ACCIONA has brought into service the 11.7-kilometer Melide - Palas de Rei interchange (Galicia) section of the A-54 highway between Lugo and Santiago de Compostela of the 94 kilometers that make up the road the sections from Lugo to Palas de Rei and from Arzúa to Santiago are in operation 16.4 kilometers remain to be completed between the towns of Melide and Arzúa which connects to the AC-840 regional road which connects the expressway to the N-547 highway via a local road The section also includes a total of 18 structures Seco and Pambre Rivers; two over the Vilar and San Xulian streams and a final viaduct over the “Serra do Careón” Site of Community Important (SCI) to avoid impacting an area where the “santolina melidensis” plant is found four underpasses and a 270-meter wall at the Melide Sur interchange The most remarkable of these structures is the Pambre Viaduct which has a maximum height of 32.85 meters and a length of 977 meters making it the longest in the province of Lugo With a single deck and 16 spans (distance between the supporting points of the viaduct) it currently holds the Spanish record for the length of a span built by self-shoring (a type of special formwork that stands by itself without the need for external supports) the planned section runs along the Pilgrim’s Way to Santiago de Compostela which has influenced the design of certain aspects of the new highway such as the length and layout of the Pambre viaduct I accept Information on data protection In compliance with Regulation (EU) 2016/679 on Data Protection and with other Data Protection regulations in force you are hereby informed that your personal data shall be processed by Acciona whose identification data are as follows: Tax ID No (NIF): A08001851; Address: Avenida de la Gran Vía de Hortaleza No.: +34 91 663 28 50; email: protecciondedatos@acciona.com Your data shall be processed in order to send you information through the subscription to our Newsletter through electronic means activities and news pertinent to our activity sectors The consent given by the data subject by indicating that they have read and accept this data protection information comprises the lawfulness of processing the subscription Request cannot be satisfied We may also process your satisfaction or preferences Data shall be stored until the elimination is requested we may give access to your data to service providers (such as technology service providers) who assist us in fulfilling this purpose may be located outside of the European Economic Area in territories that do not offer a level of data protection that is comparable to that of the European Union we transfer User data with appropriate safeguards and always ensuring the security of the same The data subject can exercise their rights of access to or rectification and/or the restriction of or objection to the processing of such data by writing the Department of Data Protection located at Avenida de la Gran Vía de Hortaleza 28033 (Madrid) or by sending the form available in the link: FORM If we consider it necessary in order to be able to identify you, we may ask you for a copy of an identity document. Furthermore, at any time the data subject may withdraw the granted consent by contacting the aforementioned address and file a claim to the Supervisory Authority (Agencia Española de Protección de Datos www.aepd.es) You can also unsubscribe from the Newsletter communication For any further information you can visit the Privacy Police on the website https://www.acciona.com/privacy-policy/ Even after doing this countless times before I was still nervous waiting outside my advisor’s office to talk about some experiments that did not work “What if they ask for more data than I have What if I picked the wrong project?” These thoughts quickly devolve into something darker like: “Do I deserve to be here Have I done enough?” My own internal imposter syndrome aside now we know that doesn’t work.” By contrast his feedback made me realize that support is something we need International postdocs leave behind all of their support systems – family culture – in their home country and are often expected to adjust and start working right away the support international scientists need is not unusual it is something we do not realize we missed or needed until it is gone supporting international postdocs looks like increasing support for all postdocs – temporary visa holders still represent a majority of postdocs in the U.S Being involved with science policy and advocacy for a while a conversation with a political consultant once made that clear to me – “No matter how rational it is to fund international scientists you are constituents – you are not voters” and the universities themselves fiercely advocating for their international researchers at every level this can also look like providing reliable advice and resources for international postdocs who need to navigate a new world of healthcare and more that people born and raised here in the United States take for granted At the core of this international postdoctoral account of “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs” are the basic things every postdoc needs there is something less tangential – something that took me a while to realize I needed There is a famous U-shaped curve used to describe the emotional states of culture shock then through anxiety and adjustment periods to finally get back up to an adapted stage I went through that whole curve at least three times since leaving Brazil; once for every career level which came with a location change the excitement for science was so front and center that I would lose track of the fact that everything was culturally changing around me the support I needed had nothing to do with scientific research but receiving an abundance of humanity and compassion from others Thanksgiving of my first year in grad school adopted by the family of another student for the week other international postdocs and I were stranded by visas or simply by the weather and decided to host a potluck Christmas make sure to ask the international postdocs around you if they have plans Having spaces where international postdocs can thrive means not just helping them adjust to the U.S. but fully acknowledging and incorporating their individualities in how they work understanding that people cannot dissociate their personality from how they do research In my case that has sometimes looked as simple as having my peers text me when they hear some news from Brazil It also means having an advisor who knows I enjoy science communication and connects me to opportunities I would not find by myself Every international postdoc contains a multitude of interests Supporting them means supporting all of those and not just a finite research project do you think you’ll go back home?” is always present whether in talking to people or back in my internal voice but in thinking critically about how my international peers can be supported while in the U.S. I think a much better question might be “How can we make this place a little more like home?” Thiago Arzua, PhD is a 2023 Leon Levy Scholar in Neuroscience. You can learn more about him and the Leon Levy Scholars HERE The mission of The New York Academy of Sciences is to drive innovative solutions to society's challenges by advancing scientific research Membership Donate Careers Contact Us Rent Our Space About Us Topics Learning Ideas & Insights Shaping Science Get Involved bringing together specialized resources across the globe to prepare for and help mitigate complex & urgent global crises © 2025 The New York Academy of Sciences Members login here for access Not a member? Become a member today. German psychiatrist Hans Berger was almost trampled to death by a horse-drawn cannon his sister had a sudden feeling he was in danger and decided to telegram her brother Berger would later describe this as a “case of spontaneous telepathy,” which made him dedicate a lifetime to understanding how brain activity can change someone’s thoughts That work would inspire him to create the electroencephalogram—a method for measuring brain activity that is now one of the most important technologies in all of neuroscience Over 30,000 attendees made it to San Diego this year and the whole city felt like it had been taken over by scientists of all levels proudly carrying poster tubes and wearing their badges Over 20 sessions were wholly dedicated to all aspects of BCI not counting satellite events and workshops The optimism among researchers for how BCI technologies could drastically transform lives was palpable from the outset outside the labs and the discussion among the companies’ scientists the tech sector seems more interested in cultivating a sci-fi laden hype that distracts from the more practical clinical applications that BCI work can deliver to those in need a technology first developed in 2016 in non-human primates (monkeys) that combines an implant made for the motor area of the brain with a different implant placed in the spinal cord the team showed that the BSI has the ability to record and predict the electric signals in human brains meant to convey movement to the body while at the same time stimulating the spinal cord region that controls movement to further aid rehabilitation the BSI was able to restore movement (standing and performing different exercises) in paralyzed patients after five months of rehabilitation Those who previously had a small amount of function were able to walk even without the device co-president of the neurotechnology company g.tec and a biomedical engineer at Virginia Commonwealth University showed how his research team found a way to use recordings from inside the skulls of patients with epilepsy to determine how our brains create speech the specific types of activity our brains do when we imagine words Krusienski told The Daily Beast he hopes this work paves the path for BCIs to be able to communicate the thoughts of patients who cannot speak into words The advent of stronger ethical considerations means BCI research must grapple more rigorously with whether human participants in BCI testing are being treated well and being properly informed of the risks involved a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh who’s developing neuroprosthetics presented a pilot program aimed directly at discussing the ethical implications of neural engineering research at her university She ran through the successes behind ethics-focused seminars and discussions carried on for the past three years which culminated in a local conference with over 100 participants Farooqui told The Daily Beast she hopes that these can teach scientists to critically engage with topics such as the rights and experiences of participants And the messaging from these companies seems to be less about clinical application more akin to computing prowess. Neuralink likes to tout that its Link implant boasts 1,024 electrodes that are used to interface with the brain—a nearly 10-fold increase from Blackrock Neurotech’s widely used Utah Array (which has 124 electrodes). Those numbers are likely to come up frequently when the company announces new findings at the end of the month. It’s this hardware race that seems to take up most of the oxygen of the brain implant world—and one that SfN’s attendees bristle about For scientists like Krusienski and Farooqui the whole purpose of BCIs is to push them forward as medical tools that could improve lives Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here Thiago Arzua is a postdoctoral scientist at Columbia University’s Zuckerman Institute He currently studies how traumatic experiences get epigenetically passed down through multiple generations in neuroscience at the Medical College of Wisconsin where he used human stem-cell-derived brain organoids as models for Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Arzua is also an organizer and co-founder of Black In Neuro as well as a policy ambassador for the Society for Neuroscience Patel is a former senior editor for science and innovation coverage at The Daily Beast He was previously the space reporter for MIT Technology Review He has a master's degree from NYU’s Arthur L \"Digital image of artificial intelligence human brain on black surface\" spent much of his life communicating through a speech-generating device Metrics details A Correction to this article was published on 01 February 2021 This article has been updated Maternal alcohol exposure during pregnancy can substantially impact the development of the fetus known as fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs) such as cognitive dysfunction and psychiatric disorders with the pathophysiology and mechanisms largely unknown Recently developed human cerebral organoids from induced pluripotent stem cells are similar to fetal brains in the aspects of development and structure These models allow more relevant in vitro systems to be developed for studying FASDs than animal models Modeling binge drinking using human cerebral organoids we sought to quantify the downstream toxic effects of alcohol (ethanol) on neural pathology phenotypes and signaling pathways within the organoids The results revealed that alcohol exposure resulted in unhealthy organoids at cellular The apoptotic effects of alcohol on the organoids depended on the alcohol concentration and varied between cell types neurons were more vulnerable to alcohol-induced apoptosis than astrocytes The alcohol-treated organoids exhibit ultrastructural changes such as disruption of mitochondria cristae decreased intensity of mitochondrial matrix Alcohol exposure also resulted in mitochondrial dysfunction and metabolic stress in the organoids as evidenced by (1) decreased mitochondrial oxygen consumption rates being linked to basal respiration maximal respiration and spare respiratory capacity and (2) increase of non-mitochondrial respiration in alcohol-treated organoids compared with control groups we found that alcohol treatment affected the expression of 199 genes out of 17,195 genes analyzed Bioinformatic analyses showed the association of these dysregulated genes with 37 pathways related to clinically relevant pathologies such as psychiatric disorders 187 of these genes are critically involved in neurodevelopment and/or implicated in nervous system physiology and neurodegeneration the identified genes are key regulators of multiple pathways linked in networks This study extends for the first time animal models of binge drinking-related FASDs to a human model allowing in-depth analyses of neurotoxicity at tissue we provide novel insights into alcohol-induced pathologic phenotypes and affected signaling pathways and molecular networks that can contribute to a better understanding of the developmental neurotoxic effects of binge drinking during pregnancy This information suggests that FASDs are concerning on a societal level understanding the cause of FASDs including dose-response of human brain cells to the ethanol and the underlying mechanisms of neurobehavioral outcomes is urgently needed in order to develop effective prevention and early intervention programs The study also showed an increase in mRNA expression of caspase 3 but no evidence of activation of caspase 3 at the protein level for the confirmation of apoptosis the binge drinking-induced pathology and molecular changes on developing human brain tissues is largely unknown The aim of this study was to conduct for the first time the investigation on 2-month-old human iPSC-derived cerebral organoids and dissect and answer the following questions that we do not know so far on human brains: (1) whether binge drinking-like alcohol (ethanol) exposure induces apoptosis (2) what is the lowest ethanol concentration that can trigger cell death astrocytes) are more vulnerable to apoptotic action of ethanol We further performed transcriptomic studies using microarray assays and conducted bioinformatics analyses to identify signaling pathways associated with ethanol-induced brain injury A NeuN and TUNEL co-stained fluorescent images of cerebral treated with or without 50 mM ethanol for 6 h In order to identify whether neurons in organoids undergo apoptosis following ethanol exposure the brain section was co-stained with TUNEL (detection of the DNA fragmentation caused by apoptotic signaling cascades) and neuronal nuclear antigen (NeuN; a neuron marker) Cell nuclei were stained with Hoechst 33342 These images include either individual channel or overlaid images showing that ethanol treatment induces apoptosis in neurons as evidenced by co-localized TUNEL and NeuN signals in the same neurons Three representative NeuN and TUNEL double-positive apoptotic neurons are indicated by pink B Fluorescence images S100β (an astrocyte marker) and TUNEL co-stained organoids The images showed that TUNEL and S100β double-positive apoptotic astrocytes were not increased in ethanol-treated organoids indicating that ethanol does not cause astrocyte apoptosis Singularized iPSCs in mTeSR1 media were added to each well of 96-well plates and cultured in an incubator (5% CO2 formed embryoid bodies were transferred to 24-well plates and cultured for 5 days the tissues were embedded in Matrigel droplets and plated on 100 mm plates in organoid differentiation media for 5 days Plates were transferred to a spinner platform (horizontal shaker) on day 16 for long-term culture Cerebral organoids were cultured up until 2 months and cerebral organoids were examined daily under the microscope and imaged under bright field by an EVOS FL Auto microscope (Thermo Fisher Scientific) Each sample (n = 4) per group was pooled from three organoids for protein and RNA assays Each sample was generated using different preparation of iPSCs cultured in different dishes iPSC cultured on the Matrigel™-coated coverslips were sequentially fixed with 4% paraformaldehyde The cells were then stained with the following primary antibodies at 4 °C overnight: specific embryonic antigen 4 (SSEA4: a pluripotent stem cell marker) and octamer-binding transcription factor 4 (OCT4: a pluripotent stem cell marker) After washing with phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) (Thermo Fisher Scientific) twice the cells were incubated with a secondary antibody Alexa Fluor 594 nanometer conjugated immunoglobulin G (IgG) (Thermo Fisher Scientific) Hoechst 33342 (Thermo Fisher Scientific) was used to stain cell nuclei Samples were imaged by laser-scanning confocal microscopy (Nikon Eclipse TE2000-U and cleaved (or activated) caspase 3 (an apoptosis marker) Slides were imaged by Olympus slide scanners (Olympus Caspase 3 activity assay were analyzed using Caspase 3 Colorimetric Assay Kit (Sigma Aldrich the caspase 3 activity in the cell lysate was analyzed by administration of the caspase 3 substrate acetyl-Asp-Glu-Val-Asp p-nitroanilide (Ac-DECD-pNA) and incubated for 90 min The concentration of the reaction product pNA was detected at 405 nm and caspase 3 enzyme activity was calculated using the following formula: Slides were imaged using whole slide scanners (Olympus Cerebral organoids were fixed with 2% glutaraldehyde in 0.1 M sodium