Symptoms of Prader-Willi syndrome associated with interference in circadian, metabolic genes

June 25, 2013 ? Researchers with the UC Davis MIND Institute and Agilent Laboratories have found that Prader-Willi syndrome -- a genetic disorder best known for causing an insatiable appetite that can lead to morbid obesity -- is associated with the loss of non-coding RNAs, resulting in the dysregulation of circadian and metabolic genes, accelerated energy expenditure and metabolic differences during sleep.

The research was led by Janine LaSalle, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology who is affiliated with the MIND Institute. It is published online in Human Molecular Genetics.

"Prader-Willi syndrome children do not sleep as well at night and have daytime sleepiness," LaSalle said. "Parents have to lock up their pantries because the kids are rummaging for food in the middle of the night, even breaking into their neighbors' houses to eat."

The study found that these behaviors are rooted in the loss of a long non-coding RNA that functions to balance energy expenditure in the brain during sleep. The finding could have a profound effect on how clinicians treat children with Prader-Willi, as well as point the way to new, innovative therapies, LaSalle said.

The leading cause of morbid obesity among children in the United States, Prader-Willi involves a complex, and sometimes contradictory, array of symptoms. Shortly after birth children with Prader-Willi experience failure to thrive. Yet after they begin to feed themselves, they have difficulty sleeping and insatiable appetites that lead to obesity if their diets are not carefully monitored.

The current study was conducted in a mouse model of Prader-Willi syndrome. It found that mice engineered with the loss of a long non-coding RNA showed altered energy use and metabolic differences during sleep.

Prader-Willi has been traced to a specific region on chromosome 15 (SNORD116), which produces RNAs that regulate gene expression, rather than coding for proteins. When functioning normally, SNORD116 produces small nucleolar (sno) RNAs and a long non-coding RNA (116HG), as well as a third non-coding RNA implicated in a related disorder, Angelman syndrome. The 116HG long non-coding RNA forms a cloud inside neuronal nuclei that associates with proteins and genes regulating diurnal metabolism in the brain, LaSalle said.

"We thought the cloud would be activating transcription, but in fact it was doing the opposite," she said. "Most of the genes were dampened by the cloud. This long non-coding RNA was acting as a decoy, pulling the active transcription factors away from genes and keeping them from being expressed."

As a result, losing snoRNAs and 116HG causes a chain reaction, eliminating the RNA cloud and allowing circadian and metabolic genes to get turned on during sleep periods, when they should be dampened down. This underlies a complex cycle in which the RNA cloud grew during sleep periods (daytime for nocturnal mice), turning down genes associated with energy use, and receded during waking periods, allowing these genes to be expressed. Mice without the 116HG gene lacked the benefit of this neuronal cloud, causing greater energy expenditure during sleep.

The researchers said that the work provides a clearer picture of why children with Prader-Willi syndrome can't sleep or feel satiated and may change therapeutic approaches. For example, many such children have been treated with growth hormone because of short stature, but this actually may boost other aspects of the disease.

"People had thought the kids weren't sleeping at night because of the sleep apnea caused by obesity," said LaSalle. "What this study shows is that the diurnal metabolism is central to the disorder, and that the obesity may be as a result of that. If you can work with that, you could improve therapies, for example figuring out the best times to administer medications."

The study's other study authors include Weston T. Powell, Rochelle L. Coulson, Florence K. Crary, Spencer S. Wong, Robert A. Ach and Dag H. Yasui, all of UC Davis, and Peter Tsang and N. Alice Yamada of Agilent Laboratories.

The work was funded by National Institutes of Health grants F31NS073164 and 1R01NS076263 and the Prader-Willi Foundation.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/health_medicine/genes/~3/JgN0Vq4Ecko/130625141219.htm

bats

Will iRobot and Cisco's New Robot Take a Bite Out of Business ...

