Posted: 07 Jun 2014 03:32 PM PDT

Wiping out memories at a press of a button, just like with a ‘neuralizer’ from the Men in Black movie, may soon become a reality. Researchers have managed to erase and then restore lost memory in genetically modified rats with a flash of light.
The study by researchers from University of California in San Diego, published in Nature journal , is the first cause-and-effect evidence that strengthening or weakening connections between neurons in the brain can influence particular memories.
“We can form a memory, erase that memory and we can reactivate it, at will, by applying a stimulus that selectively strengthens or weakens synaptic connections,” study senior researcher Dr. Roberto Malinow, a professor of neurosciences said in a university press release.
The neuroscientists’ findings may hold big potential for the treatment of such diseases as Alzheimer’s and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
To prove their theory, Malinow and his colleagues resorted to a state-of-the art technique, optogenetics. Optical lasers were applied to stimulate a group of nerves in the brains of rats that had been genetically engineered to make them sensitive to light. Simultaneously, they sent an electrical shock to the animal’s foot.
Soon, the rats learned to see the connection between the optical stimulation and the pain and displayed fear every time the nerves were stimulated. Further analyses revealed that chemical changes occurred within the optically stimulated nerve synapses, which indicates the synaptic strengthening of that memory.
In the next stage, the scientists stimulated the same nerves in a different way with a memory-erasing, low-frequency sequence of optical pulses. Eventually the rats no longer responded to the nerve-situation with fear, which indicated that the pain-association memory had been erased.
The work’s most striking finding though was the lost memories could be restored by the re-stimulation of the same nerves with memory-forming, high-frequency pulses. Such re-conditioned rodents yet again responded with fear to the stimulation. And that is while they had not had their feet shocked this time.
“We can cause an animal to have fear and then not have fear and then to have fear again by stimulating the nerves at frequencies that strengthen or weaken the synapses,” explained the study’s lead author Sadegh Nabavi.
It is too early to speak about using the same technology on humans, but researchers believe it could have potential benefits and clinical applications.
The beta amyloid peptide that accumulates in the brains of people who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease weakens synaptic connections in much the same way that low-frequency stimulation erased rats’ memories, Malinow said.
“Since our work shows we can reverse the processes that weaken synapses, we could potentially counteract some of the beta amyloid’s effects in Alzheimer’s patients,” he said.
Source

Posted: 07 Jun 2014 03:18 PM PDT

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s popularity has taken a nosedive in recent months with only 18 percent of voters supporting him, a new report shows.
A new survey published in Crikey’s newsletter found that more Australians would prefer “someone else” than the current leader to head the ruling Liberal Party.
The report found that only 18 percent of the voters are satisfied with the premier as leader while 19 percent said they were unsure who they would prefer to lead the party instead.
Furthermore, 31 percent of the respondents said they would rather choose Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull over Abbott as the prime minister.
The premier’s plunging popularity just nine months into his term is reportedly linked to his public gaffes in recent months, which have been highly criticized.
Abbott was formally sworn in as Australia’s new prime minister in September 2013, after winning federal elections.
His National Liberal Coalition defeated the Labor Party’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
Source

Posted: 07 Jun 2014 03:06 PM PDT

British Prime Minister David Cameron has confirmed his government has offered an armored battle group to be sent to Poland later this year as part of a massive planned “show of force” against Russia.
The armored battle group would include some 1,000 soldiers, along with 25 tanks and 40 armored fighting vehicles. Britain’s Defense Ministry presented it as part of an effort to “re-assure our NATO Baltic allies.”
The Poland exercise appears to be part of NATO’s announced “readiness action plan”, which aims to build up military forces in Eastern Europe, and to speed reaction time of Western European nations to a war with Russia.
There’s no indication that an actual war with Russia is likely anymore, though hawkish rhetoric from months ago surrounding the Crimean referendum and its subsequent Russian annexation has many military leaders in NATO salivating at the idea of a “new Cold War,” with the same run-away military spending as the last one.
Source

