Day: 10/11/2016

MIT’s New Radio Can Detect Your Emotions Using Wireless Signals

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IN BRIEF

A team of researchers at MIT’s CSAIL have developed a device that can detect basic human emotions using wireless technology. Dubbed EQ-Radio, it analyzes small variations in heartbeat intervals to determine whether a person is happy, sad, excited, or angry.

BUT HOW DO YOU REALLY FEEL?

Determining a person’s emotions based solely on their facial expressions isn’t always easy, nor are the conclusions drawn always accurate. However, new technology coming from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) can measure even the subtlest changes in breathing and heart rhythm, allowing the researchers to detect whether a person is happy, sad, excited, or angry.

CSAIL’s new device, dubbed the EQ-Radio, extracts its data from wireless signals, making it more convenient and efficient than existing methods within the global emotion-detection space, which rely on on-body sensors or facial-recognition technology.

“[EQ-Radio] sends wireless signals that reflect off of a person’s body and back to the device. Its beat-extraction algorithms break the reflections into individual heartbeats and analyze the small variations in heartbeat intervals to determine their levels of arousal and positive affect,” says MIT professor and project lead Dina Katabi, who co-wrote a paper on the topic with PhD students Mingmin Zhao and Fadel Adib.

These measurements are used to determine the emotion. When the signals show low arousal and negative affect, the device registers the emotion as sad. Conversely, high arousal and positive affect is interpreted as excited.

Correlations will, of course, vary depending on the subject, but by understanding how the human heartbeat reacts across various emotional states, EQ-Radio is able to detect primary emotions with 87 percent accuracy.

“By recovering measurements of the heart valves actually opening and closing at a millisecond time-scale, this system can literally detect if someone’s heart skips a beat,” says Adib.

READING BETWEEN THE LINES

EQ-Radio reveals how wireless signals can reliably gather information on human behavior that is not immediately apparent, which could have useful applications within the entertainment and consumer-behavior industries, as well as immense potential for use within healthcare and diagnostics.

“Our work shows that wireless signals can capture information about human behavior that is not always visible to the naked eye,” says Katabi. “We believe that our results could pave the way for future technologies that could help monitor and diagnose conditions like depression and anxiety.”

 Running triggers production of a molecule that repairs the brain in animal models

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Running triggers production of a molecule that repairs the brain in animal models
Researchers at the Ottawa Hospital and the University of Ottawa have discovered that a molecule triggered by running can help repair certain kinds of brain damage in animal models. The team includes (from left) Dr. Rashmi Kothary, Dr. Robin Parks, Yves De Repentigny, Keqin Yan and Dr. David Picketts. 

Researchers at The Ottawa Hospital and the University of Ottawa have discovered that a molecule triggered by running can help repair certain kinds of brain damage in animal models. They found that this molecule, called VGF nerve growth factor, helps to heal the protective coating that surrounds and insulates nerve fibres. Their study, published in Cell Reports, could pave the way for new treatments for multiple sclerosis and other neurodegenerative disorders that involve damaged nerve insulation.

 However, if these mice were given the opportunity to run freely on a wheel, they lived over 12 months, a more typical mouse lifespan. The running mice also gained more weight and acquired a better sense of balance compared to their sedentary siblings. However, they needed to keep exercising to maintain these benefits. If the running wheel was removed, their symptoms came back and they did not live as long.

Looking at their brains, the researchers found that the running mice gained significantly more insulation in their cerebellum compared to their sedentary siblings.

To find out why running was causing this insulation, the team looked for differences in gene expression between the running and sedentary mice and identified VGF as a prime candidate. VGF is one of the hundreds of molecules that muscles and the brain release into the body during exercise. It also has an anti-depressant effect that helps make exercise feel good.

When the research team used a non-replicating virus to introduce the VGF protein into the bloodstream of a sedentary mutant mouse, the effects were similar to having the mouse run – more insulation in the damaged area of the cerebellum, and fewer disease symptoms.

“We saw that the existing neurons became better insulated and more stable,” said Dr. Matías Alvarez-Saavedra, the lead author on the paper. “This means that the unhealthy neurons worked better and the previously damaged circuits in the brain became stronger and more functional.”

