Wiping out gut bacteria impairs brain

There has been a study that has been done in mice showing that antibiotics kill bacteria that are found in our digestive sistem. By killing this bacteria, what the article explains is that it makes your mood change in the way that maybe by killing that bacteria you could feel depressed, anxious, angry, etc...

It does not only change your mood but it slows down the birth of new brain cells. This had an effect on memory. Scientist showed this by putting objects that the mice had already seen infront of them and by observing their responses see if they recognised them or not. Results were that many of them weren't able or took longer to recognise them.

Scientists have also seen that injections of specific immune cells made the new brain nerves boost in its growth. Mice showed recovery after treating them with these injections of immune cells in memory and growth of Nerve cells.

Supplied by Cali L. 3º Y

Chunks of Earth's Mantle are "Peeling off"

Scientist have begun to suspect that chunks/parts of the lower North American tectonic plate (upper area of mantle) are starting to peel off and sink. The material taking the role of replacing this is said to be a gooey substance from the asthenosphere.

The relatively frequent earthquakes could be the result of the peeling off of the lower North American tectonic plates. It is said for it to be probable for the tectonic plates to continue peeling off,this will lead to more earthquakes in the future not only located on that area of the planet, but on other parts of the world.

Source: http:///54695-chunks-of-earth-mantle-are-peeling-off.html[1] 

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http://www.livescience.com/54695-chunks-of-earth-mantle-are-peeling-off.html

supplied by Rahul N. 3º Y

Watching earth from space can change your outlook on life

Most of us have only seen the earth from the view from the ground. Since manned spaceflight started fewer than 600 people have seen earth from space. This study shows that the experience of astronauts of seeing the earth from space changed their perspective on life and made them more conscious about all the atmospheric pollution there is nowadays. Most of the astronauts explain things about something called the overview effect. One interviewed astronaut says that "It is actually incredible to see aurora from the surface of the earth, to directly be part of the interaction between the sun and the atmosphere, and the magnetic field looks like a prism or a rainbow or something". Another one says that "When the sun comes up, it comes up so fast and furious. The colours change. It's miraculous". " You notice how the atmosphere looks and how fragile it is", explains another astronaut. When you are at ground level you can't see it and don't realise how much we are polluting the planet, "It makes you more of an environmentalist after spending so much time looking down at our planet" says an astronaut from NASA. Going to space and seeing the earth from there is an incredible and a one in a life time experience

Supplied by Paloma B. 3º Y

Why Alzheimers can end up benefitting your health

Alzheimers disease has been found to be able to protect the body from pathogens. Amyloid- beta, a substance that gums up the brains of the affected, contains a protein capable of imprisoning pathogens that threaten the body. Before this experiment, A-beta was tested in dishes and was found able to defeat the pathogens. The mice in this new experiment were engineered to have the human form of Amyloid-beta and the ones with more of it were able to defend themselves from the disease better than the others.

A group of scientists lead by Rudolph Tanzi, from Harvard Medical School, is conducting an experiment to compare the amount of microbes in a healthy brain compared to one with Alzheimers disease. This would a relationship between the pathogens which could help with finding a cure for the disease

Supplied by Alexandra B. 3º Y and Carol Maj. 3º Y

Plasma

Plasma is the fourth stage of matter, it is the most common stage of matter that we know about, it comes from you super heating gas to 3,414 °C or by subjecting gas to electromagnetic waves by using a laser or a microwave generator. Plasma is like gas in many ways except you can create shape out of plasma by applying a magnetic field to it. Plasma has amazing potential for power due to it being found in between charged particles, and being very efficient with power meaning that if we could find away to control plasma then we could much more easily power our world.

Supplied by Harry O'C. 3º Y

One of the key genes responsible for the onset of type 2 diabetes has been identified......

One of the key genes responsible for the onset of type 2 diabetes has been identified, opening up possibilities to develop a drug to combat the condition.

Diabetes is the fastest-growing chronic condition in Australia with the preventable type 2 form accounting for 85 per cent of all cases. Obesity is one of the key risk factors in type 2 diabetes, said senior author Professor Damien Keating. "A proportion of obese people don't develop type 2 diabetes, and we don't understand why". This study, he said, showed for those at risk, the onset of type 2 diabetes was also linked to the failure of the beta cells in the pancreas — resulting in lower insulin secretion, mitochondrial dysfunction and increased oxidative stress. Previous studies have shown lower insulin secretion and mitochondrial dysfunction were also mirrored in the beta cells of many people with Down syndrome, who have an extra copy of chromosome 21.In previous work, the Scandinavian co-authors on the current study had uncovered about 5,000 genes with altered expression in beta cells of people with type 2 diabetes, but they had little idea which were causing reduced insulin secretion.

