U.S. Senate Passes Landmark Opioids Legislation
Policy and Advocacy News
Alexander: Senate Sends to President Opioids Legislation Called "Landmark" by Leader McConnell
October 3, 2018 | U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education Labor & Pensions
The United States Senate recently passed by a vote of 98-1, the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act, sponsored by Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.). Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has called the bill, which is now heading to the President’s desk for his signature to become law, “landmark” opioids legislation.
Airlines Fight Effort to Force Them to Carry Lab Animals
October 2, 2018 | Science
A last-ditch attempt by biomedical science advocates to force airlines to transport nonhuman primates and other research animals appears to be facing stiff headwinds. Last week, four international carriers strongly urged the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to summarily reject a plea from a leading research advocacy organization to order the airlines to resume flying animals to research facilities around the world.
Notable Distinctions
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2018
October 5, 2018 | The Nobel Prize
Cancer kills millions of people every year and is one of humanity’s greatest health challenges. By stimulating the inherent ability of our immune system to attack tumor cells this year’s Nobel Laureates have established an entirely new principle for cancer therapy.
Myth-Busting Study of Teenage Brains Wins Royal Society Prize
October 1, 2018 | The Guardian
A radical reframing of our understanding of the teenage mind, that explains typically ridiculed behaviors such as risk-taking, emotional instability and heightened self-consciousness as outward signs of great transformation, has won the prestigious Royal Society prize for science book of the year.
Science in the News
Decoding the Regulation of Cell Survival - A Major Step Towards Preventing Neurons From Dying
October 4, 2018 | Technische Universität Dresden
An interdisciplinary and international research group led by Dr. Volker Busskamp from the Center for Regenerative Therapies Dresden at the TU Dresden (CRTD) has decoded the regulatory impact on neuronal survival of a small non-coding RNA molecule, so-called miRNA, at the highest resolution to date.
Every Cell Has a Story to Tell in Brain Injury
October 3, 2018 | NINDS Press Release
Traumatic head injury can have widespread effects in the brain, but now scientists can look in real time at how head injury affects thousands of individual cells and genes simultaneously in mice. This approach could lead to precise treatments for traumatic brain injury (TBI). The study, reported in Nature Communications, was supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the National Institutes of Health.
Making the Right Connections
October 1, 2018 | Emory University
Songbirds learn to sing in a way similar to how humans learn to speak — by listening to their fathers and trying to duplicate the sounds. The bird’s brain sends commands to the vocal muscles to sing what it hears, and then the brain keeps trying to adjust the command until the sound echoes the one made by the parent.
Songbird Data Yields New Theory for Learning Sensorimotor Skills
October 1, 2018 | Emory University
Songbirds learn to sing in a way similar to how humans learn to speak — by listening to their fathers and trying to duplicate the sounds. The bird’s brain sends commands to the vocal muscles to sing what it hears, and then the brain keeps trying to adjust the command until the sound echoes the one made by the parent.
How Much Control do You Really Have Over Your Actions? These Brain Regions Provide Clues
October 1, 2018 | Science
Alien limb syndrome isn’t as extraterrestrial as it sounds—but it’s still pretty freaky. Patients complain that one of their hands has gone “rogue,” reaching for things without their knowledge…Now, a study analyzing the locations of brain lesions in these patients—and those who have akinetic mutism, in which people can scratch an itch and chew food placed into their mouths without being aware they’ve initiated these movements—are shedding light on how our brains know what’s going on with our bodies.
