403: forbidden

The Guardian reports that Staphylococcus aureus, already associated with and predispositive towards eczema development, makes a protein that interacts directly with the nerves that produce/transmit itching sensations.

We just might know how antidepressants work, now. As it turns out, both SSRIs and ketamine bind to a receptor for Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor, TrkB (free article). If you just want the high points, there's a graphical abstract on the front page of the PDF version.

Now, this right here? This made my day. :D



It also offers some new leads to understanding why entire categories of antidepressants don't work for some people. Subtle differences among TrkB alleles and expression frequencies might have big effects on what fits into that molecular pocket and how strong an effect it has. After all, we already know that one particular allele seems to confer a 2.2x risk of suicide attempts in depressed people.

On a more basic research level, we might also be able to develop model animals with cued brain-only overexpression of TrkB (where a gene promoter is added, and operates IFF some exogenous chemical cue is present) to determine what effects it has, and whether it's worthwhile to consider tinkering with the expression rate as a treatment method.

This is far too important a subject to languish behind a paywall. Original article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/02/health/coronavirus-smell-taste.html

tl;dr: Scent is intimately tied to physical and emotional well-being. If you can't smell sulfur dioxide, you can't tell that the kitchen is filling with gas from the oven or stove. If you can't smell food, you're at a real loss for determining whether it's gone off, and even when nothing's wrong with it, most people say that the pleasure of eating is gone. And people with damage to their sense of smell tend to become socially isolated--because face-to-face interactions are no longer enjoyable.


( Full text inside. )


Addendum:
My immediate thought after reading this was, 'What if the Western plague of anomie is down to our cultures' insistence that smelling like oneself is unacceptable?' It's such a simple, pervasive thing. If scent is up there with touch in its ability to create feelings of interpersonal connection and warmth, then what effect does its absence have on political polarization? On a societies' degree of individualism vs. collectivism? On America's basic civil society, which has been crumbling for generations?

Some Cambrian-era fossil comb jellies had skeletons. (Note that comb jellies are not actual jellyfish. Instead they're the oldest/most basal animal clade. True jellies are relative newcomers.)

I have a presentation and poster session a week from today, on the behavior of Arabidopsis thaliana LBD16 mutants under phosphate starvation. This afternoon, I finished the last of the main-inquiry data gathering. Now I have to make it mean something.

Probable radio silence ahead, not that that's any different from usual.

Subject line of an e-mail I just recieved: "Over 1,000 New Moronic Acids from Alfa Aesar".

Sadly, the body of the message is all about boronic acids, which are far more mundane.


(In other news, I'm allllllllmost done with the semester. Yay!)


ETA: 5/19/11, 0:29 - First off I am now DONE! with the semester. Second, the real topic of this post gets better. Moronic acid turns out to be a real substance.

The Minnesota Starvation Experiment.

Inspired by the Institute For Figuring. This is what you get when you start with a round of six chain stitches, and double each stitch for six full rounds.

Last week I assembled some trellising to hide the neighbor's ugly garage wall, and give the pitiful-looking grapevine someplace to grow. It looks good, but the cheap wood of the trellis is starting to bend under its own weight already.

Monday, my housemates and I hauled a massive desk bequeathed to us by the previous owners upstairs for my use. Because it's large, red (cherry stain, if not actual cherry wood), and evil to move in any way at all, we've named it "The Balrog". In retrospect, we probably should've waited for the professional movers, but the three of us got ambitious. We also succeeded with only a minor ding to the stairwell, which speaks for itself.

My own clumsiness and some misfortune in getting the Balrog into position has left a wide, shallow scrape on the wood floor (appears to be finish damage only). While I'm fixing it, I figure I may as well fill in and finish over the 1/8" deep, 1/8" wide cross-grain gouges left by the previous owners. (I can't figure out what they did to make that shape. Fit their kids for iceskates indoors, maybe?) It will be impossible to hide that it's a patch job, but that's preferable to having the unsanded wood-splinters hanging out near my bare feet.

Yesterday, I did battle with the community college bureaucracy in order to establish my student status. A rematch to determine my tuition residency is in the works, but it's waiting on a utility bill so that I can prove I'm planning to stay (in the mean time, they're charging me the out-of-state rate, and the understaffed FinAid office will eventually get around to reimbursing me). It's worth noting that I ache more after standing in lines for 5h than I did after moving extremely heavy furniture the day before.

In this morning's bout of insomnia, I've been reading about the origins of number representation. The results are pretty cool, and I'm not going to spoil the suspense for you. Read it yourself - I'm going to try to sleep some more.

You really can be bored to death, accoring to researchers from University College, London, but it's a slow and tedious process.

(Abstract here. I have a PDF of the full text, if anyone's interested.)