Thiago Carvalho @cyrilpedia@qoto.org

'For Volker Höffer, who directs the Stasi archive in Rostock, those who consulted their files almost always found it a liberating experience – especially if they had been persecuted as a result of Stasi spying. “In numerous conversations, those affected told me that they could now dissolve dark holes within themselves,” he says. But he also saw it as a necessary step for Germany as a whole, an attempt to “extract the eternal essence of dictatorships and to develop from it a serum against future ones”.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/nov/28/secret-police-have-file-do-you-want-to-see-it-stasi-east-germany-siegfried-wittenburg

'However, the study of conserved regions excludes functional elements that descended from previously neutral regions. Here, we demonstrate that the fastest-evolved regions of the human genome, which we term “human ancestor quickly evolved regions” (HAQERs), rapidly diverged in an episodic burst of directional positive selection prior to the human-Neanderthal split, before transitioning to constraint within hominins.'

#Evolution #humanevolution

https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(22)01358-7

“I trust you will not allow yourself to be in any way disgusted or annoyed by the considerable abuse and misrepresentation which, unless I am greatly mistaken, is in store for you,” Huxley had written Darwin just before the publication of “The Origin.” “I am sharpening up my claws and beak in readiness.”

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/11/28/how-the-huxleys-electrified-evolution

"Takei is about to star in the British production of the musical Allegiance, inspired by his childhood as one of more than 120,000 Japanese Americans forced into internment camps after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941. Now a youthful 85, he says it remains the defining experience of his life – one that shaped him as an actor and an activist."

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/nov/28/star-trek-george-takei-on-william-shatner-love-and-life-as-an-enemy-alien

'From exile, in 1934, (Joseph) Roth wrote, in a furious statement as applicable now as it was then: “The epoch-making discovery of modern dictatorships is the invention of the loud lie, based on the psychologically correct assumption that people will believe a shout when they doubt speech.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/26/books/joseph-roth-endless-flight-keiron-pim.html

New #preprint from Ardem Patapoutian's lab:

'Here, we show that humans lacking PIEZO2 exhibit impaired bowel sensation and motility. Piezo2 in mouse dorsal root but not nodose ganglia is required to sense gut content, and this activity slows down food transit rates in the stomach, small intestine, and colon. Indeed, Piezo2 is directly required to detect colon distension in vivo. Our study unveils the mechanosensory mechanisms that regulate the transit of luminal contents throughout the gut, which is a critical process to ensure proper digestion, nutrient absorption, and waste removal.'

#Mechanosensing #MucosalImmunology
#Piezo

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.27.518109v1?med=mas

'Exposição Dinossauros — O Regresso dos Gigantes estará em Lisboa até Setembro de 2023. É uma visita ao maravilhoso mundo dos dinossauros, onde até se pode ser paleontólogo.'

https://www.publico.pt/2022/11/26/ciencia/noticia/dinossauros-invadiram-pavilhao-conhecimento-trazem-novidades-mundo-2027372

"In the year since Mr. Malichudis first read about his own work in another news outlet, the scandal has snowballed. A financial journalist learned he had also been wiretapped. The government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis admitted that the state intelligence service was monitoring an opposition leader. Two government officials, including the prime minister’s nephew, have resigned.

It’s been called the Greek Watergate."

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/26/business/greece-journalists-surveillance-predator.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur

"We conclude that, although several ways that induce extended lifespan through mitochondrial dysfunction require a functional mitochondrial unfolded protein response, there is no clear indication that activation of the mitochondrial unfolded protein response is sufficient to extend lifespan, despite the fact that the mitochondrial unfolded protein response impacts almost every aspect of mitochondrial function."

#Celegans #mitochondria #metabolism

https://academic.oup.com/genetics/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/genetics/iyac160/6809022?redirectedFrom=fulltext