Evidence that brain-chemical imbalance drives autism symptoms

Study links autism symptoms to disregulated levels of neurotransmitter GABA; flags potential avenue for developing treatments

December 17, 2015

Imbalances in inhibitory GABA brain cell receptor activity (left) have been implicated in autism. A new study looks more closely at GABA brain activity and autism-related difficulties with screening out distracting images. The findings suggests a promising direction for future medicines. Illustration courtesy SAGE Therapeutics.

For the first time, researchers have documented a direct link between the severity of someone’s autism symptoms and brain levels of the neurotransmitter GABA, or gamma-aminobutyric acid. The findings advance hope for treatments that ease autism symptoms by enhancing the action of GABA – the brain’s primary “calming,” or inhibitory, neurotransmitter.

20-years-old Student Develops an Ocean Cleanup Machine That Could Clean The Oceans in 5 Years

In the past few decades, millions of tons of plastic have entered the oceans, damaging ecosystems and entering food chains. “I first became aware of the plastic pollution problem when diving in Greece, coming across more plastic bags than fish. Unfortunately, the plastic does not go away by itself. Hence I wondered; Why can’t we clean this up?” said Boyan Slat, 20 years old and founder of The Ocean Cleanup Foundation.

Can a Plant Remember? This One Seems to—Here’s the Evidence

There’s this plant I’ve heard about that had a really bad afternoon a few years ago. It was in its pot bothering nobody and then, suddenly, it fell. Not once, but 56 times. (I’ll explain in a minute.) But it’s a plant. Things happen to plants, and as far as I know, they go on as before. They don’t have brains. They have no way to “remember” anything. They’re not animals. So I figure even 56 consecutive falls left no lasting impression.

I figured wrong. I just read an eye-popping paper by Monica Gagliano, associate professor of biology at the University of Western Australia. She’s got a plant that not only “remembered” what happened to it but stored that memory for almost a month. She saw this happen! Here’s the plant:

Grandparents That Babysit Their Grandchildren Are Less Likely To Develop Alzheimer’s and Dementia

Image via: Shutterstock

Most people are delighted when the day comes when their own children have children.  Becoming a grandparent adds a richness to family life that is delightful and filled with love.  It’s a lot easier being a grandparent than a parent, because you get to enjoy the deliciousness of the kids and then they go home!!

The Beginning of the End: Newly Discovered Superbug In Imported Meat Resistant to All Antibiotics

Tess Pennington Ready Nutrition 

Many of you reading this are alive today because of antibiotics. It’s a marvel of the modern world that has given us so much life. But because of our abuse of antibiotics and regularly consuming dairy products and eat meat that were given antibiotics, bacteria are growing resistant and causing many of the “last resort” antibiotics to be less powerful than in years past. Inevitably, infections we used to easily treat will evolve and become resistant them. These “superbugs” now threaten to derail decades of medical progress – and no one will be safe in a post-antibiotic world.

60 Minutes On This Bicycle Can Power Your Home For 24 Hours

Would you exercise for an hour every day if the workout powered your home for twenty-four hours1?

“People often complain about the high costs of energy and the fact that they “never have time to workout.” This invention certainly solves both conundrums.

And, most importantly, this free power invention has the potential to lift the 1.3 billion people who presently live without electricity out of poverty.

The next generation of bloggers is here. And they are computers

(businessesgrow.com)

The writing bots are here.

• Computer scientists in Finland have created an algorithm that can programmatically create better rap lyrics than actual rappers.
• The site bot or not challenges to you choose whether a poem was created by a human or an algorithm.
• Nearly 10 percent of the articles on Wikipedia were not written by humans.
• Last year the L.A. Times was the first newspaper to publish a breaking news story written by a computer. One company projects that by 2030, 90 percent of the news will be written by bots.

Neuroscientists reveal how the brain can enhance connections

Motor neurons (green) form synapses (highlighted in magenta) on muscle fibers in a fruit fly. MIT neuroscientists have discovered a pathway that contributes to strengthening these synapses. Image: Troy Littleton

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When the brain forms memories or learns a new task, it encodes the new information by tuning connections between neurons. MIT neuroscientists have discovered a novel mechanism that contributes to the strengthening of these connections, also called synapses.

At each synapse, a presynaptic neuron sends chemical signals to one or more postsynaptic receiving cells. In most previous studies of how these connections evolve, scientists have focused on the role of the postsynaptic neurons. However, the MIT team has found that presynaptic neurons also influence connection strength.

NASA Proves That The Bible Is True

For all the scientists out there and for all those who have had a hard time convincing these people regarding the truth of the Bible, here's something that illustrates God's awesome creation and shows He is still in control. Did you know that NASA's space programmers are busy proving what has been called 'myth' in the Bible is true? 
Praise The Lord!

Could this be driving the epidemic of Sudden Infant Death (SIDS)?

Written with Sayer Ji, GreenMedInfo.com founder.

A new study published in Current Medicine and Chemistry titled, “Sudden infant death following hexavalent vaccination: a neuropathologic study,” lends support for the long theorized link between an ever-expanding number of infant vaccines and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).

The fact that the peak age for SIDS is 2–4 months, which coincides with the introduction of 11 shots containing 16 vaccines (within the US immunization schedule), is so obvious a cause for concern, that even the CDC has been compelled to address the seeming ‘coincidence’ directly:

Neuroscientists Just Discovered 6 New Kinds Of Brain Cells

The map of the human brain gets a little more complete.

Thanks to a handful of newly discovered neurons, the brain just became a little bit less mysterious.

