UC Science Today

A good night’s rest could be the body’s best defense against the buildup of beta-amyloid, a toxic protein linked to Alzheimer’s disease. In a new study led by the University of California, Berkeley, researchers found that participants who had better quality sleep were able to retain more memories and had fewer deposits of beta-amyloid. Co-author Bryce Mander says that the findings add a preventative measure in a field where treatments have been largely unsuccessful.

"And one of the hypotheses from that is that well, amyloid has already ravaged the brain it's already triggered this degeneration. The neurons are already gone. So if you remove it, you know it's kind of like clearing the rubble after an earthquake, the damage has been done. But if you could do something before that maybe enhance the structural integrity of your roads or buildings so they don't break as much in an earthquake, the same for sleep. If you make the brain healthier, you promote the transformation of memories to be more permanent. You kind of help the structural integrity of the brain by enhancing sleep, then maybe the pathology would not be as successful at ravaging the brain."

Fruit flies have proven to be useful models to study kidney stones because they produce stones similar to those in humans. Using a fly model, a team of researchers led by urologist Dr. Thomas Chi of the University of California, San Francisco found that zinc plays a critical role in stone formation.

"So if we fed the fly zinc, they seem to increase their stone formation. If we reduce the amount of zinc inside their urine by either genetically knocking down their ability to transport zinc, or by giving them a drug that bound up all the zinc, their stone formation rates went down quite a lot, and so we think that without zinc present inside the kidney of the fly, stones are unable to form at the same rate."

Chi says that one of the goals is to prevent kidney stones from forming in the first place.

"We haven't had a new drug developed in the last twenty to twenty-five years. And so we're hoping that new research like this that looks at novel targets may open a window to develop new drugs."

Fruit flies have proven to be useful models to study kidney stones because they produce stones similar to those in humans. Using a fly model, a team of researchers led by urologist Dr. Thomas Chi of the University of California, San Francisco found that zinc plays a critical role in stone formation.

"So if we fed the fly zinc, they seem to increase their stone formation. If we reduce the amount of zinc inside their urine by either genetically knocking down their ability to transport zinc, or by giving them a drug that bound up all the zinc, their stone formation rates went down quite a lot, and so we think that without zinc present inside the kidney of the fly, stones are unable to form at the same rate."

Chi says that one of the goals is to prevent kidney stones from forming in the first place.

"We haven't had a new drug developed in the last twenty to twenty-five years. And so we're hoping that new research like this that looks at novel targets may open a window to develop new drugs."

Fruit flies have proven to be useful models to study kidney stones because they produce stones similar to those in humans. Using a fly model, a team of researchers led by urologist Dr. Thomas Chi of the University of California, San Francisco found that zinc plays a critical role in stone formation.

"So if we fed the fly zinc, they seem to increase their stone formation. If we reduce the amount of zinc inside their urine by either genetically knocking down their ability to transport zinc, or by giving them a drug that bound up all the zinc, their stone formation rates went down quite a lot, and so we think that without zinc present inside the kidney of the fly, stones are unable to form at the same rate."

Chi says that one of the goals is to prevent kidney stones from forming in the first place.

"We haven't had a new drug developed in the last twenty to twenty-five years. And so we're hoping that new research like this that looks at novel targets may open a window to develop new drugs."

Fruit flies have proven to be useful models to study kidney stones because they produce stones similar to those in humans. Using a fly model, a team of researchers led by urologist Dr. Thomas Chi of the University of California, San Francisco found that zinc plays a critical role in stone formation.

"So if we fed the fly zinc, they seem to increase their stone formation. If we reduce the amount of zinc inside their urine by either genetically knocking down their ability to transport zinc, or by giving them a drug that bound up all the zinc, their stone formation rates went down quite a lot, and so we think that without zinc present inside the kidney of the fly, stones are unable to form at the same rate."

Chi says that one of the goals is to prevent kidney stones from forming in the first place.

"We haven't had a new drug developed in the last twenty to twenty-five years. And so we're hoping that new research like this that looks at novel targets may open a window to develop new drugs."