cacodylate buffer pH 7.4 at 4 °C washed 3 × 15 minutes with cold 0.1 M buffer then postfixed for 2 h with potassium ferrocyanide-reduced 1% osmium tetroxide on ice Organoids were washed 2 × 15 minutes with distilled water dehydrated through graded methanol solutions to anhydrous 100% methanol than via acetonitrile into epoxy resin (EMBed 812 Organoids were polymerized overnight at 70 °C 60 nm thick sections were cut and stained with uranyl acetate and lead citrate Sections were imaged using an H600 Electron Microscope (Hitachi Protein quantification for bioenergetics analysis was conducted using the DCTM Protein Assay kit (Bio-Rad USA) according to the manufacturer’s instructions The absorbance at 750 nm of each sample and known standards of bovine serum albumin (BSA) was analyzed using a Microplate Reader (Bio Tek) concentration of known standards of BSA (Bio-Rad) was plotted and then used for determining the concentration of unknown protein samples based on their absorbance The optical densities of the proteins were quantified The activated caspase 3 abundance in the organoids was normalized to glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase (GAPDH) (Cell Signaling) and presented as a percentage of the non-ethanol control organoids Agilent Seahorse XFe96 Spheroid Microplates (Agilent Technologies CA) were used for the energetic analysis of live cerebral organoids following the guideline from the manual Oxygen consumption and extracellular acidification rates generated by the tissues between 200 and 500 μm are within the dynamic range of the oxygen and pH sensors Using spheroids larger than 500 μm is not recommended due to the size limitations of the measurement chamber Two-month control and ethanol-treated cerebral organoids with a diameter of around 6 mm were sliced into 10 pieces and two randomly selected pieces (as technical duplicate) from each organoid were plated to two polylysine (100 µg/mL; Sigma-Aldrich)-coated wells respectively in Agilent Seahorse XFe96 Spheroid Microplate The assay medium contained unbuffered RPMI supplemented with 100 nM insulin (Sigma-Aldrich) and 11.1 mM glucose (for mitochondrial oxidation assay) or no glucose (for glycolysis assay) Mitochondrial oxidation was evaluated by analysis of oxygen consumption rate (OCR pmol/min/µg protein) using an XFe96 Extracellular Flux Analyzer (Agilent OCRs were obtained from the slope of change in oxygen over time OCRs were analyzed by sequential automatic injections of the following substrates and inhibitors with a final concentration of 10 μM oligomycin [adenosine triphosphate (ATP) synthase inhibitor] (Sigma-Aldrich) 10 μM carbonyl cyanide p-(trifluoromethoxy) phenylhydrazone (FCCP uncoupler of oxidative phosphorylation in mitochondria) (Sigma-Aldrich) and 10 μM antimycin A (electron transport chain complex III blocker) (Sigma-Aldrich) All values of OCR parameters calculated were normalized to the quantified protein content Total RNA was extracted with the QIAzol lysis reagent (Qiagen Inc., Valencia, CA) as described previously81 The quantity and purity of RNA were validated using a Nanodrop spectrophotometer (Thermo Fisher Scientific) All RNA samples used were treated with DNase (Thermo Fisher Scientific) to remove potential DNA contamination The extracted RNA was used for both the microarray and reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) assays as described below Fold change was calculated using the absolute ratio of the normalized intensities between two conditions Differentially expressed mRNAs were designated by expressing above ±2.0 fold change and P < 0.05 between control and ethanol-treated cerebral organoids were depicted in heatmaps False discovery rate (FDR) was calculated by adjusting p-values to account for multiple testing of many genes using Benjamini-Hochberg Procedure Gene abundance from the array assay was confirmed by RT-qPCR Complementary DNA (cDNA) was synthesized from the isolated RNA by the RT2 First Strand Kit (QIAGEN cDNA was mixed with QuantiTect SYBR (a green fluorescent cyanine dye that has a high affinity for double-stranded DNA) Green PCR Master Mix (QIAGEN) PCR was performed on the iCycler instrument (Bio-Rad USA) for 10 min at 95 °C followed by 40 cycles (95 °C for 20 s All PCR reactions were performed in triplicate The mean cycle threshold (Ct) values of triplicate wells for each sample were collected and the expression data were normalized to the endogenous control 5S rRNA and assessed using the comparative 2−ΔΔCt method All primers were purchased from Thermo Fisher Scientific and the sequences of the primers are listed in the table below GABRG3 gamma-aminobutyric acid type A receptor gamma3 subunit KCNB2 potassium voltage-gated channel subfamily B member 2 RIMKLA ribosomal modification protein rimK like family member A Following similar studies that use n = 4 to see differences our study used n = 4 unless stated otherwise All data are presented as mean ± standard error of the mean Statistical analysis was conducted using GraphPad Prism version 7.0 Statistical difference was analyzed by a student’s unpaired two-tailed t-test when comparing two groups P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant for all tests Statistical outliers were determined by the Robust regression and outlier removal method All data presented are normally distributed based on either D’Agostino or Pearson or Shapiro-Wilk normality test Variation within each group was not significant These data suggest that ethanol exposure resulted in pathological changes of cerebral organoids including cell apoptosis decreased mitochondrial morphology and matrix density disorganized microfibrils and synapse degeneration These data suggest that neurons are more vulnerable to ethanol treatment in the aspect of the apoptotic response A The diagram depicts the trace of oxygen consumption rate (OCR) on cerebral organoids after sequential administration of 10 µM oligomycin [adenosine triphosphate (ATP) synthase inhibitor] 10 µM carbonyl cyanide-4-(trifluoromethoxy)phenylhydrazone (FCCP; uncoupler of oxidative phosphorylation in mitochondria) and 10 µM antimycin A (electron transport chain blocker by inhibiting complex III) The profiles of fundamental parameters of OCR including mitochondrial and non-mitochondrial function measured are basal respiration and non-mitochondrial respiration that were marked with a different color in the schematic B OCR traces of control and 230 mg/dL ethanol-treated cerebral organoids for 6 h in response to oligomycin and spare respiratory capacity) representing mitochondrial function in ethanol-treated cerebral organoids were significantly reduced while non-mitochondrial respiration was increased following ethanol exposure Supplemental Table 2 describes the reported roles of dysregulated genes in neurodevelopment B Reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) validation of five representative altered genes from array data This study is pioneering to extend animal model studies on FASDs to human models of iPSC-derived cerebral organoids we quantified the downstream toxic effects of a binge drinking-like ethanol exposure on neural pathology phenotypes and signaling pathways We found that ethanol induced the following neurotoxicity on the 2-month cerebral organoids at tissue Ethanol exposure for 6 h resulted in apoptosis in the organoids in a dose-dependent manner Neurons were more vulnerable to ethanol-induced cell death than astrocytes Ethanol exposure also resulted in ultrastructural changes Bioinformatics analyses suggest that ethanol-induced dysregulated genes are associated with not only cell apoptosis but also other neurodevelopment and neurodegeneration signaling Extensive regulative networks of these genes might be involved in ethanol-induced brain injuries such as abnormal brain development The findings in this study provide a better understanding of the neurotoxic effects of binge drinking during pregnancy specifically on mitochondrial dysfunction and extensive signaling networks of the developing brain As neurodevelopment is difficult to study in vivo the use of human iPSC-derived cerebral organoids for modeling brain development and related neurological diseases has offered significant breakthroughs suggesting that this drinking pattern might be a risk to the fetal brains in the aspect of apoptosis Whether ethanol induces such side effects on human astrocytes in organoids remains for future investigation contributing to long-term cognitive dysfunction and psychological disorders seen in FASDs patients the current study on the analysis of the signaling pathways based on altered mRNAs was not limited to focus on apoptosis alone but predicted pathways linked to multiple neurological outcomes Understanding the ethanol-induced pathological changes and underlying the mechanisms using cerebral organoids will provide valuable insight into the development of reasonable prevention and intervention strategies we show that human iPSC-derived 3D cerebral organoids can recapitulate complex features of the brain and offer an unprecedented opportunity to model ethanol-induced complex human brain neurotoxicity that affects brain development and multiple cell types and the underlying molecular and cellular mechanisms This current study is one of the first to extend animal model studies on FASDs to the human model of cerebral organoids at the tissue We for the first time revealed that human brain cells exhibit the apoptosis response to ethanol in a dose- and brain cell type-dependent manner ultrastructure changes of cells such as degenerated synapse The pathway analyses of ethanol-induced abnormal gene expression profiles improve our molecular mechanistic understanding of various pathophysiological processes following binge drinking ethanol exposure This study may also contribute to the development of intervention and prevention strategies to reduce or eliminate the harmful effect of alcohol exposure A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-021-01214-z Global prevalence of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder among children and youth: a systematic review and meta-analysis Prevalence of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders in 4 US communities Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders: gene-environment interactions and the relationship between structural alterations in the brain and functional outcomes Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders: an overview with emphasis on changes in brain and behavior Developmental neurotoxicity of alcohol: effects and mechanisms of ethanol on the developing brain Psychiatric conditions associated with prenatal alcohol exposure Brown, J. & Harr, D. 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J. et al. MEF2C regulates cortical inhibitory and excitatory synapses and behaviors relevant to neurodevelopmental disorders. Elife 5, e20059 (2016) https://elifesciences.org/articles/20059 An update on fetal alcohol syndrome—pathogenesis Download references Thanks to Monika Zielonka for the bioenergetic assay We also appreciate Yanggu Shi (Arraystar Inc.)’s help on the data interpretation and bioinformatics analysis This work was supported by the National Institute of Health R01 GM112696 (to X.B.) These authors contributed equally: Thiago Arzua Children’s Research Institute Imaging Core Institute for Transfusion Medicine and Immunohaematology German Red Cross Blood Donor Service Baden-Württemberg-Hessen gGmbH The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations Download citation DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-020-01029-4 Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: a shareable link is not currently available for this article Journal of Neuroimmune Pharmacology (2025) Adapting to endure humanity's impact on the world Dispatches from the frontiers of neuroscience it's about as accurate as human transcription You've probably been there: wanting to text someone quickly Using BMIs, people are able to move machines, and control virtual avatars without moving a muscle This is usually done by accessing the region of the brain responsible for a specific movement and then decoding that electrical signal into something a computer can understand But now, scientists from the University of California in San Francisco have now reported a way to translate human brain activity directly into text. Joseph Makin and their team used recent advances in a type of algorithm that deciphers and translates one computer language into another (one that is the basis for a lot of human language translation software) Based on those improvements in the software the scientists designed a BMI that is able to translate a full sentence worth of brain activity into an actual written sentence Four participants, who already had brain implants for treating seizures, trained this computer algorithm by reading sentences out loud for about 30 minutes while the implants recorded their brain activity. The algorithm is composed of a type of artificial intelligence that looks at information that needs to be in a specific order to make sense (like speech) and make predictions of what comes next and is then able to create a representation of what regions of the brain are being activated The encoder is followed by a different AI that is able to understand that computer-generated representation and translate that into text – the decoder This encoder-decoder duo is doing for speech what other BMIs do for movement: pairing a specific set of brain signals and transforming that into something computers understand and can act on This interface was able to translate 30 to 50 sentences at the time with an error rate similar to that of professional-level speech transcription The team also ran another test in which they trained the BMI on the speech from one person before training on another participant This increased the accuracy of the overall translation, showing that the whole algorithm could be used and improved by multiple people based on the information gathered by the brain implants the study was also able to expand our knowledge of how very specific areas of the brain are activated when we speak Markus Spiske on Unsplash One of the reasons why this new BMI is more efficient than past attempts is a shift of focus. Instead of small chunks of speech, they focused on entire words So instead of having to distinguish between specific sounds – like "Hell" "a," and "go," the machine can use full words – "Hello" and "Thiago" – to understand the difference between them Although the best case scenario would be to train the algorithm with the full scope of the English language, for this study the authors constrain the available vocabulary to 250 different words. Maybe not enough to cover the complete works of Shakespeare, but definitely an improvement from virtually most BMIs. Most BMIs currently use some form of virtual keyboards with the person moving a virtual cursor with their minds and “typing” in this keyboard Adam Solomon on Unsplash There is a pretty glaring difference between reading brain activity from a brain implant and anything we could do on a larger scale this study opens up fascinating new directions These implants were trained on about 30 minutes of speech scientists might be able to create a library worth of training sets for BMIs There is also the possibility of expanding this study to different languages which would teach us more how speech and its representations in the brain might vary across languages. Much more research will be needed to transform this technology into something that we could all use. It's likely that this technology will first used to improve the lives of paralyzed patients, and for other clinical applications enabling communication with speed and accuracy we have not been yet been able to achieve Whether this becomes another function of Siri or Alexa will depend mostly on what advances we see in capturing brain activity especially if we’re able to do so without brain implants. Hot take: caffeine triggers brown fat thermogenesis via the brain Pamela Hirschberg Julia A Licholai Kelly Cotton Alyssa Paparella Burcin Ikiz Elizabeth Svoboda Meredith Schmehl Hayden Kee but it isn't the same as real life — and this has real-world consequences Dori Grijseels Amy R Nippert Simon Spichak Thiago Arzua Malosree Maitra Lauren Granata Irene Zhang Kareem Clark Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Rose Egelhoff Keep your mind sharp with the smartest science around Get new stories about the science behind brains and mental health delivered right to you We're a community of scientists telling fascinating true stories about the science that's happening now Complete your personal information for a more tailored experience for the best life sciences journalism in the industry Scientists are taught early in our training that criticism is a fundamental part of the job. What we are not usually trained to navigate, however, is public backlash, which is exactly what followed the publication of the comprehensive genomic sequencing results from the All of Us Research Program The study aims to add the genomic information of 1 million volunteers from normally underrepresented genetic backgrounds to datasets that have been mostly constituted by people of European descent the graph reinforces the misconception that races and ethnicity follow neatly distinct genetic components This misconception is often misused and exaggerated by people looking to validate racist or xenophobic views on the basis of “science.” Now the discussion about UMAP has become much louder than the findings of the study which discovered over 3,000 previously unknown mutations concerning 117 diseases There are sound scientific arguments both against and for using UMAP in this study but the decision points to a much broader issue at hand: an inability of scientists to grasp the societal impacts of their research — often to the detriment of the people they attempt to help There are no easy solutions for these thorny problems but one place to start would be to bring more humanities experts into GWAS This narrow-minded approach, however, has and continues to pave the way for scientific racism to take place all of which with devastating consequences For scientists to ensure that even perfectly valid research is not co-opted and used to perpetrate violence it is key to understand that science has been and will continue to be embedded in its sociopolitical context My current research focuses on the epigenetics and neuroscience behind how trauma can get passed through multiple generations Epigenetic changes affect how your DNA gets interpreted they do not affect the DNA sequence itself Partially because there are no mutations to be tracked and partially because of how it challenges our views of evolution the idea of epigenetic inheritance by itself is still a controversial topic for certain geneticists These opportunities brought up points that we might have missed by focusing only on the “hard science.” For example if we discover markers for intergenerational trauma would that be something that could stigmatize already excluded