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Sunday, May 26, 2013

Scientists discover how rapamycin slows cell growth

Friday, May 24, 2013

University of Montreal researchers have discovered a novel molecular mechanism that can potentially slow the progression of some cancers and other diseases of abnormal growth. In the May 23 edition of the prestigious journal Cell, scientists from the University of Montreal explain how they found that the anti-cancer and anti-proliferative drug rapamycin slows down or prevents cells from dividing.

"Cells normally monitor the availability of nutrients and will slow down or accelerate their growth and division accordingly. A key monitor of nutrients is a protein called the Target of Rapamycin (TOR), but we do not know the details of how this protein feeds signals downstream to control growth says Dr. Stephen Michnick, senior author and a University of Montreal biochemistry professor. He adds that, "we were surprised to find that TOR hooks up to a circuit that controls the exit of cells from division which in turn modulates the RNA message that codes for a key cell cycle regulator called B-cyclin".

In collaboration with Daniel Zenklusen, also a University of Montreal biochemistry professor and lead author and doctoral candidate Vincent Messier, discovered that when cells are starved for nutrients TOR sends a signal to shut down production of a chemical message in the form of RNA to synthesize B cyclin ", Dr. Michnick explained. "We also found that TOR acts through a previously unforeseen intermediary, a protein that makes small chemical modifications to proteins normally stabilize B cyclin ", he added. "We have known that starvation and a drug that mimics starvation, rapamycin, affects B cyclin synthesis, but we didn't know how. Our studies now point to one mechanism", noted Dr. Messier.

Dr. Zenklusen emphasized that, "this is an important finding with implications for our understanding on how the normal organism interprets its environment to control growth and it was a surprise to find a mechanism that works through the RNA that codes for a regulatory protein. Dr. Michnick adds, "rapamycin is a promising therapy for some cancers and other devastating maladies such as the rare lung disease called lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM). It remains to be seen whether the pathway we have discovered might be an alternative target for the development of therapeutics against these diseases."

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University of Montreal: http://bit.ly/mNqklw

Thanks to University of Montreal for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/128393/Scientists_discover_how_rapamycin_slows_cell_growth

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Saturday, May 25, 2013

PFT: Bears will retire Ditka's No. 89 in December

In 2012, the Saints? defense fell apart during a season marked by suspensions for the bounty program run by former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams. In 2013, one Saints player says, they?re going back to that old Gregg Williams mentality.

Minus the bounties, of course.

Saints safety Malcolm Jenkins says new defensive coordinator Rob Ryan is a lot more like Williams than he was like last year?s defensive coordinator, Steve Spagnuolo. And Jenkins likes the toughness and aggressiveness that Ryan preaches.

?Personality-wise they are very similar,? Jenkins told the Associated Press. ?They?re cut from the same cloth in that they know that players and matchups are what defense is all about and they have a lot of personality and they?re aggressive in their play-calling.?

Williams was an assistant to Rob?s dad, Buddy Ryan, and both Williams and Rob Ryan have said many times that Buddy Ryan?s influence was extremely important.

?They?re all from the same school, the Buddy Ryan defense, so there are a lot of similarities between what Gregg was running and what Rob is bringing,? Jenkins said. ?But I think Rob has a few more wrinkles with the 3-4 and everything, and I think we?re going to have fun.?

Jenkins says the Saints under Ryan will have a defense that the rest of the league fears.

?There?s a line and you don?t cross it, but you want to get as close to that line as you can,? Jenkins said. ?We definitely want to be a physical, feared defense.?

Williams did cross the line. But a physical, feared defense is just what the Saints want Ryan to bring.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/05/24/bears-to-retire-mike-ditkas-number-in-december/related/

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Cold-loving bacteria offer clues for life on Mars

Joel Barker, courtesy of Ohio State University

Ellesmere Island, Canada, is home to cold-loving bacteria that live in permafrost.

By Tanya Lewis, LiveScience

A microbe discovered in the Canadian high Arctic thrives at the coldest temperature known for bacterial growth.

Researchers found the newly discovered bacterium,?Planococcus halocryophilus OR₁, in permafrost ? permanently frozen ground ? on Ellesmere Island. The organism thrives at 5 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 15 degrees Celsius), and holds clues to adaptations that might be necessary for?life on Mars?or Saturn's moon Enceladus, where temperatures are well below freezing.

