On 31st of August 2010 Pavlovsk Experiment Station of VIR had an unscheduled inspection. The station was visited by representatives of the Public Chamber, the Accounts Chamber as well as representatives of the Russian Housing Development Foundation. This inspection was a result of instruction given by Dmitry Medvedev for this situation to be scrutinized. After visiting two plots the commission was convinced that, indeed, the disputed plots harbor plants that make a part of the Vavilov collection of plant genetic resources. As a result of field inspection — Nadezhda Shkolkina reports — representatives of the RZhS Fund stated they will postpone an auction for an uncertain period.

Hot off the press. A light at the end of the tunnel? Fingers crossed. But let’s keep up the pressure!

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Resilience is in psychiatry the positive capacity of people to cope with stress and catastrophe. In this post it’s used as having an adaptive system that uses exposure to stress to provide resistance to future negative events.

Stress can lead to depression accompanied by atrophy and loss of neurons in the adult hippocampus in experimental studies. The effect of stress or whether you can become depressed due to stress seem to depend on individual characteristics. One characteristic is gene expression. Is it in your genes?

Caspi et al showed that the 5-HTT genotype (serotonin transporter gene) moderates the depressogenic influence of stressful life events. It moderated the effect of life events that occurred not just in adulthood but also of stressful experiences that occurred in earlier developmental periods. Consistent with the Gene x Environment hypothesis, the longitudinal prediction from childhood maltreatment to adult depression was significantly moderated by 5-HTTLPR. Childhood maltreatment predicted adult depression only among individuals carrying an s allele but not among l/l homozygotes. Unfortunately depression is a broad concept which makes it difficult to find the most responsible genes for this disease.

Moreover, environmental factors like stress …

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Resilience is in psychiatry the positive capacity of people to cope with stress and catastrophe. In this post it’s used as having an adaptive system that uses exposure to stress to provide resistance to future negative events.

Stress can lead to depression accompanied by atrophy and loss of neurons in the adult hippocampus in experimental studies. The effect of stress or whether you can become depressed due to stress seem to depend on individual characteristics. One characteristic is gene expression. Is it in your genes?

Caspi et al showed that the 5-HTT genotype (serotonin transporter gene) moderates the depressogenic influence of stressful life events. It moderated the effect of life events that occurred not just in adulthood but also of stressful experiences that occurred in earlier developmental periods. Consistent with the Gene x Environment hypothesis, the longitudinal prediction from childhood maltreatment to adult depression was significantly moderated by 5-HTTLPR. Childhood maltreatment predicted adult depression only among individuals carrying an s allele but not among l/l homozygotes. Unfortunately depression is a broad concept which makes it difficult to find the most responsible genes for this disease.

Moreover, environmental factors like stress …

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HapMap 3, officially announced in today’s issue of Nature,¹ is an “integrated data set of common and rare alleles” in human populations, built from “1.6 million common single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 1,184 reference individuals from 11 global populations“. 

As well as being a resource for genome-wide studies, there are a number of things that can be done with the data directly. One of those is to help identify regions that are under positive natural selection. The authors found a number of them, including several immune-related genes in the Kenyan population.

A little sadly for me, none of these genes are ones I’m particularly familiar with. The three that are listed are:

• CD226.  This is an activating NK cell receptor. An allelic variant in CD226 has been linked to a number of autoimmune diseases,² so it wouldn’t be surprising to learn that it’s under some form of selection.  I didn’t check the actual SNP that was shown to be selected, to see if it’s the same one that’s linked to autoimmunity.

• ITGAE.  This is an integrin³ that’s apparently …

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  ]]> http://sciencereportnow.com/2231/immunity-under-natural-selection/feed/ 0 http://sciencereportnow.com/2230/against-monopoly-the-mass-collaborative-artistic-re-envisioning-of-films-a-study-in-legal-contrasts/ http://sciencereportnow.com/2230/against-monopoly-the-mass-collaborative-artistic-re-envisioning-of-films-a-study-in-legal-contrasts/#comments Thu, 02 Sep 2010 08:38:10 +0000 admin http://sciencereportnow.com/2230/against-monopoly-the-mass-collaborative-artistic-re-envisioning-of-films-a-study-in-legal-contrasts/ Against Monopoly
  Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated is a mass collaborative artistic re-envisioning of George A. Romero’s 1968 cult classic, Night of the Living Dead.

  International artists and animators were invited to select scenes from the film and reinvent them through their artwork.

  The full and complete re-imagined work is currently available:

  http://www.notldr.com/next/main.html

  http://www.amazon.com/Night-Living-Dead-Duane-Jones/dp/B003GUGB8G

  A similar artistic endeavor was performed with Star Wars, but the Star Wars Uncut website lists a message which states: “We have a fully edited version of the movie produced, but we are working through the legal issues in order to bring that to everyone as soon as possible.”

  Why is this? Simple – One film is in the public domain, and the other isn’t.