populations even further Where are the lines between trauma that can cause a pathological condition and past experiences that can simply inform a generation down the line but they are essential for how we design experiments and present our findings I don’t know if the All of Us researchers spoke with non-STEM experts and cannot predict how the publication would have changed if they had presented the same data differently But I imagine the reaction to it would’ve been more positive Minimizing potential harms does not mean limiting the questions asked by scientists especially in projects with so much potential for improving the health care of millions of people it means understanding that the same potential can be co-opted and having a critical evaluation of how that might happen Case in point: Presenting races and ethnicities that greatly overlap based on history and society as distinct genomic “clusters” can easily lead to ideas that we are all much more different at some fundamental level The smartest thinkers in life sciences on what's happening — and what's to come In many of the studies done on sensitive topics and publishers can all work to clarify their findings to a general audience clearly stating that a graph is exaggerating differences In a society still grappling with dangerous debates directly related to historically excluded populations I see in scientists not only a moral duty to minimize harm but also the opportunity to break from a tradition of isolating ourselves from society Thiago Arzua is a Leon Levy Scholar at Columbia University where he studies the neuroscience of how trauma is represented in the brain a registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization that aims to support Black neuroscientists across the world advocacy research To submit a correction request, please visit our Contact Us page Reporting from the frontiers of health and medicine own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment View all partners The reason my friend could not go on this all-expense paid trip is that – even though she earned her spot in one of the most competitive neuroscience Ph.D. programs in the country – she had entered the U.S. on a single-entry visa whereas I didn’t have any such restrictions on my visa The other option was to change her student status to something different which required additional documentation and employer sponsorship to prove her renewed status Both of these options would risk disrupting her educational plans International students are typically advised not to leave the country without a reentry visa unless it’s for a family emergency or personal reasons for which you have to go home Many international students have this lurking sense of the potential risk of not being readmitted at the border even with valid reentry visas So you can see how nerve-wracking it must be for someone who only has a single-entry visa to leave at all The conference that year meant a lot to me personally because I had not seen my family back home in Korea for two years I could not imagine not seeing them for more than five years while in the program the least I could do for her was to display her scientific research poster on Parkinson’s disease at the conference I wanted her to be recognized for her award and raise awareness of situations like this that are all too common to international students I held a photo of my friend when we took a group photo with fellow awardees When I began my doctoral training in neuroscience in 2017 I used to think that government-funded grants and fellowships were within reach of any competitive applicant I have come to see that this is not the case And the reason is because of a question that appears in some form or another on most government-funded grant applications The applications may not ask that question verbatim, but they might as well because they typically have a requirement for citizenship or permanent residency in the U.S. My beloved mother says I am “a citizen of the world” because I am a scientist My hope is to one day help discover more effective therapeutics for currently incurable and severe neuropsychiatric disorders when it comes to securing government grants to further this goal whenever my mentors tell me about a grant or fellowship opportunity in my area of expertise my first order of business is to scroll down to the eligibility requirements and search for the words “must be a U.S it is time for the nation to move away from worrying about which country a person is from and realize that scientific progress requires drawing on talent from around the world Whenever I generate experimental data or help write proposals that have secured research grants from both private institutions, such as the Michael J. Fox Foundation and the American Epilepsy Society, or governmental bodies such as the Department of Defense But when it comes to applying for federal graduate student fellowships for myself we have to pay taxes just like everyone else For those reasons and more, I believe that international graduate students deserve the chance to compete for federal training grants, such as an F31 pre-doctoral training fellowship from the National Institutes of Health or a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation It’s hardly a secret that graduate school is difficult Lesser known are the uncertainties associated with being in the U.S most of the stress that came from my search for housing and figuring out my finances could have been better handled with a simpler and more transparent process of getting a visa approved [Over 140,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world. Sign up today.] Several employment visas already allow for it Opening up this new avenue for students, as some drafts of the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021 do, could streamline and ease the life of hundreds of thousands of international students who either anxiously wait for their visas or get them denied every year simply because they want to move to the U.S. after they finish school. | Seafood/Pixabay Padrón Pepper Festival Pimientos de Padrón are well-loved throughout Spain and are often served as tapas and are celebrated every year with their own festival The festival actually takes place in the nearby town of Herbon The small green pepper is celebrated with floats Pimientos de Padron, Galicia | ©Manuel / Flickr Cheese Festival of Arzúa Northern Spain, particularly Galicia and Asturias, produce some excellent cheeses, and the small village of Arzúa situated along the Camino de Santiago makes some of the best. The soft white Arzúa-Ulloa cheese is honoured during the Festa do Queixo Azúra many stalls are set up where visitors can learn about and try various local cheeses exhibits and cheese-making workshops are also part of the event Galician Tetilla cheese | ©Tamorlan / Wikimedia Commons The Albariño Wine Festival Albariño is Galicia’s famous white wine, which is celebrated during its very own festival, held in the town of Cambados. Taking place in August each year, the event combines wine and music and hosts concerts from various international artists Albariño wines from Galicia | ©Luis Miguel Bugallo Sánchez / Wikimedia Commons Octopus Festival of Carballiño Pulpo or octopus is Galicia’s most famous dish so of course there’s a festival paying homage to this too It takes place every August in the town of Carballiño in the province of Ourense and attracts many visitors from all over the region between 25,000 and 30,000 kilos of octopus are consumed along with thousands of glasses of Ribeiro wine Pulpo a la Gallega, Galicia | © Javier Lastras / Wikimedia | ©Javier Lastras / Flickr The Festival of the Giant Omelette Unless you’ve been to Galicia, you won’t realise they actually make the best tortillas (potato omelettes) in the whole of Spain the Galicia tortilla is celebrated at the Festa da Tortilla Xigante in the town of Carcacía During the festival a gigantic potato omelette is made measuring around three and a half metres across and able to feed around 500 people It’s so big that a crane is needed to lift the huge frying pan into place Sign up to our newsletter to save up to $800 on our unique trips See privacy policy Tortilla de Patatas | © Tamorlan/Wikicommons The Fair of the Cocido of Lalín Almost every region in Spain has has its own version of the cocido – a hearty stew, which often features chickpeas or beans and various types of meat and vegetables. The Lalín Galician cocido contains everything from tuna and snails to pork, rabbit, chickpeas and potatoes. The Feira do Cocido de Lalín takes place in February and not only features lots of stew and cooking demonstrations but also around 50 different cultural activities and workshops Cocido stew | © Javier Lastras/Flickr where empanadas are accompanied by music and sporting events Empanadas Gallegas | ©Tamorlan / Wikimedia Commons Ribeiro Wine Fair in Ribadavia Besides albarino wine The festival takes place on the first weekend in May in the town of Ribadavia among medieval streets and the ruins of an old castle Wineries throughout the region are represented at the festival with their own stalls alongside live cooking demonstrations and wine workshops The event also brings all of Galicia’s favourite treats together Glass of Ribiero white wine | Max Pixel Santigao Tapas Competition If you want to try many of Galicia’s delicacies in one festival, then make your way to the Concurso de Tapas de Santiago de Compostela, which takes place in the city of Santiago de Compostela in November various bars and restaurants around the city create a special tapas dish and you can follow routes around the city to taste them all Over a quarter of a million plates of tapas are eaten during the competition to discover who has made the best of the year If you click on a link in this story All recommendations have been independently sourced by Culture Trip Read Next Sports The Most Epic Hiking Trails in Spain's Sierra Nevada See & Do The Best European Cities to Visit in Autumn See & Do The Best European Cities to Visit in July See & Do The Best European Cities to Visit in Summer Guides & Tips The Best European Cities to Visit in November Guides & Tips The Best European Cities to Visit in December Guides & Tips How to Spend the Perfect 24 Hours in Santander See & Do The Best European Cities to Visit in September Architecture Spain’s Most Impressive Bullrings See & Do The Best European Cities to Visit in October Food & Drink The 5 Best Food Markets in Madrid Guides & Tips How to Attend a Bullfight in Spain US: +1 (678) 967 4965 | UK: +44 (0)1630 35000 tripssupport@theculturetrip.com © Copyright 2025 The Culture Trip Ltd This story originally appeared on Massive Science, an editorial partner site that publishes science stories by scientists. Subscribe to their newsletter to get even more science sent straight to you When Tali Weiss and her colleagues at the Weizmann Institute of Science found a patient that had an otherwise normal sense of smell the team was scanning a woman that was supposed to be a "healthy control" for a different study When analyzing the MRI scan of that patient they enrolled more participants for this study they found another woman without an OB who could smell just fine They performed a battery of different tests that would check every facet of their olfaction The experiments confirmed the previous results: these two women had a normal sense of smell the researchers measured the brain activity of the two women in response to different smells and found their brain activity to be no different than people with intact OBs There was an interesting link, however, between these two people — both were left-handed women. To determine if there was any possibility that the lack of OB is somehow associated with a combination of sex and handedness, the team analyzed the brain scans of 1,113 participants (606 of them women) publicly available through the Human Connectome Project (HCP) a huge project that aims to construct a complete map of the human brain They found an even more interesting set of results there were 3 sets of identical twins in which one twin had no OB and the other twin had a normal OB the person without an OB could actually smell better than their twin they found that 0.6% of women and 4.25% of left-handed women had the same condition is there any part of smell for which an intact OB is absolutely necessary how do these people achieve normal olfaction without OBs It is possible that there are specific tasks or maybe even specific smells that the women tested would not be able to perceive As far as how smell is being processed in brains with no OBs there are different hypotheses being considered One possibility is that the neurons that usually compose the OB migrated; another possibility is that other parts of the olfactory circuit A third possibility is that these women are using a completely different area of the nervous system to capture the chemical signals that we perceive as smell this opens several doors for future research on the neuroscience of olfaction where participants perform daily tasks to improve their smelling abilities — could help trigger those adaptations Concerning the link between handedness, sex, and the OB, the researchers admit being puzzled. Sex differences in human olfaction have been known for a while. In fact, despite usually having OBs of similar size, women tend to have about twice as many neurons in that region than men what that might have to do with this new finding is Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is strictly prohibited Patent and Trademark Office as a trademark of Salon.com Associated Press articles: Copyright © 2016 The Associated Press Metrics details Alcohol consumption during pregnancy can significantly impact the brain development of the fetus leading to long-term cognitive and behavioral problems the underlying mechanisms are not well understood we investigated the acute and chronic effects of binge-like alcohol exposure during the third trimester equivalent in postnatal day 7 (P7) mice on brain cell viability Our results showed that alcohol exposure caused neuroapoptosis in P7 mouse brains immediately after a 6-hour exposure P60 mice exposed to alcohol during P7 displayed impaired learning and memory abilities and anxiety-like behaviors Electrophysiological analysis of hippocampal neurons revealed an excitatory/inhibitory imbalance in alcohol-treated P60 mice compared to controls with decreased excitation and increased inhibition our bioinformatic analysis of 376 dysregulated genes in P60 mouse brains following alcohol exposure identified 50 synapse-related and 23 mitochondria-related genes These genes encoded proteins located in various parts of the synapse and were associated with different biological processes and functions including the regulation of synaptic transmission The dysregulated synapse and mitochondrial genes were predicted to interact in overlapping networks Our findings suggest that altered synaptic activities and signaling networks may contribute to alcohol-induced long-term cognitive and behavioral impairments in mice providing new insights into the underlying synaptic and mitochondrial molecular mechanisms and potential neuroprotective strategies Given that ethanol can act in both excitatory and inhibitory synapses and that the maintenance of that balance is particularly important in early development it is crucial to understand the underlying molecular mechanisms by which EIDN relates to E/I imbalance a Schematic representation of the model used in the study depicting P7 mice injected with 5 g/kg of ethanol and subsequent experiments b Blood ethanol concentration within 8 hours following the first ethanol injection in mice c Western blot analysis showed that ethanol exposure at P7 increased the expression of activated caspase 3 d Immunofluorescence staining and imaging revealed activated caspase 3-positive apoptotic cells in the cortex and hippocampal tissue of mice Blue represents cell nuclei and red represents activated caspase 3-positive apoptotic cells e Ethanol exposure resulted in apoptosis in neurons in the hippocampus where the activated caspase 3-positive apoptotic signals (red) were located in neurons positive for neuronal nuclear antigen (NeuN) Blue represents cell nuclei stained with Hoechst 33342 Three representative apoptotic neurons are indicated by white the slides were incubated with Alexa Fluor 488-conjugated donkey anti-mouse IgG or goat IgG along with Alexa Fluor 594-conjugated donkey anti-rabbit (Thermo Fisher Scientific the cellular nuclei were stained with Hoechst 33342 (Thermo Fisher Scientific) The stained sections were imaged using an Olympus Fluorescent Slide Scanner (Olympus The lysates were centrifuged at 10,000 × g for 10 min at 4 °C and the supernatants were collected The protein concentration in each sample was determined using a DC Protein Assay Reagents Package kit (Bio-Rad Equal amounts of protein (25 μg) were loaded per lane for sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and transferred to a nitrocellulose membrane The membrane was blocked with blocking buffer (ThermoFisher Scientific) and incubated overnight at 4 °C with primary antibodies rabbit anti-activated caspase 3 (Cell Signaling USA; #9664) and rabbit anti-β-actin (Santa Cruz After washing with Tris-buffered saline containing 0.1% Tween 20 the membrane was incubated with horseradish peroxidase-conjugated secondary antibodies (Cell Signaling) for one hour at room temperature and then with chemiluminescence detection reagent (Cell Signaling) The labeled proteins were visualized using a Chemidoc imaging system (Bio-Rad) and the optical densities of protein signals were quantified using ImageJ software The abundance of protein level was normalized to an internal control of β-actin After acclimating in a separate room for an hour each mouse was placed in the center of a circular chamber with a radius of 44 cm and allowed to explore freely for 10 min while their movements were recorded via video We analyzed the distance traveled and immobile time in the chamber using the advanced tracking software EthoVision XT The maze consisted of a circular polypropylene pool (100 cm in diameter and 20 cm in height) filled with opaque water containing non-toxic white paint Four designated points on the rim of the pool (north and west) divided the pool into four quadrants (NE A platform (8 × 8 cm) was placed at the center of the SE quadrant Each mouse was tracked via EthoVision XT (Noldus Information Technology USA) starting from a random start point until it reached the platform If the mouse was unable to find the platform within 1 min the investigator guided it to reach the platform The latency to reach the platform was measured as an indicator of spatial learning the mouse was placed in a new start point in the pool and was allowed to swim for one minute while being tracked The latency for the mice to find the zone where the platform was placed during the learning test was recorded as a measure of spatial memory The slices were subsequently transferred to and stored in artificial cerebrospinal fluid (ACSF) containing 119 NaCl and 10 glucose at room temperature for at least 30 min before use All solutions were saturated with 95% O2 and 5% CO2 focusing on the genes from the third-trimester group with the mechanistic premise of examining synaptic and mitochondrial-related genes we isolated these genes and performed the bioinformatic analyses as detailed below We utilized several bioinformatic analysis tools including Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) to investigate the dysregulated genes and their related pathways/functions as described below The signaling pathways and networks of the dysregulated genes were analyzed based on the known individual gene’s participation in established pathways from the literature included in the IPA database We obtained a collection of predictions regarding roles of the genes in the central nervous system development and function and neurological diseases (with Fisher’s exact test p < 0.05 calculated in the IPA database) All data were presented as mean ± standard error (SE) of the mean Sample size was determined based on pilot data from our laboratory and previous similar studies n = 7–10 per group for behavior tests and electrophysiology analyses The data of the ethanol-induced dysregulated genes in P60 mouse brain were obtained from 6 mice per groups Statistical analysis was performed using unpaired Student’s t-test in GraphPad Prism (version 9.0) to compare the control and ethanol treatment groups The level of statistical significance was set at p < 0.05 The normal distribution of data was analyzed using either Shapiro–Wilk or Kolmogorov–Smirnov normality tests as appropriate for the specific statistical analysis These findings demonstrate the acute apoptotic effect of binge drinking-like exposure to ethanol on the developing brain a–c Open field tests revealed that P60 mice exposed to ethanol at P7 spent more time in periods of total immobile and had less distance traveled indicating an increase in anxiety-like behavior given that no specific motor disability was noted during the Morris water maze test d–f A 5-day learning test and one-day memory test were conducted using the Morris water maze The mice treated with ethanol took longer (escape latency) to find the platform than the control mice on days 3–5 during the learning test and on day 6 during the memory test a Schematic representation of the whole-cell patch clamp electrophysiology performed in hippocampal slices b Ethanol-treated mouse neurons showed a decrease in spontaneous excitatory postsynaptic currents (sEPSC) amplitude b1 Representative traces of sEPSCs recorded b2-3 Mean frequency and amplitude of sEPSCs c Ethanol exposure resulted in increased spontaneous inhibitory postsynaptic currents (sIPSC) frequency and amplitude in neurons c1 Representative traces of sIPSCs recorded c2-3 Mean frequency and amplitude of sIPSCs b The horizontal bar graph shows the gene count per synaptic cellular component c The horizontal bar graph shows the gene count per synaptic biological process d Gene ontology (GO) analysis of pathway and process of ethanol-induced dysregulated synaptic genes was conducted using the Metascape bioinformatic tool The bar graph illustrates the enriched terms of signaling and cognition and behavior across the synaptic gene lists b Gene ontology (GO) analysis of pathway and process of ethanol-induced dysregulated mitochondrial genes using the Metascape database The bar graph shows the enriched terms across mitochondrial gene lists a Diagram illustrating the different connections between mechanistic networks predicted to be influenced by either synaptic or mitochondria-related gene dysregulation In red are networks affected by ethanol-induced dysregulation of synaptic genes and in green are those affected by dysregulation of mitochondria-related genes The table provides details about the function of each network and the genes present in each one b A table summarizing the top 10 predicted diseases and biological functions affected by the overlap between dysregulation of synaptic or mitochondria-related genes c Example of the relationship between ethanol-induced gene dysregulation and predicted pathways leading to changes in learning The network highlights both synaptic or mitochondria-related genes (green genes are experimentally downregulated and red genes are upregulated) and how they are predicted to interact (activation in orange and inhibition in blue) with one or more biological functions The resulting network demonstrated the predicted activation of both neuronal cell death (z-score = 0.421) and anxiety (z-score = 1.882) as well as the inhibition of excitatory postsynaptic potentials (z-score = −2.383) This finding highlights the direct relationship between synaptic and mitochondrial genes and the behavioral abnormalities induced by ethanol exposure providing in silico confirmation of their association Prenatal exposure to ethanol can lead to long-lasting adverse effects on the brain including changes in structure and morphology as well as behavioral and cognitive problems the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying these effects are not well understood This study aimed to investigate the synaptic and molecular mechanisms responsible for the long-term cognitive and behavioral effects of developmental ethanol exposure We found that neonatal mice exposed to binge-like levels of ethanol had acute neuroapoptosis and resulted in long-term anxiety-like behavior and deficits in spatial learning and memory there was an E/I imbalance in the hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons of the P60 brains of these ethanol-exposed mice Transcriptomic analysis of adult mouse brains exposed to ethanol during development revealed dysregulation of 50 synaptic genes and 23 mitochondria-related genes These dysregulated genes were associated with dysfunction in key biological pathways as well as folate metabolism and the degradation of bioenergetic-related molecules the study showed that the synaptic and mitochondria-related genes affected overlapping networks the imbalanced E/I might be an important mechanism underlying ethanol-induced cognitive dysfunctions and abnormal behaviors but the role of this gene in FASD or EIDN is not known Further studies can start to unravel how ethanol-induced dysregulation of the genes indicated by our work might lead to specific abnormal neuronal function and synaptic activities especially considering the known increased risk of AUD in patients with FASD the interplay between ethanol-induced abnormal mitochondrial and synaptic signaling is not known Our bioinformatic analysis revealed that developmental ethanol exposure resulted in 23 dysregulated mitochondrial genes in P60 mouse brains with these genes playing important roles in mitochondrial biological processes and functions such as protein translation we observed overlaps between dysregulated synaptic gene- and mitochondrial gene-related signaling networks with some of these dysregulated genes contributing to neuronal cell death While some genes may contribute to a specific phenotype [e.g. upregulation of Hap1 (huntingtin associated protein 1) leading to detrimental effects on cell survival] others may have more overarching regulatory roles [e.g. downregulation of Grin2b (glutamate ionotropic receptor NMDA type subunit 2B) resulting in predicted inhibition of excitatory postsynaptic potentials and predicted activation of anxiety and neuronal cell death pathways] These unbiased analyses not only validate our experimental findings but also emphasize the importance of taking a multifactorial approach when examining the phenotypes associated with EIDN Although Slc29a1 is the only gene that spans both synaptic and mitochondria-related genes it highlights the importance of this gene in both mitochondrial and synaptic activities and function in EIDN This study supports previous findings showing that FASD patients often experience long-term cognitive and mental health problems our study is the first to comprehensively examine the effects of ethanol exposure on cognition and synaptic balance as well as on complex mitochondrial and synaptic gene networks Our findings strongly suggest that there is a close relationship between dysregulated mitochondrial and synaptic genes and that dysregulated mitochondrial and synaptic signaling plays a crucial role in the ethanol-induced long-term abnormal synaptic activities with E/I imbalance and impairment of cognition and behavior in adult mice our results indicate that the widespread symptoms surrounding FASD are unlikely caused by a single dysregulated gene or family of genes alone the compounded dysregulation of synaptic and mitochondria-related genes represents an unprecedented step towards understanding the full spectrum of the pathologies caused by prenatal alcohol exposure Our findings also lay the foundation for further studies examining the effects of ethanol exposure on synaptic function and mitochondrial health under different dosages and behavioral changes caused by ethanol exposure this study sheds light on the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the long-term cognitive and behavioral effects of developmental ethanol exposure our integrative approaches offer the potential for the development of specific and effective prevention and intervention strategies against FASD-associated long-term cognitive and mental problems by targeting specific molecules All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article and its supplementary information files Neuropsychiatric implications and long-term consequences of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders Neurobehavioral disorder associated with prenatal alcohol exposure Comparative assessments of the effects of alcohol exposure on fetal brain development using optical coherence tomography and ultrasound imaging The importance of non-coding RNAs in environmental stress-related developmental brain disorders: A systematic review of evidence associated with exposure to alcohol Epidemiology and effects of substance use in pregnancy Signaling network between the dysregulated expression of microRNAs and mRNAs in propofol-induced developmental neurotoxicity in mice Abnormalities of synaptic mitochondria in autism spectrum disorder and related neurodevelopmental disorders Mitochondrial dysfunction: a common denominator in neurodevelopmental disorders Testing the excitation/inhibition imbalance hypothesis in a mouse model of the autism spectrum disorder: in vivo neurospectroscopy and molecular evidence for regional phenotypes Neuronal excitation/inhibition imbalance: core element of a translational perspective on Alzheimer pathophysiology Integrated excitatory/inhibitory imbalance and transcriptomic analysis reveals the association between dysregulated synaptic genes and anesthetic-induced cognitive dysfunction Inhibitory plasticity balances excitation and inhibition in sensory pathways and memory networks Excitatory/inhibitory balance and circuit homeostasis in autism spectrum disorders What is excitation/inhibition and how is it regulated Persistent interneuronopathy in the prefrontal cortex of young adult offspring exposed to ethanol in utero GluN2B subunit of the NMDA receptor: the keystone of the effects of alcohol during neurodevelopment Alcohol impairs hippocampal function: from NMDA receptor synaptic transmission to mitochondrial function Aberrant activity of mitochondrial NCLX is linked to impaired synaptic transmission and is associated with mental retardation Modeling alcohol-induced neurotoxicity using human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived three-dimensional cerebral organoids Tapia-Rojas C, José Pérez M, Jara C, Vergara E, Quintanilla R. 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IntechOpen; 2017. p. 361–384. https://doi.org/10.5772/67963 Adolescent binge alcohol exposure affects the brain function through mitochondrial impairment Chronic alcohol exposure induces aberrant mitochondrial morphology and inhibits respiratory capacity in the medial prefrontal cortex of mice calcium and mitochondria: a triad in synaptic neurodegeneration Neurodevelopmental alcohol exposure elicits long-term changes to gene expression that alter distinct molecular pathways dependent on timing of exposure Alcohol and the developing brain: why neurons die and how survivors change Ethanol-induced apoptotic neurodegeneration and fetal alcohol syndrome Propofol induces apoptosis of neurons but not astrocytes or neural stem cells in the neonatal mouse hippocampus CB2 Agonist GW842166x protected against 6-OHDA-induced anxiogenic- and depressive-related behaviors in mice The open field test for measuring locomotor activity and anxiety-like behavior Expression Signature of lncRNAs and mRNAs in sevoflurane-induced mouse brain injury: implication of involvement of wide molecular networks and pathways and memory in monoacylglycerol lipase knock-out mice expert-curated knowledge base for the synapse a visual data mining platform to systematically analyze and visualize mitochondrial expression dynamics and mutations Metascape provides a biologist-oriented resource for the analysis of systems-level datasets Apoptotic neurodegeneration induced by ethanol in neonatal mice is associated with profound learning/memory deficits in juveniles followed by progressive functional recovery in adults Ethanol-induced neuronal apoptosis in vivo requires BAX in the developing mouse brain Relationships of open-field behaviour with anxiety in the elevated zero-maze test: Focus on freezing and grooming Evaluation of the effect of prazosin treatment on alpha-2c adrenoceptor and apoptosis protein levels in the predator scent-induced rat model of post-traumatic stress disorder VTA mTOR signaling regulates dopamine dynamics Long-term genomic and epigenomic dysregulation as a consequence of prenatal alcohol exposure: a model for fetal alcohol spectrum disorders Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder prevalence estimates in correctional systems: a systematic literature review Fetal alcohol syndrome at the cellular level Novel therapeutic approach for excitatory/inhibitory imbalance in neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative diseases Increased excitatory to inhibitory synaptic ratio in parietal cortex samples from individuals with Alzheimer’s disease Altered excitatory and inhibitory neuronal subpopulation parameters are distinctly associated with tau and amyloid in Alzheimer’s disease N-Methyl-d-Aspartate receptor modulation by nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate oxidase type 2 drives synaptic plasticity and spatial memory impairments in rats exposed pre- and postnatally to ethanol Ethanol toxicity during brain development: alterations of excitatory synaptic transmission in immature organotypic hippocampal slice cultures chronic intermittent alcohol exposure during forebrain development implicate WNT signaling and cortical regionalization as primary determinants of fetal alcohol syndrome An evolutionary conserved role for anaplastic lymphoma kinase in behavioral responses to ethanol a receptor tyrosine kinase expressed specifically in the nervous system Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders and childhood cancer: a concise review of case reports and future research considerations Meta-analysis of gene expression patterns in animal models of prenatal alcohol exposure suggests role for protein synthesis inhibition and chromatin remodeling Programmed cell death 4 (PDCD4): a novel player in ethanol-mediated suppression of protein translation in primary cortical neurons and developing cerebral cortex Mechanisms of ethanol-induced cerebellar ataxia: underpinnings of neuronal death in the cerebellum Alcohol-induced neuroinflammatory response and mitochondrial dysfunction on aging and Alzheimer’s disease Download references This work was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (R01GM112696 and 1R35GM148177 to XB and Neuroscience Research Center Award from Medical College of Wisconsin (to XB) and XB analyzed and interpreted the data; TA All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript The authors declare no competing interests Download citation DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-024-02748-8 He didn't process the world like the rest of us my sister said it felt as if we had lost a family archive We knew he was an electrical engineer who began his career at the dawn of digital computing We knew he had spent some months in the American southwest in the 1970s working in an undisclosed capacity on collision-avoidance systems preferring to read and think while his children —and later and those nights in his quiet suburban home were vast unknowns I visited my grandfather a week before he died of late-stage lung cancer prepared with questions about his life's work I'd collected few details about his mysterious job Since I had begun working as a research engineer and software developer I thought I could at last understand what had filled the countless hours of his career There were barriers to conversation: even in full health A few sentences and he was out of breath. I had traveled to his retirement community in Florida from a conference in Baltimore where I gave two talks about mathematical models pertaining to hearing This was after I missed my flight to Baltimore because I stayed up the night before reading a textbook on programming computer processors I had worked every day and evening on an approach to predicting errors in speech perception to present at the meeting My grandfather and I took turns falling asleep in his sunroom A "hello world" program in Linux assembly language asm.sourceforge.net I had brought that programming textbook to show him Introduction to Machine and Assembly Language Programming was the most recent book of its sort in the university library Machine language is immediately readable to computers but opaque to all but the most proficient humans Assembly language is a ginger step above it A language like Python or C or Java — languages that dominate the computer science industry — will run on any modern computer; assembly language is inseparable from the machine it commands Every machine architecture has its own set of codes But for some projects, like the experimental neuroprosthetic device my supervisor was spearheading Thus my late nights poring over a textbook from the '80s The neuroprosthetic device I used to work on UW Health Sciences assembly and machine language was the only way to program a computer finding boxes of index cards with curious hole punches in his father’s study and taking them out shuffling them like a deck of playing cards Those were the programs my grandfather wrote for the UNIVAC machines at his office. and he would have known everything about them He would have known every part of the processor all the binary strings that translate to commands that load and read and store other binary strings “This is my book," he said with surprising affection explaining that he used to teach a course for a local college that followed its curriculum exactly he