Using four mouse models — two with high blood sugar and two without — Professor Keating's team identified genes duplicated in Down syndrome that contributed to problems with insulin secretion."We then looked to see if any of these [genes] had increased expression in type 2 diabetes beta cells and this produced a single candidate gene called RCAN1," he said.Keating said their study then showed over-expression of RCAN1 caused defects to the beta cells that mimicked changes in type 2 diabetes and reduced insulin secretion. "We are now testing to see if we can reverse this process in mouse models by looking at whether we can increase insulin secretion. If you can do that in people, you don't get type 2 diabetes," he said. Professor Keating said the approach of comparing genetic analysis of the general population with those with Down syndrome could be used to investigate the genetics behind other diseases that are more common in people with the condition.

supplied by Amber G. 3º Y

Polar bears swim for days as sea ice retreats

Polar bears are excellent long-distance swimmers. Some can travel for days at a time, with only
very short rest stops on ice flows. But even polar bears have their limits. Now a study finds they
are swimming longer distances in years with the least amount of Arctic sea ice. And that worries
Arctic researchers.
Swimming a long time in cold water takes a lot of energy. Polar bears can tire and lose weight if
forced to swim too much. The amount of energy they now must put into traveling in search of food
could make it hard for these predators to survive.
Polar bears are swimming longer distances because of a global warming. This climate change is
causing temperatures in the Arctic to warm faster than in other parts of the world. The result is
more melting of sea ice and more open water.

The climate change is affection a lot in animals specially in polar bears as the ice is
melting and they don't have a fixed place to life. Some polar bears need to swim a whole
week for finding a pice of ice to stay there. This have a lot of consequences as they are
getting very thing and they dye as they don't have food or a place to sleep. This is very
sad but all of this is the fault of humans as me contaminate a lot and we create the
climate change

Berta P. 3º Yellow

Zapping clouds with lasers could change the planet's temperature.

Blasting lasers at cirrus clouds could help scientists tweak the earth's temperature by breaking up the ice crystals found in them.

Clouds with more numerous, smaller ice particles, these reflect more light. This technique could fight against global warming by making clouds reflect more light back into space.

Scientists from the University of Geneva injected water drops into a chilled chamber which mimics the cold temperature high in the atmosphere. The water froze into spherical ice particles, scientists blasted these with bursts of laser light. The laser hits the ice particle forming ultra hot plasma which produces a shock wave which breaks the ice particle forming smaller ice particles. Although applying this to clouds would be a long long way into the future, waiting for advances in laser technology. But this technique could also backfire as cirrus clouds also trap heat, (greenhouse effect) and and warm up the earth more. This method could possibly work by targeting certain types of cirrus clouds. Another negative aspect would be the fact that fossil fuels are burnt to power the lasers.

Divya D. 3º B

SCIENTISTS MEASURE INTUITION

This new study, published online in April in the journal Psycological Science, researchers have devised a technique to measure intuition and say that this "sixty sense" can play a real part when someone is making a decision. So, after using this new method they found evidence stating that people can use their intuition to make more accurate, faster and confident decisions.

The researchers suggest that intuition generally refers to a brain process that gives people the ability to make decisions without the use of analytical reasoning. Previous studies didn't actually measure intuition because researchers didn't really know how to quantify it. But Joel Pearson, an associate professor of psychology and his colleagues came up with a series of experiments to determine whether people were using their intuition to help guide their decision making or judgment. They define what we call intuition as a "nonconscious emotional information".

In the experiments, the researchers showed small groups of about 20 college students black and white images of dots moving around on one half of a computer screen. The researchers asked the students to decide whether the dots were generally moving to the left or to the right. As the participants made this decision, on the other side of the computer screen, they saw a bright, flashing square of color.

But sometimes, for example, each image was aimed at making people feel either a positive emotion (a puppy or a baby) or a negative emotion (a gun or a snake). However, the participants were not aware that they were being shown these emotional images because they flashed at speeds too fast to be consciously perceived.

The results showed that when the participants were shown the positive subliminal images, they did better on the task: They were more accurate in determining which way the dots were moving. But they also responded more quickly and reported feeling more confident in their choice. The researchers, with this experiment, proved that the participants became better at using their intuition over time, where they kept using it more frequently.

In the future, the researchers might be able to develop a method to train people to take advantage of their intuition and then test them to see if their intuition truly improved with more frequent use and practice, Pearson said.

Supplied by Inés Gibernau

MAGIC MUSHROOMS BEAT DEPRESSION

Link of article:

 http://www.livescience.com/54777-psilocybin-may-treat-depression.html

A 60 year old man thinks he could have found the solution to a depression, but with a very particular food, magic mushrooms!!

They are actually not magic mushrooms they are a hallucinogenic compound called psilocybin, but everybody knows them as magic mushrooms. These mushrooms can find the cure to depression, but a lot of investigation still has to go into this "medicine"

To make sure that this really works, the scientist worked with a group at 12 people with depression, they gave them a small proportion of these magic mushrooms. Three months later more than half of the people had reduced their symptoms drastically. Previously the people who they had tested this on had not seen improvements when they had taken antidepressants medications.

So overall there could be a small chance they have found the cure to depression you using these uniques magic mushrooms.

Emma M. 3º Y