Over 3 months, Mice genetically engineered to suffer from Alzheimer's, Brain health, improved, with water spiked with Vitamin B-3.

Vitamin B-3 could be used to treat Alzheimer's

New research finds a compound that prevents brain damage in mice. The substance is a form of vitamin B-3, and the findings suggest a potential new therapy for Alzheimer's disease in humans. A variant of vitamin B-3 may soon be a viable Alzheimer's treatment, new research suggests.

From article, (Vitamin B-3 has previously been proposed as an alternative for treating Alzheimer's disease.

In an older study, large doses of nicotinamide — also referred to as B-3 — reversed Alzheimer's-related memory loss in mice.

A new study, however, focused on the effect of nicotinamide riboside (NR), which is a form of vitamin B-3, on Alzheimer's-related brain damage in mice.

More specifically, the researchers — who were jointly led by Dr. Vilhelm A. Bohr, the chief of the National Institute on Aging's (NIA) Laboratory of Molecular Gerontology, and Dr. Yujun Hou, a postdoctoral investigator in the laboratory — focused on how NR affects the brain's ability to repair its DNA, a function that is compromised in Alzheimer's disease.

As the scientists explain, a deficiency in the brain's ability to repair its DNA leads to dysfunction in the cells' mitochondria — the energy-creating organelles inside the cells — which, in turn, leads to neuronal dysfunction and lower neuron production.

But NR is "critical for mitochondrial health and biogenesis, stem cell self-renewal, and neuronal stress resistance." Thus, Dr. Bohr and his colleagues wanted to explore the effects of NR supplementation in a mouse model of the neurological disease.

The team added NR to the drinking water of mice that had been genetically engineered to develop the hallmarks of the neurodegenerative disorder. These included toxic buildups of the proteins tau and amyloid beta, dysfunctional synapses, and neuronal death — all of which resulted in cognitive deficits.

The mice drank the water for 3 months, and their brains and cognitive health were compared with those of control mice. The findings were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Compared with the controls, the NR-treated mice had less of the protein tau in the brain, less DNA damage, and more neuroplasticity — that is, the brain's ability to "rewire" itself when it learns new things, stores new memories, or becomes damaged.
Additionally — probably as a result of NR's ability to aid the self-renewal of stem cells, or cells that have the ability to transform into any other type of cell that the body needs — the mice in the intervention group produced more neurons from neuronal stem cells.
 Also, fewer neurons died or were damaged in these mice. Intriguingly, however, their levels of the beta-amyloid protein stayed the same as those of the control mice.

Finally, the researchers say that in the hippocampi — a brain area involved in memory that often shrinks or is damaged in Alzheimer's — of the mice that received the treatment, NR appeared to get rid of the existing DNA damage or stop it from spreading.

All the brain changes were backed up by results from cognition and behavioral tests. All of the NR-treated mice performed better at maze tasks and object recognition tests, and they demonstrated stronger muscles and better gait.)

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Using Gravity to Generate Power.

Dropping A Weight Down A Disused Coal Mine Is The New Way To Store Energy - And It Might Just Work

Energy storage has always been a field that generates some far-out ideas. Even the most conventional technique, pumped hydro, is a bit counter-intuitive - pumping water from a low lake to a higher one so that you can use it to turn hydro-electric turbines. And giant batteries?

 From article, (another crazy idea has reared its head. A U.K.-based startup, Gravitricity, has just received a £650,000 ($901,000) grant from Innovate UK, the national innovation agency, for a plan that involves using disused mine shafts to store energy.
Essentially, the Gravitricity system is a huge "clock weight," the company says. It plans to suspend a 3,000-tonne cylindrical weight in mine shafts from 150m to 1,500m deep. The weight is attached to a series of winches that can lift it, and when electricity is needed, the weight is dropped to drive a turbine that creates electricity. It is then winched back to the top of the shaft using cheap, off-peak electricity.

Gravitricity says the technology “offers some of the best characteristics of lithium batteries and pumped storage, without the need for a nearby mountain with a lake or loch at the top.”

The technology can go from zero to full power in less than a second, has an efficiency of between 80% and 90% and can either run rapidly at high power for 15 minutes, or for up to eight hours at lower power. It has a 50-year design life with no limit on how often it can be used and it does not degrade, unlike batteries, the company says. In addition, it is easy to build, can be sited near existing transmission networks and is much cheaper than lithium-ion batteries.

“Over the 12 months from January 2018, we will be undertaking sub-system design and deploying a 250kW concept demonstrator. We aim to trial our first full-scale prototype in 2019 or 2020 at a disused mine in the U.K.,” it adds.

This is not the first attempt to use gravity to generate power. An American company called ARES has developed a system that uses trains filled with rocks on a hillside, pushing them to the top of the hill out of peak demand and generating electricity by releasing the train and letting it roll to the bottom.