commented on assemblers and registers like a foreigner recalling his mother tongue He recalled the technical specifications of his computers in exacting detail We spoke about writing mathematical simulations which he used to model traffic patterns and I used to model neurons I understood why I'd always seen him as a bit of a relic When the internet flowered he paid it no notice; I never saw him write an email He was simply never out there; he lived deep in his own head What got him to work on time was not lust for technology or a vision for the future and the gratification of writing code that finally works That same thrill is what pushed me to extremes in the time leading up to my conference months where I stopped listening to music and reading (save my assembly book) Anyone with a passion must know this feeling for someone to cook me dinner instead of another frozen meal but I couldn’t stand to pause long enough to seek it I couldn't express the problems that occupied me in plain terms Perhaps it was like that for my grandfather I saw that he could never have spoken about his day around the dinner table He needed an invitation in his own language untold memories of a mind at work were lost I can't know the exact details of the problems that occupied him in the earliest hours of the morning or the clever ways he might have nudged the path of scientific computing along But I feel the comfort of precedence — a reassurance of my own health and normalcy knowing that we have held the same unspoken words in our minds some 60 years apart was a sort of hidden figure in Hidden Figures Kristen Vogt Veggeberg Claire L. Evans Joey Velez-Ginorio Alyssa Shepard Alyssa Rudelis Kailee Yoshimura Olivia Bernard Our hominin ancestor had bigger brains and probably went extinct with climate change Brittany Kenyon-Flatt Rebecca Dzombak Anisha Kalidindi Kristifor Sunderic Dan Samorodnitsky Shalila de Bourmont Natalia Mesa Ashley Juavinett Sophie Okolo We're a community of scientists telling stories about all the truth and beauty in the universe and entertaining science writing sent to you Photo by Cristian Newman on Unsplash These new findings could explain how humans are capable of detecting over a trillion odors it all may seem pretty straightforward: our eyes and hands are each responsible for capturing some aspect of the world around us and they send sensory information back to our brains where it can be processed But there are still so many things that we do not fully understand about how our senses work One such mystery is the molecular mechanics of scent How exactly how do so many different molecules trigger the exact similar molecular response so if the scents given off by shampoo and roses look alike on a molecular level they would in this completely hypothetical scenario both activate the same receptor. Either way, we need to know exactly how the molecule and the receptor behave, structurally, to understand these possible mechanisms. That’s exactly what biologist Josefina del Mármol and a team of scientists from Rockefeller University did, in a recent pre-print article. In their study, the scientists used the jumping bristletail, a prehistoric insect as a model to understand how specific molecules bind to olfactory receptors There are clear differences between the olfactory systems of humans and insects Katja Schulz on Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0) The scientists then moved to determine the exact molecular structure of MhOR5, using a technique called single-particle cryo-electron microscopy This relatively new type of microscopy allows scientists to study a molecule in its natural state The group first imaged the receptor by itself then in the presence of a molecule it was sensitive to – eugenol They saw a specific region of the receptor that was moving and being structurally rearranged in the presence of an odor. They then compared those structural details of MhOR5 and eugenol with the structure of the MhOR5 in the presence of DEET (the potent insect repellent) a molecule also known to bind the smell receptor. caused a similar change in the structure of the receptor meaning that different smells can potentially activate the same receptor in the same molecular location The scientists then computationally tested the potential binding location of over 30 molecules and found that all were predicted to bind in a similar way to the MhOR5 olfactory receptor can one receptor distinguish between all these different odors the group created small mutations in the structure of MhOR5 changing a single amino acid at the time (which is like changing individual letters in a word until the word breaks) This changed the sensitivity of the receptor to all those different molecules showing that even though the odors are all binding to the receptor in the same general area differences in the individual atoms of those molecules are responsible for the breadth of responses that MhOR5 is capable of. A last – and serendipitous – finding of this study was in elucidating how the repellent DEET might work to keep insects at bay. Because the group showed for the first time that DEET can structurally bind directly to a receptor “meant” for something else, they corroborated an existing hypothesis that the repellent blocks an insect's ability to smell and subsequently bite humans This is the first time that we are able to see in astonishing detail exactly how an odor binds and activates an olfactory receptor – in other words This research also points towards the hypothesis that we can smell such a wide variety of odors without a trillion olfactory (smell) receptors because different molecules all activate the same receptor Evolution has given rise to different neural codes that relate back to the minuscule changes happening between different molecules and receptors as well as the endless combinations between different receptors working together simultaneously. the challenge of figuring out exactly how our brains detect so many odors now becomes a neural coding problem instead of a biochemical problem inherent to the receptor and the molecules Much of this research needs to be now translated to human receptors to understand how much of that was kept through evolution and how much has changed between us and prehistoric insects this research paints an impressively detailed picture of how we perceive the world around us We ask other scientists from our Consortium to respond to articles with commentary from their expert perspective I think that this — the use of smell tests for neurological issues — is such an interesting topic I find it fascinating since loss of smell is thought to also proceed neurodegenerative disorders and is especially relevant now since one baffling symptom of COVID-19 is the loss of smell people have speculated that there may be ties between developmental genes and neurodegeneration (specifically that impairments of cell proliferation and differentiation in regions with high neurogenesis is believed to contribute to neuronal dysfunction) I wonder if there is a wider relevance of developmental genes to various neurological abnormalities not just for neurodegeneration but recovery in general as seen here I’m curious if any follow up research has been done especially looking at the longer term outcomes or evaluating what might be enabling people with severe brain injuries to respond to smells This is so not my area of expertise in any way but I’ve read some stuff about the connection between scent and memory for example people with Alzheimer’s who are more able to connect with the world when they are given familiar scents or the research showing that if you wear a particular scent when studying and then apply it right before taking the test you do better than people who simply studied It would be really interesting to see research that gave patients with DOC familiar scents from prior to their brain injuries I wonder if this would also be comforting to patients There’s so much we don’t know about the brain and consciousness and this is a fascinating piece of the puzzle A data-driven search found a compound that shows promising results in early trials Elizabeth Burnette Claudia López Lloreda Lauren Mackenzie Reynolds Maya Emmons-Bell Weihong Lin Rakaia Kenney Kayla Lemons Lila Westreich Max G. Levy Johanna Mayer Sam Zlotnik Adriel John Orena Sarah Anderson Enzo M. R. Reyes Neuralink is one in a long line of brain-machine interfaces developed over the past 50 years Photo by Morgan Housel on Unsplash Other concrete take home messages from yesterday's press conference was that Neuralink has been approved as an FDA Breakthrough Device which speeds up the primary approval process with the agency We also know that they are able to have multiple implants per animal as shown in a video that could predict the animal movement likely through some form of machine learning algorithm regulatory oversight will be crucial to making sure that this product does not endanger people Not to discredit the progress made by the company but neuroscientists should not rush to stop the presses. Share an interesting science story or tell a short one of your own Rhodotorula frigidialcoholis was isolated from 150,000-year-old permafrost in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica Photo by USGS on Unsplash Most of the Earth’s biosphere is permanently cold and contains environments below 0° C, known as the cryosphere. Microorganisms like bacteria and fungi call the cryosphere home, despite the seemingly inhospitable conditions. Some can even stick around in the ice for thousands of years microorganisms have evolved adaptations that help them survive their forever winter – whether it’s because they prefer cold environments (known as psychrophiles) or they can tolerate them (psychrotolerants) until more favorable conditions arise a novel species of Rhodotorula yeast is changing our understanding of fungal cold adaptations in new and unexpected ways The newly identified psychrotolerant yeast was isolated from 150,000-year-old ice cemented permafrost in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica The researchers found it has two novel responses to extreme cold temperatures: it can switch its metabolism from respiration to ethanol fermentation as its main pathway and can overexpress molecules called small non-coding RNAs (sRNAs) that help regulate which genes are expressed after transcription frigidialcoholis now also holds the record for the lowest temperature reported for ethanol production by any microorganism Scientists are still working to understand the precise role of sRNA expression in cold adaptation but the metabolic switch from respiration to ethanol fermentation by R frigidialcoholis may help the novel yeast – and potentially others like it – save energy slowing down the freezing point in their cells as a long-term survival strategy Los walabíes fueron introducidos al país al principio del siglo XX Image by pen_ash from Pixabay sobre todo durante la segunda guerra mundial cuando la gente tenía cosas más importantes por las que preocuparse por mantener vallas Hoy en día, hay muy poca información disponible sobre que les pasó a aquellos walabíes introducidos. Dos científicos, Holly English y Anthony Caravaggi decidieron investigar qué pasó con aquellos animales Recogieron información sobre avistamientos de walabíes en los registros oficiales los avistamientos suelen ser mencionados en los periódicos locales En su artículo reciente publicado en la revista científica Ecologia y Evolución los investigadores encontraron pequeñas poblaciones de walabíes viviendo a lo largo del sur de Inglaterra Aunque alguno de estos animales es probablemente un fugitivo moderno de una colección privada o un zoo es improbable que tales escapadas sean el origen de todos los avistamientos de la región los investigadores creen que las poblaciones del sur de Inglaterra se están reproduciendo en libertad si alguna vez estas en el sur de Inglaterra y crees que has visto a un walabí Children with APD have difficulty perceiving speech when there is background noise and may have trouble on cognitive tests Photo by MI PHAM on Unsplash Central auditory processing disorder (APD) can impact cognitive functioning and academic performance in those who experience it Children with APD have difficulty perceiving speech when there is background noise The researchers administered one cognitive and five auditory processing tests to the participants They gave the children lists of words and asked them to repeat the words back the words were audible only in one ear and the participants were asked to repeat the words regardless of which ear they heard it from. Participants in the experimental group were given speech-in-noise training within a week of the evaluation. During this type of training participants are asked to listen for words or speech presented with background noise which gets progressively louder or more difficult to navigate as the training progresses The goal is to help people pick out important words while filtering out background sounds The study found a link between how participants did on auditory tests and their performance on cognitive tests Speech-in-noise training generally improved the participants' results on both tests This study confirms that speech-in-noise training may be a helpful intervention for children with APD diagnoses Some bathypelagic bacteria have found a way to maximize their energy intake by taking food into their cells before breaking it down Photo by Cristian Palmer on Unsplash The bathypelagic zone of the ocean, which spans depths between 1,000 and 4,000 meters (3,300 – 13,100 feet) below the ocean’s surface, is characterized by permanent darkness, low temperatures, and high pressure. In this hostile environment, slow-growing bacteria survive by relying on sinking organic matter including proteins and carbohydrates called polysaccharides from algae in the sun-lit surface waters of the ocean. Much of this organic matter is heavily degraded by the time it reaches the deep sea and intact polysaccharides are hard to come by For bacteria living in the bathypelagic zone survival means getting the most out of every rare polysaccharide that reaches these depths – and a new study suggests that for some bacteria it is a much less successful strategy in environments where resource availability is low In a recent pre-print that I am a co-author on we suggest that some bacteria at these depths may be using a selfish method of polysaccharide uptake This method allows them to bring large pieces of polysaccharides into their cells without first breaking them down externally enabling the bacteria to selfishly keep all the food to themselves we incubated bathypelagic bacteria with fluorescently-labeled polysaccharides By staining the bacteria with a DNA-binding dye and viewing them under microscopes we were able to see intact pieces of polysaccharides inside the cells indicating that these bacteria had not used external enzymes to break them down prior to uptake These results provide the first example of selfish behavior in deep-sea bacteria suggesting that selfishness may be more common among bacteria than previously thought in addition to a variety of other household products Photo by Jorge Ramirez on Unsplash We spend a lot of time indoors - so it’s important that we know what’s in indoor air Indoor chemists are especially concerned with volatile organic compounds (VOCs a class of molecules that includes benzene which can be harmful to human health and are highly reactive To measure how LCD screens affect air quality, the researchers collected data on what types of compounds were contained in two types of samples: one of regular indoor air, and one collected near the surface of on an LCD screen like a new TV or an old laptop. They identified the chemical signatures of those compounds using a technique called proton-transfer reaction mass spectrometry They then cross-referenced these signatures against lists of known liquid crystal monomers (the “building blocks” of LCD screens) and other compounds used in LCD screen manufacturing They found over 30 VOCs and 10 L liquid crystal monomers were heavily emitted into the air exposed to the screen including extremely reactive species like isoprene and acetic acid This finding indicates that LCD screens are an important source of VOCs in indoor environments and that our screen-time may be exposing us to more than just new things on the internet People who received the COVID-19 vaccine experienced less depression and anxiety compared to unvaccinated individuals Photo by Erin Aguis on Unsplash This group's decision is based on their concern about the vaccine's safety lack of belief in the danger posed by COVID-19 Some also face logistical difficulties in getting vaccinated either because they live in rural areas or do not have the ability to take sick days from work if they experience side effects. A promising new study published by researchers at the University of Southern California found that individuals had significant decreases in mental health distress after receiving the first dose of the vaccine push some vaccine hesitant people to receive their shots The researchers surveyed 8000+ people to measure their depressive and anxiety symptoms (mental distress level) before and after their first vaccine dose They found that vaccinated individuals reported less mental distress after receiving the first dosage while the unvaccinated group retained a consistently high level of mental distress for the entire 1-year study period Receiving the vaccine has turned from a health to a political affair as the remaining population voluntarily refuses to get vaccinated and individuals who cannot get vaccinated (like children under five years old and immunocompromised individuals) at greater risk of being infected with COVID-19 severe reactions to COVID-19 are preventable but will remain a significant problem until all eligible persons are vaccinated This study shows that we have an opportunity to increase our physical and mental wellbeing We must invest in more substantial policy at the corporate and federal levels to increase vaccination rates now Due largely in part to human-induced climate change, up to 40 percent of all species of plants are at risk of extinction. In response, conservationists have developed seed banks where seeds of at-risk plants are frozen and stored in case of emergency Many species of oak trees fall on the list of endangered plants. However, their acorns are not usable after freezing, so conservationists are unable to add them to seed banks scientists have had to investigate alternative preservation methods for oaks The plants are then frozen in liquid nitrogen until they're ready to be thawed and grown when they attempted shoot tip cryopreservation on four different species of oaks some the plants were able to grow after freezing and unfreezing One species survived liquid nitrogen freezing 56 percent of the time When looking specifically at the most successful species the researchers also found that slight temperature differences in the freezing and unfreezing processes can have an effect on