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West Virginia Teacher Strike Not Over Yet

Public schools in West Virginia are closed despite a deal that was supposed to end the teacher strike today.




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West Virginia Superintendent Announces Resignation

Michael Martirano led the state's schools through dramatic budget cuts, academic challenges, and a state-versus-local battle over school construction.




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West Virginia Teacher Strike Ends After Four Days, Governor Announces Pay Raise

Teachers will receive a 5 percent raise, pending a vote by the state legislature. School will resume Thursday.




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West Virginia Teachers Continue to Strike After State Senate Trims Pay Raise

The West Virginia Senate trimmed the proposed pay raise for teachers from 5 percent to 4 percent, prompting union officials to declare that the strike will continue indefinitely.




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West Virginia Legislature Reaches Deal to End Strike, Deliver Pay Raise to Teachers

The statewide teacher strike could end today if both chambers of the legislature pass the bill to deliver a 5 percent raise to all school employees.




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Despite Fierce Teacher Opposition, West Virginia House Votes to Allow Charter Schools

The West Virginia House of Delegates passed its version of a sweeping education omnibus bill, which would allow the state's first charter schools.




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West Virginia Teachers Scored a Victory But Will Remain on Strike

Lawmakers effectively killed the controversial education bill that had prompted the second statewide strike in two years.




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West Virginia Teachers Are Going on Strike Again

Teachers across the state will walk out of their classrooms on Tuesday to protest an education bill going through the state legislature.




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Educational Opportunities and Performance in West Virginia

This Quality Counts 2020 Highlights Report captures all the data you need to assess your state's performance on key educational outcomes.




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Elementary Teacher Defeats West Virginia's State Senate President in Primary

After a couple years of clashes with teachers in the state, West Virginia Senate President Mitch Carmichael was ousted in Tuesday's Republican primary election by a teacher.




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Three stars of Iowa women’s basketball’s 71-52 victory vs. Virginia Tech

Three stars from Iowa women's basketball's 71-52 victory vs. Virginia Tech.




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Tennessee soccer earns fourth straight NCAA Tournament berth, will face No. 7 seed Virginia Tech

Tennessee soccer earned an NCAA Tournament berth for the fourth straight season and will face No. 7 seed Virginia Tech in the first round Friday




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Intracranially Administered Anti-A{beta} Antibodies Reduce {beta}-Amyloid Deposition by Mechanisms Both Independent of and Associated with Microglial Activation

Donna M. Wilcock
May 1, 2003; 23:3745-3751
Development Plasticity Repair




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Neuregulin1 Nuclear Signaling Influences Adult Neurogenesis and Regulates a Schizophrenia Susceptibility Gene Network within the Mouse Dentate Gyrus

Prithviraj Rajebhosale
Oct 23, 2024; 44:e0063242024-e0063242024
Cellular




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The Motor Basis for Misophonia

Sukhbinder Kumar
Jun 30, 2021; 41:5762-5770
Neurobiology of Disease




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Neuregulin1 Nuclear Signaling Influences Adult Neurogenesis and Regulates a Schizophrenia Susceptibility Gene Network within the Mouse Dentate Gyrus

Neuregulin1 (Nrg1) signaling is critical for neuronal development and function from fate specification to synaptic plasticity. Type III Nrg1 is a synaptic protein which engages in bidirectional signaling with its receptor ErbB4. Forward signaling engages ErbB4 phosphorylation, whereas back signaling engages two known mechanisms: (1) local axonal PI3K-AKT signaling and (2) cleavage by -secretase resulting in cytosolic release of the intracellular domain (ICD), which can traffic to the nucleus (Bao et al., 2003; Hancock et al., 2008). To dissect the contribution of these alternate signaling strategies to neuronal development, we generated a transgenic mouse with a missense mutation (V321L) in the Nrg1 transmembrane domain that disrupts nuclear back signaling with minimal effects on forward signaling or local back signaling and was previously found to be associated with psychosis (Walss-Bass et al., 2006). We combined RNA sequencing, retroviral fate mapping of neural stem cells, behavioral analyses, and various network analyses of transcriptomic data to investigate the effect of disrupting Nrg1 nuclear back signaling in the dentate gyrus (DG) of male and female mice. The V321L mutation impairs nuclear translocation of the Nrg1 ICD and alters gene expression in the DG. V321L mice show reduced stem cell proliferation, altered cell cycle dynamics, fate specification defects, and dendritic dysmorphogenesis. Orthologs of known schizophrenia (SCZ)-susceptibility genes were dysregulated in the V321L DG. These genes coordinated a larger network with other dysregulated genes. Weighted gene correlation network analysis and protein interaction network analyses revealed striking similarity between DG transcriptomes of V321L mouse and humans with SCZ.




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Investigation of Metaplasticity Associated with Transcranial Focused Ultrasound Neuromodulation in Humans

Low-intensity transcranial focused ultrasound stimulation (TUS) is a novel technique for noninvasive brain stimulation (NIBS). TUS delivered in a theta (5 Hz) burst pattern (tbTUS) induces plasticity in the human primary motor cortex (M1) for 30–60 min, showing promise for therapeutic development. Metaplasticity refers to activity-dependent changes in neural functions governing synaptic plasticity; depotentiation is the reversal of long-term potentiation (LTP) by a subsequent protocol with no effect alone. Metaplasticity can enhance plasticity induction and clinical efficacy of NIBS protocols. In our study, we compared four NIBS protocol combinations to investigate metaplasticity on tbTUS in humans of either sex. We delivered four interventions: (1) sham continuous theta burst stimulation with 150 pulses (cTBS150) followed by real tbTUS (tbTUS only), (2) real cTBS150 followed by sham tbTUS (cTBS only), (3) real cTBS150 followed by real tbTUS (metaplasticity), and (4) real tbTUS followed by real cTBS150 (depotentiation). We measured motor-evoked potential amplitude, short-interval intracortical inhibition, long-interval intracortical inhibition, intracortical facilitation (ICF), and short-interval intracortical facilitation before and up to 90 min after plasticity intervention. Plasticity effects lasted at least 60 min longer when tbTUS was primed with cTBS150 compared with tbTUS alone. Plasticity was abolished when cTBS150 was delivered after tbTUS. cTBS150 alone had no significant effect. No changes in M1 intracortical circuits were observed. Plasticity induction by tbTUS can be modified in manners consistent with homeostatic metaplasticity and depotentiation. This substantiates evidence that tbTUS induces LTP-like processes and suggests that metaplasticity can be harnessed in the therapeutic development of TUS.




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Spatiotemporal Neural Network for Sublexical Information Processing: An Intracranial SEEG Study

Words offer a unique opportunity to separate the processing mechanisms of object subcomponents from those of the whole object, because the phonological or semantic information provided by the word subcomponents (i.e., sublexical information) can conflict with that provided by the whole word (i.e., lexical information). Previous studies have revealed some of the specific brain regions and temporal information involved in sublexical information processing. However, a comprehensive spatiotemporal neural network for sublexical processing remains to be fully elucidated due to the low temporal or spatial resolutions of previous neuroimaging studies. In this study, we recorded stereoelectroencephalography signals with high spatial and temporal resolutions from a large sample of 39 epilepsy patients (both sexes) during a Chinese character oral reading task. We explored the activated brain regions and their connectivity related to three sublexical effects: phonological regularity (whether the whole character's pronunciation aligns with its phonetic radical), phonological consistency (whether characters with the same phonetic radical share the same pronunciation), and semantic transparency (whether the whole character's meaning aligns with its semantic radical). The results revealed that sublexical effects existed in the inferior frontal gyrus, precentral and postcentral gyri, temporal lobe, and middle occipital gyrus. Additionally, connectivity from the middle occipital gyrus to the postcentral gyrus and from postcentral gyrus to the fusiform gyrus was associated with the sublexical effects. These findings provide valuable insights into the spatiotemporal dynamics of sublexical processing and object recognition in the brain.




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Ask Smithsonian: Are Humans the Only Animals to Use the Stars to Navigate?

Yet another reason to fight light pollution




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Ask Smithsonian: Can Chimps Be Genetically Engineered to Be Like Humans?

Human beings and chimps share as much as 98 percent of their DNA. If our species are so similar, can chimps be genetically engineered to be more like us?




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Ask Smithsonian: Do Animals Laugh?

The answer may lie between being ticklish and having a sense of humor




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A Gingerbread Smithsonian Castle

The Smithsonian Castle is recreated in gingerbread by Charles Froke, executive pastry chef of Washington's Four Seasons (Produced by: Abby Callard)




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Ask Smithsonian: Why Do We Get Prune Fingers?

Why are we equipped with this curious modification? Find out in this one-minute video, where Ask Smithsonian host Eric Schulze gives us the info on our wrinkled digits.




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Ask Smithsonian: Why Do We Have an Appendix?

The appendix may not be as useless as commonly thought.




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Ask Smithsonian: Can Plants Communicate?

Our host, Eric Schulze, has the answer




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Ask Smithsonian: How Does Night Vision Technology Work?

Who’s afraid of the dark? Our Ask Smithsonian host Eric Schulze is here to explain the illuminating science behind night vision.




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Ask Smithsonian: What’s a Freckle?

What are freckles, and how do they form? In this one-minute video, our Ask Smithsonian host, Eric Schulze, shines a light on the subject.




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A Right Whale Skeleton Arrives at the Smithsonian

See the process involved when a massive specimen arrives at the Smithsonian




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Ask Smithsonian: What Is Wind?

In this one-minute video, our Ask Smithsonian host, Eric Schulze, explains what causes wind. The answer might blow you away.




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Ask Smithsonian: How Much Stuff Is in Orbit Around the Earth?

Much more than you’d think – and it’s whirling around at dangerously high speeds




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Ask Smithsonian: How Does Daylight Savings Affect the Body?

The answer depends on how you feel about cluster headaches




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Ask Smithsonian: How Do Boomerangs Work?

It depends on which variety of boomerang you're using. Our host Eric Schulze has more




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Ask Smithsonian: Where Does Space Begin?

Watch to get the answer that surprised the heck out of us




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Ask Smithsonian: What Are the Weirdest Things Pregnant Women Crave?

Our host explains why you should never say ‘no’ to a hungry pregnant woman




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Ask Smithsonian: Why Do Songs Get Stuck in My Head?

The science behind earworms and why they won’t leave us alone




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Ask Smithsonian: Does Stress Turn Your Hair Gray?

Take a calming breath, then watch this video to find out




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Ask Smithsonian: Lightning Round

How many of your questions can our host, Eric Schulze, answer in 45 seconds?




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Introducing Ask Smithsonian

http://smithsonian.com/ask Now it's your turn to ask the Institution's experts your questions about science, history, art or culture




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Coming July 27: There's More to That from Smithsonian magazine and PRX

Smithsonian magazine covers history, science and culture in the way only it can — through a lens on the world that is insightful and grounded in richly reported stories. On There's More to That, meet the magazine's journalists and hear how they discover the forces behind the biggest issues of our time. 




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Ask Smithsonian: How Does Skin Heal?

Our skin is an endlessly complex organ. Luckily, in this one-minute video, our Ask Smithsonian host Eric Schulze is here to explain exactly what happens after you get a scrape.




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The Smithsonian in 2050

We asked visitors to the National Mall what they thought should be in the Smithsonian collections in 2050. The consensus? Lady Gaga and much more...




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Ask Smithsonian: What Would Happen if a Solar Flare Hit the Earth?

"Be prepared” might not cover it when it comes to super storms.




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The Smithsonian Channel Commemorates the 50th Anniversary of the Wilderness Act

Aerial America: Wilderness premieres Sunday, Sept. 7 at 9PM ET/PT




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Ask Smithsonian: How Do Noise-Canceling Headphones Work?

Our host, Eric Schulze explains how 1 + 1 = 0 when it comes to sound




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Ask Smithsonian: Have Cats Been Domesticated?

When did we start getting cuddly with cats? And have those tabbies really been tamed? In this one-minute video, Ask Smithsonian host Eric Schulze investigates the surprising history and science behind today’s house cat.




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Smithsonian 40 years




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The Gardens of the Smithsonian Institution

Carefully planned gardens provide visitors a place to relax and reflect during their visit to the Smithsonian.




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Ask Smithsonian: Why Do We Use One Hand More Than the Other?

So what exactly factors into how we end up being right or left-handed? In this one-minute video, Ask Smithsonian host Eric Schulze breaks down the science of being a southpaw.




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Ask Smithsonian: Does the Five-Second Rule Really Work?

You might think twice about picking that chip off the carpet and putting it into your mouth.




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Ask Smithsonian: What’s a Dimple?

Host Eric Schulze digs into the science behind these depressions.