❝ ‘Henry VII’s devout and rather awesome mother’, was the description the historian Neville Williams offered of Margaret Beaufort in his 1973 biography of the King. Both adjectives in this statement are true, but neither do full justice to the woman who forms the subject of this book. William’s assessment does, however, accurately summarize the way in which Margaret has often been portrayed: a religious fanatic who was obsessively ambitious on her son’s behalf and dominated his court, an image compounded by the effigy upon her tomb as well as the surviving portraits, which show her wearing widow’s weeds and a barbed wimple, on her knees in prayer. This is an image often conjured up when the name Margaret Beaufort is mentioned. Yet it is two-dimensional as the paintings themselves, frequently used as a convenient short-hand when relating the tales of the period. Margaret’s own story and her true character as a living, breathing woman are a far cry from such flat representations.Nicola Tallis, Uncrowned Queen: The Fateful Life of Margaret Beaufort, Tudor Matriarch.
The more you know…
Salk Institute scientists have found preliminary evidence that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and other compounds found in marijuana can promote the cellular removal of amyloid beta, a toxic protein associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
While these exploratory studies were conducted in neurons grown in the laboratory, they may offer insight into the role of inflammation in Alzheimer’s disease and could provide clues to developing novel therapeutics for the disorder.
“Although other studies have offered evidence that cannabinoids might be neuroprotective against the symptoms of Alzheimer’s, we believe our study is the first to demonstrate that cannabinoids affect both inflammation and amyloid beta accumulation in nerve cells,” says Salk Professor David Schubert, the senior author of the paper.
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Ref: Amyloid proteotoxicity initiates an inflammatory response blocked by cannabinoids. NPJ Aging and Mechanisms of Disease (23 June 2016) | DOI: 10.1038/npjamd.2016.12 | PDF (Open Access)
ABSTRACT
The beta amyloid (Aβ) and other aggregating proteins in the brain increase with age and are frequently found within neurons. The mechanistic relationship between intracellular amyloid, aging and neurodegeneration is not, however, well understood. We use a proteotoxicity model based upon the inducible expression of Aβ in a human central nervous system nerve cell line to characterize a distinct form of nerve cell death caused by intracellular Aβ. It is shown that intracellular Aβ initiates a toxic inflammatory response leading to the cell’s demise. Aβ induces the expression of multiple proinflammatory genes and an increase in both arachidonic acid and eicosanoids, including prostaglandins that are neuroprotective and leukotrienes that potentiate death. Cannabinoids such as tetrahydrocannabinol stimulate the removal of intraneuronal Aβ, block the inflammatory response, and are protective. Altogether these data show that there is a complex and likely autocatalytic inflammatory response within nerve cells caused by the accumulation of intracellular Aβ, and that this early form of proteotoxicity can be blocked by the activation of cannabinoid receptors.
Reblog if you think it’s important to teach young black girls that their hair is unique, and beautiful because it is unique and versatile. Because it’s true. 100% TRUE
To my daughters and sisters: Don’t fall for his words, fall for his actions.
Shaykh Waleed Basyouni (via thatkindofwoman)
Easy beautiful curls