Light — not pain-killing drugs — used to activate brain’s opioid receptors

Credit: Robert Boston

By Science Daily

Despite the abuse potential of opioid drugs, they have long been the best option for patients suffering from severe pain. The drugs interact with receptors on brain cells to tamp down the body’s pain response. But now, neuroscientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found a way to activate opioid receptors with light.

In a test tube, the scientists melded the light-sensing protein rhodopsin to key parts of opioid receptors to activate receptor pathways using light. They also influenced the behavior of mice by injecting the receptors into the brain, using light instead of drugs to stimulate a reward response.

Their findings are published online April 30 in the journal Neuron.

The eventual hope is to develop ways to use light to relieve pain, a line of discovery that also could lead to better pain-killing drugs with fewer side effects.

“It’s conceivable that with much more research we could develop ways to use light to relieve pain without a patient needing to take a pain-killing drug with side effects,” said first author Edward R. Siuda, a graduate student in the laboratory of Michael R. Bruchas, PhD, an assistant professor of anesthesiology and of neurobiology.

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Supreme Court of Canada rules Saguenay council must drop prayers

Photo: JACQUES BOISSINOT

By The Canadian Press

The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled the municipal council in the Quebec town of Saguenay cannot open its meetings with a prayer.

In a unanimous decision today, the country’s top court said reciting a Catholic prayer at council meetings infringes on freedom of conscience and religion.

The ruling puts an end to a nine-year legal battle that began with a complaint filed by atheist Alain Simoneau and a secular-rights organization against Saguenay Mayor Jean Tremblay.

In 2011, Quebec’s human rights tribunal ordered an end to the prayers, demanded that a crucifix in the city council chamber be removed and awarded damages to Simoneau.

But the outspoken mayor fought back, raising money from supporters through the city’s website. Tremblay said it was a battle for Quebec’s Roman Catholic heritage.

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CA. teacher banned from using Bill Nye/Ken Ham evolution debate to sneak creationism into classroom

By Tom Boggioni

A California high school teacher has been banned from showing his students a debate between science educator Bill Nye and creationist Ken Ham as a way to insert creationism into the classroom.

According to the Friendly Atheist, science teacher Brandon Pettenger of Arroyo Grande High School has been showing the video to his students, and then having them summarize the debate by posting on creationist websites.

Pettenger has been accused of “teaching the controversy” despite scientific consensus that the theory that God created the universe roughly 10,000 year ago has no basis in fact.

The debate, between the popular TV science personality Nye and Christian author and Creation Museum founder Ham, took place in February of last year at the Creation Museum and has been viewed by millions

Due to the efforts of the the Freedom From Religion Foundation and the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, Pettenger has been instructed to desist from bringing creationism into the classroom via any source.

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New exoplanet too big for its stars

Credit ANU

By Phys.org

The Australian discovery of a strange exoplanet orbiting a small cool star 500 light years away is challenging ideas about how planets form.

“We have found a small star, with a giant planet the size of Jupiter, orbiting very closely,” said researcher George Zhou from the Research School of Astrophysics and Astronomy.

“It must have formed further out and migrated in, but our theories can’t explain how this happened.”

In the past two decades more than 1,800 extrasolar planets (or exoplanets) have been discovered outside our solar system orbiting around other stars.

The host star of the latest exoplanet, HATS-6, is classed as an M-dwarf, which is one of the most numerous types of stars in galaxy. Although they are common, M-dwarf stars are not well understood. Because they are cool they are also dim, making them difficult to study.

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Entire genomes of woolly mammoths mapped: Clues to extinction, possibility of bringing mammoths back

Image credit: Wiki

By Science Daily

An international team of researchers has sequenced the nearly complete genome of two Siberian woolly mammoths — revealing the most complete picture to date — including new information about the species’ evolutionary history and the conditions that led to its mass extinction at the end of the Ice Age.

“This discovery means that recreating extinct species is a much more real possibility, one we could in theory realize within decades,” says evolutionary geneticist Hendrik Poinar, director of the Ancient DNA Centre at McMaster University and a researcher at the Institute for Infectious Disease Research, the senior Canadian scientist on the project.

“With a complete genome and this kind of data, we can now begin to understand what made a mammoth a mammoth — when compared to an elephant — and some of the underlying causes of their extinction which is an exceptionally difficult and complex puzzle to solve,” he says.

While scientists have long argued that climate change and human hunting were major factors behind the mammoth’s extinction, the new data suggests multiple factors were at play over their long evolutionary history.

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Islamic State’s sophisticated recruiting campaign poses persistent threat in U.S.

By Kevin Johnson

The arrests of six Minnesota men accused earlier this month of attempting to join the Islamic State group, highlights an unprecedented marketing effort being waged by the militant group in Iraq and Syria, U.S. law enforcement officials and terror analysts said.

It’s a campaign that is finding resonance from urban metros to the American heartland.

“This is not so much a recruitment effort as it is a global marketing campaign, beyond anything that al-Qaida has ever done,” said a senior law enforcement official.

The official, who is not authorized to comment publicly, said the Islamic State’s slick multimedia productions, its use of social media and personal “peer-to-peer” communication are proving to be effective parts of a sophisticated program aimed at the West.

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Professor Hump’s Three Minute Quiz: Relax...it's Pass / Fail

Quiz time, ladies and gentlemen.  Please put your books under your desk,  keep your eyes on your own computer, and no talking to your neighbor. You’ll have three minutes to complete this quiz.  Ready?  Let’s go:
Question 1:  The following are actual head lines taken directly from internet news sites. What two things, besides homophobia, do all of the people referenced in the body of these articles have in common?

-  Rick Wiles Warns Of 'Fireball From Space' If Supreme Court Strikes

    Down Gay Marriage Bans

-  Pastor Hagee: Putting an end to Gay Marriage is 'A Matter of Survival'

-  Rick Santorum Warns Gay Marriage Could Lead to Christian Persecution

 -  Texas lawmaker: ‘What is going on in Baltimore’ is because of too 

     many gay marriages

-  Church Marquee in Georgia Calls For Death To All Gay People

-  Pastor calls for killing gays to end AIDS

-  California’s ‘Kill The Gays’ Initiative Sparks Outrage
 
-  Mike Huckabee: Justices Can't Overrule God On Gay Marriage

Answer:  if you said “**Fundie Christian” and “Republican (GOP)” give yourself 10 points for each of the two possible answers. 
(**If you said simply “Christian” give yourself  ½ credit = 5 points)

Question 2: Given the inherent and well documented bigotry, social regression, and mindless hate that pervade these two groups, compounded by their traditional misogyny, obsession with your genitalia / sexuality, racism, distrust / denial of science, theocratic mindset, and jingoistic war endorsement -  if they were your neighbors would you align yourself with them by voting for them for mayor, or selectman, or town council, or dog catcher, much less a higher office?

Answer: if you said “No!” or / “Hell No!!” give yourself 10 points.    

Question 3:  Are you a registered Republican and/or an Independent who votes GOP?  If yes: how in the name of reason, modernity and humanity do you live with yourself being aligned with these people?

Answer: if you said “NO” give yourself 20 points.
If you answered “YES” and justified your position with “smaller government, and/or bigger defense spending, and/or  because blacks don’t vote GOP, and/ or lower taxes for the rich” deduct 30 points and unsubscribe to this blog at the bottom of your email notice.  Our common atheism is insufficient to justify our continued relationship.   

Okay pencils down.
If you got 40-50 points congrats, you pass! Proud of you.
If your score is 30 points or less, you fail … why are you still here?