Daily Archives: November 29, 2020

Telomeres are the protective caps at chromosome ends. In adult cells, telomeres shorten each time a cell divides and this contributes to ageing and cancer. Pluripotent stem cells, however, are specialised cells that exist in the earliest days of development. These pluripotent cells do not age and have the ability to turn into any type of adult cell.

The surprise finding, published today in Nature, shows that telomeres in pluripotent stem cells are protected very differently than telomeres in adult tissues.

This upends 20 years of thinking on how stem cells protect their DNA, said Associate Professor Tony Cesare, from the University of Sydneys Faculty of Medicine and Health, who is Head of the Genome Integrity Unit at Childrens Medical Research Institute (CMRI) and co-leader of a research team that collaborated on this research.

In adult cells, a protein called TRF2 is essential because it arranges DNA at the chromosome end into a telomere-loop structure. Removing TRF2 from adult cells causes the chromosomes to become stitched together into one long string, which is incompatible with life.

To the researchers astonishment, removing TRF2 from pluripotent stem cells did almost nothing. The chromosomes were normal, the telomere-loops remained, and the cells divided as if nothing happened. Telomeres are therefore protected differently in pluripotent stem cells and adult tissues.

This unexpected finding has major implications for research on ageing, human development, regenerative medicine, and cancer. Previously, researchers expected fundamental mechanisms that protected DNA would be the same in all tissues. This now appears to be incorrect.

Read more from the original source:

Unexpected discovery about stem cell immortality study - News - The University of Sydney

In some ways, the arrival of Dessie Hutchinson back into an already stacked Ballygunner squad was the last thing the Waterford championship needed.

n contradiction, his decision to ditch soccer for a career with the Dise has looked to be just the tonic for the county team.

Prior to 2020, Waterford had taken just a draw from their previous eight championships, a run of results that took its toll on morale in the county.

But Liam Cahill has rejuvenated the squad, with the introduction of former Brighton man Hutchinson helping to revive the county's fortunes.

Already, Waterford have seen off Cork and Clare and went stride for stride for long periods with All-Ireland favourites Limerick.

Tomorrow night, they face Kilkenny in Croke Park for a place in the All-Ireland final. It will be another step in the development of Cahill's team, and another step forward for Hutchinson's fledgling inter-county hurling career.

Of course, Hutchinson might have been lost to the GAA forever. With his contract expiring in Brighton, he looked to be heading in the right direction. He captained the club's U-23s and made his first-team debut in the League Cup.

Business

Hutchinson was set to move to St Mirren on loan in January 2018 to gain first-team experience but then the business end of soccer took over.

The deal fell through around the paying of his wages. An untimely injury followed and suddenly his time was done. It was cruel and swift but just the nature of the beast.

At home he played briefly with Waterford FC, but seeing his brothers JJ and Wayne collect county titles with Ballygunner had its charms.

In truth, the club had never been far from his thoughts. While in England, he'd often puck around with the likes of Aaron Connolly and Jayson Molumby.

The pull of home and people and place never left him. So when he came he played football with Gaultier and joined up Ballygunner training after they had won five in a row in Waterford. It was a major boost to Ballygunner, already the pre-eminent side in the county, but also a blow to the chasing pack.

Earlier this year, they made it seven on the bounce, winning those finals by an average of more than 11 points.

And not too many are betting against them to equal, or even surpass, the county record of nine consecutive crowns.

And if Hutchinson has now found his feet at inter-county hurling, it was football manager Benji Whelan who handed him his first Waterford senior jersey in early 2019.

"We became aware of him for two reasons," Whelan remembers. "One was he was playing football with Gaultier and they were starting back. And also his brother JJ was playing with us at that point.

"So we bounced it off JJ when we heard he was back around and he said, 'Yeah, he's a nice footballer' so we asked him in and he came.

"We had probably a couple of games under our belt in the league. So he came on in a couple of games and as you know, its going to take time to get your footing. But he started championship for us that year.

Talented

"He's very talented. There's no two ways about it. The whole soccer side of things would have given him the left foot and the right foot and he can pick a pass with either foot from any distance. We kept him closer to goal because he was very accurate and we didn't see the best of him because he just needed more time."

Whelan studied exercise physiology in Trinity and noted Hutchinson's pace and agility.

"He trades on mobility. His agility is probably in the higher level, close to elite. He can accelerate and decelerate really, really quickly and he can turn off left or right very sharply.

"And he's also very clever, the way he plays he can create space for himself. So in football he was a natural inside forward."

Despite missing so many formative years, Whelan isn't surprised he has stepped up to county hurling so quickly.

"The thing about Dessie is that he was an accomplished hurler before he left for the UK . . . but for the fact that Ballygunner had so many players of a high calibre, Dessie would have been a big loss.

"Like Dessie would have been a huge loss to any other club in Waterford I would say. But he was always known as an accomplished hurler in Waterford. And all of those guys, who can perform to a high level, tend to have natural talent with co-ordination, balance, movement skills."

