Graduating from a topnotch institution makes the chances good that seniors like future doctor Chelsea McGuire, future educator Ashley Anderson, and soon-to-be healthcare industry analyst Asher Persigian will be able to attain whatever life goals they set. And all of these graduating University of Rochester students agree that success is not defined by fame or fortune. Fulbright scholar McGuire will spend a year in the Dominican Republic helping to fight the HIV epidemic before attending medical school. She wants to make healthcare, which she views as “the basic prerequisite to anything,” more efficient and accessible. “That’s not necessarily a very glamorous job, or particularly high on the fame and fortune context, but that I think would make me happier than anything else,” she says. Anderson, president of the campus Black Students’ Union and an accomplished dancer, hopes to provide educational opportunities to all, regardless of “special needs” or other labels. She thinks by being smart and planning ahead, she can have financial security without being materialistic. “I’m a woman of faith,” she says. “No money amount would be able to give me what God can give me and what I can give to other people.” And even though Perzigian is looking forward to experiencing the fast-paced corporate world and culture, “we can’t keep that up forever,” he says, adding that he had several job offers and took the one that would take him back near his hometown and family. “Without people… to share your life with, I really don’t see the point,” he says. ©2009 ScienCentral

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 12848 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Scientists have identified a protective gene that increases survival in motor neuron disease. People with the KIFAP3 gene lived 14 months longer on average than other MND patients. Experts hope they will be able to use this knowledge to develop life-extending treatments for patients with this debilitating and fatal disease. So far, one drug, riluzole, has been proven to extend life expectancy, but only by a few months. MND attacks the nerves that control movement and is often rapidly progressive. The vast majority of people with MND die within two to five years. Half of people die within 14 months of diagnosis. The researchers wanted to find out why a small minority appear to be more resistant to the disease. To do this they looked at 300,000 genetic variants in 2,359 people with MND and 2,814 unaffected volunteers from six different countries. They found that people with two beneficial variants of KIFAP3 lived on average four years while those with only one or none lived on average for two years and eight months. This improved the chances of surviving five years from about 10% to more than 30% for those carrying the "good" variants of KIFAP3. Lead researcher Professor Ammar Al-Chalabi, of King's College London, said scientists would now be able to work on designing new treatments based on KIFAP3. Treatments can now be directly designed to exploit the effect of this gene variation." (C)BBC

Keyword: ALS-Lou Gehrig's Disease ; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 12847 - Posted: 05.14.2009

By Judy Foreman The heavenly brew, once deemed harmful to health, is turning out to be, if not quite a health food, at least a low-risk drink, and in many ways a beneficial one. It could protect against diabetes, liver cancer, cirrhosis, and Parkinson's disease. What happened? New research - lots of it - and the recognition that older, negative studies often failed to tease apart the effects of coffee and those of smoking because so many coffee drinkers were also smokers. "Coffee was seen as very unhealthy," said Rob van Dam, a coffee researcher and epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health. "Now we have a more balanced view. We're not telling people to drink it for health. But it is a good beverage choice." As you digest the news on coffee, keep in mind that coffee and caffeine are not the same thing. In fact, "they are vastly different," said coffee researcher Terry Graham, chair of Human Health and Nutritional Sciences at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. One can be good for you; the other, less so. "Coffee is a complex beverage with hundreds, if not thousands, of bioactive ingredients," he said. "A cup of coffee is 2 percent caffeine, 98 percent other stuff." Before we rhapsodize further, a few caveats: Caffeine - whether in coffee, tea, soft drinks, or pills - can make you jittery and anxious and, in some people, can trigger insomnia. Data are mixed on whether pregnant women who consume caffeine are more likely to miscarry. In general, 200 milligrams a day - the amount in one normal-size cup of coffee - is believed safe for pregnant women, said van Dam. © 2009 NY Times Co.

