Working In Science Was A Brutal Education. Thats Why I Left. – BuzzFeed News

Posted on February 17, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

Stephanie Singleton for BuzzFeed News

Do you miss being a scientist? some people ask.

Sometimes.

When people talk about science, they usually mean people in white lab coats doing things, like solving equations on the board or preparing solutions in beakers. What they mean is science as this crude mechanism of discovery by which humans refine over decades and centuries a small kernel of knowing. What they mean is grant dollars. What they mean is wild hair. What they mean is clean, aseptic, analytical. Brainy little robot people. White.

I try to be honest about my time in science about the feeling of satisfaction I had when I plotted all of my confocal data and there was a beautiful curve depicting the drop-off in signal as one moved further down the tissue of the gonad. I think about the calculations we did on scraps of paper to check the ratios of inheritance of the genes we introduced. I think of the little side room where we took our coffee and bagels. I think of the feeling of friendship and family that comes with being in a big lab, where everyone has a place, a role, an expertise, a skill. I remember the surprise I felt when people started to come to me because I knew something, because I could help. And how rare that was for me.

For the better part of several years, I saw my labmates every day. For hours and hours. Every holiday, every break, we stayed. We worked. We supported each other. We fought. We feuded. We gossiped. We threw parties for each other. We celebrated. We said goodbye at graduations and retirements. There were people who supported me and cherished me and looked after me. People who treated me like I mattered. A lab is a family. In a way.

Science was beautiful and it was wild and it was unknowable. Science was spending days and weeks on a single experiment with no way to know if it would work and no real way to tell if it had worked. Science was like trying to find your way to a dark forest only to realize that you had always been inside of the forest and that the forest is inside of another, greater, darker forest. Science was laughing with my labmates about television the night before, about the song of the summer, about tennis, about the unruly nature of mold growing on our plates, about cheap wings at Buffalo Wild Wings. Science was being taught to think. Taught to speak. Science was a finishing school. Science was a brutal education. Science made me ruthless. Science made me understand the vast beauty of the world.

But science was also working 15 hours a day for weeks or months. Science was working weekends and holidays. Science was being called lazy for taking a break. Science was the beat of doubting silence after I answered a question put to me. Science was being told that racism was not racism. Science was being told that I was fortunate that I had running water while growing up and that I was actually privileged because there are some places that do not. Science was being told that I was mistaken for a waiter at a party because I had worn a black sweater. Science was being told that I had to work harder despite working my hardest. Science was being told that I talked too much. Science was being told that I was too loud. Science was being told that I was behind, always behind. Science was being told that I had failed but had been gifted a pass by virtue of who you are. Science was being told that I had never once been to class despite attending every session and office hour because I was mistaken for someone else.

Science was being the only black person in the program for four years. Science was saying nothing because I was tired of being corrected about the particulars of my own experience. Science was being told that I should consider moving to the other side of town where more black people live. Science was someone suggesting that I find a church in order to find community. Science was having my hair stroked and touched. Science was being told that I was articulate. Science was watching peoples eyes widen slightly in surprise when I told them what program I was in. Science was the constant humiliation of wondering if I had justified my presence or if I had made it harder for the next black person to get admitted. Science was having to worry about that in the first place.

Science was a place I ultimately left, not so much because I wanted to, but because I had to. Science is not being able to say that because I reflexively feel the rebuttal waiting on the other end of that sentence: You could have made it work if you wanted it enough. Science is not knowing whether I wanted it enough.

Does science influence your writing?

Oh, sure. I guess.

Do you write science fiction?

No, I write domestic realism.

After the above exchange, people sometimes look at me like Im joking and at any moment will drop the faade to reveal that I do in fact write and love science fiction, after all.

But no, I do not write science fiction. I think that if people knew more scientists and spent significant time in their company, they would understand that the worst possible preparation for a career as a science fiction writer is an intensive science education. My training as a scientist makes it difficult to absent myself in the way I need to in order to write good fiction. I can never turn off the part of my brain that knows about protein folding or microscopy or tissue preparation or stem cells or physics or chemistry. Writing science fiction would be an extended exercise in pedantry.

People presume that science and writing are quite different. But they are both ways of knowing. They are ways of understanding the greater mystery of the world. They are systems of knowledge and inquiry. I do not understand something until I have written it, or more accurately put, until I have written my way through it.

Science was being the only black person in the program for four years. Science was saying nothing because I was tired of being corrected about the particulars of my own experience.

I think in many ways, the best preparation for a writer is a period of prolonged and rigorous thought about a difficult and complicated question. You learn to assemble your resources. You learn to fight with yourself. You learn to quarrel on the page with your worst ideas and with the ones you hold dearest. You treat your expectations with suspicion. You demand proof. You demand evidence. You think hard about the alternate hypothesis or other explanations, and you devise strategies to root these out. You learn to live with doubt. You try to prove yourself wrong. You look for places where you have been too soft. Too vague. You eliminate language that contains falsehoods. You eliminate language that can mislead your reader. You ask questions. You pursue answers with all the energy you can muster. You try to put language to what it is you observe. You develop a stamina for iteration. You develop a thick skin. You learn to seek criticism. You treat criticism like kindness. You churn the raw material of life into something that can be understood, and when you fail, you marvel at the mystery of things.

Do you miss science?

Yes. No. Yes. No.

Sometimes, when I dont feel well, I consider the question of how to derive an expression for the degradation of a molecular species in a particular tissue under a given set of circumstances. Old calculus. I turn to YouTube lectures from MIT about thermodynamics. I think of my first winter in Madison, Wisconsin.

The first snowfall was in October. It had been a hot, rainy summer, so much so that the weather seemed to turn all at once with very little warning. I was either in the middle or at the start of my second rotation as a biochemistry graduate student, working in a biophysical chemistry lab and spending most of my day in the windowless instrument facility in the basement. My project was to deduce the effect of protein concentration on the ability of a polymer of DNA to wind itself. I spent a lot of time pipetting various liquids into each other in little cuvettes, slotting them into a machine, and then waiting for the reading. It was the kind of work to which I felt ideally suited, and I could have gone on that way forever. I had recently moved to the Midwest from Alabama to pursue a PhD, and it seemed as likely as anything else that I would go on pipetting and measuring the effect of things like DNA polymer length and protein concentration on DNA winding. It was as removed from the circumstances of my previous life as anything else, and so I didnt have a compelling reason to doubt that this would be the shape my life held.

But I remember sitting down at the desk in the lab and looking out the broad window. There was a large tree at the center of the courtyard that had recently turned yellow. Fall was there in name, but not in temperature. The labs were kept quite cold, and so I wore a sweater indoors and shucked it as soon as I got outside. But that day, I looked out of the window and saw snow drifting down. The flakes were thick and fluffy, and they seemed almost fake. It was the first time I had seen snow in years, and I was totally enamored by it. The other people in the lab were on edge because snow in October portended something dark and awful a hard winter, a long, brutal freeze. Where they saw inconvenient travel and slushy roads, I saw something beautiful if frivolous, a minor novelty. Winter came early that year, and it didnt end until the very beginning of the following summer. When I went to the lake on my birthday in early June, there was still ice in the water.

People presume that science and writing are quite different. But they are both ways of knowing.

When people ask me about my time in science, it is this day which presents itself to me in jewel-like clarity. It is the day something about my life altered irrevocably. Or perhaps it is that the snow has accumulated, the way all such moments do in life, the weight of meaning, of prophecy. Inevitability is an artifact of retrospection. It is because the snow represented a stark deviation from the previous course of events in my life, at the precise moment when my life was changing so wildly, that I remember it. It is not that the snow changed me, but it came at a point when I was starting not to resemble myself. I cannot use the snow to explain to people what my life was like in science. It has the whiff of superstition, folklore. It feels too much like a memory and not enough like an answer. I do not tell them about the snow or how it seemed a benediction at the outset of something I needed desperately to work.

It was only later that I realized this was wishful thinking, and that the snow was just snow.

Do you think youd ever go back to science?

That part of my life is over now.

Ive come to understand that what people want in such a situation is to have their own conceptions of the world confirmed. That is, they want me to say that when you leave science because you have written a novel and a book of stories and have decided to attend an MFA program in creative writing, you are doing something that is antithetical to science. People presume that it is akin to picking up and leaving your home in the middle of the night under great duress, never to return. What they want is the spectacle of the forgotten treasured item, the confirmation that something has been lost, perhaps forever.

I think if people knew what it was that I left, then theyd know better than to ask. It would be like asking someone if they were sad to have left their home with no prospect of returning. It would be like asking someone if they were sad to have left their faith behind. It would be like asking someone if they were sad to have given up some fundamental idea about who they are. It would be like asking someone if they were sad to have watched their life burn to the ground. It would be like asking someone if they were sad to have left their family and friends.

They would mind their own business if they knew.

But they do not know, and so they say things like Science, wow, thats so cool, like, do you miss it?

And I smile because that is what I have learned to do. Because explaining is too hard. Too messy. There is no clean or easy or simple way to make it known to others that I left because I had to, because it was necessary to leave that I do miss it, but I also dont because Im still that person but not that person, that every day I remind myself less of the person I was then. Its sad, like losing a memory of myself, and all those years are lost to me now, all the little tricks and habits of home dropping down and away, as I become this other person known for this other thing, and its too much in the moment to say that I miss it both more and less every day, that I become a person more capable of appreciating what is lost in the grand scheme of things but less a person who knows what it is Ive actually lost, and that there is some painful, brutal, awful misalignment in the scale of those two losses.

When people ask if I miss science, the only answer available to me is an incomplete solution to the problem: Yes. No. Sometimes. Its over now.

Brandon Taylor is the senior editor of Electric Literatures Recommended Reading and a staff writer at Literary Hub. His writing has earned him fellowships from Lambda Literary Foundation, Kimbilio Fiction, and the Tin House Summer Writer's Workshop. He holds graduate degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Iowa, where he was an Iowa Arts Fellow at the Iowa Writers Workshop in fiction. Learn more about his first novel Real Life here.

Excerpt from:
Working In Science Was A Brutal Education. Thats Why I Left. - BuzzFeed News

The Really Good And Really Bad News On Lifelong Learning – Forbes

Posted on February 17, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

There is light at the end of the tunnel for lifelong learning, but not for the reasons you may ... [+] think.

We are now closer to the year 2050 than the year 1990. Let that sink in for a bit and along with it try to contemplate the massive talent development revolution we will face in the next 30 years. With rapidly changing technology, the speed at which businesses must operate to be competitive in a global economy and with human life expectancy rising steadily, its clear that lifelong learning will become essential for humans to remain relevant in the workplace. The bad news is theres little evidence that lifelong learning can be taught and that any organization thus far has mastered it for their own human resource needs. The good news is that those hard truths might not matter anymore simply because lifelong learning will be thrust upon us as a staple of everyday work life. It will no longer be optional or aspirational; it will be a necessity and ubiquitous.

Weve already heard some of the statistics that project people will have as many 15 different jobs over their working lifetime. And we know the shelf-life of technical skills, such as software development, are getting shorter and shorter. Then theres the recent IBM report that predicts more than 120 million people will need up-skilling or re-skilling in the next three years and that the average length of training needed to close skills gaps has increased from 3 days to 36 days in just five years time. On top of the fast-changing marketplace of jobs and technology, theres also the coming impact of human longevity. Projections from a 2015 United Nations report indicate that average lifespans in the U.S. will reach 95 years for females and 90 years for males in the U.S. by 2050. Another report from 2012 indicated that 1/3 of babies born that year will live to 100. If it becomes common for people to live to 100 (or beyond), it will also become common for them to retire in their 80s extending their working years dramatically.

How will we grapple with all this? Its hard to fathom. But whats clear is that we need to build and operate a talent development system that is closer to the 2050 version than to the 1990 (or dare I say 1890) model we have now. Lifelong learning has long been a stated ambition of colleges and universities. The words lifelong learning are among the most commonly used in college mission statements. Given that, we ought to have ample outcome measures that demonstrate how graduates become lifelong learners. The truth is, we dont. Searching for evidence of lifelong learning is a little like the search for evidence of life on Mars; many scientists believe well eventually find it, but so far we havent.

Through an analysis of responses from more than 250,000 U.S. adults conducted by Gallup, there was no difference in the likelihood of respondents saying they learn or do something interesting each day across high school drop-outs, high school graduates, associates degree holders and bachelors degree holders. The only group that was statistically more likely to say so were those with post-graduate education. Other Gallup research arguably its most profound and influential of all on innate talent and strengths-based development, makes a strong case that some humans are born with learner talent. That is, learning comes more intuitively and naturally to them than it does to others. My current thesis about why post-graduate degree holders are more likely to report lifelong learning is two-fold. First, they are simply more likely to be those innate learners. And, second, post-graduate education involves more applied learning and in-depth research work than the typical undergraduate education.

If its the case that not even bachelors degrees are guarantees for becoming lifelong learners, how will we ever get our entire workforce there? The answer is a hopeful one because the question has rather suddenly been rendered moot. A quick look around our world today and a peek onto the horizon of 2050 tells us so. The expression necessity is the mother of invention is rather apropos here. Well bring the invention of lifelong learning to fruition once and for all because of outright necessity.

