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Oct 5, 2019
Promising steps towards hope for a treatment for schizophrenia
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry, food, health, neuroscience
Schizophrenia is a severe mental health condition that causes significant disability, and affects 1 in 100 people. Patients with schizophrenia commonly experience negative symptoms, which include lack of motivation, social isolation and inability to experience pleasurable feeling. The current antipsychotics minimally improve these negative symptoms, and there are no currently licensed treatments. In addition, it is estimated that total service costs for schizophrenia in England alone will be £6.5 billion by 2026. In view of this, there is considerable interest in identifying potential treatment targets for these symptoms. However, the nature of the changes in brain chemistry that contribute to these negative symptoms is unknown.
Mu-opioid receptors (MOR) are found in a region of the brain called the striatum and they play a crucial role in how we experience pleasure and reward. Our bodies naturally produce opioid molecules that include endorphins; which are hormones secreted by the brain that are known to help relieve pain or stress and boost happiness. MORs are receptors that bind these naturally produced endogenous opioid molecules, and stimulation of the MOR system starts a signalling cascade that causes an increase in motivation to seek reward and increase food palatability amongst many other effects. Interestingly, MORs were found to be reduced in the striatum post-mortem in schizophrenia. So, it was unclear whether the availability of these receptors was increased when individuals were alive, or whether reduced MORs was related to the negative symptoms of schizophrenia.
The latest brain scan research from the Psychiatric Imaging group at the MRC LMS published on 3 October in Nature Communications has reported how the MOR system contributes to the negative symptoms displayed in schizophrenia patients. For the first time, this research study showed how MOR levels are significantly reduced in the striatum region of the brain. Thus, a lack of MOR system stimulation in the brain contributes to these negative feelings that schizophrenia patients can experience.
Oct 5, 2019
Astronomers Have Traced a Single Neutrino to a Collision 3.8 Billion Light-Years Away
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: cosmology, particle physics
When a single neutrino was detected by a neutrino detector in Antarctica in September 2017, it was the start of something amazing. It was to become the first-ever high-energy neutrino that astronomers could trace back to an origin — a blazar galaxy called TXS 0506+056, 3.8 billion light-years away.
But, in the manner of many great discoveries, that revelation opened up a whole new can of questions, including this: why, of all the galaxies with similar properties, has a neutrino only ever been traced to this one?
Now, astronomers have found a possible answer, pinpointing the source event that produced this neutrino. The relativistic jet blasting out of a supermassive black hole could have acted as a cosmic particle collider, producing a flurry of neutrinos that, due to the shape and wobble of the jet, ended up streaming through Earth.
Oct 5, 2019
DeepMind’s AI can apply learned knowledge to complete novel tasks
Posted by Genevieve Klien in category: robotics/AI
In an experiment, DeepMind researchers investigated the extent to which AI agents could generalize learned knowledge to unseen tasks.
[p] Physics Today takes the spotlight off the laureates and instead focuses on the papers that prompted Nobel glory.[/p].
Oct 5, 2019
‘Goliath Is Winning’: The Biggest U.S. Banks Are Set to Automate Away 200,000 Jobs
Posted by Dan Kummer in categories: employment, finance, robotics/AI
Over the next decade, U.S. banks, which are investing $150 billion in technology annually, will use automation to eliminate 200,000 jobs, thus facilitating “the greatest transfer from labor to capital” in the industry’s history. The call is coming from inside the house this time, too—both the projection and the quote come from a recent Wells Fargo report, whose lead author, Mike Mayo, told the Financial Times that he expects the industry to shed 10 percent of all of its jobs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db14k51TGww
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Oct 5, 2019
U.S. Air Force scientists developed liquid metal which autonomously changes structure
Posted by Klaus Baldauf in categories: military, robotics/AI
As reported by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory, military scientists have developed a “Terminator-like” liquid metal that can autonomously change the structure, just like in a Hollywood movie.
The scientists developed liquid metal systems for stretchable electronics – that can be bent, folded, crumpled and stretched – are major research areas towards next-generation military devices.
Conductive materials change their properties as they are strained or stretched. Typically, electrical conductivity decreases and resistance increases with stretching.
Oct 5, 2019
Paralyzed man able to walk with mind-controlled exoskeleton suit
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: biotech/medical, cyborgs, space
Oct 4, 2019
The Defense Department Plans to Build Radiation-proof CRISPR Soldiers
Posted by Klaus Baldauf in category: biotech/medical
A Defense Department project plans to temporarily alter human genes, and shield people from deadly radiation exposure.