Sleep success: How to make ZZZs = memory
New Scientist (Free subscription) | yesterday
From playing sounds to sniffing roses to dreaming of computer games, we are learning how to optimise sleep for better learning and memory
Neurosciences
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Tailor-made HIV/AIDS treatment closer to reality
Science Daily (Free subscription) | 25/11/2009
An innovative treatment for HIV patients has passed its first clinical trial with flying colors. The new approach is an immunotherapy customized for each individual patient.
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Early relationships influence teen pain and depression
Science Daily (Free subscription) | 25/11/2009
Angst could be more than a rite of passage for insecure teenagers, according to a new study. Researchers have discovered that insecure adolescents experience more intense pain in the form of frequent headaches, abdominal pain and joint pain. These teens are also more likely to be depressed than peers with secure attachments.
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New genetic cause of cardiac failure discovered
Science Daily (Free subscription) | 25/11/2009
Over the course of a lifetime, the heart pumps some 250 million liters of blood through the body. In the order to do this, the muscle fibers of the heart have to be extremely durable. Scientists have now discovered a protein that is responsible for the stability of the smallest muscular unit, the sarcomere.
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Early diagnosis of ocular pathologies such as keratitis and macular degeneration now possible
Science Daily (Free subscription) | 25/11/2009
Age-related macular degeneration and keratitis currently represent the leading cause of central vision loss in developed countries.
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Dramatic decline found in Siberian tigers
Science Daily (Free subscription) | 24/11/2009
The last remaining population of Siberian tigers has likely declined significantly due to the rising tide of poaching and habitat loss, according to a new report
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How might navy sonar affect hearing of whales and other marine animals?
Science Daily (Free subscription) | 24/11/2009
Rocket science is opening new doors to understanding how sounds associated with Navy sonar might affect the hearing of a marine mammal -- or if they hear it at all.
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Hippocampal theta rhythms follow the beat of their own drum
Nature Neuroscience (Free subscription) | 23/11/2009
The firing of most hippocampal neurons is modulated by the theta rhythm, but it's not clear how and where the rhythm is generated. A study now shows that the required machinery for theta generation lies in local circuits of the hippocampus.
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Pigment epithelium-derived growth factor: modulating adult neural stem cell self-renewal
Nature Neuroscience (Free subscription) | 23/11/2009
The vascular niche-derived factor PEDF enhances Notch signaling in adult neural stem cells via an unexpected mechanism involving nuclear export of a transcriptional repressor, to promote both proliferation and multipotentiality.
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Neuronal death or dismemberment mediated by Sox14
Nature Neuroscience (Free subscription) | 23/11/2009
The pruning of unneeded axons and dendrites is crucial for circuitry maturation, but poorly understood on the molecular level. During Drosophila metamorphosis, the transcription factor Sox14 acts as a context-dependent mediator of death, axonal or dendritic pruning. Its transcriptional target Mical acts specifically in dendrite pruning.
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Scientists talking to the public: is there anyone out there?
Nature Neuroscience (Free subscription) | 23/11/2009
Scientists talking to the public: is there anyone out there? Nature Neuroscience 12, 1477 (2009). doi:10.1038/nn1209-1477 Author: Dario L Ringach
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Butting heads
Nature Neuroscience (Free subscription) | 23/11/2009
A recent controversy on sport-related dementia underscores the need for comprehensive epidemiology studies.
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Extensive valley network on Mars adds to evidence for ancient Martian ocean
Science Daily (Free subscription) | 23/11/2009
Scientists have used an innovative computer program to produce a more detailed global map of Mars' valley networks. It shows the networks are much more extensive than had been previously depicted. Regions that are most densely dissected by the valley networks roughly form a belt around the planet, consistent with a past climate scenario that included precipitation and the presence of an ocean covering...
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Straightening messy correlations with a quantum comb
Science Daily (Free subscription) | 23/11/2009
Scientists have shown how to delicately comb out a snarl of entanglements among many qubits while keeping the information intact.
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Reverse-Engineering
The Frontal Cortex (Free subscription) | 22/11/2009
Last week, a team of computer scientists led by Dharmendra S. Modha announced what sounded like an impressive breakthrough for neuroscience-inspired computing: Using Dawn Blue Gene / P supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore National Lab with 147,456 processors and 144 TB of main memory, we achieved a simulation with 1 billion spiking neurons and 10 trillion individual learning synapses. This is equivalent...