which can be dissolved in water The pomegranate is a fruit rich in antioxidants, with antihypertensive properties and is proven to help reduce levels of glucose in the blood;
the Phd in biochemistry and molecular biology Gabriel Cabrera Betanzos designed a microencapsulation process from pomegranate juice
and allows the antioxidants to reach the digestive tract. The researcher in the nutrition area of the Institute of Health Sciences (ICSA) of the University of Hidalgo (UAEH in Mexico, says that the idea for this product came after observing that people do not consume the pomegranate because of the difficulty
and laziness to peel the fruit. He ensures that the process is relevant in Hidalgo
which lowers glucose levels, triglycerides and hypertension. He also states that the benefits of the pomegranate are better than those of fruits like the cranberry, grapefruit, grape or black and green tea,
which are considered a good source of antioxidants. Betanzos Cabrera explains that the method of microencapsulation consists in converting the pomegranate into a powder."
as it protects it from the environment and prevents the oxidation of its compounds.""The microencapsulation innovation of the UAEH researcher uses a technological process by
In addition, the microcapsules aid in the better adsorption of the antioxidants since the capsules are gradually broken in the digestive tract,
It also reduces some of the signs of metabolic syndrome as the index of circumference high blood pressure and triglyceride levels.
Also they administered five grams of powder per day to a group of people with diabetes, the equivalent of approximately two fruits,
making a tea, tablets, capsules or powders that can be added to the water. We hope to get the patent later this year
"For his work in trying to discover the mechanism of action that helps delay cardiovascular problems,
Betanzos Cabrera was awarded in 2011 with the award of the Nestlé Foundation for Health.""We hope this project will be useful to treat serious public health problems such as diabetes
and obesity,"concludes the specialist s
#Sensor mimics bats to detect dangerous structural cracks An ultrasound sensor for detecting dangerous cracks in structures such as aircraft engines,
oil and gas pipelines and nuclear plants has been developed by researchers at the University of Strathclyde with inspiration from the natural world.
The device, known as a transducer, identifies structural defects with varying ultrasonic frequencies and overcomes the limits of other, similar devices,
based on a natural phenomenon known in mathematics as fractals. These are irregular shapes which recur repeatedly to form objects such as snowflakes,
ferns and cauliflowers, making their structure appear more complex than it often actually is. The same concept also lies behind the hearing system of animals including bats, dolphins, cockroaches and moths.
and their design was done traditionally by manufacturing but now, with 3d printing, computer manufacturing and more laser technology,
If there are defects in a nuclear plant or an oil pipeline, we would be able to detect cracks that have a range of sizes
not only improve safety but also save a great deal of money, as early detection means inspections don have to be carried out as often.
Dr Mulholland was partnered in the study by Ebrahem Algehyne, a research student at Strathclyde Centre for Ultrasonic Engineering.
#Plant growth requires teamwork between two hormones The scientists used plants with mutations, which impaired the activity of brassinosteroids.
therefore necessary for the production of gibberellins--a mechanism that is highly relevant to the growth and development of plants,"says Poppenberger, Professor for the Biotechnology of Horticultural Crops.
Transcription factors are proteins that regulate gene expression. Once activated by brassinosteroids, they initiate the production of gibberellin."
Dwarf cultivars, such as balcony varieties of vegetables like tomatoes and cucumbers, as well as grain varieties were selected specifically for impaired brassinosteroid metabolism,
The Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug, known as the father of the green revolution, bred short-stalked wheat and rice.
these new crop varieties increased yields fivefold, preventing famines in Mexico and later China. Arraywhereas external application of gibberellins has been utilized in agriculture for several decades
for example, to produce larger fruits or to obtain seedless fruits like grapes or tangerines, brassinosteroids have not been used in this manner.
--and harnessing their potential for the breeding and production of crop plants,"says Brigitte Poppenberger r
#How traumatic memories hide in the brain, and how to retrieve them At first, hidden memories that can't be accessed consciously may protect the individual from the emotional pain of recalling the event.
But eventually those suppressed memories can cause debilitating psychological problems, such as anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder or dissociative disorders.
A process known as state-dependent learning is believed to contribute to the formation of memories that are inaccessible to normal consciousness.
Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered for the first time the mechanism by which state-dependent learning renders stressful fear-related memories consciously inaccessible."
"The findings show there are multiple pathways to storage of fear-inducing memories, and we identified an important one for fear-related memories,
"said principal investigator Dr. Jelena Radulovic, the Dunbar Professor in Bipolar Disease at Northwestern University Feinberg School of medicine."