Dr. Alvarez-Saavedra obtained his PhD in Dr. Picketts’ research group, and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the New York University School of Medicine and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

“We need to do broader research to see whether this molecule can also be helpful in treating and other neurodegenerative diseases,” said Dr. Picketts.

 

Highlights

  • •Running promotes the survival of mice with cerebellar ataxia following Snf2h inactivation
  • •Running ataxic mice show enhanced oligodendrogenesis and de novo myelination
  • •Comparative RNA-seq studies identify VGF as a contributor to brain repair
  • •VGF overexpression improves ataxic phenotype in mice without exercise

Summary

Exercise has been argued to enhance cognitive function and slow progressive neurodegenerative disease. Although exercise promotes neurogenesis, oligodendrogenesis and adaptive myelination are also significant contributors to brain repair and brain health. Nonetheless, the molecular details underlying these effects remain poorly understood. Conditional ablation of the Snf2h gene impairs cerebellar development producing mice with poor motor function, progressive ataxia, and death between postnatal days 25–45. Here, we show that voluntary running induced an endogenous brain repair mechanism that resulted in a striking increase in hindbrain myelination and the long-term survival of Snf2h cKO mice. Further experiments identified the VGF growth factor as a major driver underlying this effect. VGF neuropeptides promote oligodendrogenesis in vitro, whereas Snf2h cKO mice treated with full-length VGF-encoding adenoviruses removed the requirement of exercise for survival. Together, these results suggest that VGF delivery could represent a therapeutic strategy for cerebellar ataxia and other pathologies of the CNS.

Mayan Calendar Similar to Ancient Chinese: Early Contact?

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(VojtechVlk/Shutterstock)

In Beyond Science, Epoch Times explores research and accounts related to phenomena and theories that challenge our current knowledge. We delve into ideas that stimulate the imagination and open up new possibilities. Share your thoughts with us on these sometimes controversial topics in the comments section below.

Ancient Mayan and Chinese calendar systems share so many similarities, it is unlikely they developed independently, according to the late David H. Kelley, whose paper on the subject was published posthumously in August.

Kelley was a Harvard-educated archaeologist and epigrapher at the University of Calgary in Canada. He earned fame in the 1960s for major contributions toward deciphering the Mayan script. His article, titled “Asian Components in the Invention of the Mayan Calendar,” was written 30 years ago, but was only recently unearthed and published for the first time in the journal Pre-Columbiana.

In 1980, a major science journal had solicited the article, said Pre-Columbiana’s editor Dr. Stephen Jett. But, Jett said, “the editors rejected it as being overly documented for the journal’s spare format; understandably for so revolutionary an effort, Dave did not wish to weaken the documentation, and he never published the piece elsewhere.” Jett obtained Kelley’s permission to publish it before he died.

The hypothesis Kelly presented is controversial. He said that the calendars indicate contact between Eurasia and Mesoamerica more than 1,000 years ago, contradicting mainstream archaeology’s understanding that such contact occurred for the first time only a few hundred years ago.

Kelley supported the controversial theory of early transoceanic contact in general. It is a theory that has many other academic proponents and that Pre-Columbiana specializes in exploring. The similarities in the calendar systems is only part of a growing body of evidence for early contact.

Kelley also isn’t the only one to have noticed the similarities between the calendar systems. But given his authority as an expert on Mayan history, his analysis is a pillar on which to base further study.

Another researcher, who coincidentally has the same name but with a different middle initial, David B. Kelley (his whole name will be used to avoid confusion throughout the article; “Kelley” will only be used to refer to David H. Kelley), has used a computer program to further analyze the similarities between the two calendar systems.

David B. Kelley is an East Asian linguist at Showa Women’s University in Tokyo. His paper, titled “Comparing Chinese and Mesoamerican Calendar Dates,” was also published in the recent issue of Pre-Columbiana.

The Similarities

In both calendar systems, the days are associated with various elements (water, fire, earth, and so on) and animals. While the various associations don’t line up perfectly between the two systems, they do frequently correspond.

Some of the differences may be accounted for by changes over time; the same root calendar system may have been tweaked by each culture in different ways.

We’ll explore only a couple of the similarities mentioned by Kelley and David B. Kelley as examples.

The Chinese zodiac wheel, including symbols of the five elements. (Yurumi/Shutterstock)

The Chinese zodiac wheel, including symbols of the five elements.

 

The Mayan calendar. (RoseGarden/Shutterstock)

The Mayan calendar.

