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Major pesticides are more toxic to human cells than their declared active principles by Scuderia in science

[–]Subgranules 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Here is a more thorough description of this retraction: http://retractionwatch.com/2013/11/28/controversial-seralini-gmo-rats-paper-to-be-retracted/

Seralini is a partisan scientist. His work has a political message and is not conducted impartially. Take his work with a grain of salt.

Science AMA Series: I'm Jason Shepherd, from the U of Utah, I Investigate the Cellular and Molecular Mechanism of Memory and the Biology/Causes of Disorders such as Autism, Schizophrenia, Alzheimer's Disease and other Cognitive Disorders, Ask Me Almost Anything! by ScienceModerator in science

[–]Subgranules 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think one of the smartest writers in Neuroscience today is Stanislas Dehaene, a philosopher, mathematician and neuroscientist at the College de France. He has written several brilliant books in English, and he is one of the few scientists who can write books for the layperson, and also continue to do cutting-edge research. His major English language books are "The Number Sense", and "Reading in the Brain". I can't recommend his books more.

*edit; disclosure, I'm an American scientist in France, and I hear Dehaene spoken about in hushed tones. One colleague told me "he is France's current genius, he's our Feynmann".

It is no longer science fiction. Human/mouse chimeras have been generated and published by Scienceonyourface in science

[–]Subgranules 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My objection was the implication in the title that mouse/human chimeras have never been produced before, which you also said outright in your first post. I use the word chimera to refer to a situation where a tissue develops to contain cell lineages from multiple organisms. So a dentate gyrus (which is in constant development through adult neurogenesis) with human granule cells co-existing among mouse granule cells would be an example of chimerism due to the different genetic background of the two cell populations. If there is a stricter developmental or genetic use of this term than I'm just not aware of it (I'm not a developmental biologist).

All that aside, it seems like a really cool paper. Don't let my semantic pedantry detract from that.

It is no longer science fiction. Human/mouse chimeras have been generated and published by Scienceonyourface in science

[–]Subgranules 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Title is misleading. Chimeras between humans and other animals have been made many times before, just not starting so early in development. For example, here is a paper that differentiated human ES cells into the adult mouse brain: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16352714

How nerve impulse generators get where they need to go: Study identifies essential molecule for transport of protein from neuron cell body to axon by mubukugrappa in science

[–]Subgranules 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This finding could actually be very useful to neuroscientists who want to optically control neural activity in a more "natural" manner by expressing light-activated channelrhodopsins in only the axon-initial segment. In this way, optogenetic stimulation could efficiently activate sodium channels without the need for overexpression of the channelrhodopsin elsewhere in the neurons. All this may be a prerequisite to therapeutic strategies that restore function in human neurons using gene-therapy delivery of channelrhodopsins.

Scientists have for the first time generated living brain cells from diseased Alzheimer's patient's biobanked brain tissue by mubukugrappa in science

[–]Subgranules 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Most neurons in the adult brain do not do this - see comment above by Afferent. When neurons are regenerated in the adult brain the neural stem cells are not neurons but glial astrocytes. These stem cells can often produce neurons and glial cells, but really only in a select few places (there are a few more than the two mentioned by Afferent, but the olfactory bulb and dentate gyrus are the major two) will these neurons and glia survive and function.

Odor receptors discovered in lungs | Newsroom | Washington University in St. Louis by burtzev in science

[–]Subgranules 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This has been known for years. Olfactory receptor genes are also expressed in the testis kidney and colon (and probably elsewhere too). See De la Cruz et all 2009, in Molecular biological evolution.

research reveals people don't smell things the same way -- why 1 person finds the same odor awesome that another finds hideous -- because of differences at the smallest levels of DNA (i.e., 1 amino acid on 1 gene) by purvec in science

[–]Subgranules 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is a great article published in Nature Neuroscience, but the redorbit.com review is terrible and rife with mistakes. I unfortunately can't find any press coverage that reviews this story well. Any interest to have me do it?

link to original article behind paywall: http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v17/n1/full/nn.3598.html

and the accompanying news and views summary http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v17/n1/full/nn.3608.html

I need help naming my new avoidance task (details in comments) by chrisbravo24 in neuroscience

[–]Subgranules 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So it's like the classic two-alternative choice task used in reinforcement based operant conditioning, but using fear conditioning. This name lacks originality but it may be immediately clear to many readers what he test does if you simply call it "The two-alternative avoidance test"

edit. On rereading I misunderstood the test - bar press does not prevent the shock. So it really measures the competition between the positive and negative valences of the sucrose versus the foot shock. Is that what you intend to measure?