Editor?s note:? In parts one and two of this series, Pat Kiley?s article Construction Craftwork as a Career has listed the ?brutal facts? of the current state of the commercial construction craft workforce and given an account of the history of the industry over the past fifty years from his personal perspective.? His series continues with an explanation of the decline of union shops with the rise of open shops in the Houston area.
Three things really sounded the death knell for the unions.? The first happened in 1980.? The National Building Trades Unions President, Robert Georgine, lead a successful effort to amend the 1976 ERISA (Employee Retirement Income Security Act) Laws and got the union pension funds, (into which contractors were contributing a defined, negotiated hourly contribution per covered worker), declared as ?Defined Benefit Pension Plans.?? This changed everything because it created an unfunded past service liability for each worker.? This became known as ?withdrawal liability.?? It meant that for a contractor to withdraw from the union and work in the same geographic area, he must pay his company?s pro-rata share of any unfunded past service liability.? The building trades? president felt this unfunded liability that would need to be paid, if the contractor were to withdraw, would lock contractors to the union.? Over time, it has had the exact opposite effect.? No new companies have gone near unions, and as these funds became fully funded through investment performance and trustee diligence, companies withdrew in droves.
The second was an accumulation of non-productive crew mix requirements.? For example, with the Operating Engineers Union, a light engineer, whose wage rate approached $20 per hour, was required to operate the man lift which involved merely pressing a button like you would on most regular elevators.? As one contractor said, after returning from a jobsite visit, ?When I got on the man lift and saw that guy sitting on a stool and pressing the button with a stick, I said that?s it; I am going to get away from these guys, no matter what I have to do!?? Many others felt that way too, and between 1984 and 1990, the Houston AGC (Associated General Contractors) bargaining unit dropped from over 95 companies that assigned their bargaining rights to less than 10.? (Houston AGC negotiates with the basic trades: Carpenters, Cement Masons, Ironworkers, Laborers, and Operating Engineers.)? This drop coincided with a precipitous plunge in the commercial market volume during those same years; however, the AGC bargaining unit remains less than 10 contractors today.? The National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA) and Mechanical Contractors Association (MCA), representing the licensed trades, still have relatively good size bargaining units, although also down form their size in the 70s and 80s.
The third issue was owner generated.? It consisted of a productivity study of union construction initiated and paid for by the Business Round Table (today known as CURT, Construction Users Roundtable.)? This was an association of the bigger corporations ? many Houston area oil and chemical companies, the ship channel group, as well as those industrial plants along the coast belonged.? A portion of their research took place at the Dow Chemical plant in Freeport, Texas.? They found that that the union workers were productive about 50% of the hours they worked, with the combination of breaks, jurisdictional requirements, and disputes.? These owners began to look at the bigger ?open shop? contractors to build their plants: firms like BEK, Brown and Root, and Zachary.? Over the following years, the Building Trades Unions responded with wage cuts and elimination of many of the ?bad? requirements in their contracts, but their momentum was halted, and the building trades unions are all just a shadow of the size they used to be.
On the other hand, the Open Shop construction movement flourished from the late 70s on into the 90s.? Contractors who converted from operating under the union agreements could provide their services more economically through a less expensive crew mix and more realistic ratios of journeymen to helpers.? They could still maintain decent wages and a benefit package for their craft workers, most had some type of health insurance, and a few had some defined contribution (401K) pension plans.? Open shop contractors, particularly after the downturn of the mid to late 80s, had ex-union, formally trained, experienced journeyman craft workers.? They knew their trade and generally functioned as lead men, insuring daily productivity.? They also trained helpers to become journeyman while on the job.? Some formal open shop craft training programs were established by ABC (Associated Builders & Contractors) for both commercial and industrial trades.? Construction craft work remained a viable career option for young Americans.
However, the late 80s and early 90s saw the start of a real change that haunts us today.? Construction craft work as a career field began to be discouraged, first of all by parents who were construction craft workers themselves, and then by school guidance counselors.? Fathers did not want their sons to do the same work they did, a complete reversal of the tradition of generational trade succession, which prevailed from the earliest days.? Guidance counselors steered almost everyone toward college, toward computer science, toward anything but construction craft work.? So over the years a labor shortage of traditional craft workers developed, and the use of immigrant labor began to fill the gap.
There were other challenges that accelerated the use of the increasingly abundant immigrant labor.? Year after year, health care costs increased significantly.? Employers were forced to drop their plans or ask workers to pay a larger percentage of the premium.? That, in turn, caused many workers to drop their coverage.? The plans were not portable either, like the union system plans had been.? If a worker was laid off at one company, he often lost his coverage while he waited out eligibility at the new.? Immigrant workers were not as concerned about health care benefits.? They did not expect employers to provide it.? Over the past 25 years, immigrant workers have grown to where they now make up the greatest percentage of the workforce, particularly with the basic trades, as health care costs continue to skyrocket.? As a result, there are now few open shop craft workers with health care coverage.
