To learn to socialize, zebrafish need to trust their gut.
Gut microbes encourage specialized cells to prune back extra connections in brain circuits that control social behavior, new University of Oregon research in zebrafish shows. The pruning is essential for the development of normal social behavior.
The researchers also found that these ‘social’ neurons are similar in zebrafish and mice. That suggests the findings might translate between species — and could possibly point the way to treatments for a range of neurodevelopmental conditions.
However, while technology has indeed advanced a long way since the 1940s, it still seems like we are still a long way from having a fully functional von Neumann machine. That is unless you turn to biology. Even simple biological systems can perform absolutely mind-blowing feats of chemical synthesis. And there are few people in the world today who know that better than George Church. The geneticist from Harvard has been at the forefront of a revolution in the biological sciences over the last 30 years. Now, he’s published a new paper in Astrobiology musing about how biology could aid in creating a pico-scale system that could potentially explore other star systems at next to no cost.
“Pico-scale” in this context means weighing on the order of one pico-gram. Since the smallest operational satellite ever created so far weighed a mere 33 grams, scaling that down to 10–12 times that size might sound ambitious. But that’s precisely what biological systems could potentially do.
A typical bacteria weighs right around one pico-gram. And with sufficiently advanced genetic modification, bacteria can do anything from processing toxic waste to emitting light. Therefore, Dr. Church thinks they might make an excellent interstellar exploration tool.
MIT neuroscientists have published a key new insight on how working memory functions, in a study published in PLOS Computational Biology.
The researchers at The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory compared measurements of brain cell activity in an animal performing a working memory task with the output of various computer models representing two theories on the underlying mechanism for holding information in mind.
The results favored the newer theory that a network of neurons stores information by making short-lived changes in the connections, or synapses, between them, rather than the traditional theory that memory is maintained by neurons remaining persistently active.
At first, Professor Wolf Reik couldn’t quite believe the data. The experiment had involved an attempt to “rejuvenate” skin cells taken from a 53-year-old volunteer.
The results were better than anybody had expected: having been bathed in a cocktail of proteins, the cells now looked and behaved like those from somebody in their early twenties.
As different measurements of “biological age” confirmed the findings, the molecular biologist’s scepticism gave way to excitement. “I was falling off my chair three times over,” Reik said.
Nature, red in tooth and claw, is rife with organisms that eat their neighbors to get ahead. But in the systems studied by the theoretical ecologist Holly Moeller, an assistant professor of ecology, evolution and marine biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, the consumed become part of the consumer in surprising ways.
Moeller primarily studies protists, a broad category of unicellular microorganisms like amoebas and paramecia that don’t fit within the familiar macroscopic categories of animals, plants and fungi. What most fascinates her is the ability of some protists to co-opt parts of the cells they prey upon. Armed with these still-functioning pieces of their prey, the protists can expand into new habitats and survive where they couldn’t before.
Did you you know that microcurrent frequencies increase your ATP (cellular energy) 500%?
Energy that is produced in cells by a molecule called adenosine triphosphate is called ATP energy is essential for many living processes, including muscle contraction and nerve impulses. In order to provide continuous energy to cells, ATP molecules must have continuous access to foods that contain energy. ATP is a molecule that generates energy by breaking down food in cells.
Healthy cells. Healthy life.
I believe this knowledge needs to be known now more than ever before.
Jeff Lichtman is Jeremy R. Knowles Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard. He received an A.B. from Bowdoin (1973), and an M.D. and Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis (1980) where he worked for 30 years before moving to Cambridge (2004). He is a member of Harvard’s newly established Center for Brain Science. Jeff’s research interests revolve around the question of how mammalian brain circuits are physically altered by experiences, especially in early life. He has focused on the dramatic re-wiring of neural connections in early postnatal development. More recently his research has focused on developing new electron microscopy methods to map the entire wiring diagram of the developing and adult brain. One of the principal aims of this “connectomics” approach is to uncover the ways information is stored in neural networks.
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)
On January 18, 2013, Caltech hosted TEDxCaltech: The Brain, a forward-looking celebration of humankind’s quest to understand the brain, by exploring the past, present and future of neuroscience. Visit TEDxCaltech.com for more details.
