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Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) are neurodegenerative diseases that commonly occur in middle-aged people. Both ALS and FTD arise from neuronal degeneration through mechanisms that remain unclear. Dr. Yun-Ru (Ruby) Chen's team recently discovered a new pathological mechanism for neuronal degeneration using synthetic peptides. They also discovered that a disaccharide can increase neuronal survival and reduce degeneration. The result provides therapeutic strategies for future treatment. ALS and FTD differ in clinical symptoms, but they share many pathological features and genetic variations. Clinical data shows that more than 90% of ALS and about 70% of FTD patients are...

What did Stephen Hawking and Mao Zedong have in common? They both suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), for which a cure remains elusive. Scientists took an important step toward the prevention of ALS and another brain disorder called Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) with their research on the effects of the antibiotic rifampicin on genetically modified mice. "The primary cause of FTD and ALS is a hexanucleotide repeat expansion (HRE) in non-coding regions of the C9orf72 gene," said Professor Takami Tomiyama. This mutation causes neurodegeneration through loss-of-function or gain-of-toxic-function mutations.Rifampicin is an antibiotic that slows bacterial RNA production; it is usually...

The Financial Times Deutschland newspaper is on the verge of filing for bankruptcy, endangering around 350 jobs, the paper announced on its homepage on Wednesday. … The FTD’s official daily circulation is 102,000, though a significant proportion of that is reportedly given away in airports and railway stations. … The FTD was launched in 2000 as an affiliate to the British Financial Times, but ownership passed into the hands of G+J, owned by Bertelsmann media group, in 2008. …

As a top adviser in a multinational financial services company, Susan Grant 59, was used to effortlessly juggling numbers, client details and other complex information in her head. So when she found her thoughts so muddled she couldn't remember if she needed to take the interstate north or south to drive home, she knew something was wrong. “I'd find myself talking to clients and unable to think of a word,” she recalled. “So I'd stop in the middle of a sentence — and then I couldn't remember the sentence itself.” A series of medical tests resulted in six diagnoses —...

Being human has its pluses and minuses. Our cognitive powers are superior to that of other animals, and we can act consciously to alter our destinies. On the other hand, our highly evolved brains are prone to serious malfunctions such as mental illness and dementia. Now a team of neuroscientists has found that some of these blessings and curses might be linked to the same specialized neural circuits. In 1999, researchers discovered that the brains of humans and great apes such as chimpanzees and gorillas contain special elongated nerve cells called spindle neurons. These cells, also known as Von Economo...

Sunday, October 23, 2005 The $10 Billion REFCO Smoking Gun The listing for the assets and liabilities of REFCO was just made available, and guess what just happens to be hiding in the liabilities column? A $10 billion liability, at TODAY's mark to market valuation, called "Securities sold, not yet purchased." $10,590,379,000 - to be precise. Securities that have been sold. But they haven't been bought. Welcome to the wonderful world of naked short selling. Now, one might say, "hey, wait a minute, but Thompson of the DTCC said it's only a $6 billion per day problem." Only.