Another issue developed with the continuity of formal open shop training programs, especially for commercial craft workers.? Commercial jobs have a shorter cycle than industrial; many jobs last only a few months.? If the current employer does not have another job for the craft worker who is in training, the worker is laid off, which typically stops his training, or he goes to another employer, who may not be willing to support his training.? As a result, most centralized, third party commercial training programs have failed, while the industrial training programs have been sustained.? (Longer cycle jobs and plant owner requirements make industrial training programs viable).? Commercial craft worker training is done today, if at all, through in-house programs by individual companies, or by a variation of the old-fashioned guild system, where an individual is ?apprenticed?, informally, to a journeyman.
Next week the series will conclude with History and Hope: Fifty Years Later C3 Gets It Right
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A geothermal technician who was stood down from his job at Mighty River Power's (MRP) Kawerau power station for refusing to undergo a drug test will have to keep fighting the company for reinstatement.
Dean Cowell was suspended from work on August 31, only a week after MRP introduced an amendment to the company's random drug and alcohol testing policy via email.
His union, the Electrical Union, took the view that the policy amounted to a unilateral variation of the terms of the collective agreement and was "not lawful and reasonable". Cowell is also seeking compensation for injury to his feelings caused by the duress of the attempted drug test.
However the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) has delivered a preliminary ruling based only on whether MRP was entitled to deem Cowell's position "safety sensitive", meaning he was eligible to be tested, with the other issues to be decided later in November.
Cowell asserted there was nothing in his role that had any features that were safety sensitive, his role was not listed on the register of hazards at the site and there was no public safety risk because health and safety rules were followed.
However ERA member Rosemary Monaghan decided MRP did have the right to designate Cowell's job a "safety sensitive" one. She did not accept the submission that Cowell's job was not listed among the hazards for the worksite and was therefore not safety sensitive in itself.
"[The submission] does not address the role of drug and alcohol testing as one of the measures available to manage hazards, rather it asserts such testing is not necessary because sufficient measures are already in place."
Monaghan said that Cowell's argument did not preclude drug and alcohol testing because such measures were no different to those existing safety measures that he relied on in his workplace.
The ERA decision said MRP witnesses had set out the "substantial safety risks" associated with running a geothermal plant ? including the extraction of high temperature steam from deep underground, the use of inflammable compounds, and the creation and transmission of extremely high voltages.
From Alicia Keys to Julia Roberts to Bethenny Frankel, high-profile working moms tell iVillage how they balance motherhood with the demands of being at the top of their respective professions
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ScienceDaily (Oct. 25, 2012) ? Scientists have discovered that 30 per cent of our likelihood of developing multiple sclerosis (MS) can be explained by 475,806 genetic variants in our genome. Genome-wide Association Studies (GWAS) commonly screen these variants, looking for genetic links to diseases.
Corey Watson, a recent Simon Fraser University doctoral graduate in biology, his thesis supervisor SFU biologist Felix Breden and three scientists in the United Kingdom have just had their findings published online in Scientific Reports. It's a sub-publication of the journal Nature.
An inflammatory disease of the central nervous system, MS is the most common neurological disorder among young adults. Canada has one of the highest MS rates in the world.
Watson and his colleagues recently helped quantify MS genetic susceptibility by taking a closer look at GWAS-identified variants in the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) region in 1,854 MS patients. The region has long been associated with MS susceptibility.
The MS patients' variants were compared to those of 5,164 controls, people without MS.
They noted that eight percent of our 30-per-cent genetic susceptibility to MS is linked to small DNA variations on chromosome 6, which have also long been associated with MS susceptibility.
The MHC encodes proteins that facilitate communication between certain cells in the immune system. Outside of the MHC, a good majority of genetic susceptibility can't be nailed down because current studies don't allow for all variants in our genome to be captured.
"Much of the liability is unaccounted for because current research methods don't enable us to fully interrogate our genome in the context of risk for MS or other diseases," says Watson.
The researchers believe that one place to look for additional genetic causes of MS may be in genes that have variants that are rare in the population. "The importance of rare gene variants in MS has been illustrated in two recent studies," notes Watson, now a postdoctoral researcher at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.
"But these variants, too, are generally poorly represented by genetic markers captured in GWAS, like the one our study was based on."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Simon Fraser University.
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Journal Reference:
Corey T. Watson, Giulio Disanto, Felix Breden, Gavin Giovannoni, Sreeram V. Ramagopalan. Estimating the proportion of variation in susceptibility to multiple sclerosis captured by common SNPs. Scientific Reports, 2012; 2 DOI: 10.1038/srep00770
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
In September we wrote about how the short-term accommodation-sharing site Airbnb was in the process of raising another round of around $100 million. A Form D filed with the SEC today shows that it's just north of that: $117 million.
