Немного осеннего научного юмора

Вот так всё обычно и происходит...

Коррупция среди клеток крови. Иммунитет не безгрешен.
Не болейте! :) 

напечатанная на 3D-принтере часть тела - сердечный клапан

Трёхмерная печать сейчас, безусловный тренд в научном мире. Вот очередной пример удачного применения этой технологии в биоинженерной сфере:

Это - одна из напечатанных на 3D-принтере в Cornell University, New York частей тела - сердечный клапан. Очень, кстати, полезная штука, так как огромное количество заболеваний, в том числе и пороков сердца, связано с "глюком" именно клапанов сердца.

Картинка из статьи на www.theengineer.co.uk

С новым годом, ага

Да, наивные ученые ещё существуют. Они верят в гранты на исследования. :)

Алкоголизм, наркомания, порнозависимость - а с мозгом что?

Отличная статья о разнице в функционировании мозга при наличии зависимостей разного рода. Алкоголь, никотин, психотропные вещества всяческой природы, еда, порно или азартные игры - всё это приносит удовольствие в момент присутствия и боль при отсутствии. Но много ли общего в формировании звисимостей от разных факторов?
Вот и рассуждения на эту увлекательную тему - https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/scicurious/addiction-showcases-brain-flexibility

Электростимуляция от мигрени!

Показан ещё один интересный способ борьбы с мигренями! Оказывается, особые виды электрической стимуляции могут снижать приступы мигрени. И этот метод получил разрешение от FDA, что реально непросто. надо будет попробовать.


источник и детали - Electrical Stimulator to Prevent Migraines Receives FDA Approval - IEEE Spectrum

Про ответ. Иммунный.

про мск

Всё. Мои провидческие мысли стали реализовываться. Вот говорила я, что пройдет ещё немного времени и "стволовые клетки" начнут получать из практически всех биологических жидкостей, субстанций и вообще отходов. Думали, что менструальная кровь - это финал. Ни-фи-га. Теперь МСК получают и из мочи. Сегодня появился пруф. Скоро можно будет тупо плюнуть в пластиковую посудину с подходящей питательной средой - и вуаля - культура фибробластоподобных няшных клеточек.
Фисё, баста.

Кофе вместо обезболивающих?

Очередное подтверждение полезности кофе:

Now comes word that a cuppa joe reduces physical pain. The surprising finding is based on a study involving 48 volunteers who agreed to spend 90 minutes performing fake computer tasks meant to mimic office work. The tasks were known to cause pain in the shoulders, neck, forearms and wrists, and the researchers wanted to compare how people with chronic pain and those who were pain-free tolerated the tasks. As a matter of convenience, the scientists allowed people to drink coffee before taking the test "to avoid unpleasant effects of caffeine deprivation, e.g. decreased vigor and alertness, sleepiness, and fatigue," they reported. But when it came time to analyze the data, the researchers from Norway's National Institute of Occupational Health and Oslo University Hospital noticed that the 19 people who drank coffee reported a lower intensity of pain than the 29 people who didn't. In the shoulders and neck, for instance, the average pain intensity was rated 41 (on a 100-point scale) among the coffee drinkers and 55 for the coffee abstainers. Similar gaps were found for all pain sites measured, and coffee's apparent pain-mitigation effect held up regardless of whether the subjects had chronic pain or not. The authors of the study, which was published this week in the journal BMC Research Notes, cautioned that since the study wasn't designed to test coffee's influence on pain, the results come with many uncertainties. For starters, the researchers don't know how much coffee the coffee drinkers consumed before taking the computer tests. They also doubt that the coffee drinkers and abstainers were similar in all respects except for their java consumption. Problems like these tend to undermine the importance of the findings. But those reservations are unlikely to trouble the legions of coffee drinkers looking for any reason not to cut back on their daily caffeine habit. (c)2012 Los Angeles Times Distributed by MCT Information Services
Read more at: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-benefit-coffee-pain.html#jCp

Ограничение калорий - работает ли для всех видов?

