biology
scientificactivist | December 19, 2006The second paper from my undergraduate work at Texas A&M University was recently published in Molecular Cancer. The abstract can be found here, and the pdf of the full paper here. Molecular Cancer is an open access journal, so a subscription is not required to read the paper. It's also an online-only journal that publishes manuscripts immediately upon acceptance, so the version of the paper currently available is not the final (nicely-formatted) version. (Update: this now links to the final version of the paper.)
As with my first paper, which was published in October of this year, I'…
terrasig | December 18, 2006Wasn't able to get off an original post today so I'll direct Terra Sig readers to an excellent interview written by Carl Zimmer. As Carl writes,
Discover chose Jay Keasling as their scientist of the year and asked me to interview him. Keasling, who directs the Berkeley Center for Synthetic Biology, is trying to get either E. coli or yeast to crank out a powerful malaria drug normally only made by the sweet wormwood plant. I had already been getting familiar with Keasling's work, since it is a great example of the sort of work that's being done on E coli, the subject of my book. So it was a…
grrlscientist | December 18, 2006
Least Skipper, Ancyloxypha numitor.
Brazos Bend State Park SW of Houston, Texas, 24 May 2003.
Image: Biosparite.
This is another "Get Welll Soon" nature picture from one of my readers that I am sharing with all of you!
I am receiving so many gorgeous pictures from you, dear readers, that I am overwhelmed by the beauty of the images and the creatures and places in them. If you have a high-resolution digitized nature image (I prefer JPG format) that you'd like to share with your fellow readers, feel free to email it to me, along with information about the image and how you'd like it to be…
omnibrain | December 18, 2006We had a debate on my old blog as to what is causing this... what do you think?
tfk | December 18, 2006This is excellent news. The Magnuson-Stevens fisheries act which passed not long ago has a lot of measures to cut overfishing in the oceans. Many important fish species have been fished to the breaking point, and need serious efforts to allow them to recover. This isn't just a matter of protecting seafood restaurants, it's also a matter of watching out for the ecosystems that sustain life in our oceans.
Among the measures approved are cuts in fishing quotas for several species, but more importantly:
While much of the bill focuses on tightening the 30-year-old fisheries law, it also…
omnibrain | December 18, 2006Well - this book has everything you ever really wanted to know about orgasms - 338 pages.... that's a lot of orgams? multiple orgasms?
Honestly, I'm a little surprised a book like this hasn't been written before.
"I wrote this book because no one had approached the topic from a holistic view with the neurophysiology and endocrinology as well as the effects of diseases, medication and other concerns on orgasm," said Whipple, a Voorhees, N.J. resident.
The 338-page book, published by Johns Hopkins University Press, is in its second printing after its release in late October.
Behind its "plain…
omnibrain | December 18, 2006
In no particular order...
1) Being a south paw promotes survival from attacks (well at least in crabs). It seems that
The left-handed advantage is realized when snails interact with predators of opposite handedness. Some predatory crabs are "righties" -- and have a specialized tooth on their right claw that acts like a can opener to crack and peel the snail shells. "The 'sinistral advantage,' or advantage to being left-handed, is that it would be like using a can opener backwards for the crab to crack and peel the snail shell,"
Does something like this apply to humans? We're still…
scientificactivist | December 18, 2006Last month, I wrote a post about a research group at Texas A&M University that reported genetically engineering "edible cotton seeds" by using RNAi technology to stably and specifically knock out production of the gossypol toxin in the seeds of the plant. I thought that the paper was interesting for a variety of reasons, including the use of RNAi and the fact that this was a novel usage of transgenic crop biotechnology coming from an academic group. I recently contacted the study's leader, Dr. Keerti Rathore, to ask him a couple of questions in hopes of further understanding the…
omnibrain | December 17, 2006
Valentina Sivryukova knew her public service messages were hitting the mark when she heard how one Kazakh schoolboy called another stupid. "What are you," he sneered, "iodine-deficient or something?"
I think I'm going to start using this insult!
I always knew iodine was added to salt at some point for some health reason - but I was never sure actually why that was. It looks like iodine deficiencies can cause all sorts of nasty health problems:
Studies show that iodine deficiency is the leading preventable cause of mental retardation. Even moderate deficiency, especially in pregnant women…
omnibrain | December 16, 2006
A number of people have noticed that after getting transplants their personality changes - and not only that- their personality changes to reflect the donors personality.
...though she was born and raised in Tucson, she never liked Mexican food. She craved Italian and was a pasta junkie. But three years ago, all that changed for Jaime Sherman, 28, when she underwent a heart transplant at University Medical Center, after battling a heart defect since birth. "Now I love football, baseball, basketball. You name it, I follow it," said Sherman, a psychology student at Arizona State University. "…
tfk | December 16, 2006After a long delay, New Jersey approves $270 million for stem-cell research:
In 2004, Gov. James E. McGreevey signed a bill to establish the country’s first state-supported stem-cell research institute …
New Jersey also earned the distinction of becoming the second state in the nation, after California, to approve a law specifically legalizing embryonic stem-cell research …
But as politicians in New Jersey squabbled over the details of how to translate the idea of a research institute into a bricks-and-mortar reality, at least half a dozen states — including Connecticut and Maryland — created…
oracknows | December 16, 2006Here's an interesting little tidbit of a study:
Newswise -- Lead chelation therapy -- a chemical treatment to remove lead from the body -- can significantly reduce learning and behavioral problems that result from lead exposure, a Cornell study of young rats finds.
However, in a further finding that has implications for the treatment of autistic children, the researchers say that when rats with no lead in their systems were treated with the lead-removing chemical, they showed declines in their learning and behavior that were similar to the rats that were exposed to lead.
Chelating drugs,…
grrlscientist | December 15, 2006
Western Pygmy Blue, Brephidium exile
The smallest butterfly in the western United states, measing no more than 3/8".
Laguna Atascosa NWR, Texas, 24 October 2004.
Image: Biosparite.
I am receiving so many gorgeous pictures from you, dear readers, that I am overwhelmed by the beauty of the images and the creatures and places in them. If you have a high-resolution digitized nature image (I prefer JPG format) that you'd like to share with your fellow readers, feel free to email it to me, along with information about the image and how you'd like it to be credited.
.
tags: butterfly, western…
omnibrain | December 15, 2006There is a funny yet interesting article over at Discover magazine about the positioning of the testicles and why they aren't protected a wee bit more.
Here's a little sampler:
The site of human testicles seems a bizarre anomaly from an evolutionary point of view, like positioning the driver of an armored vehicle in a sack strapped to the bumper. If the whole point of the human organism is to pass on genes, why put the repository of those precious genes out front, in harm's way? Why not protect them the way the brain and the heart are protected, with thick bone vaults and, in the brain's case…
omnibrain | December 14, 2006The mind is the most amazing, lying, cheating, charlatan televangelist ever imagined. It is so good at its job though that one 'part' of the mind can construct a completely false reality and then convince other parts that what it has just constructed is the absolute truth. Not only do other parts of the mind believe this information, they make up extra-information just to justify the original reality constructed. The most important questions though are: Why in the world does the mind have to be such a great con artist? And how does it accomplish this?
In a more formal sense, When a world…
grrlscientist | December 14, 2006
Horace's Duskywing, Erynnis horatius.
There is a possibility this could be a Juvenal's Duskywing, Erynnis juvenalis, This is probably a Horace's Duskywing from the appearance of the inner wings. The best field mark, being on the outer hindwing, is invisible in this photo. I like the spread-winged skippers.
Aransas NWR.
Image: Biosparite.
This is another "Get Well Soon" nature picture from one of my readers that I am sharing with all of you!
I am receiving so many gorgeous pictures from you, dear readers, that I am overwhelmed by the beauty of the images and the creatures and places in…
tfk | December 14, 2006
China's white dolphin called extinct after 20 million years:
An expedition searching for a rare Yangtze River dolphin ended Wednesday without a single sighting and with the team's leader saying one of the world's oldest species was effectively extinct.
The white dolphin known as baiji, shy and nearly blind, dates back some 20 million years. Its disappearance is believed to be the first time in a half-century, since hunting killed off the Caribbean monk seal, that a large aquatic mammal has been driven to extinction.
A few baiji may still exist in their native Yangtze habitat in eastern China…
omnibrain | December 14, 2006Very very strange- this was so out of the ordinary I felt the need to post it here :)
The world's tallest man has saved two dolphins by using his long arms to reach into their stomachs and pull out dangerous plastic shards.
Mongolian herdsman Bao Xishun was called in after the dolphins swallowed plastic used around their pool at an aquarium in Fushun, north-east China.
Attempts to use instruments failed as the dolphins contracted their stomachs.
Guinness World Records list Mr Bao, 54, as the world's tallest living man at 2.36m (7ft 8.95in).
Here's the original story
Thanks for the heads up…
sb admin | December 13, 2006Trying to explain steroid hormones as transcription factors to someone, and just don't have the words? According to a student at the Max Plank Institute of Experimental Medicine, who drew the figure below,"The results of this mechanism could you easily have studied entering puberty." Or you could have made a drawing like this!
Source.