both general plant survival and exactly how well the plants recover after freezing Up until now, there had been no evidence that shoot tip cryopreservation worked on oaks. While survival does depend on the species of oak, this study demonstrates that this method can be added to the arsenal of the different conservation tools available for oak preservation and can hopefully contribute to finding methods that work for all oak species A drug that blocks memory forming in male mice has a different effect in females The team that led the research is from the Institut de Neurociències at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona They study the mechanisms of the memory of fear aiming to find treatments for pathologies associated with the experience of traumatic events This project coupled behavioral studies of mice with hormonal and biochemical and molecular analysis osanetant (which is not used to treat humans) blocks a pathway for brain signaling that is involved in creating lasting memories of fear The researchers found that the drug's blocking action has opposite effects on males and females and that it is dependent on sexual hormones — testosterone in males and estradiol in females New research compared the "magic mushrooms" component to Lexapro Photo by Önder Örtel on Unsplash One question that these studies left unanswered is how effective psilocybin treatment is compared to SSRIs In a first-of-its-kind study recently published in The New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at the Center for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London compared psilocybin and escitalopram The six-week long study enrolled 59 volunteers with moderate-to-severe major depression They were randomly and blindly assigned to receive treatment with psilocybin and an escitalopram control All the participants also received psychological support To evaluate the two treatments, the researchers compared the change from baseline on the 16-item Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology–Self-Report (QIDS-SR-16) a basic clinical measure of depression symptoms psilocybin and escitalopram both reduce depression symptoms The researchers did not detect a statistically significant difference between the two treatments The results of other measures taken in the study suggest that psilocybin may be more effective than escitalopram the researchers determined that the QIDS-SR-16 most directly addressed their experimental question and would therefore be the primary outcome measure but they also evaluated depression symptoms with a number of additional scales Nearly all secondary outcome measures favored psilocybin over escitalopram but their results hold less weight than the QIDS-SR-16 because of how the study was designed The study was also limited by its small size non-random enrollment of interested volunteers and the possibility that participants may have been unblinded by the strong subjective effects of psilocybin or the well-known side-effects of SSRIs as the most rigorous evaluation of the therapeutic potential of psilocybin conducted to date the results provide a benchmark for the design of future investigations The analysis of epigenetic changes caused by cocaine use adds to the evidence that substance use disorders are rooted in biology Photo by Omar Flores on Unsplash Neuroscientists are known for doing some strange things to mice in their pursuit of learning about the brain One such strange thing is training mice to self-administer cocaine but it’s all for a good cause: Self-administration can help us understand the biological underpinnings of substance use disorders In a study recently published in Neuron researchers found that cocaine use changes the DNA in mouse brains specifically in the brain regions associated with reward the DNA in their brain cells had different chemical modifications known as epigenetic changes These epigenetic changes also altered the types of RNAs the cells made through splicing pieces of genes are left out or added in to create different RNAs that create different proteins Scientists have known RNA splicing is particularly important for neurons and the researchers behind this mouse study saw many epigenetic and splicing changes after the mice consumed cocaine they artificially recreated one specific epigenetic change at a gene called Srsf11 Srsf11 is also a gene that controls splicing across the genome meaning that changes to it had ripple effects in the mice This one change also altered splicing across a few hundred other genes some of which were previously implicated in substance use disorders the mice with the modified version of Srsf11 self-administered more cocaine showing that these sorts of changes in the brain may underlie addiction Epigenetics and RNA splicing may be promising targets for future medical interventions Researchers have observed this effect in petri dishes and nematodes Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash don’t chemically manipulate drug molecules — they hoard them researchers incubated 25 representative strains of gut bacteria with 12 orally administered drugs By measuring drug levels in the growth medium before and after 48 hours of incubation the scientists identified 29 novel bacteria-drug pairs in which the drug was depleted from the medium Comparing drug concentrations in the medium alone with that of the total culture revealed that the drug was absent from the medium but recoverable from the total culture These results suggest the medications were accumulating inside the bacteria The question is: When bacteria vacuum up drug molecules does this alter the drug’s effect on the host the researchers incubated Caenorhabditis elegans an antidepressant that was accumulated by several bacterial strains While duloxetine alone decreased nematode motility adding a duloxetine-accumulating strain of E These findings indicate that bacterial hoarding of medications may affect the way those drugs affect their targets more research is required to determine whether a similar scenario plays out in the human gut Greater insight into the interplay between medications and gut microbes could expand our understanding of drug bioavailability and efficacy and how they may vary from one person (and gut microbiome) to the next Researchers discovered the springhare's fluorescent abilities entirely by accident Olson et al 2021 under CC BY 4.0 Fluorescence is caused by an animal absorbing light and bouncing it back out again Fluorescence occurs across only a handful of mammals but they span three different continents and inhabit entirely different ecosystems whose glow-in-the-dark abilities were only discovered in 2020. But, a discovery earlier this year by Northland College researchers that springhares fluoresce is special: it is the first documented case of biofluorescence in an Afro-Eurasian placental mammal The study purports that perhaps fluorescence in mammals is not as rare as once previously thought. The researchers entered Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History armed with a flashlight with the goal of examining the fluorescent abilities of flying squirrels they accidentally discovered that springhares also glow One specimen they examined was collected in 1905 and continued to glow in the dark for over 100 years The researchers subsequently tested live springhares (this time in the dead of night—springhares are nocturnal) and found they could also fluoresce predictably stronger than in the dead specimens This study raises the questions: What other animals are out there pulsating in every different shade of the rainbow after the clock strikes midnight? Controlling where cow waste ends up could lead to cleaner air and water and decreased greenhouse gas emissions Photo by Lomig on Unsplash In a strange triumph of science, researchers have now successfully potty trained 11 cows done by research groups in Germany and New Zealand which they trained by giving the calves a reward when they urinated in a latrine and later by adding an unpleasant stimulus (three-second water spray) when they began urinating outside of the designated area The calves' potty training performances are equivalent to those of children and better than very young children First, because cattle waste is a substantial contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and soil and water contamination Being able to collect cow waste in one place would enable us to treat and dispose of it properly One way of doing it is by keeping the animals confined in barns it shows that cows are able to react to and control their reflexes indicating that their behavior — like shown with many other animal species before — is subject to modification by using rewards This demonstrates that cows have more awareness than previously thought which is important to better understand their wellbeing and welfare needs Having cattle keep their own living areas a bit cleaner would also increase their welfare Potty training cows in farm settings is time consuming and logistically challenging, but it would help significantly decrease gas emissions without compromising animal welfare. Model calculations predict that capturing 80 percent of cattle waste could lead to a 56 percent reduction in ammonia emissions which would lead to cleaner air for all of us This new finding could lead to advances in treatment of diseases caused by ARS mutations Photo by David Clode on Unsplash Mutations in ARS enzymes cause diseases such as Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, which affects the nerves to a person's arms and legs because cells cannot make proteins properly researchers predict that flooding cells with extra amino acid might allow defective ARS enzymes to function better and the speed at which the current is blocked corresponds to how fast the cells are growing. The scientists found cells with ARS mutations that were treated with amino acids grew faster than cells that did not receive treatment These promising results meant that the researchers could move on to trying this treatment in the patients themselves. They designed specific amino acid treatments for four people with the same ARS mutations they studied in cells and found that giving patients amino acids alleviated many of their most severe symptoms While we still don’t know if these results are applicable to all patients with ARS mutations this study found a potential new way to treat ARS mutations in patients. Considering that ARS mutations can cause very severe disease this is exciting and promising for both scientists and patients alike New study in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks demonstrates the complexity of changing plant-pathogen interactions Marek Argent on Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0) A rapidly changing climate is expected to shift where species live. This will also alter human activities like agriculture and forest conservation as the ranges of plant pathogens change. Scientists have been predicted that climate change will both increase and decrease the prevalence of a pathogen across its geographic range, depending on local climate effects, a pathogen’s favored conditions, and host factors. In an article published in Nature Communications a group of researchers led by Joan Dudney demonstrate exactly this in a natural system. The researchers report the effects of climate change on the occurrence of white pine blister rust in the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks (SEKI) in California Blister rust is a fungal disease that threatens white pine forests across Europe and North America Leveraging blister rust prevalence data from two surveys conducted twenty years apart (1996 and 2016) in SEKI alongside climate data over the same timeframe increasingly dry climate caused contraction of blister rust's range at low elevations and expansion at higher elevations They noted an approximately 33 percent decline in overall disease prevalence despite these expansions and high elevations The blister rust fungus has a complex lifecycle that requires both a white pine tree and an alternative host Dudney and her fellow researchers found that alternative hosts were less common at higher elevations likely limiting blister rust's ability to infect pine trees at those elevations even though the pathogen could live there played an important role in determining infection risk The study provides a roadmap for future studies on host-pathogen-climate interactions. Genomic adaptations of rapidly reproducing pathogens to changing conditions could further alter these dynamics and represent an additional avenue to explore in future work Defense by dung doesn't always elicit disgust in predators to repel them Judy Gallagher via Flickr (CC BY 2.0) They may use their fecal matter to ward off predators Here are several examples of fecal prowess The larvae of the tortoise beetle are the Captain America of the animal kingdom — because they make shields out of poop Using their maneuverable anus that sits on their flexible rear end they deposit their dung defense on their back made in part from the larvae's shed exoskeleton can double as a club to whack off potential predators Some beetle species can swing their poop shields around to hit predators with them. (And some of the poop is shed exoskeleton, in order to retain any toxins that the beetle may have.) pic.twitter.com/E5MVDjlCHT The Green Woodhoopoe takes a rather straightforward approach to defense Young birds will simply coat themselves in liquid poop using the odor to deter — or gross out — would-be predators You wouldn't want to eat a poop-slathered bird now New research calculates the colors of stars based on their actual energy distributions But what color would a star be if you could actually see it up close Most astronomy textbooks will clearly say hot stars are blue, and colder stars are red. These colors come from an idealized version of the light a star gives off, called a blackbody curve especially for smaller stars — the outer layers of a star absorb parts of the light emitted from the center and our eyes respond differently to different wavelengths of light Most shocking of all — brown dwarfs aren’t even brown These cool sub-stars are purple because absorption by molecules in their atmospheres takes out a whole chunk of their visible light leaving only red and blue light for us to see There are a few more complexities that could change the color a star appears to us clouds on brown dwarfs may change how their atmosphere absorbs light and that’s something researchers are still trying to figure out so all these colors would look different if we were looking from Earth’s surface it’s fun to have a better idea of what vivid colors are out in the universe New research shows the importance of oxytocin for social affiliation and isolation Whether you’re a social butterfly or a lone wolf, the brain circuits that define social behaviors begin forming early in life and mature over a lifetime. But how the social brain develops has remained unclear, and new research explores oxytocin – often referred to as the “love hormone” – for answers Zebrafish are social creatures with evolutionarily similar brain circuitry to humans Scientists can genetically alter them before observing their behavior across an entire lifespan making them ideal for studying social behavior So to understand the role of oxytocin-producing neurons in social brain development researchers selectively removed those neurons from their brain circuits early in life and examined the consequences to social behavior once the zebrafish reached adulthood The researchers evaluated the zebrafish behavior by first separating a fish from a larger group with a transparent barrier then observing how the lone fish reacts to its isolation Like a person with FOMO ("fear of missing out") from a party next door socially healthy zebrafish stay close to the transparent barrier – seemingly longing to join the group on the other side zebrafish with a disrupted social circuit explore their own tank with no preference to socialize Researchers found that zebrafish with their oxytocin neurons removed early in life showed less preference to socialize as adults eliminating these cells in adulthood did not affect social behavior suggesting that oxytocin shapes the social circuit early in life during a critical developmental window They also found that removing oxytocin neurons early impaired other social brain components this suggests that the famous "love hormone" may define our long-term social preferences early in life and there is still more to learn about social brain development Scientists have observed captive cockatoos making tools before but this is the first documented instance of tool use in wild cockatoos is comparable to three-year-old humans in terms of intelligence tool making behavior has not been observed in wild cockatoos which is necessary to confirm that a species is indeed capable of making tools and their tool use is not just an artifact of captivity The group spent over 884 hours observing wild birds in their natural habitat in the Tanimbar Islands with no success in witnessing tool use and manufacture They then moved on to a catch and release method where they captured 15 individuals and placed them in temporary aviaries with many resources and a food option that finally encouraged more complex approaches to foraging: the Wawai fruit The cockatoos really like eating the seeds of these fruits and need to go through the thick skin and flesh of the fruit in order to reach the seeds Two of the 15 individuals manufactured and used tools to extract sea mango seeds Those two birds made tools by removing fragments from branches and then modifying them with their beaks The researchers identified three different tool types: wedges to widen the fissures to reach the seed inside the fruit; fine tools used for piercing the coating of the seed; and medium tools used for scooping the seeds which the researchers believe to be the most complex example of tool use in a species without hands This supercharged growth is likely due to nitrate aerosols in our modern atmosphere Photo by NOAA on Unsplash The growth of modern giant clams is supercharged compared to growth measured from fossil clams. A recent study from the Red Sea has shown this finding that growth lines from modern species are larger than those of fossils from similar animals dated to the Holocene and Pleistocene This fast growth may seem like a good thing, but growth doesn't mean anything about the overall health of the clams. Additionally, aerosols may actually reduce the productivity of marine phytoplankton, which represent almost half of the world's primary production The overall effects of nitrate and other aerosol pollution on global land and ocean cycles are not well understood They may appear to reduce global warming by improving carbon dioxide uptake and reflecting the sun's heat We can congratulate today's super clams on their impressive growth fewer emissions on our part are probably better for them Clavicle fractures can be used to identify horse riders from their bones Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash archers rode horses across the landscape of Hungary These horse riders remain a mystery. Who were they? Where were they from? When did they start riding horses? To answer these questions, an international team of scientists set out to find a way to identify horse riders from just their skeletons using the fact that horse riders tend to fall. The researchers examined skeletons from a cemetery of well-known horse riders in Hungary dating to the 10th century CE Riders in the cemetery were identified by horse riding equipment and horse bones in their graves scientists could not be sure that skeletons without artifacts in the Hungarian cemetery never rode horses they also investigated skeletons from another group of people from 20th century Portugal that definitely did not ride horses They found that upper body fractures were more common among riders and that fractures of the clavicle (collar bone) were significantly more common among the Hungarian riders than the 20th century non-riders To figure out if these fractures could be caused by horse riding are some of the most commonly reported injuries in modern day equestrians in combination with other skeletal changes clavicle fractures can be used to identify horse riders from just their skeletons Being able to identify horse riders in the past could help researchers find the first horse riders shedding light on the ways horse riding shaped human history The act sheds light on the prosocial behavior and empathy of wild boars Oliver Völker from Pixabay Humans aren't the only animals that step up to help others out of difficult situations. In a study recently published in the journal Scientific Reports Michaela Masilkova of the Czech University of Life Sciences and her colleagues described a boar's daring rescue of two young wild boars stuck in a trap Few animals show this kind of rescue behavior: to go out of their way to help other members of their species that are caught in a dangerous situation Masilkova's team inadvertently caught an astonishing act of altruism on camera while conducting a separate experiment to monitor wild boar movement for the prevention of African Swine Fever The goal was to catch boars so the researchers could mark them individually The researchers set up traps containing food as lure a boar would be caged in by logs that would roll off the top of the enclosure and bar the door shut. One night the trap — operating as usual — snared two young boars But the night took an unexpected turn when a new herd arrived at the scene One adult female took particular interest in the captives' predicament the female pushed against the logs and successfully moved it Given that the rescuer spent so much time on this activity and showed physical signs of distress throughout the researchers believed her act to be potential evidence of pro-social empathy This discovery suggests that complex forms of empathy may just be more common in the animal kingdom than scientists may have previously believed. An embryonic phenomenon discovered over 150 years ago may finally have an explanation Photo by Bob Brewer on Unsplash In humans this implantation occurs at around day eight to nine after conception This phenomenon has now been found in over 130 species But the roe deer have one of the longest known periods of embryonic suspension Unlike in many of the other species that can induce diapause cell division in roe deer embryos do not stop completely with cells dividing just once every few weeks Until now, the cellular mechanism that regulated the process of extensively slowing down cell replication was unknown. However, a recently published study in PNAS has uncovered it Researchers discovered that a predominant driver of embryonic diapause is the changing abundance of amino acids in the embryo One family of amino acids in particular were found to cause a significant increase in a protein called mTORC1 inducing the embryo to activate more of it the increase of mTORC1 appeared to immediately coincide with the embryo’s exit from diapause after which cells start dividing more rapidly but was not detectable during the previous period of slow cell replication The mTOR protein family has been known for many years to be a crucial factor in regulating metabolic pathways a related protein called mTORC2 thought to be essential for maintaining slow cell divisions remains switched on throughout roe deer diapause This new study will open up avenues of research into the precise timing of embryo implantation as well as increasing our understanding about the interplay between the chemical and metabolic pathways of an animal and its embryo A new study provides evidence for sexual selection in these spiders Photo by Timothy Dykes on Unsplash If you've ever witnessed an overly aggressive guy get bounced from a bar, you probably found yourself internally judging him. But new research published in the journal Animal Behaviour suggests that the opposite may be true for spiders: the more aggressive a male jumping spider is the sexier his female counterparts find him Researchers from the National University of Singapore quantified female spiders' preferences for aggressive males They first placed males in a small chamber containing a mirror and observed how combative they were toward their own reflection Once males had demonstrated either their contempt for or passivity towards their own reflections they were paired with another male for a series of bouts Using the results from the mirror test and combat trials the researchers assigned each individual male spider an aggression predictability score a pair of one highly aggressive male and one more passive male were placed in a chamber with a single female spider Female preference was determined based on the amount of time she spent ogling each of her potential suitors. The researchers found that aggressive males are both more likely to defeat a rival in a combat trial and to draw a higher amount of attention from females than their more pacifist competitors not only is this evidence for sexual selection but that the combination of strong competitiveness and female favor reinforce each other to push the most aggressive spiders to the top of the pile. Sickle cell disease predominantly affects Black populations and kidney transplants can save their lives Keith Chambers via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0) People with sickle cell disease encounter significant health issues such as kidney failure. Sickle cell disease, found predominantly in Black and African American populations, is when red blood cells are shaped like crescent moons (or “sickle-shaped”) instead of round and disc-like. This shape which may have had evolutionary benefits during previous generations Kidney failure is a major health complication encountered by people with sickle cell disease people with sickle cell disease are often reliant on dialysis treatment to filter the waste from their blood but this is often not enough to save their lives. Therefore, researchers are exploring kidney transplantation as an additional treatment option for patients In a study published in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology researchers used two national databases that collected information on adults from 1998-2017 with kidney failure who were on dialysis or the kidney transplant list The researchers measured the impact of kidney transplantation on mortality as well as differences in access to kidney transplants between people with and without sickle cell disease. People with sickle cell disease who were on dialysis had a higher mortality risk than the control group the researchers found that transplantation reduced mortality risk for people with sickle cell disease as well as those without it a benefit that lasted for at least ten years. the researchers found that patients with sickle cell were less likely to receive a transplant when compared to the control group even though kidney transplantation has a higher likelihood of increasing the lifespan of sickle cell patients than does dialysis This is yet another example of health inequity for Black and African American populations since kidney transplant is a life-saving intervention for people with sickle cell disease. Smell could be the key to predicting recovery paths for people after brain injuries Our senses are the only way we have to interact with the world around us It is by using them that we diagnose and treat people after severe brain injuries New research by Anat Arzi and colleagues at the Weizmann Institute of Science shows that maybe we were simply not looking at the right sense. The study presents a new technique that might allow us to use the sense of smell as an indicator of consciousness. The scientists took advantage of something called sniff response — basically the way our brain automatically sniffs in response to a certain stimulus if you open your garbage and there is something spoiled in it you will almost reflexively reduce the amount of air you inhale when walking into your favorite coffee shop you might inhale more than the normal amount of air to take everything in These responses can be conscious or unconscious but they usually reflect some sort of situational understanding the team of scientists presented two distinct smells (fruit-scented shampoo or rotten fish) to a group of 43 DOC patients The first few tests were done to determine the patient's level of consciousness based on their sniff response They found that in patients in an unresponsive state there was no significant change in their response to either one of the smells In patients previously diagnosed as minimally responsive there was a decrease in volume of air inhaled with the unpleasant smell compared to the blank measured through a nasal cannula linked to a machine that analyzes airflow Because they were able to analyze the same patients over time The scientists next examined how the patient’s performance in the sniff test correlated with their clinical outcomes All of the patients who progressed from an unresponsive state to a minimally responsive state had a positive sniff response in at least one session That means that there was a strong association between their recovery and their performance on this new test that sniff response came months before any other sign of recovery or people without a sniff response that also recovered from unresponsive to a minimally responsive state But this means that in almost two-thirds of the cases this simple sniff response preceded any sign of recovery One important caveat worth discussing is that in many cases the same injury that caused the damage could affect the brain’s ability to perceive smell the team of scientists found that in almost all false-negative patients there was possible damage to the areas of the brain responsible for smell The last test was to see if there was any relation between a patient’s score and their long-term outcomes About 90 percent of the patients with a positive sniff-response survived the following years while for the patients without any response that number was closer to 35 percent this suggests strong correlations between how DOC patients respond to different smell stimuli and there is definitely more research needed to turn this into a routine exam but this new study shows the exciting power that our sense of smell can have When walking into your favorite coffee shop Photo by Battlecreek Coffee Roasters on Unsplash which could be further used to distinguish different levels of consciousness There is still so much we do not know about our sense of smell and how it relates to our other senses. We know that it is primal and deeply ingrained and integrated with the parts of our brain responsible for memory If used in conjunction with other techniques such as brain imaging and other clinical assessments this new test can be a powerful predictor of outcomes for people with severe brain injuries This sounds like an innovative approach toward assessing DOC The smell test seems quite unreliable at this time but it’s interesting information nonetheless. I think that this - the use of smell tests for neurological issues - is such an interesting topic I wonder if there is a wider relevance of developmental genes to various neurological abnormalities not just for neurodegeneration but recovery in general as seen here. From what I have seen there’s nothing so far based on that study, a few reviews and articles have cited it, and the group published a different story regarding smelling and COVID This is just scientific speculation from now on but I think that smell overall as a sense is just recently been given the deserved attention You might have heard it before how smell does not go through the thalamus going from your nose to the olfactory bulb and connecting directly to either memory areas or the cortex This is a possible explanation as to why we have such vivid and quick memories or feelings with smells - before we even realize what it is It could also be why there is such a strong connection with consciousness I particularly do not like the whole metaphor of reptilian brain/mammalian brain but in that same idea olfaction is one of the oldest senses from an evolutionary perspective so it makes sense that it is so essential and so deeply encoded in our consciousness There’s so much we still do not understand about olfaction and about how it connects back to all kinds of facets of our daily experience, so I am particularly excited to follow this group they are the ones doing some of the coolest research Rajaram Bhagavathula Sarah Laframboise The task is like looking through a book with six billion letters for individual typos Soren Emerson Lily Toomey Devang Mehta Antón Pombo deeply interested in history from childhood he entered the Faculty of Geography and History of the University of Santiago In 1984 he walked the Way for the first time with some friends and on this great adventure he met Elías Valiña the parish priest of O Cebreiro and a sponsor of the rebirth of the Jacobean pilgrimage They began to collaborate and founded the Province of A Coruña’s Association of Friends of St he wrote his doctoral thesis on the church of Compostela at the end of the 19th century which included the first Jacobean resurgence In addition to working in a number of Spanish historical and newspaper archives his project allowed him to travel to Rome in 1992 to continue his researches for a year He has had a long career as a writer and journalist and is the author of Anaya’s pilgrim guides he has never stopped wandering the paths of the Way learning and promoting the recovery of historical routes like the one from Santiago to Finisterra and Muxía and the traditional meaning of the pilgrimage in contrast to its drift into mere tourism Discover the visions of resistance each of the protagonists Be the first to know about our new products We need some more information from you so that you can receive all the news S.A.U.) will store your personal data to create your user profile and send you personalized communications as explained in the additional information available in our Privacy Policy The Local Europe ABVästmannagatan 43113 25 StockholmSweden Spain is the third country within the European Union with the most variety of cheeses There are currently 26 kinds of cheese throughout the country which are certified as denominaciones de origen protegidas or Protected Domination of Origin cheeses (DOPs) You’ll find DOP cheeses in 13 regions across the country from Galicia to Murcia and even in the Balearic and Canary Islands Here’s our guide to all the DOP Spanish cheeses so you can be better informed next time you browse the queso aisle at the market Tetilla cheese – The most famous of the Galician cheeses is Tetilla known for its unique shape which resembles a breast It’s made from cow’s milk and is both light and soft with a salty and mild taste Arzúa-Ulloa – This cow’s milk cheese means 'cheese from the land' and is both pale and soft and creamy It’s often eaten as a dessert cheese and is also great for melting San Simón da Costa – This smoked cheese is made from pasteurised cow’s milk and is made in the area of Lugo It’s known for its iconic tear-drop shape and is semi-hard with a buttery and woody texture Cebreiro cheese – This soft white cheese is made from the milk of Galician blonde cows It has a bulging mushroom shape and can be aged for up to 45 days Cabrales – The most well-known of Asturian cheeses is Cabrales a blue cheese which can either be made from unpasteurised cow’s milk or mixed with sheep or goat milk It’s semi-hard but has a creamy texture with a sharp acidic taste It’s often used for melting into sauces or made into croquetas Gamonéu – Gamonéu or Gamonedo cheese as it’s sometimes referred to is a fatty blue cheese from Asturias It has a slightly smoky flavour and is made from a combination of cow There are two different varieties - Gamonéu del Puertu Los Beyos – This cheese is typically produced in the Picos de Europa mountain range and is a hard or semi-hard cheese made from either cow sheep or goat milk which is matured over 20 to 60 days Its flavours include grass and herbs with a tangy aftertaste Afuega'l pitu – Made from unpasteurised cow’s milk this is one of the oldest cheeses in Asturias whose origin can be traced all the way back to the 18th century acidic flavour with a yellowish-white rind or sometimes orange if paprika is added Casín – A full cream cheese made from unpasteurised cow’s milk this cheese is made in a unique way by kneading the curds It smells of cured butter and has a slightly spicy and bitter taste it’s made from Fresian cow’s milk in Cantabria It’s both light and mild and is often eaten for dessert or used for melting Picón Bejes-Tresviso – This unique blue cheese is made with raw cow sheep and goat milk and has a strong intense flavour It’s matured in caves found in Liébana region for a minimum of two months Alt Urgell y la Cerdanya – Produced in the eastern Pyrenees it was invented at the beginning of the 20th century and is made from pasteurised milk from Fresian cows It is creamy and sweet with a mild flavour Idiazabal – The Basque Country’s most famous cheese can be found used in dishes all over the region It’s made from unpasteurised sheep’s milk from Latxa and Carranzana sheep It’s an aged cheese with a very slightly smoky flavour Camerano – Produced in the Sierra de Cameros in La Rioja this cheese has been made in the region for over 700 years It’s made from goat’s milk and is aged over 75 days it was the first of the Spanish cheeses to gain DOP-protected status It’s made using raw sheep cheese from the Rasa and Lacha breeds and is aged for six months It has a velvety smooth texture and is covered with veins of blue mould Manchego – Perhaps the most famous of all Spanish cheese is Manchego hailing from the region of Castilla-La Mancha It’s a hard cheese made from Manchego sheep milk and is aged between 60 days and two years It has a slightly nutty and tangy flavour and you can often find it served by the slice on its own on tapas menus Zamorano – This sheep’s cheese is made in the province of Zamora and is