Nervous breakdown

Nervous breakdown

L ike the waistband of your pants after Thanksgiving dinner, neurons have to be able to stretch and then return to shape. On page 269 Hammarlund et al. pinpoint the protein that confers this springiness, showing that neurons lacking the molecule fracture. Movements such as bending your elbow put strain on neurons, but the source of the cells' elasticity has been a mystery. Hammar-lund et al. su...

A nervous breakdown in the skin: stress and the epidermal barrier.

In this issue of the JCI, Aberg and colleagues report that psychological stress disrupts the skin's antimicrobial barrier and increases the severity of cutaneous infections (see the related article beginning on page 3339). This effect is mediated by endogenous glucocorticoids produced secondarily to stress-related activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. Thus, this study provides ...

Breakdown analysis

It is a widely-supported tenet in human-computer interaction that the meaningful unit of analysis is not the technical device alone, but the technical device together with the person interacting with it; the reason is that what is a relevant property of a technology is only understandable with respect to the specific goals and resources activated during its usage. This basic reflection should a...

Dielectric breakdown I : A review of oxide breakdown

T he properties o f thin dielectrics remain very important tbr the reliability o f semiconductor devices. In the first place we think of the gate oxide in integrated circuits. It is well known that defects, contamination and metal impurities are hazardous for a sufficient lifetime of the integrated circuits. Therefore, a large effort is spent on the construction of better clean rooms, in the fi...

Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy