Stocks fall after gaining for 2 daysEconomy to face biggest test when IMF programme ends: Humayun AkhtarWake Forest keeps Detroit Mercy at arm's length for win
Moot discusses advancements in nanotechnology
New era in amphibian biology November 26, 2024 Institute of Science and Technology Austria Amphibians hold a significant place in evolution, representing the transition from aquatic to terrestrial lifestyles. They are crucial for understanding the brain and spinal cord of tetrapods -- animals with four limbs, including humans. A group of scientists now shows how harmless viruses can be used to illuminate the development of the frog nervous system. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIN Email Amphibians hold a significant place in evolution, representing the transition from aquatic to terrestrial lifestyles. They are crucial for understanding the brain and spinal cord of tetrapods -- animals with four limbs, including humans. A group of scientists led by a team at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) now shows how harmless viruses can be used to illuminate the development of the frog nervous system. The results have now been published in Developmental Cell . Virus. When you hear the word, you probably shudder. But not all viruses are bad or cause disease. Some are even used for therapeutic applications or vaccination. In basic research, they are often employed to infect certain cells, genetically modify them, or visualize neurons in the organism's central nervous system (CNS) -- the command center made up of the brain, spinal cord, and nerves. The highlighting process now finally works in amphibians. This has been shown in a new study by an international EDGE consortium jointly led by the Sweeney Lab at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) and the Tosches Lab at Columbia University. The researchers established a new technique that uses adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) to track a frog's nervous system throughout its metamorphosis -- a developmental transition from the early tadpole stages to its adult form. A breakthrough that can help usher amphibian neurobiology into a new era. Swimming vs. walking David Vijatovic and Lora Sweeney enter a laboratory full of water tanks. Vijatovic taps on one of them. Inside, a small mottled greenish-brown African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis) appears. Its limbs are prominent, gracefully maneuvering and gripping its surroundings. In another tank, tadpoles are swirling around using simple swimming motions. It is remarkable to think that one transforms into the other. "Frogs undergo metamorphosis," Sweeney says, "making them a great model organism for studying the transition between two movement modes -- swimming and walking." A frog's development spans over 12 to 16 weeks, giving scientists time to study each stage. During these weeks, a frog embryo develops to a young tadpole, a tadpole with two legs, and a young froglet with four legs before reaching the adult stage. "By looking at the several stages of development, we can investigate these locomotive behaviors and the underlying changes in the nervous system," Vijatovic adds. Just like an electrical circuit: how frogs are wired An organism's nervous system is referred to as the neural circuit because it resembles an electrical circuit. "Nerve cells (neurons) are connected to other neurons, transmitting electrical information. How we behave, what we sense, and how we interact with the world are the product of the way our neurons communicate with each other within these circuits," explains Sweeney. The critical piece is how the circuit is wired. We know that neurons are connected but which neuron connects to which? Which other cells does a single cell talk to, and what messages does it convey? To know more about this wiring, researchers have been using viruses, proven to be a powerful tool. Adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) are ideal in that regard. They are non-pathogenic while being able to infect a wide range of cell types, including neurons. AAVs can be modified to glow in bright green fluorescent colors under the microscope as they travel along neurons, whether in retrograde (backward, from the synapse toward the cell body) or anterograde (forward, from the cell body toward the synapse). In other words, AAVs can be used to illuminate the neural circuit from the broadcasting end to the receiving end or vice-versa. "This is a common technique used in neuroscience, especially in well-studied organisms like mice. For amphibians, it was thought that it could not be done," says Vijatovic. That was the general belief until now. The power of scientific collaboration To make AAV labeling work in amphibians, Sweeney and Vijatovic joined forces with an international team of scientists from Maria Tosches' group at Columbia University, where the study's other two co-first authors Eliza Jaeger and Astrid Deryckere are based. The consortium also included researchers from Tel Aviv University, the University of Utah, the Scripps Research Institute, and the California Institute of Technology. The researchers put their heads together, drew expertise from each other, visited conferences, had countless Zoom calls, and came up with different perspectives and ideas. "When you start researching an organism that is not yet well understood, it is great to have a community where you can share information," says Sweeney. They screened existing AAVs to find what was suitable for amphibians and optimized the infecting strategy eventually developing a "how-to guide" for frogs and newts. Vijatovic summarizes his PhD journey, "We started with young tadpoles, made our way to older tadpoles, and finally moved to juvenile and then adult frogs as well as adult newts. We tailored the tool to each life stage." Comparing frogs to humans: what this research says about us With this new technique, the scientists managed to apply AAVs for tracing neuron connections in amphibians. This will help them find out more about how the amphibian brain compares