5 Unusual Things that Raise Your Car Insurance Rates
Most people know that safe driving, the type of car that they drive and even how often they drive can all affect their insurance rates; these things are all common knowledge. You may be able to save even more on your insurance if you make yourself aware of the other factor that go into determining the price of your policy. Here are five unusual considerations that insurance companies take when it comes to your premiums:
1.Job Title
You probably didn?t know that what you do for a living has an effect on your auto insurance rates. There are a variety of occupations that will afford you cheaper prices on your premiums. If you are a teacher, law enforcement officer, librarian or even a banker, you will pay less for your insurance than people in other occupations. This is because, statistically, people in these occupations are less likely to be involved in an accident due to their careful driving habits.
2.Where You Live
Do you live in an area of high-crime or do you live in a rural area where crime rates are low? If you live in a city that is ripe with crime, you can expect to pay more for your auto insurance policy. This is because your insurance company considers you to be more at risk for filing a claim due to car damage or theft. While it doesn?t make sense to purchase a new house so you can save on auto insurance, it does make sense to find out if where you live is affecting your rates.
3.Professional Memberships
It?s a bit of a mystery as to why belonging to a professional organization affords you a lower rate on your insurance policy, but suffice it to say that it does. If you belong to a union, a fraternal organization or even work for a certain company, you may be able to receive a discount on your auto insurance. If you belong to one of these organizations, see if your current insurance company offers a discount. If they don?t, shop around and find an insurance company that does.
4.Where You Park
Do you park in the street in front of your house? Do you park in your driveway? If you aren?t parking your car in a garage, you can expect to pay more for your auto insurance. Why? Because your car is less secure if it?s parked in the open air. When you don?t park in a garage, your car is more susceptible to theft or damage; both of which raise your chances for filing a claim in the eyes of your insurance company.
5.Level of Education
There seems to be a correlation between level of education and driving ability, according to some insurance companies. If you?ve earned a degree beyond high school, make sure that you report it to your insurance agent. You can realize an immediate savings on your auto insurance premiums for each level of degree that you earn.
If you haven?t revisited your auto insurance policy for quite a while, its high time that you do. If any of the circumstances listed above pertain to you or a driver in your family, you may be able to lower the cost of your premium by hundreds of dollars.
About Author:
Deanna Ford writes for insurance blogs where you can read about compare Texas auto Insurance rates.
Decide.com, the shopping search engine that tells consumers both what and when to buy, is introducing its premium level of service today. Starting now, Decide.com will begin to charge for its "when to buy" recommendations - the recommendations which serve as Decide.com's distinguishing feature versus the other shopping search services on the market currently.
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New study charts the living habits of Europe's tweensPublic release date: 22-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Gabriele Eiben gabriele.eiben@medfak.gu.se 46-317-866-846 University of Gothenburg
Greater independence, less parent control, approaching puberty and changing demands in school. For a tween life can be both exciting and demanding and presumably decisive for their future health. This is the starting point for a study designed to chart the living habits of children between the ages of 8 and 14 in Sweden and Europe, and where the University of Gothenburg, Sweden is one of the participants.
Boy and girls who are no longer children but who are not yet teenagers, so-called tweens, face many challenges. Greater independence and exposure to behaviours which lie outside the control of the family, approaching puberty and changing demands in school can make this an exciting but nonetheless demanding period both for the children themselves and for their families.
During this transitional period there is a risk that children may develop bad habits which can lead to poorer health later on in life. At the same time, increased individuality and autonomy may lead tweens to adopt healthy living habits more readily.
With this as a point of departure, fifteen groups of researchers from twelve countries have gathered to study those factors which cause European tweens to adopt healthy as opposed to unhealthy living habits.
The total of 16,000 children who are taking part in the project previously participated in the IDEFICS project which received considerable attention, a project in which researchers studied the diet and lifestyle associated with obesity among younger children.
In this new project, which is called I.Family, the researchers aim to follow up on children's eating habits and physical activity but also to chart how factors such as tastes, genetic markers, children's immediate environment and the influence of family and school may affect children's behaviour.
Children's living habits are influenced by group pressure, information obtained in school as well as marketing via TV, mobile phones, music and the Internet. Some companies turn their attention precisely to tweens as a group because they are starting to get their own money to spend, according to Gabriele Eiben, researcher at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden and manager of the Swedish part of the project:
By gathering information on the current state of health among these children and comparing it with the comprehensive mapping that was done earlier, we will have unique opportunities to study which factors cause children to adopt a healthy as opposed to an unhealthy lifestyle.
The project's overriding goal is to develop advice and recommendations that decision makers may use in order to help families develop good healthy lifestyles.
