9/01/2008 Permalink
Powerful anti-aging therapies promised by enzyme discovery

Researchers at The Wistar Institute have deciphered the structure of the active region of telomerase, an enzyme that plays a critical role in aging as well as the development of nearly all human cancers. The opens the door to the creation of new, effective anti-aging and anti-cancer therapies. Telomerase adds multiple repeats of a short DNA sequence to the ends of chromosomes, known as telomeres, thus preventing the loss of genetic information during cell division, which causes cell malfunction, aging and death. With the improved understanding of exactly how telomerase functions found in this research, it should be possible to develop therapies that rejuvenate and restore youthful function to aging cells or cause cancer cells to age and die off rapidly ... more

Labels: Mods

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9/01/2008 Permalink
Dazzling airshow confirms advance in bot 'apprenticeship learning'

Stanford Computer Science Professor Andrew Ng (center) and his graduate students Pieter Abbeel (left) and Adam Coates have developed an artificial intelligence system that enables helicopters to learn entirely on their own how to perform difficult aerobatic stunts and then autonomous fly the stunts. The helicopters teach themselves to fly by watching the maneuvers of a radio control helicopter flown by a human pilot. The dazzling airshow is an impressive demonstration of what is called by AI researchers, apprenticeship learning, in which smart bots learn by observing an expert teacher, rather than by having to be coded with instruction by hand ... more

Labels: Bots

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9/01/2008 Permalink
Growing billions of your own blood cells at will

Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered the earliest form of human blood stem cells and deciphered the mechanism by which these embryonic stem cells replicate and grow. They also found a surprising biological marker that pinpoints these stem cells, which serve as the progenitors for red blood cells and lymphocytes. "There is real hope that in the future we can grow billions of blood cells at will to treat blood-related disorders, and just as critically if not more so, we've got ACE as a marker to guide our work," says Elias Zambidis, M.D., Ph.D., of the Institute of Cell Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine ... more

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9/01/2008 Permalink
Master switch in your brain regulates appetite & reproduction

A master switch has been found in the brain of mice that controls both body weight and fertility, and researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies say it may work the same way in humans. Mice born without TORC1 looked fine at birth, but at about eight weeks, they began to gain weight and became persistently obese in adulthood. "Their hormones and blood sugar resembled that seen in humans with these disorders," says Judith Altarejos Ph.D., first author on this study. The gene that produces this master switch, TORC1, is regulated by phosphate handling enzymes called kinases, and kinases that often make for very good drug targets ... more

Labels: Mods, Neuro

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