users have been posting alarming messages like “Moscow schools are closed because of the blast! Children are sent home,” “Sky has turned completely green in Moscow’s south!” and “The factory in Kaluga is destroyed!” A flood of 911 calls was also registered.

Others believe that the authorities are hiding information from the public: “Pollen is just an excuse. It might as well be the beginning of the Apocalypse!” one popular Russian blogger posted to his readers.

The odd natural phenomenon mystically coincided with the 26th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, which caused further speculation about the authorities withholding information.

Biologists say birch trees started blooming yesterday, which would also explain why Muscovites have started sneezing. Birch pollen is a strong allergen, so people suffering from hay fever are strongly advised to take the necessary steps.

“This pollen can stay in the air for quite a long time – around four weeks,” biologist Vladimir Murashov told Ria-Novosti. “The wind can carry it ten kilometers from the tree.”

via Green clouds over Moscow spark disaster fears (VIDEO, PHOTOS) — RT.

Curious NASA Photo Stirs Debate

According to Life’s Little Mysteries, a scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory, or NRL, theorizes the object in space is just a collection of streaks left by cosmic rays that hit the camera’s CCD sensor.

“The streaks in question are consistent with energetic particle (proton) impacts on the CCD, something which is apparent in just about every image,” Nathan Rich, of the NRL’s solar physics branch, told the website.

“These artifacts do not persist from image to image,” Rich added, which suggests the cosmic streaks can explain what UFO proponents are hoping turns out to be an extraterrestrial craft.

A cosmic ray burst on the camera may also account for the “boom arm,” pictured below, that seems to be attached to the hinged “spacecraft.”

via UFO Near The Sun: Curious NASA Photo Stirs Debate.

Bullet-in-head titleholder dies at 103

The man who held the Guinness World Record for living the longest with a bullet in his head has died at age 103.

The Modesto Bee newspaper reports that William Lawlis Pace died in his sleep at a California nursing home on Monday – 94 and a half years after his older brother accidentally shot him with their father’s .22 calibre rifle in 1917.

Pace learned he had been crowned the world record holder in the category of unwanted cranial ammunition acquisition in 2006.

His son told a newspaper last year that doctors in Pace’s native Texas left the bullet in place because they worried that surgery might cause brain damage.

The injury damaged one of his eyes but did not prevent Pace from working as a cemetery custodian.

via Bullet-in-head titleholder dies at 103 – Seven News Queensland.

Idaho man accused of using gun to force ‘moonwalk’ – Yahoo! News

An Idaho man has been charged with assault after authorities say he ordered another man to perform the “moonwalk” at gunpoint.

The Bonner County Daily Bee (http://bit.ly/IGAoPn) reports 30-year-old John Ernest Cross was charged with the felony Tuesday in 1st District Court and appointed a public defender.

Police say they were called Monday to Cross’ home in Clark Fork after getting a report that he pointed a rifle at another man and demanded that the man perform the dance move popularized by Michael Jackson in the 1980s.

Investigators accuse Cross of using a semiautomatic rifle during the episode, but Cross claimed during his initial court appearance this week that the firearm was simply a pellet gun.

via Idaho man accused of using gun to force ‘moonwalk’ – Yahoo! News.

Jellyfish-Like Organisms Shut Down California Power Plant

The workers of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant received a very slimy surprise this week when they discovered hoards of jellyfish-like creatures clinging to the structure, leading to the shutdown of the plant.

The organisms, called salp, are small sea creatures with a consistency similar to jellyfish.

The influx of salp was discovered as part of the plant’s routine monitoring system, according to Tom Cuddy, the senior manager of external and nuclear communications for the plant’s operator, Pacific Gas & Electric.

“We then made the conservative decision to ramp down the affected unit to 20 percent and continued to monitor the situation,” Cuddy said. “When the problem continued, we made another conservative decision that it would be safest to curtail the power of the unit.”

The salp were clogging the traveling screens in the intake structure, which are meant to keep marine life out and to keep the unit cool.

“Safety is the highest priority,” Cuddy said. “We will not restart the unit until the salp moves on and conditions improve. No priority is more important than the safe operation of our facility.”

The plant consists of two units. Unit 1 was shut down previously because of refueling and maintenance work and will not be functional for several weeks. Now that Unit 2 has been shut down because of the influx of salp, the plant has ceased all production.

Even with the Diablo Canyon plant out of commission, PG&E has pledged to continue production using other sources of power so that customers are unaffected by the closure.

“We’ve had salp cling to the intake structure before, but nothing to this extent,” Cuddy said.

The plant’s strategy? Simply wait until the salp move on and resume production once the filters are clear.

via Jellyfish-Like Organisms Shut Down California Power Plant – ABC News.

Huge “Snowballs” Seen Piercing Saturn’s Outer Ring

Giant “snowballs” have been discovered plunging through Saturn’s outermost ring, creating glittering trails of ice dubbed mini-jets, researchers have announced.

The jets were uncovered in new images from NASA’s Cassini orbiter, which has been touring the Saturnian system for the past seven years.

The colliding snowballs are formed as material in Saturn’s F ring coalesces due to the gravitational pull of the nearby moon Prometheus. Scientists estimate that the icy bodies, including the one seen above, are each about 0.62 mile (a kilometer) wide.

Sometimes a snowball sails back through the F ring at a gentle clip of roughly 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) an hour, dragging along icy particles.