If Cisco and iRobot have their way, robot CEOs may invade boardrooms from Tokyo to New York in 2014. The two companies?recently announced collaboration on the autonomous Ava 500 telepresence robot for business. The firms hope the Ava 500 will allow business people to attend daily meetings in person, across the planet?without ever changing a plane or time zone.

The navigation technology behind iRobot?s Roomba robot vacuum cleaner and the RP Vita medical telepresence robot will guide the five foot five inch, 100 pound Ava 500. Meanwhile, a Cisco TelePresence EX60 personal video endpoint will broadcast a worker?s face and voice from its?21.5? screen and send back sounds and images via an onboard camera and microphone.

Using a special app on a tablet, remote workers will wake the robot up and tell it where to go. The Ava 500 can map and autonomously navigate the halls of its home office, freeing the telecommuter to make small talk along the way (or leave the screen off until it reaches its destination). After a meeting, the unit dutifully returns to its charging station to catch a few winks and juice up for its next appointment.

iRobot CEO, Colin Angle, told the Boston Herald the Ava 500 gives folks the chance to be in the same room as the people they?re meeting, to see facial expressions, and to go in the hall after for a private chat. Angie Mistretta, director of telepresence solutions at Cisco, says, ?The real value of the robot is that spontaneity.?

The question is whether that spontaneity is worth the robot?s $70,000 price tag?(or?$2,000 ? $2,500 a month to rent). iRobot and Cisco are targeting executives, corporate trainers, site inspectors, and remote employees. Travel costs for these folks can stack up fast.?If Ava 500 saves even a few trips a month, the robot could pay its way.

But businesses are cost cutting machines. If telepresence robots are attractive at $70,000, then they?re even more appealing at $7,000, and exponentially sexier as the price tag approaches $0.?And already, firms can order a simpler telepresence robot from Double Robotics for $2,599. Businesses may be willing to sacrifice a little screen real estate and autonomous navigation for $67,000 in saved costs.

Double Robotics iPad telepresence robot.

And they may not need to make that sacrifice very long.?Advanced AI and robotics are entering the consumer market at drastically reduced prices.

We recently wrote about AI startup Anki. Anki?s robot cars drive themselves around a track at top speed, avoiding each other, the wall, making evasive maneuvers?all this runs on iOS with an expected cost of $200.?But Anki isn?t just about toy cars. It?s an iOS-powered consumer AI and robotics platform.

Such technology will just as easily guide an autonomous telepresence robot through the office. And soon. Offering enterprise solutions at enterprise prices in a world where AI and robotics are hitting consumer markets at consumer prices?how long will such products make sense?

Source: http://singularityhub.com/2013/06/21/will-irobot-and-ciscos-new-robot-take-a-bite-out-of-business-travel/

Yunel Escobar Eye Black Cruel Summer Endeavor shaun white carolina panthers Revolution TV Show bankofamerica

Western and Arab allies try to coordinate rebel aid

By Lesley Wroughton and Amena Bakr

DOHA (Reuters) - Western and Arab opponents of Bashar al-Assad met in Qatar on Saturday to tighten coordination of their stepped up support for rebels battling to overthrow the Syrian president.

Ministers from 11 countries including the United States, European and regional Sunni Muslim powers, held talks that Washington said should commit participants to direct all aid through the Western-backed Supreme Military Council, which it hopes can offset the growing power of jihadist rebel forces.

After a series of military offensives by Assad's troops, including the recapture of a strategic border town two weeks ago, President Barack Obama said the United States would increase military support for the rebels.

Two Gulf sources told Reuters on Saturday that Saudi Arabia, which has taken a lead role among Arab opponents of Assad, had also accelerated delivery of advanced weapons to the rebels.

"In the past week there have been more arrivals of these advanced weapons. They are getting them more frequently," one source said, without giving details. Another Gulf source described them as "potentially balance-tipping" supplies.

Rebel fighters say they need anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons to stem the fightback by Assad's forces in a civil war that has already killed 93,000 people and driven 1.6 million refugees into neighboring countries.

