scicop

so what that just one instance. That happened over a year ago (or maybe two..i forgot now), doesn't mean the pakistan is responsible for ALL terrorism! See my post. Altanta city bombing...not a pakistani!! Colombine ....not a pakistani Oklahoma city...not a pakistani East 62nd Street explosion in NY last week....not a pakistani!!

Well said! I'm not totally a gun toting fiend, nor do I necessarily believe that being in the military is the path to patriotic salvation. I for one know that the military is not just "shoot'em, blow'em up", there is a huge support for system that goes behind every soldier (i think the ratio is 10 support people for every 1 soldier and 5 commissioned officers for every 1 non-commissioned). Even if I go to the military, of which I'm in the process of doing (background check, security clearence paper work and commissioning going on now) , I would be in a support (scientist) position (although still an active duty soldier) by virtue of my degree, which can be a little unfortunate, if things go on the way to they do I feel strongly that I may have to try to get on the front lines once I get in. Anyway, I see what your saying and I won't reply, it will go off topic to much. I think you're young, but I feel you'll see my view as you get older and gather more experiences in the real world. My whole point to all this is that I feel that todays younger generation has no sense of what war really is! I think a draft will do america good, we need some more sparkys, gippers, eagle eyes, skinnys, reds, in our society today!

darkglia.pdf here's that paper, "dark side of glia"

Neurons do not necessarily need "mylein sheaths" to conduct electric impulses. It certainly increases the speed of current flow (saltatory conduction) by limiting current flow-by increasing membrane resistance-to regions along the process that are very conductive (clustering of voltage gated sodium channels). Neurons do not "contain" schwann cells. Schwann cells are their own individual type cells that wrap around the neuron. There is, however, an inter-dependance between schwann cells and the neuron, one needs the other to survive. However, schwann cells are just a type of GLIAL cell, which more recently has had alot of attention. Glial cells include schwann cells, oligodedrocytes, astrocytes, and microglia and the latter three play an important role in the CNS. They all wrap around neuronal processes and provide structural and "life" support to their associated neurons. With respect to microglia, they actually exert an immunological role in the CNS. In the academic neuroscience world the concept of neuron signaling is being (if not already) changed. Scientist are now receptive to the idea the a a neuronal synpase is not just between pre- and post-synaptic neurons, but also involve their surrounding glia, so the they term the synapse now a "tripartate synapse" VERY RECENT studies have shown that glia can participate in modulating not only neuronal plasticity (i.e.glutamate clearance), but also they can display a form of LTP (long term potentiation), a phenomea linked to memory formation (Science Magazing, 2006 vol 312). Pharmaceutical companies are now very interested in Glia (especially microglia) since they have been linked to the "initiation and/or maintaince" of number of pathologies including neuropathic pain, epilepsey, complications due to stress, certain cancers, psychological disorders such as schizophernia and bipolar disorder, as well as parkinsons and alzheimers disease. In fact, Cold Spring Harbor labs (famous for their research and lecture series/meetings/week long learning seminars) is having a learning seminar next week titled "Glia in Health and Disease" . There is a great article calle the "dark side of glia" published last year in science magazine, by Greg Miller (writer for science mag) , check it out!

Oh I hope there is!! Too many of today's youth don't have a concept of defending their nation or serving the flag of the United States of America. We may not like its leaders but they are still OUR leaders and the american way of life, although flawed at times, is worth standing up for and defending. I met a great guy the other day, a jarhead who was in vietnam and took multiple hits as was discharged honorably due to disability (he has a purple heart). I felt and still hold the up most respect and gratitude for a leatherneck like that and I think most youths forget out today. There is a feeling awe one gets when you talk to a guy like that. I salute guys like that! I for one think the draft may help rekindle some patriotism that I FEEL we've lost since 9/11. Bring on the draft I say. I've i'm not in by then..i'll be first in line then.

I have to do more research, but I would assume (and I'll check) the "voltage" gated Na Channel of the that particular snake would have a DECREASED AFFINITY for the toxin easily explained by different amino-acids in the extra cellular "toxin" binding site. This is the case for the Fugu fish. There is a single point mutation in their voltage gated Na channel that renders TTX ineffective, so it does not explain their ease in catching As far as curare goes, Anesthesiology use a forms of this of compound (i.e. aminosteroid based derivatives) for neuromuscular block and intubation during operations. They have to be careful which forms they use since as moleke mentioned it can be sequestered/toxic to the liver, which can be compromising to hepatically impaired patients. But the curare works though a "ligand" gated na channal that is opened by aceytcholine binding.

Lots of problems with viral delivery that still need to be worked out. Chances are the gene (or rather recombinant construct complete with intronic sequences) will be too large to "reactivate" (or rather trigger recombination based genenomic insertion) of any pseudogene (of which nearly 50% of all genes expressed are anyway..see recent studies from groups at Affymetrix). Unless we're dealing with end stage or last resort treatment options, the idea of random insertion of any DNA whether it be a cDNA obtained from a message or targeted constructs, for healthy normal individuals sends shivers down my spine. It would be hard to get 100% infection of target cells (which would have to of a be apart of a self-renewing/pluripotent pool in order to be trasmitted to future cell progeny). the frequency of error to get proper genomic insertion of DNA would be too high to warrent acceptance of this form pharmacotherapy...at the moment. We haven't had too many issues with Vitamin C deficiencies to worry about this. Vit is readily available in our diets this days, even candy has vit C (asorbic acid).

