biology
bioephemera | April 2, 2009
Lately, I've been seeing a lot of dinnerware that's just too fascinating to cover with food. Like Hiroshi Tsunoda's Bodylicious plates, available at DesignCode. According to Street Anatomy, Tsunoda was
inspired by Nyotaimori, a tradition where food is presented on a naked woman's body and used as a tray. Nyotaimori is also referred to as body sushi, and requires the person to practice laying for hours without moving.
Wow, I'm not sure what to say. But at least the plates are equal opportunity: there's a Bodylicious Y set too!
Moving from Homo sapiens to marine invertebrates, these…
tqa | April 2, 2009
A new life:
Laysan albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis) with very recently hatched chick.
Ka'ena Point, Oahu
29 January 2006
scientificactivist | April 2, 2009Through the results of widespread experimentation of the... well... let's say "non-scientific" variety, it's pretty well known that marijuana has the side effect of making the user very hungry. This is one of the many physiological effects of the active ingredient THC (Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol). More relevantly, however, THC and other cannabinoids are actively being investigated for various useful clinical purposes, including the treatment of cancer through the inhibition of tumor growth.
A new study by Salazar et al. in The Journal of Clinical Investigation demonstrates that THC causes…
ksharpe | April 1, 2009Originally posted by Grrlscientist
On March 27, 2009, at 10:59 AM
I have lived and worked with people whom I have decided, in retrospect, were more than merely hateful and mean-spirited, they were just plain evil. So when Barbara Oakley asked me to read and review her book, Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend (Prometheus Books; 2008), I readily agreed. This well-written and very readable book is an exploration of evil people who exhibit an extreme form of Borderline Personality Disorder, which profoundly damages the lives of so many…
oracknows | April 1, 2009Enough.
I don't know about you, but as a surgeon and a biomedical researcher, I'm fed up with animal rights terrorists who threaten biomedical research with their misinformation about animal research, their terroristic attacks on scientists who engage in such research, and listening to the despicable self-righteous idiot who is a disgrace to surgeons everywhere, Dr. Jerry Vlasak, spouting off about how assassinating researchers who use animals as part of their research would be justified.
And apparently I'm not alone. Scientists at UCLA, which, along with UC Santa Cruz, is at ground zero for…
aardvarchaeology | March 31, 2009Signs of spring so far around where I live, apart from the obvious sunshine and disappearance of the snow & ice:
Crocus
Snowdrop
Scilla
Blackbird singing at sundown (ah!)
Magpies brawling
jstemwedel | March 29, 2009It would appear that our rainy season is really over until next winter (which is not to say that it won't rain at all between now and then, just that things will be more dry than wet). So, it seemed like a good time to document some recent developments in the Free-Ride garden.
Today, I'm presenting six photos from the garden for you to identify:
Common name is fine -- no need to provide the Linnaean binomial unless you really feel like it.
No, I'm not asking you to identify these plants because I've forgotten what I've planted. (Not this time, anyway.)
Your identifications will germinate (…
bioephemera | March 26, 2009
From Failblog.
(I dedicate this to Hungry Hyaena, who holds extremely nuanced views on the ethics of hunting, and would no doubt have an easier time if he embraced complete denial, like this poor person).
bioephemera | March 25, 2009
Photo by Tracy Woodward, WaPo
Yesterday, zookeepers at the National Zoo's Conservation and Research Center discovered two newborn clouded leopard cubs in the enclosure of their mother, Jao Chu. This is a big deal because it is notoriously difficult to breed clouded leopards in captivity: males can attack and kill females with whom they aren't properly bonded, and captive mothers often inadvertently or deliberately kill their cubs. Because of that risk, these two cubs were taken from Jao Chu to be raised by human researchers.
Jao Chu and her mate Hannibal were imported from Thailand last…
amillikan | March 25, 2009A new paper published in Genome Research provides the most comprehensive scan to date of the genetic signatures of natural selection resulting from the last 10-40,000 years of human evolution, with some intriguing results. The results show strikingly different patterns of selection in distantly related human populations, suggesting that different human groups have adapted to their environments in different ways. Many of the regions seen to be most subject to selection contain genes of unknown function—or no genes at all—but regions linked to increased risk of type 2 diabetes showed a…
bioephemera | March 23, 2009Via Morbid Anatomy: the Discovery Channel series "How It's Made" features the construction of modern anatomical models. You can watch the five-minute segment after the fold.
