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Life sciences

06 Apr 2016

Study raises online golf tutorials to above par

By Tania FitzGeorge-Balfour, Science Writer The internet is overflowing with online tutorials dedicated to improving your game of golf and other motor skills. A new study in Frontiers in Psychology has shown that straightforward changes to the way these tutorials are presented can have a measurable difference in the performance of the student. “Lots of research has shown that observing both novice and expert golfers online will help you to learn a new golf shot. However, our latest findings show that it is important to know the level of expertise you are observing before you watch the tutorial,” said Luc Proteau, a Professor at the University of Montreal, co-author of this new study. Knowing students of online tutorials benefit from watching all levels of expertise, Luc Proteau and co-author Mathieu Andrieux set out to understand whether it was better to know beforehand the skill level of the demonstration, or if students should be first left to evaluate the performance themselves. Arguments were put forward to support both approaches – prior knowledge of the skill level may enable a student to decide whether to imitate or detect errors/weakness. Alternatively, assessing the skill of a performer while watching them may activate more […]

Health

29 Mar 2016

CALL FOR PAPERS: Zika Virus Research

The Zika Virus is the latest viral threat that is slowly spreading from country to country. The local transmission of Zika virus has been reported in more than 50 countries and the situation was declared as a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization. As an open-access publisher, Frontiers believes that in times like this, we need to work together as researchers and publishers to gather and share knowledge to understand this virus and find solutions. LOOKING FOR PAPERS IN THE FOLLOWING AREAS To support research in this area, Frontiers has launched a special Research Topic and hopes academics will submit original research reports, methods articles, perspectives, reviews and mini reviews in the following (but not limited to) topics: Epidemiological surveillance Development and validation of diagnostic methods Prevention and control strategies, including the development of immunotherapies and vaccines The association between Zika virus infection during pregnancy and congenital abnormalities Clinical and neurological complications Viral genetics and pathogenesis. PUBLISHING FEES WAIVED FOR ZIKA VIRUS RESEARCH Frontiers is waiving all publishing fees for research submitted to the Zika Virus Research Topic. For more information on how to submit your paper and other details, visit the topic page. TOPIC EDITORS BY […]

Life sciences

28 Mar 2016

Fifteen shades of photoreceptor in a butterfly’s eye

  When researchers studied the eyes of Common Bluebottles, a species of swallowtail butterfly from Australasia, they were in for a surprise. These butterflies have large eyes and use their blue-green iridescent wings for visual communication – evidence that their vision must be excellent. Even so, no-one expected to find that Common Bluebottles (Graphium sarpedon) have at least 15 different classes of “photoreceptors” — light-detecting cells comparable to the rods and cones in the human eye. Previously, no insect was known to have more than nine. “We have studied color vision in many insects for many years, and we knew that the number of photoreceptors varies greatly from species to species. But this discovery of 15 classes in one eye was really stunning,” says Kentaro Arikawa, Professor of Biology at Sokendai (the Graduate University for Advanced Studies), Hayama, Japan and lead author of the study. Have multiple classes of photoreceptors is indispensable for seeing color. Each class is stimulated by light of some wavelengths, and less or not at all by other wavelengths. By comparing information received from the different photoreceptor classes, the brain is able to distinguish colors. Through physiological, anatomical and molecular experiments, Arikawa and colleagues were able […]

Health

22 Mar 2016

1st International Congress on Personalized Health Care: Call for Abstracts

As Hippocrates used to say, “it is more important to know what sort of person has a disease, than to know what sort of disease a person has.” More that 2000 years later our growing understanding of genetics and genomics – and how they drive health, disease and drug responses in each person – has provided experimental evidence supporting what the father of western Medicine had already understood, opening the doors to the Personalized Medicine era. The 1st International Congress on Personalized Health Care organized in Montreal from June 12 to 14 will gather together physicians, scientists, academics, managers, regulators, economists, patient representatives, ethicists and experts from pharmaceutical companies in order to share their different standpoints on the development of personalized medicine. Abstract submission will be open until March 31. For more information visit the page: http://www.icphc.org/Call-for-Abstract.html We are pleased to announce that Prof Michel Goldman, the Field Chief Editor of Frontiers in Medicine, will be one of the key note speakers of the conference with a talk on “Public-Private Partnership and Interdisciplinarity as Pillars of Patient-Centric Innovations” “As we enter the new era of precision medicine, researchers and healthcare professionals need to become more comfortable working in interdisciplinary teams including non-academics.” – Prof Goldman A new section completely dedicated to Precision Medicine […]

Life sciences

20 Mar 2016

Triage in Conservation: Interview with Ralf Buckley

By Kirsten Martin In conservation, there is an ongoing debate over triage. Advocates of triage argue that some extinctions are unavoidable, and that fixed, limited and fully fungible resources are therefore best allocated where they are most likely to yield the largest conservation benefit. That is, they perceive conservation essentially as an economic optimisation problem. But the opponents of triage believe the opposite. They argue that species recovery is possible no matter how few individuals remain, that small peripheral subpopulations may contain genetic diversity not available in larger core populations, and that funds and resources are neither fixed nor fully fungible.  They think that conservation resources are at least partly tied to particular sites and species, and can be increased. Needless to say, both sides have strong opinions and more research and case studies are needed to gain a further understanding.  The Frontiers Research Topic “Triage in Conversation” hopes to shed a brighter light on the debate. Professor Ralf Buckley, Specialty Chief Editor of the section Frontiers in Conservation, recently wrote an article entitled “Grand challenges in conservation research.” We asked him about the debate and the importance of this research. Tell me about the Research Topic (the research area […]

