Monthly Archives: January 2014

A paradigm-shifting step in stem cell research

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Dec 31, 2013 by John Steeno

(Phys.org) A team of engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has created a process that may revolutionize stem cell research. The process, outlined in a paper published in Stem Cells on December 19, 2013, will improve the state of the art in the creation of synthetic neural stem cells for use in central nervous system research.

Human pluripotent stem cells have been used to reproduce nervous-system cells for use in the study and treatment of spinal cord injuries and of diseases such as Parkinson's and Huntington's. Currently, most stem cells used in research have been cultured on mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs), which require a high level of expertise to prepare. The expertise required has made scalability a problem, as there can be slight differences in the cells used from laboratory to laboratory, and the cells maintained on MEFs are also undesirable for clinical applications.

Removing the high level of required skilland thereby increasing the translatability of stem cell technologyis one of the main reasons why Randolph Ashton, a UW-Madison assistant professor of biomedical engineering and co-author of the paper, wanted to create a new protocol.

Rather than culturing stem cells on MEFs, the new process uses two simple chemical cocktails to accomplish the same task. The first mixture, developed by John D. MacArthur Professor of Medicine James Thomson in the Morgridge Institute for Research, is used to maintain the stem cells in the absence of MEFs. The second cocktail allows researchers to push the stem cells toward a neural fate with very high efficiency.

These chemical mixtures help to ensure the consistency of the entire process and give researchers a better understanding of what is driving the differentiation of the cells. "Once you remove some of the confounding factors, you have better control and more freedom and flexibility in terms of pushing the neural stem cells into what you want them to become," says Ashton.

Streamlining the process also removes some of the ambiguities that were inserted with MEFs. And Ashton hopes the straightforward protocol will enable other labs to engage in more complex tissue engineering. "Ours is the simplest, fastest and most efficient way to generate these types of cells," he says.

Ethan Lippmann, a postdoctoral fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery and co-author on the paper, says the major impact of this new process on other labs will be two-fold. "It's incredibly easy and simplified, and you can buy everything 'off the shelf,' so to speak," he says. "This should allow other researchers who are not stem cell experts to adapt this protocol to their own labs. We also want people to look at the things we do, as we generate more specialized neural cell types using this protocol, and feel comfortable that they can be translated to a clinic."

Explore further: HEXIM1 regulatory protein induces human pluripotent stem cells to adopt more specialized cell fate

A lot of optimism and promise surrounds the use of human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs)for applications in regenerative medicine and drug discovery. However, technical challenges still hamper the culturing ...

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A paradigm-shifting step in stem cell research

"Intimations of an Archetypal Theology: Re-Imagining a Soulful Spirituality" Jesse Estrin MA. – Video

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"Intimations of an Archetypal Theology: Re-Imagining a Soulful Spirituality" Jesse Estrin MA.
How can we cleanse, restore, and re-integrate spirit into modern life in a meaningful and balanced way? Jesse explores a new perspective on the soul/spirit a...

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"Intimations of an Archetypal Theology: Re-Imagining a Soulful Spirituality" Jesse Estrin MA. - Video

Thicker brain sections tied to spirituality

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For people at high risk of depression because of a family history, spirituality may offer some protection for the brain, a new study hints.

Parts of the brain's outer layer, the cortex, were thicker in high-risk study participants who said religion or spirituality was "important" to them versus those who cared less about religion.

"Our beliefs and our moods are reflected in our brain and with new imaging techniques we can begin to see this," Myrna Weissman told Reuters Health. "The brain is an extraordinary organ. It not only controls, but is controlled by our moods."

Weissman, who worked on the new study, is a professor of psychiatry and epidemiology at Columbia University and chief of the Clinical-Genetic Epidemiology department at New York State Psychiatric institute.

While the new study suggests a link between brain thickness and religiosity or spirituality, it cannot say that thicker brain regions cause people to be religious or spiritual, Weissman and her colleagues note in JAMA Psychiatry.