Animals

The same days in the Mayan and Chinese calendars are associated with the deer, the dog, and the monkey. Other days also closely match, though the correspondence is not exact.

The same days in the Mayan and Chinese calendars are associated with the deer, the dog, and the monkey.

For example, one day is associated with the jaguar in the Mayan calendar, but with the tiger in the Chinese. Another is associated with the crocodile in the Mayan, but the dragon in the Chinese. The associations may essentially be the same, though the specific manifestations may differ based on local fauna or lore.

Old World domesticates, such as the horse, sheep, cow, and pig are also missing from the Mayan calendar.

Another example of a similarity between Mesoamerican and Chinese calendars is the combined symbolism of the rabbit and the moon.

“The Aztec day 8, Rabbit, was ruled by Mayauel, goddess of the moon and of the intoxicating cactus drink pulque,” Kelley wrote. Representations of the rabbit in the moon are first seen in Mesoamerica around the 6th century A.D. “Pictures of the rabbit in the moon pounding out the elixir of immortality are Chinese favorites, first appearing in Han China in the first century B.C. or slightly earlier.”

Kelley concluded that: “The animal names in the Mayan calendar system … are clearly derived from a prototypical form of a Eurasian expanded list.”

The Chinese system also corresponds to this Eurasian list. Across the ancient Old World, calendar systems intermingled. Kelley thus looked at Greek, Indian, and other systems as examples of how the calendars in different cultures have similar roots, but take on slightly different forms.

This helped him understand the similarities and differences between the Chinese and Mayan calendars and to infer that they both ultimately have the same source and did not develop independently. It also shows that where elements of the Mayan calendar diverge from the Chinese, they may still align with other Eurasian systems, supporting the theory of early contact.

Elements

David B. Kelley used the computer program InterCal, developed by Caltech astronomer Denis Elliott, to find matches between the Mayan day associations and Chinese elements of fire, water, earth, metal, and wood.

At first, he didn’t find any matches for these elements, though he did find correlations in animal associations as Kelley did. But when he slightly tweaked the parameters of his comparison, he found a lot more overlap.

Some background explanation is necessary here. The start date of the Mayan calendar has been a matter of debate. No one knows for sure when it started, though it is commonly held that it began on Aug. 11, 3114 B.C.

David B. Kelley started with this assumption, and found nine matches between the two systems within any given 60-day period, all related to day names and animal associations.

But then he tried shifting the start date slightly. When he shifted it by four days, to Aug. 7, 3114, the matches increased from nine to 30 within any 60-day period, and the matches included the elements.

The accuracy of his comparison has some limitations aside from the tweak in start date. Elliott warned that his program would become increasingly less accurate the further back in time one used it to analyze dates.

Yet David B. Kelley wrote: “In spite of the lack of a solid match, the possibility of some sort of systematic relationship between certain Mesoamerican day names, and both the Chinese Heavenly Stems [elements] and Earthly Branches [animal associations] is tantalizing, to say the least.”

“If, indeed, it can be demonstrated that there is any reasonable degree of relevance for the idea that the Mesoamerican calendar system may be related, even in some minor way, to the Chinese calendar system, then an opportunity to test the Mesoamerican calendrical calculations against a known system (i.e., the Chinese) becomes available,” he said.

That’s not to mention the implications for ancient contact between the Old World and the New.

Symbolism, Associations Not an Exact Science

Kelley had a daunting task untangling the knots of changing associations over time. He gave some examples of how associations that don’t seem at first glance to correspond to each other may have some relation.

For example, a Pipil Mayan list from Guatemala has Turtle in the 19th position; a Malay list also has Turtle in the 19th position; other Mayan and Aztec lists have Lightning Storm in the 19th position; a Hindu list has Female Dog in the 19th position.

“The correspondence of Lightning Storm, Female Dog, and Turtle would normally be considered discrepant,” Kelley wrote. “However, the goddess of the 19th Aztec day was Chantico, a fire goddess, turned by the other gods into a dog.

“The concept of a Lightning Dog is found in Asia throughout the areas of Buddhist influence and is also found in Mexico. A Tibetan manuscript actually shows a Female Lightning Dog seated on a turtle, thus nicely combining the concepts associated with the 19th position of the animal lists. The Mayan Madrid Codex also depicts a dog seated on a turtle—a biological oddity.”