Colleges, for example, can no longer hope that lifelong learning magically happens for graduates after 4 years of study; they have to extend their roles by getting directly involved in delivering it for graduates next 40 to 60 years of their careers. Employers can no longer assume that a sprinkling of compliance training, some occasional professional development and some sporadic technical re-skilling will turn their human capital into lifelong learners. It will require them to transform everything from how hours are spent during the workday to how continual learning and education will be financed. What every CEO will soon realize is that business transformations require human capital transformations. And once that realization sinks in, we will all become lifelong learners whether we like it or not.

View post:
The Really Good And Really Bad News On Lifelong Learning - Forbes

Are stem cells really the key to making humans live longer? – Wired.co.uk

Posted on February 17, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

To some longevity acolytes, stem cells promise the secret to eternal youth. For a hefty fee, you can pay a startup to extract your own stem cells and cryogenically freeze them, in the hope that they can one day be used in a treatment to help extend your life.

Other firms let you bank stem cells from your babys umbilical cord and placenta after childbirth, if youre convinced the high cost represents an insurance policy against future illness. Or you can follow the example of Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett and opt for an anti-ageing cream made with stem cells derived from the severed foreskins of newborn babies in South Korea.

Stem cells are the parent cells which give rise to other cells in our bodies. Since scientists first isolated human embryonic stem cells in a lab and grew them over 20 years ago, they have been mooted as a source of great hope for regenerative medical treatments, including for age-related degenerative conditions such as Parkinsons, Alzheimers, heart disease and stroke.

But apart from a few small-scale examples, the only stem cell-based medical treatment practised in clinics uses haematopoietic stem cells found in the blood and bone marrow which only produce blood cells for transplants in blood cancer patients. These cells are taken from a patients sibling or an unrelated donor, before being infused into a patients blood, or theyre taken from a patients own blood before being reinfused. The procedure has been used to treat blood malignancies for almost half a century, and recently multiple sclerosis too. So how likely is it that the predictions about stem cells' longevity-enhancing powers will become a reality?

In September 2019, Google banned ads for unproven or experimental medical techniques such as most stem cell therapy, citing a rise in bad actors attempting to take advantage of individuals by offering untested, deceptive treatments [that can often] lead to dangerous health outcomes. The decision was welcomed by the International Society for Stem Cell Research, which emphasised that most stem cell interventions remain experimental. Selling treatments before well-regulated clinical trials have been done, the body said, [threatens public] confidence in biomedical research and undermines the development of legitimate new therapies.

Its easy to see how less scrupulous companies can exploit the allure of stem cells, which seem to occupy a place in our collective consciousness as a kind of magical elixir. High hopes for stem cell-based therapies have grown since 2006, when the Japanese biologist Shinya Yamanaka created a new technology to reprogram adult cells, such as skin cells, into a similar state to embryonic stem cells, which are pluripotent, meaning they can develop into any tissue in the body. The Nobel prize-winning breakthrough was hailed as a major step in the study of stem cells without the need for controversial embryo research, and towards the use of these human induced pluripotent stem cells to regenerate damaged or diseased organs or effectively grow new spare parts which could treat the life-limiting and life-shortening illnesses associated with ageing.

Gerontologist Aubrey de Grey, whose Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS) research foundation aims to eliminate ageing-related diseases, thinks the chances well soon have stem cell based therapies are high. For anything that's in clinical trials, you're talking about maybe five years before it's available to the general public, he says, citing stem cell treatments for Parkinsons disease, currently being tested in phase two clinical trials, as one of the developments he thinks is likely to come soonest.

However, given that these trials involve a relatively small number of participants and most clinical trials ultimately fail, his predictions might be overly optimistic. Often described as a maverick, De Grey believes that humans can live forever and there is a 50 per cent chance medical advances of which stem cell therapies will play an important part will make this a reality within the next 17 years. Though living forever, he says, is not the ultimate goal but a rather large side effect of medicine which will successfully prevent or repair the damage that comes with ageing.

For New Jersey-based Robert Hariri, who co-founded Human Longevity Inc, which set its sights more modestly on making 100 the new 60, stem cells derived from placentas present especially exciting opportunities. A biomedical scientist, surgeon and entrepreneur, Hariri says his current venture Celularity which is focused on engineering placental cells, including stem cells, to create drugs for cancer and other conditions is not as concerned about the actual age number, but about preserving human performance as we age and treating the degenerative diseases that rob us of our quality of life.

Many of those working in the field, however, remain cautious in their optimism. Researchers have highlighted the potential risks of giving pluripotent cells to patients, whether they are induced or embryonic, as these cells can develop cancer-causing mutations as they grow.

Davide Danovi, a scientist at Kings College Londons Centre for Stem Cells & Regenerative Medicine, says the path to stem cell-based therapy is very long and full of hurdles. The supply chain involves challenges, he says. On the one hand, allogeneic treatments those with stem cells derived from one individual and expanded into big batches to create cells to treat many individuals have the advantage of being similar to the traditional pharmaceutical business models. The product is clear, its something that comes in a vial and can be scaled up and mass produced, Danovi says. But this treatment can present a greater risk of rejection from the patient, as opposed to the more bespoke autologous option which is more expensive and time-consuming as it involves extracting a patients own stem cells before reprogramming them.

Danovi is most excited by the potential of stem cells to treat age-related macular degeneration. In 2017 Japanese scientist Masayo Takahash led a team that administered transplants of artificially grown retinal cells created from induced pluripotent stem cells taken from donors to five patients with the eye condition, which can cause blindness, and theyre reported to be doing well. The eye, he says seems to be a place where immunity plays less of a role relative to other issues, so you can host cells which come from another individual with fewer problems [of rejection]. But, with other organs such as the liver, he says there are major conceptual problems with creating enough tissue. Its like the clean meat burger - you're talking about a production that is, in many cases, not easy to reach with the current technology.

Hariri believes placentas will solve some of the production challenges crucially, theyre an abundant commodity, with the vast majority thrown out after childbirth. His interest was sparked 20 years ago when his oldest daughter was in the womb: When I saw her first ultrasound in the first trimester, the placenta had already developed into a relatively sizable organ, even though she was just a peanut-sized embryo. Id been taught that the placenta was nothing more than an interface, but [if that was the case], you would expect that it would grow at the same rate as the embryo. His curiosity piqued, he began to see the placenta not as an interface but as a biological factory, where stem cells could be expanded and differentiated to participate in the development of that foetus. That intrigued me and I started to collect placentas and just, you know, basically disassemble them.

Placentas have numerous benefits, he says they dont carry the same ethical controversy as embryonic stem cells, for one thing. Scientists working on embryonic stem cells have to destroy an early embryo, and that option yields them a dozen cells, which have to be culture-expanded in the laboratory into billions of cells. In contrast, the placenta houses, billions and hundreds of billions of cells, which can be expanded as well, but you're starting out with a dramatically larger starting material.

Increasingly, scientists in the anti-ageing sphere are focusing on an approach that seems like the opposite of planting fresh stem cells into our bodies. Experts such as Ilaria Bellantuono at Sheffield Universitys Healthy Lifespan Institute are working towards creating senolytics medication that could kill off our senescent cells, the zombie cells that accumulate in tissues as we age and cause chronic inflammation. I think stem cells are very good for specific disease, where the environment is still young, Bellantuono says, but the data in animal models tells us that senolytics are actually able to delay the onset and reduce the severity of multiple diseases at the same time for example, there is evidence for osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and diabetes. She explains that while human trials are still in their early stages, senolytics are likely to be more cost-effective than stem cell therapy and the status quo of older patients taking multiple pills for multiple diseases, which can interact with each other. Besides, she adds, they may actually work in tandem with stem-cell based therapies in the future, with senolytics creating a more hospitable environment in tissues to allow stem cells to do their work.

And as for the so-called penis facial? Its far from the only ultra-expensive stem cell skincare making bold anti-ageing claims but youre probably better off saving your money, as you are with the experimental medical treatments on offer. Stem cells are definitely exciting but theyre not the key to eternal youth. At least, not yet.

Robert Harari will be one of the speakers at WIRED Health in London on March 25, 2020. For more details, and to book your ticket, click here

Why do modern tomatoes taste so bad?

How Tesla became the world's most overvalued car company

Marvel at the incredible real-life Iron Man

How Slack ruined work

Follow WIRED on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn

Get The Email from WIRED, your no-nonsense briefing on all the biggest stories in technology, business and science. In your inbox every weekday at 12pm sharp.

by entering your email address, you agree to our privacy policy

Thank You. You have successfully subscribed to our newsletter. You will hear from us shortly.

Sorry, you have entered an invalid email. Please refresh and try again.

Continued here:
Are stem cells really the key to making humans live longer? - Wired.co.uk

6 habits of highly healthy brains – Ladders

Posted on February 17, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

The relationships between our brain and body and the world around us are complex. What you do or dont do can significantly change how your health and wellbeing.

A healthy brain is determined by both biological and physiological factors genes, hormones, the immune system, nutrition, exercise, and other lifestyle choices.

Social, psychological and environmental factors including relationships, stress, emotions, mindset, life events and current circumstances also contribute to your brain health.

Each element can impact others in a multi-directional and dynamic way. Example, your thoughts can influence your physical health (which is why chronic stress can lead to abnormal heart rhythms or heart attacks).

Everyone wants to live an active, vibrant life for as long as possible. And that goal depends on robust brain health. You cant do much about your genes, but other physiological, social and environmental factors can be modified to improve your brain.

Our brains naturally decline if we do nothing to protect them. However, if we intervene early, we can slow the decline process its easier to protect a healthy brain than to try to repair damage once it is extensive.

You can improve your lifestyle habits to promote a highly healthy brain one free of physical or mental illness, disease, and pain. We have more control over our ageing brains than we realise.

These habits are just a reminder you already know the importance of these lifestyle choices. It pays to make a conscious effort to help yourself your brain will thank you.

That means eating lots of foods associated with slowing cognitive decline blueberries, vegetables (leafy greens kale, spinach, broccoli), whole grains, getting protein from fish and legumes and choosing healthy unsaturated fats (olive oil) over saturated fats (butter).

The connection between what goes into your body and how your brain performs is a strong one. The best diet should also be good for your brain, your heart and blood vessels.

Omega-3 fats from fish or nuts fight inflammation associated with neurodegeneration. Fruit and vegetables combat age-related oxidative stress that causes wear and tear on brain cells, says Dr Gary Small, a professor of psychiatry and ageing, and director of the Longevity Center at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience & Human Behavior, University of California, Los Angeles.

Find your moment or place of calm and separate yourself from chronic stress.

Chronic stress can change the wiring of our brains.Stress shrinks the brains memory centres, and the stress hormone cortisol temporarily impairs memory, says Dr Small.

To reverse stress and improve your mood and memory, adopt relaxation methods like meditation. Meditation even rewires the brain and improves measures of chromosomes telomere (protective cap) length, which predicts longer life expectancy argues Dr Small.

Find your place or moment of calm, and do something pleasurable that makes you come alive a personal passion project can help you destress.

Physical activity is one of the best things you can do for your brain and body. You already know the countless benefits of exercising.

Dozens ofresearchhave found that that nearly any type of physical activity walking, running, cycling, minimal weight-lifting and even mindful exercise such as yoga contribute to improved cognitive performance.

Exercise stimulates the brain to release brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a molecule essential for repairing brain cells and creating connections between them.

Physical activity also boosts endorphins, which can lift your mood. Aerobic exercise helps improve the health of brain tissue by increasing blood flow to the brain and reducing the chances of injury to the brain from cholesterol buildup in blood vessels and from high blood pressure, says Dr Joel Salinas, a neurologist at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital.

A simple walk outdoors gets you away from digital devices and into nature. Youll do your best thinking when walking.

Stimulating and challenging the brain helps it stay fit and firing. Spend some time in new thoughts.

To improve your brain health, try to do one activity that challenges the mind every day spend some time in new thoughts. The desire to learn and understand other people, ideas, cultures and concepts can boost your brain.

higher cognitive activity endows the brain with a greater ability to endure the effects of brain pathologies compared to a person with lower cognitive engagement throughout life, says David S. Knopman, M.D., a clinical neurologist involved in research in late-life cognitive disorders.

Lifelong learning and mentally challenging work build cognitive reserve. Find reasonably challenging activities you can practice regularly try activities that combine mental, social and physical challenges.

Were social creatures meaningful social connections make us happier. Happiness makes your brain work better.

Psychological studies show that conversation stimulates the brain. It may seem effortless to many, but it requires a complex combination of skills including attention, memory, thinking, speech and social awareness.

Astudypublished in theAmerican Journal of Public Healthfound that better social interaction can help protect the brain against dementia and Alzheimers.

Social connections are as important to our flourishing as the need for food, safety, and shelter. The urge to connect is a life-long human need.

Matthew Lieberman, a social psychologist, neuroscientist, and author ofSocial: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect,sees the brain as the center of the social self. He writes in his book, Its hard to find meaning in what we do if at some level it doesnt help someone else or make someone happier.

Researchers at the Oregon Health & Science University and the University of Michigan havesuggestedthat human interaction and conversation could be the keys to maintaining brain function as we grow older.

Supportive friends, family and social connections helps you live longer, happier and healthier. Socialising reduces the harmful effects of stress

Sleep is the number one, fundamental bedrock of good health. A good night sleep every night should be a priority, not a luxury.

Without good sleep, we see increased anxiety and stress. Sleep is restorative, helping you be more mentally energetic and productive, advises Sandra Bond Chapman, Ph.D., founder and chief director of the Center for BrainHealth at the University of Texas at Dallas and author ofMake Your Brain Smarter.