###
Contact:
Gabriele Eiben, researcher at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg and project manager I.Family Sweden
+4631-786 6846
gabriele.eiben@medfak.gu.se
Lauren Lissner, researcher at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg
031-7866847
lauren.lissner@medfak.gu.se
INFO about I.Family
The research project I.Family is financed by the European Commission and will run for a period of 5 years beginning in March 2012. Participating in the project are children from Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Hungary, Estonia, Germany, Belgium and Sweden.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
New study charts the living habits of Europe's tweensPublic release date: 22-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Gabriele Eiben gabriele.eiben@medfak.gu.se 46-317-866-846 University of Gothenburg
Greater independence, less parent control, approaching puberty and changing demands in school. For a tween life can be both exciting and demanding and presumably decisive for their future health. This is the starting point for a study designed to chart the living habits of children between the ages of 8 and 14 in Sweden and Europe, and where the University of Gothenburg, Sweden is one of the participants.
Boy and girls who are no longer children but who are not yet teenagers, so-called tweens, face many challenges. Greater independence and exposure to behaviours which lie outside the control of the family, approaching puberty and changing demands in school can make this an exciting but nonetheless demanding period both for the children themselves and for their families.
During this transitional period there is a risk that children may develop bad habits which can lead to poorer health later on in life. At the same time, increased individuality and autonomy may lead tweens to adopt healthy living habits more readily.
With this as a point of departure, fifteen groups of researchers from twelve countries have gathered to study those factors which cause European tweens to adopt healthy as opposed to unhealthy living habits.
The total of 16,000 children who are taking part in the project previously participated in the IDEFICS project which received considerable attention, a project in which researchers studied the diet and lifestyle associated with obesity among younger children.
In this new project, which is called I.Family, the researchers aim to follow up on children's eating habits and physical activity but also to chart how factors such as tastes, genetic markers, children's immediate environment and the influence of family and school may affect children's behaviour.
Children's living habits are influenced by group pressure, information obtained in school as well as marketing via TV, mobile phones, music and the Internet. Some companies turn their attention precisely to tweens as a group because they are starting to get their own money to spend, according to Gabriele Eiben, researcher at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden and manager of the Swedish part of the project:
By gathering information on the current state of health among these children and comparing it with the comprehensive mapping that was done earlier, we will have unique opportunities to study which factors cause children to adopt a healthy as opposed to an unhealthy lifestyle.
The project's overriding goal is to develop advice and recommendations that decision makers may use in order to help families develop good healthy lifestyles.
###
Contact:
Gabriele Eiben, researcher at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg and project manager I.Family Sweden
+4631-786 6846
gabriele.eiben@medfak.gu.se
Lauren Lissner, researcher at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg
031-7866847
lauren.lissner@medfak.gu.se
INFO about I.Family
The research project I.Family is financed by the European Commission and will run for a period of 5 years beginning in March 2012. Participating in the project are children from Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Hungary, Estonia, Germany, Belgium and Sweden.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Natural process activating brain's immune cells could point way to repairing damaged brain tissuePublic release date: 21-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Bruce Goldman goldmanb@stanford.edu 650-725-2106 Stanford University Medical Center
STANFORD, Calif. The brain's key "breeder" cells, it turns out, do more than that. They secrete substances that boost the numbers and strength of critical brain-based immune cells believed to play a vital role in brain health. This finding adds a new dimension to our understanding of how resident stem cells and stem cell transplants may improve brain function.
Many researchers believe that these cells may be able to regenerate damaged brain tissue by integrating into circuits that have been eroded by neurodegenerative disease or destroyed by injury. But new findings by scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine suggest that another process, which has not been fully appreciated, could be a part of the equation as well. The findings appear in a study that will be published online Oct. 21 in Nature Neuroscience.
"Transplanting neural stem cells into experimental animals' brains shows signs of being able to speed recovery from stroke and possibly neurodegenerative disease as well," said Tony Wyss-Coray, PhD, professor of neurology and neurological sciences in the medical school and senior research scientist at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System. "Why this technique works is far from clear, though, because actually neural stem cells don't engraft well."
Neural stem cells can endure essentially unchanged for decades in two places in the mammalian brain, replicating just enough to meet the routine needs of those regions. In most parts of the brain, they aren't found at all.
While of critical importance to maintaining healthy brain function, true neural stem cells are rare. Far more common are their immediate progeny, which are called neural progenitor cells, or NPCs. These robust, rapidly dividing cells are poised to travel down a committed path of differentiation to yield new brain cells of several different types including neurons.
It's known that treating humans with radiation or drugs that prevent NPC replication causes memory deficits ("chemo brain") and, in children, IQ losses of up to 20 points. Conversely, studies are being initiated to see whether infusing neural stem cells into brains affected by Alzheimer's disease can enhance patients' memory function.