Sounds like the person needs some professional psychosocial intervention, i.e. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. If that fails, pharmacotherapy may be an option but your friend would have to consult with a psychiatry physcian. It sounds like Social Anxiety Disorder to me; but the physcian will have a number of pharmacotherpeutic options available based on the individual patient profile.

I use to work with Drosophila (fruit fly) as a model system for nervous system development. Our floor was a "fly" floor since there were many labs who were fly based and we even had "fly rooms"..where we keep all of our stocks (various genetic strains, i.e. balancers, p-elements, transgenics) . Anyway, since we had so many flys on our floor it was very common for them to end up in our food and drinks. And, as the mad scientist we were, we became so use to them in our food, that it became quite common for us to eat/drink stuff with flys in it without a fuss. It was quite common place to spit out a fly from time to time..or just swallow them. Nobody cared..it was inevitable that you were gonna eat flys at some point!!! if you want to get rid of your fear of insects..definately try working in a drosophilia lab, not only will you get rid of your fear of maggots/insects, you may even get to enjoy the taste!!! And..yes..for you drosophila fans out there..i was a fly-sucker until we got the CO2 pistol valves.

i agree with pangloss, but although pakistan may be dodgy with their nuclear proliferation tactics they are not solely responsible for terrorism. Follow this link and you'll see that terrorist organizations exist around the world and many have not connections to pakistan (although I can argue that alot don't, the same would be true for any islamic country really!) http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/fs/37191.htm Now lets not forget about our own US terrorist! Abortion rights activist organizations are on the terror watch list, so is PETA as well as several neo-nazi groups. And i'm just getting started! l So its really dumb to just the point the figure at Pakistan. NYPD counter terrrorism runs a great persentation and a part of it called the "faces of terrorism". The first picture he has Osama. The next, a blond hair blue eyed man..(McVey), the next..a female from Sri Lanka, the next a the Japanese man who release Sarin in the subways a few years back. The presentation goes on to show at least 10 more pictures of people who are not muslim! They point being that terrorism is not caused by only people of islamic terror groups..but also by other insterest group and involve people of diverse ethnicities and sexes and ages!

I personally don't think its the greatest of ideas for a high school science fair, just do to the lack of access to available technology to the high school student. It is already well-established that Iris-prints are extremely accurate, however, the data base of Iris prints is not sufficient to have mass deployment of such technology. Furthermore, today POS figureprint readers are extremly realiable to don't just read the tip of the figure tips anymore, they are capable of reading the entire palm. In addition the POS figureprints readers don't use ink anymore, they use lasers and they are directly connected to databases that can give your instaneous validation of POS person identity. I say find another project! If counter-terrorism/forensic is your thing, you may want to go down to your local police department and ask them for a preceptorship in their counter terrorism unit or foresic lab (ask to speak to the lab head or commanding officer of the unit). Believe it or not, they will be very happy to have you spend some time asking questions and showing you the equipment they have and what they use to scientifically address the questions they may have. You will get some ideas and who knows, they may even help you with the project if you come up with a great idea. Contrary to the idea that cops are outstandish..they are human beings like you and do care about education!

huh..who lost what? "sickness" or rather symptoms of the common cold are just the side effects of our body erracdicating infection. As mentioned in the previous post, the cytokines, as well as a number of other compounds such as autocoids (histamine, bradykinin) and chemokines, are released during the containment and erradication of infection are pro-inflammatory (which is good during infection) which means ..very simply..that they are recruiting more leukocytes to battle infection. There are side effects of these proinflam molecules, especially at the levels released during infection. These effects are mediated by the release of membrane derived lipids that promote vasodilation and recruitment of leukocytes from circulation (Leukotriene B4 or Thromboxane A2). These same compounds are associated with "pain" that one may feel when one has a cold. Then there is the release of massive amounts of histamine (again vasodiliation/constrict in some areas) which can bring on sedation or tiredness. There there is the action of the leukocytes..which expend alot of energy to erradicate infection (i.e. oxidative burst). So feeling sick in response to a cold is not a bad thing!! and no body is losing...well the virus is..but that how it works. The story is different for other viruses other than the common cold, such as HIV, but in that case our defenses are either hijacked or out-smarted by the virus!!...but that's a whole different story..that you should look up now that you've had a immunology 101 lecture from two experts Skye on this forum and me...a former pharmaceutical industry science director who participated in the launch of a very big block buster anti-inflammatory drug! (which will remain nameless).