"This could eventually lead to new treatments for patients with psychiatric disorders for whom conscious access to their traumatic memories is needed
"It's difficult for therapists to help these patients, Radulovic said, because the patients themselves can't remember their traumatic experiences that are the root cause of their symptoms.
One kind, synaptic GABA receptors, works in tandem with glutamate receptors to balance the excitation of the brain in response to external events such as stress.
Extra-synaptic GABA receptors change the brain's state to make us aroused, sleepy, alert, sedated, inebriated or even psychotic.
The findings imply that in response to traumatic stress, some individuals, instead of activating the glutamate system to store memories,
The drug rerouted the processing of stress-related memories within the brain circuits so that they couldn't be accessed consciously d
a faculty scientist in Berkeley Lab's Life sciences Division, has dubbed his innovation SR-STORM, or spectrally resolved stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy.
the technology opens the door to high-resolution imaging of multiple components and local chemical environments, such as ph variations, inside a cell.
Xu built on work he did as a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard with Xiaowei Zhuang, who invented STORM, a super-resolution microscopy method based on single-molecule imaging and photoswitching.
and back of the sample at the same time and achieved unprecedented optical resolution (of approximately 10 nanometers) of a cell.
"Next they dyed the sample with 14 different dyes in a narrow emission window and excited and photoswitched the molecules with one laser.
"That's useful because it means we had a way to do multicolor imaging within a very narrow emission window,
"So using this method we can look at interactions between four biological components inside a cell in three-dimension and at very high resolution of about 10 nanometers,
"The applications are mostly in fundamental research and cell biology at this point, but hopefully it will lead to medical applications.
This gives us new opportunities to look at cell structures, how they're built up, and whether there's any degradation of those structures in diseases."
"Many diseases are caused either by an invading pathogen or degradation of a cell's internal structure.
Alzheimer's, for example, may be related to degradation of the cytoskeleton inside neurons.""The cytoskeleton system is comprised of a host of interacting subcellular structures and proteins,
and make it work with conventional microscope systems, thus making it more broadly accessible. He is also trying to develop suitable dyes
and probes to monitor the local environment, such as the ph, in live cells at the nanometer scale.
The research was supported partly by UC Berkeley's College of Chemistry and a Laboratory Directed Research and development (LDRD) grant by Berkeley Lab b
#Scientists discover atomic-resolution details of brain signaling"This is a very important, exciting advance that may open up possibilities for targeting new drugs to control neurotransmitter release.
Many mental disorders, including depression, schizophrenia and anxiety, affect neurotransmitter systems,"said Axel Brunger, the study's principal investigator.
He is a professor at Stanford School of medicine and SLAC and a Howard hughes medical institute investigator.""Both parts of this protein complex are said essential,
they act as an amplifier for a slight increase in calcium concentration, triggering a gunshot-like release of neurotransmitters from one neuron to another.
They also learned that the proteins join together before they arrive at a neuron's membrane,
"The neuron is not building the'gun'as it sits there on the membrane--it's already there,
and simultaneously interact with the same vesicle to efficiently trigger neurotransmitter release, an exciting area for further studies."
a professor at Yale university who discovered the SNARE proteins and shared the 2013 Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Thomas C. Südhof, a professor at the Stanford School of medicine and Howard hughes medical institute investigator who shared that 2013 Nobel prize with Rothman,
discovered synaptotagmin-1 and showed that it plays an important role as a calcium sensor and calcium-dependent trigger for neurotransmitter release."
"The new structure has identified unanticipated interfaces between synaptotagmin-1 and the neuronal SNARE complex that change how we think about their interaction by revealing, in atomic detail,
researchers in Brunger's laboratory at the Stanford School of medicine found a way to grow crystals of the complex.
They used a robotic system developed at SSRL to study the crystals at SLAC's LCLS, an X-ray laser that is one of the brightest sources of X-rays on the planet.
SSRL and LCLS are DOE Office of Science User Facilities. The researchers combined and analyzed hundreds of X-ray images from about 150 protein crystals to reveal the atomic-scale details of the joined structure.
SSRL's Aina Cohen who oversaw the development of the highly automated platform used for the neuroscience experiment,
#Scientists uncover nuclear process in the brain that may affect disease Every brain cell has a nucleus,
Scientists have shown that the passage of molecules through the nucleus of a star-shaped brain cell, called an astrocyte,
may play a critical role in health and disease. The study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, was funded partially by the National institutes of health (NIH."
