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Winter Blues Linked
To Light Exposure
Scientists have pinpointed seasonal changes in brain chemistry which may cause some people to suffer from the winter blues.
Seasonal affective disorder, which can be debilitating, is linked to lack of light exposure on short winter days, BBC reported. The latest study suggests this might make proteins that clear the brain of the mood-regulating chemical serotonin more active.
The University of Toronto study appears in Archives of General Psychiatry.
Seasonal affective disorder is linked to lack of energy, fatigue, overeating and a tendency to sleep longer as well as depressed mood. The condition affects thousands of people in the UK.
Writing in the journal, the researchers said it was common for people living in temperate zones to feel happier and more energetic on bright and sunny days, with many experiencing a decline in mood and energy during the dark winter season. The researchers carried out brain scans on 88 volunteers between 1999 and 2003.
These scans were designed to assess the activity of a protein known as a serotonin transporter, which binds to serotonin and clears it from the spaces between brain cells.
The more active the protein, the lower the levels of serotonin in the brain, and the greater the likelihood of a depressed mood. The researchers found that the protein was significantly more active in all areas of the brain examined by the scans in the autumn and winter. They believe light may have a direct effect on the activity of the protein. The researchers wrote, “These findings have important implications for understanding seasonal mood change in healthy individuals, vulnerability to seasonal affective disorder and the relationship of light exposure to mood.
“This offers a possible explanation for the regular reoccurrence of depressive episodes in fall and winter in some vulnerable individuals.“
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Playing, Watching Sports Improve Brain
A part of the brain linked to planning and controlling actions is activated when players and fans listen to sports conversations, US researchers say.
According to UPI, University of Chicago researchers say being an athlete, or merely a fan, improves language skills when it comes to discussing their sport because parts of the brain usually involved in playing sports are instead used to understand sport language.
The study was conducted on hockey players, fans and people who’d never seen or played the game, using functioning magnetic resonance imaging.
Lead author Sian Beilock says the brain boost helps athletes’ and fans’ understanding of information about their sport, even though at the time when people are listening to this sport language they have no intention to act.
The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that the brain may be more flexible in adulthood than previously thought.
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Iran Makes Liver Cells
Iranian scientists have successfully used a three-dimensional nanostructure to convert bone marrow stem cells into healthy liver cells.
Study team leader Somayyeh Kazemnejad said patients with acute liver failure need liver transplants and attempts to convert stem cells into liver cells in the past failed because of using a two-dimensional structure for stem cell growth, Presstv reported.
“Researchers have extracted mesenchymal cells from bone marrow and cultured them on a three-dimensional nanostructure that provides a stronger and more resistant environment for stem cell growth,“ she said.
Kazemnejad added that the new cells are also capable of secreting liver enzymes.
Her team plans to test their findings on animal samples and they are optimistic that the results of the present study will help patients suffering from acute liver failure.
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8th Orthodontics Congress Scheduled
The Eighth Congress on Orthodontics themed “On the Path of Advancement“ will be held at Tehran’s Olympic Hotel during November 12-14.
The congress will introduce the latest achievements in the fields of prevention and treatment of tooth decay as well as the use of composites for repair and aesthetic purposes, IRNA reported.
Secretary of the event, Farah Asafzadeh, said lectures by specialists from Germany, Switzerland and the US as well as noted Iranian dentists are one of the main programs of the event.
Orthodontics is a specialty of dentistry concerned with the study and treatment of malocclusions (improper bites), which may be a result of tooth irregularity, disproportionate jaw relationships, or both. The word comes from the Greek words ortho meaning straight and odons meaning tooth.
Orthodontic treatment can focus on dental displacement only, or can deal with the control and modification of facial growth.
Scientific workshops and specialized panel discussions on advanced technologies in the field of dentistry are among other programs of the event.
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Humans Can Live Longer
Imagine living to a healthy 125 years. Well, your imagination might someday turn into reality, thanks to scientists who have made a genetic breakthrough that they claim can prolong human life and remove cancer threat.
A team at the Spanish National Cancer Research Center in Madrid has based its conclusion on tests on rodents, which made them live nearly 45 percent longer and also left them free from tumors, Timesofindia reported.
According to the scientists, if the experiments on the mice can be replicated in people, human lifespan could also be extended as the genes involved exist in both rodents and humans.
Groundbreaking
“The elixir of eternal youth is now not a utopian dream. The discovery opens the door to (the possibility) that humans could live 125 years and without cancer,“ the Daily Mail quoted lead scientist Maria Blasco as saying.
In fact, the scientists achieved their results by inserting an extra copy of three genes-- called telomerase, p53 and p16, already known to be important for longevity and suppressing tumors--into the stem cells of mice.
Inserting an extra copy improved their function in the body because they produced more protein, which made them more active. This helped telomerase protect chromosomes from shrinking, a process which normally happens naturally as all living creatures age.
And it means p53 and p16 work to prevent cells from mutating and dividing, and therefore preventing cancer, while producing a good balance of new, healthy cells -the method is groundbreaking as the team managed to get extra copies of both the genes into the mice.
The modified mice were allowed to breed to strengthen their new DNA pattern, which created a group of ’supermice’ with longer lifespans and inbuilt cancer protection.
“When activating p53 and p16 in mice, the incidence of cancer is reduced to practically zero. We don’t think the mice lived longer because they had less cancer but because these genes also protected against aging,“ co-scientist Manuel Serrano said.
