Oct 20, 2018 07:04 PM
Humans & deer are killing Earth's largest organism (also one of the oldest)
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science...-organism/
EXCERPT: The largest living organism, not to mention one of the oldest, lives in the Fishlake National Forest in central Utah. Sometimes called the Trembling Giant, sometimes called Pando (Latin for "I spread"), it is a grove of 40,000 individual trees that function as a single organism through the connection of their roots. A new study from Utah State University shows that failed conservation efforts are leaving the magnificent organism "collapsing on our watch."
Formally called an "Aspen clone," the Pando sits on more than 106 acres and weighs a collective 13 million pounds. Scientists only have the roughest of estimates on its age, with the end of the last ice age, around 2.6 million years ago, as their best guess.
Problems with regeneration go back at least 30 or 40 years. According to the National Forest Service, "it is thought that the lack of regeneration is due to over-browsing from deer and other ungulates [hoofed animals]." The study from Utah State confirms that deer are a major problem....
MORE: https://www.popularmechanics.com/science...-organism/
Alzheimer’s disease: mounting evidence that herpes virus is a cause
https://theconversation.com/alzheimers-d...use-104943
EXCERPT: . . . my latest review, suggests a way to treat the disease. I found the strongest evidence yet that the herpes virus is a cause of Alzheimer’s, suggesting that effective and safe antiviral drugs might be able to treat the disease. We might even be able to vaccinate our children against it.
The virus implicated in Alzheimer’s disease, herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV1), is better known for causing cold sores. It infects most people in infancy and then remains dormant in the peripheral nervous system (the part of the nervous system that isn’t the brain and the spinal cord). Occasionally, if a person is stressed, the virus becomes activated and, in some people, it causes cold sores.
We discovered in 1991 that in many elderly people HSV1 is also present in the brain. And in 1997 we showed that it confers a strong risk of Alzheimer’s disease when present in the brain of people who have a specific gene known as APOE4.
The virus can become active in the brain, perhaps repeatedly, and this probably causes cumulative damage. The likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s disease is 12 times greater for APOE4 carriers who have HSV1 in the brain than for those with neither factor.
Later, we and others found that HSV1 infection of cell cultures causes beta-amyloid and abnormal tau proteins to accumulate. An accumulation of these proteins in the brain is characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease...
MORE: https://theconversation.com/alzheimers-d...use-104943
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science...-organism/
EXCERPT: The largest living organism, not to mention one of the oldest, lives in the Fishlake National Forest in central Utah. Sometimes called the Trembling Giant, sometimes called Pando (Latin for "I spread"), it is a grove of 40,000 individual trees that function as a single organism through the connection of their roots. A new study from Utah State University shows that failed conservation efforts are leaving the magnificent organism "collapsing on our watch."
Formally called an "Aspen clone," the Pando sits on more than 106 acres and weighs a collective 13 million pounds. Scientists only have the roughest of estimates on its age, with the end of the last ice age, around 2.6 million years ago, as their best guess.
Problems with regeneration go back at least 30 or 40 years. According to the National Forest Service, "it is thought that the lack of regeneration is due to over-browsing from deer and other ungulates [hoofed animals]." The study from Utah State confirms that deer are a major problem....
MORE: https://www.popularmechanics.com/science...-organism/
Alzheimer’s disease: mounting evidence that herpes virus is a cause
https://theconversation.com/alzheimers-d...use-104943
EXCERPT: . . . my latest review, suggests a way to treat the disease. I found the strongest evidence yet that the herpes virus is a cause of Alzheimer’s, suggesting that effective and safe antiviral drugs might be able to treat the disease. We might even be able to vaccinate our children against it.
The virus implicated in Alzheimer’s disease, herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV1), is better known for causing cold sores. It infects most people in infancy and then remains dormant in the peripheral nervous system (the part of the nervous system that isn’t the brain and the spinal cord). Occasionally, if a person is stressed, the virus becomes activated and, in some people, it causes cold sores.
We discovered in 1991 that in many elderly people HSV1 is also present in the brain. And in 1997 we showed that it confers a strong risk of Alzheimer’s disease when present in the brain of people who have a specific gene known as APOE4.
The virus can become active in the brain, perhaps repeatedly, and this probably causes cumulative damage. The likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s disease is 12 times greater for APOE4 carriers who have HSV1 in the brain than for those with neither factor.
Later, we and others found that HSV1 infection of cell cultures causes beta-amyloid and abnormal tau proteins to accumulate. An accumulation of these proteins in the brain is characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease...
MORE: https://theconversation.com/alzheimers-d...use-104943