It might hint, however, that religiosity can enhance the brain's resilience against depression in a very physical way, they write.

Previously, the researchers had found that people who said they were religious or spiritual were at lower risk of depression. They also found that people at higher risk for depression had thinning cortices, compared to those with lower depression risk.

The cerebral cortex is the brain's outermost layer made of gray matter that forms the organ's characteristic folds. Certain areas of the cortex are important hubs of neural activity for processes such as sensory perception, language and emotion.

For the new study, the researchers twice asked 103 adults between the ages of 18 and 54 how important religion or spirituality was to them and how often they attended religious services over a five-year period.

In addition to being asked about spirituality, the participants' brains were imaged once to see how thick their cortices were.

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Thicker brain sections tied to spirituality

Religiosity may enhance brain’s protection vs depression – study

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By: Andrew M. Seaman, Reuters December 31, 2013 2:02 PM

InterAksyon.com The online news portal of TV5

NEW YORK - For people at high risk of depression because of a family history, spirituality may offer some protection for the brain, a new study hints.

Parts of the brain's outer layer, the cortex, were thicker in high-risk study participants who said religion or spirituality was "important" to them versus those who cared less about religion.

"Our beliefs and our moods are reflected in our brain and with new imaging techniques we can begin to see this," Myrna Weissman told Reuters Health. "The brain is an extraordinary organ. It not only controls, but is controlled by our moods."

Weissman, who worked on the new study, is a professor of psychiatry and epidemiology at Columbia University and chief of the Clinical-Genetic Epidemiology department at New York State Psychiatric institute.

While the new study suggests a link between brain thickness and religiosity or spirituality, it cannot say that thicker brain regions cause people to be religious or spiritual, Weissman and her colleagues note in JAMA Psychiatry.

It might hint, however, that religiosity can enhance the brain's resilience against depression in a very physical way, they write.

Previously, the researchers had found that people who said they were religious or spiritual were at lower risk of depression. They also found that people at higher risk for depression had thinning cortices, compared to those with lower depression risk.

The cerebral cortex is the brain's outermost layer made of gray matter that forms the organ's characteristic folds. Certain areas of the cortex are important hubs of neural activity for processes such as sensory perception, language and emotion.

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Religiosity may enhance brain's protection vs depression - study

Meditation guru sentenced to 14 years for rape

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TAIPEI - The Shihlin District Court yesterday sentenced Ouyang Hsien, the founder of Tao Chih Men Living Academy, to 14 years' imprisonment for raping a 14-year-old girl over the course of two years.

The court also ruled that the girl's mother, who is a member of the academy and engaged in sexual activities with Ouyang, is to serve 11 years in prison for assisting Ouyang in sexually assaulting her daughter.

The court said that in an attempt to gain the trust of the victim's mother, the 68-year-old Ouyang told the woman that engaging in sex with him is a method for "transferring energy into the female body to improve their health."

Police said that the academy led by Ouyang held meditation lessons with an emphasis on the power of sexual energy as the key method to achieving spiritual enlightenment.

The woman not only engaged in sex with Ouyang, but also took her then-11-year-old daughter to a motel and let Ouyang sexually assault the girl in 2011, the court said, adding that after the incident the woman forced the victim to have sex with Ouyang another 17 times over the next two years.

The court said the girl audio-recorded a conversation with Ouyang this May, keeping a used tissue paper as evidence, and later used these materials to press charges against Ouyang.

Ouyang however denied the allegation of raping the girl, and claimed that he only asked her to perform fellatio twice with her consent; in light of this, the court deemed that Ouyang showed no remorse over the incident, and the mother did not fulfil her duty to protect her daughter, and thus sentenced the two to 14 and 11 years in prison, respectively.