Do you have a tendency to crack a smile or burst into laughter a lot? Well, you may have what’s been come to be known as ‘the giggle gene’ – specifically a shortened version of the gene, or a short allele. Psychologist Robert Levenson of the University of California, Berkeley says this gene variant is involved in the regulation of serotonin and has been previously associated with depression or marital bliss – a subject he’s been studying for over two decades.

"We did a series of studies before we did this marriage study, where we just asked a simple question, and that is, "If you have the short allele, and we do something that's emotionally positive, will you have bigger positive emotions, too?" And it turned out that you do."

They found this out by videotaping study participants while watching funny movies or looking at humorous cartoons. But Levenson says that those with the short allele were more susceptible to emotions in general – positive or negative.

"So it didn't seem that the short allele produced a particular kind of emotional response, it just produced a bigger emotional response across the board."

Do you have a tendency to crack a smile or burst into laughter a lot? Well, you may have what’s been come to be known as ‘the giggle gene’ – specifically a shortened version of the gene, or a short allele. Psychologist Robert Levenson of the University of California, Berkeley says this gene variant is involved in the regulation of serotonin and has been previously associated with depression or marital bliss – a subject he’s been studying for over two decades.

"We did a series of studies before we did this marriage study, where we just asked a simple question, and that is, "If you have the short allele, and we do something that's emotionally positive, will you have bigger positive emotions, too?" And it turned out that you do."

They found this out by videotaping study participants while watching funny movies or looking at humorous cartoons. But Levenson says that those with the short allele were more susceptible to emotions in general – positive or negative.

"So it didn't seem that the short allele produced a particular kind of emotional response, it just produced a bigger emotional response across the board."

Do you have a tendency to crack a smile or burst into laughter a lot? Well, you may have what’s been come to be known as ‘the giggle gene’ – specifically a shortened version of the gene, or a short allele. Psychologist Robert Levenson of the University of California, Berkeley says this gene variant is involved in the regulation of serotonin and has been previously associated with depression or marital bliss – a subject he’s been studying for over two decades.

"We did a series of studies before we did this marriage study, where we just asked a simple question, and that is, "If you have the short allele, and we do something that's emotionally positive, will you have bigger positive emotions, too?" And it turned out that you do."

They found this out by videotaping study participants while watching funny movies or looking at humorous cartoons. But Levenson says that those with the short allele were more susceptible to emotions in general – positive or negative.

"So it didn't seem that the short allele produced a particular kind of emotional response, it just produced a bigger emotional response across the board."

Do you have a tendency to crack a smile or burst into laughter a lot? Well, you may have what’s been come to be known as ‘the giggle gene’ – specifically a shortened version of the gene, or a short allele. Psychologist Robert Levenson of the University of California, Berkeley says this gene variant is involved in the regulation of serotonin and has been previously associated with depression or marital bliss – a subject he’s been studying for over two decades.

"We did a series of studies before we did this marriage study, where we just asked a simple question, and that is, "If you have the short allele, and we do something that's emotionally positive, will you have bigger positive emotions, too?" And it turned out that you do."

They found this out by videotaping study participants while watching funny movies or looking at humorous cartoons. But Levenson says that those with the short allele were more susceptible to emotions in general – positive or negative.

"So it didn't seem that the short allele produced a particular kind of emotional response, it just produced a bigger emotional response across the board."

Many parts of our nation’s infrastructure are aging and dams are no exception. And as troubling as that sounds, especially if there is an extreme event like a large earthquake, the good news is that the decades-old engineering was sound and is holding up to the test of time. Civil engineer Lee Glascoe of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was part of a team evaluating the design standards of soil filters used in embankment dams.

"The soil filters are coarser grained soils that are designed to withstand both large movements and to prevent the rapid erosion or the flushing of the finer earthen material that is constructed around the dam. So essentially, it’s there to provide the dam reinforcement."

The team was able to validate the effectiveness of soil filters using 3-D computer modeling and simulations.

"The earlier engineers had fairly straightforward but sound principles upon which they based their designs. The challenge for engineers today is how do we refresh that infrastructure?"