One category of brain cells, microglia, descends not from neural stem cells but from an immune lineage and retains several features of immune cells. "Microglia are the brain's own resident immune cells," Wyss-Coray said. Unlike most other mature brain cells, microglia can proliferate throughout adulthood, especially in response to brain injury. They can, moreover, migrate toward injury sites, secrete various "chemical signaling" substances, and gobble up bits of debris, microbial invaders or entire dead or dying neurons.
Microglia normally are distributed throughout the brain rather small, quiescent cells sprouting long, skinny projections that meekly but efficiently survey large areas that, taken together, cover the entire brain. But if this surveillance reveals signs of a disturbance, such as injury or infection, the microglia whirl into action. They begin proliferating and their puny bodies puff up, metamorphosing from mild-mannered Clark Kent-like reporters to buffed Supermen who fly to the scene of trouble, where they secrete substances that can throttle bad actors or call in reinforcements. Within these activated cells, internal garbage disposals called lysosomes form in large numbers and start whirring, ready to make mincemeat out of pathogens or cellular debris.
In addition to their part patrol-officer, part cleanup-crew status, microglia can also secrete substances that help neurons thrive. They also contribute to the ongoing pruning of unneeded connections between neurons that occurs throughout our lives.
But like immune cells elsewhere, said Wyss-Coray, microglia can be a force for evil if they engage in too much or inappropriate activity. They might, for instance, start to remove healthy cells (as occurs in Parkinson's) or stop cleaning up garbage strewn about the brain (for example, Alzheimer's plaque).
In a series of experiments, Wyss-Coray and his colleagues have shown that NPCs secrete substances that activate microglia. First, the researchers observed that microglia were uncharacteristically abundant and activated in the two regions in the mammalian brain where NPCs reside and new neurons are formed. Wondering whether the NPCs might be causing this increased microglial activity, the investigators incubated mouse microglia in a culture medium in which NPCs had previously been steeped. Two days later, they saw that the microglia had multiplied more, expressed different amounts of various signal molecules and featured more lysosomes. "The microglia were ready for action," said Wyss-Coray.
So they injected NPCs into an area of mice's brains where these cells are normally not found. In the same area in the opposing brain hemisphere, they injected a control solution. Again they found significant differences in microglial proliferation and activity, and more microglia in the NPC-injected side had assumed a "Superman" as opposed to a "Clark Kent" body shape. When they repeated this experiment using only the NPCs' "discarded bath water" rather than NPCs themselves, they got similar results.
Clearly NPCs were secreting something, or some things, that were spurring microglia to action.
Using sophisticated lab techniques, the team monitored purified NPCs plus several other cell types found in the brain and assessed nearly 60 different substances known to have powerful cell-to-cell signaling properties. Several such substances, it turned out, were secreted in much larger amounts by NPCs than by the other cell types: most notably, vascular endothelial growth factor, or VEGF a well-known molecule produced by many cell types throughout the body. VEGF stimulates the formation of blood vessels and exerts a beneficial effect on neurons. Conversely, drugs that block VEGF (such as Avastin) are frequently used to combat cancer because tumors require an immense blood supply in order to grow quickly.
VEGF is also known to boost microglial proliferation. Because it is produced in such volumes by NPCs, Wyss-Coray's team wanted to see if VEGF alone could mimic any of the changes wrought by NPCs or their culture-medium-borne detritus. So they injected VEGF into mice's right brain hemisphere, and saline solution into the left again with the same outcomes. Taking the opposite tack, the team injected NPC-saturated medium devoid of the cells, as they had done earlier. But this time they first used various laboratory techniques to deplete the fluid of the VEGF secreted by its former inhabitants. Doing this almost completely reversed its microglia-activating effects.
"All of this strongly suggests that VEGF produced by NPCs is playing a strong role in influencing microglial behavior," said Wyss-Coray. "This is important, because in all neurodegenerative diseases we know of we see microglia out of control." The new finding may open the door to reprogramming misbehaving microglia to play better with other cells.
###
The study's first author was graduate student Kira Mosher. Other contributors were graduate student Gregor Bieri; postdoctoral scholars Robert Andres, MD, Takeshi Fukuhara PhD, Maiko Hasegawa-Moriyama MD, PhD, and Yingbo He, PhD; and Raphael Guzman, MD, a former associate professor of neurosurgery now at the University of Basel, Switzerland. The work was funded by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and the National Institute on Aging.
Information about the medical school's Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences, which also supported the work, is available at http://neurology.stanford.edu/.
The Stanford University School of Medicine consistently ranks among the nation's top medical schools, integrating research, medical education, patient care and community service. For more news about the school, please visit http://mednews.stanford.edu. The medical school is part of Stanford Medicine, which includes Stanford Hospital & Clinics and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. For information about all three, please visit http://stanfordmedicine.org/about/news.html.
PRINT MEDIA CONTACT: Bruce Goldman at (650) 725-2106 (goldmanb@stanford.edu)
BROADCAST MEDIA CONTACT: M.A. Malone at (650) 723-6912 (mamalone@stanford.edu)
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Natural process activating brain's immune cells could point way to repairing damaged brain tissuePublic release date: 21-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Bruce Goldman goldmanb@stanford.edu 650-725-2106 Stanford University Medical Center
STANFORD, Calif. The brain's key "breeder" cells, it turns out, do more than that. They secrete substances that boost the numbers and strength of critical brain-based immune cells believed to play a vital role in brain health. This finding adds a new dimension to our understanding of how resident stem cells and stem cell transplants may improve brain function.
Many researchers believe that these cells may be able to regenerate damaged brain tissue by integrating into circuits that have been eroded by neurodegenerative disease or destroyed by injury. But new findings by scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine suggest that another process, which has not been fully appreciated, could be a part of the equation as well. The findings appear in a study that will be published online Oct. 21 in Nature Neuroscience.
"Transplanting neural stem cells into experimental animals' brains shows signs of being able to speed recovery from stroke and possibly neurodegenerative disease as well," said Tony Wyss-Coray, PhD, professor of neurology and neurological sciences in the medical school and senior research scientist at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System. "Why this technique works is far from clear, though, because actually neural stem cells don't engraft well."
Neural stem cells can endure essentially unchanged for decades in two places in the mammalian brain, replicating just enough to meet the routine needs of those regions. In most parts of the brain, they aren't found at all.
While of critical importance to maintaining healthy brain function, true neural stem cells are rare. Far more common are their immediate progeny, which are called neural progenitor cells, or NPCs. These robust, rapidly dividing cells are poised to travel down a committed path of differentiation to yield new brain cells of several different types including neurons.
It's known that treating humans with radiation or drugs that prevent NPC replication causes memory deficits ("chemo brain") and, in children, IQ losses of up to 20 points. Conversely, studies are being initiated to see whether infusing neural stem cells into brains affected by Alzheimer's disease can enhance patients' memory function.
One category of brain cells, microglia, descends not from neural stem cells but from an immune lineage and retains several features of immune cells. "Microglia are the brain's own resident immune cells," Wyss-Coray said. Unlike most other mature brain cells, microglia can proliferate throughout adulthood, especially in response to brain injury. They can, moreover, migrate toward injury sites, secrete various "chemical signaling" substances, and gobble up bits of debris, microbial invaders or entire dead or dying neurons.
Microglia normally are distributed throughout the brain rather small, quiescent cells sprouting long, skinny projections that meekly but efficiently survey large areas that, taken together, cover the entire brain. But if this surveillance reveals signs of a disturbance, such as injury or infection, the microglia whirl into action. They begin proliferating and their puny bodies puff up, metamorphosing from mild-mannered Clark Kent-like reporters to buffed Supermen who fly to the scene of trouble, where they secrete substances that can throttle bad actors or call in reinforcements. Within these activated cells, internal garbage disposals called lysosomes form in large numbers and start whirring, ready to make mincemeat out of pathogens or cellular debris.
In addition to their part patrol-officer, part cleanup-crew status, microglia can also secrete substances that help neurons thrive. They also contribute to the ongoing pruning of unneeded connections between neurons that occurs throughout our lives.
But like immune cells elsewhere, said Wyss-Coray, microglia can be a force for evil if they engage in too much or inappropriate activity. They might, for instance, start to remove healthy cells (as occurs in Parkinson's) or stop cleaning up garbage strewn about the brain (for example, Alzheimer's plaque).
In a series of experiments, Wyss-Coray and his colleagues have shown that NPCs secrete substances that activate microglia. First, the researchers observed that microglia were uncharacteristically abundant and activated in the two regions in the mammalian brain where NPCs reside and new neurons are formed. Wondering whether the NPCs might be causing this increased microglial activity, the investigators incubated mouse microglia in a culture medium in which NPCs had previously been steeped. Two days later, they saw that the microglia had multiplied more, expressed different amounts of various signal molecules and featured more lysosomes. "The microglia were ready for action," said Wyss-Coray.
So they injected NPCs into an area of mice's brains where these cells are normally not found. In the same area in the opposing brain hemisphere, they injected a control solution. Again they found significant differences in microglial proliferation and activity, and more microglia in the NPC-injected side had assumed a "Superman" as opposed to a "Clark Kent" body shape. When they repeated this experiment using only the NPCs' "discarded bath water" rather than NPCs themselves, they got similar results.
Clearly NPCs were secreting something, or some things, that were spurring microglia to action.
Using sophisticated lab techniques, the team monitored purified NPCs plus several other cell types found in the brain and assessed nearly 60 different substances known to have powerful cell-to-cell signaling properties. Several such substances, it turned out, were secreted in much larger amounts by NPCs than by the other cell types: most notably, vascular endothelial growth factor, or VEGF a well-known molecule produced by many cell types throughout the body. VEGF stimulates the formation of blood vessels and exerts a beneficial effect on neurons. Conversely, drugs that block VEGF (such as Avastin) are frequently used to combat cancer because tumors require an immense blood supply in order to grow quickly.
VEGF is also known to boost microglial proliferation. Because it is produced in such volumes by NPCs, Wyss-Coray's team wanted to see if VEGF alone could mimic any of the changes wrought by NPCs or their culture-medium-borne detritus. So they injected VEGF into mice's right brain hemisphere, and saline solution into the left again with the same outcomes. Taking the opposite tack, the team injected NPC-saturated medium devoid of the cells, as they had done earlier. But this time they first used various laboratory techniques to deplete the fluid of the VEGF secreted by its former inhabitants. Doing this almost completely reversed its microglia-activating effects.
"All of this strongly suggests that VEGF produced by NPCs is playing a strong role in influencing microglial behavior," said Wyss-Coray. "This is important, because in all neurodegenerative diseases we know of we see microglia out of control." The new finding may open the door to reprogramming misbehaving microglia to play better with other cells.
###
The study's first author was graduate student Kira Mosher. Other contributors were graduate student Gregor Bieri; postdoctoral scholars Robert Andres, MD, Takeshi Fukuhara PhD, Maiko Hasegawa-Moriyama MD, PhD, and Yingbo He, PhD; and Raphael Guzman, MD, a former associate professor of neurosurgery now at the University of Basel, Switzerland. The work was funded by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and the National Institute on Aging.
Information about the medical school's Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences, which also supported the work, is available at http://neurology.stanford.edu/.
The Stanford University School of Medicine consistently ranks among the nation's top medical schools, integrating research, medical education, patient care and community service. For more news about the school, please visit http://mednews.stanford.edu. The medical school is part of Stanford Medicine, which includes Stanford Hospital & Clinics and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. For information about all three, please visit http://stanfordmedicine.org/about/news.html.
PRINT MEDIA CONTACT: Bruce Goldman at (650) 725-2106 (goldmanb@stanford.edu)
BROADCAST MEDIA CONTACT: M.A. Malone at (650) 723-6912 (mamalone@stanford.edu)
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
'Round these parts, we love board games. But it's really hard to find ones that all of us can play, without the adults feeling bored by a kid game, or the younger kids feeling left out because they can't figure out a game that is geared towards older kids.?
When I saw that Morphology Junior was suggested for ages 8+, I was a little skeptical about how much the younger kids would be able to participate, considering they are 2 and 3.5 years old. So, as always, I sat down and read the instructions first, so that I could continue to act like the all-knowing mother when we sat down to play the game.?
It comes with these pieces, and the game board, and 480 word cards:
Since the game comes with the instruction manual, I'm not going to give you a whole step-by-step, but basically, this is how it works:
You play on teams, and when it's your turn you become the 'morphologist'. You draw a card, and decide if you are going to use the easy or hard word on it, and whether or not you are going to use the clue on the card. Then, you have to use some of the game pieces to create an illustration of that word, so that your team can guess it before the time runs out. Sometimes, there are twists thrown in, like these:
Then, if your team guesses the word, you get to move your little frog further on the board. Our 9 and ?8 year old didn't have any problem with being able to play the game, although we sometimes had a little trouble guessing their interpretations. We just let our 3 year old be on whatever time he decided to be on at that moment, and try and help guess the words, and he was perfectly fine with that. Him and our 2 year old also sat and played with the pieces that we weren't using at the time.
Does your family play board games? What are some of your favorites? Morphology is one of the sponsors of the Better Than Black Friday Bash. Throughout October and November, I'm going to be doing reviews on some of this season's most awesome toy brands. Then, right before Black Friday, I'm having a huge giveaway event where you can win some things from the sponsors! Because nothing is better than Black Friday... except for getting things for free!
I received compensation for this post, in the form of merchandise. All opinions expressed here are 100% mine, and not affected by any outside source.
Interviewer:? Mr. Cassone' it has been said that Genghis Khan has secretly been one of your top, all-time heroes! That being said, how would you feel that this hero might approach the "American Dilemma" of today?
Cassone':?? He would likely begin with rounding up the top 300 individuals most responsible for the "financial meltdown" of 2008, along with every Zionist in government and as many throughout the society as could be found out, including on Wall Street. I believe he would then proceed on to arrest every Rothschild, Morgan and every other top international banking family member and culprits of the "New World Order" scheme!
He would also, bring 75% of all overseas' jobs pegged to US companies back to the mainland!
Interviewer:? I see; so and what do you think he might do then, in the aftermath?
