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Diseased Brain Cells More Involved In ALS-associated Motor Neuron Death->

From feed by sdfeed
Researchers report for the first time that astrocytes -- the most abundant non-neuronal cells in the central nervous system, which carry a mutated gene known to cause some cases of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS/Lou Gehrig's disease) -- induce motor neuron death. This indicates that astrocytes may contribute to ALS by releasing a toxic factor that damages neurons.
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Comment: This explains alot (Score 1) 92

by SargeantLobes (#18749829) Attached to: Brain Connection To Hypertension?
Hypertension has always been associated with a higer risk for Ischemic Stroke (CVA). Whereas high cholesterol has been associated with corornary infarctions (because of artherscelerosis).

This article suggests that the underlying principle underlying both, is the same (clogging of arteries). Which for me as a med-student is pretty damn cool to read, since the hypertension-CVA connection is pretty poorly understood.

P.S. Artherosclerosis is caused by white bloodcells being absorbed into the blood wall and consequently absorbing cholesterol (thereby getting trapped). So it's actually very similar.

Man Arrested for Wireless Piggybacking 925

Posted by timothy
from the potted-coffee-puns dept.
Sommelier writes "As reported by KATU in Portland, Oregon, a man was arrested for parking outside a coffee shop in nearby Vancouver, Washington, and using their open wireless AP — for three straight months. '"He doesn't buy anything," Manager Emily Pranger says about the man she ended up calling 911 about. "It's not right for him to come and use it."' Turns out the guy was a registered sex-offender as well." A different computer expert might have pointed out some ways to see if anyone is piggybacking on a wireless signal (many APs have a Web-interface client list), or even suggested something like NoCatAuth.

Harvard Scientists to Clone Human Embryos 592

Posted by ScuttleMonkey
from the asking-for-trouble dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Harvard University scientists claim they will soon start trying to clone human embryos to create stem cells. Even with the history of controversy and fraud researchers hope they can one day use the newly created stem cells to aid in battle against many diseases. From the article: 'The privately funded work is aimed at devising treatments for such ailments as diabetes, Lou Gehrig's disease, sickle-cell anemia and leukemia. Harvard is only the second American university to announce its venture into the challenging, politically charged research field.'"

Google Releases Picasa for Linux 486

Posted by CowboyNeal
from the pretty-pictures dept.
chrisd writes "Hi, everyone. Today I'm pleased to announce that we're making Picasa, our photo management application, available for Linux. This is a pre-beta labs release and since we're still learning on how to best make software for Linux, we're asking that you submit your bugs as you find them. Picasa for Linux uses Wine internally; this shows a bit in the interface, but it works even better than we had hoped. Download it and check it out! A list of supported distributions can be found in the FAQ. We hope our patches to Wine will help make it easier for everyone to run Windows apps on Linux and other Unix-like systems. Thanks to our pals at CodeWeavers who did much of the heavy lifting, and to Marcus Meissner, whose libgphoto support patch was a welcome surprise."

Symantec AntiVirus Hole Found 241

Posted by CowboyNeal
from the safer-than-sorry dept.
Hotwater Mountain writes "eWeek has a story about a gaping security flaw in the latest versions of Symantec's anti-virus software suite that could put millions of users at risk of a debilitating worm attack. According to eEye Digital Security, the company that discovered the flaw, the vulnerability could be exploited by remote hackers to take complete control of the target machine 'without any user action.'"

IL School District to Monitor Student Blogs 438

Posted by CowboyNeal
from the teaching-grammar-and-ethics dept.
tinkertim writes "According to a Yahoo article, a school district in Libertyville, IL will be holding students accountable for illegal actions discussed in their MySpace blogs even if such actions in no way involved the school or another student. A spokesperson for the school district was quoted as saying: 'The concept that searching a blog site is an invasion of privacy is almost an oxymoron,' he said. 'It is called the World Wide Web.' Supposedly, no direct monitoring or snooping will be done unless the school receives a report from a concerned parent, community member or other student."

Nintendo Learns from Mistakes with GameCube 315

Posted by Zonk
from the a-company-that-learns-is-no-company-at-all dept.
kukyfrope writes "Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America's Executive VP of Sales and Marketing, talks about what went wrong with GameCube and how Nintendo will not make the same mistakes when launching Wii. Reggie admits that the initial software lineup for the GameCube was simply not 'diverse and strong enough from a first and third-party perspective,' and by Nintendo's showing at E3 2006, the Wii will launch with a wide variety of games for may types of gamers."

Student Faces Expulsion for Blog Post 1045

Posted by samzenpus
from the complaining-only-makes-things-worse dept.
ThPhox writes "A student in the Plainfield School District in New Jersey is facing expulsion from the school district for a post made on his personal blog during non school hours. From the article: "A 17-year-old student who posted on his blog site that he was being bullied and threatened by the Plainfield School District will face an expulsion hearing this week, a local attorney said.""

First Photos of MIT $100 Laptop 659

Posted by CmdrTaco
from the only-a-matter-of-time dept.
An anonymous reader noted that MITs $100 laptop was unveiled at the Seven Countries Task Force Meeting. It runs a special version of the Fedora linux and it comes with native wireless lan support. You can see the photo album, and you can pledge to buy one at triple price... in order to donate 2 of them to children.

Google Wins Rights to Aussie Algorithm 211

Posted by ScuttleMonkey
from the new-tool-for-the-belt dept.
rcbutcher writes to tell us the Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that Google has just acquired the rights to a brand new text search algorithm invented by a University of NSW student. From the article: "Orion works as an add-on to existing search engines to improve the relevance of search and won praise from Microsoft founder Bill Gates last year. [...] Orion finds pages where the content is about a topic strongly related to the key word. It then returns a section of the page, and lists other topics related to the key word so the user can pick the most relevant."

No HD-DVD Movies Until April 243

Posted by Zonk
from the very-expensive-paperweight dept.
Jed from Pan and Scan writes "It's official: when the first HD-DVD players are released on March 28, there will be no movie titles available in the new high-def format for at least another three weeks, and far fewer than initially announced. Warner, the only studio that was planning on having HD-DVD movies to accompany the format's much ballyhooed debut, will now release just three initial HD-DVD titles -- and not until April 18."

No one wants war. -- Kirk, "Errand of Mercy", stardate 3201.7

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