30 dezembro 2016

neurosciencestuff: Parkinson’s disease protection may begin in...



neurosciencestuff:

Parkinson’s disease protection may begin in the gut

Your gut may play a pivotal role in preventing the onset of Parkinson’s disease. And the reason may be its knack for sleuthing.

Researchers at the University of Iowa have found that the gut may be key to preventing Parkinson’s disease. Cells located in the intestine spark an immune response that protects nerve cells, or neurons, against damage connected with Parkinson’s disease. Acting like detectives, the immune intestinal cells identify damaged machinery within neurons and discard the defective parts. That action ultimately preserves neurons whose impairment or death is known to cause Parkinson’s.

“We think somehow the gut is protecting neurons,” says Veena Prahlad, assistant professor in biology at the UI and corresponding author on the paper published Aug. 30 in the journal Cell Reports.

Parkinson’s disease is a brain disorder that erodes motor control and balance over time. It affects some 500,000 people in the U.S., according to the National Institutes of Health. The disease occurs when neurons—nerve cells—in the brain that control movement become impaired or die. Normally, these neurons produce dopamine, and when they are damaged or killed, the resulting dopamine shortage causes the motor-control problems associated with the disease.

Scientists have previously linked Parkinson’s to defects in mitochondria, the energy-producing machinery found in every human cell. Why and how mitochondrial defects effect neurons remain a mystery. Some think the impaired mitochondria starve neurons of energy; others believe they produce a neuron-harming molecule. Whatever the answer, damaged mitochondria have been linked to other nervous disorders as well, including ALS and Alzheimer’s, and researchers want to understand why.

Prahlad’s team exposed roundworms to a poison called rotenone, which researchers know kills neurons whose death is linked to Parkinson’s. As expected, the rotenone began damaging the mitochondria in the worms’ neurons. To the researchers’ surprise, though, the damaged mitochondria did not kill all of the worms’ dopamine-producing neurons; in fact, over a series of trials, an average of only seven percent of the worms, roughly 210 out of 3,000, lost dopamine-producing neurons when given the poison.

“That seemed intriguing, and we wondered whether there was some innate mechanism to protect the animal from the rotenone,” Prahlad says.

It turns out there was. The roundworms’ immune defenses, activated when the rotenone was introduced, discarded many of the defected mitochondria, halting a sequence that would’ve led to the loss of dopamine-producing neurons. Importantly, the immune response originated in the intestine, not the nervous system.

“If we can understand how this is done in the roundworm, we can understand how this may happen in mammals,” Prahlad says.

The researchers plan to conduct more experiments, but they’ve got some interesting hypotheses. One is the intestinal immune cells are, according to Prahlad, “constantly surveilling mitochondria for defects.”

Even more, those cellular watchdogs may be keeping their eyes on the mitochondria “because they don’t trust them,” Prahlad suggests. The reason has to do with the prevailing theory that mitochondria originated independently as a type of bacterium and were only later incorporated into the cells of animal, plants, and fungi as an energy producer.

If that theory is correct, the intestinal immune responders may be especially sensitive to changes in mitochondrial function not only for its potential damaging effects, but because of the mitochondria’s ancient and foreign past as well.

“How it’s happening is suggestive of the possibility that the innate immune response is constantly checking its mitochondria,” Prahlad says, “perhaps because of the bacterial origin of the mitochondria.”

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Gregor MacGregor was a soldier of fortune in Latin America,...



Gregor MacGregor was a soldier of fortune in Latin America, having left his native Scotland for warmer climes. He fought for and against the armies of Portugal and Spain at different points, before deciding that risking dying for a foreign government was a sucker’s way to get rich. When he returned to Europe in 1820, Gregor MacGregor tried getting rich not by fighting but by talking. MacGregor announced that while in South America he had been put in control of a small (and absolutely fictional) countr, which he named Poyais. The nation was quite modern, he reassured Londoners, and friendly to European immigrants. MacGregor even produced hand-drawn maps and a copy of their constitution to sell the story.

Soon, the charming and flamboyant MacGregor was the toast of London. In his honor, the rich and noble threw lavish parties. MacGregor was quite popular with the upper class, including the mayor of London, by promising them non-existent positions in the government of Poyais. This in turn made Poyais even more popular because all the wealthy and famous were into it. So he had a bunch of people in England completely hooked, but how to turn that into cold, hard cash? MacGregor made the logical next step, and started selling plots of land in Poyais to unsuspecting settlers and raising money for a colony from investors. When the dust cleared, MacGregor had made off with thousands and two ships worth of settlers had arrived in Central America to find that Poyais was nothing but a tall tale.