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 12846 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By RONI CARYN RABIN Few people think twice about taking aspirin or ibuprofen. But for those 75 and older, the high doses needed to treat chronic pain may be so dangerous that patients may be better off taking opioids instead, an expert panel has found. New pain management guidelines issued by the American Geriatrics Society late last month removed those everyday medicines, called Nsaids, for nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, from the list of drugs recommended for frail elderly adults with persistent pain. The panel said the painkillers should be used “rarely” in that population, “with extreme caution” and only in “highly selected individuals.” Acetaminophen (like Tylenol) remains the top choice for treating chronic pain, but for those patients unable to get relief, the next step on the ladder is opioids, the guidelines say — as long as patients and their caregivers are screened for previous substance abuse. The recommendation, which is already proving controversial, was made even though Nsaids are known to be fairly effective for chronic inflammatory pain conditions that often plague older adults, and even though opiates can be addictive. “We’ve come out a little strong at this point in time about the risks of Nsaids in older people,” said Dr. Bruce Ferrell, a professor of geriatrics at U.C.L.A. who is chairman of the panel. “We hate to throw the baby out with the bathwater — they do work for some people — but it is fairly high risk when these drugs are given in moderate to high doses, especially when given over time. “It looks like patients would be safer on opioids than on high doses of Nsaids for long periods of time,” he continued, adding that for most older people, the risk of addiction appears to be low. “You don’t see people in this age group stealing a car to get their next dose.” Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 12845 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Peter Aldhous WHEN the mortar rounds started dropping, David Wells and his US Marine Corps buddies knew what they were supposed to do - get under cover and try to locate the origin of the threat. But when they came under fire in the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2005, things didn't go according to the training manual. Wells was a mortuary affairs specialist with the grisly task of ensuring that the marines' creed of "No man left behind" doesn't just apply to the living. His unit had been working for hours around a truck wrecked by a buried explosive device, painstakingly recovering the remains of fallen comrades. Then the first blast went off, and the grim quiet erupted into pandemonium. Far from running for cover, Wells stayed in plain view, dropped to one knee and cocked his rifle. If the mortar attack had been followed by gunshots, he might not have lived to tell the tale. His comrades performed no better. "I remember one guy throwing down his weapon and diving under the truck," Wells recalls. "One guy just started yelling incoherently. Another was sitting there smoking a cigarette and he didn't move at all." Military training aims to instil the appropriate response to such situations as second nature, but the extreme stress of combat can cloud even the best-trained minds, making people act in confused and sometimes dangerous ways. Researchers are now starting to understand the physiological origins of this cognitive "fog of war", finding that the severity of soldiers' symptoms correlates with the levels of various hormones and neurotransmitters. This work has revealed why some soldiers manage to keep their head amid the chaos while others are clouded in confusion, and it has even suggested drugs and supplements which could one day help all troops to think more clearly under fire. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Stress
Link ID: 12844 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Claire Thomas In tribal societies, one might expect that the fiercest warriors get the most women and father the most children. But that's not necessarily the case, says a new study of the brutal Waorani tribe of Ecuador. The most aggressive Wao warriors have about the same number of wives and children as milder-mannered men have, and their children are less likely to survive beyond the age of 15, largely due to an endless cycle of revenge killings. The Waorani are one of the most homicidal tribes ever studied. Located in a region just south of the Napo River, the place where the Andes Mountains meet the Amazon Basin, the tribe is preoccupied with revenge. Young Wao men are encouraged to develop a ferocious reputation early on, and before long they start raiding. The tribespeople constantly recount stories of these raids in gruesome detail, noting who was responsible and who needed to be avenged. Half of all Waos die violently. Studies of a similarly murderous tribe, the Yanomamö of nearby Venezuela, suggested that such homicidal behavior conveyed an evolutionary advantage. In a 1988 paper in Science, anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon, now a professor emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara, found that the most aggressive Yanomamö men had higher prestige within the tribe, which led to them having more wives and children, than less-aggressive men. The new study argues that the picture is not so clear-cut. Lead author Stephen Beckerman of Pennsylvania State University, University Park, and colleagues interviewed 121 Waorani elders to compile histories of 95 of the tribe's warriors. (The Waorani are much more peaceful today than they were in the past, possibly due to Christian missionaries, who first made contact in 1958.) The team defined highly aggressive men as those who took part in more than four raids over their lifetimes; some of the most violent warriors fought in as many as 16 raids. © 2009 American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Keyword: Aggression; Evolution
Link ID: 12843 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News -- From tickling to playing catch, animals engage in certain behaviors just for fun, even enjoying sensations that are unknown to humans, concludes an extensive new survey on pleasure in the animal kingdom. The findings, published in the latest Applied Animal Behavior Science, hold moral significance, argues author Jonathan Balcombe. He believes scientists, conservationists and other animal rights activists should not overlook animal joy. View a slide show about animals seeking pleasure here. "The capacity for pleasure means that an animal's life has intrinsic value, that is, value to the individual independent of his or her value to anyone else, including humans," Balcombe, a senior research scientist for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, explained to Discovery News. He determined animals experience happiness for happiness' sake related to play, food, touch and sex. Observations of herring gulls in Virginia, for example, found these birds play "drop-catch," tossing clams and other small, hard objects as though they were baseballs, just for pure enjoyment. In terms of food, green iguanas go to great lengths to find fresh, leafy lettuce, even when supplied with ample amounts of more nutritious reptile chow. Studies on other animals indicate some foods, independent of their nutrition levels, cause animals to release pleasure-producing opioids in their bodies. Language-trained apes and parrots have even told their owners they loved or hated certain edibles. © 2009 Discovery Communications, LLC

