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Rare horse cloned from cells taken from a stallion in 1980

Little Kurt looks like any other baby horse as he frolics playfully in his pen. He isn’t afraid to kick or head-butt an intruder who gets in his way and, when he’s hungry, dashes over to his mother for milk.

But 2-month-old Kurt differs from every other baby horse of his kind in one distinct way: He’s a clone.

The rare, endangered Przewalski’s horse was created from cells taken from a stallion that had sat frozen at the San Diego Zoo for 40 years before they were fused with an egg from a domestic horse.

High fructose intake may drive aggressive behaviors, ADHD, bipolar

The research, out today from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and published in * Evolution and Human Behavior*, presents a hypothesis supporting a role for fructose, a component of sugar and high fructose corn syrup, and uric acid (a fructose metabolite), in increasing the risk for these behavioral disorders.

Johnson outlines research that shows a foraging response stimulates risk taking, impulsivity, novelty seeking, rapid decision making, and aggressiveness to aid the securing of food as a survival response. Overactivation of this process from excess sugar intake may cause impulsive behavior that could range from ADHD, to bipolar disorder or even aggression.” “Johnson notes, “We do not blame aggressive behavior on sugar, but rather note that it may be one contributor.”” “The identification of fructose as a risk factor does not negate the importance of genetic, familial, physical, emotional and environmental factors that shape mental health,” he adds.


Huh, want to know more.

“New research suggests that conditions such as attention deficit hyperactivity syndrome (ADHD), bipolar disorder, and even aggressive behaviors may be linked with sugar intake, and that it may have an evolutionary basis.

The research, out today from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and published in Evolution and Human Behavior, presents a hypothesis supporting a role for fructose, a component of sugar and high fructose corn syrup, and uric acid (a fructose metabolite), in increasing the risk for these behavioral disorders.

“We present evidence that fructose, by lowering energy in cells, triggers a foraging response similar to what occurs in starvation,” said lead author Richard Johnson, MD, professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine on the CU Anschutz Medical Campus.

New research could help millions who suffer from ‘ringing in the ears’

In the largest clinical trial of its kind, researchers show that combining sound and electrical stimulation of the tongue can significantly reduce tinnitus, commonly described as “ringing in the ears.” They also found that therapeutic effects can be sustained for up to 12 months post-treatment.

The findings could potentially help millions of people since tinnitus affects about 10 to 15 percent of the population worldwide. The study was conducted by researchers from the University of Minnesota, Trinity College, St. James’s Hospital, University of Regensburg, University of Nottingham, and Irish medical device company Neuromod Devices Limited.

The research was published as the cover story of Science Translational Medicine, an interdisciplinary medical journal by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Artificial Intelligence Used to ‘Redefine’ Alzheimer’s Disease

Summary: New artificial intelligence technology will analyze clinical data, brain images, and genetic information from Alzheimer’s patients to look for new biomarkers associated with the neurodegenerative disease.

Source: University of Pennsylvania

As the search for successful Alzheimer’s disease drugs remains elusive, experts believe that identifying biomarkers — early biological signs of the disease — could be key to solving the treatment conundrum. However, the rapid collection of data from tens of thousands of Alzheimer’s patients far exceeds the scientific community’s ability to make sense of it.

Big global study finds remdesivir doesn’t help Covid-19 patients

🤔 (CNN)In a study it described as both conclusive and disappointing, the World Health Organization said the antiviral drug remdesivir has “little or no effect on mortality” for patients hospitalized with coronavirus and it doesn’t seem to help patients recover any faster, either.

Until now, remdesivir has been the only drug that appeared to have specific effects for coronavirus. It was the only drug with an Emergency Use Authorization for Covid-19 from the US Food and Drug Administration.

Results of the WHO study have not been published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.🙄 But WHO posted them to a pre-print server.

Small RNA as a central player in infections

More than half of the world’s population carries the bacterium Helicobacter pylori in their stomach mucosa. It often causes no problems throughout life, but sometimes it can cause inflammation, and in some cases, it can even lead to the development of stomach cancer.

Helicobacter pylori uses several ‘virulence’ factors that allow it to survive in the stomach and can lead to the development of disease. In this issue of the journal Molecular Cell, Professor Cynthia Sharma’s research team report that multiple of these factors are centrally regulated by a small RNA molecule called NikS. Prof. Sharma heads the Chair for Molecular Infection Biology II at Julius-Maximilians-Universität (JMU) Würzburg in Bavaria, Germany.

Among the regulated by NikS are the two most important of Helicobacter pylori as well as two encoding outer membrane proteins. In particular, the JMU researchers were able to show that NikS regulates the CagA protein, a bacterial oncoprotein that plays a central role in the development of cancer instigated by Helicobacter pylori. In addition, a protein with a so far unknown function that is released into the environment by H. pylori is also under the control of NikS.

Tobacco Plants Contribute Key Ingredient For COVID-19 Vaccine

It looks like the Tabacco plant is being used for the Covid19 vaccine.


Historically, tobacco plants are responsible for their share of illness and death. Now they may help control the COVID-19 pandemic.

Two biotech companies are using the tobacco plant, Nicotiana benthamiana, as bio-factories to produce a key protein from the coronavirus that can be used in a vaccine.

“There’s obvious irony there,” says James Figlar, executive vice president for research and development for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco. Reynolds owns Kentucky BioProcessing, one of the companies working on a COVID-19 vaccine from plants.

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