Apart from getting a good and quality night sleep, make time for wakeful rest it pays to plan breaks in between your busy schedule. Plan downtime on your calendar.

After a busy day, give your brain time to recover sit back, close your eyes and let your mind wander (spontaneous thought in our wakeful life) in the knowledge that your brain is busy consolidating information.

In a study onBoosting Long-Term Memory via Wakeful Rest,the authors found that wakeful rest without any external stimulation allows the brain to consolidate the memories of what it has learned.

It is never too early or too late to start living more healthily. Your daily habits have more impact on how long and how well you live plan to eat well, take short walks, engage in mental stimulation, and manage your social connections for better brain health.

This article first appeared on Medium.

Read more from the original source:
6 habits of highly healthy brains - Ladders

Marketing To 100-Year-Olds: How Longevity Will Transform Finance, Healthcare And Education – Forbes

Posted on February 17, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

Right now, Stanford University is addressing a pressing and fascinating question:

What happens to society when everyone starts living to 100? How will we stay physically fit, financially stable and mentally sharp, especially in that back half?

Exploring these questions is the goal of the Stanford Longevity Project. To answer them, theyve partnered with major brands like Wells Fargo, Instructure, and Principal to help research key elements like financial security, lifelong learning, and healthcare.

Despite Americas average life expectancy declining the past couple years due to more overdoses, suicides and alcohol-related illnesses, people are going to be able to live longer. Strong advancements have been made in cancer. This month, the U.S. saw its sharpest one year decline in cancer death rate. That will save millions of lives alone.

But this isnt just a health and wellness conversation. What this presents are multiple opportunities in multiple verticals for marketers.

One of the biggest trends at CES this month was a new generation of healthcare wearables. There were earbuds designed to detect blood pressure for those with hypertension, temporary tattoos that tell you when to get out of the sun, smart glasses that assist people with dyslexia and watches that detect sleep apnea. These technologies are all discreet, easy to use, and built in to everyday things we already use.

We are heading toward a near future in which every human body will have a functioning check engine light. You can imagine how much better healthcare will be when a sensor will tell you something needs attention, rather than panicked scrolling through WebMD.

We will have the ability to know when something is wrong and immediately trigger tests, medication and treatment. Imagine if that sensor, using the IoT, could immediately send and fill a prescription for you.

This is all coming down the pipeline, and its going to help us live longer. Its also going to change the way marketers do their jobs and open up countless new opportunities to reach new audiences.

Heres what some of those opportunities will look like.

Cincinnati has one of the best healthcare startup scenes in the country. Cincinnati Childrens Hospital is ranked #3 nationally. CincyTech has raised nearly a billion in healthcare follow-on investment over the past ten years.

The common thread these organizations share is they are tackling high-use issues in different ways. That includes everything from small, wearable, injectable devices (Enable Injections) that can be used for a multitude of conditions, to analyzing peoples sweat to ensure proper medication dosing (Eccrine Systems).

One of the most interesting might be Sense Diagnostics because their simple device addresses a huge need: stroke detection. Right now there isnt a good way to tell which kind of stroke (transient ischemic, ischemic, or hemorrhagic) someone is having in the field. An ambulance with this non-invasive device will be able to quickly diagnose which stroke is occuring, allowing them to begin the best possible treatment immediately.

As people begin living longer, well see that the traditional approach to education and work must change. A longer living workforce will be more likely to need to reskill for second and third careers.

Private equity firm Thoma Bravo is buying Instructure (makers of the popular Canvas Learning Management System) for $2 billion, precisely because of the projected growth and opportunity in education as people extend their careers.

Of course, four-year higher education will still exist. But new avenues and approaches to learning will emerge as supplemental or alternative ways of reskilling for jobs that will target people in their 60s, 70s, and 80s.

Curricula will obviously also have to adapt, becoming more flexible, personalized, and life-long. Being able to brush up every three months on relevant skills via a subscription model may be a better future model for education than entering a full-time program. Most of the marketing opportunities will be around aiding employers, because they have the budgets and the competition for retention.

Living longer changes a persons entire financial strategy.

Most standard retirement principles assume that retirement will last a maximum of 30 years. The commonly-used "4% rule" of retirement is an example of this. However, if you live to 100 or beyond, your retirement could last 35 years, 40 years, or longer, said Nathan Hamilton, director and industry analyst at The Ascent from The Motley Fool.

A deferred annuity could be worth a look. Essentially, you put some money into an annuity when you first retire (or earlier), but that won't start paying out until a certain agesay, 80 or 85. The idea is that even if your retirement nest egg is getting low as you get older, this move guarantees you a predictable income stream for life.

How we invest may also change as we look to create steady income streams that kick in throughout retirement rather than just upfront. This also may inevitably cause people to work later and longer especially as our workforce trends farther away from physical labor to more mental and creative labor.

The biggest takeaway here isnt that living longer will impact one thing. It will impact everything.

As humans, we need to think about that for ourselves and our future generations. And as marketers and entrepreneurs, we can start thinking about ways we can make that reality better, more productive, and more secure for people.

Visit link:
Marketing To 100-Year-Olds: How Longevity Will Transform Finance, Healthcare And Education - Forbes

Precision Medicine Software Market 2020 Trends, Market Share, Industry Size, Opportunities, Analysis and Forecast by 2026 – Instant Tech News

Posted on February 17, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

Precision Medicine Software Market Overview:

Precision Medicine Software Market was valued at USD 1.2 Billion in 2018 and is projected to reach USD 2.8 Billion by 2026, growing at a CAGR of 11.2% from 2019 to 2026.

In the report, we thoroughly examine and analyze the Global market for Precision Medicine Software so that market participants can improve their business strategy and ensure long-term success. The reports authors used easy-to-understand language and complex statistical images, but provided detailed information and data on the global Precision Medicine Software market. This report provides players with useful information and suggests result-based ideas to give them a competitive advantage in the global Precision Medicine Software market. Show how other players compete in the global Precision Medicine Software market and explain the strategies you use to differentiate yourself from other participants.

The researchers provided quantitative and qualitative analyzes with evaluations of the absolute dollar opportunity in the report. The report also includes an analysis of Porters Five Forces and PESTLE for more detailed comparisons and other important studies. Each section of the report offers players something to improve their gross margins, sales and marketing strategies, and profit margins. As a tool for insightful market analysis, this report enables players to identify the changes they need to do business and improve their operations. You can also identify key electrical bags and compete with other players in the global Precision Medicine Software market.

Request a Report Brochure @ https://www.verifiedmarketresearch.com/download-sample/?rid=27982&utm_source=ITN&utm_medium=001

Top 10 Companies in the Precision Medicine Software Market Research Report:

2bPrecise LLC, Syapse, PierianDx, Fabric Genomics, SOPHiA GENETICS SA, N-of-One, Foundation Medicine, Human Longevity, Sunquest Information Systems Translational Software,

Precision Medicine Software Market Competition:

Each company evaluated in the report is examined for various factors such as the product and application portfolio, market share, growth potential, future plans and recent developments. Readers gain a comprehensive understanding and knowledge of the competitive environment. Most importantly, this report describes the strategies that key players in the global Precision Medicine Software market use to maintain their advantage. It shows how market competition will change in the coming years and how players are preparing to anticipate the competition.

Precision Medicine Software Market Segmentation:

The analysts who wrote the report ranked the global Precision Medicine Software market by product, application, and region. All sectors were examined in detail, focusing on CAGR, market size, growth potential, market share and other important factors. The segment studies included in the report will help players focus on the lucrative areas of the global Precision Medicine Software market. Regional analysis will help players strengthen their base in the major regional markets. This shows the opportunities for unexplored growth in local markets and how capital can be used in the forecast period.

Regions Covered by the global market for Smart Camera:

Middle East and Africa (GCC countries and Egypt)North America (USA, Mexico and Canada)South America (Brazil, etc.)Europe (Turkey, Germany, Russia, Great Britain, Italy, France etc.)Asia Pacific (Vietnam, China, Malaysia, Japan, Philippines, Korea, Thailand, India, Indonesia and Australia)

Ask for Discount @ https://www.verifiedmarketresearch.com/ask-for-discount/?rid=27982&utm_source=ITN&utm_medium=001

Table of Content

1 Introduction of Precision Medicine Software Market

1.1 Overview of the Market1.2 Scope of Report1.3 Assumptions

2 Executive Summary

3 Research Methodology of Verified Market Research

3.1 Data Mining3.2 Validation3.3 Primary Interviews3.4 List of Data Sources

4 Precision Medicine Software Market Outlook

4.1 Overview4.2 Market Dynamics4.2.1 Drivers4.2.2 Restraints4.2.3 Opportunities4.3 Porters Five Force Model4.4 Value Chain Analysis

5 Precision Medicine Software Market, By Deployment Model

5.1 Overview

6 Precision Medicine Software Market, By Solution

6.1 Overview

7 Precision Medicine Software Market, By Vertical

7.1 Overview

8 Precision Medicine Software Market, By Geography

8.1 Overview8.2 North America8.2.1 U.S.8.2.2 Canada8.2.3 Mexico8.3 Europe8.3.1 Germany8.3.2 U.K.8.3.3 France8.3.4 Rest of Europe8.4 Asia Pacific8.4.1 China8.4.2 Japan8.4.3 India8.4.4 Rest of Asia Pacific8.5 Rest of the World8.5.1 Latin America8.5.2 Middle East

9 Precision Medicine Software Market Competitive Landscape

9.1 Overview9.2 Company Market Ranking9.3 Key Development Strategies

10 Company Profiles

10.1.1 Overview10.1.2 Financial Performance10.1.3 Product Outlook10.1.4 Key Developments

11 Appendix

11.1 Related Research

Get a Complete Market Report in your Inbox within 24 hours @ https://www.verifiedmarketresearch.com/product/Precision-Medicine-Software-Market/?utm_source=ITN&utm_medium=001

About Us:

Verified market research partners with clients to provide insight into strategic and growth analytics; data that help achieve business goals and targets. Our core values include trust, integrity, and authenticity for our clients.

Analysts with high expertise in data gathering and governance utilize industry techniques to collate and examine data at all stages. Our analysts are trained to combine modern data collection techniques, superior research methodology, subject expertise and years of collective experience to produce informative and accurate research reports.

Mr. Edwyne FernandesCall: +1 (650) 781 4080Email: [emailprotected]

TAGS: Precision Medicine Software Market Size, Precision Medicine Software Market Growth, Precision Medicine Software Market Forecast, Precision Medicine Software Market Analysis, Precision Medicine Software Market Trends, Precision Medicine Software Market

Anti-Senescence Therapy Market- A comprehensive assessment of current dynamics and emerging avenues – News Parents

Posted on February 17, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

The research study provided by Acquire Market Research on Global Anti-Senescence Therapy Industry offers a strategic assessment of the Anti-Senescence Therapy market. The industry report focuses on the growth opportunities, which are expected to help the market expand their operations in the existing markets. Market figures such as Basis Points[BPS], CAGR, market share, revenue, production, consumption, gross margin, and price are accurately calculated and forecast with the use of advanced tools and sources.

The report offers a succinct research study of the global Anti-Senescence Therapy market. It takes into consideration market competition, segmentation, geographical expansion, regional growth, market size, and other factors that are important from a market experts point of view. Readers are provided with data on manufacturing cost analysis, manufacturing process analysis, price analysis, and other studies imperative for understanding the global Anti-Senescence Therapy market.

Click Here To Access The Sample Report: https://www.acquiremarketresearch.com/sample-request/306636/

The key players profiled in this report include: Unity Biotechnology, Siwa Therapeutics, Calico LLC, AgeX TherapeuticsInc, Numeric Biotech, Human Longevity Inc. (HLI), Cleara Biotech, OisinBiotechnologies, Recursion Pharmaceuticals, Sierra Sciences, Proteostasis Therapeutics, Senolytic Therapeutics, Allergan

Global Anti-Senescence Therapy Market by Type Segments: Gene Therapy, ImmunOther

Global Anti-Senescence Therapy Market Applications: Cardiovascular Diseases, Neural Degenerative Diseases, Ophthalmology Disorders, Other

The Anti-Senescence Therapy report compiles a complete analysis of the parent market including dependent and independent sectors. The regional study offered in the report helps to become conversant with important market opportunities available in different parts of the world. The report provides strategic recommendations on the basis of the senior analysts consultation, thereby offering a clear perspective to clients to identify the strategy that is likely to help them penetrate a market. It demonstrates graphical representation with figures and pictures for elucidation.

To Get This Report At Beneficial Rates: https://www.acquiremarketresearch.com/discount-request/306636/

Furthermore, this Anti-Senescence Therapy Market study will help our clients solve the following issues:

Cyclical dynamics-We foresee dynamics of industries by using core analytical and unconventional market research approaches. Our clients use insights provided by us to manoeuvre themselves through market uncertainties and disruptions.

Identifying key cannibalizes Strong substitute for a product or service is the most prominent threat. Our clients can identify key cannibalizes of a market, by procuring our research. This helps them in aligning their new product development/launch strategies in advance.

Spotting emerging trends-Our Ecosystem offering helps the client to identify emerging market trends. We also analyze possible impact and disruptions which a market is likely to witness by the emergence of a particular trend. Our proactive analysis helps clients to have an early mover advantage.

