Scientists Found a Way to Store and Erase Memories Long After Their Formation

The Head of the Weizmann Institute's Neurobiology Department, Prof. Yadin Dudai, together with his co-workers tried to answer questions related to human's brain, and namely what really happens inside our brain when we try to remember something and are our memories recorded in a stable physical change, like writing a permanent inscription on a clay tablet.

Scientists found that the process, during which a person stores long-term memories, is in fact much more dynamic. This process involves a small molecular machine that in its turn must run constantly in order to keep one's memories going.

Researchers were also able to find that in case the machine is briefly jammed this can lead to the erasure of a person's long-term memories. This discovery should be useful in finding ways to treating memory problems.

Prof. Yadin Dudai and a Reut Shema, a research student, and Todd Sacktor, the representative of the SUNY DownstateMedical Center, made experiments on rats, training them to avoid certain tastes. After the training the researchers injected a drug which meant to block a specific protein into the rats' taste cortex, which is an area of the brain that is being associated with taste memory.

Researchers draw a hypothesis, based on earlier research made by Sacktor, that the blocked protein, which is an enzyme PKMzeta, plays a role similar to a miniature memory "machine", the job of which is to keep the memory up and running. One enzyme leads to structural and functional changes that occur in other proteins: PKMzeta, found in the synapses (contact points between nerve cells) - swoops some facets of synaptic contacts structure.

According to researchers, jamming PKMzeta could reverse the change within the synapse. This goal was successfully achieved: in the end, regardless of the taste which rats were trained to avoid, just after a single shot of the drug, they forget their learned.

The new technique proved to be successful a month after the memories of rats were formed (which is somewhat analogous to years in humans). The results showed that all unpleasant memories of the taste really did disappear. This discovery was made for the first time, which means that for the first time scientists were able to erase memories long after their formation.

The research made by Prof. Yadin Dudai and his team was supported by the Norman and Helen Asher Center for Brain Imaging; the Nella and Leon Benoziyo Center for Neurosciences; as well as the Carl and Micaela Einhorn-Dominic Brain Research Institute; the Irwin Green Alzheimer's Research Fund; and the Sylvia and Martin Snow Charitable Foundation.

Latest Invention: Tough, Flexible T-Shirt that Could Replace Body Armor

If you like this invention you can vote for it hereScientists fromUniversity of South Carolina developed a t-shirt tough enough to deflect bullets. They combined carbon in the cotton with one of the hardest materials on Earth, boron, thus considerably increasing the material's toughness.

Their latest invention represents a lightweight t-shirt armored withboron carbide, material which is also used to cover military tanks.

Dr. Xiaodong Li, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University and co-author of a paper on the topic in Advanced Materials said that this latest invention marks a significant step forward in the development of more lightweight, fuel-efficient and ultra-tough materials.

The new type of t-shirt features nanowires that show high level of elasticity while boasting the toughness of boron carbide. "We should be able to fabricate much tougher body armors using this new technique. It could even be used to produce lightweight, fuel-efficient cars and aircrafts," mentioned Li. More information about this latest invention is available here.

Latest Invention: Transparent Glass Able to Generate Electricity

Due to a number of important breakthroughs in the field of science and technology made it possible for New Energy Technologies to come up with its latest invention - the world's first glass window that can produce electricity.

The company was able to develop a glass window able to generate power using the world's smallest working organic solar cells.

It is worth mentioning that these organic solar cells were created byDr. Xiaomei Jiang at the University of South Florida, reportsGreenDiary.

In contrast to the conventional solar systems, the solar cells developed by New Energy Technologies can produce power from both natural and artificial sources of light. These solar cells show a 10 times better performance than the solar and thin-film technologies used today.

The Most Dangerous Computer Viruses in History

Computer viruses have a relatively short history by the damages caused by some of the most dangerous viruses pushed cyber-experts to open a chapter that includes a huge database on computer viruses and the cost of damages caused along with companies, government and universities highly affected by malware.

Here are some of the most dangerous computer viruses in history:

Jerusalem - 1987

This is one of the first MS-DOS viruses in history that caused enormous destructions, affecting many countries, universities and company worldwide. On Friday 13, 1988 the computer virus managed to infect a number of institutions in Europe, America and the Middle East. The name was given to the virus after one of the first places that got "acquainted" with it - the Jerusalem University.

Along with a number of other computer viruses, including "Cascade", "Stoned", "Vienna" the Jerusalem virus managed to infect thousands of computers while still remaining unnoticed. Back then the anti-virus programs were not as advanced as they are today and a lot of users had little belief of the existence of computer viruses.

Morris (a.k.a. Internet Worm) - November 1988

This computer virus infected over 6,000 computer systems in the United States, including the famous NASA research Institute, which for some time remained completely paralyzed. Due to erratic code, the worm managed to send millions of copies of itself to different network computers, being able to entirely paralyze all network resources. The damages caused by the Morris computer virus were estimated at $96 millions.

