Yes boys and girls it is that magical time again for a good “Dump” from us here at IST….sit back and enjoy the adventurous ride through the mundane.

I would like to issue a special thank you to the Sahara for its dust cloud over the Atlantic is keeping any major storms from forming and we here in Hurricane Alley sigh with relief…..at least for now.

Enough chit chat….onto the wider world…..

Let’s start with my least favorite veggie…..Broccoli….

Broccoli is part of the cruciferous vegetable family, which includes cauliflower, cabbage, kale and Brussels sprouts.

And though many people don’t like their taste—and they may not be good for nursing moms—these vegetables contain a tiny but powerful molecule that deactivates the gene responsible for cancerous tumor growth, known as WWP1.

Study lead author Dr. Pier Paolo Pandolfi, director of the Cancer Centre and Cancer Research Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, said the discovery could pave the way for new cancer treatment.

“The study’s really exciting,” Pandolfi told the Harvard Gazette. “I’ve been bombarded by journalists — because of the broccoli connection, let’s be honest. Forget what you think about the science, the fact that [we found] something that your grandma would say [is] good for you, it’s appealing.”

Pandolfi and his team suspected that a gene called PTEN could cause irregularities and defects in WWP1.

Upon testing their theory on cancer-prone mice and human cells, they discovered that WWP1 produces an enzyme that overpowers the tumor-suppressive activity of PTEN – but the scientists also found that there is a molecule found in cruciferous vegetables called indole-3-carbinol (I3C) that can reawaken the cancer-fighting properties of PTEN.

That being said, fellow study author Dr. Yu-Ru Lee emphasized that a person would have to eat nearly 6 pounds (2.7 kilograms) of uncooked Brussel sprouts every day in order to reap their anti-cancer benefits.

Broccoli Isn’t Just Good For You; Scientists Find It Holds Molecule That Could Be the ‘Achilles’s Heel’ of Cancer

Regardless the benefits…..I shall pass.

Staying with the food meme…raspberries….not my favorite….I prefer blackberries….but guess what?  They are not berries!

Words like “fruit”, “berry”, and “vegetable” are thrown around with reckless abandon, taking little care for their botanic classifications. So, if you’d like help reducing your circle of friends, stick with us and we’ll teach you how to correctly identify all the taxonomic inaccuracies surrounding fruit and veg.

Let’s start off easy to whet your appetite for curiosity – tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers aren’t actually vegetables, they’re all berries. But, raspberries and blackberries, they’re berries, right? WRONG! These imposters are all, in fact, aggregate fruits. Confused yet?

The term fruit is used to describe the fleshy ovary of a flowering plant that encloses a single or multiple seeds. The three main types of fleshy fruit are berries, pomes, and drupes, however, the fruit species that fall into these classifications may surprise you. 

Fruits can be split into four distinct botanical classifications based on their origin:

https://www.iflscience.com/people-are-just-finding-out-raspberries-are-not-berries-75161

That is enough food stuff….let’s move on…..shall we?

Remember Ponce De Leon and The search for the ‘fountain of youth’…..we could be close….

In a new study, lab mice given an experimental drug were jokingly referred to as “supermodel grannies” because they looked so youthful even while aging beyond their expected lifespan.

As the BBC reports, the trials for a drug believed to flush out a protein known as interleukin-11 — which in early development helps build our bones but later in life causes the kinds of inflammation that triggers much of the illness of aging — have already had intriguing success in mice.

Published in the journal Nature, a paper about the research undertaken by scientists at Imperial College London, Duke-NUS in Singapore, and the MRC Lab of Medical Sciences found that when given a drug that purges interleukin-11, the mice became more lean, had healthier fur, and had significantly lower levels of cancer than their counterparts of the same age.

The drug also, per a press release from the UK government’s research arm, extended the median lifespan of male mice by 22.4 percent and female mice by 25 percent.

Now, researchers are working to figure out if the same results might be produced in humans, too.

https://futurism.com/neoscope/mice-drug-lifespan-anti-aging

You mean all those ads on TV are lying to me?

