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"Wie stark jemand dabei auf Oxytocin reagiert, scheint unter anderem von seiner genetischen Ausstattung abzuhängen, insbesondere der Beschaffenheit seines Oxytocinrezeptor-Gens, auch OXTR-Gen genannt. Schon in früheren Studien hatten Wissenschaftler Hinweise auf einen Zusammenhang zwischen der jeweils vorherrschenden Variante dieses Gens und der Neigung zu Empathie und anderen prosozialen Verhaltensweisen gefunden. Von allen möglichen Kombinationen - GG, AG und AA - scheint sich dabei vor allem die GG-Variante als förderlich für soziales Verhalten zu behaupten. AA-Träger haben dagegen häufiger Schwierigkeiten, elterliche Gefühle zu entwickeln und ein größeres Risiko für autistische Züge. In der aktuellen Studie wollte das Team um Aleksandr Kogan von der Universität in Toronto nun herausfinden, ob ein Fremder die Chance hat, GG-Träger nur durch eine flüchtige Beobachtung zu identifizieren"

Jaincolab is one of the leading manufacturers and importers of best quality AA Battery Holder with wires and clips.

By: Kandil AA, AE Sharief, Ola S.A. Shereif Key Words: Canola, Cultivars, Salinity stress, seedlings characters. Int. J. Agr. Agri. Res. 8(2), 10-18, February 2016. Abstract To study the effect of salinity concentrations on seedlings parameters of some canola cultivars, a laboratory experiment was conducted at Agronomy Department Laboratory of Seed Testing, Faculty of Agriculture, Mansoura University, Egypt, during December 2013. The experiment included two factor, the first factor included three cultivars of canola i.e. Serw 4, Serw 6 and Serw 51 and the second factor included ten concentrations of salinity as NaCl i.e. 0.0 (control treatment), 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0, 1.2, 1.4, 1.6, and 1.8 % NaCl). The results showed that Serw 6 cultivar significantly exceeded the other studied cultivars in root and shoot lengths and shoot fresh and dry weights. Whilst, Serw 51 cultivar significantly exceeded the other studied cultivars in root fresh and dry weights, seedling height reduction (SHR), relative dry weight and chlorophyll content in leaves. Salinity stress significantly affected seedlings characters of canola. Due to increasing salinity levels from 0 (control) to 1.8% NaCl, seedlings characters of canola was significantly decreased. It could be concluded that for maximizing canola seedlings parameters, germinated seeds of Serw 6 or Serw 51 cultivars under control treatment (without salinity stress) or under conditions of 0.2% NaCl.

Fats in foods like potato chips and french fries make them nearly irresistible because they trigger natural marijuana-like chemicals in the body called endocannabinoids, researchers at the University of California, Irvine, have found. The researchers discovered that when rats tasted something fatty, cells in their upper gut started producing endocannabinoids, while sugars and proteins did not have this effect. How fats create, like, a buzz It starts on the tongue, where fats in food generate a signal that travels first to your brain, and then through a nerve bundle called the vagus to your intestines. There, the signal stimulates the production of endocannabinoids, which initiates a surge in cell signaling that prompts you to totally pig out - probably by initiating the release of digestive chemicals linked to hunger and satiety that compel us to eat more. And that leads to obesity, diabetes and cancer, the researchers said. But they suggest it might be possible to curb this process by obstructing endocannabinoid activity: for example, by using drugs that "clog" cannabinoid receptors. The trick: bypassing the brain to avoid creating anxiety and depression (which happens when endocannabinoid signaling is blocked in the brain). I'm guessing McDonald's won't be adding that drug to their fries. Ref.: Daniele Piomelli, et al., An endocannabinoid signal in the gut controls dietary fat intake, PNAS, 2011; in press

An immune-suppressing drug called rapamycin could possibly treat Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS), a rare genetic disease that causes premature aging, and advance biological understanding of the normal aging process, according to researchers from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) at the National Institutes of Health, the University of Maryland and Massachusetts General Hospital. Progeria is a genetic disorder characterized by dramatic premature aging. "Progerin that causes progeria also accumulates, although in very small amounts, in normal aging," said Dimitri Krainc, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School. "However, if rapamycin proves to have beneficial effects in lifespan in humans it is safe to assume that it will not be just because it may clear progerin from cells, but also because it clears other toxic products that accumulate during aging." Ref.: Francis S. Collins, et al., Rapamycin Reverses Cellular Phenotypes and Enhances Mutant Protein Clearance in Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome Cells, Science, 2011; [DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3002346]

Listen up, Facebook and Twitter groupies: how easily can social pressure affect your memory? Very easily, researchers at the Weizmann Institute and University College London have proved, and they think they even know what part of the brain is responsible. The participants conformed to the group on these "planted" responses, giving incorrect answers nearly 70% of the time. Volunteers watched a documentary film in small groups. Three days later, they returned to the lab individually to take a memory test, answering questions about the film. They were also asked how confident they were in their answers. They were later invited back to the lab to retake the test. This time, the subjects were also given supposed answers of the others in their film-viewing group (along with social-media-style photos) while being scanned in a functional MRI (fMRI) that revealed their brain activity. Is most of what you know false? Planted among these were false answers to questions the volunteers had previously answered correctly and confidently. The participants conformed to the group on these "planted" responses, giving incorrect answers nearly 70% of the time. To determine if their memory of the film had actually undergone a change, the researchers invited the subjects back to the lab later to take the memory test once again, telling them that the answers they had previously been fed were not those of their fellow film watchers, but random computer generations. Some of the responses reverted back to the original, correct ones, but get this: despite finding out the scientists messed with their minds, close to half of their responses remained erroneous, implying that the subjects were relying on false memories implanted in the earlier session. An analysis of the fMRI data showed a strong co-activation and connectivity between two brain areas: the hippocampus and the amygdala. Social reinforcement could act on the amygdala to persuade our brains to replace a strong memory wi

Scientists at the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine and the Ontario Cancer Institute have isolated a human blood stem cell in its purest form: as a single stem cell capable of regenerating the entire blood system. "This discovery means we now have an increasingly detailed road map of the human blood development system, including the much sought after stem cell," says principal investigator John Dick, who holds a Canada Research Chair in Stem Cell Biology and is a Senior Scientist at the McEwen Centre for Regenerative Medicine and the Ontario Cancer Institute, University Health Network (UHN). "We have isolated a single cell that makes all arms of the blood system, which is key to maximizing the potential power of stem cells for use in more clinical applications. Stem cells are so rare that this is a little like finding a needle in a haystack," says Dr. Dick. Ref.: John E. Dick, Isolation of Single Human Hematopoietic Stem Cells Capable of Long-Term Multilineage Engraftment, Science, July 2011: Vol. 333 no. 6039 pp. 218-221 [DOI: 10.1126/science.1201219]