Neuroscience

14 Mar 2016

Highlights from the Winter Conference on Neural Plasticity (WCNP)

by Jochen Meier, Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience, Specialty Chief Editor Aloha: Thanks to the Frontiers Travel Award I am providing herewith an overview and some highlights of the Winter Conference on Neural Plasticity WCNP, Sunday January 31 – Friday February 05, Maui Hawaii. Janelle C. LeBoutillier and Ted L. Petit again did a great job and organized this conference which took place at the Sheraton Hotel Ka’anapali (see: http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~wcnp/ ). It was an intriguing international conference with approximately 75 participants from all over the world. This post shall provide an overview of recent research highlights covering network, systems and behavioral neuroscience with particular focus on learning and memory, as well as cellular and molecular mechanisms of neural plasticity in health and disease. However, due to confidentiality issues this blog can unfortunately not be exhaustive, but all the contributions blogged here are authorized. Sunday – New Concepts The conference started out with the New Concepts Session on Sunday evening and covered heterogeneous topics. Michel Chopp was giving some exciting insights into exosome/miR therapy for neural injury after TBI, showing that the miRNA content of exosomes derived from MSCs promote neurovascular remodeling and recovery after TBI. Eric Dumont spoke about the role […]

Health

23 Feb 2016

STAFF PICK: Mutating to defeat malaria

This month’s Frontiers Staff Pick comes from Victor Kouassi. Victor is a Journal Operations Assistant and before joining us at Frontiers, was at the Francis Crick Institute in London where he conducted research on the immune responses of malaria. With his background in this field, he found the article “Major Histocompatibility Complex and Malaria: Focus on Plasmodium vivax Infection” interesting.  It was published in Frontiers in Immunology late January 2016. Below is why he selected this article as his staff pick: There are over 100 species of Plasmodium, the parasite that causes malaria. These can infect many kinds of animals from monkeys, birds to lizards. This parasite has evolved an intricate life cycle by taking advantage of an invertebrate vector, the mosquito. A vertebrate host, like a human, is usually infected through a bite which transmits the parasite which goes straight to the liver. The parasite then divides into merozoites which are released into the blood. It is this form of the parasite that causes the symptoms of disease by entering red blood cells and eventually causing them to explode resulting in fevers, chills, headaches and, in worst case scenarios, coma, brain damage and miscarriages. Of the five species of Plasmodium that […]

Health

01 Feb 2016

VIDEO: Scientist’s work plays leading role in redefining our understanding of the brain’s systems

By Ben Stockton With a wish to not appear immodest, Professor Pierre Magistretti tentatively indicates two moments that have shaped his career. The first came with the surprise that lactate, more typically associated with insufficient blood supply to muscle, was being produced by the support cells of the brain, known as glia or astrocytes, and used as an energy source for neurons. “Neurons can send messages to glial cells and tell them, “please get us some energy,”” and this arrives in the form of lactate, explains Magistretti. It recently became apparent that lactate had further implications in the brain. Magistretti and his peers are now “fully engaged in understanding how this lactate is not only an energy substrate but also a signal for plasticity and memory,” which has become a cornerstone of his current work. Magistretti, a Professor at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia and at the Brain Mind Institute at EPFL in Lausanne, could be excused for immodesty. His contribution to the field of brain energy metabolism have seen him awarded with the IPSEN Neuronal Plasticity prize and he currently presides over the International Brain Research Organization. Amongst this, he lends his expertise […]

Life sciences

13 Jan 2016

News from #AGU15: NASA’s LADEE mission

Our colleague Laura Smart, Journal Coordinator in our Physical Sciences and Engineering program, represented Frontiers at the AGU (American Geophysical Union) Fall Meeting in San Francisco from December 14 – 18,2015. Besides meeting with many Frontiers editors and authors, she also attended several scientific press conferences. Here, she gives her summary of an exciting talk by on NASA’s LADEE mission. In this press conference, scientists presented new findings on the moon’s tenuous exosphere, which ultimately should provide insight into the soil composition and processes in many atmospheres in our solar system.   New findings from NASA’s LADEE mission at AGU  Thursday 17th December Anthony Colaprete, Planetary atmospheric scientist and LADEE Ultraviolet-visible Spectrometer (UVS) Principal Investigator, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, USA Richard Elphic, LADEE Project Scientist, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, USA Menelaos Sarantos, Associate Research Scientist, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, Maryland, USA Thomas H. Morgan, Project Manager, NASA Planetary Data System, Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA Artist’s concept of LADEE spacecraft in lunar orbit. Image credit: NASA Ames   Anthony Colaprete spoke first and explained what observations NASA’S Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) mission made. He highlighted that the observations taken by LADEE’s Ultraviolet Spectrometer (UVS) every 12 h over a period of five months were measured from a distance of between 5-50 […]

Health

08 Jan 2016

VIDEO: Scientist pushes for improvements in clinical trials in stroke treatments

Stroke is the leading cause of long-term disability among adults. Known within the research community as a “brain attack”, it is when cells in the brain die due to poor blood flow. For example, in the most common type of stroke, the blockage of a blood vessel starves an area of the brain from proper nutrition, oxygen, blood sugar and other main nutrients. The prevalence of stroke is just one of the reasons why Professor Jose Biller decided to focus his research on this condition. Chair of the Department of Neurology at Loyola University in Chicago, Biller’s main research interest is in the clinical trials relating to the treatment of stroke. Taking the clinical approach to stroke also has a personal incentive for Billler as members of his family have suffered from strokes. But it is the preventability and treatability of this condition that drives his interest in the field. “It is a very prevalent condition…” said Biller. “I think there is a need for further advances.” Stroke can affect everybody Most of us associate strokes with the elderly and yet Biller has a special interest researching strokes occurring in young adults. Biller explained that strokes can in fact occur […]