New Link To Schizophrenia Discovered

Sat, 10 May 2008 22:59:33 GMT

clipped by: Mohir

Neuroscientists at Johns Hopkins have discovered that mice lacking an enzyme that contributes to Alzheimer disease exhibit a number of schizophrenia-like behaviors. The finding raises the possibility that this enzyme may participate in the development of schizophrenia and related psychiatric disorders and therefore may provide a new target for developing therapies.

The BACE1 enzyme, for beta-site amyloid precursor protein cleaving enzyme, generates the amyloid proteins that lead to Alzheimer's disease. The research team years ago suspected that removing BACE1 might prevent Alzheimer.

Additionally, the researchers found that these BACE1-lacking mice also displayed many other schizophrenia-like traits. Most importantly, according to Savonenko, some of the deficits improved after treatment with the antipsychotic drug clozapine.

Tags: schizophrenia, neuroscience

Experimental Data Recovered from Columbia Disaster Hard Drive

Sat, 10 May 2008 22:48:49 GMT

clipped by: Mohir
clipper's remarks: In fact, the data was recovered in only two days, but it took nearly five years to process it in order to reveal the findings of the experiment. Other two hard drives on board Columbia, however, were not that fortunate and the information they were carrying was lost forever.

Clip Source: news.softpedia.com

On the 1st of February 2003, the space shuttle Columbia re-entered Earth's atmosphere while severely damaged to the left wing. The intense heat generated by the friction with the air eventually weakened

the structural integrity of the vehicle and determined its disintegration, killing the crew of seven it was carrying on board. Most of the pieces which resulted in the breakup burned over the sky of Texas, while some reached ground intact.

Amongst these, there is one 340 megabytes hard drive, half written, carrying the data recorded from an experiment conducted into space by the crew of Columbia. The electronic device was retrieved shortly after the incident, and although partially damaged, it was sent to Kroll Ontrack Inc., a NASA contractor specialized in recovering data.

Tags: columbia, space shuttle, data recovery

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New Link To Schizophrenia Discovered

Experimental Data Recovered from Columbia Disaster Hard Drive