Slack has launched its biggest ever redesign, aimed at tidying up people’s conversations and introducing them to new features. The workplace chat app has gone through a number of changes since it was first launched almost exactly 10 years ago. Many of those updates have come in recent years, amid an increased focus on the platform as a way of connecting remote workplaces. But Slack’s newest update brings a host of changes – and aims to bring people’s attention to the existing changes that might have gone unnoticed. By default, the new design keeps the same fundamental look as Slack currently. It has the purple colour that has ben associated with the app, and the flow of conversations has stayed much the same, though the update brings new ways of customising the aesthetic. But the most obvious change is the introduction of a new sidebar, that organises different kinds of chats and other information. Gathered into options for “Home” and “Later”, for instance, are all of the chats and information that users might have. Similarly, an “Activity” feed combines the various ways that people might get in touch with a user: threads, mentions and reactions. They willall now be stuck together in one view. In this way, the new version of Slack borrows heavily from its competitor, Microsoft Teams. That app has long offered a DMs section that offers easy access to all the recent conversations, and a separate space in which to see those chats. The change also helps unify multiple workspaces. Some larger companies organise their various divisions or teams into different workspaces – so that the large company might separate sales and IT teams, or similar – and until now those have been separated and required clicking between different groups. The other major change is a new + button that will appear in the bottom of the screen, and replaces the one to start new messages. That also unifies a host of features: clicking that will give the option not only to start new chats, but also calls and the “canvas” tool that can be used to collaboratively gather information but was previously difficult to discover. Read More Slack goes down, disrupting workplaces for second time in a week Why you might never have to remember your password again AI can predict Parkinson’s subtype with up to 95% accuracy, study suggests

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ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 17, 2023--

Alcohol addiction ruins millions of lives every year, but scientists may have found a cure for this terrible affliction. A new treatment for alcohol use disorder (AUD) has been trialled in monkeys with impressive results and, if these translate to human trials, the impact could be monumental. A team of neuroscientists and physiologists from across the US tested a new type of gene therapy to see if they could directly target the underlying brain circuitry associated with sustained heavy drinking. As they noted, in the journal Nature Medicine, people suffering from AUD commonly return to alcohol use even if they attempt to quit. This is largely to do with what’s known as mesolimbic dopamine (DA) signalling – meaning how the central nervous system circuit communicates the feelgood neurotransmitter dopamine. A protein called glial-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) is key to keeping these neurons in this reward circuitry functioning. However, experts have found that levels of GDNF are reduced in people with AUD during periods of alcohol abstinence, most notably in a region of the brain called the ventral tegmental area (VTA), as IFLScience notes. Therefore, the researchers decided to test whether using gene therapy to deliver more GDNF to the VTA could help reinforce this crucial dopaminergic signalling and prevent patients from suffering an alcoholic relapse. The team of scientists explained how alcohol consumption in non-addicts prompts the release of dopamine, creating a pleasurable buzz feeling, but chronic alcohol use causes the brain to adapt and stop releasing so much dopamine. “So when people are addicted to alcohol, they don’t really feel more pleasure in drinking,” Dr Kathleen Grant, a senior co-author of the study, said in a statement. “It seems that they’re drinking more because they feel a need to maintain an intoxicated state.” For their research, Dr Grant and her colleagues used eight rhesus macaque monkeys, who were exposed to increasing concentrations of alcohol over four 30-day “induction” periods. The monkeys then had free access to alcohol and water for 21 hours a day for six months, during which they developed heavy drinking behaviours. This was then followed by a 12-week abstinence phase, with the GDNF treatment performed four weeks in for half of the subjects. The gene therapy was delivered using a a viral vector containing a copy of the human GDNF gene injected directly into the primate’s VTA, according to IFLScience. And the results were truly jaw-dropping. “Drinking went down to almost zero,” Dr Grant said. “For months on end, these animals would choose to drink water and just avoid drinking alcohol altogether. They decreased their drinking to the point that it was so low we didn’t record a blood-alcohol level.” The most exciting aspect of their findings is the suggestion that gene therapy could offer a permanent solution for people with the most severe cases of AUD. This will be a welcome glimmer of hope to many, given that some 29.5 million people were diagnosed with AUD in the US alone in 2021, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Of these 29.5 million sufferers, almost a million (894,000) were aged between 12 and 17. It’ll likely be some time before we know for sure whether the gene therapy can be rolled out in humans, but it’s an important first step in tackling this devastating disorder. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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MIAMI LAKES, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 22, 2023--

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