to that of mammals. Besides that, the new approach also opens doors to further analyzing neuronal development. With some of the screened AAV variants, the researchers can label progenitor cells at a specific point in time during the circuit's development and follow them to see what neurons they become. "This way, we can resolve the whole circuit by its development, see how it changes over time, and how the whole nervous system is built," Sweeney says. Although amphibians and mammals last shared a common ancestor about 360 million years ago, they share common traits. "By comparing the details of a frog's nervous system to a human's, we can see what we don't have and what we have," Sweeney continues. This knowledge can help us understand how the human nervous system became specialized over time. "The better we understand the basic building blocks of the nervous system, the more we understand how we can replace them during disease and injury." Story Source: Materials provided by Institute of Science and Technology Austria . Note: Content may be edited for style and length. Journal Reference : Cite This Page :
Tax reforms: A path to equity and unityThe hunt for UnitedHealthcare CEO's elusive killer yields new evidence, but few answers
10 hot-ticket gifts we predict will sell out on Black Friday 2024
Park Edge Advisors LLC trimmed its position in NVIDIA Co. ( NASDAQ:NVDA – Free Report ) by 12.4% in the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 13,308 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock after selling 1,891 shares during the quarter. Park Edge Advisors LLC’s holdings in NVIDIA were worth $1,616,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Koesten Hirschmann & Crabtree INC. bought a new stake in shares of NVIDIA in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $27,000. Lowe Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new position in NVIDIA during the 2nd quarter worth $25,000. DHJJ Financial Advisors Ltd. grew its stake in NVIDIA by 1,900.0% during the 2nd quarter. DHJJ Financial Advisors Ltd. now owns 200 shares of the computer hardware maker’s stock worth $25,000 after buying an additional 190 shares during the last quarter. Christopher J. Hasenberg Inc bought a new position in NVIDIA during the 3rd quarter worth $27,000. Finally, CGC Financial Services LLC bought a new position in NVIDIA during the 2nd quarter worth $26,000. 65.27% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors. NVIDIA Price Performance Shares of NASDAQ NVDA opened at $142.44 on Friday. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $138.16 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $125.58. The company has a market cap of $3.49 trillion, a PE ratio of 56.06, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.62 and a beta of 1.63. The company has a quick ratio of 3.64, a current ratio of 4.10 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.13. NVIDIA Co. has a twelve month low of $45.60 and a twelve month high of $152.89. NVIDIA Dividend Announcement The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, December 27th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, December 5th will be given a $0.01 dividend. This represents a $0.04 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.03%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, December 5th. NVIDIA’s payout ratio is 1.57%. NVIDIA announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock repurchase plan on Wednesday, August 28th that authorizes the company to repurchase $50.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the computer hardware maker to purchase up to 1.6% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are typically an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued. Analysts Set New Price Targets NVDA has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Wedbush upped their price objective on NVIDIA from $160.00 to $175.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 21st. Loop Capital restated a “buy” rating and set a $175.00 price objective on shares of NVIDIA in a research note on Wednesday, November 20th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their price objective on NVIDIA from $115.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 21st. HSBC increased their price target on NVIDIA from $145.00 to $200.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $200.00 price target on shares of NVIDIA in a research note on Monday, November 18th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirty-nine have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $164.15. Check Out Our Latest Stock Report on NVIDIA Insider Activity In other news, Director John Dabiri sold 716 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $142.00, for a total value of $101,672.00. Following the transaction, the director now owns 19,942 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,831,764. This represents a 3.47 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link . Also, CEO Jen Hsun Huang sold 120,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $105.33, for a total value of $12,639,600.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 75,895,836 shares in the company, valued at $7,994,108,405.88. The trade was a 0.16 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here . Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 1,796,986 shares of company stock valued at $214,418,399. 