My scientific specialty is chronobiology (circadian rhythms and photoperiodism), with additional interests in comparative physiology, animal behavior and evolution. I am not an MD so I cannot diagnose and treat your sleep problems. As well as writing this blog, I am also the Online Discussion Expert for PLoS. This is a personal blog and opinions within it in no way reflect the policies of PLoS. You can contact me at: Coturnix@gmail.com
As you know you can see everyone who's registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Mauricio Borgen is the IT Administrator at Athenix Corp, a agricultural and chemical biotechnology company, and a veteran of all our conferences over the years.
There are 22 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Mendeley, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:
Comparing patterns of divergence among separate lineages or groups has posed an especially difficult challenge for biologists. Recently a new, conceptually simple methodology called the "ordered-axis plot" approach was introduced for the purpose of comparing patterns of diversity in a common morphospace. This technique involves a combination of principal components analysis (PCA) and linear regression. Given the common use of these statistics the potential for the widespread use of the ordered axis approach is high. However, there are a number of drawbacks to this approach, most notably that lineages with the greatest amount of variance will largely bias interpretations from analyses involving a common morphospace. Therefore, without meeting a set of a priori requirements regarding data structure the ordered-axis plot approach will likely produce misleading results. Morphological data sets from cichlid fishes endemic to Lakes Tanganyika, Malawi, and Victoria were used to statistically demonstrate how separate groups can have differing contributions to a common morphospace produced by a PCA. Through a matrix superimposition of eigenvectors (scale-free trajectories of variation identified by PCA) we show that some groups contribute more to the trajectories of variation identified in a common morphospace. Furthermore, through a set of randomization tests we show that a common morphospace model partitions variation differently than group-specific models. Finally, we demonstrate how these limitations may influence an ordered-axis plot approach by performing a comparison on data sets with known alterations in covariance structure. Using these results we provide a set of criteria that must be met before a common morphospace can be reliably used. Our results suggest that a common morphospace produced by PCA would not be useful for producing biologically meaningful results unless a restrictive set of criteria are met. We therefore suggest biologists be aware of the limitations of the ordered-axis plot approach before employing it on their own data, and possibly consider other, less restrictive methods for addressing the same question.
Although copy number variation (CNV) has recently received much attention as a form of structure variation within the human genome, knowledge is still inadequate on fundamental CNV characteristics such as occurrence rate, genomic distribution and ethnic differentiation. In the present study, we used the Affymetrix GeneChip® Mapping 500K Array to discover and characterize CNVs in the human genome and to study ethnic differences of CNVs between Caucasians and Asians. Three thousand and nineteen CNVs, including 2381 CNVs in autosomes and 638 CNVs in X chromosome, from 985 Caucasian and 692 Asian individuals were identified, with a mean length of 296 kb. Among these CNVs, 190 had frequencies greater than 1% in at least one ethnic group, and 109 showed significant ethnic differences in frequencies (p<0.01). After merging overlapping CNVs, 1135 copy number variation regions (CNVRs), covering approximately 439 Mb (14.3%) of the human genome, were obtained. Our findings of ethnic differentiation of CNVs, along with the newly constructed CNV genomic map, extend our knowledge on the structural variation in the human genome and may furnish a basis for understanding the genomic differentiation of complex traits across ethnic groups.