Posted: 07 Jun 2014 03:00 PM PDT

US President Barack Obama has held an “informal conversation” with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin during the 70th anniversary of D-Day in France.
Although the two leaders ignored each other at the group photograph, the White House said they speak “for 10 to 15 minutes” once they went inside for the luncheon.
The United States and Russia are at loggerheads over the current situation in Ukraine.
“President Obama and President Putin did speak with each other on the margins of the leaders lunch,” Obama’s assistant Ben Rhodes said. “It was an informal conversation – not a formal bilateral meeting.”
A new video showed the men initially smiling with each other before the conversation apparently turns more serious, The Daily Mail reported.
A White House official on Friday afternoon confirmed the meeting.
The official said Obama warned Putin that “de-escalation” of sanctions against Russia “depends upon Russia recognizing President-elect Poroshenko as the legitimate leader of Ukraine, ceasing support for separatists in eastern Ukraine, and stopping the provision of arms and materiel across the border.”
Obama also noted “Poroshenko’s commitment to pursue reforms to ensure that the rights and interests of all Ukrainians are respected, and urged Russia to work immediately with the government in Kiev to reduce tensions.”
“President Obama made clear that a failure to take these steps would only deepen Russia’s isolation,” according to the official.
Meanwhile, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the leaders had exchanged views about the situation in Ukraine.
“Putin and Obama spoke for the need to end violence and fighting as quickly as possible,” he said.
Source

Posted: 07 Jun 2014 04:41 AM PDT

The EU has lost control of its foreign policy to Washington, France’s National Front leader Marine Le Pen told RT, calling the bloc’s diplomacy a “catastrophe” in which no independent voice of reason could be heard.
“The European Union’s diplomacy is a catastrophe,” Le Pen told RT’s Sophie Shevardnadze in an exclusive interview to be broadcast Monday. “The EU speaks out on foreign affairs either to create problems, or to make them worse.”
Where Ukraine is concerned, Le Pen believes that Europe had no right to blackmail the country into breaking up its historical and cultural ties to Russia.
“When offering a partnership agreement to Ukraine, which would mean breaking off of its allied relations with Russia, the EU has clearly set blackmail in motion. And that can’t help but fuel dissent inside the country,” Le Pen told RT, adding that “pouring oil onto the fire” could lead to an increasing risk of a civil war.
“The EU has been doing nothing but making the situation worse using threats, blackmail and sanctions, which, as we can see now, clearly do not encourage anyone to sit at the negotiation table in order to come up with a peaceful and reasonable solution to the conflict.”
As Le Pen sees it, all of this bluster over Ukraine joining the EU has been for not, as the country is far from having the economic development necessary for integration.
“Ukraine’s entry into the European Union; no need to tell fairy tales. Ukraine absolutely does not have the economic level to join the EU.”
Le Pen says she is personally opposed to any expansion of the EU, and would not wish the bloc’s troubles on a country as economically deprived as Ukraine.
“I am sympathetic to Ukrainians, and therefore wouldn’t wish to invite friends to this table of nightmares. I myself want to get out of the EU, so I will not say to them: ‘Come on into the EU,’” she said.
Le Penn, whose National Front party in late May secured a third of France’s seats in the European Parliamentary elections, says the EU’s foreign policy has been badly misguided by the United States, Syria and Libya being just some of the most recent examples.
“We’ve made a great deal of foreign policy mistakes under Washington’s influence, but the worst of them is Syria,” Le Penn said.
There are “no independent states left in Europe” that would call for peaceful solutions to conflicts, the National Front leader says.
“We [National Front] have been the only party to stand against the option of intervening in Syria. When the crisis first started, we said France is supplying arms to jihadists, who would spread terror if they win. That’s what already happened in Libya.”
“That’s the way the US acts in the international arena. But what is even more horrible, is that one can’t hear the voices of European countries,” Le Pen added.
Watch the full interview with Marine Le Pen on RT’s SophieCo on Monday, June 9.
Source