The microbe lives inside veins of salty water, and can survive because the salt prevents the water in the veins from freezing, study leader Lyle Whyte of McGill University in Montreal said in a statement. The bacterium can remain active and breathing at temperatures down to at least minus 13 degrees F (minus 25 degrees C) in permafrost, Whyte said.

Whyte and his team studied the bacterium's genome sequence and found that?P. halocryophilus OR₁?withstands the cold and salt thanks to modifications in its cell structure, cell function and an abundance of cold-adapted proteins. Changes in the cell membrane that protects the bacterium are one example of such modifications.

The bacterium also appears to contain high levels of a compound that works as molecular antifreeze, as well as protecting the cell from the salty fluid in its environment.

These microbes might be?bad news for global warming, which is melting permafrost in Arctic regions. Permafrost contains dead organic matter that bacteria can break down, releasing carbon dioxide and venting the greenhouse gas to the atmosphere. More of these microbes mean more greenhouse gas gets released.

Still, Whyte calls the bacterium "our cold temperature champion," adding "what we can learn from this microbe may tell us a lot about how similar microbial life may exist elsewhere in the solar system."

It's not the first time life has been found in permafrost conditions. Cold-loving?extremophiles,?called psychrophiles, are most often bacteria, fungi or algae. These hardy microbes have been found living beneath sheets of ice in Siberia and Antarctica, where temperatures range from 23 to 68 degrees F (minus 5 to 20 degrees C).

A 2006 review article in the journal EMBO Reports describes some of the adaptations organisms have developed for surviving the challenges of life at these frigid temperatures. These challenges include slowed rates of biochemical reactions and more viscous fluid environments.

Follow?Tanya Lewis?on?Twitter?and?Google+.?Follow us?@livescience,?Facebook?&?Google+. Original article on?LiveScience.com.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653377/s/2c6041a6/l/0Lscience0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A50C240C18470A2930Ecold0Eloving0Ebacteria0Eoffer0Eclues0Efor0Elife0Eon0Emars0Dlite/story01.htm

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At Cannes' movie palace, talk of TV's rise

CANNES, France (AP) ? The annual Cannes festival on the French Riviera is the grandest platform in the world for the highest ambitions of film, a place where the art form is worshipped with wild passion and adoring reverence. Movies are projected pristinely in regal theaters, where they're greeted by the world's cinephiles with feverish excitement.

But even at this bastion of the big screen, director after director has come through preaching the opportunities of the small screen. Up and down the Croisette, talk of TV's ascendance is rampant.

"The way that things are moving because of the financing of films, television has almost become where a lot of people seek creativity," said Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn, who premiered at the festival his Bangkok noir "Only God Forgives," starring Ryan Gosling. "It's opened up a whole new arena."

Danish TV's current quality has spread internationally (including "The Killing," which was remade in America). Refn, the director of "Drive," is working on his television debut, a version of the 1969 French science fiction film "Barbarella" for France's Canal Plus.

Refn said that in the past 10 years, TV has leveled the field, creatively, and is now "sometimes much more satisfying than anything around."

"I love television," he said. "I love the size of it. I love to touch them. I like to watch them. I love the remote control. I love the power of the remote control. I love everything about the television."

One of this year's most notable films in competition won't even be released theatrically in the U.S.: Steven Soderbergh's Liberace melodrama "Behind the Candelabra." Hollywood studios passed on the film, which stars Michael Douglas and Matt Damon, suggesting that it was too gay to play at the box office. HBO picked up the $23 million film and will air it Sunday.

Soderbergh, long considered one of America's finest filmmaking talents, is stepping away from moviemaking, but is enthusiastically moving into television. He'll reportedly make a 10-episode series about a turn-of-the-century New York hospital, starring Clive Owen. (Soderbergh also produced the 2003 Washington, D.C., drama "K Street.")

"There's a lot of great stuff being made," said Soderbergh. "You can go narrow and deep, and I like that. And this is all ("Sopranos" creator) David Chase. He single-handedly rebuilt the landscape. Anything that's on now that's any good is standing on his shoulders."

"I don't hear anybody talking about movies the way they talk about TV right now," said Soderbergh.

But Cannes remains one of the great arguments for the vibrancy of movies. Year after year, it gathers together many of the world's best films, and this year's festival, the 66th, has been no different in that respect.

Audiences have been wowed by the Coen brothers' wry melancholy ("Inside Llewyn Davis"), the classical skillfulness of James Gray ("The Immigrant"), the shambling grandeur of Paolo Sorrentino ("The Great Beauty") and many other sensory feasts. At Cannes, cinema is utterly alive.