In September 2007, an outbreak of acute hemorrhagic conjunctivitis (AHC) occurred in Keelung City and spread to Taipei City. In response to the epidemic, a new crisis management program was implemented and tested in Taipei. Having noticed that transmission surged on weekends during the Keelung epidemic, Taipei City launched a multi-channel mass risk communications program that included short message service (SMS) messages sent directly to approximately 2.2 million Taipei residents on Friday, October 12th, 2007. The public was told to keep symptomatic students from schools and was provided guidelines for preventing the spread of the disease at home. Epidemiological characteristics of Taipei's outbreak were analyzed from 461 sampled AHC cases. Median time from exposure to onset of the disease was 1 day. This was significantly shorter for cases occurring in family clusters than in class clusters (mean±SD: 2.6±3.2 vs. 4.39±4.82 days, p = 0.03), as well as for cases occurring in larger family clusters as opposed to smaller ones (1.2±1.7 days vs. 3.9±4.0 days, p<0.01). Taipei's program had a significant impact on patient compliance. Home confinement of symptomatic children increased from 10% to 60% (p<0.05) and helped curb the spread of AHC. Taipei experienced a rapid decrease in AHC cases between the Friday of the SMS announcement and the following Monday, October 15, (0.70% vs. 0.36%). By October 26, AHC cases reduced to 0.01%. The success of this risk communication program in Taipei (as compared to Keelung) is further reflected through rapid improvements in three epidemic indicators: (1) significantly lower crude attack rates (1.95% vs. 14.92%, p<0.001), (2) a short epidemic period of AHC (13 vs. 34 days), and (3) a quick drop in risk level (1~2 weeks) in Taipei districts that border Keelung (the original domestic epicenter). The timely launch of this systematic, communication-based intervention proved effective at preventing a dangerous spike in AHC and was able to bring this high-risk disease under control. We recommend that public health officials incorporate similar methods into existing guidelines for preventing pandemic influenza and other emerging infectious diseases.
Epidemiological studies suggest that allogeneic immunity may inhibit HIV-1 transmission from mother to baby and is less frequent in multiparous than uniparous women. Alloimmune responses may also be elicited during unprotected heterosexual intercourse, which is associated ex vivo with resistance to HIV infection. The investigation was carried out in well-defined heterosexual and homosexual monogamous partners, practising unprotected sex and a heterosexual cohort practising protected sex. Allogeneic CD4+ and CD8+ T cell proliferative responses were elicited by stimulating PBMC with the partners' irradiated monocytes and compared with 3rd party unrelated monocytes, using the CFSE method. Significant increase in allogeneic proliferative responses was found in the CD4+ and CD8+ T cells to the partners' irradiated monocytes, as compared with 3rd party unrelated monocytes (p≤0.001). However, a significant decrease in proliferative responses, especially of CD8+ T cells to the partners' compared with 3rd party monocytes was consistent with tolerization, in both the heterosexual and homosexual partners (p<0.01). Examination of CD4+CD25+FoxP3+ regulatory T cells by flow cytometry revealed a significantly greater proportion of these cells in the homosexual than heterosexual partners practising unprotected sex (p<0.05). Ex vivo studies of infectivity of PBMC with HIV-1 showed significantly greater inhibition of infectivity of PBMC from heterosexual subjects practising unprotected compared with those practising protected sex (p = 0.02). Both heterosexual and homosexual monogamous partners practising unprotected sex develop allogeneic CD4+ and CD8+ T cell proliferative responses to the partners' unmatched cells and a minority may be tolerized. However, a greater proportion of homosexual rather than heterosexual partners developed CD4+CD25FoxP3+ regulatory T cells. These results, in addition to finding greater inhibition of HIV-1 infectivity in PBMC ex vivo in heterosexual partners practising unprotected, compared with those practising protected sex, suggest that allogeneic immunity may play a significant role in the immuno-pathogenesis of HIV-1 infection.
In today's podcast Ilona interviews Felice Frankel, a Senior Research Fellow at Harvard and a Research Scientist at MIT. Felice is a photographer who is keenly interested in visual communication of complex concepts. To that end, she has written three books about the subject. Felice's recent effort to bring visual representation of science concepts into education culminated in the NSF-funded Picturing to Learn project. Her most recent book, No Small Matter, written with George Whitesides, illustrates nanoscience with metaphor. Listen to this podcast to hear about how creating visual representations of science can change the way science is taught. A full transcript of the podcast is below. [19:23]
Felice will be at ScienceOnline2010, leading a session on Art and Science: Visual Metaphors. Her book, No Small Matter, arrived the other day and Bride Of Coturnix and I were oohing and aahing over it - it is beautiful and brilliant.
