Salvatore Luria: Nobel Prize for research on the multiplication and mutability of viruses
The story of the Nobel laureate Salvatore Luria, a passionate scientist!
Tintarella…of Sun!
Have you ever been told “how white you are, get some sun "or" you don't have melanin? You never get tanned!”. Well, 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? Cos'è e come agisce la melanina? 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
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, il cervelletto e il midollo spinale ed è per questo motivo che i sintomi della malattia possono essere diversi a [...]
Legal cannabis: light and therapeutic
In Italy the sale of Cannabis sativa with THC content up to 0,2% (and de facto tolerance up to 0,6%) it's legal. However, the same product also contains CBD, cannabidiol, with other properties and effects.
Serological tests and swabs: when and why to do them
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, vediamo perché. 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
What music do you listen to in the gym? Qual è la tua playlist quando vai a correre? Sai quali sono gli effetti della musica sul tuo cervello e le tue prestazioni? La musica è fatta di ritmo, armonia, tempo e contenuto che sono anche gli elementi alla base dei movimenti fisici. Quindi un legame tra questi era inevitabile e se ne occupa una nuova branca della ricerca chiamata "neuromusicologia". In 2007, l'US Track & Field, l'ente nazionale per le corse a distanza, ha vietato l'uso di cuffie e lettori audio portatili nelle sue gare ufficiali, "per garantire la sicurezza e impedire ai corridori [...]
IPSC: The future of stem cells
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 geni, 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
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?
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. Accettarono quindi di rimanere chiusi in un sistema senza comunicazioni con l'esterno, 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 [...]
The drug from the producer to the consumer
di Erika S L’opinione pubblica in materia di farmaci è divisa tra le proteste contro tempi di approvazione giudicati spesso lunghi e ostaggio della burocrazia e i dubbi sulla qualità dei prodotti immessi in commercio. I farmaci salvano vite, ma possono causare reazioni avverse. Tra i consumatori c’è chi si domanda se tutti i medicinali autorizzati siano veramente sicuri e se non ci vengano nascoste informazioni cruciali circa i loro effetti o composizione. Poiché la questione è di primario interesse per la salute pubblica, tutti i cittadini sarebbero tenuti ad informarsi sull’iter che ogni farmaco segue prima di raggiungere gli [...]