# 「天文学専門誌」って、何誌あると思っているんだ？
# それって、生命が地球型だったらという前提だよね
# 山中先生、引っ張りだこです
# 近年になって多く見つかっているのは、単に発掘が盛んになったのか、それとも他に理由があるのか？
Esra Tasali, Rachel Leproult, David A. Ehrmann, Eve Van Cauter.
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Early Edition | doi:10.1073/pnas.0706446105
There is convincing evidence that, in humans, discrete sleep stages are important for daytime brain function, but whether any particular sleep stage has functional significance for the rest of the body is not known. Deep non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, also known as slow-wave sleep (SWS), is thought to be the most "restorative" sleep stage, but beneficial effects of SWS for physical well being have not been demonstrated. The initiation of SWS coincides with hormonal changes that affect glucose regulation, suggesting that SWS may be important for normal glucose tolerance. If this were so, selective suppression of SWS should adversely affect glucose homeostasis and increase the risk of type 2 diabetes. Here we show that, in young healthy adults, all-night selective suppression of SWS, without any change in total sleep time, results in marked decreases in insulin sensitivity without adequate compensatory increase in insulin release, leading to reduced glucose tolerance and increased diabetes risk. SWS suppression reduced delta spectral power, the dominant EEG frequency range in SWS, and left other EEG frequency bands unchanged. Importantly, the magnitude of the decrease in insulin sensitivity was strongly correlated with the magnitude of the reduction in SWS. These findings demonstrate a clear role for SWS in the maintenance of normal glucose homeostasis. Furthermore, our data suggest that reduced sleep quality with low levels of SWS, as occurs in aging and in many obese individuals, may contribute to increase the risk of type 2 diabetes.# 熟睡せねば…
Yoichi Sugita.
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Early Edition | doi:10.1073/pnas.0706079105
Infant monkeys were reared with no exposure to any faces for 6–24 months. Before being allowed to see a face, the monkeys showed a preference for human and monkey faces in photographs, and they discriminated human faces as well as monkey faces. After the deprivation period, the monkeys were exposed first to either human or monkey faces for a month. Soon after, the monkeys selectively discriminated the exposed species of face and showed a marked difficulty in regaining the ability to discriminate the other nonexposed species of face. These results indicate the existence of an experience-independent ability for face processing as well as an apparent sensitive period during which a broad but flexible face prototype develops into a concrete one for efficient processing of familiar faces.# どの動物まで、顔が個体認識に役立っているんだろうか？
# 動物を標本としてでなく、生物として扱おうという意識がようやく社会に芽生えたんでしょうか？
# 脳・神経科学に対する潜在的な恐怖の表れか、それとも乱用への恐怖か
Yoichi Sekita, Hirotaka Wagatsuma, Kenji Nakamura, Ryuichi Ono, Masayo Kagami, Noriko Wakisaka, Toshiaki Hino, Rika Suzuki-Migishima, Takashi Kohda, Atsuo Ogura, Tsutomu Ogata, Minesuke Yokoyama, Tomoko Kaneko-Ishino, Fumitoshi Ishino.
Nature Genetics, Advance online publication | doi:10.1038/ng.2007.51
Eutherian placenta, an organ that emerged in the course of mammalian evolution, provides essential architecture, the so-called feto-maternal interface, for fetal development by exchanging nutrition, gas and waste between fetal and maternal blood. Functional defects of the placenta cause several developmental disorders, such as intrauterine growth retardation in humans and mice. A series of new inventions and/or adaptations must have been necessary to form and maintain eutherian chorioallantoic placenta, which consists of capillary endothelial cells and a surrounding trophoblast cell layer(s). Although many placental genes have been identified, it remains unknown how the feto-maternal interface is formed and maintained during development, and how this novel design evolved. Here we demonstrate that retrotransposon-derived Rtl1 (retrotransposon-like 1), also known as Peg11 (paternally expressed 11), is essential for maintenance of the fetal capillaries, and that both its loss and its overproduction cause late-fetal and/or neonatal lethality in mice.# レトロトランスポゾンが進化の過程で遺伝子としての必須性を身につけたということ？
# サケが消えてしまったら、石狩鍋やチャンチャン焼はどうしたらいいんだ？
# アマチュア天文家、恐るべし…
# あ、顎の骨が腐る？
# 裏出先生のおかげで、OBIは睡眠研究のメッカとなりつつあるようです
# ルシフェリンを投与すると光るのね
# 何がどう危険だと感じるのか、漠然とではなくはっきりと述べて欲しい
# ほほぉ…一度は見てみたいな
# いくつくらい命名することになるんでしょう？
# うるち米で赤飯かぁ…それって赤飯なのか？…ま、赤ければ赤飯か…じゃぁ、食紅でもいいわけ？
# き、「木曽ヒノキ」という名の小惑星…ま、キソヒノキって表記になるわな
# 大正時代のシールドマシン…
# え？従来は診断に5分もかかっていたって？…私のドライアイ診断はものの数秒でしたけど、あれは何？
Kyoko Miwa, Junpei Takano, Hiroyuki Omori, Motoaki Seki, Kazuo Shinozaki, Toru Fujiwara.
Science 318, 1417 | DOI: 10.1126/science.1146634
Reduced crop productivity due to soils containing toxic levels of boron (B) is a worldwide problem in food production. It is estimated that up to 17% of the barley yield losses in southern Australia are caused by B toxicity. We found that the expression of AtBOR4, an Arabidopsis paralog of BOR1, the first identified boron transporter gene, generates plants that are tolerant of high B levels. BOR4 is a polarly localized borate exporter that enhances B efflux from roots. The present study is a foundation for the improvement of crop productivity in soils containing excess B, which are distributed in arid areas of the world.# 何故、今頃この論文を記事にするのか…