Keyword: Emotions; Evolution
Link ID: 12842 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Dr. Richard Cytowic is one of the leading researchers of synesthesia, a condition in which two normally separated sensations - such as sight and sound, or touch and taste - occur at the same time. As a result, a synesthetic person might experience the taste of a dish on her fingertips, or be convinced that the letter X is a vibrant turquoise. Mind Matters editor Jonah Lehrer chats with Cytowic about his new book, Wednesday is Indigo Blue, which he co-wrote with David Eagleman. LEHRER: What first got you interested in synesthesia? CYTOWIC: It was an accident. I like etymology and so knew the word, whereas my colleagues back in 1979 had never heard of synesthesia. In fact, they refused to believe it could be real, and warned that looking into such “weird” and “New Age” nonsense would ruin my career. Their denial was the typical reaction of orthodoxy to something it can’t explain. It is said that chance favors the prepared mind, so I guess I was ready when a dinner host apologized that there weren’t “enough points on the chicken.” For Michael Watson, who I later wrote about as “The Man Who Tasted Shapes,” flavor was more than a mouthful. Taste was also a touch sensation felt on his face and in his hands. “With an intense flavor,” he explained, “a feeling sweeps down my arm and I feel weight, shape, texture, and temperature as if I’m actually grasping something.” Fortunately, I could use university resources to quietly study Michael in depth and write papers. What interested me most was pondering an experience that “wasn’t supposed to be.” © 1996-2009 Scientific American Inc.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 12841 - Posted: 06.24.2010

US scientists say they have successfully reversed the effects of Alzheimer's with experimental drugs. The drugs target and boost the function of a newly pinpointed gene involved in the brain's memory formation. In mice, the treatment helped restore long-term memory and improve learning for new tasks, Nature reports. The same drugs - HDAC inhibitors - are currently being tested to treat Huntington's disease and are on the market to treat some cancers. They reshape the DNA scaffolding that supports and controls the expression of genes in the brain. The Alzheimer's gene the drugs act upon, histone deacetylase 2 (HDAC2), regulates the expression of a plethora of genes implicated in plasticity - the brain's ability to change in response to experience - and memory formation. This findings build on the team's 2007 breakthrough in which mice with symptoms of Alzheimer's disease regained long-term memories and the ability to learn. Lead researcher Professor Li-Huei Tsai explained: "It brings about long-lasting changes in how other genes are expressed, which is probably necessary to increase numbers of synapses and restructure neural circuits, thereby enhancing memory. "To our knowledge, HDAC inhibitors have not been used to treat Alzheimer's disease or dementia. But now that we know that inhibiting HDAC2 has the potential to boost synaptic plasticity, synapse formation and memory formation. In the next step, we will develop new HDAC2-selective inhibitors and test their function for human diseases associated with memory impairment to treat neurodegenerative diseases." (C)BBC

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 12840 - Posted: 05.09.2009

Al Kooper didn’t know what to play. He’d told some half-truths to get into Bob Dylan’s recording session — the musicians were working on some song tentatively titled “Like A Rolling Stone” — and Kooper had been assigned the Hammond organ. There was only one problem: Kooper didn’t play the organ. He was a guitarist. The first takes were predictably terrible — Kooper was just trying not to get kicked out of the studio. But on take four, he suddenly found his chords. Kooper’s playing was pure improv — “I was like a little kid fumbling in the dark for a light switch,” he would later remember — but he ended up inventing one of the most famous organ riffs in modern music. There is something profoundly mysterious about this kind of creativity. Kooper didn’t have time to think — the chorus was about to happen — and so he just started banging on the ivory keys. This same impromptu process defines some of the most famous creations of modern art, from John Coltrane letting loose on “A Love Supreme,” to Jackson Pollock dripping paint haphazardly on a canvas. These are works made entirely in the moment — their beauty is spontaneous. But how does such an act of imagination happen? How does the mind create on command? William James described the creative process as a “seething cauldron of ideas, where everything is fizzling and bobbing about in a state of bewildering activity.” In the last year, two separate experiments have attempted to see inside the cauldron, to figure out how a loom of electric cells finds the exact right notes on the upright organ. ©2005-2009 Seed Media Group LLC.