Interrelated opportunities- This Anti-Senescence Therapy Market report is likely to allow clients to make decisions based on data, thereby increasing the chances of adoption of strategies that are best suited for the real world.

Anti-Senescence Therapy Market by Region Segmentation: North America Country (United States, Canada)Asia Country (China, Japan, India, Korea)Europe Country (Germany, UK, France, Italy)Other Country (Middle East, Africa, GCC)

Primary Objectives of the Global Anti-Senescence Therapy Market Report:1) To analyze target consumers and their preferences.2) To determine potential opportunities, challenges, obstacles, and threats in the global Anti-Senescence Therapy3) To identify and make suitable business plans according to industry and economic shifts.4) To assess market rivalry and obtain maximum competitive advantages.5) To mitigate risks and hurdles to drive informed business decisions.

To Know More About The Assumptions in This Market Report: https://www.acquiremarketresearch.com/industry-reports/anti-senescence-therapy-market/306636/

Request a customized copy of Anti-Senescence Therapy reportIf you wish to find more details of the report or want customization, contact us. You can get a detailed summary of the entire research here. If you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will customize the report as you want.

The report segments the market into various sub-segments, therefore, it covers the overall market. The approximations of the revenue numbers of the overall market and its sub-segments are also additionally included in this report. Moreover, the report highlights some of the major growth prospects, including new product launches, M&A, R&D, collaborations, joint ventures, agreements, partnerships, and growth of the key players operating in the Anti-Senescence Therapy market. It determines the factors that are directly responsible for driving the market growth, that comprise production strategies and methodologies, development platforms, and the product model.

About us:

Acquire Market Research is a market research-based company empowering companies with data-driven insights. We provide Market Research Reports with accurate and well-informed data, Real-Time with Real Application. A good research methodology proves to be powerful and simplified information that applied right from day-to-day lives to complex decisions helps us navigate through with vision, purpose and well-armed strategies. At Acquire Market Research, we constantly strive for innovation in the techniques and the quality of analysis that goes into our reports.

Sally Mach555 Madison Avenue,5th Floor, Manhattan,New York, 10022 USAPhone No: +1 (800) 663-5579Email ID: [emailprotected]

Go here to read the rest:
Anti-Senescence Therapy Market- A comprehensive assessment of current dynamics and emerging avenues - News Parents

Rising stress levels will drop the average body temperature – The Daily Titan

Posted on February 17, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

Between December and February, the flu is at an all-time high. There are some who are coughing, sneezing or going through terrible headaches as they get through their everyday lives.

According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people are most likely to experience the flu for three to four days. In that time span, there is a correlation between handling illness and the way body temperature reflects on this notion.

The average human body temperature is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. However, recent studies have analyzed the average human body temperature has dropped to 97.5 to 97.9 degrees Fahrenheit.

Scientists question whether the change in body temperature is the result of the change in physical longevity and body type of the normal human body.

Although the research is still developing, a change in body temperature clearly reflects a persons health given their current environment and could possibly show the immune systems ability to adapt.

According to the International Journal of Biometeorology, the change in core body temperature correlates to heart rate and skin temperature affected through different environmental and working conditions.

A study by Stanford Medicine stated that the decline in body temperature goes back to after the events of the Civil War. During that time, those who were born in the early 1800s had a much higher body temperature by 1.06 degrees Fahrenheit than the average human born during the 1990s.

In the case of the academic environments, such as college, there is a heavy correlation to students ways of coping to get over the flu with their studies and their overall body temperature.

The concept of health and academics clash. With the way students study for finals, projects and other forms of assignments that need to be finished at a discrete deadline, a healthy lifestyle is usually not followed.

The stresses of everything in life tend to weaken your immune system. (Students are) getting less sleep dealing with everything else that theyre going to end up weakening their immune system where they get sick and are just exacerbating the problem, said Richard Coulter, history major.

The idea of putting too much stress on studying not only damages a students psychological health, but also their physical health.

Todays academic culture thrives with succeeding in classes at the cost of students physical well-being. Whether were arrogant in not taking the right medication or not sleeping enough, the idea of self-care seems non-existent within the academia.

Coulter also said students shouldnt take their academics too harshly in the face of coming down with the flu while studying.

Dont overwork yourself because those stresses (with your academics) are whats going to make that time of year so much more miserable, Coulter said.

There are ways the cold or flu can be remedied for a persons health so they dont have to further get sick or catch another flu virus; especially when there are people who are always busy throughout the day.

Though methods of feeling better may vary, there are some who say medicine, such as Tylenol, gets the job done.

Marketing major Maxwell Baranoff said, Go to the store, get some Tylenol, get over it, when asked about his method of getting over the flu.

Yet there are those who say hot drinks and various forms of health devices help battle the flu.

Ive been drinking so much tea, I got a humidifier for my throat, said Shantay Alvarez, psychology major.

Considering the correlation with body temperature and health, its important for anyone, especially college students, to consider their body temperature next time they come down with the flu.

Here is the original post:
Rising stress levels will drop the average body temperature - The Daily Titan

Sonic the Hedgehog movie review: a satisfying walkthrough for any fan – Vox.com

Posted on February 17, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

Film adaptations of video games never arrive quietly. Gaming is a billion-dollar industry; fans are notably, even infamously, hardcore. And when it comes to transitioning particularly cartoonish gaming heroes from their fantastically illogical worlds to a conventional, human-filled, real-life Earth, filmmakers face an even more daunting task of suspending our disbelief.

And for protective fans of classic video gaming mascots like Pikachu, Mario, or Sonic the Hedgehog, it would be especially impossible to forgive any crew who turned a beloved character into an unrecognizable figure. Its hard to trust Hollywood, the land of the Minions, to not reduce beloved, familiar faces into sentient, insufferably quippy Happy Meal toys.

When various studios announced live-action films based on all three of the above characters in the mid-2010s, fans grimaced. Sonic the Hedgehog, Paramount Pictures stab at the electric-blue Sega mainstay, is the second to make it to theaters. But as early marketing efforts were rolled out last year, concerns that Sonic would be manipulated by the Hollywood machine into a catchphrase-spouting terror mounted.

Perhaps fears of Sonics move to live-action feature films were needlessly alarmist, especially following Detective Pikachu. 2019s live-action Pokmon adaptation had its own prerelease concerns, since Pokmon is a multimedia franchise full of hundreds of characters and lore much more beloved and expansive than Sonics. But that movie succeeded in honoring the world upon which it was based, even if the story itself was a little flat and kiddy. Know-nothings might have sometimes struggled to follow along. But for Pokmon lovers, it was a wonderful realization of the games world.

Pikachu is a character without a preexisting personality, however; Pokmons internal logic is what most compels its fans. Sonics video games, conversely, are light on story. Its Sonic himself who has been their main attraction since the 1990s, when he was Segas high-speed challenger to Nintendos slow and stubby Super Mario.

Where Mario was a mustachioed man who could jump and jog and little else, Sonic was the Blue Blur, radiating the rad ethos of the 90s. That sensibility was best typified by a disdain for authority (think Bart Simpson), an obsession with rock stardom, eyerolls, and sarcasm. But theres a lot about the 90s that does not hold up, including Sonics personality.

People who loved Sonic and his games in his heyday continue to defend him, to respect him, to wish the best for him. Its still fun to watch him zip through loop-de-loop levels, dashing into robots and other creatures in his path without taking a breath. The classic games different bits of theme music remain unforgettable; the franchise has spawned years worth of memes and in-jokes, a true testament to longevity. Sonics supporting cast is similarly beloved in its own right, even as it has continued to expand at a sometimes infuriating rate. For a Sonic movie to be successful, it had to acknowledge the truly cool parts of classic Sonic, not just the sick, dude ones.

Pleasing nostalgic video game fans is rarely easy. What provided Sonic the Hedgehog its biggest barrier was a design gaffe appalling to everyone, not just hedge-heads. The movies first marketing materials, released in December 2018 (a poster) and April 2019 (a trailer), revealed an ... interesting ... reimagining of Sonic, with muscley calves and a full set of human-like teeth. He had bare hands instead of his trademark gloves; his eyes were small and wide set, not the shiny, oversized eyes hed always had in games.

The unveiling of the design did not go well, inspiring such vaunted accolades as nightmare, ugly [and] toothy, and frightfully realistic. So hated was Sonics original design that its director apologized and recalled it, announcing that the character would be entirely reworked for the final film. Thats a whole lot of CGI to redo on a main character, so the news elicited concerns about animators working overtime to make the movies fall release date. Sonic the Hedgehog was eventually pushed back three months, from November 2019 to February 2020, to accommodate the redesign work. But the debacle cast a pall over a production whose video game-fan audience was already skeptical.

Id count myself strongly among those initial skeptics, whose affection for Sonic is both defensive and begrudging. Even when Sonic talks too much in his video games, or the games fall apart as in the 2006 game Sonic the Hedgehog, in which he kisses a human woman on the lips theres a joyous charm to someone still so stuck in the 90s. Hes a nostalgic object wed oft-prefer to leave encased in amber.

In making the character work for a broader audience, the team behind Sonic the Hedgehog didnt sacrifice the at-times embarrassing, at-times lovable parts of Sonic. In fact, its self-aware of how tiresome Sonic can be, while still reminding fans of why we remain attached to him.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Sonic the Hedgehog manages this by telling a unique origin story, reimagining Sonic for an unfamiliar audience while winking heavily to his history. The film paints the character (voiced by the always charming Ben Schwartz) as an excitable teen whose enthusiasm belies his loneliness. Blessed with the hypnotic power of super speed, hes been hiding for most of his life, evading bad actors who would harness his speed to wreak havoc across the universe. He lives in the tiny town of Green Hills, Montana (the name is a reference to the video games), and he passes his time running around the area just quickly enough to go unseen by the folks who would freak out if they found him.

Those include Sheriff Tom Wachowski (James Marsden), a cop from Green Hills who wants to make a name for himself by joining the San Francisco Police Department. Toms life in Montana is mundane, he says; what is his purpose? Sonic poses that same question to himself, as he struggles to make peace with his solitude. So when Sonic and Tom cross paths, and Sonic reveals that hes been watching Tom and his wife from afar and imagining a life with them, its a little creepy. But mostly its the universe bringing together two guys who want fulfillment, so they can pair up to go out and find it.

Sonic is a buddy comedy in this way, focused heavily on the relationship between a grown man and his teenage, talking-hedgehog pseudo-son. Its funny and sweet, if a little plodding and bogged down by bathroom humor (for the kids!). But delving into a side of the Sonic backstory thats hardly been broached by the video games works well enough, as its hard for fans to get too annoyed with it, and it plops kids right into Sonics world without confusing them too much. Theres no Tom in the video games, but hes a decent straight man to Sonics exuberant big kid, one who can help calm down what could have easily become a hyperactive movie.

Sonic the Hedgehog is a road trip movie and an action-comedy, too. Sonic and Tom end up on the run (heh) from Jim Carrey as the evil genius Dr. Robotnik, whos trying to harness Sonics power for his own use, under the guise of helping the FBI protect the country from an unidentified speeding blue hedgehog. Toms involvement in helping Sonic flee is a contrivance designed to give Jim Carrey another human to play against, which is a little tiresome. But Carreys face is the human embodiment of Play-doh, which helps make an otherwise flat villain from the video games into a more entertaining, cartoon-y one, which feels fitting for this movie.

Sonic is a video game character first and foremost, and the movie never forgets that. Its equivalent of fight scenes, when Sonics speed is really put to the test, are easily its most delightful we watch the world from his hyperdrive perspective, as everything halts around him and he begins to move enemies ever-so-slightly out of position. Sonic was as much a mileage-per-hour as he was a hedgehog, to the point where if anyone dared seem faster than him, it was a major offense. The loyalty to this aspect of the character, even if being fast does become a one-note gimmick after 90 minutes, is welcome.

There are Easter eggs, too, that suggest that this team really does care about Sonic as more than just a marketing tool for a younger generation. If the name Sanic means anything to you, youll be pleased. Familiar sound effects play on occasion. One of the games most famous musical motifs shows up at the end, and it took me by tearful surprise. And the tiny post-credits scene (yep, theres one of those) introduced a friendly face who made me want a sequel, like, yesterday. Most importantly, the movies final rendering of Sonic, although not perfect, is so much more pleasant to look at than its first attempt. This is a Sonic we can learn to love.

The rest is here:
Sonic the Hedgehog movie review: a satisfying walkthrough for any fan - Vox.com

What ‘dry fasting’ is and why you shouldn’t do it – PostBulletin.com

Posted on February 17, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

A new fad diet making the rounds on wellness influencer Instagram won't actually help you lose weight. And it could cause dehydration, urinary tract infections, kidney stones, organ failure - even death.

It's called "dry fasting." It goes beyond what most of us would consider fasting - abstaining from solid food or liquid calories - and requires consuming no water or liquids of any kind for many hours or even days at a time.

Instagram and other social media sites have provided a glossy new platform for extremely dubious health and nutrition claims. Posts about dry fasting often tout the need to "heal" or "rest" or "reset" your kidneys, or "boost" their filtration. In practice, what dry fasting will do is make you look a bit more toned, because your body is using up the water in your cells for energy.

Even more dubious claims suggest that dry fasting forces your body to burn toxins, or fat, or inflammation, or tumors. It does not. When you stop feeding your body calories, it breaks down muscle and fat. The toxic byproducts of that breakdown process build up in your system, requiring extra hydration to flush them out.

