Fritter and Waste

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oldflorida:

Greetings from MIAMI The Magic City
cristiancardenas:

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colombiaislove2:

(by Bill Anderson :-))

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http://metalblade.tumblr.com/post/50929480036/the-black-dahlia-murder-post-moonlight-equilibrium

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eatsflorida:

Since 1912, so this makes Tobacco Road likely Miami’s oldest bar. The area has been undergoing renovations, but the joint is open, and the burgers and fries are still hot, along with the music, mostly blues and jazz, seven nights a week.
Photo via

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neurosciencestuff:

What are stem cells?
In a paper published in Cell yesterday, scientists from the US and Thailand have, for the first time, successfully produced embryonic stem cells from human skin cells.
That sounds interesting, but what are stem cells and where do they come from?
If you take a limb from a rose tree, and put it in soil, it will grow into a thriving bush.
But you might say: “Plants are special. This won’t work with animals.” Or will it? If you cut off a lizard’s tail, a new tail may grow. A lobster can grow back a lost claw.
There is a special type of flatworm that can be cut in half, again and again hundreds of times, and each half grows back into a full worm.
Similarly, if you cut out half a human liver, it will grow back. The story of Prometheus, whose liver was eaten away by eagles and regrew each day, suggests that the Greeks of ancient times knew about regeneration of organs.
This sort of regeneration is attributed to special cells called “stem cells”.
Reprogramming the workers
Most of our cells are like many professional workers – they are hardened in their ways and can’t manage career changes.
Blood cells carry oxygen or fight disease, muscle cells expand and contract to move us around, nerve cells carry signals, skin cells form a protective layer over our bodies, and structures made up of kidney cells filter our blood.
The cells of most organs or tissues are referred to as “terminally differentiated” cells. They have specialised, and many won’t divide again. If they are damaged or die they will disappear. This is very important.
Although we feel like we grow a lot after we are born, we really only double in size two or three times and most of our cells don’t divide much.
If they did we would be at great risk from cancer – the uncontrolled doubling of cells at the wrong time.
We have a lot of cells and it is important that none of them run out of control.
But some cells can double to renew themselves and can also differentiate and give rise to specialised progeny.
These are the stem cells. We need them to produce new skin to replace damaged skin cells. Similarly, we need them in our guts to replace damaged cells on the surface of our intestines.
Our blood cells also get worn out as they race around our bodies so we have blood stem cells that divide and replace themselves. They also differentiate to form the different types of white and red blood cells we need.
Australian researchers identified stem cells in the breast that can proliferate and form a complete functioning breast. There are also stem cells in the brain and in the heart.
While stem cells tend to be very rare, they exist in many of our organs.
Types of stem cells
The ultimate stem cells are embryonic stem cells.
These cells are found in the inner cell mass of the early embryo and are referred to as “totipotent” since they have the ability to form every cell that is needed in the growing embryo.
They can be extracted from the early embryo and grown in culture dishes.
They can also be genetically modified by the addition of DNA, then injected back into other embryos or into adult animals where find their way into localities that suit them and replace themselves by duplication or differentiate into other cell types that may be needed. For a long time this type of work had been done primarily in laboratory mice.
The techniques in yesterday’s Cell paper involved injecting the nucleus from a human skin cell into a human egg (the nucleus of which has been destroyed) then growing the resulting embryo until the inner cell mass cells could be harvested.
The method may still be controversial because it uses unfertilised eggs, but many people will regard it as preferable to using human embryos. And there are other interesting methods for making stem cells.
Somatic cells to stem cells
It is also possible to convert skin cells, and indeed many different terminally differentiated cells, back into what are called “induced pluripotent stem cells” or iPS cells.
One uses the “magic four” or “OKSM” set of DNA-binding proteins that govern normal stem cell biology:
Octamer-binding transcription factor 4 (OCT4)
Kruppel-like factor 4 (KLF4)
SRY (sex determining region Y)-box 2 (SOX2)
cellular myelocytomatosis virus-like gene (MYC)
In 2012 Shinya Yamanaka won the Nobel Prize for discovering how to convert normal cells into iPS cells using the OKSM regulators to turn on and off the right genes and convert skin cells into stem cells.
Researchers are continuing to investigate whether iPS cells have the same therapeutic potential as embryo derived stem cells.
It is hoped that stem cells may provide therapies for people suffering from degenerative diseases.
Skin cells could be taken from a patient, converted to stem cells, and then these could be injected back into the damaged organ.
Ideally, they would repopulate the damaged organ with new cells.
So why doesn’t this happen in normal biology? Why aren’t our own heart stem cells busy trying to repair broken hearts?
They may be but our natural supply of stem cells is limited and presumably insufficient to tackle severe disease.
So why don’t we just have more stem cells in our bodies?
The down side of having too many stem cells may be cancer.
Stem cells share a number of features with cancer cells – both are able to self-renew and double without limit.
One theory about cancer holds that the disease most often originates not from terminally differentiated cells but from one of the small number of stem cells in the relevant tissues.
The obvious concern about using stem cells for therapy is that injecting too many could increase the chances that some of these cells would proliferate beyond control, and ultimately give rise to cancer.
Stem cell therapy for regenerative medicine is an exciting idea.
Every day we are learning more about stem cells – how to purify or make them, and how to grow them in culture and direct them down particular pathways to repopulate different organs.
Future research will assess the risks and how effective they can be in experimental systems and ultimately in human patients.