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  ]]> http://sciencereportnow.com/2230/against-monopoly-the-mass-collaborative-artistic-re-envisioning-of-films-a-study-in-legal-contrasts/feed/ 0 http://sciencereportnow.com/2226/health-2-0-news-doctors-using-google-hospital-blogs-being-blocked/ http://sciencereportnow.com/2226/health-2-0-news-doctors-using-google-hospital-blogs-being-blocked/#comments Thu, 02 Sep 2010 07:48:12 +0000 admin http://sciencereportnow.com/2226/health-2-0-news-doctors-using-google-hospital-blogs-being-blocked/ Scienceroll

  • 86% of MDs use Google on the the Job (Digital Pathology Blog)

  It’s not just patients who turn to Google or other search engines to research medical information. According to Google, 86 percent of doctors say they now use  Internet on the job. Of that group, the majority start at Google, which they use as a source to look for general information about diseases and drugs, writes pediatrician Dr. Rahul K. Parikh in a special piece for the Los Angeles Times.

  • MAD MMX – Opening Title Sequence

  • Doctors blends cardiology and country music (Clinicl Cases and Images)

  <img …

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  ]]> http://sciencereportnow.com/2226/health-2-0-news-doctors-using-google-hospital-blogs-being-blocked/feed/ 0 http://sciencereportnow.com/2229/against-monopoly-copyrighting-cocktail-drinks/ http://sciencereportnow.com/2229/against-monopoly-copyrighting-cocktail-drinks/#comments Thu, 02 Sep 2010 03:51:44 +0000 admin http://sciencereportnow.com/2229/against-monopoly-copyrighting-cocktail-drinks/ Against Monopoly
  Conor Friedersdorf over at Andrew Sullivan’s much-trafficked blog points to “an interesting post about craft cocktails and the impulse to protect certain recipes as intellectual property” as well as the reaction to the concept from a third blogger.

  Read all about it and get the discussing links here:

  http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/09/keeping-government-out-of-cocktails.html

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  ]]> http://sciencereportnow.com/2229/against-monopoly-copyrighting-cocktail-drinks/feed/ 0 http://sciencereportnow.com/2224/sign-the-petition-to-stop-fox-news-in-canada-httptinyurl-com3aau3dy/ http://sciencereportnow.com/2224/sign-the-petition-to-stop-fox-news-in-canada-httptinyurl-com3aau3dy/#comments Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:12:29 +0000 admin http://sciencereportnow.com/2224/sign-the-petition-to-stop-fox-news-in-canada-httptinyurl-com3aau3dy/ bjoern.brembs.net

  Björn Brembs Sign the petition to stop Fox News in Canada! http://www.avaaz.org/en… 2 hours ago from Twitter - Comment - Like

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  ]]> http://sciencereportnow.com/2224/sign-the-petition-to-stop-fox-news-in-canada-httptinyurl-com3aau3dy/feed/ 0 http://sciencereportnow.com/2225/more-pavlovsk-on-the-web/ http://sciencereportnow.com/2225/more-pavlovsk-on-the-web/#comments Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:51:48 +0000 admin http://sciencereportnow.com/2225/more-pavlovsk-on-the-web/ Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog

  There’s a very good report from Pavlovsk on Al Jazeera’s youtube channel.

  Click here to view the embedded video.

  My only objection is to the reference to Pavlovsk as “one of only two botanical repositories on the planet.” And since we’re being all multimedia and social networky, I’ll also mention the photos on the Global Crop Diversity Trust’s Facebook page, which could do with — and are in fact receiving — some user-provided value-added.

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  ]]> http://sciencereportnow.com/2225/more-pavlovsk-on-the-web/feed/ 0 http://sciencereportnow.com/2223/were-does-resilience-against-depression-reside-in-the-brain/ http://sciencereportnow.com/2223/were-does-resilience-against-depression-reside-in-the-brain/#comments Wed, 01 Sep 2010 09:32:37 +0000 admin http://sciencereportnow.com/2223/were-does-resilience-against-depression-reside-in-the-brain/ Dr Shock MD PhD

  

  Resilience is in psychiatry the positive capacity of people to cope with stress and catastrophe. In this post it’s used as having an adaptive system that uses exposure to stress to provide resistance to future negative events.

  Stress can lead to depression accompanied by atrophy and loss of neurons in the adult hippocampus in experimental studies. The effect of stress or whether you can become depressed due to stress seem to depend on individual characteristics. One characteristic is gene expression. Is it in your genes?

  Caspi et al showed that the 5-HTT genotype (serotonin transporter gene) moderates the depressogenic influence of stressful life events. It moderated the effect of life events that occurred not just in adulthood but also of stressful experiences that occurred in earlier developmental periods. Consistent with the Gene x Environment hypothesis, the longitudinal prediction from childhood maltreatment to adult depression was significantly moderated by 5-HTTLPR. Childhood maltreatment predicted adult depression only among individuals carrying an s allele but not among l/l homozygotes. Unfortunately depression is a broad concept which makes it difficult to find the most responsible genes for this disease.

  Moreover, environmental factors like stress …

  Go to Publisher to continue reading
  

  ]]> http://sciencereportnow.com/2223/were-does-resilience-against-depression-reside-in-the-brain/feed/ 0