Re-read my post..think you're having an autoimmune response brought on by chronic inflammatory responses to excess vita B12. (you were probably put on due the anemia caused by vit b12 deficiency). There is alot of information out there: go to: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?DB=pubmed and type "vitamin B12 inflammatory" or "vitamin B12 autoimmune" you may not get the papers but the relevant findings for your level of knowledge are in the abstracts which are readily available. Print and take them to your doctor and discuss them. this is standard patient practice these days.

why don't you look for ways to combine both. You can get a solid education in materials science that involve "nano" tech, then you can go off and apply your knowledge at NASA. They're always in need of scientist and who knows, you may have an opportunity to go up one day!

Ok, Prion Disease and Alzheimers are two different puppies, however, they share in common the notion that at some point in protein synthesis/degredation there is a failure of the cell to clear misfolded proteins which can accumulate in the cell and cause cytotoxicity. About Alzheimers, there are two proteins that are linked to the accumlation of proteins inside the cell. One is Tau. The other is Beta-amyloid. To keep it simple, in Alzheimers two things occur: 1. there is an uncontrolled hyper-phosphorylation of Tau (a microtubule associated protein) that accumulates and precipitates inside the cell. The mechanism for the onset of such hyperphosphorylation is still being explored but see work by Eckard Mandelkow, PhD, and Ken Kosik, MD. Such precipitation is toxic. The precipitated hyper-phosphorylated tau is known as neurofibullary tangles or just tangles, if you're in the field. 2. Beta-amyloid. Beta-amyloid is a cell surface molecule of unknown function. It is proteolytically processed post-transcriptionally by a number of proteases called "secretases", the they are known as alpha, beta, gamma, ..and i think there is a sigma now. Presenillins have also been shown to be involved. One of the secretase proteases, the gamma-secretase, has been linked to the improper cleaving of Beta-amyloid. When this occurs, it has been suggested that abnormal cleaving of Beta-amyloids causes it to become insoluable, and thus it precipitates both inside and outside the cell. This, causes the build up of "amyloid" plaques (so in the field plaques referes to amyloid build up). The toxicity behind amyloid build up has been linked to the formation of reactive oxygen species that occure as a result of such build up. Furthermore, there is question as to whether soluble forms of improperly cleaved Beta amyloids are toxic as well (see work by Rudy Tanzi, PhD). Pharmacotherapies based on secreatase inhibition are in the pipeline of some pharmas. These plagues and tangles are visible under regular light microscopy. As a result of they cytotoxicity, they create "holes" in the brain..this is why certain areas of the brain of an Alzheimers patient can look like swiss cheese. So the take home message is that there is an accumlation of protein (although the initiating factors are still being dissected) that is cytotoxic to the surrounding cells, thus causeing demensia. Scientist have identified cells that produce acetylcholine are most affected by plague and tangles, and acetylcholine replacement is the mainstay anti-dementia therapy for Alzheimers Disease patients, note it is not curative. Prions, like Alzheimers, accumulate inside the cell (presumably through self replication and high jacking of the cells protein syntheis machinary). There is an inability of the cell (through its degredation pathways) to clear the protein build up. Thus the accumulation of the proteins become cytotoxic (which can involve to promotion of reactive oxygen species buildup, which can really damage the cell..i.e. lipidperoxidation, dna damage, etc). I don't need to mention this ..but see work by Stanly Prussner, nobel prize laureate for identifying and promoting the theory of prions. I've tried keeping it pretty simple but if you have more questions ask. Look up those names I gave you in pub-med..those are some of the big names in Alzheimers research!!! Also check out http://www.aging-institute.org.....a colleague of mine runs that institute (the executive director) and he's got some great info on the site.

To paraphrase a quote by grandfather of pharmacology, Paracelsus, "Everything is toxic, its just a matter of dose". Water can be toxic. So can sugar. At high doses. So, vitamins in high quantities can be toxic as well. For example, high doses of vitamin C can be very pro-oxidant and promote inflammatory (and damaging) responses in the gut (as a result of damage caused by Vitamin C induced formation of reactive oxygen species) There are many studies have have investigated and reported on the effects of high doses of vitamins, and many have reported a number of adverse events. Do a pub-med search you'll find a TON of studies regarding this topic. that being said, you have to tell your MD (or DO) what vitamin you were taking, the quantitity, the frequency, and duration. To recap, some vitamin preparations can be damaging to your gut, creating a environment that can promote auto-antigenicity, or auto-immune responses such as the case for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases like Crohn's Disease. So, your physician should do an X-ray to see what's going on with your bowels as well, if not ask! Take home message..go see a physician

Here's one to add to the list: Antibodies from the Santa Cruz company. You'd get better results by spitting on your sample.

The desire for sex is not only determined by horomonal cycles, but also the biological based feelings of pleasure associated with sex can be described by the same neuronal circuitry that can compel us to seek out foods we like (such as chocolate) as well as to uncontrolably consume harmful quantities of alcohol, or drugs. Yes, folks the pleasure of sex is, in part, hardwired (albiet subject to control by multiple mechanism which you can discuss) into the neurocircuitry of us mammals. In particular I'm refering to my circuitry of expertise (as well as my favorite),the mesolimibic and mesocortical projections of midbrain dopaminergic neurons!