4.23% of the stock is owned by insiders. NVIDIA Profile ( Free Report ) NVIDIA Corporation provides graphics and compute and networking solutions in the United States, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, and internationally. The Graphics segment offers GeForce GPUs for gaming and PCs, the GeForce NOW game streaming service and related infrastructure, and solutions for gaming platforms; Quadro/NVIDIA RTX GPUs for enterprise workstation graphics; virtual GPU or vGPU software for cloud-based visual and virtual computing; automotive platforms for infotainment systems; and Omniverse software for building and operating metaverse and 3D internet applications. Featured Articles Five stocks we like better than NVIDIA Low PE Growth Stocks: Unlocking Investment Opportunities Fast-Growing Companies That Are Still Undervalued The Risks of Owning Bonds Top Cybersecurity Stock Picks for 2025 What Does a Gap Up Mean in Stocks? How to Play the Gap Archer or Joby: Which Aviation Company Might Rise Fastest? Receive News & Ratings for NVIDIA Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for NVIDIA and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .Children of the wealthy and connected get special admissions consideration at some elite U.S. universities, according to new filings in a class-action lawsuit originally brought against 17 schools. Georgetown’s then-president, for example, listed a prospective student on his “president’s list” after meeting her and her wealthy father at an Idaho conference known as “summer camp for billionaires,” according to Tuesday court filings in the price-fixing lawsuit filed in Chicago federal court in 2022. Although it’s always been assumed that such favoritism exists, the filings offer a rare peek at the often secret deliberations of university heads and admissions officials. They show how schools admit otherwise unqualified wealthy children because their parents have connections and could possibly donate large sums down the line, raising questions about fairness. Stuart Schmill, the dean of admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote in a 2018 email that the university admitted four out of six applicants recommended by then-board chairman Robert Millard, including two who “we would really not have otherwise admitted.” The two others were not admitted because they were “not in the ball park, or the push from him was not as strong.” In the email, Schmill said Millard was careful to play down his influence on admissions decisions, but he said the chair also sent notes on all six students and later met with Schmill to share insight “into who he thought was more of a priority.” The filings are the latest salvo in a lawsuit that claims that 17 of the nation’s most prestigious colleges colluded to reduce the competition for prospective students and drive down the amount of financial aid they would offer, all while giving special preference to the children of wealthy donors. “That illegal collusion resulted in the defendants providing far less aid to students than would have been provided in a free market,” said Robert Gilbert, an attorney for the plaintiffs. Since the lawsuit was filed, 10 of the schools have reached settlements to pay out a total of $284 million, including payments of up to $2,000 to current or former students whose financial aid might have been shortchanged over a period of more than two decades. They are Brown, the University of Chicago, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt and Yale. Johns Hopkins is working on a settlement and the six schools still fighting the lawsuit are the California Institute of Technology, Cornell, Georgetown, MIT, Notre Dame and the University of Pennsylvania. MIT called the lawsuit and the claims about admissions favoritism baseless. “MIT has no history of wealth favoritism in its admissions; quite the opposite,” university spokesperson Kimberly Allen said. “After years of discovery in which millions of documents were produced that provide an overwhelming record of independence in our admissions process, plaintiffs could cite just a single instance in which the recommendation of a board member helped sway the decisions for two undergraduate applicants." In a statement, Penn also said the case is meritless that the evidence shows that it doesn't favor students whose families have donated or pledged money to the Ivy League school. “Plaintiffs’ whole case is an attempt to embarrass the University about its purported admission practices on issues totally unrelated to this case," the school said. Notre Dame officials also called the case baseless. “We are confident that every student admitted to Notre Dame is fully qualified and ready to succeed,” a university spokesperson said in a statement. The South Bend, Indiana, school, though, did apparently admit wealthy students with subpar academic backgrounds. According to the new court filings, Don Bishop, who was then associate vice president for enrollment at Notre Dame, bluntly wrote about the “special interest” admits in a 2012 email, saying that year's crop had poorer academic records than the previous year's. The 2012 group included 38 applicants who were given a “very low” academic rating, Bishop wrote. He said those students represented “massive allowances to the power of the family connections and funding history,” adding that “we allowed their high gifting or potential gifting to influence our choices more this year than last year.” The final line of his email: “Sure hope the wealthy next year raise a few more smart kids!” Some of the examples pointed to in this week's court filings showed that just being able to pay full tuition would give students an advantage. During a deposition, a former Vanderbilt admissions director said that in some cases, a student would get an edge on the waitlist if they didn’t need financial aid. The 17 schools were part of a decades-old group that got permission from Congress to come up with a shared approach to awarding financial aid. Such an arrangement might otherwise violate antitrust laws, but Congress allowed it as long as the colleges all had need-blind admissions policies, meaning they wouldn't consider a student’s financial situation when deciding who gets in. The lawsuit argues that many colleges claimed to be need-blind but routinely favored the children of alumni and donors. In doing so, the suit says, the colleges violated the Congressional exemption and tainted the entire organization. The group dissolved in recent years when the provision allowing the collaboration expired.Marta’s magic helped get the Pride to Saturday’s NWSL title game against the Washington Spirit
A Miami Student Earn $1M With Litecoin —Is BlockDAG the Next Success Story?
