Drug Quickly Reverses Alzheimer's Symptoms in Mice

Neuroscientists at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have made a dramatic breakthrough in their efforts to find a cure for Alzheimer's disease. The researchers' findings, published in the journal Science, show that use of a drug in mice appears to quickly reverse the pathological, cognitive and memory deficits caused by the onset of Alzheimer's. The results point to the significant potential that the medication, bexarotene, has to help the roughly 5.4 million Americans suffering from the progressive brain disease.

Read more…

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120209144005.htm

A new study led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, provides even more reason for people to read a book or do a puzzle, and to make such activities a lifetime habit.

Brain scans revealed that people with no symptoms of Alzheimer's who engaged in cognitively stimulating activities throughout their lives had fewer deposits of beta-amyloid, a destructive protein that is the hallmark of the disease.

While previous research has suggested that engaging in mentally stimulating activities - such as reading, writing and playing games - may help stave off Alzheimer's later in life, this new study identifies the biological target at play. This discovery could guide future research into effective prevention strategies.

Read more:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120123163348.htm

It was 1978 and I was living in a farm worker’s cottage on my cousin’s sheep farm near Feilding. What a blissful life it was after four turbulent years in Canada and the US.

Then what normally would have been a non-event in my rural idyll took place – the day of the triennial election...

We drove at speed to the nearest polling booth – the Colyton School Hall. It had just the one booth.

Being the true gentleman, my cousin beckoned his wife to vote first. He accompanied her.

“Sir, sir – you can’t do that. It’s a secret ballot”, said the astonished polling clerk.

“But she’s my wife – aren’t I entitled to know how she votes?”

Brad Page

Every time someone has a crack at NZ First MP Andrew Williams for his alleged urinating against a tree in a public place while he was mayor of North Shore City, I feel more and more sympathy for him – or at least his predicament. Clearly, if letters to the editor are any guide I’m not alone.

Most men, if they’re honest with themselves, will remember times when they got ‘caught short’. For me and my ‘Woolworths’ bladder’ it’s been more times than I care to remember...

Brad Page         

It was Christmas Eve 1975 - just a moment or two ago - and I was teaching at a Canadian university.

My not-so-faithful wife had just run off with a colleague... Supportive colleagues had invited me to join them for a little bar-hopping but somehow I got the meeting-place wrong. After freezing my butt off for a while, I trudged back to my claustrophobic bachelor apartment, feeling thoroughly sorry for myself.

All around me were Canadians getting into the Christmas spirit...

•  Hearing aids
• Visual aids
•  Bandaids
• Walking aids 
• Medical aids 
• Government aids 

and most of all, 

Monetary aids to their kids!

Not forgetting HIV (Hair Is Vanishing) 

Life is like a hot bath – the longer you stay in it the more wrinkled you get.