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(Reuters) - German researchers have enabled mice paralyzed after spinal cord injuries to walk again, re-establishing a neural link hitherto considered irreparable in mammals by using a designer protein injected into the brain.
Spinal cord injuries in humans, often caused by sports or traffic accidents, leave them paralyzed because not all of the nerve fibers that carry information between muscles and the brain are able to grow back.
But the researchers from Ruhr University Bochum managed to stimulate the paralyzed mice’s nerve cells to regenerate using a designer protein.
“The special thing about our study is that the protein is not only used to stimulate those nerve cells that produce it themselves, but that it is also carried further (through the brain),” the team’s head Dietmar Fischer told Reuters in an interview.
In the bustling northern Pakistani city of Peshawar a man in bowtie, bowler hat and carrying a cane flamboyantly weaves through busy traffic, narrowly avoiding rickshaws, motorcycles and buses in a scene reminiscent of a 1920s silent film.
The rapid roll-out of coronavirus vaccines amongst older people in Israel has lifted the spirits of an age group that has endured confinement and isolation during the crisis.
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CAIRO (Reuters) - Ten years ago protesters surged onto Egypt’s streets, emboldened by the success of Tunisia’s Arab Spring uprising.
FILE PHOTO: Anti-government protesters in Cairo s Tahrir Square listen as President Hosni Mubarak speaks to the nation February 10, 2011. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh/File Photo
Some young activists formed the Revolution Youth Coalition to draw together the uprising’s disparate strands and give the protesters occupying Cairo’s Tahrir Square a coherent voice.
They demanded freedom, dignity, democracy and social justice amid battles with police and state-hired thugs, and on Feb. 11 President Hosni Mubarak resigned.
But the coalition fragmented as it faced two much more established forces: the Muslim Brotherhood that swept to power in later elections, and the military that toppled it in 2013.
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BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - Slovakia acted fast when it was hit by the coronavirus pandemic, quickly going into lockdown and keeping the number of cases lower than in most other European countries.
FILE PHOTO: Police officers in protective suits speak with people inside cars at the Slovak-Czech border in Drietoma crossing, Slovakia, March 13, 2020. REUTERS/Radovan Stoklasa/File Photo
But as the government eases its lockdown restrictions, one of the measures still in place is increasingly under fire compulsory quarantine for Slovaks returning or visiting from abroad.
When they enter the central European country, they are escorted by police to state-run facilities where they must stay at least five days, or much longer if they test positive for the virus.