Technique lets scientists see brain in full color

Hi Friends,

Last week it was a fast genetic mice and today its a brain colouration.

With all this fast evolving molecular technologies, why should other

people go about hungry day in day out simply becasue they missed,

the green revolution which saw the increase in food production in

the latin america and east asia.

While, I partly understand the mismatch overlooked in the food patterns

of the crops targeted in green revolution and the satple foods of sub-sahara.

These new technologies will or may equally provide the fast growing and

high yeilding crops of sub-sahara. Yes, we use our maize and cassava not

wheat and rice as promoted by the green revolution.

As a molecular biologists and concerned citizen of the underprivilaged, I

propose that scientists in this region should take the molecular techniques

seriously and think of ways how to improve the comonly used food crops,

to revolutionise the growth and productivity of these food crops.

Hastings

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Take note that the picture and story are credited to Nature and World science staff.

Nov. 6, 2007 Courtesy Nature and World Science staff

http://www.world-science.net/othernews/071106_braincolor.htm

With a com­bina­t­ion of ge­net­ic tricks and fan­cy pro­teins, re­search­ers have col­ored hun­dreds of in­di­vid­ual cells in a mouse brain with dis­tinc­tive hues. This pro­vides a key step to­wards un­der­stand­ing how the nerv­ous sys­tem works, both nor­mally and in dis­eased brains, sci­en­tists said.

The re­search, pub­lished in the Oct. 31 is­sue of the re­search jour­nal Na­ture, takes brain map­ping to a new lev­el, and re­sults in the la­bel­ling of nerve cells with ap­prox­i­mately 90 dif­fer­ent co­lour com­bina­t­ions.

Over a hun­dred years ago, the Span­ish phy­si­cian Ra­mon Y Ca­jal opened the gates to mod­ern neu­ro­sci­ence with a tech­nique that col­ors nerve cells so their struc­ture is clearly vis­i­ble, called Gol­gi stain­ing.

But it uses only one col­or, and un­til now it has re­mained dif­fi­cult to map out in­di­vid­ual cells in each brain cir­cuit. In the new re­search, Jeff Licht­man of Har­vard Un­ivers­ity in Mas­sa­chu­setts and col­leagues de­vel­oped a technicol­or ver­sion of Gol­gi stain­ing, called “Brain­bow,” that they said al­lows more de­tailed re­con­struc­tions of brain cir­cuits