Exercise and the ‘Depression Blocking Gene’

Original post from Nature Medicine:

Based on recent studies, the effects of exercise may extend much farther than  most expect. A simple experiment was conducted on laboratory mice showing a connection between exercise and clinical depression of the brain.

It was noted that, “mice will typically run for the equivalent of 10 km a day. After a week, the researchers compared the gene expression in these well-exercised mice to that of sedentary controls. They found 33 genes that had significantly altered expression after a week’s worth of workouts.”

Among the 33 genes altered, one gene known as Vgf was greatly altered due to the exercise.  In past experiments, Vgf was “identified it as being induced by electroshock therapy, a treatment for extreme depression.” 

Limewire Fails to Prove RIAA Violations

Original post from Ars Technica:

Beginning all the way back in 2006, the RIAA initially sued the increasingly popular P2p client, Lime Wire. Following their decision to not settle outside of court, Lime Wire decided to fight its case based upon several “antitrust violations” committed by the RIAA.

Accordingly, “Lime Wire asserts that the RIAA member labels teamed up and decided to support only P2P company iMesh to the exclusion of all others. iMesh used acoustic fingerprinting technology smiled on by the RIAA and was offered a license to use major-label music on its service. Lime Wire wanted to offer a hash-based filtering system of its own (which would only block files with identical hashes). When it went to the RIAA to ask for the hashes it needed, the group allegedly demanded that Lime Wire sell out to iMesh and then use the same acoustic fingerprinting technology.

The RIAA and its members engaged in “unfair business practices” that include:

1. Hacking and exploring files of Lime Wire software users
2. Falsely claiming that Lime Wire “promotes child pornography” and is a “pirate” and “smut peddler”
3. Threatening users of P2P software with litigation, based upon information obtained by illegal means
4. Pressuring artists not to license their works to providers of P2P software that were not controlled or owned by the music labels.”

Unfortunately for Lime Wire’s side of the case, the judge did not give in to any of the allegations despite “more than a million pages of documents and 100GB of data.”