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19:30, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
For smokers, eating broccoli helps keep their lungs clean. The normal cleaning system whereby lung macrophages remove debri and microbes is defective in patients with chronic onstructive lung disease (COPD)and in smokers. Sulphorane, a chemical in broccoli, can enhance the chemical pathway in the lungs that activates macrophages, Nrf2, a pathway damaged by smoking and COPD.
Shyam Biswal at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and colleagues, exposed defective macrophages from the lungs of 43 people with COPD to two bacterial strains that are common causes of COPD-associated infections. In the presence of sulphoraphane, the NRF2 pathway was boosted and the macrophages' ability to engulf bacteria was restored.[1]
References
- ↑ Christopher J. Harvey, Rajesh K. Thimmulappa, Sanjay Sethi, Xiaoni Kong, Lonny Yarmus, Robert H. Brown, David Feller-Kopman, Robert Wise, Shyam Biswal. Targeting Nrf2 Signaling Improves Bacterial Clearance by Alveolar Macrophages in Patients with COPD and in a Mouse Model. Sci Transl Med 3:78ra32.
- From Editor's Summary: With every breath we take, the outside air assaults the lungs. Along with life-sustaining oxygen come dust, dirt, and microbes. A well-functioning lung cleanses itself with broom-like cilia that sweep out debris and with a robust innate immune defense system driven by macrophages that subdue infectious invaders. But constant exposure to cigarette smoke or pollution can interfere with this self-cleaning system and cause the lung ailment COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). This common disease is characterized by two conditions that cause shortness of breath, wheezing, chronic cough, and tightness in the chest: emphysema—which is associated with progressive destruction of lung tissue—and bronchitis—an inflammation of the airway passages (bronchi). Understanding the mechanistic details of how irritants in the air disable the lung’s defenses can help uncover possible drug targets. Now, Harvey and colleagues have fingered a cigarette smoke–triggered change in a signaling pathway that regulates defense against oxidative stress, which may impair lung macrophage function. In both COPD patients and a mouse model of COPD, a phytochemical found in broccoli can activate this pathway and improve the ability of lung macrophages to sequester and inactivate the bacteria that often causes exacerbations of COPD. …Although the mechanism is unclear, lung macrophages from patients with COPD are defective in taking up (phagocytosing) bacteria for eventual destruction.
01:39, 11 November 2010 (UTC)
| Once, [neutrinos] were thought to have no mass and to travel at the speed of light; today we know that they do have a little mass, though so trifling that no one has yet measured it. |
| All we know is that if you had some subatomic scales, it would take at least 100,000 neutrinos to balance a single electron. |
Even so, their vast numbers make it possible that, in total, they outweigh all the visible matter of the universe.
|
Reference
- ↑ Close F. (2010) Neutrino. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199574599. (Page 2)
18:30, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
| In many ways music appears to be hardwired in us. Anthropologists have yet to discover a single human culture without its own form of music. |
| Children don't need any formal training to learn how to sing and dance. |
| And music existed long before modern civilization . In 2008 archaeologists in Germany discovered the remains of a 35,000•year•old flute. |
| Music, in other words, is universal, easily learned, and ancient. |
| That's what you would expect of an instinct that evolved in our distant ancestors. |
Reference
- ↑ Zimmer C. (2010) Column: The Brain. Discover, December. Pages 28-29.
22:10, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
- Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have linked resveratrol, a chemical compound [a polyphenol] found in red wine, to improved health of patients with impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), also known as “pre-diabetes.” read more, page 3.
01:33, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
- Carl Linnaeus's passion for nature was clear from the start. His school chums nicknamed him the "little botanist" because, according to biographer Wilfrid Blunt, he was "always playing truant in the summer months and going off into the countryside to look for plants." The little botanist soon became interested in a career in medicine—a natural path, since doctors at that time were well versed in the pharmaceutical uses of plants. In 1735, at age 28, he obtained a medical degree. Six years later, after practicing in Stockholm, he accepted a position as professor of medicine and botany at the University of Uppsala. —Kathy B. Maher.