Another company, Energy Cache, planned to do the same thing using ski lifts full of weights, but little has been heard of it recently. There are also proposals to fill mines with water and use them as underground pumped hydro facilities, but the logistics of those make them a more complex undertaking than Gravitricity’s scheme.

A different approach has been taken by another U.K. company, Highview Power. It uses off-peak electricity to freeze nitrogen, a process it calls liquid air, and releases it at peak times to produce power. Its system has the advantage that it can be easily incorporated into industrial facilities.

A final approach that may become commonplace in years to come is to use off-peak renewable energy to create hydrogen from water. The hydrogen can then be stored either on site in tanks or injected into the natural gas network. It can be used to run fuel cells or it can be burnt in engines to create power.)

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Mars CO2 Atmosphere idea for producing Oxygen With this new method.

New plasma technology could help SpaceX colonize Mars

Elon Musk's vision of establishing a human settlement on Mars just became a lot more feasible, after a study conducted by a team of Portuguese-French scientists concluded that plasma technology could help foster the production of oxygen on the Red Planet's atmosphere. The recent study, published in the Plasma Sources Science and Technology journal, asserts ...

 From article, (Elon Musk’s vision of establishing a human settlement on Mars just became a lot more feasible, after a study conducted by a team of Portuguese-French scientists concluded that plasma technology could help foster the production of oxygen on the Red Planet’s atmosphere.

The recent study, published in the Plasma Sources Science and Technology journal, asserts that the prevalence of carbon dioxide in Mars’ atmosphere is actually ideal for the creation of oxygen. According to University of Lisbon researcher Vasco Guerra, the carbon dioxide-rich state of the planet’s atmosphere provides the perfect conditions for creating oxygen through decomposition.

In a statement to Astrowatch.net, Guerra noted that the use of low-temperature plasma decomposition would benefit both Mars’ inhabitants and those traveling to and from the planet.

“Our main conclusion is precisely that Mars has nearly ideal conditions for creating oxygen from carbon dioxide by non-thermal plasmas. Carbon dioxide decomposition can provide oxygen for breathing and contribute to the production of fuels to be used on the return trip to Earth,” Guerra said, according to Astrowatch.net.

As noted in the findings of the researchers, the production of oxygen on the Red Planet would be done in-situ, which is ideal considering that Mars’ atmosphere is about 95.9 percent carbon dioxide. This CO2 which could then be converted into oxygen and carbon monoxide, the latter of which will be utilized in the production of propellant for rocket vehicles. The low general temperature in the Red Planet, which is -82 degrees Fahrenheit on average, is also perfect for the decomposition of carbon dioxide.

Plasma technologies for CO2 reforming currently utilize solid oxide electrolyzer cells (SOEC). Considering the conditions on the Red Planet, however, the researchers mentioned in their conclusion that a non-equilibrium plasma process should be far more power-efficient and effective in producing oxygen than conventional SOEC. Guerra, however, noted that despite the promising results of his team’s study, more research is needed in order to implement technology that can be used in future interplanetary missions.)

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Amazon: Why can't I deliver packages?

Here's Why Amazon Wants to Start Its Own Delivery Service

E-commerce giant Amazon reportedly plans to take on UPS and FedEx with its new delivery service.

From article, (Amazon looks to be gearing up for another fight. The Wall Street Journal reports the company is preparing a delivery service for businesses, which would compete directly with UPS, FedEx and (less directly) with the U.S. Postal Service.

“Shipping with Amazon,” as the service is called, will pick up packages from businesses, initially the company’s third party sellers, and deliver them to customers. Deliveries are reportedly set to begin in Los Angeles in the coming weeks and expand from there. News of the service sent shares of UPS (UPS, -4.57%) and FedEx (FDX, -5.35%)lower in early trading Friday.

Amazon is an ecosphere unto itself. Jeff Bezos and company like to have a hand in all aspects of the sales process. Right now, one of the most crucial parts, logistics, is out of its control. By bringing delivery in-house for third-party partners (and, presumably, for first-party goods at some point), it doesn’t have to worry about partner service interruptions and how packages are handled.

You don’t need to look further than the recent holiday season, when Amazon faced delays, to see why it would want to explore alternatives.

Amazon currently records big losses on shipping. Last year, the company spent as much as $20 billion ensuring its products made it to customers. By taking some (or all) of that in-house, Amazon could conceivably better control those costs, especially if drone delivery becomes as widespread as the company hopes it will.

Beyond that, though, there’s a lot of money to be made in the shipping industry. UPS, in its most recent quarter, reported revenues of $18.83 billion. If Amazon could get even a piece of that pie, it would be a big boost to its bottom line.)

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