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Scientists Successfully Reverse Alzheimer’s Disease In Mice

April 14, 2018April 26, 2023 gags

Researchers have made a major breakthrough in the war against Alzheimer’s disease after successfully reversing the condition in a study on mice.

A major breakthrough in the war against Alzheimer’s disease may pave the way for one of the most effective treatments to date. A team of scientists say they have successfully reversed the disease in mice.

Many more trials, tests, and hours of research remain before their method can be tried on humans, but it’s an historic step in the right direction.

The researchers, based at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute, found that by gradually reducing an enzyme in the brain called BACE1, they reversed the formation of amyloid plaques in the brains of mice with Alzheimer’s disease, improving their cognitive function. The scientists hope that this research will eventually produce drugs aimed at this enzyme in human brains.

“To our knowledge, this is the first observation of such a dramatic reversal of amyloid deposition in any study of Alzheimer’s disease mouse models,” says researcher Riqiang Yan in a news release by the Rockefeller University press.

Alzheimer’s typically starts with the abnormal buildup of beta-amyloid peptides, which gather together and form amyloid plaques in the brain, restricting recall, memory, and other crucial brain functions. BACE1 helps produce beta-amyloid peptides. There are already drugs in experimental stages that target BACE1, but because the enzyme also serves many critical purposes in the brain, there are serious side effects that have cropped up in the research thus far.

By selectively breeding mice, Yan and his team generated mice that lose their BACE1 as they grow older. Mice with no BACE1 whatsoever have been shown to develop severe neurological defects, but Yan found that by slowly reducing levels through time, the mice remained perfectly healthy.

The researchers bred these mice with those that developed Alzheimer’s at 75 days old. The offspring showed signs of Alzheimer’s disease after 75 days, despite their BACE1 levels being 50% lower than normal. But, their amyloid plaques slowly disappeared until they vanished completely at ten months old.

While the researchers noticed the absence of numerous telltale signs of Alzheimer’s disease, they also found that the rodents showed greater cognitive abilities after the removal of the enzyme.

“Our study provides genetic evidence that preformed amyloid deposition can be completely reversed after sequential and increased deletion of BACE1 in the adult,” says Yan. “Our data show that BACE1 inhibitors have the potential to treat Alzheimer’s disease patients without unwanted toxicity. Future studies should develop strategies to minimize the synaptic impairments arising from significant inhibition of BACE1 to achieve maximal and optimal benefits for Alzheimer’s patients.”

The complete study was published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

Jokes

Joke Of The Day: God And The Scientist

February 8, 2018November 21, 2017 gags

One day a group of scientists united and decided that man had come a long way, and no longer needed God. They picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him.

The scientist walked up to God and informed him that, “God, we’ve decided that we no longer need You. We’re to the point that we can clone people, and do many miraculous things, so why don’t You just go on and get lost.”

God listened patiently and kindly to the scientist and, after the man was done talking, God answered, “Very well! How about this? Let’s have a man-making contest.”

The man replied, “OK, great!”

But God added, “Now we’re going to do this just like I did, back in the old days with Adam.”

The scientist replied, “Sure, no problem,” and bent down to grab himself a handful of dirt.

God just looked at him and remarked, “No, no, no. You go get your own dirt! I CREATED that dirt!”

Cartoons Political

Former NOAA Scientist Blows Whistle On Manipulation Of Climate Change Data

February 14, 2017 gags

A retired NOAA scientist has proven that an influential study on climate change intentionally used manipulated data to suggest an increased rise in global temperatures.

Potentially explosive allegations have surfaced casting doubt on the validity of critical climate change data published by NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) that subsequently influenced multi-billion dollar decisions made by world leaders at the 2015 Paris Climate Conference.

On Sunday Feb 4, John Bates, former NOAA Meteorology Principal Scientist and winner of the US Department of Commerce Gold Medal in 2014 for his work in preservation of climate data records, published a bombshell post titled Climate Scientists Versus Climate Data, on the climate change blog Climate Etc., lampooning the seminal climate change work of former director of the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) Tom Karl.

Bates claims to have extensive documentation proving that Karl made, ”decisions that maximize warming and minimize documentation. “ The report in question was published by the journal Science on Jun 4, 2015, just five months before the 2105 United Nations Climate Change Conference. The Karl report directly refuted the somewhat inconvenient 2013 UN IPCC (United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report also known as the Fifth Assessment Report, which concluded that rate of global warming decreased from 1998-2012 when compared to the global warming trend from 1951-2012. The phenomenon was dubbed the “global warming hiatus”.

NOAA was quick to applaud the study on its website stating of the Karl paper shortly after it was published, “A new study published online today in the journal Science finds that the rate of global warming during the last 15 years has been as fast as or faster than that seen during the latter half of the 20th Century. The study refutes the notion that there has been a slowdown or “hiatus” in the rate of global warming in recent years.”

The report’s ultimate validation, however, was its influence on the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference. In his blog post Dr. Bates writes, “Gradually, in the months after K15 [Tom Karl’s paper] came out, the evidence kept mounting that Tom Karl constantly had his ‘thumb on the scale’—in the documentation, scientific choices, and release of datasets—in an effort to discredit the notion of a global warming hiatus and rush to time the publication of the paper to influence national and international deliberations on climate policy.” Indeed, world leaders have pledged hundreds of billions of dollars to support climate change research.

It bears mentioning that despite the unexpected results of the Fifth Assessment Report, the overall conclusion of scientists at that time remained dire stating that, “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia.” They also stated that,” Human influence on the climate system is clear. This is evident from the increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, positive radiative forcing, observed warming, and understanding of the climate system.” In effect, apart from the assertions of the Karl paper, the larger facts surrounding climate change remain the same according to the mainstream scientific consensus.

The conclusions drawn by Bates included recommendations for beefing up legislation regarding the archiving of federal climate data sets (the issue at the heart of Karl’s alleged malfeasance), enforcement of such legislation and, “a renewed effort by scientists and scientific societies to provide training and conduct more meetings on ethics.”

By Whitney Webb

Political

74 Prominent Medical And NASA Scientists Have Been Killed In The Last Few Years

February 12, 2017February 11, 2017 gags

An unusually high number of Medical and NASA scientist deaths in recent years. What’s going on?

74 Prominent NASA Scientists Have Been Killed In The Last Few Years — NASA Scientist Alberto Behar died in a plane crash in January (2015) in Los Angeles – making a total of 74 Scientists dead in 2 years.

Alberto Behar helped prove that there had once been water on Mars. He worked on two missions to Mars and was also a robotics expert who researched how robots function in harsh environments (such as under water and inside volcanoes). The unusually high number of scientist deaths in recent years has made people question the suspicious nature of his death.

Behar was an expert pilot; he was a flight instructor for both planes and helicopters – the weather conditions were clear that day and for some reason his plane just started to lose altitude. The Van Nuys Airport pilot Kashif Khursheed said “I can’t see what would be the cause of something like this. He was very knowledgeable, competent and thorough.”

This is just one of the most recent cases of a prominent scientist’s suspicious death. Over the past few years 74 leading medical and NASA scientists have died, almost all are officially labelled suicide or an accident.

Glenn Thomas was a World Health Organisation spokesperson; he was reportedly an expert on Ebola and AIDS, he was aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 when it was shot down with approximately 100 other researchers.

Joep Lange, a leading AIDS researcher and former president of the International AIDS Society (IAS) was also aboard MH17. They were all on their way to an international AIDS conference. With one fell swoop a large portion of the leading AIDS experts were killed before they could attend a global conference.

Melissa Ketunuti, 35, was a pediatrician who specialized in cancer; she also worked on an AIDS fellowship in Botswana. She was hogtied and set on fire in the basement of her home in Philadelphia.

Dr Anne Szarewski, 53, was a cervical cancer expert. She pioneered the cervical cancer vaccine. Szarewski was found dead in her London home in December 2013. Her husband spent hours drilling through the front door that she had locked from the inside. When he found her she was dead. To this day no one knows what killed her. An inquiry into her death was launched but nothing conclusive was ever found.

Perhaps one of the most controversial scientist deaths in the last few years was that of Shane Truman Todd, 31. In June 2012 he was found dead in Singapore, he was an electrical engineer. He was working on a top-secret “one of a kind” machine for the Chinese that was believed to be a defense weapon. Shane told his family that he was not happy with what he was doing and he feared for his life, he was allegedly being asked to compromise U.S security. He quit his job and was due to leave China and fly home but died a week before his flight after his last day at work building this unknown machine. Foul play was suspected and his family began campaigning for the truth, Chinese official said they would look into the matter and try to determine if it was murder or suicide but as of yet there are no answers.

Shane Todd — Shane Truman Todd was an electrical engineer. He was working on a top-secret “one of a kind” machine for the Chinese when he turned up dead.

These are just a tiny fraction of the scientist that have died under suspicious circumstances. You can read about these and other mysterious scientist deaths by clicking here. All of these people were either leading medical experts or leading engineers. You have to ask what could they have known that would have led to their deaths? Or could it all simply be coincidence?

In a time where conspiracy is commonplace, it is increasingly difficult to differentiate between what could be a conspiracy and what is simply an unfortunate event. It is incredibly suspect why so many of these deaths are so odd. The people who were killed would have had access to sensitive information that government officials may not want disclosed.

Jokes

Joke Of The Day: The Scientist And The Frog

September 29, 2016July 17, 2016 gags

A scientist is working in the lab with a frog. He has trained it to respond to simple verbal commands and wants to observe its ability to jump after it has lost one or more of its limbs. He starts by saying, “ok frog, jump.” The frog quickly does a small hop. The scientist notes, “frog jumps easily.”

The scientist then cuts off one of its legs and says “ok frog, jump.” The frog again hops, but with a bit of difficulty. The scientist notes, “frog with 3 legs still able to jump.”

The scientist cuts off another leg and says “ok frog, jump.” The frog stumbles awkwardly but is still able to do a small hop. The scientist notes, “frog with 2 legs able to hop a bit.”

Then he cuts off the third leg and repeats the command. The frog pushes with its remaining leg, trying to hop, and finally propels itself forward a bit. The scientist notes, “frog with one leg unable to jump fully, but can move forward.”

The scientist then cuts off its last leg and says “ok frog, jump.” The frog does nothing. The scientist repeats his command but the frog still does nothing. “Jump frog, jump!” But the frog doesn’t move.

The scientist notes, “frog with no legs goes deaf.”