"Unexpectedly we may have discovered a hidden pathway to understanding how astrocytes respond to injury and control brain processes.
The pathway may be common to many brain diseases and we're just starting to follow it,
"said Katerina Akassoglou, Ph d.,a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institute for Neurological disease, a professor of neurology at the University of California, San francisco,
including Alzheimer's disease and brain injury. Previous studies found that after brain injury astrocytes produce greater amounts of p75 neurotrophin receptor (p75ntr), a protein that helps cells detect growth factors.
The cells also react to TGF-beta by changing their shapes and secreting proteins that alter neuronal activity.
Dr. Akassoglou's lab showed that eliminating the p75ntr gene prevented hydrocephalus in mice genetically engineered to have astrocytes that produce higher levels of TGF-beta.
Hydrocephalus is a disorder that fills the brain with excess cerebral spinal fluid. Eliminating the p75ntr gene also prevented astrocytes in the brains of the mice from forming scars after injuries and restored gamma oscillations
which are patterns of neuronal activity associated with learning and memory. The cell nucleus is a ball of chromosomes wrapped in a protective fatty membrane.
In this study, the researchers discovered that treating astrocytes with TGF-beta freed a small piece of the p75ntr protein to bind to nucleoporins,
a group of proteins that regulates the passage of molecules in and out of the nucleus. Their results suggest that binding enhances the flow of certain critical molecules into the nucleus
and enables astrocytes to enter a reactive state.""This research highlights the importance of the nuclear pore complex in the brain
and p75ntr appears to be the key to unlocking particular gates,""said Dr. Akassoglou.""We discovered novel roles for both players
and will continue to study how the nuclear pore complex controls neuronal development and disease
A team of researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of engineering and Applied science (SEAS) has engineered a new, soft actuator that harnesses the power of instability to trigger instantaneous movement.
the John L. Loeb Associate professor of the Natural sciences, member of the Kavli Institute for Bionano Science and Technology,
and faculty associate of the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center. The work is described in a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The actuator is inspired by a famous physics experiment in which two balloons are inflated to different sizes and connected via a tube and valve.
When the valve is opened, air flows between the balloons. Instead of equalizing in size, as one might expect,
the larger balloon inflates more while the smaller balloon deflates. This unexpected behavior comes from the balloons'nonlinear relationship between pressure and volume
meaning the an increase in volume doesn't necessarily increase the pressure.""When inflating a balloon,
the first few blows are the hardest but after reaching a critical pressure it becomes easier,
"said Johannes Overvelde, Phd student AT SEAS and first author on the paper.""Similar to the balloons, in our research we connect fluidic segments in such a way that an interplay between their nonlinear response results in unexpected behavior.
Certain combinations of these interconnected segments can result in fast moving instabilities with negligible change in volume."
"These fast-moving instabilities, called snap-through instabilities, trigger large changes in internal pressure, extension, shape,
and exerted force, with only small changes in volume. If harnessed, these instabilities would allow soft robots to move quickly without needing to carry
or be tethered to a fluid supply. But first Bertoldi's team had to find a way to control something that,
Then, using a complex computer algorithm, they determined the responses of all possible combinations of the segments.
"By connecting multiple segments, you can embed a simple program in the actuator that is able to perform a complex sequence of local inflation and deflation."
#Agricultural intervention improves HIV outcomes A multifaceted farming intervention can reduce food insecurity while improving HIV outcomes in patients in Kenya, according to a randomized,
and financial support, were able to increase the quantity and quality of food consumed. At the same time, their CD4 T-cell counts increased
and their rate of viral suppression increased by about one half. In contrast, both the CD4 cell counts and the rate of suppression fell for those in the control arm."
"While this was a pilot study, these results prove the concept that improving food insecurity
"said the trial's co-primary investigator, Sheri D. Weiser, MD, MPH, UCSF associate professor of medicine at the UCSF Division of HIV, Infectious diseases and Global Medicine at San francisco General
Hospital. In Sub-saharan africa, where 24.7 million people are living with HIV (71 percent of all people living with HIV),
and food insecure people with HIV are less able to take anti-HIV therapies, make clinic visits,
food insecurity gets worse due to loss of economic activity and productivity, loss of social support due to HIV stigma and the costs of medical care."