In other words, if you're abstaining from food, your body needs more water, not less.

Experts agree: There is no dietary or nutritional reason to go on a "dry fast."

"I don't recommend it at all," said Dr. Pauline Yi, a physician at UCLA Health Beverly Hills who regularly treats patients in their late teens and early 20s. She said intermittent fasting and other fasting-type diets are a popular topic with patients, and she has no problem with people trying them out.

"But I also tell them when you're fasting you have to drink water," she said. "You cannot go without hydration."

The majority of the human body is water. Your individual water consumption needs depend on your height, weight, health and the climate, but generally speaking, Yi said people should be consuming at least 68 ounces - almost nine cups - of water every day.

Cary Kreutzer, an associate professor at USC's schools of gerontology and medicine whose area of expertise includes nutrition and diet, says digestive systems aren't meant to have extended "breaks." She likened making your kidneys go without water to letting your car's engine run out of oil. "You can basically burn out some parts of the car that you're going to have to get replaced," she said. "You don't want those replacement parts to include your vital organs."

Another unintended consequence of dry fasting: It sets your body in water-conservation mode.

"Your body likes homeostasis," said Yi, the physician. "If you're going to cut back on water, your body will produce hormones and chemicals to hold onto any water."

So while you might gain a very short-term benefit by looking a tiny bit more toned while you're severely dehydrated (body-builders have been known to dry fast before competitions for that reason), once you consume liquid again, your body rebounds and desperately hangs on to even more water than before. It's like yo-yo dieting in fast motion.

Dry fasting is not the same thing as intermittent fasting, which has become a popular fad diet in recent years. There are different variations of intermittent fasting, but most people start with 16 hours of fasting followed by eight hours of eating. Martin Berkhan created the "LeanGains" 16:8 intermittent fasting guide and is widely credited with popularizing the diet. On his website, leangains.com, Berkhan writes that during the 16-hour fasting window, coffee, calorie-free sweeteners, diet soda, sugar-free gum and up to a teaspoon of milk in a cup of coffee won't break the fast.

The subreddit for fasting, r/fasting, has an "Introduction to Intermittent Fasting" guide that contains the following tips for surviving the fasting portion of your day:

Always carry water, a canteen, a bottle, or keep a full glass within sight

Water, water, water, water

Valter Longo has studied starvation, fasting and calorie restriction in humans for nearly 30 years. He's currently the director of the Longevity Institute at USC and a professor of gerontology. He developed the Fasting-Mimicking Diet, or FMD, a fasting-type diet with small prepackaged meals intended to provide the health and longevity benefits of a five-day fast without requiring a doctor's supervision. Fasting-type diets have grown in popularity in recent years for a simple reason, he said: "Because they work."

But he said he's not aware of any reputable studies about the effects of dry fasting, and said he wouldn't even consider putting one together, also for a simple reason: It's incredibly dangerous.

"For sure, the body needs to reset, but there are safe ways of doing that, and dry fasting is not one of them," Longo said. "We require water."

His work has also involved looking at how cultures and religions have engaged with starvation and fasting throughout human history, and says he hasn't heard of any that involved extended fasting without water. The closest is Ramadan, during which observers go without food or water during daylight hours - but at most, that lasts for 16 hours, and it's preceded and followed by extensive hydration.

If someone tries dry fasting for a full day, Longo said, they risk side effects like developing kidney stones. Longer than that, and you start risking your life.

Some proponents of "dry fasting" eschew water but recommend hydrating with fresh fruits and vegetables. Hydrating with fruit is certainly better than not hydrating at all. An orange has about a half-cup of water in it; to get to the recommended 68 ounces of water a day, you'd have to eat around 17 oranges. That's a lot of peeling.

So, in conclusion: Dry fasting puts you at risk of kidney stones or organ failure. There are no known, proven long-term benefits to doing it. Though different types of fasts and fasting diets can be beneficial, there is no medical evidence to suggest you need to stop consuming water for any period of time, or that water from fruit is better for you than filtered drinking water. Do not take medical advice from a photo of a person in a sarong.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Excerpt from:
What 'dry fasting' is and why you shouldn't do it - PostBulletin.com

Vice President Venkaiah Naidu releases commemorative postal stamp and coffee table book to commemorate 100 years of Jamshedpur – Avenue Mail

Posted on February 17, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

Vice President Venkaiah Naidu releases commemorative postal stamp and coffee table book to commemorate 100 years of Jamshedpur Jamshedpur, Jharkhand February 17, 2020 , by News Desk 188

Applauds Tata group`s ethical approach to business

Jamshedpur, Feb 17: M Venkaiah Naidu, Vice President of India,released the commemorative postal stamp, coffee table book at Tata Auditorium -XLRI today. He was the Chief Guest of the Commemorative Function of 100 Years of Jamshedpur and was accompanied byDroupadi Murmu, Governor of Jharkhand; Champai Soren, Minister of Welfare, Government of Jharkhand andAnil Kumar, Chief Post Master General,Jharkhand.

Addressing the gathering at Tata Auditorium XLRI, the Honble Vice President of India applauded the Tata group for its ethical approach to business and commended Tata Steel for its contribution towards improving the quality of life of the community for over 100 years. Hedescribed Jamshedpur as Indias first planned industrial city that had earned the distinction of becoming the countrys role model for sustainable urban and industrial development.

He dwelt at length on the priorities of the government and outlined the investment opportunities that can contribute to the economic growth of the country. He said that the development of a sustainable strategy is increasingly becoming an imperative for companies survival and longevity and Jamshedpur is a glowing example of sustainable development.

In her address,Droupadi Murmu, Governor of Jharkhandsaid that over the last 100 years, Jamshedpur had transformed itself to become the most populous and economically-prosperous city of Jharkhand. She stressed upon the imperatives to preserve and protect the States rich tribal culture and heritage.Tribal folk and dance forms such as Jhumar, Chhau, Mundari and Santhali must not just be preserved but also nurtured. Focus should also be laid on the preservation of tribal languages, practices and social ethos,she said.

TV Narendran,CEO & Managing Director of Tata Steel, recalled that, in the year 1919, the then Governor General of India, Lord Chelmsford, had rechristened Sakchi as Jamshedpur in honour of its Founder, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata. He thanked the Government of India for releasing a commemorative postal stamp to mark the centenary of the naming of the city.

Earlier in the day,Vice President of India visited the Centre for Excellence (CFE), where he and Honble Governor of Jharkhand planted banyan tree saplings. They were facilitated through a walkthrough exhibition on the 100-year journey of Tata Workers Union (TWU) by R Ravi Prasad, President TWU. Committee Members of TWU were also present on the occasion and introduced to the Vice president of India.TWU is the first union in the country to complete 100 years having been built on the fundamental principle and spirit of working together.

Vice President of India and Governor of Jharkhand were also shown the Tata Steel Archivesat CFE where the Tata Steel story was shared with them. Tata Steel Archives is the first Business Archives in the country.

Among those present at CFE from Tata Steel were Suresh Dutt Tripathi, Vice President (Human Resource Management), Chanakya Chaudhary, Vice President (Corporate Services) and other officers from the leadership team of Corporate Services.

Like Loading...

Previous Article DLSA elucidates schemes to alleviate poverty

Next Article Health Minister Banna Gupta holds review meeting with Civil Surgeons

See the original post:
Vice President Venkaiah Naidu releases commemorative postal stamp and coffee table book to commemorate 100 years of Jamshedpur - Avenue Mail

RR Aesthetics Announces the Addition of Lamelabo by Faith Anti-Aging Skincare Products to Offerings – PR Web

Posted on February 16, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (PRWEB) February 15, 2020

RR Aesthetics, a premier medical spa in Beverly Hills, has announced it will begin offering the exclusive Lamelabo product line by the Faith Group of Osaka, Japan.

Faith Group, a technology-focused skincare company headquartered in Osaka, Japan, has a 32-year history of creating breakthrough products that improve skin from the inside out. As a research-based company, they invented the worlds most powerful collagen delivery system that relies on nano-capsules to penetrate the surface of the skin.

Faith Groups newest product line is Lamelabo, which they have developed exclusively for medical professionals.

The Lamelabo series integrates Faiths patented nano-capsule fresh collagen delivery system with MC2X, its innovative double-capsule ingredient mechanism. Together, these two technologies work to create stronger, healthier, and more radiant skin.

Collagen, a structural protein that acts as the scaffolding of skin, is abundant in younger people, but weakens as we age. However, it is possible to add fresh collagen to repair and strengthen the stratum corneum layer of skin. The Lamelabo products provide new collagen as a strong foundation to optimize the MC2X delivery of ingredients that moisturize, tone, and firm the skin.

This two-capsule technology enables hyaluronic acid, vitamin C, glycoside, and disodium adenosine to improve the skin on a superficial level, as well as to penetrate below the surface to continue providing structural benefits. The larger capsule bursts on the surface of the skin, which allows the smaller capsule to deliver ingredients below the surface to better moisturize, tone, and firm the skin.

At RR Aesthetics, we believe in offering our clients the most effective anti-aging solutions, said Rand Rusher, RN, CANS, founder of RR Aesthetics. The Lamelabo products have undergone rigorous testing to ensure their efficacy, and thats why we feel they meet our high standards for products we recommend to people who want to look younger without resorting to surgery.

The Lamelabo product line includes the following innovative products:

Clay Wash Gel Cleanse Essence Serum Moisture Gel Enrich Moisture Lotion Moisture Gel Light

To purchase these products, visit RR Aesthetics in Beverly Hills at 9735 Wilshire Blvd. Penthouse.

About Faith GroupFor 31 years, Faith Group has been committed to developing clean, safe, and effective skincare and cosmetics in Japan. Their products are always free of parabens, surfactants, mineral oils, dyes, ethanol, phenoxyethanol, and fragrances.

About RR AestheticsRand Rusher, RN, CANS, is a registered nurse with more than two decades of experience in all specialties relating to surgical and dermatologic medicine. At RR Aesthetics, he leads a team of sought-after and highly experienced skincare professionals who are devoted to the art and science of cosmetic medicine. They use their skills and extensive training in skincare and injectable products to ensure all their clients look natural and feel self-confident.

Share article on social media or email:

Original post:
RR Aesthetics Announces the Addition of Lamelabo by Faith Anti-Aging Skincare Products to Offerings - PR Web

We would trust these skin care, hair, and makeup pros with our lives – Yahoo Lifestyle

Posted on February 16, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

Every year, HelloGiggles publishes the Beauty Crush Awardsa list of the best skincare, makeup, nail, and hair products on the market. With so many creams and hairsprays and eyeshadows out there, how do we determine whats really the best? Well, for starters, we tap the minds of some of the most highly respected experts out there to make sure our product picks are top-notch.

For this years Beauty Crush Awards, we interviewed dermatologists, makeup artists, celebrity hairstylists, HelloGiggles columnists, and several beauty editors from some of our sister brands. Heres whos who.

Dendy Engelman, M.D., is a board-certified dermatologist and nationally acclaimed surgeon and dermatologist. She is widely celebrated for her expertise in neurotoxins, injectable fillers, and chemical peels, and she provides a wide range of treatments including fat removal, mole excision, Ohs surgery, and skin cancer treatment. Dr. Engelmans educational background includes a double major in psychology and French from Wofford College in South Carolina, and as a student at the Medical University of South Carolina, she earned the Presidential Scholar award and the Humanism in Medicine Scholarship for her efforts in establishing and running free medical care clinics in Charleston and Haiti.

Kavita Mariwalla, M.D., is a nationally recognized leader in dermatology and dermatologic surgery, whose expertise is in the areas of anti-aging procedures and skin cancer treatment. Prior to starting her own private practice, Dr. Mariwalla was the Director of Cutaneous Oncology at St. LukesRoosevelt and Beth Israel Medical Centers in New York. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Womens Dermatologic Society and American Society for Dermatologic Surgery in the past and is a three-time recipient of the ASDS Presidents Award for outstanding contributions to the field of dermatologic surgery. Dr. Mariwalla earned her degree in medicine at the Yale School of Medicine where she also completed her dermatology residency and fellowship training.

Tiffany J. Libby, M.D., FAAD FACMS is a board-certified dermatologist and dual fellowship-trained Mohs micrographic surgeon and cosmetic dermatologic surgeon at Brown University. Dr. Libby specializes in skin cancer, Mohs micrographic surgery, and cosmetic dermatology. She completed an accelerated 7-year combined B.S./M.D. program with Rutgers New Jersey Medical School (formerly UMDNJ) and graduated with top academic honors. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD), American Society of Dermatologic Surgery (ASDS), and American College of Mohs Surgery (ACMS).

Deanne Mraz Robinson, M.D., FAAD is a board-certified dermatologist with award-winning experience in medical, surgical, and cosmetic dermatology. Along with her extensive experience in dermatology, Dr. Robinson is active in academia and clinical researchshe was an investigator in research trials for Latisse and Kybella. She received her BAS and M.D. from The University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and went on to complete her dermatology residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital. Most recently Dr. Mraz Robinson served as Director of the Body Sculpting Center at Connecticut Dermatology Group.

