By tinkering with yeast and sea slugs, scientists have found a surprising possible explanation for the way the human brain stores long-term memories.
These lowly creatures possess an unusual protein that exists in two shapes. In one shape, the protein is sluggish or inactive. In its second shape, the protein perpetuates itself indefinitely but can also harmlessly switch back to the inactive form.
Researchers believe that in higher organisms the same protein may exploit this second shape to confer lasting stability to sites on brain cells, called synapses, that store the memories of a lifetime.
Surprisingly, the shape-shifting protein in yeast and slugs has all the hallmarks of another protein, the infamous prion, found in humans and other animals.
Such prions also assume two shapes. One serves a normal function in the brain. The second sets into motion a runaway process that converts normal prions into a toxic form. As a result, deadly clumps of protein leave holes in the brain and cause disorders like mad cow disease.
The disease-causing prion and the memory-storage protein are not identical, said Eric Kandel, a neuroscientist at Columbia Uni-versity who shared the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on memory formation. But they share attributes that make prion-like behavior a perfect mechanism for storing memories.
With experience and learning, new synapses are formed and others are strengthened, Kandel said. Indeed, mechanisms determining short- and long-term memories are formed have largely been worked out. But questions of how long-term memories are actually stored and what keeps synapses from losing their connectivity under the onslaught of cellular remodeling are outstanding mysteries in biology.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing