Knocking Out a 'Dumb' Gene Boosts Memory in Mice

We like to think of our brain as an incredibly sophisticated thinking machine that has been fine-tuned by evolution. But recently researchers working with mice found that a tiny genetic manipulation significantly boosted brainpower with seemingly no negative consequences. People have this gene, too, and it is active in the same brain area. In other words, we may have a gene in our heads that is actively making us dumber.

Emory University pharmacologist John Hepler and his team studied a section of the hippocampus called CA2, found in both mice and humans. Although the hippocampus is crucial for memory, the neurons in CA2, oddly, fail to participate in the cellular process on which learning and memory depend: long-term potentiation, which strengthens communication between neurons that fire together.

The researchers noticed that the neurons in CA2 were saturated with RGS14, a signaling protein that mysteriously inhibits long-term potentiation. When the investigators bred mice lacking the gene that codes for RGS14, they found that the neurons in CA2 suddenly demonstrated long-term potentiation.

The genetic tweak affected more than physiology—it changed how the mice performed on memory tests, too. The experimenters presented two identical objects to knock­out mice, which lacked the RGS14 gene, and to normal mice. Four hours and again 24 hours later, the researchers switched one of the objects with a new object. The knockout mice spent far more time exploring the new object than the normal mice did, indicating that the altered rodents had a better memory for distinguishing familiar and strange objects. Knockout mice also learned to navigate a water maze and locate a submerged platform faster than normal mice did. The scientists observed no detriments from removing the RGS14 gene.

“Why would we have a gene that makes us dumber?” asks Serena Dudek, a neuroscientist at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and a co-author of the study, which was published in the September issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. “We don’t know. But if the gene is conserved by natural selection, there must be some reason. Intuitively, it seems there should be a downside to having this gene knocked out, but we haven’t found it so far. It may be that these mice are hallucinating, and you just can’t tell.”

Alcino Silva, a neurobiologist at the University of Cali­fornia, Los Angeles, and an expert on the biology of memory enhancement who was not involved in the new study, agrees. “My suspicion is when you enhance one thing, you cause deficits in others,” Silva says.

Despite their suspicions that the consequences of disabling this gene will materialize eventually, both Silva and Dudek see theraputic potential: the RGS14 gene and protein are now promising future targets of treatments for learning and memory disabilities.

Editor's note: The original print title was "Handicapped by Our Genes?"

An acre of attitudes

Anne Lamott relates an image from a friend in her great book on writing, Bird by Bird. My version:

Everyone is given an acre of attitudes at birth. It's yours to tend and garden and weed and live with. You can plant bitterness or good humor. Feel free to fertilize and tend the feelings and approaches that you want to spend time with. Unless you hurt someone, this acre is all yours.

Probably worth putting up a decent fence, so that only the attitudes that you choose will have a chance to put down seeds, but it's certainly a bad idea to put up a wall, because a walled garden is no good to anyone passing by. You get to decide what comes through your fence gate, right?

Watching out for invasive species—spending sufficient time on weeding and pruning and staking seem to be incredibly powerful tools for accomplishing the life you want. I refuse to accept that an attitude is an accident of birth or an unchangeable constant. That would be truly horrible to contemplate.

Happy Valentine's Day. Good luck with your garden.

Telstra Launching 4G LTE Network This Year

Despite having the best HSPA network in the world, Telstra has just announced that it plans on taking it up a notch and going 4G, launching an LTE network in capital cities and certain regional hubs around the country using the 1800MHz spectrum.

At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Telstra top dog Davd Thodey announced the plan, which is designed to help cater to the increased demand for mobile data around city areas. The new network won’t be replacing the HSPA NextG network, but working alongside it. Telstra’s first LTE product – a Sierra Wireless USB wireless dongle – will actually work on both the LTE 1800MHz spectrum and NextG’s 850MHz band.

There’s no figures on the new LTE network’s speed yet, with a Telstra spokesperson confirming that it’s more about adding capacity rather than speed, but given that a trial last year had downloads at almost 150Mbps, you can expect it to be pretty fast. There’s also no word on whether Telstra will be launching any exciting new 4G mobiles for the new network.

But given that Telstra are already running a HSPA network faster than many of the “4G” networks around the world, the fact they are continuing to develop and expand their network is great news for mobile users around the country.

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First Look at Prostate Cancer Genome Yields Insights

Newly detected DNA changes may eventually lead to better treatments, researchers say

By Jenifer Goodwin
HealthDay Reporte

(HealthDay News) -- Genetic sequencing of the entire prostate cancer cell genome revealed never-before-seen changes in DNA that may contribute to tumor growth, new research finds.

By mapping the full genetic blueprint of the tumor, researchers hope the information will eventually lead to the development of more targeted drugs and a better understanding of which prostate cancers are likely to spread, one of the biggest challenges for physicians and patients.

"With additional studies and as we sequence more prostate cancer genomes, we may be able to distinguish benign from more aggressive prostate cancers and prevent unnecessary surgeries and treatments," said lead study author Michael Berger, now an assistant professor of pathology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.

In the study, researchers mapped the complete genome of prostate cancer -- that is, all genetic material, including more than 20,000 genes and other DNA material surrounding the genes, for seven patients with advanced disease. The researchers then compared the cancer genome in the tumors to the normal genome in white blood cells taken from the same patients.

The investigators found various types of genetic alterations, some of which had previously been identified and others that had never been seen before. Of particular note were structural rearrangements in which relatively large chunks of DNA from one chromosome move to another location, or swap places with other pieces of DNA. These rearrangements can create "fusion genes," prevent genes from working or let the gene operate unchecked, leading to out-of-control cell growth and cancer, the authors noted.

The sequencing revealed nearly 100 such rearrangements in each patient, said Berger.

DNA rearrangements tend to happen more as cancer progresses and the cells become more fragile and damaged, but some of the rearrangements may turn out to be important to the development of the cancer in the first place, he added.

"We are doing whole genome sequencing as opposed to more targeted sequencing because it's really necessary to identify these rearrangements which are so important in prostate cancer," Berger said.

The study, conducted by researchers from the Broad Institute, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Weill Cornell Medical College, appears in the Feb. 10 issue of Nature.

Until recently, such DNA rearrangements were known to be important in blood cancers such as lymphoma and leukemia, said William Phelps, program director for Translational and Preclinical Cancer Research at the American Cancer Society. However, it's only more recently that researchers have started uncovering the importance of that type of genetic alteration in solid tumors such as breast and now, prostate cancers, he said.

Here's one way to conceptualize the alteration, Phelps said: "If the genome was a book, instead of just looking for out-of-place letters or misspelled words, whole genome sequencing looks for whole paragraphs that are in the wrong place.

"Because [the researchers] sequenced everything, they were able to map not only individual base changes but also how whole genes or segments of the chromosomes had moved around," Phelps said. "By sequencing everything and comparing the normal DNA (in white blood cells), they could see that not only were there individual base changes in the genes, but the genes themselves had been reshuffled in the tumor as part of the process of becoming cancer," he explained.

"If we could use those changes as a diagnostic tool that would be tremendously valuable," he added.

Whole genome sequencing also enables scientists to look not only at "coding" genes, but also "noncoding" DNA around the genes that was once thought to be "junk" but is now known to play an important regulatory role within cells, Phelps said.

Prostate cancer causes more than 30,000 deaths in the United States annually, according to background information in the article. More than 200,000 men are diagnosed each year.

Currently, it's difficult for physicians to know if prostate cancer is going to be slow-growing, in which case doctors may monitor but not treat it, or if it will be aggressive, in which case surgery and chemotherapy may be needed, said Dr. Anna Ferrari, director of the Genitourinary Cancer Program at the NYU Cancer Institute.

The researchers "have done a complete sequencing of the genome in prostate cancers that are very aggressive, and they found in addition to the already established alterations, new genes and new pathways that may influence the progression of the disease," Ferrari said. "This may point to new targets for drug development and treatment strategies."

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more on prostate cancer.

