Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 16-10-07

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] Greece, the top destination for TUI Austria

[02] The Greek "Vespisti" march out

[03] The Griffin Warrior of Pylos was a very important and handsome man, says Dr. Stocker to ANA

[04] Greek research into microneurotrophins a ray of hope for ALS, MS and other neurodegenerative disease patients

[01] Greece, the top destination for TUI Austria

Wedding also underlined that TUI is confident that Greece's success will continue in 2017.

TUI Austria will launch nine direct flights per week from the Austrian city of Salzburg to Greece as of summer 2017, including, for the first time, the city of Thessaloniki and Zakynthos island.

The tourist group will reduce all prices by 4 percent this year, the Austrian tour operator's managing director noted.

TUI's nine flights from Austria to Greece will include one to Corfu and Kos, two to Crete and Rhodes, two to Thessaloniki and one to Zakynthos.

According to TUI's Kathrin Limpel, overall, Greece has knocked Turkey out of the top spot in regards to bookings. Turkey this year is TUI's fifth preferred destination.

Austria has traditionally been a leading market for Greek tourism with some 400,000 Austrians taking their holidays in Greece annually. Austria ranks first in terms of foreign tourist arrivals in Greece in proportion to its population of 8.5 million residents.

[02] The Greek "Vespisti" march out

They travel everywhere from Greece to Saint Tropez. A total of 50 people recently travelled on their Vespas to Saint Tropez – a trip that took them three days – in order to participate in an international meeting.

The next international meeting will take place in Germany. "Meanwhile, many meetings are being organized in Greece, including the the next one that will be held in the northern Greek city of Kozani, where approximately 150 people are expected to participate," Socrates Moutidis, responsible for Public Relations at Kozani's Vespa Club, said to Praktorio 104.9 FM.

"It is a good opportunity for the participants to get acquainted with the city of Kozani, the region and to admire the beauty of the landscape," he underlined.

[03] The Griffin Warrior of Pylos was a very important and handsome man, says Dr. Stocker to ANA

The warrior was probably a very handsome man with long black hair, we have reconstituted his face based on a depiction of a warrior found on a seal inside the grave which will be presented next year, said to ANA-MPA Dr. Stocker. The reconstitution of the warrior's face was conducted by Lynne Schepartz and Tobias Houlton of the University of Witwatersrand of Johannesburg.

The so-called Griffin Warrior of Pylos aged between 30 and 35 was named after a griffin depicted on two objects found in the grave which indicate that the man in the grave was very important "the griffin reflects a very well known authority system that existed in Pylos and the Minoan Crete," said Stocker.

This remarkable grave and the four gold rings found therein. The discovery of so many gold rings was unexpected and unusual. The iconography of these rings is extraordinary and of great significance for the study of Minoan and Mycenaean ideology in the early Late Bronze Age. This undisturbed burial affords an excellent opportunity to examine aspects of Early Mycenaean funerary ritual, gender association with grave goods, and burial structure that cannot be obtained through more standard multi-individual burial contexts. "Particularly, the depictions on the largest golden ring are unique. The scene with the women on this ring are repeated and in other known seals from Crete, but Pylos' ring reunited smaller known representations into a larger and more complex ceremonial scene" said Stocker to ANA.

The Greek Culture Ministry has characterised this find the "most remarkable demonstration of prehistoric wealth in grave monuments found in the last 65 years in the country's mainland".

Dr. Stocker and and her husband professor Davis will continue the excavations in Pylos for three more years at least.

[04] Greek research into microneurotrophins a ray of hope for ALS, MS and other neurodegenerative disease patients

The research is taking place at the University of Crete School of Medicine, the Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas (FORTH) in Iraklio, where Gravanis is working as a researcher in the Molecular Biology and Biotechnology Institute and the National Hellenic Research Foundation in Athens.

It is focused on the synthetic microneurotrophin BMN27, with the initial results of tests conducted on mice published in the scientific journal Neuropharmacology (Pediaditakis et al, 2016) in September.

Gravanis explained that naturally occurring neurotrophins were very large molecules that play a key role in the development and protection of brain matter from birth until the depths of old age, with neuroprotective and neuroregenerative properties. Their large size, however, prevented their use as medication since they could not cross the blood-brain barrier that protects the brain from toxins in the environment.

"Our effort is focused on many small synthetic molecules that we call microneurotrophins that are smaller in size and, due to being quite lipophilic, are able to cross the blood brain barrier and effectively mimic the neuroprotective and neuroregenerative properties of the endogenous large molecule neurotrophins. One of the substances we have synthesised is microneurotrophin BMN27," he said.

The aim of the research, Gravanis said, was to use microneurotrophins to replace the action of endogenous neurotrophins, the production of which was significantly reduce in many neurodegenerative diseases, and slow or even reverse the degeneration of the affected neural tissues.

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