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misteranthrope: historical-nonfiction: French cavalry –...



misteranthrope:

historical-nonfiction:

French cavalry – carrying swords – watch a plane fly overhead, 1916.

“Don’t pay any attention to that crazy contraption, men. Horses and swords are the future of warfare.”

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December 30th 1916: Rasputin killedOn this day in 1916, by the...





December 30th 1916: Rasputin killed

On this day in 1916, by the new style calendar, Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin was killed in St. Petersburg, aged 47. Born to a peasant family around 1869, Rasputin received little formal education, and joined a monastery before leaving to travel around Europe and the Middle East. He eventually arrived in St. Petersburg, where he cultivated a reputation as a mystic and a faith healer, and found a place in the Russian court of Tsar Nicholas II. Rasputin acted as an adviser to the tsar’s wife Alexandra, who sought help for her son Alexei’s hemophilia, which the mystic appeared to help alleviate; he thus secured a place as Alexandra’s personal adviser. As the credibility and popularity of the tsar’s rule began to wane, his critics used the position of the peasant ‘mad monk’ in the court to call for reform. While Rasputin’s influence over the Romanovs was limited, Alexandra’s defiant defence of him gave rise to rumours of impropriety and even an alleged affair between the tsarina and the mystic. On the evening of December 29th 1916, a group of conspirators invited Rasputin to the palace of Prince Felix Yusupov, who had cultivated a friendship with Rasputin, intending to kill him to save the monarchy. They fed him poison, which had no effect, then shot him, which he initially survived, and finally shot him in the head and threw his body into a river in the early hours of the morning. Rasputin’s body was found a few days later, with his hands frozen in a raised position, giving rise to rumours that he was still alive while underwater and had tried to untie the rope on his hands, only to finally die by drowning. A few months later, in March 1917, the tsar’s government was toppled by Bolshevik revolutionaries, and, the next year, Nicholas, Alexandra, and all their children were executed. The remarkable story of Rasputin’s murder is the final chapter in a peasant monk’s rise to becoming one of the most influential and notorious figures of Russian history.

100 years ago

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Small Satellite Deployed From the Space Station


A satellite is ejected from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Small Satellite Orbital Deployer on the International Space Station on Dec. 19, 2016. The satellite is actually two small satellites that, once at a safe distance from the station, separated from each other, but were still connected by a 100-meter-long Kevlar tether.

from NASA http://ift.tt/2hU5LNj
via IFTTT
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French cavalry – carrying swords – watch a plane...



French cavalry – carrying swords – watch a plane fly overhead, 1916.

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Simpatias Poderosas para ter um ano maravilhoso!

Trazemos especialmente para você mais simpatias de Ano Novo, que podem ser feitas no réveillon de qualquer ano.

Para ganhar muito dinheiro no ANO que está entrando

Uma superstição tradicional para trazer dinheiro é pegar uma nota de alto valor, pode ser 100 ou 50 reais e deixar dentro do seu calçado. Deixar a nota durante a virada, precisa estar com ela no sapato pelo menos entre 23 horas e 59 minutos, até 0 hora e 1 minuto de 1º de Janeiro.
Passado o tempo use a nota para pagar qualquer coisa, enquanto faz o pagamento, imagine a seguinte frase (não é para dizer, apenas ficar pensando):
“Dinheiro vai, mas muito mais dinheiro vem
Ano que vai, ano que vem
Que volte para mim um milhão de notas de cem”

Atenção: Cuidado para não esquecer e perder a nota. Sair por aí tirando o sapato e esquecer.

Simpatia para ter um ano maravilhoso!

Outra simpatia poderosa e fácil de fazer que trazemos para quem gosta de rituais simples e de ótimo resultado. Para fazer esta simpatia você precisará de um caderno, caneta de qualquer cor e uma vela de cor branca.
No dia 31 de Dezembro, quando já for noite, você irá pegar o caderno e escrever em uma das folhas de papel o ano velho.
Ex: Se o ano velho é 2016, escreve 2016.
Logo depois, comece a riscar por cima do número lentamente e pensando em tudo que passou este ano. Lembre de acontecimentos que você vivenciou neste ano que está indo embora.
Tendo riscado completamente, acenda a vela e queime o papel. Depois que queimar o papel pode jogar fora em qualquer lugar.
A vela deixe queimar por completo e faça o mesmo.


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Visit –>...



Visit –> http://ift.tt/2ieqUot for abnormal psychology information and resources.

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