6年生で、中学になった、ティラノの宿題から。こんな、身の回りにあるものでも、英語は結構知らかったりするのね。Erlenmeyer Flask = 三角フラスコ。アーレンメイヤーっという人からとったみたい。 Florence flask = 丸底フラスコ。イタリアの地名から。ふ…

サイエンスの議論でも、しょっちゅう野球用語がでてきたりする。これまで一度も気づいたことがなかった、というか、多分意味が全然わからなくて単に聞き返していたんだと思うが。。。"Ball park（野球のIn playになるグランド？）に入ってることを示すにはど…

いまだに発音に問題が多々あるのだが、最近気づいたのは、ERが頭にくるとどうも通じない、ということ。たとえば、わがラボでも研究しているRasの下流のたんぱく質であるERKは、通じない。議論のときに、「アークがさあ」とかいうと、「は？」という顔をされ…

日本で惑星の配列を覚えるときは、「すいきんちかもくどってんかいめい」と呪文をつぶやくことになっている。アメリカでは。。。。？ティラノがぶつぶつとつぶやいていたのは、"My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizza." （私のとっても高学歴な…

NMDA Receptor-Dependent Activation of the Small GTPase Rab5 Drives the Removal of Synaptic AMPA Receptors during Hippocampal LTD (José Esteban's et al.) Neuron, Vol 45, 81-94 Congratulations, José ! It might be fun to see interactions betw…

I had a chat with my colleague about why Clontech's vectors produce much weaker protein expression than other CMV-based vectors (such as pCI, pcDNA3, pRK5) do, even though they use the same CMV promoter ? It seems like following features o…

In a 3D-scanning microscope, it is fairly easy to scan in the xy-plane rapidly using a pair of galvano-mirrors. However, for z-axis scanning, we still rely on a slow stepper motor. An introduction of a liquid lens (discussed in slashdot) b…

Science Dynamic Instability in a DNA-Segregating Prokaryotic Actin Homolog, Science, Vol 306, Issue 5698, 1021-1025 , 5 November 2004 Microtubules, a polymer made of tubline monomer, randomly alternate between periods of elongation and sho…

We recently moved and redesigned our 2-photon microscope. I like designing optical system and aligning lenses and mirrors. But after these fun parts are over, I have to go through most boring things: denoising the whole system. Today I tri…

Beautiful photos shown in Dr. Miyawaki's talk entertained and facsinated people in CSHL attending to the Axon guidance people. After he introduced recent his published work, he talked about hundreds of species of GFP varients his group clo…

Today I could not find transfected neurons usable for imaging experiments. Instead, I decided to practice the perforated patch technique. One advantage of the perforated patch is that the technique is free from the so-called washout proble…

Originally today it was my turn to present a journal club, but fortunatelyunfortunately, it was canceled. Instead, we had two data clubs presented by Anthony/Linda and Vincenzo. (Obviously I cannot open details here).As you might know, one…

FRET Okamoto, K., Hayashi etal. (2004) Rapid and persistent modulation of actin dynamics regulates postsynaptic reorganization underlying bidirectional plasticity. The paper was also reviewed in Ryo's page . [My comments] Because they use …

The beautiful image in left, which I took today, shows the activity of Ras in HEK293 cells before and after a growh-factor application. The Ras activity is color-coded in rainbow scheme (red-yellow-green-blue). The imaging technique used h…

Arendt T, Heumann R. et al. (2004) Neuronal activation of Ras regulates synaptic connectivity. Eur. J. Neurosci. 19:2953-66 Effects of expression of constitutively active Ras in neurons (synapsin promoter) on morphology, synaptic plasticit…

Scott,D.B., and Ehlers, M.D. et al. (2004) "Endocytosis and Degradative sorting of NMDA receptors by conserved membrane-proximal signals" J. Neurosci. 24:7096-7109 [Notes] Nice story about mechanisms of regulation of NMDA receptors. The pa…

Grigory Krapivinsky, David E. Clapham (2004) "SynGAP-MUPP1-CaMKII Synaptic Complexes Regulate p38 MAP Kinase Activity and NMDA Receptor- Dependent Synaptic AMPA Receptor Potentiation" Neuron, 43, 563-574 [Note] Calcium dependent activation…

P.G. Allen (2003) "Actin filament uncapping localizes to ruffling lamellae and rocketing vesicles" Nature Cell Biology 5, 972 - 979 Capping and uncapping of both ends of actin filaments are critical for regulation of actin elongation. Alle…

Gown presented about a paper from Davis, G. lab. K.Poskanzner, G.Davis et al. "Synaptotagmin I is necessary for compensatory synaptic vesicle endocytosis in vivo" Nature \ 426, 559 - 563 They introduce synaptotagmin-I with FLaSh (fluoresce…

Angulo M.C., Audinat E. et al. (2004) "Glutamate Released from Glial Cells Synchronizes Neuronal Activity in the Hippocampus " The Journal of Neuroscience, 24(31):6920-6927 Slow transient current (STC) measured in CA1 neuron at +40mV is ca…

T.Nagai, A.Miyawaki et al.(2004) Expanded dynamic range of fluorescent indicators for Ca2+ by circularly permuted yellow fluorescent proteins, PNAS 101 (29): 10554–10559 The dynamic range of Cameleon (calcium sensor made of YFP-CaM-M13-CFP…

Karen picked the famous paper from Kasai's lab. Matsuzaki M, Honkura N, Ellis-Davies GC, Kasai H "Structural basis of long-term potentiation in single dendritic spines" Nature. 2004 429(6993):761-6 This is a beautiful paper showing glutama…

I am measuring interactions between two proteins tagged with fluorescence proteins using fluorescence lifetime microscope. One important thing for my experiments is controling protein-expression level of the two target proteins. For almost…

Quantitative measurements of dynamics of protein-protein interactions in cells are crucial to understand cell signaling. The fluctuation correlation spectroscopy (FCS) and dual-color fluctuation cross-correlation spectroscopy (FCCS) may op…