Our statistics, collated by analyst Diarmuid Whelan in conjunction with DeelySportScience.com, show the impact he has made in the championship so far.

Hutchinson has taken 12 shots in his three championship matches so far, delivering 2-6 and four wides.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given his relative inexperience at this level, his best performance came in the most recent game against Clare, where he hit 2-2.

Both our touch and shot maps show that Cahill wants the Ballygunner man close to goal, as he gets on the ball and shoots from on or inside the 45-metre line a large majority of the time.

And that's likely where he'll be stationed against the Cats tomorrow.

Team-mate Stephen Bennett has been impressed with Hutchinson so far and insists he'll get even better.

"In fairness to him, he is brilliant, he trains very hard. He is obviously very skilful, but it's his movement.

"I suppose the four years over training professionally definitely helped him. I just think his first five steps are just brilliant. You'd love to take it off him. He's really good.

"He'll always give the option. We need to get better at actually using him, and all our other forwards."

From Ballygunner to Brighton and back again, Waterford can be thankful that Hutchinson is here to stay. And he'll only get better.

Read more:

Dessie Hutchinson's journey from Brighton to the brink of hurling immortality with Waterford - Independent.ie

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(Photo credit should read KATHY WILLENS/AFP via Getty Images)

The announcement of the MLB Hall of Fame ballot is a time of excitement and remembrance. It is a chance to look back at the careers of those players, remembering their greatness and the highlights of their career. For some, it is one final chance to be in the spotlight, their names appearing on the ballot for that one year before falling off, their careers fading into the distance.

For others, it is a chance to have the fans remember how good of a player they had been. While they may not be inducted, they remain on the ballot for those ten years, their accomplishments being highlighted year after year. While they too fade away, their legacies stand out a bit longer, reverberating through MLB history a bit louder.

Then there are those select few for whom the MLB Hall of Fame ballot is a coronation. Whether they are inducted in their first year or their last year, it is a call for immortality. Those players are immortalized forever in the hallowed halls in Cooperstown, their legend secure. It is a time for celebration, of both those players and the history of the game.

Which players will get the call of immortality, finding out that they have been inducted in the MLB Hall of Fame this year? Lets take a look at the 25 man ballot.

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MLB Hall of Fame: Breaking down the 2021 ballot - Call to the Pen

Its on your metro pass and perhaps your student card too. It greets you at both train stations and is the hallmark of the Nanjing cigarette brand. But what is that mystical four-legged creature and how did it come to be a familiar symbol of this city?

The bixie () is a mythical creature with lion-like features, short wings and a dramatically curved figure. From its wide mouth extends an elongated tongue that rests on its unnaturally protruding chest. The beast, whose magical powers were believed to ward off evil, was commonly used in tomb sculptures of the Six Dynasties where it guarded the graves of the ruling elite. Sometimes almost four metres in height, these monumental carved creatures are strikingly beautiful even today, one and a half millennia later.

Funnily enough however, the original statues, of which several remain standing in and around Nanjing, have on the whole escaped the usual tourist site makeover. They are often found in the most unassuming locations, tucked away beside an expressway or poking out awkwardly between neat rows of vegetables as if a burden to the farmer.

Alongside the statues there usually stands a stone plaque suspended on top of a tall column with an inscription detailing the tomb occupant. Bizarrely, many of the inscriptions are carved in reversed writing or mirror image, a peculiarity that has provoked all sorts of theories, but at the very least reflects a deep fascination at the time with the imaginary, supernatural and unconventional.

So how did the bixie come to be a symbol of Nanjing in modern times? An illustration of the bixie from Xiao Jings tomb was one among a series of designs put forth by professor Bao Bin in the 1980s, when he was tasked with creating an emblem for the city that would be used for propaganda materials. He chose the bixie to reflect Nanjings recurring role as ancient capital, beginning in the Six Dynasties. The judging committee favoured the mythical beast over other symbols such as the city walls and were particularly fond of its supposed evil-dispelling powers. The more the image cropped up around the city, the more it became identified with Nanjing.

It does seem slightly odd however, that something ultimately associated with funerary culture should be the icon of a modern city. If the bixie protected the dead, then what kind of parallel does that draw when you erect a statue of one at the gateway to the city?

But such a simplified comparison is perhaps to wholly misinterpret traditional Chinese attitudes towards burial and death. Funerary statues, whether as grand and innumerable as the First Emperors terracotta warriors, or simply a humble wooden figurine place in the grave, were considered to assume their role in the afterlife and serve the deceased. Death did not necessarily mark the end of life altogether, but the transition from one realm to another in which ones spirit could achieve immortality.

Reconsidering the bixie from this perspective, it is not there to protect what is dead and gone, but is in fact a facilitator in the achievement of immortality. The survival of these majestic statues one dynasty after another is remarkable in itself, while their reinterpretation within a modern context is an apt metaphor for the future of Nanjing.

Read more from the original source:

Mythical Beasts that Simply Scream Nanjing - The Nanjinger