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Rita Levi-Montalcini, a history of science, love and struggle.

2021-12-30T12:58:10+01:0030 December 2021|Categories: Medicine and Research|Tags: , , , |

As far as 30 years ago it was taught, unfortunately also at school, that the nervous system is a static thing, that is born and dies, without growing; than the nerves once injured, they no longer regenerate. Fortunately this is not the case and, if we know the truth, we owe it to a great scientist: Rita Levi-Montalcini. She was responsible for the discovery of the neuronal growth factor (NGF) but not only: his is also a good science story, love, struggle and tenacity that we now tell you. Rita was born in Turin in 1902 from a very interesting family: the father, Adamo [...]

Tintarella…of Sun!

2021-07-08T15:12:37+02:008 July 2021|Categories: Curiosity|Tags: , , |

Have you ever been told “how white you are, get some sun "or" you don't have melanin? You never get tanned!”. Good, if it has never happened to you you are very lucky. If, on the other hand, you always hear the same story every year, welcome to the pale face club. But why in the summer some people tan more than others? What is melanin and how does it work? When we expose ourselves to the sun and UV rays hit our skin, a protective mechanism triggered by melanocytes is activated, epidermal cells, which produce melanin. Melanocytes are formed dendritic cells [...]

Multiple sclerosis: a technology against the fatigue

2021-07-02T13:44:07+02:002 July 2021|Categories: Medicine and Research|Tags: , , , , |

Multiple sclerosis is a neurodegenerative disease that affects the central nervous system, also referred to as "autoimmune" due to the reaction of the immune system directed towards the body. The immune defenses attack certain parts of the central nervous system, recognizing them as foreign bodies and activating an inflammatory process that can damage or cause the loss of myelin, a substance that lines nerve fibers like a sheath, and the cells that produce it. This process can take place in various areas, affecting the optic nerves, the cerebellum and spinal cord and it is for this reason that the symptoms of the disease may be different a [...]

Serological tests and swabs: when and why to do them

2021-06-19T16:59:41+02:008 January 2021|Categories: Medicine and Research|Tags: , , , |

The pandemic has just begun, we all had heard of tests and swabs before: What are? What are they for? How many must be made, Why? What are false positives? A few months later, we started talking mainly about serological tests, sampling, antibodies and vaccine. A very common mistake has been to confuse the two types of tests: the swab and the serological. But these two procedures are very different from each other and must be done for different purposes, let's see why. First of all, when we talk about serological tests we have to talk about antibodies. Antibodies are "Y" shaped proteins, produced by cells [...]

Music as doping

2021-03-14T13:12:22+01:0028 March 2019|Categories: Curiosity|Tags: , |

What music do you listen to in the gym? What is your playlist when you go for a run? You know what the effects of music are on your brain and your performance? Music is made of rhythm, harmony, time and content which are also the basic elements of physical movements. So a link between these was inevitable and a new branch of research called "neuromusicologia". In 2007, l'US Track & Field, the national body for distance racing, has banned the use of headphones and portable audio players in its official competitions, "to ensure safety and prevent runners [...]

IPSC: The future of stem cells

2019-01-18T20:54:58+01:0011 January 2019|Categories: No Category|Tags: , , , |

Immaginate ogni cellula del nostro corpo come ad una potenziale cellula staminale! Sembra fantascienza, invece è realtà grazie agli studi di Kazutoshi Takahashi e Shinya Yamanaka, che nel 2006 hanno dimostrato che è possibile riprogrammare una cellula somatica (it is. cellula epiteliale) riportandola a uno stadio di staminalità. Queste cellule riprogrammate, grazie all’inserimento artificiale di 4 stamina cells, furono chiamate iPSC ossia “Cellule Staminali Pluripotenti Indotte”. Prima di tutto occorre fare un passo indietro e chiederci cosa sia una cellula staminale. Si tratta di una cellula che ha la capacità di trasformarsi in altre cellule del corpo attraverso un meccanismo chiamato “differenziamento [...]

The rules of science and the game of vaccines

2021-07-15T20:02:37+02:004 January 2019|Categories: Medicine and Research|Tags: , , |

Vaccines are not safe al 100%, science says so. He says it serenely because, Luckily, no scientist would dare to say that something is sure to 100%. Thanks to scientific progress, however, we can be ambitious and aim for maximum safety and effectiveness. Unfortunately, however, when you say a vaccine is safe 98%, it looks like that 2% after all it is the scariest thing in the world. It is important to clarify; rowing against technological development cannot do any society good. It sounds clear and simple, but apparently it is not so shared. In the last few years [...]

Less sweets and more wine: the secret of youth?

2021-07-15T20:08:15+02:0022 December 2018|Categories: Food and Health|Tags: , , , |

It's really good to eat less? In 2004 four men and four women volunteered for the BIOSPHERE project 2: a closed structure, designed to contain a complex and self-sufficient ecosystem, with a savannah, a coral reef and a tropical forest, to study and plan a future space colonization. They therefore agreed to remain closed in a system with no communication with the outside, without the possibility of being able to communicate with each other and having to survive only on the food they can get for themselves. BIOSFERA2 did not give the expected results and was stopped sooner than expected; but the data collected [...]

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