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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 15, 2015 at 12:34pm

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 15, 2015 at 12:29pm

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 15, 2015 at 12:25pm

According to science, practice doesn't make you perfect!

So forget what you've been told, 10,000 hours of practice isn't guaranteed to turn you into an expert. Here is why:

There's a long-standing myth that, in order to master a skill, all it takes is roughly 10,000 hours of practice. Scientists have debunked the myth once and for all, and shown that, while some people can become an expert with 10,000 hours of practice - or less - many can't, and there's a whole lot more involved than just hard work. In fact, an international team of psychologists found that deliberate practice can only explain around one-third of the difference in skill levels in chess players and musicians.

This leaves "the majority of the reliable variance unexplained and potentially explainable by other factors". Those factors, we're assuming, are natural talent and genetic ability.

-Journal "Intelligence"

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289614000087

The researchers came to this conclusion after analysing data taken across six previous studies of chess competitions (1,082 subjects in total) and eight studies of musicians (628 subjects), and looking for any kind of correlation between practice and success. What they found was that, well, there kinda wasn't one, and there were huge variations in how much of a role practice seemed to have played in success.

One chess player, for example, had taken 26 years to reach a level that another reached in a mere two years. Clearly, there's more at work than just the sheer volume of hours practiced, the study (and a similar one by the same authors published in May [2014]) argues.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289613000421

"The evidence is quite clear," wrote lead author David Hambrick from Michigan State University in the US in a press release in 2013, "that some people do reach an elite level of performance without copious practice, while other people fail to do so despite copious practice."

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 14, 2015 at 9:18am

Stem cells lurking in tumors can resist treatment​​​​
Till now we have heard about the good side of stem cells. Now time for some not-so-good news about these angels:
Scientists are eager to make use of stem cells’ extraordinary power to transform into nearly any kind of cell, but that ability also is cause for concern in cancer treatment. Malignant tumors contain stem cells, prompting worries among medical experts that the cells’ transformative powers help cancers escape treatment.
New research proves that the threat posed by cancer stem cells is more prevalent than previously thought. Until now, stem cells had been identified only in aggressive, fast-growing tumors. But a mouse study at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis shows that slow-growing tumors also have treatment-resistant stem cells. The low-grade brain cancer stem cells identified by the scientists also were less sensitive to anticancer drugs. By comparing healthy stem cells with stem cells from these brain tumors, the researchers discovered the reasons behind treatment resistance, pointing to new therapeutic strategies.
The research results appear online March 12 in Cell Reports.
http://www.cell.com/cell-reports/abstract/S2211-1247%2815%2900199-0...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 13, 2015 at 9:40am

Research reported today by Tufts University biologists shows for the first time that bioelectrical signals among cells control and instruct embryonic brain development and manipulating these signals can repair genetic defects and induce development of healthy brain tissue in locations where it would not ordinarily grow.

The research reveals that bioelectric signaling regulates the activity of two cell reprogramming factors (proteins that can turn adult cells into stem cells), which for the first time were analyzed in Xenopus laevis embryos, which share many evolutionary traits with humans. Results appear in the March 11, 2015, edition of the Journal of Neuroscience.

http://www.jneurosci.org/content/35/10/4366.short

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 12, 2015 at 8:44am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 11, 2015 at 9:55am

Irisin – a myth rather than an exercise-inducible myokine

The myth of Irisin - the exercise hormone:

The discovery of the "exercise hormone" irisin three years ago and more than 170 related papers about it since have been called into question by recent research showing they were based on flawed testing kits.

Previous studies suggested that the hormone irisin -- named for the Greek messenger goddess Iris -- travels from muscle to fat tissue after exercise to tell fat cells to start burning energy instead of storing it. The finding ignited hope and press coverage that irisin could hold the key to fighting diabetes and obesity, perhaps one day taking the form of a pill that could melt away the pounds without the hassle of a workout.

But new research from an international team of scientists has found that the antibodies used to measure levels of irisin in blood were poorly vetted and nonspecific. These researchers argue that the irisin levels reported by commercial kits were actually due to unknown blood proteins, misconstruing the role of the hormone in human metabolism.

The study, appearing March 9 in the journal Scientific Reports, directly tested the antibodies used in previous analyses and showed that they cross-reacted with proteins other than irisin, yielding a false positive result. Furthermore, none of the proteins detected by these test kits in any human or animal blood samples were the correct size to be irisin.

http://www.nature.com/srep/2015/150309/srep08889/full/srep08889.html

"From the start, the study of irisin has been complicated by unvalidated reagents and contradictory data that have raised flags about the existence of irisin and its role in humans and other species," said Harold P. Erickson, Ph.D., an author of the study and professor of cell biology and biochemistry at Duke University School of Medicine. "We provide compelling evidence that the signals reported by previous studies were due to non-specific blood proteins, not irisin. Hopefully, our findings will finally convince other researchers to stop chasing a myth."

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 11, 2015 at 9:44am

Blood group O protects against malaria- here is how:

It has long been known that people with blood type O are protected from dying of severe malaria. In a study published in Nature Medicine, a team of Scandinavian scientists explains the mechanisms behind the protection that blood type O provides, and suggest that the selective pressure imposed by malaria may contribute to the variable global distribution of ABO blood groups in the human population.

It has long been known that people with blood type O are protected against severe malaria, while those with other types, such as A, often fall into a coma and die. Unpacking the mechanisms behind this has been one of the main goals of malaria research.

A team of scientists led from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have now identified a new and important piece of the puzzle by describing the key part played by the RIFIN protein. Using data from different kinds of experiment on cell cultures and animals, they show how the Plasmodium falciparum parasite secretes RIFIN, and how the protein makes its way to the surface of the blood cell, where it acts like glue. The team also demonstrates how it bonds strongly with the surface of type A blood cells, but only weakly to type O.

Principal investigator Mats Wahlgren, a Professor at Karolinska Institutet’s Department of Microbiology, Tumour and Cell Biology, describes the finding as “conceptually simple”. However, since RIFIN is found in many different variants, it has taken the research team a lot of time to isolate exactly which variant is responsible for this mechanism.

The mechanism behind the protection that blood group O provides against severe malaria, which can, in turn, explain why the blood type is so common in the areas where malaria is common. In Nigeria, for instance, more than half of the population belongs to blood group O, which protects against malaria.”

Evolution - on the move!

RIFINs are adhesins implicated in severe Plasmodium falciparum malaria

http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nm.3812.html

My mother had severe cases of Malaria - not once but 5 times in 2 years some 15 years back! She had a temperature of 104 -107 degrees. We were very worried. And the malaria she got was caused by drug resistant Plasmodium falciparum.

But luckily she survived, now I know the reason. She is O+ve!

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 11, 2015 at 9:29am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 11, 2015 at 9:27am

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