Discovery Channel, "How It's Made", Season 11, Episode 2/Part 1
scientificactivist | March 23, 2009Cells in higher organisms exist in a dynamic environment, requiring the ability to alternately grasp and disengage from the three-dimensional web of their surroundings. One family of proteins in particular, the integrins, plays a key role in this process by acting as the hands of the cell. Spanning the cell membrane, they link the extracellular matrix to the cell's internal cytoskeleton. Integrins are especially interesting, though, because the cell uses them to uniquely pass signals in both directions across the membrane, and an integrin's adhesiveness for the extracellular matrix can be…
bioephemera | March 21, 2009
This revealing anatomical card by Oregon designer Nathan Chrislip can be had for only $9 plus shipping on etsy. (Chrislip calls it a "valentine," but unless your beloved is also an avowed anatomophile, be sure to enclose a message making your nonviolent romantic intent clear.)
Via Rag and Bone Blog
grrlscientist | March 21, 2009Would you like to play a new computer game and help scientists analyze protein chemistry -- at the same time? Here is a fun and interesting computer puzzle game that is designed to fold proteins -- the objective is to correctly fold a protein into the smallest possible space. This game, Foldit, which University of Washington biochemist David Baker helped create, is being played by thousands of people around the world. Baker is using Foldit to help him analyze the structure of proteins, because humans are a lot smarter at this than supercomputers. The results from this game are helping Baker…
oracknows | March 21, 2009This is about as geeky as it gets, but since a couple of the genes I study are homeobox genes, one of which is a HOX gene, one of which is not, I found this hilarious:
There you go: All you need to know about homeobox genes if you're not an expert in them.
Hat tip to Bioephemera.
jstemwedel | March 20, 2009This Friday marks the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. Accordingly, in SprogCast #5, the elder Free-Ride offspring marks the change of season by describing a local release of trout-fry.
You can download the sound file and pretend that the bathtub sounds are the gentle tides of the lake. The discussion is transcribed below.
Dr. Free-Ride: So, can you tell me what you did on Saturday?
Elder offspring: Well, I went to the lake and I released fry.
Dr. Free-Ride: Fry?
Elder offspring: Yeah, Rainbow Trout-fry.
Dr. Free-Ride: I see. How old is a Rainbow Trout-fry? Like, how do I…
bioephemera | March 19, 2009
Illustration by David Parkins, Nature
Today, Nature released a news feature by Geoff Brumfiel on the downturn in mainstream science media. We've all known that this is happening; the alarms become impossible to ignore when Peter Dysktra and his team at CNN lost their jobs last year. For mainstream outlets like CNN or the Boston Globe to cut science may seem appalling - but in an unforgiving economic climate which has already triggered the collapse of major newspapers like the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, such cuts are logical, because science reporting isn't a big money-maker. The question…
revere | March 19, 2009Papers on biodiversity are not my regular science reading fare and the reason I found my self reading the article "Initial community evenness favours functionality under selective stress" by Wittebolle et al. in Nature from last week isn't very important. But I did find myself reading about the "biodiversity-stability relationship" in a microbial ecosystem, so rather than let all that effort go to waste I decided to write about it here. Like most things that wind up on this page, there is an extra little twist at the end, this time where I come out against biodiversity, but to get there you'…
bcohen | March 18, 2009This post was written by guest contributor Jody Roberts.
Follow this link for his most recent contribution to The World's Fair.
The philosopher Marjorie Grene passed away on Monday, 16 March, at the age of 98. Grene's life is difficult to sum up in a few words, and I don't want to do that anyhow, since plenty of others have and surely will in much better fashion than I can muster. But since I imagine most will be unfamiliar with her work, I quote here from a letter composed by Richard Burian, a dear friend and colleague:
Marjorie Grene passed away March 16 at age 98 after a brief illness…