With nearly 15 years of beauty know-how under his belt, Kendall Dorseys background in hair instruction sets him apart in all aspects of his artistry. His hair-cutting techniques, color application, and wig care have struck a chord with the public and beauty world, making him one of the most sought after hairdressers in his field. With clients such as Solange, Lizzo, Usher, Cardi B, Nicki Minaj and nearly every It girl on the scene, Dorsey has captivated the industry.

Patrick Kyle began his career in hair at an early age when his mom asked him to french braid her hair. After receiving a Bachelor in Fine Arts from The University of Oklahoma, he began focusing on his career in hair in NYC. His pursuits led him to his first salon job with Serge Normant at John Frieda and assisting celebrity stylist Mark Townsend. Currently, he styles at his studio and regularly works with celebrities such as Rachel Brosnahan, Chloe Bennet, Margaret Qualley, Zara Larsson, and Kim Petras.

Mika Robinson is an NYC-based writer and HelloGiggles columnist who has a passion for sharing hard-hitting stories, sometimes with a bit of comedic relief. Her monthly column, Shades of Melanin, unpacks some of the many issues that women of color experience in the beauty community, such as why many retailers dont sell dark foundation shades in-store.

Jessica L. Yarbrough is a beauty writer based in Savannah, GA and a monthly columnist for HelloGiggles. Her column, Clean, Green, and In Between explores green beauty, eco-friendly beauty, clean beauty, and natural beauty.Her work focuses on natural, holistic, and sustainable skincare and has appeared in Vogue, BAZAAR, New York Magazines The Cut, Fashionista.com, and more.

Blake Newby is the author behind HelloGiggles monthly column The Curl Corner. In it, she celebrates the versatility of textured tresses and covers everything from how to properly style your coils to how to protect them, and includes tons of expert input on curl patterns of all types. Her work also appears in The Zoe Report and The Revelist.

Tanya Tee Chavez is a NYC-based makeup artist who comes from a long lineage of performers and artist. She spent lots of time backstage as a kid in the 1980s, where she was enamored by all the glamour and bright colors. Her experience in color, make up, and aesthetics run the gamut from the studio to the runway with such luxury brands as Chanel, Laura Mercier, Bobbi Brown, and Tom Ford.

Meredith Barafs approach to makeup derives from her simple belief that beauty precedes innovation. As an artist, she is a favorite among celebrities, models, fashion houses and photographers, not only for her gentle and generous nature, but for her inspired ability to reveal each of her subjects unique beauty while expressing mood and meaning in their eyes.

Kayla Greaves is an award-winning journalist who currently holds the position of Senior Beauty Editor at InStyle.com. She was previously the Fashion & Beauty Features editor at Bustle and a Lifestyle Editor at The Huffington Post. Her work has appeared in BuzzFeed, Teen Vogue, ELLE, and more. She received a Bachelor of Arts in communications from McMaster University and graduated with honors.

Lisa DeSantis is the Deputy Beauty Director of Real Simple and Health magazines. She has also held positions at FITNESS and Allure, and has over six years of experience in the beauty industry. DeSantisreceived a Bachelor of Science in design and merchandising from Drexel University.

With over 22 years of experience under her belt, Ursula Carranza has made a name for herself in the Latinx community as a beauty expert. She is currently theFashion and Beauty Director of People en Espaol magazine and makes regular television appearances on the brands People VIP segment. Carranza received a Bachelor of Arts in journalism from Boston University and her Master of Science in journalism from Columbia University and Universitat de Barcelona.

Read the original post:
We would trust these skin care, hair, and makeup pros with our lives - Yahoo Lifestyle

CryoEM of CBD Tau Suggests Another Unique Protofibril – Alzforum

Posted on February 16, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

14 Feb 2020

Evidence continues to pile up that filaments of aggregated tau form unique strains in different tauopathies. Why is that? A paper in the February 20 Cell suggests that post-translational modifications help decide a filaments ultimate shape. Investigators led by Anthony Fitzpatrick, Columbia University, New York, paired cryo-electron microscopy images of tau filaments from people with corticobasal degeneration (CBD) and Alzheimers disease with mass spectrometry to identify amino acid adducts. They report unique modifications in the protofibril of each structure.

The powerful combination of cryo-EM with mass spectrometry gives a more complete representation of the aggregated tau protein as it actually exists in the diseased brain, said Lary Walker, Emory University, Atlanta.

Cryo-EM alone yields important insights into the core structure of tau tangles, but precisely localizing post-translational modifications adds flesh to the bones, he said.

Meanwhile, scientists led by Sjors Scheres and Michel Goedert at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, U.K., also used cryo-EM to resolve the structure of CBD fibrils. In the February 12 Nature, they report a mysterious molecule hiding in a fold in the protofibril, much like they found in tau protofibrils from a person with chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Fitzpatricks group found a similar molecule. Scheres does not believe this is a post-translational modification because it does not seem covalently attached. Together, the two papers offer the first high-resolution view of tau fibrils in CBD.

Tau Doublet. CBD tau protofibrils comprise two monomers joined back-to-back. Each C-shaped monomer comprises 107 amino acids (circles), that form 11 -sheets (solid black lines). Non-tau moieties (pink) lie trapped within the fold or are covalently connected to the outside. [Courtesy of Arakhamia et al., 2020.]

In recent years, Scheres, Goedert, and colleagues have been methodically resolving the structures of tau filaments found in various tauopathies. They found that paired helical filaments and straight fibrils of tau from AD brain contained the same C-shaped protofibril structure (Jul 2017 news). Protofibrils in tau filaments from Picks disease and chronic traumatic encephalopathy assumed different J- and C-shaped structures (Aug 2018 news; Mar 2019). No one had yet examined filaments from CBD, which form from a tau isoform containing all four microtubule-binding domains. Tau can be alternatively spliced to have either three (3R) or four (4R) of these repeats. Fibrils in Picks disease incorporate only 3R tau, those in both AD and CTE have 3R and 4R forms.

Previous structural analyses of tau fibrils with cryo-EM focused on its fibril-forming core. To isolate that, researchers used the enzyme pronase to remove the fuzzy outer coat of the fibril, revealing the more stable interior of the filament. However, pronase can strip away post-translational modifications as well, and tau accrues a whole host of them, some being disease-dependent (Jul 2015 news; Sep 2015 news). The group wondered if these alterations explain the unique structures of fibrils found in different tauopathies.

To find out, co-first authors Tamta Arakhamia, Christina Lee, and Yari Carlomagno used cryo-EM to examine the undigested tau fibrils taken postmortem from the brain of a person with CBD. As has been reported previously, the sarkosyl-insoluble material was made up of both twisted and straight filaments (Ksiezak-Reding et al., 1996). The former was twice as wide and abundant as the latter.

The two fibrils were made of the same conformer of misfolded tau. While straight fibrils comprised just one column of monomers, each rung of the twisted fibril consisted of a linked pair (see image above). For both, the core-forming protofibril spanned amino acids 274 to 380. It included the last residue of R1, all of R2, R3, and R4, and 12 residues after R4. These regions formed 11 -sheetsthree from R2, three from R3, four from R4, and one formed by the last 13 amino acids. The sheets folded into four layers, forming a C-shaped loop (see image above).

Scheres and Goedert also analyzed undigested CBD tau fibrils using cryo-EM. First author Wenjuan Zhang and colleagues found essentially the same -sheet configuration and fold as did Fitzpatrick and colleagues. Zhang also found a molecule inside the fold of the protofibril. It was not covalently attached to any amino acid. Based on the positively charged amino acids that surround it, Zhang predicted this molecule to have a net negative charge of -3, and be 4 x 9 ngstroms in size. Scheres had reported a similarly mysterious molecule inside the fold of CTE protofibrils, but that one was hydrophobic.

Arakhamia also found a large density inside the molecule, deep within a hydrophilic cavity formed by amino acids 281296 and 358374. It was not covalently bound, and so does not appear to be an amino acid modification. However, they found other large, non-tau densities adorning the outside of the fibrils. On the straight fibrils, these were attached to lysines 321, 343, 353, and 369, and to one histidine, H362. On the twisted form, they linked to K321, K353, and H362.

To identify these non-tau densities, Arakhamia and co-authors analyzed fibrils from several people with CBD by mass spectrometry, then mapped the identified PTMs onto the cryo-EM structure (see image below). The authors found numerous phospho, trimethyl, acetyl, and ubiquitin additions. Some amino acids were either acetylated or ubiquitinated. Strikingly, while a few phospho groups attached to the superficial fuzzy outer coat, acetyl and ubiquitin groups predominated in the fibril-forming core.

PTM Map. Mass spectrometry identified modifications on amino acid sidechains of tau monomers from CBD (left) and AD (right). For the most part, acetylation (blue), ubiquitination (orange), and trimethylation (red) modified the fibril-forming cores, while phosphorylation (green) took place outside. [Courtesy of Arakhamiaet al., 2020.]

I found that to be surprising, said Li Gan, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York. I would have assumed that the tau fibrils in the diseased brain would be hyperphosphorylated.

Do these modifications affect folding of tau fibrils? That acetyl and ubiquitin groups bound to the core suggested to the authors that these were present as tau fibrils formed and played a hand in their aggregation. Acetylation may make tau protein less soluble, as it neutralizes positive charges on side chains and reduces their repulsion, predicted the authors. Ubiquitin may stabilize stacks of -sheets by providing more surfaces for hydrogen bonding. Likewise, Zhang and colleagues think the mysterious hydrophilic molecule inside the fold might also be important in formation of the filament. That it is buried inside each monomer suggests that it is continuously incorporated during fibrillization and may stabilize the CBD fold during filament assembly, they wrote.

Could modifications of tau dictate which type of fold, and therefore which strain, accumulates in the brains of different diseases? Arakhamia and colleagues compared CBD tau PTMs with those on tau fibrils from AD. Again, they mapped mass spectrometry data from many fibrils onto the cryoEM structure. As in the CBD fibril, phosphoryl groups attached mainly beyond the protofibril core of AD tau, while acetyl and ubiquitin groups bound to the core. However, the amino acids modified were different in the different protofibrils and in the filaments they formed. In CBD, ubiquitinated K353 and acetylated K343 were found in twisted fibrils. The reverse, acetylated K353 and ubiquitinated K343, modified straight filaments. Similarly, acetyl groups bound K311 and K317/K321 in AD paired helical filaments, but ubiquitin occupies each of those sidechains in straight filaments. The results hint that PTMs influence the shape of aggregating tau fibrils.

This finding implies that ubiquitin ligases and acetyltransferases modulate the behavior of tau, potentially tuning the ratio of fibril subtypes in tau inclusions, Fitzpatrick wrote to Alzforum. It will be informative to use our approach of combining cryo-EM with PTM mapping by mass spectrometry to determine the additional structural role played by PTMs in tau oligomer formation and template-based seeding.

This paper illustrates, on a single-molecule level, that the interplay between acetylation and ubiquitination could play a role in tau fibrillization and strain properties, Gan told Alzforum. If PTMs play such an important role in fibril formation, the recombinant seeds people have been using may not be as biologically relevant, she added. Goedert emphasized this at the Tau2020 meeting held in Washington, D.C., February 1213. He noted that tau structures formed from recombinant protein using heparin are different from those isolated from brain tissue, particularly with respect to the fourth repeat and the 12 amino acids that come after it. Cryo-EM findings cast a lot of doubt on work using recombinant tau structures, he said.

Gan noted that the physiological consequences of the different tau strainsor whether they are even toxicis unclear. Before we develop strain-specific approaches, we need to understand what the strains do. On that note, Marc Diamond, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, wondered whether PTMs were causal or incidental. He suggested that researchers find out by removing PTMs from fibrils before seeding. If that does not change the strain output, it would imply that they were not required for strain identity.Gwyneth Dickey Zakaib

Visit link:
CryoEM of CBD Tau Suggests Another Unique Protofibril - Alzforum

The Taste With Vir: The moral case for veganism is much stronger than the case for non-vegetarianism – Hindustan Times

Posted on February 16, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

Some of you know may know that Penguin has recently published a collection of old Rude Food columns in book form. The thing about a column is that no matter how much effort you put into writing it that week, there comes a time, say 100 columns on (which is nearly two years in the case of Rude Food), when you no longer remember what you said in each column.

I have been reminded of this with startling regularity as I have given interviews about the book or spoken at events where the book is the primary focus. A week ago, at Mumbais Kala Ghoda Festival, I was interviewed on stage by the actress and food writer Tara Deshpande.

Tara is not only very bright but had done her homework so, as she asked me questions about some of the columns that had been compiled into the book, I found myself struggling. Did I really write that, I often thought to myself while simultaneously struggling to seem cool on stage and pretend that I recalled the details of the pieces she was referring to.

One of these was an old column on vegetarianism. I am a non-vegetarian though the Gujarati genes inside me ensure that I do not miss meat even if I dont eat it for a while.

I did not choose to be a non-vegetarian. My parents were non-vegetarians so I grew up as one. It was never a conscious choice or one that I thought deeply about.

Some of my relatives are vegetarians and again, it wasnt a conscious choice for them either. They were brought up as vegetarians and are put off by the smell and taste of meat. In a few cases, there may have been religious reasons --- my family are Jains though you would not think it, judging by our eating habits. But I often wonder if all of us had to put off the decision till adulthood and make it at an intellectual level alone, would we choose to be vegetarians or non-vegetarians?

If it was a purely intellectual exercise (unrelated to religion, gastronomic preferences, background etc.), then I think that anyone who was intellectually honest would have to concede that the moral case for vegetarianism is far stronger than the case for non-vegetarianism.