SOURCES: Michael F. Berger, Ph.D., assistant professor, pathology, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York City; William Phelps, Ph.D., program director, Translational and Preclinical Cancer Research, American Cancer Society, Atlanta; Anna C. Ferrari, M.D., director, Genitourinary Oncology Program, NYU Cancer Institute, New York City; Feb. 10, 2011, Nature

Copyright © 2011 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

New Salmonella strain delivers gene-based therapy to fight virus in mice

Most people do their best to avoid contact with Salmonella. This bacteria genus, which often lives on poultry and can find its way intoother food products, causes hundreds of thousands of illnesses—and hundreds of deaths—in the U.S. each year. But new research demonstrates that this common food pathogen could be disarmed and reconfigured as a vehicle for gene-based antiviral treatments.

In the past two decades, scientists have developed gene-based therapies that rely on viruses to deliver key genetic material to the body's cells. But concerns have been raised about the safety of this technique—and its effectiveness in delivering the desired material to the proper cellular targets. Nevertheless, viruses are familiar biomedical tools, having been used in weakened or killed form in vaccines for decades.

Now, a team of scientists has studied whether bacteria, in particular Salmonella, might make better assistants in fighting disease at the genetic level.

Commonplace bacteria are logical candidates for this work, being well adapted to living in the human body, invading our cells and transferring genetic material to them. If a bacterium's illness-inducing qualities can be dialed back, it could be useful in carrying genes to fend off some viral infections.

"This is the first time anyone has successfully engineered bacteria for treatment of a viral infection," Fenyong Liu, a University of California, Berkeley virologist who worked on the new research, said in a prepared statement. The research team found that altered Salmonella were effective in preventing severe infection withcytomegalovirus (CMV)—a widespread virus that can cause severe complications for newborns and people with compromised immune systems. There is currently no approved vaccine for CMV.

The new method, demonstrated in mice, is described in a paper published online Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Mice infected with a murine strain of CMV and given oral doses of the altered bacteria were found to live longer than infected counterparts that did not receive the therapy. Research has shown that small interfering RNAs and ribozymes can muck up viral proteins involved in replication in host cells. And the new study demonstrated that an RNA enzyme plugged into the new strain of Salmonella helped block CMV infection in key organs, such as the liver and spleen.

Weakened strains of Salmonella are already used to vaccinate against typhoid, which is caused by a form of Salmonella infection. And researchers had previously shown that these virus-busting ribozymes could be introduced into Salmonella, but the new study shows for the first time that the bacteria were effective in delivering the introduced RNA enzyme to targeted cells in live animals.

If the Salmonella strategy continues to prove successful in additional animal experiments, bacteria of other types could be assayed to replace viruses as vehicles for some genetic therapies. Viruses can be tricky to maintain in the lab and contamination has been a concern, but "to grow bacteria, you need only add some bacteria to a simple medium, and the next day you can have 100 billion bacteria ready to go. It's safer, easier and cheaper as a vector for gene therapy," Sangwei Lu, a bacteriologist at Berkeley and co-author of the new study, said in a prepared statement.

Bacteria can present their own problems in the lab, of course, and the research still has a long way to go before we will be intentionally swallowing doses of Salmonella. In the meantime, despite efforts to improve food safety, the bacteria remain armed and at large in the food supply.

Image of Salmonella courtesy of CDC/Bette Jensen

As Non-Proliferation Treaty Takes Effect, Should Nukes Be Seen As Clean Energy Source?

This weekend, a ratified nuclear arms control treaty between Russia and the United States went into effect, reducing and limiting each nation’s allowable arsenal of nuclear weapons. The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START 2) also allows U.S. inspectors access to monitor Russian nuclear weapons technology, facilities and forces, which they were prevented from doing since the original START treaty expired in December 2009. As the nations attempt to mitigate a global nuclear arms race, questions remain: what can be done with extant, surplus and aging nukes? Can they be used as a source of clean energy? Do we have the technology?

As Non-Proliferation Treaty Takes Effect, Should Nukes Be Seen As Clean Energy Source?: "

According to a report by Joshua Pollack in the US Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:

“[Russia has] approximately 12,000 nuclear warheads — about 2,600 of them deployed with “strategic” missiles and bombers capable of crossing the oceans — [and so] remains the sole force on Earth that could terminate the existence of the United States on any given day. America has its own massive nuclear arsenal to threaten Russia in return: about 9,400 warheads, including almost 2,000 deployed with strategic delivery systems…”

The World Nuclear Association, a nuclear industry trade group, not surprisingly suggests the conversion of nuclear weapons to energy. The establishment of power plants that can use weapons-grade plutonium and uranium, of course, could help the nuclear industry gain jobs and dollars in energy generation wherever it loses jobs in defense.

Even Bill Gates, who has invested in several energy technology businesses from TerraPower to Neos GeoSolutions, believes in reusing nuclear fuel for energy. TerraPower is trying to build a mini-reactor that could use spent nuclear fuel to power homes and offices, helping divert nuclear waste from storage sites. At his 2010 TED Talks lecture on energy, he noted: “A molecule of uranium has a million times more energy than a molecule of coal.”

Some still argue that the expense to build plants that can convert highly enriched uranium or nuclear weapons to commercial power is not commercially justifiable. Others believe nuclear power, from any sources, is not as clean and safe as other options, like solar or wind.

Clean energy entrepreneurs, who are vying for the support of government and other large investors, often reject the idea of calling nuclear a “clean” energy, thanks to a huge number of accidents on the U.S. historical record alone from Los Alamos to Hanford. That said, nuclear power does not produce carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, or nitrogen oxides.



Health and environmental risks associated with life near nuclear reactors include: contaminated and over-heated ground water; increased risk of childhood leukemia; increased cancer risks overall; and in some areas, decreased air quality from steam emissions; as well as the threat of a nuclear accident.

Platts reports on Monday noted the Sellafield MOX plant in the United Kingdom — established to blend plutonium and uranium oxides into nuclear fuel for commercial power generation — has thus far failed to deliver the energy output its builders promised, and cost the country more money than anticipated.

According to the website of the National Nuclear Security Administration, the U.S. is building a similar plant at the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site near Aiken, South Carolina, due to become operational in 2016.

Image 1: Titan II Missile, at the Titan Missile Museum in Green Valley, Arizona via Evelyn Proimos (CC)



Image 2: A nuclear facility, with water vapor rising from its cooling towers, currently being built in Georgia, via the U.S. Energy Information Administration

Aerobie AeroPress Review: The Hacker Coffee Maker

Introducing the simple and effective Aerobie AeroPress

Computer geeks like me love coffee, the stronger the better. We computer folks are also known for experimentation and a do it yourself ethic. Some of us even love to get outdoors and toss around a flying disc or football. What happens when you mash up all of this? You get the Aerobie AeroPress, the hacker coffeemaker.

What Makes Good Coffee?

Everyone has had a terrible coffee experience, but how many of us have had the opportunity to brew smooth, rich, and delicious coffee at home? The truth is, there is a very fine line between bitter and smooth, muddy and rich, and sour and succulent when it comes to coffee. It takes the right grind, water temperature, and timing to make a delicious cup of coffee, and most coffee makers get all three things wrong. It’s easy to make a bad cup of coffee from good beans using poor equipment or technique!

I started out not liking coffee all. I was used to church basement percolators and convenience store drip, probably the worst coffee there is. Then I got a Cuisinart automatic grind and brew machine, in my eyes were opened to the possibilities of fresh tasting coffee. I also experience the joy of French press coffee at independent coffee shops and my own kitchen. But none of these brewed coffee solutions really match the tastes of a perfectly pulled espresso.

The issue, it seems, is the amount of time that hot water stays in contact that the ground coffee beans. The French press comes close, but Bodum’s recommendation of a 3 minute brew time with an unpalatable edge on an otherwise delicious cup.

Can Espresso Be Brewed?

Espresso is an entirely different concoction from brewed coffee, although both use the same basic ingredients. An espresso machine forces hot water through a compacted coffee puck and high pressure, extracting caffeine and flavor in an instant and leaving behind the sour, bitter taste of the roasted bean. Pulling an espresso takes skill and expensive equipment, putting it out of reach for most home kitchens.

Enter the AeroPress, perhaps the greatest invention in coffee since the French press. Like the exotic Clover machine now owned by Starbucks, the AeroPress is a hybrid that brews espresso and extracts it quickly enough to produce a delicious cup. The clover uses suction and costs thousands, but the little AeroPress uses hand pressure and is available for under $30!

Introducing the AeroPress

The Aerobie AeroPress really is an amazing coffee-making tool!

I spent years hearing about the AeroPress, always wondering if it was all it was cracked up to date. But one day, a friend receive one as a guest in the coffee made right before my eyes was every bit as good as the best barista.

Looking like a giant plastic syringe, the AeroPress takes fine ground coffee and a few ounces of hot water, brews for under 20 seconds, and extracts the good stuff. It’s way quicker than any coffee maker, even a French press, and cleanup is super simple. The whole contraption is small enough to fit in a suitcase even!

The AeroPress uses paper filters, reducing sludge in the bottom of the cup, but also impacting the production of cream a on the surface of the espresso. But the end product really is indistinguishable from a machine pulled espresso when it hits the tongue.

The Hacker Coffee Maker

Apart from the delicious coffee it produces, my favorite aspect of the AeroPress is the experimentation it allows. This truly is a coffee maker for hackers!

The simple operation of the AeroPress allows one to experiment with the main variables of coffee production:

1. Grind size
2. Water temperature
3. Brewing time
4. Water to grind ratio

A good basic cup uses one scoop of fine ground coffee, 175° water to the second marker, and 20 seconds of stirring. But each of these variables can be changed, and the outcome is surprising. Brew too long in the coffee becomes bitter; boiling water makes the coffee turn sour; and a course grind weakens the cup. The possibilities are endless!

Stephens Stance

The Aerobie AeroPress really is all it’s cracked up to be. Any self respecting coffee lover should have and AeroPress in their arsenal, and most will find it becoming an everyday companion. The ability to manually control all of the variables ought to appeal to the hackers reading this, and guarantee that experimentation will yield astonishing results.

I received a Cuisinart automatic burr grinder for Christmas (I have great kids) and it’s an awesome pairing, allowing me to ensure a perfect grind for the AeroPress! Yes, this is the same “Aerobie” that makes flying discs and other fun stuff.

Note: Some of these links include affiliate codes that help pay for this blog. For example, buying an Amazon Kindle with this link sends a few bucks my way! But I don't write this blog to make money, and am happy to link to sites and stores that don't pay anything. I like Amazon and buy tons from them, but you're free to buy whatever and wherever you want.

You might also want to read these other posts...

• Back From the Pile: Interesting Links, November 26, 2010
• Back From the Pile: Interesting Links, October 29, 2010
• Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac Is (Finally) Here!
• American Airlines Points Gun At Foot
• $50 Off The Excellent Sony NEX-3 Camera

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© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2011. |
Aerobie AeroPress Review: The Hacker Coffee Maker


This post was categorized as Everything, Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

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Study reveals possible secret to long life

February 3, 2011 - 2:04AM

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By Danny Rose, AAP Medical Writer

SYDNEY, Feb 3 AAP - Australian scientists may have uncovered one of the secrets to a long life, as they identified the "remarkable" life-extending properties of osteoporosis treatment.

Advertisement: Story continues below

It has been found that frail and elderly people with the degenerative bone condition and who are taking a mainline anti-osteoporosis drug have extended their lives by five years on average.

They are outliving similarly aged people who do not have osteoporosis, a result so positive it was initially met with scepticism by the researchers.

"That was the thing that was really remarkable to us - these people were doing better than, if you like, the average community," said Professor John Eisman from Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research.

"Our initial concern was `we've somehow selected a healthier group ... that's why they are doing better`, but whatever way we looked at it, it didn't seem to explain it.

"Everything about these people imply they would do worse, but they were doing at least as well (as the general population), if not better."

Prof Eisman, along with lead researcher Associate Professor Jacqueline Center, drew on data collected as part of the long-running Dubbo Osteoporosis Epidemiology Study, which started in 1989.

They looked at a group of just over 2000 elderly people, of whom 121 had been taking medication from the bisphosphonates class of drugs for around three years.

The medication prevents the loss of bone mass by slowing the pace at which the bones naturally renew themselves, a process which is too fast in people with osteoporosis.

While those on the treatment were expected to suffer fewer debilitating bone fractures, this could not account for all of the medication's life-extending effect.

