biology
pontiff | November 13, 2007Tonight I watched NOVA's Judgement Day: Intelligent Design On Trial. Ah shucks, us quantum physicists never get to have so much fun (err, I mean, experience so much pain and deal with so much silliness) trying to defend our science. It's not like, you know, there aren't people who think quantum theory is wrong or that quantum theory is somehow related to the Vedic teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. So why is it that quantum theory (which after all is "just a theory" wink, wink, nod, nod) doesn't illicit courtroom battles of such epic scope as the Dover trial?
I mean, let's talk about…
oracknows | November 13, 2007Today's the day, everyone.
I haven't mentioned this before, but the documentary on the trial over the teaching of "intelligent design" creationism in the classroom in Dover, Pennsylvania two years ago is set to premiere on your local PBS station tonight at 8 PM. The Nova documentary, Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial, already has the Discovery Institute up in arms because from all reports thus far (and indeed from the content of the documentary website, which presents fossil evidence and a detailed discussion of evolution) it is uncompromising in its viewpoint that ID is not science…
jlynch | November 11, 2007
White-Crowned Sparrow, Zonotrichia leucophrys
We recently planted winter grass and have managed to attract large numbers of white-crowned sparrows, a species that I hadn’t seen before here in Tempe.
[image source]
evolgen | November 8, 2007Chad asked a fun question last week, and I just got around to finding it yesterday:
What items should be on the list for a scavenger hunt through an academic physics department?
Let's now ask: what items should be on a list for a scavenger hunt through a biology department? Taking some hints from Chad and his commenters, here are my ideas to prime the pump:
A reagent bottle with a label dating it to the 1980s
An out of use fume hood above "the line"
A paper copy of a PLoS Journal (they exist)
A non-top-heated thermal cycler
A Project Steve Steve
A journal article used to prop up something
A…
revere | November 8, 2007Via the Clinician's Biosecurity Network Report we learn of a new study from the Webster St. Jude laboratory in Memphis showing that H5N1 can mutate to oseltamivir (Tamiflu) resistance without any loss in genetic fitness. Tamiflu resistance has been seen but infrequent and there was considerable evidence that the resistant strains were handicapped in some way, thus making them either less virulent or less transmissible. The hope was this was a built-in limitation. Now we know it isn't:
To investigate the fitness (pathogenicity and replication efficiency) of NAI-resistant [neuraminidase…
grrlscientist | November 6, 2007tags: researchblogging.org, supermouse, Phosphoenolpyruvate Carboxykinase, PEPCK-C, glucose metabolism
Like a Lance Armstrong equivalent among ordinary mice, a group of American scientists report that they altered a single gene involved in glucose metabolism in a mouse and discovered that this genetically altered mouse demonstrates remarkable athletic abilities. For example, this supermouse runs 20 meters per minute for five hours or more without stopping -- a distance of 3.7 miles (6 kilometers)!
"They are metabolically similar to Lance Armstrong biking up the Pyrenees. They utilize…
revere | November 5, 2007If all mice look alike to you, it's probably because you're not a mouse (if you are, I'm surprised you are reading this blog). But how do mice recognize each other? It appears the lady tells the gent to piss off:
Scientists at the University of Liverpool have discovered that mice rely on a special set of proteins to recognise each other.
Previous study assumed that another set of genes that influence smell in vertebrates might be used by animals that identify each other through scent. The team found, however, that mice use a highly specialised set of proteins in their urine to recognise…
tfk | November 1, 2007Origins of life researcher Leslie Orgel died a few days ago. He was trained as a chemist, and had produced a number of important insights into the likely paths toward the origins of self-replication.
His greatest cultural impact probably came from the promulgation of "Orgel's Rules," especially the second: "Evolution is cleverer than you are." The first is the decidedly less prosaic "Whenever a spontaneous process is too slow or two inefficient, a protein will evolve to speed it up or make it more efficient."
The 80 year-old researcher passed away in San Diego, where he had worked for…
revere | October 30, 2007Some of the best moments in a scientist's life come when things don't go as planned. Or rather, when the world tells you something you never suspected and weren't even looking for. Ah, those lucky folks at the University of Warwick:
The researchers were exploring whether release of ATP (an important signaling and energy carrying molecule) influenced the development of locomotion in frogs. Their experiment introduced molecules called ectoenzymes (normally found on the outside surface of cells) into frog embryos at one of the earliest stages when the frogs-to-be were just 8 cells in size. Three…
jlynch | October 29, 2007
This is so cool. A one-millimeter long spider (Cenotextricella simoni) encased in amber gets "digitally dissected" using Very High Resolution X-Ray Computed Tomography. The paper is online in Zootaxa 1623:47-53 but requires a subscription.
oracknows | October 29, 2007I was half-tempted to e-mail this one to P. Z. or Larry Moran, but my inherently merciful nature got the better of me. Because it was so idiotic, I was afraid that, after P. Z. and his regular readers got through with it (or even worse for this poor ID advocate, Larry Moran), there wouldn't be anything left other than a hint that there may have been a smear on the pavement where he had been. And, as much as this particular ID advocate and woo-meister has gotten on my nerves in the past outing me and all on at least three separate occasions, even I didn't want to see that. Besides, why should…
revere | October 29, 2007If you've heard of the disease distemper it may be because you had to get your dog vaccinated against it. Dog or canine distemper is caused by a measles-like virus, Canine Distemper Virus, but it doesn't just affect dogs. It is capable of jumping to other species and wiped out about 10% of the world's smallest seals, the Caspian seals. Other carnivores that have taken a big hit from CDV are the Tasmanian tiger and black-footed ferret. It can infect infect lions and hyenas and probably other animals in the wild. So the question of what enables the dog virus to jump to other species is not just…
jlynch | October 27, 2007Stanford University Hospital is reporting that Arthur Kornberg, the 1959 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, has died aged 89. Kornberg received recognition for his discovery of "the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)". His son, Roger, received his own Nobel (Chemistry) last year.
razib | October 23, 2007The death of an Indian politician due to a monkey mob is getting a lot of attention. But Ruchira Paul points me to an older story which I think is even more interesting:
They have invaded the prime minister's office and the Defence Ministry, helping themselves to top secret military files.
...
Some 250 monkeys have already been relocated by a court order to forests in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
But many people there are now objecting, saying the animals are bringing with them their hooligan habits learnt in the city and are terrorising rural villages.
Slate has more about…
jlynch | October 19, 2007
A colorized scanning electron micrograph depicts a group of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The bug made headlines this week because of a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association that it caused 94,000 serious infections and nearly 19,000 deaths in 2005 - most of them in hospitals. (Source: Janice Carr/CDC/Handout/Reuters)
sb admin | October 19, 2007
Look Around You: Brain. "The brain is basically a wrinkled bag of skin filled with warm water, veins, and thought muscles. ... The opposite of the brain is probably the bum." Brief vintage BBC parody of science education films about the brain. Watch through to the end, when a brain in a jar is rewarded with a special treat for performing a task.
razib | October 17, 2007The genetic map maker. Read the whole thing, but this is interesting:
How did you feel about being accused of racism?
Well, many mistakes are made and that was a very curious one. I'd argued for decades that the concept of 'race' defined by external characteristics -- such as skin colour, size variations or facial fat -- is nonsense. These visible characteristics evolved under natural selection, mostly to cope with local environments, and have no deeper base. [my emphasis -r]
Hm. That's interesting. In his magisterial The History and Geography of Human Genes Cavalli-Sforza sketched out the…
revere | October 17, 2007In the first part of this two parter we summarized some biology background to a new paper that appeared online ahead of print in the FASEB Journal, Yuo et al., "Avian influenza receptor expression in H5N1-infected and noninfected human tissues." The paper addresses an important gap in our knowledge. Are there cells in the human body with appropriately matched receptors for avian flu virus and if so, where are they? Sporadic results in the last few years suggested that cells deep in the human lung (so-called type II pneumocytes) and ciliated cells in the upper respiratory tract might have…
razib | October 16, 2007Maternal Immune Activation Alters Fetal Brain Development through Interleukin-6:
Schizophrenia and autism are thought to result from the interaction between a susceptibility genotype and environmental risk factors. The offspring of women who experience infection while pregnant have an increased risk for these disorders. Maternal immune activation (MIA) in pregnant rodents produces offspring with abnormalities in behavior, histology, and gene expression that are reminiscent of schizophrenia and autism, making MIA a useful model of the disorders. However, the mechanism by which MIA causes long-…
revere | October 15, 2007The need for better information about the science of avian influenza is urgent. But science is a slow process, or at least slow relative to an urgent time scale, even in times of rapid advances in technology. Even so, while we are waiting for the other shoe to drop, we continue to learn and unlearn about the influenza virus. One major gap has been understanding where humans have cells with receptors for bird flu viruses. A new paper published online last week in The FASEB Journal is finally providing some information. As usual, it is both informative and confusing. To understand what it is…