LRO transmits first lunar images
GREENBELT, Md., July 2 (UPI) -- The U.S. space agency says its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has used its two cameras to transmit its first images since reaching lunar orbit June 23.
NASA said the LRO's initial images were of a region a few miles east of Hell E crater in the lunar highlands south of Mare Nubium. As the moon rotates beneath the spacecraft, it will gradually build a photographic map of the lunar surface.
"Our first images were taken along the moon's terminator -- the dividing line between day and night -- making us initially unsure of how they would turn out," said LROC Principal Investigator Mark Robinson of Arizona State University in Tempe. "Because of the deep shadowing, subtle topography is exaggerated, suggesting a craggy and inhospitable surface. In reality, the area is similar to the region where the Apollo 16 astronauts safely explored in 1972."
The LRO is designed to identify safe landing sites for future explorers, locate potential resources, describe the moon's radiation environment and demonstrate new technologies, subsurface ice and create detailed images of permanently shaded craters.
After the spacecraft and instruments have completed their initial calibrations, the spacecraft will be directed into its primary mission orbit in August, a nearly circular orbit about 31 miles above the moon's surface.
More information about LRO's cameras and the images are available at http://lroc.sese.asu.edu.
Potential Alzheimer's drug target found
SANTA BARBARA, Calif., July 2 (UPI) -- A U.S.-led international team of scientists said it has found laboratory evidence that a cluster of peptides might be the toxic agent in Alzheimer's disease.
"We believe that we have put a face, a structure, on the molecular assembly that is responsible for Alzheimer's disease," said University of California-Santa Barbara Professor Michael Bowers, who led the study.
The researchers focused on toxic Amyloid Beta 42 peptides, showing how they aggregate.
The AB42 peptide is composed of 42 amino acid residues, the scientists said. A second peptide, AB40, is 10 times more abundant than AB42 in healthy human brains, except it is missing the last two amino acids.
AB40 never grows beyond a certain point and it is non-toxic. But the scientists said AB42 grows to form a structure called a toxic dodecamer that might eventually lead to the large plaques found in the brains of those with Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases.
We are "searching for drug candidates that can prevent AB42 from aggregating to form the toxic dodecamer," said Bowers. "These latest results are a very hopeful thing. I'm more hopeful now than I have ever been that we can make some real progress on this terrible disease."
The study appears in the journal Nature Chemistry.
Study: Outdoor cats easy prey for coyotes
WASHINGTON, July 2 (UPI) -- A U.S. study has determined some wild coyotes regularly feed on outdoor domestic and feral cats.
Shannon Grubbs of the University of Arizona and Paul Krausman of the University of Montana said they tracked coyotes in the Tucson area and observed 36 coyote-cat encounters, of which 19 ended with the coyotes killing the cats.
The researchers said while other studies have found approximately 13 percent of a coyote's diet consists of cats, the new study found of the 45 instances during which coyotes were observed feeding, 42 percent of the meals were cats.
The researchers said their findings raise questions about "Trap, Neuter, and Release" programs that involve catching feral cats, neutering them and then releasing them back into the wild.
The American Bird Conservancy said it's consistently raised concerns about TNR programs because cats kill hundreds of millions of birds each year and also because TNR programs do not provide a humane solution for the cats themselves.
The study appears in the Journal of Wildlife Management.
Memory decline reversed in mouse model
TAMPA, Fla., July 2 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists say a human growth factor used to stimulate blood stem cells to proliferate in bone marrow can also reverse memory impairment in mice.
Researchers at the University of South Florida and Haley Hospital, both in Tampa, Fla., genetically altered mice to develop Alzheimer's disease. The scientists found the growth factor -- granulocyte-colony stimulating factor -- significantly reduced levels of the brain-clogging protein beta amyloid found in abundance in the brains of the Alzheimer's mice, and also increased production of new neurons and promoted nerve cell connections.
"GCSF has been used and studied clinically for a long time, but we're the first group to apply it to Alzheimer's disease," said Dr. Juan Sanchez-Ramos, the study's lead author. "This growth factor could potentially provide a powerful new therapy for Alzheimer's disease -- one that may actually reverse disease, not just alleviate symptoms like currently available drugs."
The researchers said injections under the skin of filgrastim (Neupogen) -- one of three commercially available GCSF compounds -- mobilized stem cells leading to improved memory and learning behavior in the Alzheimer's mice.
"The beauty in this less invasive approach is that it obviates the need for neurosurgery to transplant stem cells into the brain," Sanchez-Ramos said.
The findings are reported online in the journal Neuroscience and will appear in the journal's August print edition.