The second annual National Day of Listening - celebrated on Friday, November 27, 2009 - is just around the corner! With your help, we hope to make the National Day of Listening an ongoing holiday tradition, when all Americans set aside time on the day after Thanksgiving to honor a friend, loved one, or member of their community by interviewing them about their lives and preserving that interview for generations to come.
We'd like to ask you to take part in this year's National Day of Listening by conducting an interview with someone you know and blogging about the experience. Here are some tips:
1. Let your fingers do the talking! Include details about why the National Day of Listening is meaningful for you and how you plan to participate.
2. StoryCorps' Do-It-Yourself Instruction Guide has all the information you need to get started.
3. Pledge to participate! Tell us how you plan to get involved, and read about all the other ways people throughout the country are participating.
4. Post StoryCorps' web banners, logos, customizable web text and Facebook fan button on your blog. Download these materials at our Share page.
Reminder: Deadline is December 1st at midnight EST!
Here are the submissions for OpenLab 2009 to date (under the fold). You can buy the 2006, 2007 and 2008 editions at Lulu.com. Please use the submission form to add more of your and other people's posts (remember that we are looking for original poems, art, cartoons and comics, as well as essays):
Make sure that the submitted posts are possible (and relatively easy) to convert into print. Posts that rely too much on video, audio, color photographs, copyrighted images, or multitudes of links just won't do (I won't even include them here - there are about 520 posts here so the judges have a lot of good posts to read already so no need to bother them with obviously inappropriate entries).
Continuing with the introductions to the sessions on the Program, here is what will happen on Saturday, January 16th at 11:30am - 12:35pm:
A.Legal Aspects of publishing, sharing and blogging science - Victoria Stodden
Description: Not giving legal advice, but discussion of CC-licences, copyright, Fair Use, libel laws, etc. Discuss here.
B.Shakespeare wasn't a semantic web guy - Jonathan Rees
Description: That which we call a rose, by any other name, wouldn't be identified by a computer as a rose. This talk will go through the Shared Name initiative which promotes community-wide use of shared names for records from public databases. The goal is to have a significant effect on the practice of bioinformatics by making it easier to share and link data sets and tools across projects. Selecting and maintaining names is a serious capacity building problem for moving the RDF world from the hacker and hobbyist community to the regular user. And a growing body of experience emphasizes that for any solution to be generally adopted, it must not only be technically sound, but also serve and empower the community of users. Discuss here.
Description: Not so long ago, "citizen scientist" would have seemed to be a contradiction in terms. Science is traditionally something done by people in lab coats who hold PhDs. As with classical music or acting, amateurs might be able to appreciate science, but they could not contribute to it. Today, however, enabled by technology and empowered by social change, science-interested laypeople are transforming the way science gets done. Through a myriad of different projects, citizen scientists are collaborating with professionals, conducting field studies, and adding valuable local detail to research. Discuss here.
Description: Debris in the North Pacific Gyre received unprecedented attention in 2009 with voyages from the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, Project Kaisei, and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Each voyage integrated online outreach into its mission, but emphasized very different aspects of the problem. What are the challenges of creating a major outreach effort from one of the most isolated places on earth? How can scientists, journalists, and educators balance "exciting findings live from the field!" with "highly preliminary unpublished non-peer-reviewed data that our labwork might contradict"? And why is the public so interested in the issue of trash in the ocean, anyway? Discuss here.
Description: A picture is not only worth a thousand words---it is also worth a thousand numbers. This session will focus on ways to move from raw quantitative and qualitative data to a variety of visuals that communicate with all audiences. Discuss here.
I don't possess a lot of self-confidence. I'm an actor so I simply act confident every time I hit the stage. I am consumed with the fear of failing. Reaching deep down and finding confidence has made all my dreams come true.