Prof Eisman said it may be linked to the "toxic" metals that are known to become stored away in our skeletons over time.

"We speculate that it may have something to do with the fact that bone acts as a repository for toxic heavy metals, such as lead," he said.

"So when people get older, they lose bone (and) when this happens, these toxic metals are released back into the body and may adversely affect health.

"By preventing bone loss, bisphosphonates do prevent some of the toxic metal release.

"While we know this is the case, we don't yet have evidence that this produces the survival benefit."

This warranted further research, Prof Eisman said, as the body's ability to keep toxic compounds in safe storage could be a key factor in overall health and, ultimately, how long a person lives.

The study also underscored the importance of treating osteoporosis, a condition often dismissed as part of the ageing process, he said.

It is thought only about 30 per cent of Australian women and 10 per cent of men who have osteoporosis are receiving treatment.

It should also be noted bisphosphonates, as with any treatment, are not without risk.

There have been rare cases where the medication caused jaw problems among patients taking high doses, such as those under treatment to prevent a cancer from spreading to their bones.

The research is published in the Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism on Thursday.

Aerobic exercise bulks up hippocampus, improving memory in older adults

Many studies have linked exercise withimproved brain health later in life. Now a new controlled trial reveals more about how aerobic activity might be helping to bolster the brain by beefing up the hippocampus.

As we age, parts of the brain tend to shrink—even in the absence of neurocognitive diseases, such as dementia or Alzheimer's. The new research shows that at least some parts of the brain can be saved from atrophy—and even built up—by relatively modest amounts of activity late in life. The findings were published online January 31 inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and could have implications for preventing memory decline in the growing segment of older adults in the U.S.

The research team found that adults aged 55 to 80 years who walked around a track for 40 minutes on three days a week for a year increased the volume of theirhippocampus, the brain region that is implicated in memory and spatial reasoning. Older adults assigned to a stretching routine showed no hippocampal growth.

The 120 previously sedentary older adults recruited for the study did not yet have diagnosable dementia but were experiencing typical age-related reduction of the hippocampus, according to pre-study MRIs. "We think of the atrophy of the hippocampus in later life as almost inevitable," Kirk Erickson, a psychology professor at the University of Pittsburgh and co-author of the new study, said in a prepared statement. "But now we've shown that even moderate exercise for one year can increase the size of that structure."

The growth of the hippocampus was modest, increasing 2.12 percent in the left hippocampus and 1.97 percent in the right hippocampus, which effectively turns back the clock one to two years in terms of volume. The stretching group, on the other hand, experienced continued reduction in pace with expected age-related losses, losing on average 1.40 percent and 1.43 percent in the volume of their left and right hippocampus, respectively.

When tested on a computerized spatial memory test, subjects in both the walking and stretching groups improved in accuracy. But those who were in better shape—and thus also tended to have a larger hippocampus—at the start of the study did the best on the memory tests, suggesting that "increased hippocampal volume after the exercise intervention should translate to improved memory function," noted the researchers behind the new paper. And they did find that for those in the walking group, growth in the hippocampus was correlated with improved memory test scores.

Despite almost daily discoveries about the brain's impressive plasticity, particularly in its ability to change to accommodate for damaged areas, the new findings show that even at a relatively advanced age, "the brain at that stage remains modifiable"—even in key structural areas, Erickson said.

In addition to the increased size of the hippocampus, the aerobic exercise group also tended to have a higher level of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a compound that is associated with having a larger hippocampus and better memory. The researchers did not see any changes in the thalamus or caudate nucleus, two other parts of the brain that are involved with spatial sense and memory, respectively. Because only the hippocampus seemed to be affected by the aerobic exercise regime, the researchers reasoned that the activity might be acting specifically on certain molecular pathways to prompt "cell proliferation or dendritic branching," they noted.

The results of the study should help develop a deeper understanding of the precise biological mechanisms at work. The findings also support the notion that although being in better shape to begin with is linked to better memory, "starting an exercise regimen later in life is not futile for either enhancing cognition or augmenting brain volume," the researchers concluded. And even though stretching might be good for physical flexibility and peace of mind, for mental agility, aerobic exercise seems to be best.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto/Fotosmurf03Fotosmurf03