brown university – Page 6 – Shamskm: A site to exchange knowledge and solutions

Neuroscience Methods: Optogenetics as good as electrical stimulation

By Guest PostDecember 18, 2013Sciencebrain cells, brown university, daniel brooks, david sheinberg, electrical stimulation, grant called repair, ji dai, lateral intraparietal area, lip, neural activity, neuroscience methods, nonhuman primates, optical case, optical stimulation, optogenetic stimulation, optogenetics, rodent models, technique, therapeutic benefits, visual decision making

Brown researchers have shown that optogenetics — a technique that uses pulses of visible light to alter the behavior of brain cells — can be as good as or possibly better than the older technique of using small bursts of electrical current. Optogenetics had been used in small rodent models. Research reported in Current Biology has shown that optogenetics works effectively in larger, more complex brains.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Neuroscientists are eagerly, but not always successfully, looking for proof that optogenetics – a celebrated technique that uses pulses of visible light to genetically alter brain cells to be excited or silenced – can be as successful in complex and large brains as it has been in rodent models. (more…)

Ancient crater may be clue to Moon’s mantle

By Guest PostDecember 12, 2013Scienceaitken basin, ancient crater, brown university, carle pieters, chandrayaan, dan moriarty, giant spa impact, India, laser program, lower crust, lunar orbiter, lunar science institute, mantle, mantle materials, mapper data, mineralogical surprises, mineralogy, moon, moon mineralogy, NASA, nlsi, peter isaacson, solar system, south pole, spa basin, spa subsurface, subsurface, university of hawaii, upper

A massive impact on the Moon about 4 billion years ago left a 2,500-mile crater, among the largest known craters in the solar system. Smaller subsequent impacts left craters within that crater. Comparing the spectra of light reflected from the peaks of those craters may yield clues to the composition of the Moon’s lower crust and mantle — and would have implications for models of how the Moon formed.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Researchers from Brown University and the University of Hawaii have found some mineralogical surprises in the Moon’s largest impact crater. (more…)

Compound stymies polyomaviruses in lab

By Guest PostNovember 25, 2013Sciencebiologist walter atwood, bk polyomavirus, brown university, chembridge, chemical compound, compound stymies, cyclizing reaction, daniel carney, daniel dimaio, dhq, dihydroquinazolinone, drug, endoplasmic reticulum, er, hours of infection, immune systems, infection, intracellular protein, jason sello, lab cell cultures, pathogen infection, paul williard, people with hiv, polyomavirus, retro, ricin, sv40 polyomavirus, toxins, trafficking mechanisms, transportation hub, treat polyomaviruses, yale university

There is no approved medicine to treat polyomaviruses, which afflict people with weakened immune systems, but scientists have found that a chemical compound called Retro-2 is able to reduce significantly the infectivity and spread of the viruses in lab cell cultures. Now they are working to improve it.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A team of scientists reports that a small-molecule compound showed significant success in controlling the infectivity and spread of three polyomaviruses in human cell cultures. To date there has been no medicine approved to treat such viruses, which prey on transplant recipients, people with HIV, and others whose immune systems have been weakened. (more…)

Society for Neuroscience 2013: How sleep aids visual task learning

By Guest PostNovember 22, 2013Health, Sciencebrainwaves, brown university, david orenstein, decline of function, due to aging, electronic encephalography, ji won bang, magnetic resonance imaging, measure the brainwaves, neural mechanism, neural oscillations, playing the piano, polysomnography, psychological sciences, san diego, sigma brainwave, sigma frequency, sleep, sleeping brain, society for neuroscience, supplementary motor area, Takeo Watanabe, visual cortical area, visual task learning, yuka sasaki

At the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in San Diego Nov. 10, 2013, Brown University scientists presented research showing what happens in the brain during sleep to lock in learning of a visually oriented “Where’s Waldo”-like task.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — As any indignant teacher would scold, students must be awake to learn. But what science is showing with increasing sophistication is how the brain uses sleep for learning as well. At the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego Nov. 10, 2013, Brown University researchers discussed new research describing the neural mechanism by which the sleeping brain locks in learning of a visual task. (more…)