The mice are expected to live up to four-and-a-half years though their average lifespan is three years. “This is the equivalent of humans living to 125,“ said the scientists.
Top British geneticist Aubrey de Grey called it an “extraordinary breakthrough“ which scientists had been trying to achieve for years.
“The thing that makes this new is that it’s the first time anyone has succeeded in manipulating the interaction between cancer and aging in a manner that actually succeeds and produces a longer lifespan in mammals than would exist without intervention,“ he said.
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Hurt Feelings Worse Than Pain
The old adage “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt“, simply is not true, according to researchers.
Psychologists found memories of painful emotional experiences linger far longer than those involving physical pain, BBC reported.
They quizzed volunteers about painful events over the previous five years.
Writing in the journal Psychological Science, they said evolutionary brain changes which allow us to work better in groups or societies could be key.
The volunteers, all students, were asked to write about painful experiences, both physical and emotional, then given a difficult mental test shortly afterwards.
The principle was that the more painful the recalled experience, the less well the person would perform in the tests.
Test scores were consistently higher in those recalling physical rather than ’social’ pain.
Psychological scoring tests revealed that memories of emotional pain were far more vivid.
Researcher Zhansheng Chen, from Purdue University in Indiana, said that it was much harder to ’re-live’ physical pain than to recall social pain.
He said the evolution of a part of the brain called the cerebral cortex, which processes complex thinking, perception and language, might be responsible.
“It certainly improved the ability of human beings to create and adapt, to function in and with groups, communities and cultures, and to respond to pain associated with social interactions,“ he said.
“However, the cerebral cortex may also have had an unintended effect of allowing humans to relive, re-experience and suffer from social pain.“
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High Doses of Vitamin D
Giving schoolchildren very high doses of vitamin D is safe, and may be necessary to bring their blood levels of the nutrient up to the amount necessary for optimum bone growth and health, a new study shows.
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Low Folate Intake May Trigger Colon Cancer
Researchers in the United Kingdom and Texas are reporting a new, more detailed explanation for the link between low folate intake and an increased risk for colon cancer, the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States.
Their study reinforces the importance of folate in a healthy diet, ScienceDaily said.
Susan Duthie and colleagues note that researchers have known for years that a deficiency of folate, one of the B vitamins commonly called folic acid, increases the risk of birth defects. As a result, manufacturers enrich some foods with folate.
Scientists also have found that low folate in the diet increases the risk of developing colon cancer in adults.
However, scientists lack an adequate explanation of how folate depletion affects the genes, proteins and cells involved in cancer.
In this new research, scientists grew human colon cells in folate-depleted and folate-enriched tissue culture. They found that folate depletion caused increased DNA damage and a cascade of other biological changes linked to an increased cancer risk.
Foods containing high levels of folate, such an assortment of fruits and vegetables, are an important part of a healthy diet.
Origin of Cosmic Dust Identified
The origin of the microscopic meteorites that make up cosmic dust has been identified for the first time by new research.
The research, published in the journal Geology, shows that some of the cosmic dust falling to Earth comes from an ancient asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars. This research improves our knowledge of the solar system and could provide a new and inexpensive method for understanding space, Physorg reported.
Cosmic dust particles, originally from asteroids and comets, are minute pieces of pulverized rock. They measure up to a tenth of a millimeter in size and shroud the solar system in a thin cloud.
Studying them is important because their mineral content records the conditions under which asteroids and comets were formed over four and a half billion years ago and provides an insight into the earliest history of our solar system.
The study’s author, Dr. Mathew Genge, from Imperial College London’s Department of Earth Science and Engineering, has trekked across the globe collecting cosmic dust.
“There are hundreds of billions of extraterrestrial dust particles falling though our skies. This abundant resource is important since these tiny pieces of rock allow us to study distant objects in our solar system without the multibillion dollar price tag of expensive missions,“ he said.
Ultrasound to Give Feel to Games
The power of ultrasonic waves has been harnessed to produce ’virtual’ objects in mid-air.
The field of haptics--integrating computing and the sense of touch--has been around for some time but has required gloves or mechanical devices to impart a sense of feeling, BBC reported.
Now, a team of Japanese researchers has developed a system that uses focused ultrasound to do the job. They may soon commercialize the approach.
With the expansion in multimedia on the web, our eyes and ears are flooded with sensory information, but the sense of touch has been largely left behind.
The popularity of vibrating gaming handsets has proven that it is a rich but untapped way to increase interaction.
Takayuki Iwamoto and colleagues from the University of Tokyo have now demonstrated a simple haptic device that employs a number of ultrasonic transducers, which emit ultrasound.
The team’s prototype system includes a camera which tracks the position of a user’s hand and shifts the output from the transducers to move the focus around with the hand.
The result is a feeling of tracing the edge or surface of the virtual object.
At the moment, the system provides a small force only in the vertical dimension, but the team is improving the geometry of the array and the amount of power it can produce so that future devices will provide a stiffer feel and more contoured objects.
Airbags for Helicopters
Several of NASA Mars rovers have successfully landed on Mars, protected from impact with the ground by sophisticated airbags.
Now the helicopter manufacturer Bell Helicopter based in Fort Worth, Texas, believes the same technique could be used to protect helicopters in emergency landings, NewScientist said.
The bags would be fitted to the underside of a helicopter and deployed only when the vehicle is about to hit the ground at too high a velocity.
The company says the bags are also designed to re-inflate after impact to act as flotation devices should the helicopter ditch in water.
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