User:Caston/BlogEntry: 2010 October 19 02:48:44 UTC

Improving memory in mice by tweaking stress response
Jata posted a link on facebook: Experimental Drug Preserves Memory in Rodents http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/26564/

"An experimental drug developed by researchers at the University of Edinburgh reverses age-related memory decline in mice, returning their brains to a more youthful state of cognitive function. The compound is designed to dampen the production of glucocorticoids, stress hormones that are thought to damage the brain's learning and memory centers over time."

Partial Deficiency or Short-Term Inhibition of 11β-Hydroxysteroid Dehydrogenase Type 1 Improves Cognitive Function in Aging Mice http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/abstract/30/41/13867

Caspases as key facilitators of nuclear reprogramming
Jata posted another link that she was quite excited about.

It appears that caspases that control cell death are also used for reprogramming of cells that become pluripotent.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/39721905/Apoptotic-Caspases-Regulate-Induction-of-iPSCs-From-Human-Fibroblasts

Adding mindmaps to the wiki
For a while now I have been wanting to add collaborative mindmaps to Rejuvepedia but there was simply no way to really do this with currently available software. There is one fairly old and unstable extension to add mindmaps to mediawiki but is now in active development.

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:WikiMindMap

I noticed that a completely different wiki program does use mindmaps:



This wiki is known as wikkawiki and does have some very nice features but as far as I can see there is no easy way to migrate from mediawiki to wikkawiki. I could ask on the mailing list or search the archives perhaps. It would be interesting to see how rejuvepedia would look on wikkawiki.

http://wikkawiki.org/HomePage

So far the only way I have been able to add (read-only) mindmaps to Rejuvepedia is by creating them in fremind and then exporting them to PNG format like the following:



It would be really nice to allow collaborative mind mapping in mediawiki or on Rejuvepedia. Rejuvpedia uses mediawiki.