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oldflorida:

Domestic bliss at the U, 1950.
natgeofound:

A married student studies as his wife serves dinner to their daughter in Coral Gables, Florida, November 1950.Photograph by Volkmar K. Wentzel, National Geographic

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kokiri-saria:

I’m attempting to summon Pokemon X and Y for the 3DS early

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fuckyeahdirectors:

Teri Garr, Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman and Mel Brooks on-set of Young Frankenstein (1974)

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neurosciencestuff:

Deep brain stimulation: a fix when the drugs don’t work
Neurological disorders can have a devastating impact on the lives of sufferers and their families.
Symptoms of these disorders differ extensively – from motor dysfunction in Parkinson’s disease, memory loss in Alzheimer’s disease to inescapable cravings in drug addiction.
Drug treatments are often ineffective in these disorders. But what if there was a way to simply switch off a devastating tremor, or boost a fading memory?
Recent advances using Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) in selective brain regions have provided therapeutic benefits and have allowed those affected by these neurological disorders freedom from their symptoms, in absence of an existing cure.
A pacemaker for the brain
Artificial cardiac pacemakers are typically associated with controlling and resynchronising heartbeats by electrical stimulation of the heart muscle.
In a similar manner, DBS sends electrical impulses to specific parts of the brain that control discrete functions. This stimulation evokes control over the neural activity within these regions.
Prior to switching on the electrical stimulation, electrodes are surgically implanted within precise brain regions to control a specific function.
The neurosurgery is conducted under local anaesthetic to maintain consciousness in the patient. This ensures that the electrode does not damage critical brain regions.
The brain itself has no pain receptors so does not require anaesthetic.
Following recovery from surgery the electrodes are activated and the current calibrated by a neurologist to determine the optimal stimulation parameters.
The patient can then control whether the electrodes are on or off by a remote battery-powered device.
Turning off tremors
Perhaps the most documented success of DBS is in the control of tremors and motor coordination in Parkinson’s disease.
This is caused by the degeneration of neurons in an area of the brain called the substantia nigra. These neurons secrete the neurotransmitter dopamine.
Deterioration of these neurons reduces the amount of dopamine available to be released in a brain area involved in movement, the basal ganglia.
Drug therapy for Parkinson’s disease involves the use of levodopa (L-DOPA), a form of dopamine that can cross the blood brain barrier and then be synthesised into dopamine.
The administration of L-DOPA temporarily reduces the motor symptoms by increasing dopamine concentrations in the brain. However, side effects of this treatment include nausea and disordered movement.
DBS has been shown to provide relief from the motoric symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and essential tremors.
For the treatment of Parkinson’s disease electrodes are implanted into regions of the basal ganglia – the subthalamic nucleus or globus pallidus, to restore control of movement.
These are regions innervated by the deteriorating substantia nigra, therefore the DBS boosts stimulation to these areas.
Patients can then switch on the electrodes, stimulating these brain regions to enhance control of movement and diminish tremors.
Restoring fading memories
Recently, DBS has been used to diminish memory deficits associated with Alzheimer’s disease, a progressive and terminal form of dementia.
The pathologies associated with Alzheimer’s disease involve the formation of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles within the brain leading to dysfunction and death of neurons.
Brain regions primarily affected include the temporal lobes, containing important memory structures including the hippocampus.
Recent clinical trials with DBS involve the implantation of electrodes within the fornix – a structure connecting the left and right hippocampi together.
By stimulating neural activity within the hippocampi via the fornix, memory deficits associated with Alzheimer’s disease can be improved, enhancing the daily functioning of patients and slowing the progression of cognitive decline.
Deactivating addiction
Another use of DBS is in the treatment of substance abuse and drug addiction. Substance-related addictions constitute the most frequently occurring psychiatric disease category and patients are prone to relapse following rehabilitative treatment.
Persistent drug use leads to long term changes in the brain’s reward system.
Understanding of the reward systems affected in addiction has created a range of treatment options that directly target dysregulated brain circuits in order to normalise functionality.
One of the key reward regions in the brain is the nucleus accumbens and this has been used as a DBS target to control addiction.
Translational animal research has indicated that stimulation of the nucleus accumbens decreases drug seeking in models of addiction. Clinical studies have shown improved abstinence in both heroin addicts and alcoholics.
Studies have extended the use of DBS to potentially restore control of maladaptive eating behaviours such as compulsive binge eating.
In a recent study, binge eating of a high fat food in mice was decreased by DBS of the nucleus accumbens. This is the first study demonstrating that DBS can control maladaptive eating behaviours and may be a potential therapeutic tool in obesity.
Despite its therapeutic use for more than a decade, the neural mechanism of DBS is still not yet fully understood.
The remedial effect is proposed to involve modulation of the dopamine system – and this seems particularly relevant in the context of Parkinson’s disease and addiction.
DBS potentially has effects on the functional activity of other interconnected brain systems. While it can provide therapeutic relief from symptoms of neurological diseases, it does not treat the underlying pathology.
But it provides both effective and rapid intervention from the effects of debilitating illnesses, restoring activity in deteriorating brain regions and aids understanding of the brain circuits involved in these disorders.

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oldflorida:

Squeeze me!
sunburnstate:

Vintage 1970s t-shirt. Sold by PeppermintThrift.

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laughingsquid:

Recurring Developments, Interactive Website Visualizes Running Jokes on ‘Arrested Development’

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