by roctopus
This report on sperm whales and their feeding habits is pretty wild. They carefully pluck long fishing lines from our ships in order to release attached fish, that they then eat. No one had ever filmed a sperm whale eating. Now we have evidence of them being very clever in their eating techniques and taking advantage of us.
Smart whales.
Technorati Tags: Science
by lepiaf.geo
Is cherry juice a new ’sports drink?’:
[Via EurekAlert! - Medicine and Health]
(Weber Shandwick Worldwide) Drinking cherry juice could help ease the pain for people who run, according to new research from Oregon Health and Science University presented at the American College of Sports Medicine Conference in Seattle, Wash. The study showed people who drank tart cherry juice while training for a long distance run reported significantly less pain after exercise than those who didn’t. Post-exercise pain can often indicate muscle damage or debilitating injuries.
[More]
Cherry juice has been shown to be very helpful for diseases such as gout. That it can have general effects such as following muscle exertion could make it a lot easier to find cherry drinks in the supermarket. Mine does not carry cherry Vitamin Water (Sync, which just came out) or Powerade.
by freeparking
Refusing immunizations puts children at increased risk of pertussis infection:
[Via EurekAlert! - Infectious and Emerging Diseases]
(Kaiser Permanente) A Kaiser Permanente study found that children of parents who refuse vaccines are 23 times more likely to get whooping cough compared to fully immunized children.
[More]
And then these infected children can spread the disease to children too young to be vaccinated and to the elderly, resulting in deaths that did not have to happen. 1000 cases in 1976. Up to 26,000 cases in 2004. Those are not encouraging numbers.
Herd immunity is what protects us all. It prevents epidemics. For pertussis, one of the most contagious diseases, substantially more than 90% of the population must be immunized in order for herd immunity to provide protection. But some people chose not to vaccinate, hoping herd immunity will prevent the spread to their child.
As this report demonstrates, there are distinct ramifications for these unvaccinated children. Pertussis is a nasty disease, especially in the young. An increase in the infection rate by 23-fold is certainly significant.
Immunologists identify biochemical signals that help immune cells remember how to fight infection:
[Via Eureka! Science News - Popular science news]
Immunology researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have discovered how two biochemical signals play unique roles in promoting the development of a group of immune cells employed as tactical assassins. In their initial response, these immune cells, known as cytotoxic T lymphocytes, or CTLs, kill cells infected with pathogens. They also provide long-term protection against pathogens by “remembering” which proteins the pathogen makes. Targeting the ability of these CTLs to remember the pathogen is one way vaccines protect against infection.
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The two molecules involved, IL-12 and interferon alpha, are involved in a wide range of immune responses. Delineating their effects, not only on CTLs and memory cells but also other immune cell types, will help create better vaccines.
Technorati Tags: Science
by Rob Lee
Why can we talk? ‘Humanized’ mice speak volumes:
[Via Eureka! Science News - Popular science news]
Mice carrying a “humanized version” of a gene believed to influence speech and language may not actually talk, but they nonetheless do have a lot to say about our evolutionary past, according to a report in the May 29th issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication. “In the last decade or so, we’ve come to realize that the mouse is really similar to humans,” said Wolfgang Enard of the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. “The genes are essentially the same and they also work similarly.” Because of that, scientists have learned a tremendous amount about the biology of human diseases by studying mice.
[More]
The gene in question, FOXP2, has been implicated in a series of events that happened after we split from the chimp lineage, particularly language development. Mice with only one copy of FOXP2 vocalize much less than normal mice.
Now, those with humanized copies have altered vocalization and also show changes in the the regions of the brain associated with language. While the reasons for this altered protein to affect language are not defined yet, there is some belief that it may be due to enhanced muscle control to produce sounds.
Also, it will be important to see where and how the humanized form of the gene is expressed in mice. It may be the same gene but its expression patterns may be different, thus hampering its utility.
Technorati Tags: Science
by Randy Son Of Robert
The Catch 22 of Academic Publishing:
[Via Research Blogging - All Topics - English]
“Publish or perish”.You’ve heard the phrase, right? Well, apparently, getting published in the first place is not as easy as it seems, and the peer-review process may not as objective and unbiased as you may think. If you’re in (as in belonging to the right academic circles, and thus worthy of being published), you’re in, almost no matter what you write, but if you’re not in, finding someone willing to take you in is practically impossible, or is it?
[More]
It is much easier to get published in high quality journals if you are from the ‘right’ labs. To a certain extent, this is human nature. But it also creates the standard paradox. Just as you often get a job if you have experience in the job, you get into high quality journals because you have been published in high quality journals.
It is not to tough to get published somewhere but in order to make it into Nature or Science, it helps to have the right pedigree. I was really taken with this quote from the paper:
… more than half of all academic papers are never cited anywhere, and the majority of academics never receive as many as three citations in a lifetime.
That is an amazing factoid.
Technorati Tags: Science
Gonna (Evolve To) Sing You My Love Song:
[Via Research Blogging - All Topics - English]
Why do we like to sing soppy love songs to our loved one? What is it about them that evokes a mood of affinity and bonding? Why do tears spring to our eyes when we hear a lyric that reminds us of a friendship, relationship or other close bond?
The composition and interpretation of music through song, dance, and playing a musical instrument, are complex and high-level tasks of the creative brain. Indeed, the ‘creative’ aspects of personality are thought to constitute a particular division of intelligence in itself. Although it is possible to gain a certain level of proficiency in playing the works of Beethoven and Mozart through social and/or environmental factors (parental support, music school), the phenomenon of the child prodigy does in fact suggest an innate genetic basis for talent. Creativity itself is a complex process that draws largely from areas of the right hemisphere, not activating the frontal lobes or cortices very much. And since we are talking mainly of cognitive processes,we can expect hormones such as arginine vasopressin (AVP), which helps to control higher functions such as memory and learning, to take a lead role. Given that this hormone is mediated by the AVP receptor 1A (AVPR1A) gene, that affects many behavioural, social and emotional traits such as male aggression, pair bonding, altruism, parenting, sibling relationships, love etc., it stands to reason that this key gene is the one to watch.
[More]
by Martino!
Humor: The secret of happiness is the number of suckupors:
[Via crosscut.com : Crosscurrent]
Getting something you want—a promotion, money, a new car—brings happiness for only a short period. After six months, one is usually less happy than before. In the latest issue of The New England Journal of Despair Dr. H. G. Rector proposes the SUR theory to explain this phenomenon.
An associate professor of psychopathology at Boston University, Dr. Rector contends that happiness is most affected by one’s Suck-Up Ratio (SUR), that is the ratio of people to whom you have to suck up (suckupees) to the people who suck up to you (suckupors). Happiness decrease as you must suck up to more people and increases as more suck up to you.
However, the relationship is not even. Dr. Rector’s research reveals that it takes at least five additional suckupors to offset the pain of a single new suckupee. This explains why getting what you want can decrease happiness. Consider three examples:
Promotion: A corporate controller is promoted to Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Previously she needed to suck up to her boss, the then CFO, and the CEO. In turn, 14 employees sucked up to her producing a happy 7:1 SUR. Now as CFO, she must suck up to the CEO plus the nine members of the board of directors. At best she will add 16 new suckupors in the finance department. Her SUR is now 3:1 and she is miserable.
Yes, this is humor and there is no NEJD, although we need one. Or at least a Pacific Northwest Journal of Despair. I laughed out loud at the snarky comment in the last sentence here:
Money: Suppose through a windfall—winning the lottery, receiving a government bailout, or robbing a bank—you receive $100 million. You are immediately invited to join the board of a prestigious non-profit institution. Fifteen board members suck up to you, hoping you will write checks to this and other non-profits. Ten consider you an arriviste and expect you to suck up to them.
To maintain 5:1 SUR you need to attract 35 additional suckupors. Attempting to do so you join another board with the same result and are now 79 suckupors short. You are now rich and unhappy.
The above scenario may not hold in all locations. For example, in Seattle social climbing is unknown for the same reasons mountaineering is unknown in Kansas—there is nowhere to climb. (We are talking about a town where “old money” means you invested in Amazon in 1997.)
I grew up in Houston, another town where old money does not go back very far (maybe to 1956 for example). I don’t recall people joining the boards of non-profits there either. However, if someone had $100 million in either city, there are lots of for-profit corporations who would love to have them on their board, hoping you would write checks. Then your ratio may be a little bit better, since the CEO , CFO and all the employees would have to suck up to you.
I think there should also be a factor that relies on the relative power of each suckupors. A single CEo suckup should be equivalent to several lower employees. The ‘value’ of the suckupor should be included, not just the quantity.
As well, having to suckup to a CEO would seem to include a higher value than having to suckup to a district manager. I think I might just submit a paper to the NEJD.
Technorati Tags: General
by Clearly Ambiguous
Biotech Battles at the U.S. Patent Office?:
[Via AAAS News - RSS Feed]
Shobita Parthasarathy: Battles Brewing as Public Questions Biotech’s Living Inventions
More challenges to biotech patents may be in store as advocacy groups raise broad questions about the creation of modified life forms, a leading expert said at AAAS.
[More]
There may be a lot of patent battles on the horizon, with these will be coming from the patient side of things rather than from other corporations. With all the other changes on the horizon for the pharmaceutical industry, uncertain IP issues are not something they will want to have to deal with.
There seems to be much more of a moral/ethical component to some of these arguments rather than simply monetary. Europe has been doing this and the US patent office may be invoking this more and more as citizen activists push back against the Patent Office.
Technorati Tags: Science
by Xirzon
SCIENCE: Origins of the New H1N1 Flu Virus:
[Via AAAS News - RSS Feed]
Science Study Helps to Unravel the Origins of the New H1N1 Flu Virus
The genetic origins of the new A(H1N1) influenza virus have been circulating in pigs for years, according to a sequencing effort released today by Science.
[More]
Technology allows us to get large amounts of sequencing data very rapidly (and in a nice move, Science made the article Open Access for us all to read). Not only does this allow us to gain an understanding of the evolution of diseases, such as swine flu, but also gain some understanding of the biological activities of some of its proteins.
We can also model where various amino acid changes fall on these proteins, helping identify possible sites to worry about. Recently a group in Singapore has shown how amino acid changes in an enzyme of the swine flu compares with other virulent strains. Some of the things they found:
a. neuraminidase structure of the 2009 H1N1 influenza A virus has undergone extensive surface mutations compared to closely related strains such as the H5N1 avian flu virus or other H1N1 strains including the 1918 Spanish flu;
b. neuraminidase of the 2009 H1N1 influenza A virus strain is more similar to the H5N1 avian flu than to the historic 1918 H1N1 strain (Spanish flu);
c. current mutations of the virus have rendered previous flu vaccinations directed against neuraminidase less effective; and
d. commercial drugs, namely Tamiflu® and Relenza®, are still effective in treating the current H1N1 virus.
The model is available for anyone to examine and compare with other forms of the enzyme.
by jenny downing
Opposites attract — how genetics influences humans to choose their mates:
[Via Eureka! Science News - Popular science news]
Vienna, Austria: New light has been thrown on how humans choose their partners, a scientist will tell the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics today (Monday May 25). Professor Maria da Graça Bicalho, head of the Immunogenetics and Histocompatibility Laboratory at the University of Parana, Brazil, says that her research had shown that people with diverse major histocompatibility complexes (MHCs) were more likely to choose each other as mates than those whose MHCs were similar, and that this was likely to be an evolutionary strategy to ensure healthy reproduction.
[More]
So, let’s include MHC analysis for all the online compatibility checking services online. If their MHCs are too close, that is a big red ‘X’. Far enough apart and they get to be a couple.
Of course, if humans normally detect this by smell, then couldn’t someone figure out what the sources are and include them in the latest version of Axe anti-perspirant? Someone could surreptitiously find out what a potential partner’s MHCs are and then use the appropriate deodorant to attract them. This opens up so many business opportunities.
San Francisco Biotech: Holding Up, or Not?:
[Via In the Pipeline]
I’ve got a piece coming up today at The Atlantic Monthly’s business site on the state of the biotech industry out in the Bay Area. Since the Genentech takeover fight broke out, a persistent theme in the comments here (and…
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So many people up here think that Seattle is alone in its misery, that the other biotech regions are doing great. This short article begs to differ.
I’d still say they are doing better than we are but I think we have some things that give us an advantage, if properly nurtured.
Technorati Tags: Science, Sustainability
by Ingorrr
The NIH Takes the Plunge:
[Via In the Pipeline]
The NIH has announced that they’re going to start up a preclinical drug discovery effort to address rare diseases. I find this interesting for several reasons. For one thing, it’s worth a try for conditions where no company has seen…
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Very interesting. The NIH doing development is somewhat novel and, for them to do it well, will require a different sort of researcher than normally found in academia. This is because most universities are organized around departments dealing with a specific discipline (such as chemistry, genomics, etc.) but diseases often require expertise across disciplines. As the first comment suggests, this is not something that most universities will be good at.
However, a lot of non-profit research institutions are organized around a disease, not a discipline. Their structure is more amenable to these sorts of approaches. Not that everyone sits down and sings Kumbaya. We are talking about people with large egos but the opportunity for collaboration is much more a part of the institution and its mission.
As someone from industry who has dealt with this issues, what I find more intriguing about this announcement is not that they are doing development but that the focus will be on rare and neglected diseases. This is a niche where few large drug companies venture simply because the economics are not a good fit. Any therapeutic for these diseases will not bring in a lot of money. If it was likely to do so, these would not be neglected diseases. Researchers would have gone hard after them a while ago.
These diseases are unlikely to make a lot of money and thus recoup the costs of development. And many of them affect large numbers of poor people throughout the world. The Institute of Medicine just came out with a report discussing the need for the US to take even a bigger lead in attacking these neglected diseases. Perhaps this is one way.
Corporations have to make money. That is why they exist. Neglected and rare diseases are a niche where research organizations that are not focussed on a profit could make substantial progress if motivated. Having new ways to access capital to perform this work would be vital. I’ve discussed one, the L3C, in my article at Xconomy. This approach from the NIH might be another, if done well.
Technorati Tags: Government, Health, Science
Several people have asked for an electronic copy of my poster, Maximizing Utility of Genome Sequence Data (pdf) (posted on the Internet Archive). As is hopefully clear from the poster, in addition to high-throughput sequencing, we now have high-throughput sequence analysis. After listening to Lynda Chin’s talk on the first evening of the conference, which described the arduous process of translating a single putative cancer driver mutation to its function in the cell, one can’t help but feel we are just kicking the can down the road here. The alleviation of one bottleneck just creates another. This was the case with the PC, where after CPUs became faster and faster, other components, e.g., memory, network, and disk I/O, became bottlenecks. This has also been the case with high-throughput production sequencing. You buy more sequencers, you need more disk, then need more CPUs to analyze all the data, and then you need to upgrade your network to move all the data around. Now in genomics, we have a situation where we are able to generate lots of data and lots of variants which may play a role in cancer. How will we be able to determine the function of all these variants? What technologies are on the horizon that will enable high-throughput functional genomics?
Increasing the speed of sequencing is really just an engineering problem now because all it does is create more data. The data are important but data just exists. It has no purpose by itself.
For data to be useful it must interact with a human to become information. Information is what we need and use. The key to having useful data is to make it more efficient for humans to use it, to work with it. At the moment, we have very successful ways to generate a lot of data but less successful ways for researchers to analyze the data and even less successful approaches for them to synthesize the data.
There are some very complex, multivariant genetic systems being examined that do not yield their secrets easily by simple examination of a single sequence. Some sort of modeling approach may be the only way to get to the answer.
Huge data sets require much better modeling approaches than smaller sets. We may be facing a similar problem as climate scientists. With such huge complex sets of data, of varying levels of certainty, only modeling approaches can hope to provide us with useful information. I think it may require very smart programmers to overcome this bottleneck, with very strong collaborative efforts by the scientists.
from Eden Art
I was reading this nice story about the number of new species named this year. I t was interesting but this last bit was personal:
The blue wonder
This beautiful species of damselfish, Chromis abyssus, was discovered in a deep-reef habitat off the coast of the Pacific island of Ngemelis in Palau. Its discovery highlights just how little is known of deep reefs.
Thirty years ago, when I was spending the summer with my Uncle on Guam, I spent a week in Palau, camped out near the Rock Islands and diving like crazy. I wonder There were so many fish around everywhere. I wonder if this fish was amongst them?
Well, probably only dead ones as this Wikipedia stub indicates they reside 110 meters below the surface. I never went lower than 100 feet. They are pretty.
Technorati Tags: Science