Lets start with the whole business of killing. Our society is built on the assumption that it is wrong to kill another human being. (Except in special circumstances: war, self-defence, the death penalty etc.)

We regard this as a moral imperative with hardly any qualifications. We do not believe that we can kill less intelligent people, the badly handicapped, etc. In fact, anybody who uses such criteria to justify killing is, we believe, a monster.

So where does that leave animals?

Well, we are ambivalent. If somebody killed your pet dog, you would treat it as an act tantamount to murder. If we caused pain to animals, we would risk prosecution in many parts of the civilised world where there are laws against cruelty to animals.

Even dedicated non-vegetarians (in most of the world) would refuse to eat cats, dogs or other animals that we treat as our friends. At the other end of the spectrum, we wont eat animals we consider dirty or icky. Jews and Muslims wont eat pork, for instance. Whenever we see pictures of East Asians eating cockroaches or locusts, we are appalled. And we dont eat animals we consider holy: many non-vegetarian Hindus wont eat cows.

So how do we distinguish between animals we can kill for food without a second thought and those we cant? Why is it okay to slaughter some animals and not others? Why are we allowed to kill animals but not to cause pain to them?

There is no logical answer or distinction. It depends on prejudice and on geographical context: for instance, Koreans will eat dog even if the rest of us wont. The Chinese routinely kill animals in the cruellest manner possible.

What all of this suggests is that at some level, we are confused ambivalent about killing animals. We will kill some; we wont kill others. And we are as ambivalent about the ones that we are willing to eat. Most of us deliberately duck the moral questions and ignore the contractions in our stand.

None of us (even the most dedicated non-vegetarian) ever says that all animals were created to be eaten by human beings. And frankly, we cant say that because human beings dont need to eat animals to survive. Only other animals do.

A tiger will suffer damaging consequences to its health if it eats only grass. Nor, given the size of its appetite, will grass be enough to fill its stomach. So yes, there is a justification for non-vegetarianism among animals.

But even there, human attitudes are contradictory. We mourn when a tiger is found dead. But we shed no tears for the deer and goats that the same tiger killed every day. If pushed to defend this apparent contradiction, I imagine we would fall back on the defence that there is no reason for humans to kill tigers. But tigers need to eat goats or deer to survive.

So yes, unlike predatory big cats, we dont need to kill animals. Millions of people live quite happily on a largely plant-based diet. Others may consume some animal products (eggs or milk, for instance) but their vegetarian diet allows them to live to a ripe old age.

So, if we dont need to kill animals to survive, how do we justify the slaughter of sentient beings for meat?

There is no easy answer to that question and now, in the years since I first wrote about vegetarianism, there is a new reason to give up on meat. Scientists have broadly agreed that the breeding and killing of animals for food is damaging the planet. If we were all to turn vegan (no milk or eggs), it would help the environment. Even being vegan for half the day would make a huge difference.

Morally, I dont think there is any way around this: veganism is the best and most ethical solution.

But, of course, the decision about whether to eat meat or not is rarely an ethical one for us in India. The overwhelming majority of Indian vegetarians have been brought up to be vegetarians. Usually, this is for religious reasons; no moral choices are involved. And our vegetarians still depend on milk products (yoghurt, ghee, etc.) which require the breeding of cows and damage the environment. A man who eats lots of dahi (curd) and paneer (cottage cheese) may well do as much damage to the environment as the guy who eats seekh kababs.

Non-vegetarians dont give up meat because, basically, we like the taste. We are used to it. We would miss it if we gave it up. Thats how we have been brought up. We dont worry too much about the moral and ethical issues.

But given how unnecessary non-vegetarianism is and given how much damage it does to the planet, perhaps we should consider a simpler solution.

Many writers and ethicists have found this solution: dont give up meat. Just reduce your consumption. Its the same with milk products. If you are a hardcore vegetarian who likes curd-rice, paneer or ghee, then reduce your intake.

It is not always convenient to be a vegetarian in many parts of the world. But in India, it is easy. We have such wonderful vegan options that we can easily cut meat out of our diets if we want to.

Except that non-vegetarians and milk-lovers dont want to. And if they give it up, their will usually collapses in a month or so and they are back to their normal diets.

So heres a suggestion. Dont give up anything. Just reduce the quantity. Try being vegan till the sun goes down (breakfast, lunch and tea). You can eat what you like at dinner.

It wont fulfil any moral criteria because you can still eat mutton curry for dinner. But it will help the planet.

Its not difficult to do. So, think about it.

I certainly am.

To read more on The Taste With Vir, click here

Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter

Excerpt from:
The Taste With Vir: The moral case for veganism is much stronger than the case for non-vegetarianism - Hindustan Times

Rakul Preet Singh is not going to eat non-veg now, there are lots of extra stars who don’t eat meat and fish! – Sahiwal Tv

Posted on February 16, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

Rakul Preet Singh is counted among the many scorching and exquisite actresses of Bollywood. Rakul can also be dominated in South Cinema in addition to Bollywood. Rakul has labored in Bollywood with Ajay Devgan and Tabu within the movie De De Pyar De. Apart from this, she has labored in lots of movies together with Yaariyaan, Iyari, Marjawan. Recently Rakul Preet Singh has taken a giant determination. He has given up non-vegetarian meals. Now she is vegan. She is not going to even eat dairy anymore. He says, 'Ive been a staunch carnivore all my life. It just isnt that I didnt eat greens, however meat was an necessary a part of my weight loss plan, particularly eggs.

->However, sooner or later, I made a decision to simply turn into a vegetarian. It was a sudden determination one thing that got here from inside and was not pushed by any tendency. Now, I really feel gentle and stuffed with vitality. '

There are many stars in Bollywood whove given up non-food. Looking at health, non-veg has turn into vegetarian, whereas some have left non-veg following PETA-like organizations. Stars like Akshay Kumar, John Abraham, Anushka Sharma comply with the vegetarian weight loss plan.

Akshay Kumar's title has additionally been included within the record of Vegetarian Stars. At the age of 51, Akshay can also be one of the vital match stars. Recently, Akshay mentioned that in an effort to keep wholesome life and health, he give up consuming non-veg four months in the past and has turn into a vegetarian.

Bollywood actress Anushka Sharma is a vegetarian. Recently, Anushka additionally acquired the title of Person of the Year from PETA. Because she eats pure vegetarian meals. Anushka feels that she has felt a distinction in herself since she left Nonvez. Anushka herself advised that, after turning into a vegetarian, she may be very wholesome and feels good. He advised, what we eat, all of it issues rather a lot, as a result of your foods and drinks defines you. By the best way, Virat Kohli additionally eat veg meals together with Anushka Sharma. After marriage, Virat has additionally turn into a vegetarian.

Karthik Aryan, who reached the seventh sky of success nowadays, can also be a vegetarian. Karthik additionally doesnt eat any non-vegetarian meals. Karthik additionally acquired the Person of the Year title from PETA this 12 months. Karthik says that he noticed a video through which an animal was bitten. After this, he left Nonvez and have become a vegetarian.

Vidda Balan Bollywood's most well-known actress Vidya Balan can also be a vegetarian. Vidya additionally doesnt eat non-veg. Vidya loves solely vegetarian meals. Due to this, hes additionally included within the record of 'Peta' scorching vegetarian celebrities. Veg has been consuming meals for years. She doesnt work non-veg.

Bollywood celebrity Amitabh Bachchan additionally doesnt eat non-veg. Big B has been consuming wedges for years. Big B loves Idli Sambhar. Apart from this, they wish to eat moong dal, spinach cheese and girl's finger. Everyday in addition they eat several types of veg issues to suit them.

Bollywood's John Abraham additionally doesnt eat non-veg. John has by no means resorted to non-veg for such a superb physique and physique. John solely eats veg. John Abraham believes that you do not want to eat meat for protein. If you need protein, you can too eat solely veg.

Queen Kangana Ranaut additionally eats veg. Kangana doesnt eat non-vegetarian meals. Kangana believes strongly in God. She additionally recites a whole lot of pooja. So she doesnt eat non-veg.

Everyone is loopy about Mr. Perfectionist Aamir Khan. Aamir additionally does what he does with perfection. Aamir can also be a vegetarian. Aamir additionally doesnt eat non-veg. Aamir Khan adopted vegetarianism on the behest of his spouse Kiran Rao. Because Kiran is a vegetarian herself.

Alia Bhatt, who grew to become everybody's favourite in Bollywood at the moment, can also be a vegetarian. Aaliya additionally doesnt eat non-veg. Aaliyah used to eat non-veg very keenly. But later he gave up non-food. Now she solely eats vegetarian.

See original here:
Rakul Preet Singh is not going to eat non-veg now, there are lots of extra stars who don't eat meat and fish! - Sahiwal Tv

Ways to Staying Healthy – Daily Pioneer

Posted on February 16, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

Lifestyle plays a big role in our health. Research shows that meditation and vegetarian diet are two proactive ways of increasing our wellness, says Sant Rajinder Singh

Each of us has the power within us to create a healthier way of life. The choices we make today impact our physical, mental, and spiritual health tomorrow, whether months or years from now. Our choices also impact our family. What we choose today regarding the care of our body, mind, and spirit will determine what our future health will be.

Medical research points at two ways by which we can increase our wellness. One is meditation and the other is a vegetarian diet. Meditation helps us increase our health and well-being physically, mentally, and spiritually. It keeps our body and mind calm and reduces our chances of contracting stress-related illnesses.

Research by medical practitioners and doctors indicates that meditation benefits the body and mind. As someone put it in jest: we can counter the effects of ill, pill, and bill by being still. Being still refers to sitting in meditation. This increased interest and popularity of meditation has grown as scientific studies verify what has been known in the East for centuries.

Lets reflect a little on the two simple steps to staying healthy:

Step 1: Meditation

Be still. Our parents had this one solution for us when we were children. These words really are a precursor for a healthy lifestyle. Being still is another word for meditation.

When we meditate, we slow our heart rate and breathing to a point where we are calm. When we are agitated and upset, the body produces fight or flight hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline which may be useful when in danger to help us defend ourselves or run, but not when simple problems of life upset us. We do not need cortisol and adrenaline to kick in when our spouse or children leave the toothpaste cap off or someone cuts us off on the highway. We have been so conditioned to becoming upset about things that are not life-threatening that we produce stress hormones that react on our body in a way that can break down our organs and bodily systems.

Meditation helps us be calm, and in a relaxed state so that we can ward off the effects of daily life challenges. When we are calm, our body is not producing hormones that can lead to stress-related ailments such as heart attack, stroke, hypertension, headaches, digestive and skin problems. When we meditate we also keep our mind calm. We not only suffer physical illness from stress, but we create emotional and mental difficulties when we are not calm. This can lead to emotional and relationship problems or other stress-related mental disorders. Through meditation we can keep a calm and peaceful mind to help us lead happier lives.

Meditation also helps us develop concentration. When we are stressed out our performance level is not as high as we need it to be. When we concentrate we can get better grades, which reduces our stress as students. Our stress as employees or professionals is reduced because we can perform better at work.

How can we prove the spiritual benefits of being still and meditating? This is one area where meditation fits the scientific model. It is based on experimentation leading to proof. Those who have tried the experiment have discovered that meditation leads to wellness not only of the body and mind, but of the soul.

In meditation, we close our eyes, gaze within, and still our mind of thoughts. When the reflecting pool of our mind is still, we see what lies within us. We see Light within, hear celestial Music, and can soar to regions of Light. Through meditation, we thus achieve physical, mental, and spiritual wellness.

Step 2: Vegetarian Diet

Another key to a healthy lifestyle is living on a vegetarian diet. Research proves that a plant-based diet reduces the risk of many diseases such as stroke, heart attack, diabetes, digestive disorders, and even some cancers, among other illnesses. By cutting out meat, and even fish, fowl, and eggs we can reduce the risk of many ailments.

Vegetarianism also benefits our state of mind and spiritual well-being. Think of the state of the animals when slaughtered. Hormones of fear and stress run through them at the time of their captivity and slaughter. It has been said that we are what we eat. All that was a part of the animal becomes part of us when we eat it. This means we are ingesting their fear and panic hormones, which can contribute to our own state of fear and anxiety when it becomes a part of our body.

We also are taking into our body anything the animal ate. For example, antibiotics fed to the animal become part of us, and if we have too much it can cause bacteria to become antibiotic-resistant. If animals are fed hormones to make them grow faster, they too become a part of us which can lead to problems because now those hormones are in our body. We also are taking into our body any diseases that the animal may have contracted.

There are moral benefits to a vegetarian diet. Most cultures believe in the law that thou shalt not kill. There is a recognition in many cultures that even animals have a soul in them. Thus, when we take the life of a creature, we are taking the life of a being who has a soul in it. Those who ascribe to a spiritual way of life and meditate have even witnessed that the same Light of the Divine in us also shines in all other human beings and all creatures. Thus, a thread of divine connection knits all life together.

Today, there are numerous delicious and nutritious vegetarian, plant-based foods that we can eat. Besides a growing number of vegetarian restaurants, most restaurants now offer a wider variety of vegetarian dishes. Mainstream supermarkets have many vegetarian options for customers. Even places where it was hard to get vegetarian foods, such as school cafeterias, hospitals, cruise ships, conferences, and venues for professional gatherings, offer vegetarian choices.

It is now easier than ever to be vegetarian and the benefits are enormous. One can try the experiment of incorporating meditation and vegetarian diet into ones life. You can see for yourself the benefits you will experience. If you track the changes these two choices bring, you will find that you are healthier physically, mentally, and spiritually. May each of you make choices to experience the benefits of a healthy lifestyle for your body, mind, and soul.

The writer is a spiritual leader

View post:
Ways to Staying Healthy - Daily Pioneer

EU spending tens of millions of euros a year to promote meat eating – The Guardian

Posted on February 16, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

The EU has been accused of an indefensible approach to human health and the climate crisis in spending tens of millions of euros each year on campaigns to reverse the decline in meat eating and trying to rebut so-called fake news on the mistreatment of animals bred for food.

Campaigns range from those designed to counter official warnings about the risk of cancer from eating red meat, to improving the public image of veal products said to be crucial in deriving value from young male calves superfluous to the dairy industry.

The EU provides an annual 200m (166m) subsidy for the promotion of agricultural products each year. About 60m has been spent in the last three years on 21 meat marketing campaigns, including in the UK, according to research by the Dutch animal welfare organisation Wakker Dier.

The stated ambition of many of the projects has been to halt a decline in meat consumption amid a growing trend to vegetarianism among Europes young people.

The livestock sector is responsible for about 14.5% of total human-derived greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists have provided evidence of a link between cancer and diets involving pork, beef and lamb products.

The description on the European commission website of one recent campaign entitled Pork Lovers Europe, which secured 1.4m for marketing, including a road-show with a pink bus painted to look like a pig, noted that the consumption of pork meat in Europe has decreased in recent years.

It continued: Therefore, it is very important to promote pork meat to restore the confidence of the consumer, which was shaken by news such as the last IARC [International Agency for Research on Cancer] report.

Scientists at the IARC, a UN agency, reported in 2015 that the consumption of bacon, red meat and glyphosate weedkiller increased the risk of developing cancer. The Pork Lovers Europe adverts targeted consumers in the UK, Spain, Germany, France and Portugal.

A campaign by the Association of Poultry Processors and Poultry Trade which will be run in six member states at a cost to EU taxpayers of 4.4m aims over the next two years to contradict myths and fake news about the rearing and slaughter of chickens for meat.

EU poultry consumption in the European Union is still increasing but at a slower pace, as more and more consumers are mistrustful regarding the poultry meat production, the European commissions website says. The campaign, targeting a 1.22% growth in chicken consumption in 2020 and 2021, is aimed at young children, professionals, media and opinion leaders.

A second pork campaign received a 2.5m subsidy for an initiative aimed at Danes and Swedes. Pork is no longer a natural part of the diet of young Scandinavians, the commission website says. They tend to eat less meat in general and to avoid pork in particular. The aim is to increase consumer demand and thus halt any otherwise expected fall.

A campaign in favour of the Dutch veal sector to promote the meat of calves in the Belgian, Italian and French markets received a 6m subsidy.

The veal market has been declining since the 2000s, says a description of the project on the commission website. There are various reasons for this: the economic crisis, changes in consumption behaviour and above all a lack of top-of-mind awareness. France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy are minded to fight this fall in consumption by boosting the image consumers have of European veal.

Sjoerd van de Wouw, a researcher at Wakker Dier foundation, said the funding policy was outdated indefensible. We understand that you need to consider the interests of producers but not by completing ignoring the interests of consumers and the climate, he said.

In response, a European commission spokesman said: The selection of projects is based on a strict and defined procedure involving external evaluators. The producers organisations send proposals regarding their campaign ideas and also participate in the funding of the campaigns.

In an effort to constantly evaluate and adjust its existing policy, the commission will soon launch a public consultation on the EU promotion policy for agricultural products.

See the original post:
EU spending tens of millions of euros a year to promote meat eating - The Guardian

Join the Emergency Response Team at Norwalk Health Dept. – HamletHub

Posted on February 15, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

The Norwalk Health Department needs adults who live or work in Norwalk for key positions on its Emergency Response Team (ERT). This team of volunteerswhich includes people with both medical and non-medical backgrounds donates their time and expertise to prepare for and respond to emergencies and to promote healthy living year-round.

The goal of the ERT is to extend the resources of the professional Health Department staff. ERT volunteers work with public health officials to spread preparedness messages within the community and assist with other public health programs and events. The Health Department provides training and insurance, while volunteers provide their time and skills. This latest cohort of volunteers will join a dedicated and diverse group of more than 140 people whove already been trained and serve on the ERT. Sign up now. Group interviews for this cohort will be held on February 26 at 7 pm or March 2 at 4 pm.

Training sessions will be held on March 10, 17, 24, and 31, 2020 (7 9 pm each night) at the Norwalk Health Department (137 East Avenue, Norwalk, CT). Advanced registration is required.

Call (203) 854-7979, or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to sign up and get more information. About the Norwalk Health Department: Under the direction of the mayor, and with valuable guidance from its six-member Board of Health, the Norwalk Health Department provides a variety of services and programs to fulfill its mission: to prevent and control the spread of disease, promote a healthy environment, and protect the quality of life within its changing community.

The Health Department achieved accreditation through the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB) in June 2014, demonstrating that it meets or exceeds national public health standards and commits to continuously improve the quality of the services it delivers. More information is available at http://www.norwalkhealth.com.

Read more from the original source:
Join the Emergency Response Team at Norwalk Health Dept. - HamletHub

Remyelination Potential of MS Therapy in Phase 2 Testing Evident in Animal Work, Study Says – Multiple Sclerosis News Today

Posted on February 15, 2020 by Prof Baldwin

Clene Nanomedicines remyelination therapy candidate, CNM-Au8, showed a robust ability to stimulate the production of new myelin and increase the number of myelin-wrapped nerve fibers in the brain and spinal cord of animals in models of demyelinating disease, allowing mice to recover motor skills, a study reports.

Such preclinical data support the efficacy of this potential treatment, now being tested in clinical trials with multiple sclerosis (MS) patients.

These early findings were reported in the study Nanocatalytic activity of clean-surfaced, faceted nanocrystalline gold enhances remyelination in animal models of multiple sclerosis, published in the journalNature Scientific Reports.

In MS, the immune system attacks myelin, the protective sheath around nerve fibers or axons. Myelin is essential for the fast transmission of electrical signals between neurons, and its loss (demyelination) damages the integrity of nerve cells and their ability to communicate with each other.

Finding therapies that promote remyelination the recovery of myelin is a high priority for MS, the researchers noted.Such treatments could potentially repair demyelinating lesions in the central nervous system (the brain and spinal cord), restoring function to nerve cells affected by the disease.

Most approved MS therapies dampen the immune systems activity to prevent further myelin damage. However, they cannot undo existing damage or replace the myelin sheaths that have been lost.

Clene Nanomedicines lead compound, CNM-Au8, is a potential remyelination therapy for MS and other neurodegenerative disorders, including Parkinsons disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

CNM-Au8 is a solution of gold (Au) nanoparticles with apatented crystal structure, named a clean-surfaced nanocrystal (CSN). According to the company, these nanocrystals have properties that make them highly biologically active, allowing them to facilitate certain energy-related reactions within cells.

In the brain, both neurons and supporting cells, includingoligodendrocytesthat produce myelin, need substantial amounts of energy to work. In fact, the brain consumes more than 25% of the bodys metabolic resources in order to sustain the efficient flux of information through its vast network of nerve fibers.

CNM-Au8 is expected to enhance key metabolic reactions in neurons and oligodendrocytes so to increase energy reserves within these cells, while decreasing the harmful molecules naturally generated by the cells metabolism. This process, which Clene calls nanocatalysis, is thought to improve the survival and function of neurons, and to support the ability of oligodendrocytes to create new myelin.

CNM-Au8 has demonstrated a good safety profile in Phase 1 studies in healthy volunteers, and preclinical studies in animal models of MS and other diseasesindicate the therapyhas both remyelination and neuroprotection effects.

Several ongoing Phase 2 trials are evaluating CNM-Au8 in neurodegenerative diseases, including two studies in people with non-active, relapsing MS.

REPAIR-MS (NCT03993171) is an open-label Phase 2 trial assessing the safety, pharmacokinetics (availability of the therapy in the body) and pharmacodynamics (its effects) of differing oral doses of CNM-Au8 in 24 adults with relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS). This study is currently enrolling eligible patients at theUniversity of Texas Southwestern. More details can be foundhere. It is expected to conclude in the fall.

Another Phase 2 trial, called VISIONARY-MS (NCT03536559), is investigating the efficacy and safety of CNM-Au8 in up to 150 adults with RRMS, who have chronic vision problems due to lesions (chronic optic neuropathy). This study is also recruiting at nine sites across Australia, and is supported by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Contact and site information is available here. Results from VISIONARY-MS are expected in 2021.

Now, the preclinical work by researchers at Clene Nanomedicine, Northwestern University, and George Washington Universityprovides additional evidence supporting the ability of these gold nanocrystalsto promote remyelination in cell and animal models of MS.

We are gratified at the publication of these data. These results establish the rationale for our ongoing Phase 2 clinical trial, VISIONARY-MS, which is designed to demonstrate the efficacy of CNM-Au8 for the treatment of chronic optic neuropathy in patients with non-active relapsing MS, Robert Glanzman, MD, chief medical officer of Clene Nanomedicine, said in a press release.

Researchers found that oral delivery of CNM-Au8 to mice and rat models of demyelination led to robust remyelination activity in the brain and spinal cord, leading to higher numbers of myelin-wrapped axons. Study data also showed that CNM-Au8 resulted in a greater migration of oligodendrocytes to lesion sites, and increased myelin production.

The remyelination promoted by CNM-Au8 was also matched by a significant recovery of physical abilities in the mice, evaluated using different locomotor and fine motor tests.

Working on cells in lab dishes, known as in vitro assays, the scientists showed that treating oligodendrocyte precursor cells with CNM-Au8 stimulated their differentiation and maturation, and the expression of myelin-related markers.

The gold nanocrystals were seen to act via a novel energy metabolism pathway that speeds the conversion of NADH to NAD+, a critical factor for sensing and producing energy in cells. CNM-Au8 also increased the levels of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a small molecule used as fuel by cells, and turned on genes related to myelin production, collectively resulting in functional myelin generation, the researchers reported.

These results further validate our entirely new approach using therapeutic gold nanocatalysts as a mechanism to support the cellular viability and enhanced function of neurons and oligodendrocytes, saidKaren Ho, PhD, one of the studys authors and director of Translational Medicine at Clene Nanomedicine.

CNM-Au8 is one of a limited number of drugs being developed which have demonstrated remyelination capabilities. We believe these data exemplify a strong step forward in the development of a treatment to improve function in the lives of more than one million people living with MS in the U.S., Ho concluded.

Ana is a molecular biologist with a passion for discovery and communication. As a science writer, she looks for connecting the public, in particular patients and healthcare providers, with clear and quality information about the latest medical advances. Ana holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Lisbon, Portugal, where she specialized in infectious diseases, epigenetics, and gene expression.

Total Posts: 1,053

Patrcia holds her PhD in Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases from the Leiden University Medical Center in Leiden, The Netherlands. She has studied Applied Biology at Universidade do Minho and was a postdoctoral research fellow at Instituto de Medicina Molecular in Lisbon, Portugal. Her work has been focused on molecular genetic traits of infectious agents such as viruses and parasites.

Futurist Transhuman News Blog

Author Archives: Prof Baldwin

Working In Science Was A Brutal Education. Thats Why I Left. – BuzzFeed News

The Really Good And Really Bad News On Lifelong Learning – Forbes

Are stem cells really the key to making humans live longer? – Wired.co.uk

6 habits of highly healthy brains – Ladders

Marketing To 100-Year-Olds: How Longevity Will Transform Finance, Healthcare And Education – Forbes

Precision Medicine Software Market 2020 Trends, Market Share, Industry Size, Opportunities, Analysis and Forecast by 2026 – Instant Tech News

Anti-Senescence Therapy Market- A comprehensive assessment of current dynamics and emerging avenues – News Parents

Rising stress levels will drop the average body temperature – The Daily Titan

Sonic the Hedgehog movie review: a satisfying walkthrough for any fan – Vox.com

What ‘dry fasting’ is and why you shouldn’t do it – PostBulletin.com

Vice President Venkaiah Naidu releases commemorative postal stamp and coffee table book to commemorate 100 years of Jamshedpur – Avenue Mail

RR Aesthetics Announces the Addition of Lamelabo by Faith Anti-Aging Skincare Products to Offerings – PR Web

We would trust these skin care, hair, and makeup pros with our lives – Yahoo Lifestyle

CryoEM of CBD Tau Suggests Another Unique Protofibril – Alzforum

The Taste With Vir: The moral case for veganism is much stronger than the case for non-vegetarianism – Hindustan Times

Rakul Preet Singh is not going to eat non-veg now, there are lots of extra stars who don’t eat meat and fish! – Sahiwal Tv

Ways to Staying Healthy – Daily Pioneer

EU spending tens of millions of euros a year to promote meat eating – The Guardian

Join the Emergency Response Team at Norwalk Health Dept. – HamletHub

Remyelination Potential of MS Therapy in Phase 2 Testing Evident in Animal Work, Study Says – Multiple Sclerosis News Today