industryterm:immune systems

  • Axie Infinity: Pets for the Digital Age
    https://hackernoon.com/axie-infinity-pets-for-the-digital-age-68f370f0ee2d?source=rss----3a8144

    Humans have had special bonds with animals since before the rise of civilization. Pets such as dogs provide companionship, protection, and have even been shown to strengthen the immune systems of the human babies that grow up alongside them. Neolithic hunter-gatherers were sometimes buried with their dogs, indicating a connection that was clearly emotionally significant. However, recent trends in urbanization and an aging global population have challenged conventional pet ownership.There are a few problems with pet ownership that increase the barriers to entry for millennials and generation Z.Time commitmentAs global competition increases, young people have less time to commit to pet ownership. Pets must be fed, watched, exercised, and loved! Owning a pet is a difficult journey that (...)

    #axie-infinity #blockchain #gaming #pets-for-the-digital-age #digital-pet

  • The Link Between Complicated Pregnancies and Child Prodigies - Facts So Romantic
    http://nautil.us/blog/the-link-between-complicated-pregnancies-and-child-prodigies

    Wondrous talent—like that of mathematical and artistic savants or child prodigies—is exceedingly rare. It occurs so unexpectedly one may be tempted to think of the phenomena as sui generis, so unusual that no rules or commonalities could apply across cases. However, research is steadily disclosing the mechanisms responsible: not just the ones involving nurture’s affect on the brains of savants and prodigies, but also ones involving the lived experience and immune systems of their mothers when pregnant with them. The evidence suggests an expanded framework for explaining some of the most exceptional and amazing capacities human beings possess. Let’s take a look at three individuals:1) Jay, a teenager, says that music streams into his head at lightning speed. Sometimes several symphonies (...)

  • Yes, Your Brain Does Process Information - Facts So Romantic
    http://nautil.us/blog/yes-your-brain-does-process-information

    Do you know what information is? No worries if you don’t. Clarity on the concept is apparently hard to come by. In a May cover story, New Scientist wondered, “What is information?” The answer: “a mystery bound up with thermodynamics” that “seems to play a part in everything from how machines work to how living creatures function.” Plausible enough—genomes, immune systems, and brains all seem to process information. Yet published the next week was an essay on Aeon by Robert Epstein, a senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology, explaining, “Your brain does not process information” (emphasis mine). “We are organisms, not computers. Get over it. Let’s get on with the business of trying to understand ourselves, but without being encumbered by (...)

  • Your Roommate Is Changing Your Immune System - Facts So Romantic
    http://nautil.us/blog/your-roommate-is-changing-your-immune-system

    Our veins are swimming with immune cells of many different kinds. Some bear the memory of previous infections, in case we should encounter them again; some are actively fighting invaders; others are merely on the look-out. Counting all of the varieties of cells and what molecules they are producing gives researchers a profile of someone’s immune system. In a study of more than 600 people, published recently in Nature Immunology, just such an analysis revealed that people’s immune systems are incredibly stable over time—even getting a vaccine or a stomach upset changed things only briefly, before the immune cells returned to normal. It also showed that almost the only thing that will change a given person’s normal seems to be living with a partner.Maintaining a relationship isn’t the best (...)

  • Honeybees abandoning hives and dying due to #insecticide use, research finds | Environment | theguardian.com
    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/09/honeybees-dying-insecticide-harvard-study

    Previously, scientists had suggested that neonicotinoids can lead to CCD by damaging the immune systems of bees, making them more vulnerable to parasites and disease. However, the new research undermines this theory by finding that all the colonies had near-identical levels of pathogen infestation.

    “It is striking and perplexing to observe the empty neonicotinoid-treated colonies because honey bees normally do not abandon their hives during the winter,” the scientists wrote. “This observation may suggest the impairment of honey bee neurological functions, specifically memory, cognition, or behaviour, as the results from the chronic sub-lethal neonicotinoid exposure.” Earlier research showed neonicotinoid exposure can damage the renowned ability of bees to navigate home.

    The new research follows similar previous work by the same group and comparison of the two studies shows that cold winters appear to exacerbate the effects of neonicotinoids on the bees. In the cold winter of 2010-11, 94% of the insecticide-exposed colonies suffered CCD compared to 50% in the new study.

    “Sudden deaths of entire honey bee colonies is a persistent concern in North America,” said Paul de Zylva, Friends of the Earth’s senior nature campaigner. “Comprehensive research into the role pesticides play in bee decline is urgently required – including how they may compound other pressures, such as a lack of food and loss of habitat.” Lu agreed: “Future research could help elucidate the biological mechanism that is responsible for linking sub-lethal neonicotinoid exposures to CCD. Hopefully we can reverse the continuing trend of honeybee loss.”

    In April, a landmark European study revealed the UK is suffering one of the worst rates of honeybee colony deaths in Europe. “The UK government [which opposed the EU’s neonicotinoid ban] has accepted the need for a national action plan to reverse bee and pollinator decline,” said de Zylva. “But its draft plan is dangerously complacent on pesticides, placing far too much trust in chemical firms and flawed procedures.”

    #abeilles #pesticides

    http://www.bulletinofinsectology.org/pdfarticles/vol67-2014-125-130lu.pdf

  • Les femmes vivent plus vieilles que les hommes, c’est à cause de leurs hormones.
    Elles perdent moins vite leurs lymphocytes.

    Women’s immune systems hold the secret to longer life - Telegraph
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10056901/Womens-immune-systems-hold-the-secret-to-longer-life.html

    A new study has shown that levels of key white blood cells, which are responsible for fighting off infections, become lower in men as they get older compared to women.
    The average life expectancy for men in the UK is 79 years old, while for women it is 82 years old. In some parts of the world, such as Japan, the gap is even larger, with women living on average nearly six years longer.
    (…)
    Scientists in Japan have now uncovered another reason after finding that the levels of white blood cells and other parts of the immune system called cytokines decline faster in men.
    They believe this might be because female sex hormones such as oestrogen can boost the immune system’s response to infections.