The bacteria that inhabit the rodent gut promote insulin secretion and food intake by activating the parasympathetic nervous system — a hitherto unknown mode of action for this multifaceted microbiota. See Article p.213
Nature 534 185 doi: 10.1038/534185a
The mechanisms that underlie enforced transitions between mature cell lineages are poorly understood. Profiling single skin cells that are induced to become neurons reveals that, unexpectedly, they often become muscle.
Nature doi: 10.1038/nature18444
Strands of beta amyloid fibrils form around yeast in culture media. (credit: Credit: D.K.V. Kumar et al. / Science Translational Medicine (2016)])
The protein globs that jam brain circuits in people with Alzheimer’s disease may not result from a sloppy surplus, but rather a bacterial battle, a new study suggests.
Previously, researchers assumed that the protein—beta amyloid—was just a junk...
Even the dumbest cars on the market today are surprisingly smart. Many of them not only know how much fuel they’re using and how fast they’re going, but they know when you need a replacement for vital components or a top-off on important fluids. But cars can usually only tell you through that pesky check...
Humans are distinguished from the other living apes in having larger brains and an unusual life history that combines high reproductive output with slow childhood growth and exceptional longevity. This suite of derived traits suggests major changes in energy expenditure and allocation in the human lineage, but direct measures of human and ape metabolism are needed to compare evolved energy strategies among hominoids. Here...
Seattle’s Allen Institute for Brain Science is in on a...
The vertebrate brain is highly complex, but its evolutionary origin remains elusive. Because of the absence of certain developmental domains generally marked by the expression of regulatory genes, the embryonic brain of the lamprey, a jawless vertebrate, had been regarded as representing a less complex, ancestral state of the vertebrate brain. Specifically, the absence of a Hedgehog- and Nkx2.1-positive domain in the lamprey subpallium...
Many procedures in modern clinical medicine rely on the use of electronic implants in treating conditions that range from acute coronary events to traumatic injury. However, standard permanent electronic hardware acts as a nidus for infection: bacteria form biofilms along percutaneous wires, or seed haematogenously, with the potential to migrate within the body and to provoke immune-mediated pathological tissue reactions. The associated surgical retrieval...
Many procedures in modern clinical medicine rely on the use of electronic implants in treating conditions that range from acute coronary events to traumatic injury. However, standard permanent electronic hardware acts as a nidus for infection: bacteria form biofilms along percutaneous wires, or seed haematogenously, with the potential to migrate within the body and to provoke immune-mediated pathological tissue reactions. The associated surgical retrieval...