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Meditation guru sentenced to 14 years for rape

Kerbal Space Program Space Station V2 02 #9 moving the station WTF! crap! – Video

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Kerbal Space Program Space Station V2 02 #9 moving the station WTF! crap!
In this episode of Kerbal space program we move the station for the first time. While it did not explode or blow up into 600+ pieces i have discovered a prob...

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Kerbal Space Program Space Station V2 02 #9 moving the station WTF! crap! - Video

UrtheCast, Russia Investigate Space Station HD Cameras After Spacewalk Glitch

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The Canadian company UrtheCast and its Russian partners are investigating what went wrong when its new Earth-watching cameras suffered a glitch shortly after being installed outside the International Space Station last week.

In an eight-hour spacewalk on Friday (Dec. 27), Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy installed UrtheCast'stwo powerful cameras on the orbiting outpost only to have to remove and return the devices to storage after an unspecified data connection problem.

UrtheCast officials announced Monday (Dec. 30) that the Earth-watching cameras were installed properly, but mission controllers were unable to confirm the cameras were receiving power from the space station, so the devices were removed as a safety precaution.

George Tyc, UrtheCast's Chief Technology Officer, said the fact that neither camera could communicate with Russia's Mission Control Center just outside of Moscow suggests the root of the problem is inside the space station.

"This kind of issue has been encountered before on the ISS and can be fixed in the near-term," Tyc said in a statement. "Bringing the cameras back inside to be installed another day was simply the right engineering decision."

The cameras launched to the space station in late November as part of the Russian Progress 53 cargo delivery. Once installed and properly running, the cameras are supposed to beam detailed views of Earth from spacein near real-time to UrtheCast customers online.

RSC Energia, Russia's main space contractor, has formed a commission to work out the problem with UrtheCast's engineering team, according to the Canadian company. UrtheCast officials say they expect to announce by mid-January the date of a rescheduled spacewalk to install the cameras.

"Delays like this happen in space. That's the nature of the business," said UrtheCast CEO Scott Larson. "The critical thing is to proceed carefully and deliberately, without taking undue risk. Fortunately, our project is on a manned platform, which gives us the ability to respond to incidents of this kind as they arise."

Cosmic Quiz: Do You Know the International Space St...

The International Space Station is the largest structure in space ever built by humans. Let's see how much you know about the basics of this science laboratory in the sky.

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UrtheCast, Russia Investigate Space Station HD Cameras After Spacewalk Glitch

AIR FORCE STORY, VOL 2, CHAPTER 8 – HUMAN FACTORS IN SPACE FLIGHT, 1950-1960 – Video

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AIR FORCE STORY, VOL 2, CHAPTER 8 - HUMAN FACTORS IN SPACE FLIGHT, 1950-1960
Department of Defense PIN 38554 AIR FORCE STORY, VOL 2, CHAPTER 8 -- HUMAN FACTORS IN SPACE FLIGHT, 1950-1960 DOCUMENTS 10 YEARS OF RESEARCH TO DETERMINE MAN...

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AIR FORCE STORY, VOL 2, CHAPTER 8 - HUMAN FACTORS IN SPACE FLIGHT, 1950-1960 - Video

Space History Photo: Marjorie Townsend and SAS-1

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In this historical photo from the U.S. space agency, Marjorie Townsend discusses the X-ray Explorer Satellite's performance with a colleague during preflight tests at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Townsend, a Washington DC native, was the first woman to receive an engineering degree from The George Washington University. She joined NASA in 1959 and later advanced to become the project manager of the Small Astronomy Satellite (SAS) Program.

The satellite shown in the picture, SAS-1, was the 42nd in NASA's Explorer series, a family of small, simple satellites sent to perform important scientific missions for minimal cost. The first Explorer satellite launched in 1958, months prior to the formation of NASA, initiating a program of exploration that has continued into the twenty-first century. SAS-1 continued the tradition of crucial science projects by carrying the first set of sensitive instruments designed to map X-ray sources both within and beyond our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Also known as Explorer 42 and the X-ray Explorer, it became the first American spacecraft launched by another country when an Italian space team launched it on December 12, 1970 from a mobile launch platform located in international waters off the coast of East Africa. It mapped the universe in X-ray wavelengths and discovered X-ray pulsars and evidence of black holes. The satellite was named Uhuru, which means freedom in Swahili, because it was launched from San Marco off the coast of Kenya on Kenya's Independence Day.

