From a simulated bioattack on London's Underground to scientists self-testing hydrogen cyanide, a book about science under wraps exposes numerous horrors...... THE 26 July 1963 is widely remembered for the devastating earthquake that killed thousands of people in the city of Skopje, then in Yugoslavia. Far fewer know it as the date of a secret military trial on the London Underground, which aimed to simulate another sort of catastrophic event: the release of anthrax in an enclosed public space. At around midday, a small box of powder was dropped from the window of a Northern Line train, just as it pulled out of the south London station of Colliers Wood. As the box smashed and released its contents, hundreds of men, women and children were exposed to spores of Bacillus globigii, unaware that they had just become test subjects in one of the largest ever field trials of a simulated biological attack. As Secret Science explains, B. globigii is considered a human pathogen wit
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Implications profound for neurological diseases from autism to Alzheimer’s to multiple sclerosis. In a stunning discovery that overturns decades of textbook teaching, researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have determined that the brain is directly connected to the immune system by vessels previously thought not to exist. That such vessels could have escaped detection when the lymphatic system has been so thoroughly mapped throughout the body is surprising on its own, but the true significance of the discovery lies in the effects it could have on the study and treatment of neurological diseases ranging from autism to Alzheimer’s disease to multiple sclerosis. “Instead of asking, ‘How do we study the immune response of the brain?’ ‘Why do multiple sclerosis patients have the immune attacks?’ now we can approach this mechanistically. Because the brain is like every other tissue connected to the peripheral immune system through meningeal lymphatic vessels,” s
We regularly find ourselves in situations in which we talk to others. We talk to friends in a different way than we do to strangers. One important skill for this is not just understanding what the other person is saying but also recognizing who is talking. Therefore, the voice of our conversation partner helps us. Until now, scientists could not agree on exactly which regions in the brain allow us to recognize voices. "Very valid statements about which brain areas are responsible for which functions are derived from investigations in patients with lesions. If a certain part of the brain is injured and therefore a certain function fails, both components can be related to each other", says Claudia Roswandowitz, scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (MPI CBS) in Leipzig, and first author of a study which has revealed key findings about voice recognition. Roswandowitz, along with other researchers from the Research Group Neural Mechanism
Treating ovariectomized mice with a combination of conjugated estrogens and the drug bazedoxifene triggers the expression of genes that improve metabolism and prevent weight gain - without stimulating the uterus and increasing risks of reproductive cancer, a new study suggests. University of Illinois food science and human nutrition professor Zeynep Madak-Erdogan led a group of researchers who explored the effects of conjugated estrogens and bazedoxifene on the liver by analyzing gene transcription and the metabolism of about 150 chemicals in the blood. The findings were reported in a paper published in the online journal PLOS One . Bazedoxifene is commonly prescribed in combination with conjugated estrogens to prevent postmenopausal osteoporosis. It is among a class of compounds known as selective estrogen receptor modulators, which bind to estrogen receptors and either promote or block their activity. "Once women enter menopause and estrogens are lost, their metabol
The neuroscientists Dr Christina Strauch and Prof Dr Denise Manahan-Vaughan from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum have investigated which brain area is responsible for storing odors as long-term memories. Some odors can trigger memories of experiences from years back. The current study shows that the piriform cortex, a part of the olfactory brain, is involved in the process of saving those memories; the mechanism, however, only works in interaction with other brain areas. The findings have been published in the journal Cerebral Cortex. "It is known that the piriform cortex is able to temporarily store olfactory memories. We wanted to know, if that applies to long-term memories as well," says Christina Strauch. Synaptic plasticity is responsible for the storing of memories in the memory structures of the brain: During that process the communication between neurons is altered by means of a process called synaptic plasticity, so that a memory is created. Strauch and Manahan-V
For a long time, a dengue vaccine was the holy grail in dengue research. Now that a dengue vaccine is finally on the market (Sanofi's Dengvaxia ® ), other issues have arisen, such as what happens in the babies of vaccinated mothers. A vaccinated mother passes anti-dengue antibodies to her child during gestation and breastfeeding. These antibodies from the mother should protect the child against infection with the same strain of dengue virus, but have unclear effectiveness against different dengue strains. In fact, a mother's antibodies can actually worsen a dengue infection in her baby, causing severe complications such as dengue hemorrhagic fever and dengue shock syndrome. These life-threatening conditions may be accompanied by symptoms such as abdominal pain and leakage of fluids into the lung and internal cavities. Thus, there was a need to determine whether babies born to dengue vaccinated mothers would be protected or at risk of developing severe dengue diseas
A previously unknown safety mechanism in our immune system keeps the body free from autoimmune diseases. Researchers from Karolinska Institutet have discovered that a cell in our inherited immune system can prevent our adaptive (learned) immune system from reacting to the body's native cells, which can otherwise lead to autoimmune diseases such as SLE. The study is published in the academic journal Nature Immunology. Autoimmune diseases and allergies, in which the immune system triggers an immunological reaction in sufferers, are becoming increasingly common. In some cases, such as the rheumatic disease SLE, the immune system reacts to the body's own cells. One of the most important components of our learned (adaptive) immune system is the white blood cells called B lymphocytes, which are one of the main causal factors of many autoimmune diseases, including SLE, since it is these cells that start to react to the body's native structures, giving rise to the symptoms.