All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

O’odham Cut Border Fence Restricting Traditional Route

Photos copyright O’odham in Mexico

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O’odham in Mexico cut the fence on the border today, which restricted their traditional route. The fence went up at 10 a.m. yesterday and restricted O’odham access to health care and stores on the northern side of O’odham lands.

Check back here for story.
By Ofelia Rivas
Censored News
Copyright Ofelia Rivas

Despotic Erdoğan seizes control of leading daily – Reporters Without Borders

True to form, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan today orchestrated an Istanbul court decision to place Zaman, a leading daily newspaper that supports the opposition Gülen movement, under state control. “The Turkish presidential office’s interference in the media has reached a new level,” Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Christophe Deloire said. “It is absolutely illegitimate and intolerable that Erdoğan has used the judicial system to take control of a great newspaper in order to eliminate the Gülen community’s political base. “This ideological and unlawful operation shows how Erdoğan is now moving from authoritarianism to all-out despotism. Not content with throwing journalists in prison for ‘supporting terrorism’ or having them sentenced to pay heavy fines for ‘insulting the ‘head of state,’ he is now going further by taking control of Turkey’s biggest opposition newspaper.” With a print run of more than 600,000, Zaman supports the religious movement led by Fethullah Gülen, who was closely allied with Erdoğan until they fell out in 2012. Since then, the authorities have been suspending the licences of pro-Gülen media outlets and have been bringing charges against their journalists.

Source: Despotic Erdoğan seizes control of leading daily – Reporters Without Borders

Cell Stem Cell: Zika Virus Infects Human Cortical Neural Progenitors

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Although we’ve a compelling spatial-temporal link between Zika virus outbreaks and increases in microcephaly in Brazil (and to a lesser extent in French Polynesia), we still lack proof of causation. 

One of the many barriers to proving causation is finding a plausible mechanism by which the Zika virus could produce the kind of profound fetal brain anomalies that have been reported.

Today, in a brief report published in the journal Cell Stem Cell, researchers working with lab-grown human stem cells have shown the Zika virus selectively infects the type of cells that form the brain’s cortex, and importantly, infection `increases cell death and dysregulates cell-cycle progression, resulting in attenuated hNPC growth.’

The full report can be accessed at the link below.  Below that you’ll find a link and some excerpts from a press release.

Highlights

  • Zika virus (ZIKV) infects human embryonic cortical neural progenitor cells (hNPCs)
  • ZIKV-infected hNPCs produce infectious ZIKV particles
  • ZIKV infection leads to increased cell death of hNPCs
  • ZIKV infection dysregulates cell cycle and transcription in hNPCs

Summary

The suspected link between infection by Zika virus (ZIKV), a re-emerging flavivirus, and microcephaly is an urgent global health concern. The direct target cells of ZIKV in the developing human fetus are not clear. Here we show that a strain of the ZIKV, MR766, serially passaged in monkey and mosquito cells efficiently infects human neural progenitor cells (hNPCs) derived from induced pluripotent stem cells.

 Infected hNPCs further release infectious ZIKV particles. Importantly, ZIKV infection increases cell death and dysregulates cell-cycle progression, resulting in attenuated hNPC growth. Global gene expression analysis of infected hNPCs reveals transcriptional dysregulation, notably of cell-cycle-related pathways. Our results identify hNPCs as a direct ZIKV target. 

In addition, we establish a tractable experimental model system to investigate the impact and mechanism of ZIKV on human brain development and provide a platform to screen therapeutic compounds.

Zika virus infects human neural stem cells

Cell Press 

The Zika virus infects a type of neural stem cell that gives rise to the brain’s cerebral cortex, Johns Hopkins and Florida State researchers report March 4 in Cell Stem Cell. On laboratory dishes, these stem cells were found to be havens for viral reproduction, resulting in cell death and/or disruption of cell growth.
While this study does not prove the direct link between Zika and microcephaly, it does pinpoint where the virus may be doing the most damage.

 The researchers, led by Guo-li Ming and Hongjun Song of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Hengli Tang of Florida State University, with collaborators at the Emory University School of Medicine, worked around the clock for a month to conduct the study, which provides a new platform to learn about the Zika virus using neuronal cells derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells. In the near future, the researchers hope to grow mini-brains from the stem cells to observe the long-term effects of Zika infection on neural tissue and to screen for potential therapeutics. 

(Continue . . . )

### This study was supported by The Florida State University, the National Institutes of Health, and the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund.

Supreme Court blocks Louisiana law that would restrict abortion providers – LA Times

Supreme Court in a victory for abortion-rights advocates on Friday blocked Louisiana from enforcing a law that they said would have left the state with only one doctor licensed to perform the procedure. The justices, by a 7-1 vote, issued a brief order that restores an earlier judicial ban on enforcing the 2014 law. The court’s order is a good sign for abortion-rights groups in Louisiana and nationwide. Coming shortly after the justices debated a similar Texas law, the order shows a majority of the high court is unwilling to permit conservative states to enforce stringent regulations. A federal judge had blocked Louisiana from enforcing a rule that would require doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. The judge found most hospitals simply refused to consider extending these privileges to a doctor whose practice involved abortion.

Source: Supreme Court blocks Louisiana law that would restrict abortion providers – LA Times