The increasingly sectarian dynamic of the war pits mainly Sunni Muslims against forces loyal to Assad, from the Alawite minority which is an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, and has split the Middle East along Sunni-Shi'ite lines.

Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, whose country has been one of the most open backers of the anti-Assad rebels, said that supplying them with weapons was the only way to resolve the conflict.

"Force is necessary to achieve justice. And the provision of weapons is the only way to achieve peace in Syria's case," Sheikh Hamad told ministers at the start of the talks.

"We cannot wait due to disagreement among Security Council members over finding a solution to the problem," he said. He also called on Lebanon's government to halt intervention by Lebanese factions in the neighboring conflict.

Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas led the assault by Assad's forces to recapture the town of Qusair earlier this month.

Speaking before Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Doha, a U.S. official said the United States wanted to ensure that "every kind of assistance" offered by the 11 countries attending the meeting go through the Supreme Military Council, led by General Salim Idriss, a former commander in Assad's army.

A diplomat who had seen the draft communiqu? of the meeting said it also spoke of putting pressure on Assad to allow greater access for humanitarian aid after the United Nations launched a $5 billion appeal earlier this month - its biggest ever.

But he said there was no mention of establishing a no-fly zone - a move which diplomats have said the United States was studying but which the White House has played down - or specific mention of weapons supplies to the rebels.

COUNTERING JIHADI REBELS

The meeting in Qatar brings together ministers of countries that support the anti-Assad rebels - France, Germany, Egypt, Italy, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Britain and the United States.

Western countries hope by channeling assistance through Idriss they can reduce the influence in the opposition ranks of radical Islamist groups such as the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague reiterated that London had yet to take a formal decision on arming the rebels, but said that only by strengthening the opposition could the West hope to bring about talks for a political settlement.

"We won't get a political solution if Assad and his regime think they can eliminate all legitimate opposition by force, and so we do have to give assistance to that opposition," he told reporters before the start of Saturday's talks.

The United States and Russia, which back opposing sides in the conflict, hope to bring them together for negotiations in Geneva originally scheduled for this month. Hague said there was little prospect of that happening "in the next few weeks".

"This crisis is on a worse trajectory, it is set to get worse ... I don't want to underestimate the severity and the bleakness of it," Hague said.

Moscow, which says it will not break off military supply contracts with Damascus, opposes arming rebel forces that it says include terrorist groups, and has warned that a swift exit by Assad would risk a dangerous power vacuum.

In northern Syria, rebels announced an offensive that they said aimed to capture the western districts of the city of Aleppo from government forces.

Assad's troops are have been fighting rebels in rural areas around Syria's biggest city and are believed to be reinforcing in the region, ahead of their own expected assault on rebel-held parts of the contested northern hub.

In Damascus, the army sustained its bombardment of the eastern rebel-held district of Qaboun and soldiers clashed rebels in the Barzeh district, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Before his departure from Washington, Kerry spent Thursday briefing Congress on the administration's Syria plans, with some lawmakers pressing for the United States to do more and others decrying any deeper involvement in the civil war.

Having withdrawn U.S. troops from Iraq and working to wind down American forces in Afghanistan, some lawmakers are wary of getting involved in another costly conflict. Some worry that the weapons could end up in the hands of radical Islamist groups who could one day use them against Western interests.

Until now the United States has been providing non-lethal aid - food and medicine - to the rebels.

(Additional reporting by Yara Bayoumy; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Alison Williams)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/putin-warns-arming-syrian-rebels-conflict-widens-083445291.html

jeff who lives at home 49ers news saint louis university night at the museum pope shenouda bolton muamba crystal cathedral

Brothers left clues online about their motives

As police continue to search Boston for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 19-year-old believed to be partly responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings along with his older brother Tamerlan, a key question remains unanswered: What motivated the brothers?

Each of them has left possible clues online.

Tamerlan, who was killed in a shootout earlier today, appears to have been sympathetic to Islamist radicalism. Five months ago he appears to have created a channel on YouTube called ?Terrorists.? The channel features videos from the one of the leaders of the insurgency in Dagestan who goes by the name Amir Abu Dudzhan. YouTube appears to have removed two of the videos but in a third features Dudzhan calling for jihad. Holding a Kalashnikov rifle, he says, ?Jihad is the duty of every able-bodied Muslim.? Among the other videos on his channel is one of Timur Mutsuraev, the bard of the Chechen resistance in the 1990s; it features his song, ?We will devote our lives to jihad.?

The younger brother, Dzokhar, attended school in the Russian Republic of Dagestan from 1999 to 2001, a war-torn part of Russia next to Chechnya, according to his page on a Russian social networking site, Vkontakte. But even though Dzhokhar Tsarnaev indicates on the page an interest in conflicts and causes that have at times been connected to terrorist no solid evidence has emerged so far to suggest that he is motivated by religious or nationalist causes.

On his Vkontakte page he posted video messages sympathetic to the cause of Chechen independence?but Chechen independence from Russia is a cause that has the support of secular as well as Islamist activists. He also expresses sympathy for rebel fighters in Syria and elsewhere. One video bears the Russian title ?For those who have a heart,? showing people being brutalized by uniformed men in a country the video identifies as Syria. ?They are killing your brothers and sisters without any reason,? the Russian subtitles of the video read. ?Simply because they say our Lord is Allah.? The conflict in Syria, however, is almost entirely fought by Muslims on both the rebel and government sides?although the war is increasingly marked by sectarianism, with the Sunni Muslim majority making up the bulk of the rebel forces and the Alawite minority generally supporting the government of Bashar Assad.

Another video on his page seems at first glance to suggest a sympathy for Salafi Islam, an extreme form of Sunni Islam. The video is posted from a blog named Salyafi Street?but it turns out to be about a young blind boy who thanks God for his blindness because it will mean greater mercy for him when God?s judgement comes.

Such videos are relatively common among Muslim youth throughout Russia?and in the ethnic Chechen diaspora?and Tsarnaev?s page contains much lighter fare as well. It features clips from a Russian sketch comedy show that plays on the accents of men from Chechnya and other regions of the Russian Caucasus. In many ways the page seems to be that of a normal ethnically Chechen kid.

It?s unclear when Tsarnaev left the Caucasus region and moved to the United States. An uncle told CNN that the family lived for some time in Kyrgzstan before coming to the United States.According to classmates interviewed by CNN, he went to high school in Boston and worked at Harvard University. One of his acquaintances recalled a conversation Tsarnaev had with a classmate during which Tsarnaev allegedly said, ?in relation to acts of terrorism, he said it was not a serious issue if you come from a place where I come from,? the acquaintance, Eric Machado, told CNN. ?Those comments raised a red flag in my head.?

In 2011 Tsarnaev appears to have won a city of Cambridge scholarship of $2,500. In February 2011 he was the Cambridge student of the month for his wrestling prowess; wrestling is the national pastime of Chechnya and the Caucasus.

The Associated Press spoke to Tsarnaev?s father, who was in the Russian city of Makhachkala, which is the capital of the Russian republic of Dagestan. ?My son is a true angel,? Anzor Tsarnaev told the AP. In a separate interview with the Russian news agency Interfax, their father said, ?Dzhokhar is a second-year medical student in the U.S. He is such an intelligent boy. We expected him to come on holidays here.?