As you know you can see everyone who's registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Hope Leman is a Research Information Technologist at Samaritan Health Services. She runs ScanGrants (a free, subscribable (via email or RSS) online listing of grant opportunities, prizes and scholarships in the health and life sciences and community service fields), tweets and blogs on Significant Science. At the conference, Hope will do a demo of ScanGrants.
Ernie Hood is a freelance science writer and he hosts a weekly science radio show - Radio In Vivo - at the local radio station WCOM-FM in Carrboro, NC. Ernie is currently presiding over SCONC - the organization of Science Communicators of North Carolina.
Elle Cayabyab Gitlin writes for Ars Technica, blogs and tweets. And she is always a great help to us at the conference, every year volunteering to help.
The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences hosts the final offering of its Charles Darwin Lecture Series on Tuesday, November 24 -- the 150th anniversary of Darwin's landmark publication of "The Origin of Species." Join Museum paleontologist and science historian Paul Brinkman for a free presentation titled "Charles Darwin's Beagle Voyage and the Origin of 'The Origin.'"
Dr. Brinkman completed his PhD in History of Science at the University of Minnesota with research in the history of 19th-century natural sciences, especially geology and paleontology. He has published a number of articles on Darwin, museum history, and the history of American vertebrate paleontology. His second book, The Second American Jurassic Dinosaur Rush, is due out next year from the University of Chicago Press.
Please RSVP to museum.reservations@ncmail.net -- be sure to specify the event name and date. This lecture is free of charge and seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Doors to the Museum and auditorium will open at 6:00 pm and the presentation will begin at 6:30 pm.
The Museum, in collaboration with the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) and the W.M. Keck Center for Behavioral Biology at North Carolina State University, has presented several talks throughout 2009 to commemorate the bicentennial of Charles Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of "The Origin of Species." The series showcases the Triangle region of North Carolina as a hot spot for evolutionary biology research and features prominent researchers from area universities. Stay tuned to the Museum's website [www.naturalsciences.org] for Darwin-themed events scheduled for 2010.
Friday - PLoS Genetics, Pathogens, Computational Biology and ONE published today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Mendeley, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:
Circadian clocks are endogenous timing mechanisms that allow living organisms to coordinate their activities with daily environmental fluctuations. In cyanobacteria, almost all the genes are rhythmically expressed with the same ~24 h period yet exhibit a variety of phase relationships and waveforms. Remarkably, the core pacemaker ticks robustly via simple biochemical reactions carried out by three Kai proteins: KaiC undergoes circadian phosphorylation in the presence of KaiA, KaiB and ATP. In this work, we propose a reaction network modeling the Kai oscillator based on the differentiation of dual phosphorylation sites. We found a dynamic diversity in KaiC phosphorylation which may serve as a potential regulatory mechanism related to the diverse-phased genome-wide expressions in cyanobacteria. In addition, we deduce that each KaiC hexamer is a single oscillator in regulating its own phosphorylation and interactions with KaiA or/and KaiB. In complex organisms, a number of key clock components possess similar activities (e.g., phosphorylation) with multiple nonequivalent active sites, and they may also show some unusual dynamic features that are embedded in the proteins' own reaction networks. We hope our work could be helpful to study the correlations between gene expressions and circadian rhythm in prokaryotic cells, even in eukaryotic cells.
For many animals, including rats, accurate spatial memory over relatively large areas is important in order to find food and shelter. Just as unique points in time can be efficiently represented by combinations of repeating elements like hours, days, and months, points in space can be represented as combinations of elements that repeat at different spatial scales. Just such a code has been identified in the brains of rats and it shows an intriguing triangular spacing of encoded locations. Two different explanations have been developed as to what general mechanism in the brain might be able to generate this unusual code. However, to date there is not conclusive experimental evidence indicating whether either of the two explanations is correct. Here we show in detail that one of the explanations, called oscillatory interference, has specific requirements regarding the amount of variability in the system that implements it. We then report data experimentally examining candidate systems to evaluate their levels of noise. The large amount of noise that we find presents a challenge to the currently suggested biological implementations of oscillatory interference, but it does not provide support for the alternative explanation.