As long as we are on the scientist thing…..

As scientists continue to make advances using human tissue to grow brains in laboratories, one neuroscientist is naming the existential elephant in the room: could lab-grown brains ever become truly conscious?

In an interview with Live Science, University of California at Santa Barbara neuroscientist Kenneth Kosik explained that as the science stands now, the facsimile brains made in labs aren’t likely to achieve consciousness anytime soon.

These brain organoids, as the lab-grown brains are called, are created by taking someone’s cells, converting them into stem cells, and differentiating those into neurons.

Because of some incredible “magic” achieved within neurons submerged into drops of a substance called “Matrigel,” which as Kosik noted can be either a liquid or solid depending on temperature, the neurons from these stem cells blossom out into three dimensions rather than just two. Those tiny brain-esque structures eventually develop tissues similar to those in brains and begin emitting electrical signals. But as the neuroscientist insists, it’s a misnomer to refer to the organoids as “minibrains,” as his fellow researchers often do.

https://futurism.com/neoscope/neuroscientist-lab-grown-brains-consciousness

I am sure there is an old SciFi movie along these lines…..and as usual it does not end well.

Then there is the possibility of mind control…..you know kinda like social media is doing right now…..

To understand how the brain works scientists have been using two broad categories of experiments: ones that record and ones that manipulate brain activity. Early neuroscience studies used electricity to change the activity of neurons. Then, just two decades ago, scientists developed new technologies that used light. Now, they are using magnets. 

Does it sound like mind control? Yes, it does. Brain stimulation technologies, magnetogenetics included, have allowed scientists to influence the behavior of animals. But no, you are not at risk of being unwittingly influenced. The technology relies on magnetic nanoparticles in the brain and close-range magnetic fields.

How this new technology works is actually really cool. It combines a mechanosensitive protein called Piezo with a magnetic nanoparticle (it’s 200 nanometers in size! That’s 0.0002 millimeters). Piezo (meaning pressure in Greek) is a well-known channel protein that, when mechanically stimulated, can activate a cell. It’s what gives you the sense of light touch. 

A rotating magnetic field moves the magnetic nanoparticles. This generates torque (rotational force) that can mechanically stimulate the Piezo channels. The nanoparticles only activate the Piezo variant that scientists have delivered to a cell, not native Piezo proteins.

Seo-Hyun Choi and colleagues were able to deliver the protein and nanoparticle to specific subgroups of cells in the brains of mice. When the mice were surrounded by a magnetic field, those cells would be activated. Depending on the targeted cells, this could make the mice eat more, or be more attentive parents.

https://www.iflscience.com/magnetogenetics-is-this-world-first-technology-really-mind-control-75205

Yet another scientific break through that has the potential for abuse…..and I mean massive abuse.

I do not if anyone is aware that climate change is bringing about the extinction of plants and animals…

In the game of climate change, there are both winners and losers.

Experts predict that one-third of Earth’s plants and animals — millions of species — could disappear by 2050 if the current rate of greenhouse gas emissions persists. And some are already disappearing.

But other animals are more resilient to temperature changes and habitat disruption. There are a few species that could not only survive but thrive in a warming world.

Climate models have shown that “we have a lot of species that might actually benefit from climate change,” expanding their ranges into new geographic areas that were previously inhospitable to them, Giovanni Strona, quantitative ecology researcher at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, told Business Insider.

Many of these climate change “winners” are hardy, fast-breeding scavengers that already live in some of the most degraded habitats on Earth: cities. They’re not all cute and cuddly, and some are considered pests that pose risks to human health.

Whether you like them or not, it doesn’t look like these four critters are going away any time soon.

https://www.businessinsider.com/which-animals-benefit-from-climate-change-rats-roaches-mosquito-ticks-2024-7

We down here already have an abundance of these critters…..does that mean there will be more?  That is not something to look forward to….take my word for it.

Another successful ‘dump’ and I am feeling renewed.

Enjoy your Summer Saturday and as always….Be well and Be Safe….

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”