Word: pasts
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...first it sounded like science fiction, curing genetic diseases by giving people new genes. Then it seemed like simple fiction: while theoretically possible, gene therapy appeared unlikely to become a true therapeutic option, the field having suffered years of complications and high-profile setbacks. But over the past year, a series of small but intriguing advances has suggested that the technique may hold real future potential...
...single gene injected into the monkeys was coded for the naturally occurring protein follistatin, which blocks the function of another protein called myostatin that hinders muscle growth. Past research in mice that were genetically engineered to have an extra copy of the follistatin-producing gene has shown that blocking myostatin, by increasing follistatin, causes muscles to bulk up fast. What Kaspar and his team found was that the same effect could be achieved simply by injecting genes - ferried aboard a small, non-disease-causing virus known as AAV, or adeno-associated virus - into the muscle. They further discovered that once...
Humans have expended a great deal of intellectual energy over the past few thousand years trying to understand the morality (or amorality) of seeking pleasure. Most of philosophy begins with the question of what defines the (or a) good life. But what if the answer to what makes us happy comes down to how much of a particular chemical is circulating in our brain at any particular moment...
...neurotransmitter dopamine isn't quite that powerful, but evidence has been mounting for the past 40 years that its activity is key to helping the brain recognize experiences that cause pleasure. The more dopamine a certain event (having sex or eating ice cream, say) triggers, the more strongly that event gets hard-wired in the brain, and the more intensely your brain drives you to revisit it. (See the best inventions...
...into political opposition. Starting in December, conservative President Lee Myung Bak, the National Assembly and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court will appoint the group's new leaders, who could choose to not renew its controversial mandate or diminish it. That wouldn't be a surprise; in the past two years, victims have lost three separate lawsuits demanding compensation from the government. "I lost my family at the hands of the government, but they have not compensated me at all for my suffering," says Jung Jung Hee, 76, who barely survived another massacre, also near Bulgap, during...