?Stressed? bacteria become resistant to antibiotics

Feb. 20, 2013 ? Bacteria become resistant to antibiotics when stressed, finds research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology. In particular E. coli grown at high temperatures become resistant to rifampicin.

It is generally thought that antibiotic resistance is costly to maintain, for example mutations which reduce antibiotic uptake also restrict the amount of nutrients entering the cell. Consequently in the absence of antibiotics non-resistant bacteria will out-compete the resistant ones. However researchers from UC Irvine and Facult? de M?dicine Denis Diderot have discovered that by putting bacteria under stress, by growing them at a high temperature, the bacteria could spontaneously develop resistance to the antibiotic rifampicin.

The mutations responsible for rifampicin resistance had different effects in other strains of E coli. In each type of bacteria tested the mutated subunit of the RNA polymerase rpoB allowed them to grow in the presence of rifampicin, but unlike the original test strain they did not necessarily have a growth advantage at high temperature.

Dr Olivier Tenaillon who led this study commented, "Our study shows that antibiotic resistance can occur even in the absence of antibiotics and that, depending on the type of bacteria, and growth conditions, rather than being costly to maintain can be highly beneficial. Given that rifampicin is used to treat serious bacterial infections such as tuberculosis, leprosy, Legionnaire's disease, and for prophylaxis in cases of meningococcal meningitis, this development has important implications for public health."

These bacteria provide strong evidence that the evolution of antibiotic resistance is governed by two properties of genes, pleiotropy and epistasis. Dr Arjan de Visser from Wageningen University explained, "Pleiotropy describes how the antibiotic resistance mutations affect other functions, hence their fate in other environments. Epistasis describes how well different mutations combine in their effect on resistance, and therefore determines which mutational pathway will be preferred by evolution when several mutations are needed for full resistance."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by BioMed Central Limited.

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Journal Reference:

1. Alejandra Rodr?guez-Verdugo, Brandon S Gaut and Olivier Tenaillon. Evolution of Escherichia coli rifampicin resistance in an antibiotic-free environment during thermal stress. BMC Evolutionary Biology, (in press) [link]

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/zvdPWm2BBSI/130221194045.htm

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In rich and poor nations, giving makes people feel better than getting, research finds

Feb. 21, 2013 ? Feeling good about spending money on someone else rather than for personal benefit may be a universal response among people in both impoverished countries and rich nations, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

"Our findings suggest that the psychological reward experienced from helping others may be deeply ingrained in human nature, emerging in diverse cultural and economic contexts," said lead author Lara Aknin, PhD, of Simon Fraser University in Canada.

The findings provide the first empirical evidence that "the warm glow" of spending on someone else rather than on oneself may be a widespread component of human psychology, the authors reported in the study published online in APA's Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Researchers found a positive relationship between personal well-being and spending on others in 120 of 136 countries covered in the 2006-2008 Gallup World Poll. The survey comprised 234,917 individuals, half of whom were male, with an average age of 38. The link between well-being and spending on others was significant in every region of the world, and it was not affected by other factors among those surveyed, such as income, social support, perceived freedom and perceived national corruption, the study said.

The results were similar in several experiments the researchers themselves conducted with participants in wealthy and poor countries. For one analysis, they compared responses from 820 individuals recruited mostly from universities in Canada and Uganda. The participants wrote about a time they had either spent money on themselves or on others, after which they were asked to report how happy they felt. They were also asked if they spent money on another person to build or strengthen a relationship. People who remembered spending money on someone else felt happier than those who recalled spending money on themselves, even when the researchers controlled for the extent to which people built or strengthened a relationship, according to the study.

The researchers obtained the same results when they conducted an online survey of 101 adults in India. Some respondents were asked to recall recently spending money on themselves or someone else, while others were tested for their happiness level without recalling past spending. Those who recalled spending on someone else said they had a greater feeling of well-being than those who remembered spending on themselves or those who weren't asked about spending.

In another experiment, 207 university students in Canada and South Africa reported higher levels of well-being after purchasing a goody bag for a sick child rather than buying one for themselves. Both groups went to labs where they were given a small amount of money and told to buy a bag of treats for themselves or one for a child at a local hospital.

"From an evolutionary perspective, the emotional benefits that people experience when they help others acts to encourage generous behavior beneficial to long-term human survival," said Aknin.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by American Psychological Association, via Newswise.

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Journal Reference:

1. Aknin, L. B., Barrington-Leigh, C. P., Dunn, E. W., Helliwell, J. F., Burns, J., Biswas-Diener, R., Kemeza, I., Nyende, P., Ashton-James, C. E., & Norton, M. I. Pro-social Spending and Well-Being: Cross-Cultural Evidence for a Psychological Universal. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, (in press) 2013 DOI: 10.1037/a0031578

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/8R0Oekg7bCg/130221104357.htm

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Mobile Nations Fitness Month week 1 and 2 winners!

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Week three of Mobile Nations Fitness Month is underway, which means we have winners to announce for the first two weeks of the February! Everyone who participates and tries to make some positive change in their life is a winner in my book, but without further ado, let's see who our contest prize winners are!

Week 1 - Stepping up contest
$20 iTunes gift certificates
Beezzy
iDonev
tinysalmon
warmfuzzyapps
ZOFOURTWENTY

Week 1 - Exercise MY way contest
$100 iTunes gift certificate
msiry

Week 2 - Eating Clean contest
$20 iTunes gift certificates
bamf-hacker
Fausty82
Hoagie5252
iirishassassin
Premium1

Week 2 - Nutrition MY Way contest
$100 iTunes gift certificates
mjcostajr

Congratulations everyone! If you won a prize in the first half of Fitness Month, we will be in contact in the next day or so with more information on claiming your prize. If you didn't win, there is still plenty of time to enter over in the forums for the daily/weekly prizes, plus we're giving away a FitBit right here on the blogs!

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/D4NyIdx673A/story01.htm

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Air Menzies Int'l opens new division in India

A meeting of like minds at the Combined Logistics Networks annual meeting in Bangkok from May 25-30, 2010, aims to be a good start to rebounding quickly from the impacts of the Global Financial Crisis.

Please kindly subscribe as gctl8.com member for ONLY US$120 per year. You can enjoy : SPECIAL 10% DISCOUNT ON ALL ADVERTISEMENTS AT GCTL8.COM & INSIGHTS MAGAZINE (Please quote your subscriber's name when placing an Advertisement to obtain the discount) FULL ACCESS TO: Our archives daily news articles Special Report articles (articles prepared in run-up to launch of Insights Magazine) Back issues of Insights Magazine (as only two months current issues are FREE for a one month period from date of publication) Contact details of Cargo Leads/Agencies wanted etc Details of job applicants at Classified Ads etc Monthly container throughput figures at Hong Kong port Monthly air cargo throughput figures at Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals, Asia Airfreight Terminals and Shanghai Pudong Air Cargo Terminals Ltd SUBSCRIBE NOW! Please click here for registration.

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Source: http://www.gctl8.com/index.php?module=ShowCategory&pa=0&CatNum=RSS&hl=Air+Menzies+Int%255C%2527l+opens+new+division+in+India

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Cooling may prevent trauma-induced epilepsy

Feb. 20, 2013 ? In the weeks, months and years after a severe head injury, patients often experience epileptic seizures that are difficult to control. A new study in rats suggests that gently cooling the brain after injury may prevent these seizures.

"Traumatic head injury is the leading cause of acquired epilepsy in young adults, and in many cases the seizures can't be controlled with medication," says senior author Matthew Smyth, MD, associate professor of neurological surgery and of pediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "If we can confirm cooling's effectiveness in human trials, this approach may give us a safe and relatively simple way to prevent epilepsy in these patients."

The researchers reported their findings in Annals of Neurology.

Cooling the brain to protect it from injury is not a new concept. Cooling slows down the metabolic activity of nerve cells, and scientists think this may make it easier for brain cells to survive the stresses of an injury.

Doctors currently cool infants whose brains may have had inadequate access to blood or oxygen during birth. They also cool some heart attack patients to reduce peripheral brain damage when the heart stops beating.

Smyth has been exploring the possibility of using cooling to prevent seizures or reduce their severity.

"Warmer brain cells seem to be more electrically active, and that may increase the likelihood of abnormal electrical discharges that can coalesce to form a seizure," Smyth says. "Cooling should have the opposite effect."

Smyth and colleagues at the University of Washington and the University of Minnesota test potential therapies in a rat model of brain injury. These rats develop chronic seizures weeks after the injury.

Researchers devised a headset that cools the rat brain. They were originally testing its ability to stop seizures when they noticed that cooling seemed to be not only stopping but also preventing seizures.

Scientists redesigned the study to focus on prevention. Under the new protocols, they put headsets on some of the rats that cooled their brains by less than 4 degrees Fahrenheit. Another group of rats wore headsets that did nothing. Scientists who were unaware of which rats they were observing monitored them for seizures during treatment and after the headsets were removed.

Rats that wore the inactive headset had progressively longer and more severe seizures weeks after the injury, but rats whose brains had been cooled only experienced a few very brief seizures as long as four months after injury.

Brain injury also tends to reduce cell activity at the site of the trauma, but the cooling headsets restored the normal activity levels of these cells.

The study is the first to reduce injury-related seizures without drugs, according to Smyth, who is director of the Pediatric Epilepsy Surgery program at St. Louis Children's Hospital.

"Our results show that the brain changes that cause this type of epilepsy happen in the days and weeks after injury, not at the moment of injury or when the symptoms of epilepsy begin," says Smyth. "If clinical trials confirm that cooling has similar effects in humans, it could change the way we treat patients with head injuries, and for the first time reduce the chance of developing epilepsy after brain injury."

Smyth and his colleagues have been testing cooling devices in humans in the operating room, and are planning a multi-institutional trial of an implanted focal brain cooling device to evaluate the efficacy of cooling on established seizures.

