Gli oli essenziali puri hanno un ruolo importante per la salute delle persone, sia per prevenire che per curare disturbi psico-fisici. Essi attraverso proprietà organolettiche generano un’ottima barriera protettiva tra noi e gli attacchi al nostro organismo ...
Leggi tutto: Come riconoscere gli oli essenziali puri
#Aromaterapia, #Essenze, #Medicina-Naturale, #Oliessenziali, #Rimedi-Naturali
Il Senato ha approvato il polemico decreto sulla Competitività delle imprese, noto anche come lo “spalma incentivi” e adesso attende l’esame della camera; il testo conferma la bozza redatta lo scorso 24 maggio, con nuove norme su energia elettrica, incentivi energia verde, ed ...
Leggi tutto: Decreto competitività: cambiano gli incentivi energia verde
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It’s About You: Lu Ann Cahn’s Story
via LBBC’s Blog:
We would like to introduce you to our blogging series, “It’s About You.” In addition to telling you their personal story, our bloggers in this series talk about their experience with past LBBC programs and/or t...
Read More: It’s About You: Lu Ann Cahn’s Story
#Breastcancer, #Cancer, #Health, #Learning-From-Others, #Metastatic-Breast-Cancer, #Newly-Diagnosed, #Shared-Experiences, #Young-Women
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For the first time, Spanish researchers have detected an unknown interaction between microorganisms and salt. When Escherichia coli cells are introduced into a droplet of salt water that is left to dry, bacteria manipulate the sodium chloride crystallisation to create biomineralogical biosaline 3-D morphologically complex formations, where they hibernate. Afterwards, simply by rehydrating the material, bacteria are revived. The discovery was made by chance with a home microscope, but it made the cover of the ‘Astrobiology’ journal and may help us find signs of life on other planets.The bacterium Escherichia coli is one of the most studied living forms by biologists, but none had to date noticed what this microorganism can do within a simple drop of salt water: create impressive biomineralogical patterns in which it shelters itself when it dries.”It was a complete surprise, a fully unexpected result, when I introduced E.. coli cells into salt water and I realised that the bacteria had the ability to join the salt crystallisation and modulate the development and growth of the sodium chloride crystals,” biologist Jos Mara Gmez said.”Thus, in around four hours, in the drop of water that had dried, an impressive tapestry of biosaline patterns was created with complex 3D architecture,” added the researcher, who made the discovery with the microscope in his house, although he later confirmed it with the help of his colleagues from the Laboratory of BioMineralogy and Astrobiological Research (LBMARS, University of Valladolid-CSIC), Spain.Until present, we knew of similar patterns created from saline solutions and isolated proteins, but this is the first report that demonstrates how whole bacterial cells can manage the crystallisation of sodium chloride (NaCl) and generate self-organised biosaline structures of a fractal or dendritic appearance. The study and the striking three-dimensional patterns are on the front cover of this month’s edition of Astrobiology.”The most interesting result is that the bacteria enter a state of hibernation inside these desiccated patterns, but they can later be ‘revived’ simply by rehydration,” said Gmez, who highlighted a very important result from an astrobiological point of view: “Given the richness and complexity of these formations, they may be used as biosignatures in the search for life in extremely dry environments outside our own planet, such as the surface of Mars or that of Jupiter’s satellite, Europa.”In fact, the LBMARS laboratory participates in the development of the Raman RLS instrument of the ExoMars rover, the mission that the European Space Agency (ESA) will send to the red planet in 2018, and this new finding may help them search for possible biological signs. According to the researcher, “the patterns observed will help calibrate the instrument and test its detection of signs of hibernation or traces of Martian life.””The challenge we now face is to understand how the bacteria control the crystallisation of NaCl to create these incredible 3D structures and vice-versa, how salt influences this action, as well as studying the structure of these microorganisms that withstand desiccation,” said Gmez, who reminds us that a simple curiosity and excitement about science, although it may be with simple means, still allows us to make some interesting discoveries: “This is a tribute to scientists such as the Spaniard Santiago Ramn y Cajal and the Dutch scientist Anton van Leeuwenhoek, who also worked from home with their own microscopes”Story Source:The above story is based on materials provided by Plataforma SINC. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Read More: Bacteria manipulate salt to build shelters to hibernate
#Agriculture, #Astrobiology, #Cancer, #Dutch, #Instrument, #King, #Lbmars, #Pregnancy, #Space, #Spanish
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After the asteroid impact at the end of the Cretaceous period that triggered the dinosaurs’ extinction and ushered in the Paleocene, leaf-mining insects in the western United States completely disappeared. Only a million years later, at Mexican Hat, in southeastern Montana, fossil leaves show diverse leaf-mining traces from new insects that were not present during the Cretaceous, according to paleontologists.”Our results indicate both that leaf-mining diversity at Mexican Hat is even higher than previously recognized, and equally importantly, that none of the Mexican Hat mines can be linked back to the local Cretaceous mining fauna,” said Michael Donovan, graduate student in geosciences, Penn State.Insects that eat leaves produce very specific types of damage. One type is from leaf miners — insect larvae that live in the leaves and tunnel for food, leaving distinctive feeding paths and patterns of droppings.Donovan, Peter Wilf, professor of geosciences, Penn State, and colleagues looked at 1,073 leaf fossils from Mexican Hat for mines. They compared these with more than 9,000 leaves from the end of the Cretaceous, 65 million years ago, from the Hell Creek Formation in southwestern North Dakota, and with more than 9,000 Paleocene leaves from the Fort Union Formation in North Dakota, Montana and Wyoming. The researchers present their results in today’s (July 24) issue of PLOS ONE.”We decided to focus on leaf miners because they are typically host specific, feeding on only a few plant species each,” said Donovan. “Each miner also leaves an identifiable mining pattern.”The researchers found nine different mine-damage types at Mexican Hat attributable to the larvae of moths, wasps and flies, and six of these damage types were unique to the site.The researchers were unsure whether the high diversity of leaf miners at Mexican Hat compared to other early Paleocene sites, where there is little or no leaf mining, was caused by insects that survived the extinction event in refugia — areas where organisms persist during adverse conditions — or were due to range expansions of insects from somewhere else during the early Paleocene.However, with further study, the researchers found no evidence of the survival of any leaf miners over the Cretaceous-Paleocene boundary, suggesting an even more total collapse of terrestrial food webs than has been recognized previously.”These results show that the high insect damage diversity at Mexican Hat represents an influx of novel insect herbivores during the early Paleocene and not a refugium for Cretaceous leaf miners,” said Wilf. “The new herbivores included a startling diversity for any time period, and especially for the classic post-extinction disaster interval.”Insect extinction across the Cretaceous-Paleocene boundary may have been directly caused by catastrophic conditions after the asteroid impact and by the disappearance of host plant species. While insect herbivores constantly need leaves to survive, plants can remain dormant as seeds in the ground until more auspicious circumstances occur.The low-diversity flora at Mexican Hat is typical for the area in the early Paleocene, so what caused the high insect damage diversity?Insect outbreaks are associated with a rapid population increase of a single insect species, so the high diversity of mining damage seen in the Mexican Hat fossils makes the possibility of an outbreak improbable.The researchers hypothesized that the leaf miners that are seen in the Mexican Hat fossils appeared in that area because of a transient warming event, a number of which occurred during the early Paleocene.”Previous studies have shown a correlation between temperature and insect damage diversity in the fossil record, possibly caused by evolutionary radiations or range shifts in response to a warmer climate,” said Donovan. “Current evidence suggests that insect herbivore extinction decreased with increasing distance from the asteroid impact site in Mexico, so pools of surviving insects would have existed elsewhere that could have provided a source for the insect influx that we observed at Mexican Hat.”Story Source:The above story is based on materials provided by Penn State. The original article was written by A’ndrea Eluse Messer. …
Read More: Leaf-mining insects destroyed with the dinosaurs, others quickly appeared
#Cretaceous, #Current, #Donovan, #Formation, #Health, #Mexican, #North-Dakota, #Paleocene, #Professor, #Union
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People’s emotional reactions and desires in initial romantic encounters determine the fate of a potential relationship. Responsiveness may be one of those initial “sparks” necessary to fuel sexual desire and land a second date. However, it may not be a desirable trait for both men and women on a first date. Does responsiveness increase sexual desire in the other person? Do men perceive responsive women as more attractive, and does the same hold true for women’s perceptions of men? A study published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin seeks to answer those questions.Femininity and AttractivenessResearchers from the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya, the University of Rochester, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, collaborated on three studies to observe people’s perceptions of responsiveness. People often say that they seek a partner that is “responsive to their needs,” and that such a partner would arouse their sexual interest. A responsive person is one that is supportive of another’s needs and goals. “Sexual desire thrives on rising intimacy and being responsive is one of the best ways to instill this elusive sensation over time,” lead researcher Gurit Birnbaum explains. “Our findings show that this does not necessarily hold true in an initial encounter, because a responsive potential partner may convey opposite meanings to different people.”In the first study, the researchers examined whether responsiveness is perceived as feminine or masculine, and whether men or women perceived a responsive person of the opposite sex as sexually desirable. …
Read More: Why do men prefer nice women? Responsiveness and desire
#Alternative-Medicine, #Alzheimer, #King, #People, #Person, #Psychology, #Responsiveness, #Science, #Sexual, #University, #Virtual, #Women
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Scars — in particular keloid scars that result from overgrowth of skin tissue after injuries or surgeries — are unsightly and can even lead to disfigurement and psychological problems of affected patients. Individuals with darker pigmentation — in particular people with African, Hispanic or South-Asian genetic background — are more likely to develop this skin tissue disorder. Current therapy options, including surgery and injections of corticosteroids into scar tissues, are often ineffective, require clinical supervision and can be costly.A new invention by researchers from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore (reported in the current issue of TECHNOLOGY) provides a simple, affordable and — most importantly — highly effective way for patients to self-treat keloid scars. The team of scientists and engineers from NTU’s School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, in collaboration with clinicians from Singapore’s National Skin Centre, have developed a special patch made from polymers fabricated into microneedles, which are loaded with the US food and drug administration (FDA)-approved scar-reducing drug, 5-fluorouracil. Self-administered by patients, the microneedles attach the patch to scar tissue and allow sustained drug-release (one patch per night). The drug as well as the physical contact of the microneedles with the scar tissue contributes to the efficacy of the device, leading to the cessation of scar tissue growth and a considerable reduction of keloids as demonstrated in laboratory cultures and experiments with animals. “Most patients seek treatment due to disfigurement and/or pain or itch of scars,” says Assistant Professor Xu Chenjie from NTU who leads the study. “We wanted to develop a simple, convenient, and cost-effective device able to inhibit keloid growth in skin tissue and reduce the size of disfiguring scars,” adds Yuejun Kang, another key investigator in the study from NTU.”Self-administered treatment for keloid scars can reduce the economic burden on the healthcare system and provide a treatment option for patients who have limited access to medical care,” comments Professor Jeffrey Karp from Brigham and Women’s Hospital at Harvard Medical School, US, an expert on medical device design who was not involved in this study.Story Source:The above story is based on materials provided by World Scientific. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Read More: Breakthrough drug-eluting patch stops scar growth, reduces scar tissues
#Asian, #Chemical, #Health, #Healthcare, #Hispanic, #National, #Ntu, #Women