In addition to animal or element associations, both Kelley and David B. Kelley noted linguistic similarities between the day names along with other supporting evidence.

David B. Kelley wrote: “Perhaps one of the most tantalizing aspects of a comparison of the Mesoamerican systems of numerals lies in linguistics, where it can be demonstrated that the words reflecting vigesimal orders of magnitude, in certain Maya dialects, and the words reflecting decimal orders of magnitude, in certain Chinese dialects, are almost interchangeable.”

Kelley concluded: “In my opinion, the correspondences that I have discussed forcefully indicate cultural contacts of some sort between people of Eurasia and people of ancient Guatemala or nearby Mexico.”

He surmised that such contact may have occurred around the late first or early second century A.D. He said his conclusions are “disputable but are the best solutions that I have been able to find.”

Wild chimpanzee mothers teach young to use tools.

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The first documented evidence of wild chimpanzee mothers teaching their offspring to use tools has been captured by video cameras set to record chimpanzee tool-using activity at termite mounds in the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park in the Republic of Congo, according to new research from anthropologists.
Mother chimpanzee with her baby.

The first documented evidence of wild chimpanzee mothers teaching their offspring to use tools has been captured by video cameras set to record chimpanzee tool-using activity at termite mounds in the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park in the Republic of Congo, according to new research from anthropologists at Washington University in St. Louis.

“Wild chimpanzees are exceptional tool users, but in contrast to humans, there has been little evidence to date that adult chimpanzees teach youngsters tool skills,” said Stephanie Musgrave, the study’s first author and an anthropology graduate student in Arts & Sciences.

“We found that mother chimpanzees in the Goualougo Triangle teach by transferring termite-fishing probes to their offspring,” Musgrave said. “In this population, chimpanzees select specific herb species to make their fishing probes, and they produce probes that have a particular brush-tipped design. By sharing tools, mothers may teach their offspring the appropriate material and form for manufacturing fishing probes.”

Published in the journal Scientific Reports, the study is based on research conducted in partnership with the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Lincoln Park Zoo, the Max Planck Institute and Franklin and Marshall College. The findings have important implications for the evolution of teaching.

“It is easy for us to take for granted the importance of sharing information to learn complex skills, as it is ubiquitous in humans,” said Crickette Sanz, associate professor of biological anthropology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University and co-author of the study. “Our research shows that the evolutionary origins of this behavior are likely rooted in contexts where particular skills are too challenging for an individual to invent on their own.”

Musgrave, Sanz and colleagues used video to capture examples of wild chimpanzee mothers transferring specialized termite-gathering tools to less-skilled, immature chimpanzees. These transfers, which are costly to tool donors but beneficial to tool recipients, meet the scientific criteria for teaching in wild apes.

“Tool transfers are costly for mothers, whose ability to forage for termites is reduced, but are beneficial for offspring, who gain increased opportunity to learn tool skills and gather termites. This is the first such evidence satisfying these criteria for teaching in wild apes,” Musgrave said.

“Identifying teaching among wild animals is difficult because one has to quantify the impact of possible teaching behaviors on both the teacher and the learner,” Musgrave said. “Using video footage from remote camera traps placed at termite nests in the chimpanzees’ home range, we were able to observe and quantify how sharing tools affected those who relinquished their tools as well as those who received them.”

Chimpanzees are exceptional among animals for their remarkable propensity to make and use tools. Since different groups of chimpanzees use different types of tools, the teaching process also may need to be customized to address local conditions.

“Studying how young chimpanzees learn the tool skills particular to their group helps us to understand the evolutionary origins of culture and technology and to clarify how human cultural abilities are similar to or different from those of our closest living relatives,” Musgrave said.

The findings have interesting implications for identifying the cognitive underpinnings of teaching. In humans, teaching involves an understanding of others’ abilities and the intention to help them learn. In this study, chimpanzee mothers both anticipated the youngsters’ need for a tool and devised strategies to reduce the effort necessary to provide them.

In examples captured in this study’s videos, mothers sometimes bring multiple tools to a termite nest; they may also divide their fishing probe in half lengthwise, giving one-half to their offspring and keeping the other half. This strategy provides their offspring with a usable tool without compromising their own ability to gather food, Musgrave said.