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Washington University in St. Louis. The original article was written by Michael C. Purdy.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Journal Reference:

1. Raimondo D'Ambrosio, Clifford L. Eastman, Felix Darvas, Jason S. Fender, Derek R. Verley, Federico M. Farin, Hui-Wen Wilkerson, Nancy R. Temkin, John W. Miller, Jeffrey Ojemann, Steven M. Rothman, Matthew D. Smyth. Mild passive focal cooling prevents epileptic seizures after head injury in rats. Annals of Neurology, 2012; DOI: 10.1002/ana.23764

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/KatBMfm6X7A/130221091833.htm

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TouchPal Keyboard for Windows 8 brings Swype-like typing to your slate (update: not quite ready)

Android fans wanting to try a Windows 8 tablet haven't really had the choice of a glide-based keyboard in the vein of SwiftKey Flow or Swype, in part because the OS isn't designed for an easy replacement. After months of teasing, though, CooTek claims to have the remedy with the launch of TouchPal Keyboard for Windows 8. The software naturally centers on the sliding, predictive input method for those who've grown used to typing with one finger versus many. Thankfully, it's not a one-trick pony: the Windows 8 adaptation also includes the components from TouchPal's mobile editions, including an optional split keyboard and plugins. We most like that it's free, which should make it that much easier to skip the Type Cover for many of those considering a Surface Pro.

Update: It turns out that the app hasn't quite reached the Windows Store yet -- check back in the near future.

Filed under: Tablets, Software, Microsoft

Comments

Source: CooTek

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/21/touchpal-keyboard-for-windows-8/

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How the whale got its teeth

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Whales are mammals, but they don't look like the mammals living around us, as they have a triangular fluke for tail, no hind legs and no body hair. And inside their mouths, their teeth are unfamiliar too ? being much simpler and 'peg like'. A multidisciplinary team of researchers have now married together the fossil record and the embryonic development process to investigate how the whale got its teeth.

Most mammals have four kinds of teeth, each shaped for specific tasks. In most mammals there are wedge-shaped incisors, a pointy canine, and premolars and molars with bumps and valleys that fit together like a mortar and pestle when you chew. Not all whales have teeth, but those that do, such as killer whales, have rows of simple peg like teeth, each one looking the same as the next. Whales use this spiked row of teeth to grab prey, but unlike other mammals, whales do not chew. In a new study published today in the open access journal PeerJ, Brooke Armfield and colleagues investigated the developmental processes that cause the teeth of dolphins, whales' smaller cousins, to be different, and tracked the evolutionary progression of their unique dentition across the fossil record.

Whales evolved from land mammals and so Armfield and co-workers first went to the fossil record to trace when and how whales evolved their simple teeth. The fossil record shows that, 48 million years ago, whales had the same four kinds of teeth just like most other mammals. Gradually, the teeth of whales became simpler and acquired their characteristic peg-like appearance around 30 million years ago, well after the time that they had acquired an array of adaptations for living in the water.

Next, Armfield and her colleagues explored just how teeth are shaped during development. Specific proteins in the embryo cause developing teeth to grow into certain shapes. Armfield and colleagues zeroed in on two proteins, BMP4 (Bone Morphogenetic Protein 4) and FGF8 (Fibroblast Growth Factor 8). BMP4 expression leads to teeth developing into simple prongs, and this occurs near the tip of the jaws, where the incisors form. Prior to teeth forming in the embryo, FGF8 expression in the back of the jaw leads to development of molar teeth with their complex hills and valleys in mice and other mammals.

Armfield and her co-workers studied FGF8 and BMP4 in pig embryos, relatives of whales and dolphins. Pigs have the four typical types of teeth, and, sure enough, the two proteins are distributed in the same way as they are in other mammals, showing that whales' ancestors likely had this distribution of gene expression too. Next, the authors moved on to examine dolphin embryos. Here, the pattern was different: FGF8 is present in the back part of the jaw, but BMP4 is present along the entire length of the jaw, including where FGF8 is found. The authors hypothesize that the overlapping presence of BMP4 in these new areas causes the teeth all along the jaw to be simple in shape, like incisors, and to be similar to each other. Interestingly, other researchers had shown that in mouse embryos in which BMP4 is experimentally introduced in the back of the jaw, the back teeth also take on this simplified appearance.

"It is exciting to identify a molecular change that occurred in nature and that so dramatically influenced the way in which a mammal can thrive in the ocean and to then trace the evolution of that change in the fossil record," says Armfield. "The simple shift in the location of proteins that influence tooth shape found in whales may help us to better understand how mammals evolved their complex tooth in the first place."

Says co-author Thewissen: "This shows that major changes to the design of an animal can result from small changes in early development, by simply shifting the region where an already existing protein occurs. It's a beautiful, detailed example of a small developmental change having a big effect in evolution."

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PeerJ: http://https://peerj.com

Thanks to PeerJ for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/126874/How_the_whale_got_its_teeth

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