Много сейчас говорят о таком интересном способе продления жизни как снижение потребляемых калорий. Показано множество успешных результатов на грызунах. Всё очень аргументировано и элегантно. Однако совсем недавно в сети появились сообщения о подобных опытах, проведённых на приматах. И там результаты оказались не столь однозначными. 

Вот одно из таких сообщений:

Calorie Restriction May Make Rats Live Longer, But Doesn’t Work For Primates
Remember those famous studies in worms, mice and rats that indicated that a restricted-calorie diet increased lifespan? Well, the results of a 30-year study in rhesus monkeys has just been reported, and the results make it pretty clear that it doesn’t apply to primates … likely including us.
The molecular pathways and gene circuits that are activated in our bodies as a result of long-term calorie restriction are immensely complicated. Like a tangled ball of yarn complicated. We don’t understand how they work, frankly, and there’s just no magic bullet when it comes to diet and lifespan in creatures like monkeys and humans (I’m looking at you, resveratrol). It’s certainly good for one’s long-term survival not to overeat into Honey-Boo-Boobesity, but what does current science say about calories, long life and naked apes?
Studies of humans who live past 100 point to genetics as more important than restricting calories. Which genes? Time may tell. And none of this has helped us understand how different diet compositions may affect aging.
Read more at Nature News.

Спасибо за наводку jtotheizzoe.

Опять результаты исследований эффектов экстази

Ну, в общем, читайте: экстази и память, некоторые новые данные.

Though ecstasy is known to cause health risks such as depression, sleep problems, severe anxiety and increasing other drug cravings, there has been a considerable amount of debate questioning whether or not government officials have over-reacted to ecstasy.

Хроническая боль - в голове!

О хронической боли. Новости: 

When people have similar injuries, why do some end up with chronic pain while others recover and are pain free? The first longitudinal brain imaging study to track participants with a new back injury has found the chronic pain is all in their heads –- quite literally.
A new Northwestern Medicine study shows for the first time that chronic pain develops the more two sections of the brain --- related to emotional and motivational behavior --- talk to each other. The more they communicate, the greater the chance a patient will develop chronic pain.
The finding provides a new direction for developing therapies to treat intractable pain, which affects 30 to 40 million adults in the United States.
Researchers were able to predict, with 85 percent accuracy at the beginning of the study, which participants would go on to develop chronic pain based on the level of interaction between the frontal cortex and the nucleus accumbens.
The study is published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
"For the first time we can explain why people who may have the exact same initial pain either go on to recover or develop chronic pain," said A. Vania Apakarian, senior author of the paper and professor of physiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
"The injury by itself is not enough to explain the ongoing pain. It has to do with the injury combined with the state of the brain. This finding is the culmination of 10 years of our research."
The more emotionally the brain reacts to the initial injury, the more likely the pain will persist after the injury has healed. "It may be that these sections of the brain are more excited to begin with in certain individuals, or there may be genetic and environmental influences that predispose these brain regions to interact at an excitable level," Apkarian said.
The nucleus accumbens is an important center for teaching the rest of the brain how to evaluate and react to the outside world, Apkarian noted, and this brain region may use the pain signal to teach the rest of the brain to develop chronic pain.
"Now we hope to develop new therapies for treatment based on this finding," Apkarian added.
Chronic pain participants in the study also lost gray matter density, which is likely linked to fewer synaptic connections or neuronal and glial shrinkage, Apkarian said. Brain synapses are essential for communication between neurons.
"Chronic pain is one of the most expensive health care conditions in the U. S. yet there still is not a scientifically validated therapy for this condition," Apkarian said. Chronic pain costs an estimated $600 billion a year, according to a 2011 National Academy of Sciences report. Back pain is the most prevalent chronic pain condition.
A total of 40 participants who had an episode of back pain that lasted four to 16 weeks --- but with no prior history of back pain --- were studied. All subjects were diagnosed with back pain by a clinician. Brain scans were conducted on each participant at study entry and for three more visits during one year.
###
Northwestern University: http://www.northwestern.edu

Вот так мы слышим

Люблю такие образовательные штуки. В данном видео описывается процесс восприятия информации органом слуха. Наслаждайтесь!