Washington University pioneered the use of remote video technology to study the behavior of wild chimpanzees in Congo, and now it is used at nearly every ape research site across Africa. “It is a very effective means of monitoring wildlife without increasing human impact. Our camera array also provides a means of monitoring the health of the forest, as other endangered species such as western lowland gorillas, forest elephants, and leopards are ‘captured’ on film,” Sanz said.

“In addition to our traditional tracking of wild chimpanzees through the forest each day, this remote video technology has been a force multiplier in expanding the scope of our research to several other chimpanzee communities,” Sanz said. “We have observed a generation of chimpanzee kids learn how to use these tool sets, without having to spend a decade habituating them to human presence or risk exposing them to anthropogenic diseases.”

Calcium supplements may damage the heart.

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Taking calcium in the form of supplements may raise the risk of plaque buildup in arteries and heart damage, although a diet high in calcium-rich foods appears be protective, say researchers at conclusion of their study that analyzed 10 years of medical tests on more than 2,700 people.
More than half of women over 60 take calcium supplements — many without the oversight of a physician — because they believe it will reduce their risk of osteoporosis, researchers estimate.

After analyzing 10 years of medical tests on more than 2,700 people in a federally funded heart disease study, researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine and elsewhere conclude that taking calcium in the form of supplements may raise the risk of plaque buildup in arteries and heart damage, although a diet high in calcium-rich foods appears be protective.

In a report on the research, published Oct. 10 in the Journal of the American Heart Association, the researchers caution that their work only documents an association between calcium supplements and atherosclerosis, and does not prove cause and effect.

But they say the results add to growing scientific concerns about the potential harms of supplements, and they urge a consultation with a knowledgeable physician before using calcium supplements. An estimated 43 percent of American adult men and women take a supplement that includes calcium, according the National Institutes of Health.

“When it comes to using vitamin and mineral supplements, particularly calcium supplements being taken for bone health, many Americans think that more is always better,” says Erin Michos, M.D., M.H.S., associate director of preventive cardiology and associate professor of medicine at the Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “But our study adds to the body of evidence that excess calcium in the form of supplements may harm the heart and vascular system.”

The researchers were motivated to look at the effects of calcium on the heart and vascular system because studies already showed that “ingested calcium supplements — particularly in older people — don’t make it to the skeleton or get completely excreted in the urine, so they must be accumulating in the body’s soft tissues,” says nutritionist John Anderson, Ph.D., professor emeritus of nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Global Public Health and a co-author of the report. Scientists also knew that as a person ages, calcium-based plaque builds up in the body’s main blood vessel, the aorta and other arteries, impeding blood flow and increasing the risk of heart attack.

The investigators looked at detailed information from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis, a long-running research project funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, which included more than 6,000 people seen at six research universities, including Johns Hopkins. Their study focused on 2,742 of these participants who completed dietary questionnaires and two CT scans spanning 10 years apart.

The participants chosen for this study ranged in age from 45 to 84, and 51 percent were female. Forty-one percent were white, 26 percent were African-American, 22 percent were Hispanic and 12 percent were Chinese. At the study’s onset in 2000, all participants answered a 120-part questionnaire about their dietary habits to determine how much calcium they took in by eating dairy products; leafy greens; calcium-enriched foods, like cereals; and other calcium-rich foods. Separately, the researchers inventoried what drugs and supplements each participant took on a daily basis. The investigators used cardiac CT scans to measure participants’ coronary artery calcium scores, a measure of calcification in the heart’s arteries and a marker of heart disease risk when the score is above zero. Initially, 1,175 participants showed plaque in their heart arteries. The coronary artery calcium tests were repeated 10 years later to assess newly developing or worsening coronary heart disease.

For the analysis, the researchers first split the participants into five groups based on their total calcium intake, including both calcium supplements and dietary calcium. After adjusting the data for age, sex, race, exercise, smoking, income, education, weight, smoking, drinking, blood pressure, blood sugar and family medical history, the researchers separated out 20 percent of participants with the highest total calcium intake, which was greater than 1,400 milligrams of calcium a day. That group was found to be on average 27 percent less likely than the 20 percent of participants with the lowest calcium intake — less than 400 milligrams of daily calcium — to develop heart disease, as indicated by their coronary artery calcium test.