In the 1970's the Italian Government made Townsend a Knight of the Italian Republic Order for her contributions to the United States-Italian space efforts. In 1990, Townsend joined BDM International Inc., as the director of Space Systems Engineering with the Space Science and Applications Division.

Each weekday, SPACE.com looks back at the history of spaceflight through photos (archive).

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Space History Photo: Marjorie Townsend and SAS-1

Seasteading And Sovereignety – Exposing The Truth

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What do Hong Kong, Singapore, and Lichtenstein all have in common? They are home to 3 of the most free and most prosperous economies in the world. They are some of the highest ranked in terms of income and standard of living. With unemployment rates at 3.3%, 1.9%, and 1.5%, they seem to have delivered a knockout blow to poverty by simply allowing almost maximum freedom in the realm of economic behavior of their citizens.

So why hasnt every other country followed suite and adopted policies that advance human freedom? The simple answer is that almost every government in the world is trending towards becoming bigger and more invasive into peoples lives, telling free people what they can say, when they can gather and protest, how and with what can they protect themselves, etc.. Even in Singapore, there are major policies restraining personal freedom, with drug crimes even potentially carrying a death sentence.

Out of this trend, a movement has been sparked called Seasteading.The concept calls for the building of sovereign dwellings in the ocean, outside the jurisdictional reach of any nation. The 3 places mentioned above represent what proponents hope to emulate in their sea based communities. A Thousand floating Hong Kongs is how it is described in a promo video by The Seasteading Institute (TSI). TSI was formed in 2008 by Wayne Gramlich and Patri Friedman (Grandson of Nobel Prize Winning Economist Milton Friedman, and son of economist David Friedman) as an organization to help facilitate the establishment of the actual dwellings.

Founder of Paypal, Peter Thiel, has invested millions already toward the TSI in an effort to help the floating-city project come to reality. Thiel has stated thathe thinks sea colonization is an important step in securing mankinds future on Earth. Seasteading is essentially homesteading, rather its location is on the sea. A quick review of homesteading: the initiation of establishing a life-style of self-sufficiency.

When in international waters, these dwellings would be able to create their own legal systems, in effect creating competition among small, sovereign societies. Cruise ships currently take advantage of international law, as they are not tied to any one countrys laws, and they are essentially floating cities that provide everything that people need for weeks at a time. While the founders of TSI are libertarian in their beliefs, the intent is not to establish libertarian societies per se, but to allow competition, with people picking which Seasteading community fits their needs and wants. It is just as possible to have a sovereignstead, another for communist/socialist Seastead, and another for libertarians, muslims, etc. Projects and products succeed which receive the most votes: every dollar a consumer spends is a vote.

The biggest obstacle for TSI and others who hope to see functioning Seasteading operationsin the future seems to be the capital intensive nature of constructing the platforms. One possible solution could be cruise ships being retrofitted to become fully legitimate Seasteads themselves. This idea is being planned to an extent by a group called Blue Seed. The group is working towards building a start-up community for entrepreneurs, it is designed for foreigners who dont have a US work visa, and it will be located 12 nautical miles off the coast of San Francisco, in international waters.

The purpose is to bring entrepreneurs close to technology hot spots without putting them into a specific national legal framework. To some, this idea is utopic or dangerous, and therefore should not be taken seriously. But this kind of skeptical thinking has not stopped man from creating incredible technologies that have altered and improved the livesof people for generations. So will you criticize what seems unrealistic, or will you be daring enough to dream?

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Seasteading And Sovereignety - Exposing The Truth