Default Mode Network of the Brain Activity in Man

Good Detailed article

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mental-downtime/

Mechanism that Facilitates Falling of Leaves - 2008 Discovery

All tree leaves have 'thermostat' that maintains temperature

Deciduous - Latin for 'falling' - trees, have elaborate cellular mechanism to part company from their leaves, which act as "solar cells" in the summer but do not have a purpose in the darker winter months.

At the base of each leaf  there is an abscission zone, which begins to swell in winter, slowing the transport of nutrients between the tree and leaf. In due course, a tear line forms and moves downwards, the leaf is blown away or falls off. A protective layer seals the wound, preventing water evaporating and bugs getting in.

Leaves naturally turn yellow as the green chlorophyl that generates energy from sunlight is drained from them. But the yellow colour attracts aphids. To conceal themselves from the invading insects, some species inject a bright red pigment.


Prof John Walker of the University of Missouri and his colleagues are the first to identify a pathway of genes involved in the process of abscission in Arabidopsis by using a combination of molecular genetics and imagine techniques.

The theory of production of red pigments helps to conceal the yellow colour that is attractive to the sap sucking insects was proposed  by Dr Thomas Döring of Imperial College London.


Some trees stay yellow, if the costs entailed by the insects is lower (in areas where insect attack is lower)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/3352225/Why-leaves-fall-off-trees-is-discovered.html


1999 explation of falling of leaves
http://warnell.forestry.uga.edu/service/library/for99-025/for99-025.pdf. 

New Antibiotic - Teixobactin - Discovered

7 January 2015

Norteasten University Professor Kim Lewis announced on 7 January 2015, Thursday.


The coauthor is Professor Slava Epstein from University of Bonn in Germany.


NovoBiotic reports the discovery of teixobactin, a new antibiotic without detectable
resistance

Cambridge, MA – January 7, 2015 – NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals, LLC announces the
discovery and preclinical development of teixobactin, a compound belonging to a new class of
antibiotics. As reported in the journal Nature (Ling et. al. 2015), the compound shows potent
killing against a broad panel of bacterial pathogens including methicillin resistant
Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin resistant enterococci (VRE). In addition,
teixobactin showed favorable drug properties including excellent efficacy in three mouse
models of infection (septicemia, skin and lung). In collaboration with the University of Bonn
(Bonn, Germany) and Northeastern University (Boston, MA), teixobactin was shown to inhibit
bacterial cell wall synthesis by binding to two cell wall components: lipid II and lipid III. The
article reports that no resistant mutants of either S. aureus or Mycobacterium tuberculosis
could be generated. “The need for new antibiotics is acute due to the global problem of
pathogen drug resistance. Teixobactin’s dual mode of action and binding to non-peptidic
regions suggest that resistance will be very difficult to develop” said Dr. Kim Lewis, co-founder
of NovoBiotic. Teixobactin was discovered in a screen against the company’s extensive extract
library generated from previously uncultured microbes. “The discovery of teixobactin is further
evidence that our unique culturing technologies provide ready access to new chemistry from
nature that can be screened for novel drug leads” said Dr. Dallas Hughes, President of
NovoBiotic.


About NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals LLC
We focus on the discovery of new antibiotics and oncology drugs. While many marketed drugs
in these therapeutic areas are derived from microbes found in the soil, few new classes have
been introduced since the 1960s. Large pharmaceutical companies have exhaustively
screened the readily culturable microbes, which represent <1% of microbes in the
environment. Thus, the vast majority of microbes in nature have remained uncultured and
inaccessible to drug discovery. Our discovery platform overcomes this long-standing problem
by providing access to the >99% of microbes previously believed to be “unculturable”, allowing
us to explore a virtually unlimited diversity of natural products.Corresponding author:
Kim Lewis (Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA)



http://static.squarespace.com/static/54878590e4b0b8980d215324/t/54ad7aaae4b09209a6148464/1420655274323/2015+january+7th+Novobiotic+press+release.pdf

Bad Luck - Main Reason for Cancer

Out of the 31 cancers examined in tissues, 22 cancers are linked to bad luck. The random mutations occur in genes that cause cancer occur due to unspecified reasons. In the rest of the cases, it can be linked to heredity or current living habits or environmental factors.


The best way to fight bad luck cancers is through early detection and surgery.

The research paper was published in the journal Science, by Cristian Tomasetti and geneticist Bert Vogelstein of Johns Hopkins University.



Science 2 January 2015:
Vol. 347 no. 6217 pp. 78-81
DOI: 10.1126/science.1260825
REPORT
Variation in cancer risk among tissues can be explained by the number of stem cell divisions
Cristian Tomasetti,, Bert Vogelstein
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/347/6217/78