Next, the investigators focused on the differences among those taking in only dietary calcium and those using calcium supplements. Forty-six percent of their study population used calcium supplements.

The researchers again accounted for the same demographic and lifestyle factors that could influence heart disease risk, as in the previous analysis, and found that supplement users showed a 22 percent increased likelihood of having their coronary artery calcium scores rise higher than zero over the decade, indicating development of heart disease.

“There is clearly something different in how the body uses and responds to supplements versus intake through diet that makes it riskier,” says Anderson. “It could be that supplements contain calcium salts, or it could be from taking a large dose all at once that the body is unable to process.”

Among participants with highest dietary intake of calcium — over 1,022 milligrams per day — there was no increase in relative risk of developing heart disease over the 10-year study period.

“Based on this evidence, we can tell our patients that there doesn’t seem to be any harm in eating a heart-healthy diet that includes calcium-rich foods, and it may even be beneficial for the heart,” says Michos. “But patients should really discuss any plan to take calcium supplements with their doctor to sort out a proper dosage or whether they even need them.”

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, coronary heart disease kills over 370,000 people each year in the U.S. More than half of women over 60 take calcium supplements — many without the oversight of a physician — because they believe it will reduce their risk of osteoporosis.

Scientists “Play With God” And Create Embryos That Are Both Animal And Human

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The researchers hope these embryos, known as chimeras, could eventually help save the lives of people with a wide range of diseases.

One way would be to use chimera embryos to create better animal models to study how human diseases happen and how they progress.

Perhaps the boldest hope is to create farm animals that have human organs that could be transplanted into terminally ill patients.

But some scientists and bioethicists worry the creation of these interspecies embryos crosses the line. “You’re getting into unsettling ground that I think is damaging to our sense of humanity,” says Stuart Newman, a professor of cell biology and anatomy at the New York Medical College.

The experiments are so sensitive that the National Institutes of Health has imposed a moratorium on funding them while officials explore the ethical issues they raise.

Nevertheless, a small number of researchers are pursuing the work with alternative funding. They hope the results will persuade the NIH to lift the moratorium.

“We’re not trying to make a chimera just because we want to see some kind of monstrous creature,” says Pablo Ross, a reproductive biologist at the University of California, Davis. “We’re doing this for a biomedical purpose.”

The NIH is expected to announce soon how it plans to handle requests for funding.

Recently, Ross agreed to let me visit his lab for an unusual look at his research. During the visit, Ross demonstrated how he is trying to create a pancreas that theoretically could be transplanted into a patient with diabetes.

The first step involves using new gene-editing techniques to remove the gene that pig embryos need to make a pancreas.

Working under an elaborate microscope, Ross makes a small hole in the embryo’s outer membrane with a laser. Next, he injects a molecule synthesized in the laboratory to home in on and delete the pancreas gene inside. (In separate experiments, he has done this to sheep embryos, too.)

After the embryos have had their DNA edited this way, Ross creates another hole in the membrane so he can inject human induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS for short, into the pig embryos.

Like human embryonic stem cells, iPS cells can turn into any kind of cell or tissue in the body. The researchers’ hope is that the human stem cells will take advantage of the void in the embryo to start forming a human pancreas.

Because iPS cells can be made from any adult’s skin cells, any organs they form would match the patient who needs the transplant, vastly reducing the risk that the body would reject the new organ.

But for the embryo to develop and produce an organ, Ross has to put the chimera embryos into the wombs of adult pigs. That involves a surgical procedure, which is performed in a large operating room across the street from Ross’s lab.

The day Ross opened his lab to me, a surgical team was anesthetizing an adult female pig so surgeons could make an incision to get access to its uterus.

Ross then rushed over with a special syringe filled with chimera embryos. He injected 25 embryos into each side of the animal’s uterus. The procedure took about an hour. He repeated the process on a second pig.

Every time Ross does this, he then waits a few weeks to allow the embryos to develop to their 28th day — a time when primitive structures such as organs start to form.

Ross then retrieves the chimeric embryos to dissect them so he can see what the human stem cells are doing inside. He examines whether the human stem cells have started to form a pancreas, and whether they have begun making any other types of tissues.

The uncertainty is part of what makes the work so controversial. Ross and other scientists conducting these experiments can’t know exactly where the human stem cells will go. Ross hopes they’ll only grow a human pancreas. But they could go elsewhere, such as to the brain.