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 12839 - Posted: 06.24.2010

CHICAGO - Leo Lytel was diagnosed with autism as a toddler. But by age 9 he had overcome the disorder. His progress is part of a growing body of research that suggests at least 10 percent of children with autism can “recover” from it — most of them after undergoing years of intensive behavioral therapy. Skeptics question the phenomenon, but University of Connecticut psychology professor Deborah Fein is among those convinced it’s real. Story continues below ↓advertisement | your ad here She presented research this week at an autism conference in Chicago that included 20 children who, according to rigorous analysis, got a correct diagnosis but years later were no longer considered autistic. Among them was Leo, a boy in Washington, D.C., who once made no eye contact, who echoed words said to him and often spun around in circles — all classic autism symptoms. Now he is an articulate, social third-grader. His mother, Jayne Lytel, says his teachers call Leo a leader. The study, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, involves children ages 9 to 18. Autism researcher Geraldine Dawson, chief science officer of the advocacy group Autism Speaks, called Fein’s research a breakthrough. Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

Keyword: Autism
Link ID: 12838 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Researchers in Sweden say there might be a link between constant summer sunlight and a high rate of suicide in Greenland, a finding that medical officials in northern Canada are watching. A team led by psychiatrist Karin Sparring Björkstén of the Karolinska Institutet looked at the seasonal variation of suicides throughout Greenland between 1968 and 2002. The team's findings, published in the journal BMC Psychiatry on Friday, found an increase in the number of suicides during the summer months in Greenland, with a peak in June. Björkstén told CBC News she was surprised by the findings, but believes the sunlight could be amplifying underlying mental health issues and other problems. "There are, of course, many reasons that people commit suicide. But in the summer, when you don't sleep for extended periods of time, or you sleep very little, you may lose judgment," she said. "Some people actually become manic or delirious and they really don't know what they are doing. Perhaps they didn't intend to commit suicide." In the north of the Arctic island, Björkstén said 82 per cent of suicides occurred during the long periods of 24-hour summer light. Björkstén's team also suggested that light-generated imbalances could lead to increased impulsiveness. © CBC 2009

Keyword: Biological Rhythms; Depression
Link ID: 12837 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By ALESSANDRA STANLEY The 10 warning signs listed online by the Alzheimer’s Association include not recognizing oneself in the mirror and giving large amounts of money to telemarketers. Also, Cognitivelabs.com offers free instant memory tests, but the scoring system at the end can be confusing. These tips are offered here because it is almost impossible to watch even a portion of “The Alzheimer’s Project” on HBO without worrying. Many viewers will be tempted to search the Internet or call 877-IS IT ALZ in a sudden panic over blank spells: “Did I already take my Lipitor?” and “That funny blond actress, you know, the one in that old movie about Washington with the guy who was in ‘Picnic’?” (Judy Holliday, “Born Yesterday,” William Holden.) Memory loss is a terrifying prospect, and “The Alzheimer’s Project,” a sober, deeply affecting four-documentary series on HBO that begins on Sunday, seeks to comfort and encourage those whose worst fears turn out to be true. The project was made in collaboration with the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health, which provided scientific information and guidance, but the filmmakers had the final word on editing. And HBO chose as its marketing motto “HOPELESS,” printed with a big purple X over the “LESS.” The message conveyed by “The Alzheimer’s Project” is that a breakthrough — in prevention and treatment, and even possibly a cure — is at hand. Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 12836 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Ewen Callaway In addition to checking blood pressure and heart rate, doctors may want to test their patients' IQs to get a good measure of overall health. A new study of 3654 Vietnam War veterans finds that men with lower IQs are more likely to suffer from dozens of health problems – from hernias, to ear inflammation, to cataracts – compared with those showing greater intelligence. This offers tantalising – yet preliminary – evidence that health and intelligence are the result of common genetic factors, and that low intelligence may be an indication of harmful genetic mutations. "It poses the question to epidemiologists: why is it that intelligence is a predictor for things that seem so very far removed from the brain," says Rosalind Arden, a psychologist at King's College London, who led the study. Lifestyle choices One obvious counter-argument is that intelligent people make healthier choices. "You could say: 'look, brighter people make better health decisions – they give up smoking when they find it's bad for you, they take up exercise when they find out its good for you, and they eat a lot of salad'," Arden says. That's probably true, she says, yet her team found that indicators of healthy living, such as a low body mass index and not smoking, do not correlate with overall health of veterans as well as several tests of intelligence. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Intelligence; Evolution
Link ID: 12835 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Gisela Telis As anyone with a busy schedule can attest, intending to do something and actually doing it are two different things. But your brain doesn't make such neat distinctions, according to a new study. Researchers have found that when you wave at someone, for example, the intention to move your hand creates the feeling of it having moved, not the physical motion itself. The discovery sheds new light on how the brain tracks what the body does. Although neuroscience has revealed much about how the brain processes experiences, the origin of intention has remained a mystery. Past studies linked it to the posterior parietal cortex and the premotor cortex, two regions of the brain also associated with motion and awareness of movement, but each region's role and how they work together remained unclear. Neuroscientist Angela Sirigu of the Centre de Neuroscience Cognitive in Bron, France, became intrigued by the posterior parietal's role in willed actions when working with patients who had injured that part of their brains. The patients couldn't define when they began to want to move, says Sirigu, because they couldn't monitor their own intention. Sirigu joined researchers at the University of Lyon in France and neurosurgeon Carmine Mottolese of Lyon's Hôpital Pierre Wertheimer to take advantage of a common operating room practice. As part of their preparation for surgery, neurosurgeons sometimes electrically stimulate the brains of their patients, who are awake under local anesthetic, to map the brain and minimize surgical complications. During brain tumor surgery on seven patients, Mottolese stimulated their frontal, parietal, and temporal brain regions, and Sirigu's team asked the patients to describe what they felt. © 2009 American Association for the Advancement of Science

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 12834 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Ewen Callaway Free will, or at least the place where we decide to act, is sited in a part of the brain called the parietal cortex, new research suggests. When a neurosurgeon electrically jolted this region in patients undergoing surgery, they felt a desire to, say, wiggle their finger, roll their tongue or move a limb. Stronger electrical pulses convinced patients they had actually performed these movements, although their bodies remained motionless. "What it tells us is there are specific brain regions that are involved in the consciousness of your movement," says Angela Sirigu (pdf format), a neuroscientist at the CNRS Cognitive Neuroscience Centre in Bron, France, who led the study. Brain stimulation Sirigu's team, including neurosurgeon Carmine Mottolese, performed the experiments on seven patients undergoing brain surgery to remove tumours. In all but one case, the cancers were located far from the parietal cortex and other areas that Mottolese stimulated. One patient's tumour sat near the parietal cortex, but did not interfere with the experiments, Sirigu says. And because the patients were awake during the surgery, they could answer questions. "Did you move?" a researcher asked a 76-year-old man after lightly zapping a point on his parietal cortex. "No. I had a desire to roll my tongue in my mouth," he responded. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 12833 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Lindsay Lyon How the body got there was a mystery. More than 12 hours earlier, the man had emerged from successful back surgery. Now, clad only in underwear, he was outside, dead, wedged between a generator and a wall. He was six floors below the hospital rooftop. Had he jumped to his death? Had he been pushed? Neither, medical investigators concluded. He'd gone sleepwalking, and his stroll took an unfortunate turn. "The autopsy showed that there were significant abrasions along this individual's back, which showed that he fell straight down," notes Michel Cramer Bornemann, an expert on sleep problems who is codirector of the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center in Minneapolis. "Suicide victims don't fall straight down. They jump." Moreover, the man had been barefoot yet not been deterred by the roof's layer of sharp stones. "Sleepwalkers don't sense pain; the sensory neural pathways are essentially off-line," says Cramer Bornemann, who was brought in by a family lawyer investigating the hospital's suggestion that the death was a suicide. Cramer Bornemann heads up Sleep Forensics Associates, a group that lawyers and law enforcement officials have turned to when investigating crimes that may be explained by a sleep problem. Since they've been together—just over two years—he and his two colleagues have fielded approximately 150 requests for case evaluations, some from as far off as New Zealand. Murder, sexual assault, DUI, child abuse, and "suicide" are just a sampling of crimes they've encountered. All have been suspected of involving sleepwalking, sleep driving, or sleep sex, among other so-called parasomnias—inappropriate, unwanted behaviors that arise during sleep. (About one third of those case referrals involve the alleged influence of the sleep aid Ambien, he says.) © 2009 U.S.News & World Report LP

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 12832 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By Rebecca Morelle "In the past, people thought birds were stupid," laments the aptly named scientist Christopher Bird. But in fact, some of our feathered friends are far cleverer than we might think. And one group in particular - the corvids - has astonished scientists with extraordinary feats of memory, an ability to employ complex social reasoning and, perhaps most strikingly, a remarkable aptitude for crafting and using tools. Mr Bird, who is based at the department of zoology at Cambridge University, says: "I would rate corvids as being as intelligent as primates in many ways." The corvids - a group that includes crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays and magpies - contain some of the most social species of birds. And some of their intelligence is played out against the backdrop of living with others, where being intelligent enough to recognize individuals, to form alliances and foster relationships is key. However, group living can also lead to deceptive behaviour - and western scrub jays (Aphelocoma californica ) can be the sneakiest of the bird-bunch. Many corvids will hide stores of food for later consumption, especially during the cold winter months when resources are scarce, but western scrub jays take this one step further. (C)BBC

Keyword: Intelligence; Evolution
Link ID: 12831 - Posted: 05.07.2009

Neuroscientists claim growing pains Leading neuroscientists are warning that difficulties with a staple laboratory product may be costing time and money. The scientists say that variation between batches of a growth medium designed to sustain neurons in culture can, in their experience, cause experiments to fail or give low-quality results because of the poor survival and maturation of cells. The growth medium in question is a particular formulation of B27, a mixture of proteins, hormones and vitamins, produced by laboratory supplies company Invitrogen of Carlsbad, California, now a division of Life Technologies. In 2004, a group of neuroscientists including Beth Stevens, now at Harvard Medical School, in Boston, Massachusetts, and Johannes Hell of the University of Iowa, Iowa City, told Invitrogen that they thought the B27 medium was producing poor results following a change in the product's ingredients. The company says that it remedied the problem, and that the number of complaints it received from scientists fell to "negligible levels". "Things were improved," says Stevens, "but over the next few years it became clear there is still a lot of variation in quality control." Hell estimates that his lab spends about US$50,000 per year on culturing neurons. "If you get mediocre cultures, that money is wasted," he says. So Hell and other colleagues developed an alternative growth medium called Neuronal Supplement 21 (NS21), which they unveiled last year (Y. Chen et al. J. Neurosci. Meth. 171, 239–247; 2008). Hell points out that NS21 is not a commercial product; the researchers who use it prepare it in their own laboratories. © 2009 Nature Publishing Group,

Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 12830 - Posted: 06.24.2010

by Alan Boyle A songbird's brain may be programmed to gravitate toward a particular kind of tune, even if it's been taught from infancy to sing to the beat of a different warbler, researchers say. They go on to suggest that a similar neural mechanism might be behind the way our brains handle language. "I think we humans, and songbirds, are probably born with some innate predisposition to communicate in a particular way," Olga Feher, a biologist at The City College of New York, told me this week. The findings from Feher and her colleagues appear in this week's issue of the journal Nature. The experiments suggest that phenomena rooted in a species' culture - for example, singing for birds, using language for people - may be rooted in a species' genome as well. "People have theorized long and hard about how the evolutionary process applies to culture," another co-author of the study, Partha Mitra of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, said in a news release. "This experiment takes culture and puts it into a laboratory setting. We've tested some questions, asked by others over many years, in a mathematically and experimentally crisp manner and come up with a concrete answer." The experimenters started out by raising zebra finches in isolation, in soundproof boxes. For decades, scientists have known that an isolated songbird's innate song is different from the song that is "learned" from its feathered tutors as it grows up. In fact, different genes come into play as a songbird's song matures. So does the classic zebra finch song emerge merely as a cultural norm among the songbird set, or is there some sort of hard-wired inevitability about the tune? © 2009 msnbc.com

Keyword: Language; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 12829 - Posted: 06.24.2010