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NERVE GROWTH FACTOR QUEEN
If you want to live to a 100, you might consider following Rita Levi-Montalcini's routine: get up at five in the morning, eat just once a day, at lunchtime, keep your brain active, and go to bed at 11pm.

"I might allow myself a bowl of soup or an orange in the evening, but that's about it," she says. "I'm not really interested in food, or sleep."

Adiminutive, bird-like figure with an alert manner and engaging smile, Montalcinihas the insight stamina and sharp intellect that someone half her age would envy.

This astonishing woman - who studied medicine, survived Fascism and prejudice, and went on to win the Nobel Prize in 1986,still takes an active part in politics

in the Italian Senate. I recently read her autobiography "In Praise of Imperfection:My Life and Work."What touched me was her ability to see the goodness in the people who she has shared her life with.A scientist, she advocated love as the life source ofhuman existance, without exactly saying it that way.

For example, I copied this quote from her book, a secondhand quote from Dutch Jewess Etty Hillesum:"My acceptance ( she worte in her diary July 1942, when she was already awareof her fate) is not resignation or lack of will: there is still r oom for elementary moral outrage against a regime which treats human beings this way. But the things that are happening to us are too big, too diabolic for one to react with personal rancor and bitterenss.It would be a peurile reaction, out of proportion to the fatefulness of these events.

A future peace will be truly such only if everyone has first found it wihin themselves--if every man has freed himself of hatred for his fellows of whatever race or nation, and transformed it into something different, in the end into love, if that isn't asking for too much...That little piece of eternity which we carry within us can be expressed in one word or in ten volumes.I am a happy person and I celebrate this life in the year of our Lord 1942, the umpteenth year of war."

Montalcini won the Nobel Prize for her study identifying theNerve Growth Factor (NGF).Her NGF studies began with research on the growth of chicken embryo nerve fibers in Turin in the 1940s. Because of the Italian Fascist's anti-Jewish campaign, she was forced her to leave her university laboratory.Willful, ambitious, totally enthusiastic about her research, and not susceptible to intimidation, she created a research facility in her bedroom in Turin. She conducted her research, without stipends, while waiting out the tyrant government.

In her autobiography Montalcini constantly revisits the question of `why people go bad?' She quotes Primo Levi: Considerate la vostra semenza: Fatti non foste a viver come bruti..." (Take thought of the seed from which you spring: you were not born to live as brutes.)

For a scientist, it is a nearly impossible to rely on the humanities, sociology, or history to come up with an explanation for why humans commit atrocious crimes against each other.She posits that it is the way the human brain develops that makes it possible for evil to happen. The sequence of brain mutations from Lucy, who had a brain the size of a coconut, to now has witnessed an increased in the brain's volume and cortical mantle to such a degree it seems near supernatural.

Because the brain takes it time to fold back upon itself in ever-more creases, human children depend on adult caregivers from birth to puberty and longer. The dependence upon adults cause the children to be loyal to their tribe.The young develop blind obedience to the elders.If they were not obedient, they would not survive.Human emotive faculties control conduct and actions.

Blind obedience causes millions of individuals to set themselves at the disposal of their government and allow them to follow tyrants who groom the young to be ready to kill millions of other just like them. The tyrants feed the young slogans upon which they become drunk, hypnotized by power,and therefore control the human brain.

Thus the ability for humans to be cruel, to hate others, to do war and slaughter--fatal activities unique to our species-- are caused by the tribal dependence.

And there is a paradox: in a sinister way, language, the greatest privilege bestowed upon human beings, casts the young into an abyss of obscurantism whenever they fall prey to fanatical leaders who use words to incite hatred.Too, images-- a swastika or KKK white hood of KKK--evokes mystic reactions in tribal followers. ... Read more

Product Description
Frontiers of Life addresses fields of biology in terms of their frontiers--that is, the areas that will demand the most work in this new century. Because of their standing, the editors have been able to unite the most prestigious and well-informed authorities to place recent scientific advances into the context of their effects on daily human experiences and expectations. They ask, "What frontiers of the biological sciences will constitute the challenges of the next century?" Their first answer is an understanding of the processes and mechanisms that led to the origin of life. They take this answer as the starting point of the first section of the Encyclopedia. They thus proceed throughout the four volumes.
Separating this Encyclopedia form others is its multidisciplinary approach to the "frontiers" theme. While other encyclopedias strive to describe the past and present states of many subjects, Frontiers of Life offers the insights of world-class scientists into their subjects' growth areas.


