Monday, December 30, 2013

direct lineage reprogramming

A new finding by Harvard stem cell biologists demonstrates that it is possible to turn one type of already differentiated neuron into another within the brain.

The discovery by Paola Arlotta and Caroline Rouaux “tells you that maybe the brain is not as immutable as we always thought, because at least during an early window of time one can reprogram the identity of one neuronal class into another,” said Arlotta, an Associate Professor in Harvard’s Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology (SCRB).

 Arlotta and Rouaux now have proven that neurons too can change their mind. Arlotta targeted callosal projection neurons, which connect the two hemispheres of the brain, and turned them into neurons similar to corticospinal motor neurons, one of two populations of neurons destroyed in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

The work in Arlotta’s lab is focused on the cerebral cortex. These experiments will facilitate work in a new field of neurobiology that explores the boundaries and power of neuronal reprogramming.

Link to the story on neorosciencenews.com

Harvard University Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology

amazing google facts

Infographic from makeuseof.com

620,000,000 daily visitors to Google! Processes around 20 petabytes of information on a daily basis. In the past 5 years, it has indexed over 50 billion web pages.


Sunday, December 29, 2013

your biggest fan

Do you have a biggest fan? How we see ourselves is how others will see us. With this in mind, let's proceed to the next level.

Do you have enemies? Think this. Maybe there is no such thing as enemies.  No one's vying for our demise, so much as their own ascension. Maybe having opposition is our desperate explanation for why we face conflict we don't understand. Maybe our self-consciousness is behind why we feel judged by others.

Maybe becoming our own biggest fan will destroy whatever we perceived was against us.



Maybe becoming our biggest fan is the answer. Have confidence and conviction. This will attract a support system. There are no fair-weather fans by becoming your biggest fan. We must first support ourselves. We are our own complete and total support system

This notion leads to a better feeling within ourselves. We will have no enemies. We will have no opposition. We will have no conflict.

This attitude comes with practice. Be grateful for what you have and for what you are about to receive. Keep your thoughts positive. Go for the big picture. Make yourself part of the big picture. The sum is greater than all of its parts. A part is greater than the whole. We are that part.