Swimming Spines | Brain Builder | Carti-B

As a Keanu Reeves superfan, you can imagine my level of stoke to learn his new novel is next-up in book club!

What’s your favorite Keanu movie? (mine is currently John Wick)

-Keanu Steeves

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Swimming Spines

Zebrafish finally told us how they repair severed spinal cords. Well, more like a newly created map of their nerve cells showed us the way.

• Spinal cord damage kills neurons in most species

• Creating toxicity that prevents healing

• Zebrafish neurons quickly reprogram upon injury

These reprogrammed neurons buy time for repair cells to heal without a toxic threat. Future research will try to mimic zebrafish’s protections in human spinal cord treatments. Back to work!

One fish, two fish, back is new fish

(This reminds me of a favorite animal that regrows pretty much anything. Let’s look back at axolotl brains!) 👇️ 

Brain Builder

Axolotls are so smart, they can regrow their brains. Researchers mapped the telencephalon region, then removed a section to learn exactly how these dragon-like salamanders regenerate brain tissue.

• Telencephalon has a large impact on animal behavior/cognition

• Phase 1: Specialized progenitor cells begin healing

• Phase 2: Those cells turn into neuroblasts (newly discovered in axolotl)

Regeneration is completed in phase 3, when neuroblasts become the exact neurons that were removed. Learning how these slippery salamanders build their brains back could lead to advances in regenerative medicine research.

Extra brains? More like “ask-a-lot-ls”

Carti-B

Dancing could be the key to healthy knees. Researchers developed “dancing molecules” that trigger cartilage growth.

• Dancing molecules = rapidly moving synthetic nanofibers

• Targets TGFb-1 protein crucial for cartilage regrowth

• Generated more collagen II than natural proteins

Human cells showed significant regrowth after 3 days of “dancing”. Future clinical trials will also assess the affects on bone and spinal cord repair. Heeeey macarena, ay!

Dale a tu cuerpo alegría Macarena

Unnatural Selection

Last week: “How would you traverse sky islands?”

You’re right! Always good to have a backup option. (Is that a st3v stowaway?!)

st3v on site

Zebra-st3v

Day 11: st3v has been accepted to zebrafish school. He begins spinal magic lessons tomorrow!

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