Today a team of neuroscientists led by Xiaolong Jiang and Andreas Tolias at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston announced six altogether new types of brain cells. The neuroscientists came across these new neurons while conducting a census of brain cells in adult mice in a part of the brain called the the primary visual cortex, an area chiefly concerned with sight. The researchers credit their new insight to a recently developed method of slicing razor-thin slices of mature brain. The discovery is reported today in the journalScience.

“Just asking ‘what types of cells make up the brain’ is such a basic question… that establishing a complete census of all neuron cell types is of great importance in moving the field of neuroscience forward,” says Tolias, at Baylor College of Medicine.​

Most previous studies investigating the odd menagerie of brain cells have used juvenile mice, mostly because it’s easier to get high-resolution pictures of their brains. But there’s a problem: Brains keep maturing and complicating as they get older, and Jiang’s team believes that their new-found neurons might not form until adulthood.

Scientists Watch A Planet Being Born For The First Time In History

For the first time ever, scientists have been able to see planets as they are born. In photographs obtained by the Large Binocular Telescope and the Magellan Adaptive Optics System, astronomers watched as a ring of material formed into planets around a young star. This discovery could lead to the discovery of other forming exoplanets and give scientists answers to how planets are formed and then evolve into solar systems such as ours.

Storing Electricity In Paper

Researchers at Linköping University’s Laboratory of Organic Electronics, Sweden, have developed power paper — a new material with an outstanding ability to store energy. The material consists of nanocellulose and a conductive polymer. The results have been published in Advanced Science.

One sheet, 15 centimetres in diameter and a few tenths of a millimetre thick can store as much as 1 F, which is similar to the supercapacitors currently on the market. The material can be recharged hundreds of times and each charge only takes a few seconds.

It’s a dream product in a world where the increased use of renewable energy requires new methods for energy storage — from summer to winter, from a windy day to a calm one, from a sunny day to one with heavy cloud cover.

Human cloning is now possible

The scientist in charge of the world’s largest clone factory, in China, has said human cloning is now possible with current technology. The only thing stopping him is the likely public outrage.

The Chinese scientist behind the world’s biggest cloning factory has technology advanced enough to replicate humans, he told AFP, and is only holding off for fear of the public reaction.

Boyalife Group and its partners are building the giant plant in the northern Chinese port of Tianjin, where it is due to go into production within the next seven months and aims for an output of one million cloned cows a year by 2020.

Sleep Lets The Brain Cleanup

UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTEROriginal Study

A recently discovered system that removes toxins from the brain is primarily active during sleep.

The finding could change scientists’ understanding of the biological purpose of sleep and point to new ways to treat neurological disorders, researchers say.

Bottle Feeding Changes Infant's Immune System

Infant rhesus monkeys that are breast fed develop distinct immune systems from those that are fed formula from a bottle, a new study shows.

While researchers expected different diets would promote different intestinal bacteria (microbiota), they were surprised at how dramatically these microbes shaped immunologic development. Specifically, breast-fed macaques had more “memory” T cells and T helper 17 (TH17) cells, which are known to fight salmonella and other pathogens.

A boy recovers from autism due to gluten-free, dairy-free diet

Autism is a mental condition, present from early childhood, characterized by difficulty in communicating and forming relationships with other people and in using language and abstract concepts. 

Its treatment includes many diet-based therapies that address underlying issues inside the body. 

Autism rates are on the rise globally and many are starting to ask questions about how they can best cure or treat symptoms to increase quality of life generally. In one particular case, a young boy, Ethan Fox, began showing evident signs of Autism recovery when his diet was changed. His mom removed gluten and dairy in his diet. Ethan was diagnosed with Autism in 2006 when he was just one year old. He wouldn't sleep then more than 2 hours-day or night. He didn't sleep for 20 months in a row, so his mom decided to try to remove wheat and dairy from her son's diet. This made Ethan sleep through the night. His sleeping condition changed just within 3 days. 

Data Storage on DNA Can Keep It Safe for Centuries

From left, Luis Ceze, one of the designers of the new DNA storage system; Douglas Carmean, a designer of computers at Microsoft; and Karin Strauss, a Microsoft computer architect, at the University of Washington in Seattle. CreditDavid Ryder for The New York Times

SEATTLE — Computer data has been depicted as microscopic magnetic smudges, electric charges and even Lilliputian patterns of dots that reflect laser beams. It may ultimately move into the fabric of life itself — encoded in the organic molecules that are strung together like pearls to form strands of DNA.

Parents May Pass Down More Than Just Genes, Study Suggests

Scientists are investigating the epigenetics of fatherhood: how a man’s experiences can alter his sperm, and whether those changes in turn may alter his children.

In 2013, an obese man went to Hvidovre Hospital in Denmark to have his stomach stapled. All in all, it was ordinary bariatric surgery — with one big exception.

A week before the operation, the man provided a sperm sample to Danish scientists. A week after the procedure, he did so again. A year later, he donated a third sample.

New Cancer Study Shows Ginger is 10,000 Times Stronger Than Chemo

New Cancer Study Shows Ginger is 10,000 Times Stronger Than Chemo

Turmeric has long been reported for having healing effects on cancer, but now new researchshows that its cousin ginger is just as powerful as an alternative treatment in fighting cancer. 

A study by the Georgia State University has found that ginger can decrease the size of a prostate tumour by 56%. 

Another study published by PLoS found that ginger is 10,000 more powerful than Chemotherapy when treating breast cancer malignancy

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Healthnutnews.com reports: