Here is what I am reading today:
“Two of the papers are published as cover-story articles in the September 29 print issue of the journal Nature. The third paper was published in the September 12 early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
GPCRs are essential to human life, involved in almost every physiological function. Located within the membranes of cells, these receptors detect arriving hormones, chemical neurotransmitters, odors and other signaling molecules, then activate internal G proteins, which, behaving like molecular switches, initiate other events that affect everything from the senses and behavior to fundamental functions like heart rate and blood pressure. Malfunctions in these signaling pathways have been linked to dozens of diseases, including diabetes, blindness, asthma, depression and some forms of cancer.”
“The biological clock ramps up our metabolism early each day, initiating important physiological functions that tell our bodies that it’s time to rise and shine. Discovery of this new gene and the mechanism by which it starts the clock everyday may help explain the genetic underpinnings of sleeplessness, aging and chronic illnesses, such as cancer and diabetes, and could eventually lead to new therapies for these illnesses.”
“The finding, described in the journal Current Biology, provides the first description of neurons that respond strongly when the patient sees an entire face, but respond much less to a face in which only a very small region has been erased.
“The finding really surprised us,” says Ueli Rutishauser, first author on the paper, a former postdoctoral fellow at Caltech, and now a visitor in the Division of Biology. “Here you have neurons that respond well to seeing pictures of whole faces, but when you show them only parts of faces, they actually respond less and less the more of the face you show. That just seems counterintuitive.””
“Children and teens who go to bed late and wake up late are more likely to be overweight than their peers who go to bed early and rise early, Australian researchers suggest.
For the study, 2,200 Australians aged nine to 16 kept track of their bedtimes, wake times as well as time spent watching TV, playing videogames or using computers. They also wore pedometers to record their physical activity levels, and weights were measured.
When they went to sleep was key to the results.”
“TWIN studies have shown that people with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder have changes in gene activity caused by their environment. The finding provides the strongest evidence yet that such gene changes might cause the conditions.
Jonathan Mill at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, and colleagues scanned the genome of 22 pairs of identical twins – chosen because one twin in each pair was diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.”
“UCLA scientists have created a mouse model for autism that opens a window into the biological mechanisms that underlie the disease and offers a promising way to test new treatment approaches.”
“Instead of bringing people into laboratories to study the internal mental processes involved in how humans remember, think, speak, and solve problems, researchers from Royal Holloway, University of London joined an international team to launch an iPhone / iPad app that people can download for free in seven languages as part of the biggest international experiment of its kind.”
3 Comments
lexi williams · October 4, 2011 at 7:23 pm
I thought the article about smartphones revolutionizing data collection was very interesting. For my senior project, I formulated and wrote an experimental proposal to test certain artificial food colorings and preservatives on levels of ADHD in college-aged males. However, one of the hardest parts in writing the experiment was figuring out how to get enough college males to participate in the study without excessive compensation. With the smartphone app, it would be much easier and faster to analyze data from many different types of people for specific experiments. On the other hand, there are a few major downsides with the new technological idea. For starters, it would be impossible for researchers to regulate data collection. For example, a person may submit responses twice from different smartphones, or may be intoxicated while doing so. These extreme examples just show that certain technologies may not be making things better or easier.
CCrosson · October 11, 2011 at 8:50 pm
The article about staying up late leading to obesity immediately caught my attention. While the article provided interesting statistics regarding weight and how late a person stays up and wakes up, it would be interesting to see further studies done that control for some of the external factors that the article mentioned. There are so many possibilities as to why those who went to bed late and woke up late are 1.5 times more likely to become obese. Long term studies should be able to control for these factors, and provide even more information as to how our sleep patterns may affect our health and weight.
dlheller · October 28, 2011 at 12:08 pm
The article, “night owl teens at greater risk for obesity” caught my attention as I am most definitely a night owl. I typically stay up late and like to sleep in; even with class in the morning I still stay up late naturally. The article’s findings make logical sense that being up less during the day would lead to more sedentary activity, however, I think the article needs more evidence on external factors or the possibility that someone could eat healthy and work out while still staying up late. It is fairly significant to make the claim that it increases obesity rather than just weight gain. I would be interested in seeing further studies on the correlation between various activity, leisure habits, and dietary habits linked to bed time.
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