The resulting jets “are about 10 kilometers [6.2 miles] wide and extend out from the rings anywhere from 40 to 180 kilometers [25 to 112 miles], depending on their age, with their lengths increasing dramatically over just a few hours,” said Carl Murray, a Cassini imaging team member based at Queen Mary University in London, England.

“At any given time we might expect to see about ten of these if we looked all the way around the F ring.”

—Andrew Fazekas

. …

Using pictures from Cassini’s narrow-angle camera, scientists were able to track the snowballs at the ends of the mini-jets, such as the one above, as they plowed through Saturn’s F ring.

“We have yet to obtain resolved images of these objects,” Murray said.

“However, when we see an obvious ‘head’ at the end of the mini-jet trail, it tends to have a fuzzy appearance”—suggestive of the halo that surrounds a comet—”produced, perhaps, from material on its surface or F ring core material.”

via Pictures: Huge “Snowballs” Seen Piercing Saturn’s Outer Ring.

To infinity and beyond! Voyager probe gets ‘alien’s eye’ view of the solar system as craft launched in 1977 reaches outer limits

More than three decades after launching, NASA’s workhorse spacecraft is now close to the edge of our solar system.

According to recent research published in Geophysical Letters, the probe is now 111 astronomical units from the sun – meaning it is 111 times further from the sun than it is from the Earth.

Voyager 1 has been exploring the fringes of the solar system since 2004 – and it is now close to the very edge of our solar system, affording the first-ever ‘alien’s eye’ view of our planet.

The probe is still detecting ‘spikes’ in the intensity of cosmic ray electrons – which lead scientists to think it’s still within the ‘heliosheath’, the very outer edge of our solar system.

Voyager 1 still has a little way to go before it completely exits the solar system and becomes the first manmade probe to cross into interstellar space, or the vast space between stars.

The spacecraft has enough battery power to last until 2020, but scientists think it will reach interstellar space before that – in a matter of several months to years.

Chief scientist Ed Stone of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory said the timing is unclear because no spacecraft has ever ventured this far.

‘The journey continues,’ Stone told a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

For the past year, Voyager 1 used its instruments to explore the new region.

It appeared to be the cosmic doldrums where solar winds streaming out from the sun at 1 million mph have dramatically eased and high-energy particles from outside are seeping in – a sign that Voyager 1 is at the doorstep of interstellar space.

Scientists expect to see several telltale signs when Voyager 1 finally crosses the boundary including a change in the magnetic field direction and the type of wind. Interstellar wind is slower, colder and denser than solar wind.

Even with certain expectations, Stone warned that the milestone won’t be cut-and-dried.

‘We will be confused when it first happens,’ Stone said.

Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, were launched in 1977 to tour the outer planets including Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. After their main mission ended, both headed toward interstellar space in opposite directions. Voyager 2 is traveling slower than Voyager 1 and is currently 9 billion away miles from the sun. …

via To infinity and beyond! Voyager probe gets ‘alien’s eye’ view of the solar system as craft launched in 1977 reaches outer limits | Mail Online.

Scar tissue turned into heart muscle without using stem cells

Scientists at Duke University Medical Center have shown the ability to turn scar tissue that forms after a heart attack into heart muscle cells using a new process that eliminates the need for stem cell transplant.

The study, published online April 26 in the journal Circulation Research, used molecules called microRNAs to trigger the cardiac tissue conversion in a lab dish and, for the first time, in a living mouse, demonstrating the potential of a simpler process for tissue regeneration.

If additional studies confirm the approach in human cells, it could lead to a new way for treating many of the 23 million people worldwide who suffer heart failure, which is often caused by scar tissue that develops after a heart attack. The approach could also have benefit beyond heart disease.

“This is a significant finding with many therapeutic implications,” said Victor J. Dzau, MD, a senior author on the study who is James B. Duke professor of medicine and chancellor of health affairs at Duke University. “If you can do this in the heart, you can do it in the brain, the kidneys, and other tissues. This is a whole new way of regenerating tissue.”

To initiate the regeneration, Dzau’s team at Duke used microRNAs, which are molecules that serve as master regulators controlling the activity of multiple genes. Tailored in a specific combination, the microRNAs were delivered into scar tissue cells called fibroblasts, which develop after a heart attack and impair the organ’s ability to pump blood.

Once deployed, the microRNAs reprogrammed fibroblasts to become cells resembling the cardiomyocytes that make up heart muscle. The Duke team not only proved this concept in the laboratory, but also demonstrated that the cell conversion could occur inside the body of a mouse — a major requirement for regenerative medicine to become a potential therapy.

“This is one of the exciting things about our study,” said Maria Mirotsou, PhD, assistant professor of cardiology at Duke and a senior author of the study. “We were able to achieve this tissue conversion in the heart with these microRNAs, which may be more practical for direct delivery into cells and allow for possible development of therapies without using genetic methods or transplantation of stem cells.”

The researchers said using microRNA for tissue regeneration has several potential advantages over genetic methods or transplantation of stem cells, which have been difficult to manage inside the body. Notably, the microRNA process eliminates technical problems such as genetic alterations, while also avoiding the ethical dilemmas posed by stem cells.

“It’s an exciting stage for reprogramming science,” said Tilanthi M. Jayawardena, PhD, first author of the study. “It’s a very young field, and we’re all learning what it means to switch a cell’s fate. We believe we’ve uncovered a way for it to be done, and that it has a lot of potential.” …

via Scar tissue turned into heart muscle without using stem cells.