“If you have pigs with partly human brains you would have animals that might actually have consciousness like a human,” Newman says. “It might have human-type needs. We don’t really know.”

That possibility raises new questions about the morality of using the animals for experimentation. Another concern is that the stem cells could form human sperm and human eggs in the chimeras.

“If a male chimeric pig mated with a female chimeric pig, the result could be a human fetus developing in the uterus of that female chimera,” Newman says. Another possibility is the animals could give birth to some kind of part-human, part-pig creature.

“One of the concerns that a lot of people have is that there’s something sacrosanct about what it means to be human expressed in our DNA,” says Jason Robert, a bioethicist at Arizona State University. “And that by inserting that into other animals and giving those other animals potentially some of the capacities of humans that this could be a kind of violation — a kind of, maybe, even a playing God.”

Ross defends what his work. “I don’t consider that we’re playing God or even close to that,” Ross says. “We’re just trying to use the technologies that we have developed to improve peoples’ life.”

Still, Ross acknowledges the concerns. So he’s moving very carefully, he says. For example, he’s only letting the chimera embryos develop for 28 days. At that point, he removes the embryos and dissects them.

If he discovers the stem cells are going to the wrong places in the embryos, he says he can take steps to stop that from happening. In addition, he’d make sure adult chimeras are never allowed to mate, he says.

“We’re very aware and sensitive to the ethical concerns,” he says. “One of the reasons we’re doing this research the way we’re doing it is because we want to provide scientific information to inform those concerns.”

Ross is working with Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., and Hiromitsu Nakauchi at Stanford University. Daniel Garry of the University of Minnesota and colleagues are conducting similar work. The research is funded in part by the Defense Department and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM).

A Faster Internet: Terabit Networking Was Just Successfully Tested

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In a trial conducted by Nokia Bell Labs, Deutsche Telekom T-Labs and Technical Univeristy of Munich just achieved one terabyte transmission rate over fiber optics using realistic network conditions. The trials used a new modulation technique to make data transfer more efficient.

FIBER OPTIC TECHNOLOGY

Fiber optic technology, since it was first introduced, has been synonymous to faster internet connections. The technology, which uses optical fiber instead of copper wires, has proven itself more efficient and effective, particularly for long-distance and high-volume applications.

Unfortunately, despite years of research and advancement in the field, creating the infrastructure to make this technology more accessible still proved to be difficult given the complexity and cost of the fiber optic system. So while the possibility of terabit speed fiber optic technology is just around the corner, the reality of it being rolled out for commercial use is a little more difficult.

Perhaps the newest tests from Nokia Bell Labs, Deustche Telekom T-Labs, and Technical University of Munich will mark new possibilities of bringing this exciting upgrade into widespread use.

Photo credit: Lawrence Lawry

PROBABILISTIC CONSTELLATION SHAPING

In a field trial conducted by the organizations, results show that they have successfully achieved 1Tbps data speed. This had previously been achieved in lab conditions but now the testing simulated real network conditions and traffic levels. In a press release, Nokia discussed their use of Probabilistic Constellation Shaping (PCS) as the key factor in the test’s success. Basically, PCS is a new modulation technique which works by having the system choose networking constellation points with lower amplitudes. This makes it less prone to interruption and noise, versus the traditional method (which uses all points), thus allowing transmission rates to be tailored specifically for the transmission channel.

The results are indeed promising and could be the solution needed to meet the ever rising demand for core networks and bandwidth—especially as streaming becomes more popular, and with 5G cellular data coming in the near future. With more and more “smart devices” using wireless signals to connect to a network, current capabilities will not be able to keep up with the demand. As Inverse explains, although 5G is wireless, the network requires a wired infrastructure to carry data to a cell tower. If cellular networks are looking to meet the capabilities being proposed, up to 100 Gbps, the infrastructure is going to need some major upgrades.

It seems recent advances are increasing networking capabilities at the, figurative, speed of light. With this development and others like it, we will be able to match the increasing demand and set ourselves up to continually handle the growth.

Scientists Discover That Fasting Triggers Stem Cell Regeneration & Fights Cancer

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In the first evidence of a natural intervention triggering stem cell-based regeneration of an organ or system, a study in the June 5 issue of the Cell Stem Cell shows that cycles of prolonged fasting not only protect against immune system damage — a major side effect of chemotherapy — but also induce immune system regeneration, shifting stem cells from a dormant state to a state of self-renewal.

 
In both mice and a Phase 1 human clinical trial involving patients receiving chemotherapy, long periods of not eating significantly lowered white blood cell counts. In mice, fasting cycles then “flipped a regenerative switch,” changing the signaling pathways for hematopoietic stem cells, which are responsible for the generation of blood and immune systems, the research showed.

Physicists Created the First-Ever Time Crystals

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  • Scientists have pushed through the theoretical and have created the first ever physical time crystal.
  • While the harvesting of energy from such an object would violate physical law, the development may spur new possibilities in quantum computing.

MAKING A TIME CRYSTAL

A time crystal, without going into much detail, is an object appearing to have movement while remaining at its ground state — an idea proposed by theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek in 2012. In an article published last month, we featured how “floquet time crystals” were theoretically possible, according to researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).

This time, a team of scientists from the University of Maryland took the research further by actually building a working time crystal. The experiment involved creating a quantum system, where a group of ions form a ring shape structure cooled to their ground state.

In order to observe the unobservable perpetual spontaneous break in time-translation symmetry of time crystals, the researchers used a quantum system that evolves over time.

They used ytterbium ions, chaining them in an out-of-equilibrium state that localized them in a specific space, with spins interacting with one another. Then, a laser was used to change the spin of certain ytterbium ions, one after the other, creating continuous oscillation.

A STUDY IN STRANGE

The results were surprising: after observing and allowing the quantum system to evolve, the continuous interactions were occurring at twice the original period. “Since there is no driving force with that period, the only explanation is that the time symmetry must have been broken, thereby allowing these longer periods. In other words, [they] had created a time crystal,” according to MIT Technology Review.

Credits: J. Zhang, C. Monroe, et. al/University of Maryland
Spontaneous breaking of time-transaltion symmetry. Credits: J. Zhang, C. Monroe, et. al/University of Maryland

Time crystals exist as some sort of loophole in the law of physics, by existing in motion without energy consumption — a spontaneous break in time-translation symmetry — now made observable in time. However, in as much as the movement made by time crystals do not use consume energy, neither can it produce any. Also according to Tech Review, “Of course, it would never be possible to extract energy from this motion – that would violate the conservation of energy.”

The experiment has been forwarded for peer review where the experiment will hopefully be able to be replicated.

Still, in just a few years, what was first thought to be impossible was explained theoretically probable and then proven really possible. The existence of time crystals can help us work around the problem of quantum memory and push quantum computing research further.

 Fruit fly neurons hold the key to the molecular causes of mental diseases

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Fruit fly neurons hold the key to the molecular causes of mental diseases
Fruit fly neurons. 

New research involving the removal and analysis of single neurons from fruit fly (Drosophila) embryos has revealed insights into the causes of mental diseases such as bipolar disease.

The findings are published today, 11 October 2016, in Scientific Reports by a team of scientists from Plymouth University Peninsula Schools of Medicine and Dentistry and the School of Biological Sciences at Bangor University.

The research team removed single identified neurons from living fruit fly embryos in order to gain insight into the control mechanism for gene expression in developing networks of neurons. A neuron is a cell that processes and transmits information through electrical and chemical signals in the brain.

One of the genes identified encodes an RNA processing protein called B52 – a loss of B52 increases the growth of axon branches, long slender parts of a neuron that conduct electrical impulses. B52 is also important to the synthesis of acetylcholine, a very small molecule which acts as a messenger between neurons.

The construction of the brains in human and flies are very similar and 70 per cent of all genes expressed in fruit fly brains can also be found in . Nowadays are used to study the molecular causes of complicated human behaviour problems such as anxiety, aggression, alcohol and drug addiction.

The human counterpart of the fly B52 is called SRSF5. Imbalances in SRSF5 and acetylcholine production have been found in the brains of patients with , indicating that a link between B52 and acetylcholine may also exist in human brains and that the disruption of the link may cause severe mental problems.

This study shows for the first time that investigations of the fruit fly brain may lead to a better understanding of the origins of complicated mental problems in humans.

By increasing the understanding of such causes it is hoped that drug therapies may be developed to mitigate or halt the progression of mental diseases such as bipolar disease.