"We have the biomedical tools to treat and prevent HIV, but we need interventions like this that combine healthcare with development,
and address food insecurity, poverty and disempowerment if we are to achieve the UNAIDS goal of ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic by 2030."
The trial, conducted over one year at two Family AIDS Care & Education Services (FACES) health facilities in the Nyanza region in Kenya, enrolled 72 participants at one facility for the intervention
Participants were HIV positive individuals between 18 and 49 years old on anti-HIV therapy
and all had access to surface water for irrigation and land. The intervention, titled Shamba Maisha, Swahili for"Farm Life,"had three components.
Microfinance loans were provided by and managed by Adok Timo, a Kenyan microfinance organization, with support from the two collaborating partners in FACES:
UCSF and the Kenyan Medical Research Institute. These loans were used to purchase farming implements and supplies along with manual irrigation pumps designed by Kickstart,
a nonprofit organization that develops and markets new technologies that are used to establish new small businesses."
"The pumps make it possible for farmers to irrigate year round, which reduced dependence on seasonal rainfalls.
Producing food year round enables farmers to move from subsistence farming to commercial farming and also allows them to capture higher crop prices during the dry season,
"said the trial's co-primary investigator, Craig R. Cohen, MD, MPH, UCSF professor in the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive health in the department of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences.
The third element was agricultural and financial management training. Agricultural training included practical demonstrations on sustainable farming techniques, use of the water pump planting
soil and water conservation, and integrated disease and pest management. Financial training focused on record keeping,
along with savings and investments.""Shamba Maisha is the first trial to link agriculture with HIV outcomes,
"Cohen said.""The intervention is unique in that it is sustainable, transformative and empowering. If you were to take away our involvement tomorrow,
the knowledge and materials to continue the livelihood intervention would still exist in the community
#Early inflammatory response paralyzes T cells In a discovery that is likely to rewrite immunology text books,
researchers at UC Davis have found that early exposure to inflammatory cytokines, such as interleukin 2, can"paralyze"CD4 T cells,
immune components that help orchestrate the body's response to pathogens and other invaders. This mechanism may act as a firewall,
shutting down the immune response before it gets out of hand. However, from a clinical standpoint, this discovery could lead to more effective cancer immunotherapies,
better drugs for autoimmune conditions and new ways to expedite recovery from sepsis. The research
online July 28, appears in today's print edition of the journal Immunity.""There's a three-signal process to activate T cells
of which each component is essential for proper activation, "said first author Gail Sckisel, a postdoctoral fellow."
"But no one had looked really at what happens if they are delivered out of sequence. If the third signal--cytokines--is given prematurely,
it basically paralyzes CD4 T cells.""To be activated, T cells must first recognize an antigen, receive appropriate costimulatory signals,
and then encounter inflammatory cytokines to expand the immune response. Until now, no one realized that sending the third signal early--as is done with some immunotherapies--could actually hamper overall immunity."
"These stimulatory immunotherapies are designed to activate the immune system, "said Sckisel, "but considering how T cells respond,
that approach could damage a patient's ability to fight off pathogens. While immunotherapies might fight cancer,
they may also open the door to opportunistic infections.""This was shown in mice which, after receiving systemic immunotherapy,
had trouble mounting a primary T-cell response. The finding was confirmed in samples from patients receiving high-dose interleukin 2 therapy to treat metastatic melanoma."
"We need to be very careful because immunotherapy could be generating both short-term gain and long-term loss,"noted lead author William Murphy, professor and acting chair in the UC Davis Department of Dermatology."
"The patients who were receiving immunotherapy were totally shut down, which shows how profoundly we were suppressing the immune system."
"In addition to illuminating how T cells respond to cancer immunotherapy, the study also provides insights into autoimmune disorders.
The researchers believe this CD4 paralysis mechanism could play a role in preventing autoimmunity, a hypothesis they supported by testing immunotherapy in a multiple sclerosis model.
By shutting down CD4 T cells, immune stimulation prevented an autoimmune response. This offers the potential to paralyze the immune system to prevent autoimmunity
or modulate it to accept transplanted cells or entire organs.""Transplant patients go on immunosuppressants for the rest of their lives,
but if we could safely induce paralysis just prior to surgery, it's possible that patients could develop tolerance,
"said Sckisel. CD4 paralysis may also be coopted by pathogens, such as HIV, which could use this chronic inflammation response to disable the immune system."
"This really highlights the importance of CD4 T cells, "said Murphy.""The fact that they're regulated and suppressed means they are definitely the orchestrators we need to take into account.
It also shows how smart HIV is. The virus has been telling us CD4 T cells are critical because that's
what it attacks.""The team's next step is to continue this research in older mice.
Age can bring a measurable loss in immune function, and inflammation may play a role in that process."
"For elderly people who have flu or pneumonia, their immune systems are activated, but maybe they can't fight anything else,
"said Murphy.""This could change how we treat people who are very sick. If we can block pathways that suppress the immune response,
we may be able to better fight infection
#Engineers identify how to keep surfaces dry underwater for months Imagine staying dry underwater for months.
Now Northwestern University engineers have examined a wide variety of surfaces that can do just that--and, better yet,
The valleys in the surface roughness typically need to be less than one micron in width, the researchers found.
That's really small--less than one millionth of a meter--but these nanoscopic valleys have macroscopic impact.
Understanding how the surfaces deflect water so well means the valuable feature could be reproduced in other materials on a mass scale, potentially saving billions of dollars in a variety of industries,
That's science and engineering, not serendipity, at work for the benefit of the economy.""The trick is to use rough surfaces of the right chemistry
and demonstrate the nanoscale mechanics behind the phenomenon of staying dry underwater. In their experiments, the researchers used a variety of materials with
and without the key surface roughness and submerged them in water. Samples with the nanoscale roughness remained dry for up to four months
the duration of the experiment. Other samples were placed in harsh environments, where dissolved gas was removed from the ambient liquid,
and they also remained dry.""It was amazing and what we were hoping for, "said Patankar, a professor of mechanical engineering in the Mccormick School of engineering and Applied science."
"My lab likes to defy normal experience. In this work, we looked for properties that manipulate the water phase changes we know."
"The researchers also report that nature uses the same strategy of surface roughness in certain aquatic insects, such as water bugs and water striders.
Small hairs on the surfaces of their body have the less than-one-micron spacing, allowing gas to be retained between the hairs."
He is a Ph d. student in Patankar's research group. The researchers focused on the nanoscopic structure of surfaces,
which, at the nanoscale, are somewhat akin to the texture of a carpet, with tiny spike-like elevations separated by valley-shaped pores in between.
When submerged, water tends to cling to the top of the spikes, while air and water vapor accrue in the pores between them.
#New aortic heart valve does not require open surgery A new aortic heart valve does not require open heart surgery.
The Corevalveevolut R System is deployed with a catheter, which is inserted into an artery and guided to the heart.
The system is much less invasive than open surgery. The device is called the Corevalve Evolut R System.
It is deployed with a catheter, which is inserted into an artery and guided to the heart.
The system is much less invasive than open surgery. The newly designed system enables the physician to recapture
and design of the device, is a clinical associate professor in the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery.
Dr. Lewis is an interventional cardiologist and a professor in the Department of Medicine. Dr. Tuchek said the unique design of the Corevalve Evolut R System llows for superior control during deployment of the Corevalve,
Loyola director of Interventional Cardiology. here no question that this is a superior product, Dr. Leya said. he technology is a game changer for patients with aortic stenosis.
Dr. Leya is a professor in the Division of Cardiology of Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of medicine.
which was published in the New england Journal of Medicine. The study found that patients who received the device had significantly lower mortality than heart valve patients who underwent open-heart surgery.
Loyola dedicated implanting team includes two cardiovascular surgeons (Drs. Tuchek and Mamdouh Bakhos, MD) and two interventional cardiologists (Drs.
Leya and Lewis). The team is participating in ongoing Corevalve trials and leads the state in implanting the device.
The improved device now is approved FDA for patients judged to be at high or extremely high risk for conventional open-heart aortic valve surgery (with an estimated 30-day mortality rate of at least 15 percent.
Loyola is the only site in Illinois participating in a clinical trial in which the device is being implanted in lower-risk patients.
The trial is called SURTAVI (SURGICAL vs. Transcatheter Aortic valve Implantation. SURTAVI is being conducted in 76 sites in eight countries for patients who do not qualify for the transcatheter valves commercially.
The trial provides the only opportunity for lower-risk patients (called intermediate risk) to receive Corevalve.
Dr. Bakhos is chair of the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. For more information,
Symptoms include fatigue, dizziness, chest pain/pressure, heart murmurs, shortness of breath during activity, heart palpitations and fainting.
Aortic stenosis can lead to heart failure and death. About 100,000 people in the United states have aortic stenosis a
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