The Adventures of Rizzo

logicianmagician:

Study Reveals Secret of Zebrafish: 

Scientists at Monash University in Australia have found how the zebrafish heals its spinal cord after injury.

The zebrafish, Danio rerio, is a tropical fish belonging to the family Cyprinidae. This species is a popular aquarium fish and is also an important model organism in scientific research. It has the amazing ability to regenerate fins, skin, the heart and the brain.

A new study in the describes the role of a protein in the remarkable self-healing ability of the fish. The finding could eventually lead to ways to stimulate spinal cord regeneration in humans.

“When the spinal cord is severed in humans and other mammals, the immune system kicks in, activating specialized cells called glia to prevent bleeding into it,” explained study co-author Prof Peter Currie.

“Glia are the workmen of nervous system. The glia proliferate, forming bigger cells that span the wound site in order to prevent bleeding into it. They come in and try to sort out problems. A glial scar forms.”

However, the scar prevents axons, threadlike structures of nerve cells that carry impulses to the brain, of neighboring nerve cells from penetrating the wound. The result is paralysis.

“The axons upstream and downstream of the lesion sites are never able to penetrate the glial scar to reform. This is a major barrier in mammalian spinal cord regeneration,” Prof Currie said.

In contrast, the zebrafish glia form a bridge that spans the injury site but allow the penetration of axons into it. The fish can fully regenerate its spinal cord within two months of injury. “You can’t tell there’s been any wound at all,” Prof Currie said.

occupyallstreets:

100,000 Flee ‘Extreme Violence’ In Congo In Less Than Two Months

Villagers and townspeople in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo are facing “extreme violence”, with mass executions, abductions, mutilations and rapes being committed almost daily, according to aid workers in Goma, the capital of North Kivu province.

Fighting between the government army, the FARDC, and a group of mutineers led by a fugitive UN war crimes indictee, Bosco Ntaganda, has escalated since April. Militias including the notorious FDLR, a Rwandan rebel group based in Congo, have joined the fray in a multi-fronted battle for territory, money and power. But the violence has received relatively little international attention.

“The crisis in Congo is the worst it has been for years. The activity of armed groups has exploded, with militias making the most of the chaos to prey on the local population,” said Samuel Dixon, Oxfam’s policy adviser in Goma. “Large areas of Kivu are under the control of armed groups – some villages are being terrorised from all sides, with up to five groups battling for power.

“Local people are bearing the brunt of extreme violence, facing the risk of massacre, rape, retaliation, abduction, mutilation, forced labour or extortion. In less than two months, more than 100,000 people in North Kivu have been forced to flee,” Dixon said.

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said the violence had sent tens of thousands of refugees spilling over the border into Rwanda and Uganda, while many more people were internally displaced.

Read More

motherjones:

letsdolaunch:

GZA of Wu-Tang Clan to release a science inspired album: “Dark Matter”

“There’s no parental advisory, no profanity, no nudity,” he said. “The only thing that’s going to be stripped bare is the planets.”

Yup.

Sweet Jesus.

cannolis:

Stacks of Duncansby by bm^ on Flickr.

c-u-l-t-u-r-e-s:

mmhhm

thinkmexican:

First-Generation New York City Mexican American Named Valedictorian, Heads to Harvard for PhD

Irvin Ibarguen, College of Staten Island Valedictorian for 2012, is the first CSI undergraduate to be admitted into Harvard University’s prestigious PhD History program.

Irvin, a senior History major with The Verrazano School honors program, began his college career as a Marketing major. When asked why he made the switch from Marketing to History, Irvin answered, “People usually think of history as a set of names and dates, but, in reality, it’s a lively and, at times, acrimonious debate. I wanted to be a part of it.”

Although Irvin is aware of his achievements, he regards his admittance to Harvard’s PhD program as one stop in a long, academic ride, which so far has earned him several scholarships including an IME Research Fellowship: a full-tuition scholarship awarded to Mexican Americans, and the prestigious Jeannette K. Watson Fellowship, which provides undergraduates with three consecutive summer internships.

Read More at College of Staten Island Today

Related: New York Times Article, a Wake Up Call for the Mexican Community

Hey, he’s a pretty cute homie

c-u-l-t-u-r-e-s:

YO THIS WAS LIKE ONE OF MY FIRST POST EVER ITS GETTING POPULAR OUTTA NOWHERE

Probably because everyone wants to mold clay on a pottery wheel?? I had one as a kid, it was great. <3

sagansense:

Based on fossil records, 252 million years ago over 90% of all species on Earth died out, effectively resetting evolution. (Image: Lunar and Planetary Institute)

Hey, remember that one time when 90% of all life on Earth got wiped out?

I don’t either. But it’s a good thing it happened because otherwise none of us would be here to… not remember it. Still, the end-Permian Extinction — a.k.a. the Great Dying — was very much a real crisis for life on Earth 252 million years ago. It makes the K-T extinction event of the dinosaurs look like a rather nice day by comparison, and is literally the most catastrophic event known to have ever befallen Earthly life. Luckily for us (and pretty much all of the species that have arisen since) the situation eventually sorted itself out. But how long did that take?

The Permian Extinction was a perfect storm of geological events that resulted in the disappearance of over 90% of life on Earth — both on land and in the oceans. (Or ocean, as I should say, since at that time the land mass of Earth had gathered into one enormous continent — called Pangaea — and thus there was one ocean, referred to as Panthalassa.) A combination of increased volcanism, global warming, acid rain, ocean acidification and anoxia, and the loss of shallow sea habitats (due to the single large continent) set up a series of extinctions that nearly wiped our planet’s biological slate clean.

Exactly why the event occurred and how Earth returned to a state in which live could once again thrive is still debated by scientists, but it’s now been estimated that the recovery process took about 10 million years.

Research by Dr. Zhong-Qiang Chen from the China University of Geosciences in Wuhan, and Professor Michael Benton from the University of Bristol, UK, show that repeated setbacks in conditions on Earth continued for 5 to 6 million years after the initial wave of extinctions. It appears that every time life would begin to recover within an ecological niche, another wave of environmental calamities would break.

“Life seemed to be getting back to normal when another crisis hit and set it back again,” said Prof. Benton. “The carbon crises were repeated many times, and then finally conditions became normal again after five million years or so.”

“The causes of the killing – global warming, acid rain, ocean acidification – sound eerily familiar to us today. Perhaps we can learn something from these ancient events.”

– Michael Benton, Professor of Vertebrate Palaeontology at the University of Bristol

It wasn’t until the severity of the crises abated that life could gradually begin reclaiming and rebuilding Earth’s ecosystems. New forms of life appeared, taking advantage of open niches to grab a foothold in a new world. It was then that many of the ecosystems we see today made their start, and opened the door for the rise of Earth’s most famous prehistoric critters: the dinosaurs.

“The event had re-set evolution,” said Benton. “However, the causes of the killing – global warming, acid rain, ocean acidification – sound eerily familiar to us today. Perhaps we can learn something from these ancient events.”

The team’s research was published in the May 27 issue of Nature Geoscience. Read more on the University of Bristol’s website here.