news 2021

By Max Martin, Special to Western News A breakthrough genetic discovery from researchers at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry is unlocking new clues about why some individuals experience early onset of neurodegenerative diseases. A recent study led by the O'Donoghue Lab focused on mistakes that occur during the translation of gene products into proteins, allowing researchers to better understand genetic factors that affect disease.

11/29/2021 The cells of a certain tumour type, called neuroblastoma, divide very rapidly. This rapid division can have potentially fatal consequences for them. A new study shows how neuroblastoma cells deal with this dilemma. Neuroblastomas occur predominantly in children. A specific subset of these tumours is very aggressive and difficult to treat.

Team from Göttingen University and University Medical Center identifies changes in nerve tissue in Alzheimer's What changes occur in parts of the brain affected by neurodegenerative disease? How does the structure of the neurons change? Some pathological changes in the tissue are easy to identify using standard microscopy.

By Christoph Pelzl Study led by TU Graz shows that apple trees inherit their microbiome to the same extent as their genes. The results lay the foundation for new breeding strategies for healthy and climate-robust fruit and vegetables. Agriculture is facing enormous challenges worldwide due to global changes caused by human activities.

Smiling makes you look older, according to research by neuroscientists at Western and Ben-Gurion University in Israel. But if you're already over 60, smiling doesn't appear to change the way your age is perceived. Melvyn Goodale , founding director of Western's renowned Brain and Mind Institute , and his collaborator Tzvi Ganel from Ben-Gurion devised a study that furthered their previous research showing that smiling could make people appear to be one or two years older than if they keep a straight face.

A study published in Frontiers in Veterinary Science reveals the presence of murine coronavirus -the murine hepatitis virus or M-CoV- in mice of the Canary archipelago that could have reached the islands by maritime transport from the European continent. This is the first ecoepidemiological study to examine the presence of coronaviruses that circulate in mice and rats of the natural and urban environment of the islands of La Palma, El Hierro, Tenerife and Lanzarote.

From 50,000 years to 6,000 years ago, many of the world's largest animals, including such iconic grassland grazers as the woolly mammoth, giant bison, and ancient horses, went extinct. The loss of these grazing species triggered a dramatic increase in fire activity in the world's grasslands, according to a new Yale-led study published Nov.

Mathematical model could help in physical therapy and shed light on learning more generally. The COIN model may also generalise to many other forms of learning and memory, not just memories underlying our movement Máté Lengyel How is it that a chef can control their knife to fillet a fish or peel a grape and can wield a cleaver just as efficiently as a paring knife? Even those of us less proficient in the kitchen learn to skilfully handle an astonishing number of different objects throughout our lives, from shoelaces to tennis rackets.

It's estimated that half of the adult population worldwide snores, with or without dangerous interruptions of breathing and related health risks such as cardiovascular disease, obesity, fatigue and concentration problems.

11/24/2021 Monarch butterflies employ a sun compass on their long-distance migration. Surprisingly, a new study shows that the compass is only established during flight. Monarch butterflies are famous for their annual long-distance migration, which takes them over several thousand kilometres from the north of the USA to their overwintering habitat in central Mexico.

The human brain has 100 billion neurons, making 100 trillion connections. Understanding the precise circuits of brain cells that orchestrate all of our day-to-day behaviors-such as moving our limbs, responding to fear and other emotions, and so on-is an incredibly complex puzzle for neuroscientists.

In humans, the dopamine system has been tied to rewards and pleasurable sensations. As well as to memory and learning. A recent study from McGill University, published in Current Biology , suggests that dopamine may also play a key role in shaping what songs female songbirds enjoy, which may ultimately affect mating as females choose (and then remember) their mates based on the songs they prefer.

'Plague sceptics' are wrong to underestimate the devastating impact that bubonic plague had in the 6th- 8th centuries CE, argues a new study based on ancient texts and recent genetic discoveries. The same study suggests that bubonic plague may have reached England before its first recorded case in the Mediterranean via a currently unknown route, possibly involving the Baltic and Scandinavia.

11/22/2021 The question of the causes of species extinction confronts science with complex tasks. Dr Sarah Redlich from the Biocentre on the challenge of creating a study design. Research groups all over the world are trying to disentangle the causes of biodiversity loss. One thing is clear: there is no single cause.

The unique brainpower of octopuses - known for their intelligence and Houdini-like escapes - has been revealed by University of Queensland researchers. Dr Wen-Sung Chung from UQ's Queensland Brain Institute is part of a team that studied four octopus species using MRI techniques to produce detailed 3D images for comparing their unique brain structures.

'Plague sceptics' are wrong to underestimate the devastating impact that bubonic plague had in the 6th- 8th centuries CE, argues a new study based on ancient texts and recent genetic discoveries. The same study suggests that bubonic plague may have reached England before its first recorded case in the Mediterranean via a currently unknown route, possibly involving the Baltic and Scandinavia.

Researchers at the University of Toronto and its partner hospitals have discovered a way to generate functional cells from stem cells that could open new treatment avenues for people with cystic fibrosis who have liver disease. Funded by Medicine by Design and completed with the collaborative efforts of multiple labs, the research was recently published in  Nature Communications.

Where monarch butterflies overwinter by the thousands to millions (left, a cluster in California), the black-headed grosbeak (right) is one of few birds that can eat them without vomiting. Researchers discovered that the bird has evolved similar genetic mutations as those found in the monarch that allow both to handle milkweed toxins, which accumulate in the butterfly and are deterrents to most predators.

New link between diet, intestinal stem cells and disease discovered Obesity, diabetes and gastrointestinal cancer are frequently linked to an unhealthy diet. However, the molecular mechanisms responsible for this are hitherto not fully understood. Researchers at the Technical University of Munich and Helmholtz Munich have gained some new insights that help to better understand this connection.

An unborn baby could become infected with Covid-19 if their gut is exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, finds a new study led by UCL researchers with Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and the NIHR Great Ormond Street Biomedical Research Centre. Although the study did not look specifically at mothers with Covid-19 and whether their infection was transmitted to an unborn baby, it found that certain fetal organs, such as the intestine, are more susceptible to infection than others.