Parkinson’s disease

A newly identified compound can thwart protein implicated in Parkinson’s disease, explains Yevgeniy Grigoryev in the Spoonful of Medicine blog:

Sergey Brin, the co-founder of Google, has an increased risk of developing Parkinson’s disease because he harbors a mutation in a protein called Leucine-rich repeat kinase 2, or LRRK2. The protein is viewed as a promising drug target to treat Parkinson’s, a progressive neurological disorder, but it’s not possible to track LRRK2 activity in the brain, making the search for targeted therapies against the disease challenging. In a new study, researchers now provide evidence for a way to measure LRRK2 activity—and a new compound that can block the damaging effects of the protein in rodent neurons.

Hear more about this study in Yevgeniy’s post.

North Korea reaches space

This week, North Korea announced that it had successfully launched an Unha-3 rocket carrying a small satellite into orbit. Geoffrey Brumfiel reveals more in the News Blog:

The launch is the fourth attempt since 1998 by the North Koreans to place a satellite into orbit. The latest tracking data show it in roughly the right place, along with two other small objects. An amateur astronomer in Australia seems to have caught the first faint image of the satellite streaking across the sky.

Find out how the United States and Japan are reacting to this news in Geoffrey’s post.

Jalapenos & Cognition

Every Wednesday, the Indigenus blog are running an, ‘Away from home’ blog series featuring an Indian postdoc working in a foreign lab. This week’s guest post features Abhijit Das, a postdoctoral fellow at the Kessler Foundation, New Jersey, USA. Abhijit tells us about his tryst with blizzards, his coming to terms with the silent ‘j’ of jalapenos and the excellent research environment in cognitive neurorehabilitation:

The weather gave me a tough time during my initial months in the US — I started my fellowship in a winter of record snow and blizzards. I was completely unprepared for it.

I had no problems in blending in — people are very courteous and polite here. However, my sheer innocence about certain things made for some difficult times. For instance,  during one of our postdoc lunches in a restaurant, the team ordered some “buffalo wings” – I kept wondering if there are buffaloes in the US that had wings but was relieved when it finally turned out to be a spicy chicken dish. Since then, it is my favourite!  Also, I had a difficult time ordering pizza with “Jalapenos” as the “J” is pronounced as “H”. Before my friends corrected me, I always goofed that up!

Continue to Abhijit ‘s post to find out more and you can also join in the online conversation using the #postdochat hashtag.

Supporting tomorrow’s leaders today

Mentoring has a vital role to play in developing the next generation of medical researchers, enabling them to fulfill their potential. You can find out about the Academy of Medical Sciences’ contribution to mentoring in this week’s Soapbox Science post:

 The Academy’s mentoring scheme provides an excellent model of best practice in this area. Funded by NIHR and the devolved administrations, the scheme is open to postdoctoral clinical academic trainees throughout theUK, specifically Clinical Lecturers and Clinician Scientist Fellows. Mentors are drawn from the Academy’s 1000-strong Fellowship. Mentors and mentees are encouraged to develop their mentoring skills through workshops with dedicated Academy staff available to answer questions about mentoring and to administer the pairing process. I am both a mentor on the Academy’s scheme and also chair a group which assists the Academy in developing the scheme.

How are you contributing to a mentoring culture? Share your experiences in the comment thread.

EyeWire: an online game

Heidi Ledford reports in the News Blog, just in time for the holidays, a team of MIT and Max Planck researchers has released EyeWire – an online game that allows users to trace neural connections through the retina:

In the proud tradition of Foldit and other ‘citizen science’ endeavours, EyeWire aims to harness the power of the people to map the projections of retinal cells called JAM-B cells. JAM-B cells respond specifically to upward motion (which appears downward to the retina, because it receives inverted images), and were the first retinal ganglion cells distinguished on the basis of a molecular marker — a protein called junctional adhesion molecule B (JAM-B). Does the downward trajectory of the JAM-B cell projections relate to their function? The scientists behind EyeWire hope to find out.

Continue to Heidi’s post to find out more about EyeWire.

How do we make DIYBio sustainable?

At December 13th’s SpotOn NYC (SoNYC), the topic of conversation was DIY science. In the build up to this event, we hosted a mini-series of guest posts on the SpotOn blog.  You can find all the contributions here. SciLog’s blogger, Rayna Stamboliyska also contributed to the series looking at how to make DIYBio sustainable:

Funding is a serious issue in the “garage biology,” biohacking and DIYBio communities. This is largely the result of them being made up of a small number of disparate groups or individuals. And while homebrew or second-hand lab gear can be relatively cheap, the cost of regularly used chemical reagents, such as enzymes (vital for ubiquitous processes such as PCR) is quite expensive.

Continue to Rayna’s post to find out more. You can also follow the online chatter using the #DIYSci hashtag. Make sure you share your own experiences.

How to Pitch a Story to a Reporter

SciLogs blogger Matt Shipman, explains to us in his latest post how to pitch a story to a reporter, without being annoying. He offers some excellent advice:

Keep It Short

Depending on what publication they work for, reporters and editors often get hundreds (or thousands) of unsolicited emails every day. No matter how good your intentions are, your pitch is one of those unsolicited emails. If you’re writing a reporter you’ve worked with before, he or she may open your email. If not, you’re probably out of luck. But to improve your odds, you need to have a short subject line that tells them why they should bother reading it. And, to hold their attention, keep your email SHORT.

More top tips can be found in Matt’s post. 

Science Advent Calendar Time

Finally, if you are not already aware, this year there are some great science-inspired advent calendars. There is still time to join in!

• The Node are featuring their readers’ favorite papers from the past year.
• The Royal Institution has a chemistry-themed advent calendar where each day there is a video of someone talking about their favourite element(s). Find out more about this here.
• The National Oceanography Centre (NOC) has put together an online advent calendar with each new page reflecting on the fascinating diversity of deep sea life and environments that challenge and intrigue.
• Research Assistant in Pedagogy, Jane Robb is hosting an online advent calendar #sciadvent which documents the history of the Earth in 25 days.
• Finally, NPG are running a Pinterest Advent Calendar. Behind each window you can find a written clue to help identify what could be a picture, video, paper, infographic or special holiday treat. You can join in the online conversation using the #npgadvent hashtag – and if you’re already a Pinterest user, follow us and get re-pinning!