But there are economic forces at work that have contributed to the shift. As audiences have becoming increasingly fractured, studios have concentrated more on enormous blockbusters. While advances in film equipment have made making a movie easier, getting it seen has become harder.

Director James Toback premiered at Cannes his "Seduced and Abandoned," a documentary he made with Alec Baldwin. The two filmed their sometimes humiliating efforts to find financing ? and the necessary marketing budget ? for an adult drama. With appearances from Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese and Roman Polanski, the movie often feels like a funeral for the days of popular, dangerous movies.

"The movie business is tough, and it's tougher now than ever," said Baldwin, who largely stepped out of film to star in Tina Fey's acclaimed sitcom "30 Rock." ''Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever make another movie again."

"Seduced and Abandoned," fittingly, was picked up not for theatrical release, but by HBO. (The network will also broadcast another film at Cannes playing out of competition, Stephen Frears' documentary "Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight.")

David Fincher's entry to television with the political thriller "House of Cards" for Netflix sent reverberations through the business, partly because Fincher is such a widely respected filmmaker.

But talent is increasingly flocking to TV because of acclaimed shows like "Mad Men," ''Downton Abbey," ''Girls," ''Breaking Bad" and many others. The medium allows for more novelistic storytelling and, often, greater exposure.

"It's nice for actors because more people see it," said Kristin Scott Thomas, who stars in "Only God Forgives." ''You can spend weeks and weeks and weeks making a film that very few people will see, and that's sort of dispiriting."

"It's very satisfying when millions see something," she added. "It's as simple as that."

Not everyone, though, endorsed TV at Cannes. The 87-year-old Jerry Lewis barked: "Never watch television, if you can help it." Henri Behar, the moderator of Lewis' press conference, noted that that was an appropriate sentiment at a film festival.

___

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jake_coyle

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/cannes-movie-palace-talk-tvs-rise-123240516.html

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Obama endorses more oversight of drone strikes

President Barack Obama talks about national security, Thursday, May 23, 2013, at the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington. Declaring America at a "crossroads" in the fight against terrorism, the president Barack revealed clearer guidelines for the use of deadly drone strikes, including more control by the U.S. military, while leaving key details of the controversial program secret. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama says his administration is willing to consider accepting increased oversight of lethal drone strikes outside of war zones like Afghanistan.

In a speech on new contours of his counterterrorism strategy, Obama took note Thursday of a number of proposed ways of doing that ?- including the establishment of an independent oversight board in the executive branch of the government.

He did not endorse any particular proposal but said he will engage Congress in exploring a number of options for increased oversight. He cautioned that some proposals may introduce a layer of bureaucracy into national-security decision-making, without giving the public added confidence in the oversight process.

Obama also said that his administration already briefs Congress on all drone operations.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-05-23-US-Obama-Drones-Oversight/id-5a8561ab2d94495d8d3e076d42d3e895

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Friday, May 24, 2013

Scientists Growing New Crystals To Make LED Lights Better

I was under the impression that the issue of translating LED light into a broad swath of color was an already solved problem (except for some fine-tuning optimization), using appropriately-sized nanoparticles which hand the energy from the photons around, slicing-and-recombining energy from photons into different sized packets and re-emitting the light at a frequency characteristic of the size of the nanoparticle. Cover the LED with a bunch of these in a range of sizes and you get a smooth spectrum.

Works the other way, too: Coat a solar cell with such particles and they take the random-frequency photons from the sun and slice them up into multiple new photons at a frequency good for the solar cell bandgap, and mash the levtovers into more big photons to re-slice to the correct size. (It's not 100%, since some of the photons get away. But it's more than a 2x improvement over a bare cell, which only takes one slice off each photon and throws the rest away.)

If this is correct, this project looks like just a fine-tuning of making the nanoparticles, or finding materials for them that are somewhat more efficient than what was already being used (which was pretty good).

I haven't been following this all THAT closely. Have I misunderstood the current stuff? Or is this just a little incremental tweak along the cutting edge?

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/UeBRiS-aO9M/story01.htm

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Mailbox, the app that was supposed to revolutionize email so long as you were willing to stand in a

Mailbox, the app that was supposed to revolutionize email so long as you were willing to stand in a 250,000+ wait list, has just released its first iPad-optimized version. And the best part? No virtual waiting in line required.