Key Features
* Includes Advisory Board with each member a Nobel Laureate
* Written by contributors playing leading roles in their fields of expertise
* Contains almost 3,000 full color tables and figures, illustrating the 205 articles; color running heads and subtitles within each article make reading easy
* Presents biology as an organizing force of life in every article, from the cellular level to the interpersonal ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Macmillan Reference USA Science Library: Animal Sciences, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 362 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.This interdisciplinary resource explores the wide-ranging diversity that exists within the animal kingdom. Entries examine how animals develop, animal ecology and behavior, and the connection between animals and humans. Also includes biographies of key scientists who have contributed to the study of animal life, as well as career opportunities within the field. ... Read more

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This digital document, covering the life and work of Rita Levi-Montalcini, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 1418 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

Product Description
This volume is a collection of articles written by Nobel Laureate Rita Levi-Montalcini and published from 1942 to 1995. Studies described in the first part set the stage for the discovery of a protein molecule which became known as the Nerve Growth Factor (NGF), described in detail in the second part. The NGF synthesized in minute amounts in all vertebrate tissues, plays an essential role in the differentiation and survival of several nerve cell populations in the peripheral and central nervous system. The discovery of the NGF was defined by the Nobel Foundation as a milestone in developmental neurobiology, and the author was awarded in 1986 with this prestigious award. Studies pursued in subsequent years and still in progress, have unveiled other fundamental properties of the NGF, described in the third part of this volume. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A remarkable scientist
Rita Levi-Montalcini persevered under some tough working conditions to win a Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1986. Lisa Yount does a good job of explainingLevi-Montalcini'sscientific career. I also appreciated the insights into Giuseppe Levi, a remarkable mentor to three Nobel Prize winners: Levi-Montalcini, Salvador Luria, and Renato Dulbecco

The next time I think I am having a tough time on a research project, I will re-read what Levi-Montalcini endured and get back to work. ... Read more

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Renato Dulbecco (born February 22, 1914) is an Italian virologist who won a 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on reverse transcriptase. In 1973 he was awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University together with Theodore Puck and Harry Eagle. He was born in Catanzaro (Southern Italy) to a Calabrese mother and a Ligurian father. He graduated from high school at 16, then moved to the University of Turin. Despite a strong interest for mathematics and physics, he decided to study medicine. At only 22, he graduated in morbid anatomy and pathology under the supervision of professor Giuseppe Levi. During these years he met Salvador Luria and Rita Levi-Montalcini, whose friendship and encouragement would later bring him to the United States. In 1936 he was called up for military service as a medical officer, and later (1938) discharged. In 1940 Italy entered World War II and Dulbecco was recalled and sent to the front in France and Russia, where he was wounded. After hospitalization and the collapse of Fascism, he joined the resistance against the German occupation. ... Read more

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Chapters: Camillo Golgi, Rita Levi-Montalcini, Ugo Cerletti, Paolo Mantegazza, Massimo Grattarola, Carlo Matteucci, Salvatore Dimauro, Julius Caesar Aranzi, Daniel Bovet, Giacomo Rizzolatti, Lucio Bini. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 46. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Rita Levi-Montalcini (born April 22, 1909), Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI is an Italian neurologist who, together with colleague Stanley Cohen, received the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of Nerve growth factor (NGF). Since 2001, she has also served in the Italian Senate as a Senator for Life. Today she is the oldest living Nobel laureate and the first ever to reach the 100th birthday. On April 22, 2009 she was feted with a 100th birthday party at Rome's city hall. She was also the subject of a joke in the British TV Program "Have I Got News for You", which also poked fun at the TV Channel Dave's habit of constantly repeating TV Programs, years after the original was first shown. It went as follows "She is now 100 years old, or if you are watching the repeat on Dave dead." (At time of writing she is still alive, which the announcer on Dave when this episode appeared went to great lengths to announce.) Born in Turin to a Sephardic Jewish family, together with her twin sister Paola she was the youngest of four children. Her parents were Adamo Levi, an electrical engineer and gifted mathematician, and Adele Montalcini, a painter. Levi-Montalcini decided to attend medical school after seeing a close family friend die of cancer, overcoming the objections of her father who believed that "a professional career would interfere with the duties of a wife and mother". She enrolled in the Turin medical school in 1930. After graduating in 1936, she went to work as Levi's assistant, but her academ...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=708064 ... Read more