To be able to spread the computer virus used errors in such operating systems as Unix for VAX and Sun Microsystems. There were a number of other interesting ideas used by the virus - for example it could pick user passwords.

Solar Sunrise - 1998

A decade later the situation didn't change, it might have gotten even got worse. Using a computer virus, hackers, in 1998, penetrated and took control of over 500 computers systems that belonged to the army, government and private sector of the United States. The whole situation was dubbed Solar Sunrise after the popular vulnerabilities in computers that run on the operating system called Sun Solaris. Initially it was believed that the attacks were planed by the operatives in Iraq. It was later revealed that the incidents represented the work of two American teenagers from California. After the attacks, the Defense Department took drastic actions to prevent future incidents of this kind.

Melissa - 1999

For the first time computers got acknowledged with Melissa computer virus on March 26, 1999, when the virus shut down Internet mail system, which got blocked with e-mails infected by the worm. It is worth mentioning that at first Melissa was not meant to cause any harm, but after it overloaded servers the virus led to unpredictable problems. For the first time it spread in the Usenet discussion group alt.sex. Melissa was hidden within a file called "List.DiC", which featured passwords that served as keys to unlocking 80 pornographic websites. The original form of the virus was sent through e-mail to different users.

Melissa computer virus was developed by David L. Smith in Aberdeen Township, New Jersey. Its name comes from a lap dancer that the programmer got acknowledged with while in Florida. After being caught, the creator of the virus was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison and ordered to pay a fine of $5,000. The arrest represented a collaboration of FBI, New Jersey State Police and Monmouth Internet.

Melissa had the ability to multiply on Microsoft Word 97 and Word 2000, as well as Microsoft Excel 97, 2000 and 2003. In addition, the virus had the ability to mass-mail itself from Microsoft Outlook 97 or Outlook 98.

I Love You - May 2000

Using a similar method as the Melissa, the computer virus dubbed "I Love You" managed to infect millions of computers around the world in just one night. Just like Melissa this computer virus sent passwords and usernames, which were stored on the attacked computers, back to the developer of the virus. After authorities traced the virus they found that a young Filipino student was behind the attack. The young man was released due to the fact that thePhilippines did not have any law that would prevent hacking and spreading malware. This situation served as one of the premises for creating the European Union's global Cybercrime Treaty.

The Code Red worm - July 2001

This 21st century computer virus managed to penetrate tens of thousands of systems that ran Microsoft Windows NT as well as Windows 2000 server software. The damages caused by the Code Red computer virus were estimated at a total of $2 billion. Core Red was developed to use the power of all computers it infected against the official website of theWhite House at a predetermined date. In collaboration with different virus hunters and tech firms, the White House managed to decipher the code of the Code Red virus and stop traffic as the malware started its attacks.

Nimda - 2001

Shortly after the September 11 tragedy this computer virus infected hundreds of thousands of computers worldwide. Nimda was considered to be one of the most complicated viruses, having up to 5 different methods of infectingcomputers systems and duplicating itself.

Downadup - 2009

The latest and most dangerous virus is the "downadup" worm, which was also called "Conficker". The computer security company F-Secure stated that the computer virus has infected 3.5 million computers worldwide. This malicious program was able to spread using a patched Windows flaw. Downadup was successful in spreading across the Web due to the fact that it used a flaw that Microsoft patched in October in order to distantly compromise computers that ran unpatched versions of Microsoft's operating system. But the greatest power of the worm is believed to be the ability of computers, infected with the worm, to download destructive code from a random drop point. F-Secure stated that three of the most affected countries were China, Brazil and Russia.

Latest Invention in Medicine: Mini Ultrasound for Pain Relief

The innovative ultrasound device, which can be easily fit in one's pocket, may soon be used to relieve pain, cure injures or arthritis just at the comfort of your home. 

George K. Lewis, the Cornell biomedical engineering graduate student, developed numerous prototypes of the ultrasound devices, until he came up with the smallest possible and most effective one. The miniature device has a coin-sized transducer that delivers low-intensity ultrasound to the skin. The ultrasound waves are quite mild so that they can be applied to the skin up to 10 hours.

The mini ultrasound can well be used at home to relieve muscle or joint pain without the necessity to visit doctor's office. This will be especially useful for older people, because pain relief drugs are not always suitable for them because of the increased risk of negative outcomes.

Lewis gets ready for the first clinical trial that studies the effectiveness of the device on the osteoarthritis patients. This will be the first step towards the FDA approval, Lewis says. He says that in future the mini ultrasound device can be used to treat muscles pain and even to deliver medicines.

The study is supported by the National Science Foundation.