Edited RNA + invasive DNA add individuality

By Guest PostNovember 18, 2013Scienceadar, adar hamstrug flies, aicardi goutieres syndrome, brown university, chromatin, edited rna, enzyme, genetic oddity, genome, hoppel transposons, humans, invasive dna, james jepson, rachel whitaker, red color gene, rna in humans, transposons, yiannis savva, yoah jen chang

A study in Nature Communications finds that an enzyme that edits RNA may loosen the genome’s control over invasive snippets of DNA that affect how genes are expressed. In fruit flies, that newly understood mechanism appears to contribute to differences among individuals such as eye color and life span.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — The story of why we are all so different goes well beyond the endless mixing and matching of DNA through breeding. A new study in the journal Nature Communications, for instance, reports a new molecular mechanism of individual variation found in fruit flies that uses components operating in a wide variety of species, including humans. (more…)

Celebrated jumping frogs: For top hops, scientists look to Calaveras pros

By Guest PostOctober 21, 2013Sciencebiologist, brown university, bullfrog, calaveras county, calaveras pros, celebrated jumping frogs, frog jockeys, georgia tech university, guinness book, henry astley, jumping frog jubilee, justin bookey, muscle, rhode island, richard marsh, rosie the ribiter, technique, tendon, thomas roberts, trial and error, world records

The Calaveras County Jumping Frog Jubilee has entered the scientific record via a new paper in the Journal of Experimental Biology. Experienced bullfrog ‘jockeys’ at the event routinely get their frogs to jump much farther than researchers had ever measured in the lab. How? Decades of refined technique, uncommonly motivated humans and herps, and good old-fashioned large sample size.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — One day, amid his decades-long study of how animals move, including how frogs jump, Brown University biologist Thomas Roberts found himself and colleague Richard Marsh puzzling over the Guinness Book of World Records. A bullfrog named Rosie the Ribiter reportedly had jumped more than 2.1 meters in a single hop at the Calaveras County Jumping Frog Jubilee in 1986, but scientific studies had never reported a bullfrog jump beyond 1.3 meters. (more…)

A new strategy to stop the TB bacterium

By Guest PostSeptember 30, 2013Sciencebacterial cell, brown university, cellular enzyme, clpp, clpp enzyme, corey compton, garbage disposal, jason sello, karl schmitz, lactone 7, mycobacterium tuberculosis, new strategy, tb bacterium, traditional antibiotics, tuberculosis

Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium that causes tuberculosis may have an Achilles’ heel: It needs a particular enzyme to survive. Inhibiting that enzyme’s function, researchers have shown, will kill the bacteria, pointing toward a design strategy for new TB drugs.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — To stay ahead in the race against drug-resistant infections, scientists constantly search for and exploit vulnerabilities in deadly bacteria. Now, researchers from Brown and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have used a novel compound to exploit an Achilles’ heel in the bacterium that causes tuberculosis. (more…)

First Readings: A first taste of college life

By Guest PostSeptember 17, 2013Culture, Education1938 olympics, anti lbgtq, beautiful souls, berlin, broker, brown university, Chicago, college life, croats, dan harwood, eyal press, first readings, first readings seminars, first taste, florida, hayley bounds, hitler, hong kong, illegal settlements, illinois, israeli commando, labor day, new york, olympic, omer bartov, Ponzi Scheme, president christina paxson, professor of history, russia, sense of empathy, serbian, smuggled jews, south korea, swiss border guard, us states

On Monday morning — Labor Day — first-year students gathered in classrooms around campus for their First Readings seminars. The program, initiated at Brown seven years ago, is designed to give new students a common reading experience and prepare them for college life.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Classes don’t officially begin until Wednesday, but first-year students got their first taste of academic life at Brown on the first Monday in September, when all 1,537 of them gathered in classrooms around campus for the annual First Readings seminars. (more…)

Tag Archives: brown university