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/brothers-tsarnaev-clues-motives-alleged-boston-bombers-162101446.html

marbury v. madison 2013 lincoln mkz burger king mary j blige google project glass google goggles one tree hill projectglass

500 Startups-Backed Wowzer Launches WowzerMatch For Job Seekers On Mobile Phones

Finding a job sucks. There?s the process of finding something in a relevant field, then submitting resumes, doing phone interviews, doing in-person interviews, etc. Wowzer wants to make this easier with the ability to streamline the whole process with video. And now, through the magic of a new mobile app, hopes to make applying for a job even easier.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/r3jKwQiqmJs/

evan mathis staff sgt. robert bales jason russell norfolk state st patrick s day parade duke invisible children

Which areas are the home improvement hotspots ... - Eurofit Direct

By Ryan Hirst | March 19, 2013 | Featured Stories, News Stories

Research from Barbour ABI revealed today at property and construction industry show Ecobuild in London reveals that Westminster heads the list of local authorities in England, Scotland and Wales for home improvements.

It received the highest proportion of planning applications in 2012, with more than seven applications made to improve homes in Westminster for every 100 private homes, or four and a half times the average for Great Britain.

Westminster is followed by Tunbridge Wells in second place with more than six applications for every 100 private homes in the borough, then South Bucks, Uttlesford and St Albans.Areas in the south of England dominate the top 25 places ? London saw a rise of nearly 9%, while applications in the North East fell by 6%.

?Central or local government initiatives can also make a difference to the number of applications submitted for home improvements,? said a spokesman for Barbour aBI. ?For instance, Blaenau Gwent, one of the poorest districts in Wales, saw applications for home improvements leap in 2012 to place it second in the table of home improvement districts in Wales. In previous years it had been ranked towards the bottom. Much of this increase appears to be because of energy saving initiatives leading to an increase in such improvements as external wall insulation. This may be a positive signal for the Government?s recently introduced Green Deal.?

via Which areas are the home improvement hotspots? | Alex Johnson | Independent Property Blogs.

The Green Deal is in place now and has been up and running for sometime. With this in mind I would say I am surprised to note that so many?home-owners?are not taking it upon themselves to renovate their home and make it more eco-friendly. With the use of the Green Deal home-owners are in fact not losing money in the short term and in the long term they are actually saving money too.

Here are a few worthwhile green home improvements you can make:

• Renovating your homes insulation
• Water Heating through things such as water efficient taps
• Energy Efficient Lighting
• Microgenoration ? This is something I would like to discuss in more detail as not so many people know about the improvements that can be made through Microgenoration. Things such as biomass boilers, solar panels and also ground and air source heat pumps are a few of the improvements that we can make.
• Ventilation is another area in which improvements can be made along with this heating tactics in your home can be improved and also air conditioning.

The Green Deal is something I would advise many more people to take a serious look at before renovating your home, if you are not sure how it works check out this article I wrote for a friend of ours at Green Home Design.

If you enjoyed this post, please take a moment to share it with your friends and colleagues using your favourite social network.

Source: http://www.eurofitdirect.co.uk/blog/which-areas-are-the-home-improvement-hotspots-the-green-deal/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=which-areas-are-the-home-improvement-hotspots-the-green-deal

Chuck Hagel ncaa football CES russell wilson Pokemon nhl jillian michaels

Patriot launches AERO wireless storage device and media hub for mobile data hogs

Patriot has just announced a new addition to its collection of storage offerings called the AERO. As the name suggests, the new device is of the wireless variety, which Patriot hopes will garner favor with owners of memory-light tablets and smartphones. To reinforce this ambition, there is of course a companion app -- Patriot Connect -- for Android and iOS that turns the device into a mobile media hub. With hooks for 3rd party media players, it hopes to overcome any format barriers, and there's also an internet pass through feature to let multiple users hit the web on the same IP. There are two capacities on offer -- 500GB and 1TB -- both with WiFi b / g / n, capacity for five connected devices, USB 3.0 and up to six hours of life on the rechargeable battery. The larger of the two will cost $199, dropping to $159 if you don't need so much storage. Both ship in early April.

Filed under: Storage

Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/05/patriot-launches-aero-wireless-storage-device/

minka kelly James Holmes court Rupert Sanders bachelorette penn state Ernie Els Teen Choice Awards 2012