Cassone':??? Simple. He would seize all their total assets and have them swiftly executed in their front yard!
Interviewer:? Wowie! And then, what type of effect do you feel this might have?
Cassone':?? Gold would crash, the dollar would soar, the budget would be balanced, jobs and prosperity would flourish everywhere and do I dare say, things would be quite heavenly for "we the people"; the 99%!
One thing that's really been lacking on the market until recently is Halloween themed games. You'd think it would be a no brainer, right? Sure there have been a few games with Nightmare Before Christmas versions. And even Disney's Haunted Mansion versions of Clue and The Game of Life. There's even a Halloween themed Monopoly knock off called Boo-Opoly, which I have yet to get.
It's only in the past few years that I started to see Halloween themed games, mostly at Target. For the most part, they're classic games like Bingo, Twister, and Ring Toss with Halloween graphics. They're cute but usually don't appeal to my Halloween collecting need because they're not Halloween-y enough.
When I visited Micheal's craft store last week, I found this cute kids card game for $2.
As you can see, it's called Go Batty! and it plays just like Go Fish. Instead of a normal deck of cards with numbered suits, there are 13 sets of four cartoony creatures. For the price, the cards are made from surprisingly good stock. However, the big problem with them for me is the box.
The box is mounted to the backing card and I don't think there's any way of removing it without destroying the box short of cutting the card away with scissors. Also because of the way the interior tabs are placed in the box, it's impossible to close the top flap with the cards in there unless you remove the two foreign language rules cards. Even when I manage to get it closed, it's just as difficult to open because in order to get your fingertip on the flap you have to bend the backing card.
Despite all my whining about the box, you can't do much better for only two bucks, especially if you're not a stickler for keeping the packaging intact.
Be sure to visit the other bloggers that have their porch lights on by clicking below.?
NASA sees Tropical Cyclone Anais headed near La Reunion IslandPublic release date: 15-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Rob Gutro robert.j.gutro@nasa.gov 443-858-1779 NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Tropical Cyclone Anais, the first tropical cyclone of the Southern Indian Ocean's tropical cyclone season, has strengthened over the weekend of Oct. 13 and 14 and by Oct. 15, the storm was packing sustained winds near 100 knots (115 mph/185 kph).
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Cyclone Anais off Madagascar on Oct. 15 at 0940 UTC (5:40 a.m. EDT) and revealed an eye. Multi-spectral satellite imagery showed that convection has continued to decrease around Anais' ragged eye, indicating that the storm may be weakening.
On Oct. 15 at 1500 UTC (11 a.m. EDT) Anais was 650 nautical miles (748 miles/1,024 km) northeast of La Reunion, and has been moving to the southwest at 8 knots (9.2 mph/14.8 kph).
Over the next several days, Anais is forecast to move past La Reunion Island, while the center of the storm stays to the north and west of the island. As the storm moves further southward, it will move into waters below the 80 degree Fahrenheit (26.6 Celsius) threshold needed to maintain the system. In addition to the cooler waters wind shear is forecast to increase, so Anais is expected to weaken over the next several days.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
NASA sees Tropical Cyclone Anais headed near La Reunion IslandPublic release date: 15-Oct-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Rob Gutro robert.j.gutro@nasa.gov 443-858-1779 NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Tropical Cyclone Anais, the first tropical cyclone of the Southern Indian Ocean's tropical cyclone season, has strengthened over the weekend of Oct. 13 and 14 and by Oct. 15, the storm was packing sustained winds near 100 knots (115 mph/185 kph).
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Cyclone Anais off Madagascar on Oct. 15 at 0940 UTC (5:40 a.m. EDT) and revealed an eye. Multi-spectral satellite imagery showed that convection has continued to decrease around Anais' ragged eye, indicating that the storm may be weakening.
On Oct. 15 at 1500 UTC (11 a.m. EDT) Anais was 650 nautical miles (748 miles/1,024 km) northeast of La Reunion, and has been moving to the southwest at 8 knots (9.2 mph/14.8 kph).
Over the next several days, Anais is forecast to move past La Reunion Island, while the center of the storm stays to the north and west of the island. As the storm moves further southward, it will move into waters below the 80 degree Fahrenheit (26.6 Celsius) threshold needed to maintain the system. In addition to the cooler waters wind shear is forecast to increase, so Anais is expected to weaken over the next several days.
###
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
In 
Great gift ideas for people who love to fish in the great outdoors. Sport fishing is a favorite past time enjoyed by millions of anglers world wide all year long. If your gift list includes someone who loves to fish, you are in luck. Gifts for fishing enthusiasts are almost endless and finding a perfect gift for one is easy. All you need to know is what type of fishing he or she is into. Primary types of sport fishing include saltwater fishing and freshwater fishing.
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Public release date: 22-Oct-2012
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