a hard cheese which takes six months to mature It’s similar to Castellano or Manchego cheese with a nutty flavour and crumbly texture Valdeón – This blue cheese from León is made in the northeast of the province and is made from either cow or sheep milk or a mixture of both It’s often wrapped in sycamore maple or chestnut leaves before being sold Castellano – Similar in flavour and texture to the famous Manchego It is aged for six months and has notes of butterscotch and nuts Ibores – Made from unpasteurised goat’s milk this rich cheese is aged for two months and is treated with smoked paprika and olive oil during the ageing process Torta del Casar – Made using traditional techniques and raw sheep's milk this is a unique cheese because of its semi-hard exterior and very soft and creamy interior It’s both aromatic and intense with a slightly bitter aftertaste La Serena – La Serena is a cheese made from Merino sheep’s milk and is made in the Extremaduran area of La Serena bitter and sharp flavour and is matured for at least 60 days Fully matured cheeses are soft and creamy and can be scooped out with a spoon Murcia al vino – Lovers of cheese and wine can have both in this unique cheese from Murcia it’s made from unpasteurised goat’s milk from Murcian breeds The cheese is soaked in red wine during ripening which gives it a slightly acidic and floral aroma Maó or Mahón cheese – From the island of Menorca It’s both crumbly and dense with a buttery salty flavour and is aged for two to three months Palmero cheese is made from unpasteurised goat’s milk who are allowed to graze year round on wild plants It’s slightly smoked and has been made on the island for centuries Flor de Guía – A cheese from the island of Gran Canaria with a mixture of cow and goat milk added in It can either be soft or semi-hard and is curdled using vegetable rennet made from dried flower heads Majorero – The first Canary Island cheese to be awarded the designation of origin label Majorero is from Fuerteventura and is made from the milk of the native island goat gofio flour or oil and it has an intensely creamy texture READ ALSO - MAP: How well do you know your Spanish cheeses? Please log in to leave a comment. A number of Hercules Wimbledon’s junior athletes picked up medals at the South of England Indoor Championships at Lee Valley at the weekend, writes George Mallett. U15 Isabella Harrison won her 800m heat then three hours later returned to finish second in the final in a speedy 2:18.32. What’s most impressive about her performance is it came at a time she is mostly competing outdoors over cross-country, where she finished fourth earlier this month at the Surrey County Championships. Fellow U15 Freya Mcandie ran 2:33.56 for a PB and second in her heat. U13 Thomas Hennigan, who just 24 hours previously finished 15th in the Surrey League Cross Country, won silver over 800m in Lee Valley in a PB of 2:26.96. Adam Ofeimun recorded a PB of 7.39s to qualify for the semi-finals of the U17 60m, where he went on to finish sixth in a fraction slower time. Isiah Gardner and Yosef Ahmed, competing in the same age group, ran 7.62 and 8.49 for PBs in their heats. Jamari Roper, ran a new best mark of 8.52 to qualify for the U13 60m final, where he finished seventh. Angel Gutierrez-Bailey was unlucky not to qualify, finishing fourth in his heat in 8.76s. Benjamin Kietzmann and Soren Kerner had a battle to the line to better their own marks in the U15 60m, running 8.06 and 8.16 respectively for fifth and sixth in their heat. Hector Stroud Arzua was sixth in his heat, again in a new best of 9.00s. The final Hercules entrant over the distance in the age group was Rory Jardine, who finished seventh in 8.73s in heat five. U15 Florrie Foster recorded PBs in the 60m and 200m, running 8.96s and 29.87s respectively, as well as the shot put with a throw of 7.86m, the event where she performed best in 10th place. Patience Namazzi found herself in the fastest 60m heat, running 8.48s to finish sixth. Olivia Ifeanyi-Nwobodo improved her best to 8.70s. Fellow U15s Amelia Barnes and Iliana Turbin ran 8.70s and 9.13s respectively, both season bests. U17 Kristina Frost ran 8.46s to finish fifth in her 60m heat, a PB. Vivienne Jonczyk reached the semi-finals of the 200m in the same age group, running 27.56 in her heat. Charlie Wyllie stepped down to run the inaugural Dulwich Dash Mile on Saturday, winning the event and in the process setting the quickest ever recorded time for a lap of Dulwich Park. The race took place before 8am on Saturday in below freezing conditions, meaning some ice was on the course – but Wyllie negotiated it well to run away from Nick Bester over the second half of the race to take the win by seven seconds. Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked * Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Madeleine in front of a cathedral in Santiago Madeleine KeaneMon 10 Jun 2013 at 06:00The middle-aged Irish woman looks into my eyes, congratulates me as she rolls up my certificate of achievement and asks: "How did you do it?" I meet her gaze and reply: "I just kept on keeping on." It's an epiphanic moment. Accompanied by my 25- year-old daughter Natasha, I've just completed a stage of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela – in five days of rain, snow and sunshine we've walked 115km through hollow land and hilly land. I'm elated, proud, overwhelmed and, yes, a tad tired. The Way of St James started in the 9th Century when the discovery of the Apostle James's tomb on this north westerly tip of the Iberian peninsula became a place of worship. The faithful started travelling from all over Europe to Santiago and 12 routes were established. We chose the classic French way – the Camino Frances – which starts in St-Jean-Pied-de-Port, the ancient capital of the Basque region of Basse-Navarre and winds its way through Roncesvalles, Pamplona, Burgos and Leon to our point of embarkation – Sarria, once a major medieval centre for pilgrims and still a popular starting point for their modern counterparts who want to complete one stage of the Camino. It was a crisp Sunday morning as we left the comfort of our hotel and walked through a small old quarter past the convent of Magdalena. It was nearly May in northern Spain and while we had shorts and factor 50 in our luggage, there was, in fact, snow on the ditches. We were going to cover 23km on our walk to Portomarin. Total disaster struck at our very first stop for coffee. No coffee. But one of the many lessons the Camino teaches you is acceptance. As we were deep in Galicia, a quiet rural corner of somnolent hamlets, where gentle oxen and thin cats were sometimes the only signs of life, I accepted the lack of caffeine and bought a shell instead – the symbol of the walk. Through forests and woodlands we seemed to march forever till finally a long flight of steps took us past the Chapel of Clouds to reach the central square of Portomarin, where alongside a fortress and church was our billet for the night – a noisy pension with pizza the only dinner option. Serendipity led us to O Mirador, a nearby bar with a lively buzz supplied by walkers and locals, where we had a terrific meal of tapas, steak and chips, creme caramel and a bottle of wine for €20. The second day is known to be tough. And so it proved. We were aching from the previous day's exertions and our morning involved a lengthy climb. My mood was only lightened by a lovely woman from Clondalkin who thought my daughter and I were sisters. Indeed one of the joys of the Camino is the people you meet. Pilgrims came from everywhere – California and Churchtown, Finland and Florida. There were Asians, Mexicans and Germans – and all were keen to chat. I knew the third day would be Dante-esque. Our itinerary had shown this was a 30km walk. (We declined the option of splitting it in two as completing it in one fell swoop would ensure an extra day in Santiago.) Naturally it was the wettest day of the entire trip – a relentless grey drizzle heightening my Stygian gloom, but inspiring a spirit of camaraderie among the pilgrims as we trudged through muddy riverbeds, up and down dirt tracks, to Melide – our halfway stop where we wolfed down steaming bowls of pasta and milky coffees. For the last gruelling 5km, barely able to speak, I whispered the word taxi, but my principled daughter was having none of it and we ploughed on, finally arriving in Arzua at Casa Teodora. A photo on the wall showed a previous guest, a smiling Mary McAleese. There we bumped into some of our 'compadres' who told us they took a taxi for the second half of the day. The woman explained: "I'm on my holidays," completely missing the point. The Camino is emphatically not a holiday – it is a pilgrimage – it is meant to be arduous and uncomfortable and tiring. We were so pleased that we hadn't cheated. As Natasha pointed out, to have taken a taxi even for a couple of miles would have tainted every step of our Camino. And the end was in sight. Through banks of eucalyptus silhouetted against a vivid cerulean sky in which the previous night's half moon still hung, on and on we walked, my lovely girl and I. Past suburbs and parks, roundabouts and malls, shops and cafes, and there finally it was. The cathedral – our Ithaca. Later we toasted our epic achievement with a glass of cava in the old bar of the fabulous parador: the Hostal dos Reis Catolicos, it was founded in 1492 by monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella as a pilgrims' hospice. Then we walked down the cobbled streets of this enchanting city for tapas of pimientos de padron and gambas in garlic – Magdalem and Natalis (our certificates carried our Latin names), still pilgrims at heart. The Camino was one of the most profound experiences of my life. Apart from spending quality time with my eldest child, getting sun and fresh air and exercise, raising money for charity and discovering an exquisite new city, my Camino reminded me how blessed I am and reinforced my belief that, with courage and humility and faith, we can make it through the challenging and difficult but rewarding and joyous terrain that is life. CaminoWays.com offers walking and cycling, self-guided and guided tours on the different routes of the Camino de Santiago, including the most famous trail: the French Way. A classic seven-day Camino de Santiago experience covers the last 100km of the French Way to Santiago de Compostela, starting in the town of Sarria, in Galicia. Prices for this trip start at €589 per person sharing (high season). Self-guided packages include accommodation, half-board meals and luggage transfers. Additional nights and hotel upgrades can also be arranged. See www.caminoways.com or contact the CaminoWays.com team by phone 01 525 2886 or email info@caminoways.com Join the Irish Independent WhatsApp channel For five days this summer, a Malta-based group of 27 people took on the last leg of one of the world’s most famous pilgrimages, the Camino de Santiago, walking 120km from Arzúa to Santiago de Compostela. From making new friends to combating listlessness, improving fitness and fundraising for an Ethiopian school named after Becs Zammit Lupi, a Maltese teenager who died of cancer last year, the group had various reasons for taking on the journey. Prior to their departure, some of the travellers put in their two cents on what the journey has meant to them so far. “My experience till now with my Camino team has been amazing; words cannot aptly describe how much this group means to me. I have found a second family in them and, apart from the health benefits related to all the trekking involved, it has also provided tremendous benefit to mental health.” “It’s a break from the frenetic life we live, apart from aiding a good cause for the children in Ethiopia.” “The start of the Camino journey was a period where I was stuck on a personal and professional level, constantly asking myself if I want to live a life of chasing success or a life of service?” “This path has been confirmed, I choose to be of service… I’ve grown so much over the past few months, and I’m not just talking about increasing stamina and physical strength – do the things that scare you because you will evolve… and how.” “This was an amazing opportunity to make new friends, exercise and enjoy beautiful places across the Maltese islands. What has made it even more special is that we helped others by collecting funds for a noble cause. I should have done this before.” “This has been an exciting journey, being involved with a super team all wanting to achieve the Camino de Santiago destination successfully. It has been an eye-opener on many fronts, firstly by the amazing people I got to know through our weekly trekking as well as the fantastic support we expressed towards one another.” “Laughs and jokes along the way, getting to know my teammates on a personal level, the determination to achieve this goal even though it involved trekking through rough paths at ungodly hours. Ultimately, it was all there to collect donations for a great cause so thank you Sigma Foundation for this superb opportunity.” “When I joined this trekking group with the idea to make new friends, little did I know that I would be embarking on a magical Camino journey with beautiful people who I now call friends.” “What makes it special is the fact that I am helping to make a difference in the life of children in Ethiopia by collecting funds to help them have an education by building schools for them through Sigma Foundation, a cause now so much at heart.” “I feel that this experience has changed my perspective towards life by appreciating the simple things. I hope this Camino will be the first of many.” “My Camino journey started at a time when I was struggling to find my ‘raison d’etre’. The early wake-up calls, the long treks, the beautiful views of the Maltese countryside, gave a new meaning to my summer.” “The people I met during this journey, the support I’ve found from strangers whom I now call friends, has made this journey a truly magical experience. Having the chance to honour my student, Becs,and raising funds for children in Ethiopia has been an absolutely amazing experience, one I recommend to anyone.” Keith Marshall, Chief Philanthropy Officer at the SiGMA Foundation, who coordinated the trip, said seeing such “good energy and kindred spirit” through the team was a breath of fresh air, especially considering that most were virtual strangers before they met for the trip. It is currently fundraising for the refurbishment of a school in Bonga, Ethiopia, and the implementation of a new wing, with the goal being to inaugurate it towards the end of 2023. Have you ever trekked the Camino de Santiago? Kindly check your inbox after sign-up to confirm subscription. Camino de Santiago – A young pilgrim with a yellow backpack Spain – Selective focus | Armando Oliveira / Shutterstock the GR38 begins among the vineyards of Oyón and traverses the Bermeo Pass This is the ancient route used by traders who used to bring fish and salt from the coastal towns of Bermeo Ondarroa and Lekeitio and return with wine and grains from the interior regions The whole route is 166km and takes a week to finish but again there are smaller sections you can complete in a day depending on whether you prefer wine or seafood The Ignatian Way recreates the journey of Ignacio de Loyola in the year 1522 from Guipúzcoa in the Basque Country to his birthplace to the Catalan town of Manresa but the part through the Basque Country is 150km long The most significant part of this journey through the Basque Country is from Loiola to Zumarraga Ignacio’s house and the sanctuary church to the chapel of La Antigua in Zumarraga Rural landscape between Loiola and Zumarraga in Gipuzkoa in the Basque Country | FOTOADICTA / Shutterstock The GR120 Named the ‘Route of Three Temples’ the GR120 follows part of the same route as the Ignatian Way The first stage is as described above from Loiola to Zumarraga while the second stage continues on to the sanctuary church of Arantzazu large swathes of forest and the Parque de Mirandaola The Painted Forest of Oma is located in the UNESCO listed Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve one of the most important natural areas in the Basque Country Visitors will find a well-marked trail through this quirky forest Read Next See & Do The Best European Cities to Visit in July Sports The Most Epic Hiking Trails in Spain's Sierra Nevada Bistro Madrid provides their guests with only the best letting them experience authentic Spanish cuisine Spanish cuisine is indeed one of the tastiest cuisines in the world one cannot deny that Spanish dishes are not only vibrant in their presentation but also very rich in flavor Bistro Madrid is situated in Burgos Circle and serves only the most excellent Spanish food and Wines Bistro Madrid opened in 2017 and is the sister restaurant of Terry’s Bistro another popular Spanish restaurant with locations in Salcedo and Pasong Tamo Extension in Makati City It is the brainchild of Chef Juan Carlos de Terry Bistro Madrid also has a small deli inside You have the option to pick your favorite sausage or ham or have it assorted to enjoy in the shop Also Read: Terry’s Bistro in Makati: Serving Spanish & Mediterranean Cuisine Fit for Royalties Part of what makes Bistro Madrid an authentic Spanish experience is the quality of the ingredients that are used in their fantastic dishes Most of the ingredients that they use are imported from Spain including the rice that they use in their exquisite Paella you must sample their Spanish Cold Cuts & Cheese Platter The platter is composed of slices of Jamon Serrano It’s the perfect pair to match that glass of wine for an aperitif Spanish Cold Cuts & Cheese Platter / IMAGE from Philippine Primer After getting a taste of their appetizing platter giving off the ideal blend between the taste of the shrimp cooked in olive oil and the taste of the garlic Gambas Al Ajillo / IMAGE from Philippine Primer Another must-try at the Bistro is their El Buey Feliz this dish is unique yet doesn’t stray away from the restaurant’s Spanish theme The dish is grilled rib-eye cubes that are served with Española sauce You have an option to choose between onion rings or deep-fried potatoes with Aioli sauce for your side El Buey Feliz / IMAGE from Philippine Primer Bistro Madrid’s Gran Paella is something that you should definitely not miss The rice is Valencian rice that is cooked in a Saffron-based stock and chorizos are then added to the dish to complete the meal The paella also comes in a black version that is cooked with squid ink and seafood stock It’s an absolute must-try for those of you who are lovers of Spanish cuisine or those of you who are new to the whole Spanish craze Gran Paella / IMAGE from Philippine Primer Bistro Madrid is the perfect place for those who want to experience Spanish cuisine with no frills as it brings together dishes from different regions of Spain you can also enjoy a glass of wine to complete your Sapanish culinary experience in one of Chef Terry’s creations Bistro Madrid is an ideal place to experience Spanish food at its finest!