Why should you read about the maize genome? Now that so many eukaryotic genomes are available, it's easy to be blasé... just another few billion bases, grist for constructing gene trees. Why is this new information, so recently shared, worth considering? I am convinced, as I propose you will be too as you read on, that both geneticists and genome consumers will benefit from the first description of the B73 maize genome [1] and equally so from the companion papers compiled in this special collection (http://collections.plos.org/plosgenetics/maize.php ).
The relative contributions of natural selection and random genetic drift are a major source of debate in the study of gene expression evolution, which is hypothesized to serve as a bridge from molecular to phenotypic evolution. It has been suggested that the conflict between views is caused by the lack of a definite model of the neutral hypothesis, which can describe the long-run behavior of evolutionary change in mRNA abundance. Therefore previous studies have used inadequate analogies with the neutral prediction of other phenomena, such as amino acid or nucleotide sequence evolution, as the null hypothesis of their statistical inference. In this study, we introduced two novel theoretical models, one based on neutral drift and the other assuming natural selection, by focusing on a common property of the distribution of mRNA abundance among a variety of eukaryotic cells, which reflects the result of long-term evolution. Our results demonstrated that (1) our models can reproduce two independently found phenomena simultaneously: the time development of gene expression divergence and Zipf's law of the transcriptome; (2) cytological constraints can be explicitly formulated to describe long-term evolution; (3) the model assuming that natural selection optimized relative mRNA abundance was more consistent with previously published observations than the model of optimized absolute mRNA abundances. The models introduced in this study give a formulation of evolutionary change in the mRNA abundance of each gene as a stochastic process, on the basis of previously published observations. This model provides a foundation for interpreting observed data in studies of gene expression evolution, including identifying an adequate time scale for discriminating the effect of natural selection from that of random genetic drift of selectively neutral variations.
Smell provides important information about the quality of food and drink. Most well-known for their expertise in wine tasting, sommeliers sniff out the aroma of wine and describe them using beautiful metaphors. In contrast, electronic noses, devices that mimic our olfactory recognition system, also detect smells using their sensors but describe them using electronic signals. These devices have been used to judge the freshness of food or detect the presence of pathogenic microorganisms. However, unlike information from gas chromatography, it is difficult to compare odour information collected by these devices because they are made for smelling specific smells and their data are relative intensities. Here, we demonstrate the use of an absolute-value description method using known smell metaphors, and early detection of yeast using the method. This technique may help distinguishing microbial-contamination of food products earlier, or improvement of the food-product qualities.
Recent literature documented the presence of spatial-temporal interactions in the human brain. The aim of the present study was to verify whether representation of past and future is also mapped onto spatial representations and whether the cerebellum may be a neural substrate for linking space and time in the linguistic domain. We asked whether processing of the tense of a verb is influenced by the space where response takes place and by the semantics of the verb. Responses to past tense were facilitated in the left space while responses to future tense were facilitated in the right space. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) of the right cerebellum selectively slowed down responses to future tense of action verbs; rTMS of both cerebellar hemispheres decreased accuracy of responses to past tense in the left space and to future tense in the right space for non-verbs, and to future tense in the right space for state verbs. The results suggest that representation of past and future is mapped onto spatial formats and that motor action could represent the link between spatial and temporal dimensions. Right cerebellar, left motor brain networks could be part of the prospective brain, whose primary function is to use past experiences to anticipate future events. Both cerebellar hemispheres could play a role in establishing the grammatical rules for verb conjugation.
Genetic differences both between individuals and populations are studied for their evolutionary relevance and for their potential medical applications. Most of the genetic differentiation among populations are caused by random drift that should affect all loci across the genome in a similar manner. When a locus shows extraordinary high or low levels of population differentiation, this may be interpreted as evidence for natural selection. The most used measure of population differentiation was devised by Wright and is known as fixation index, or FST. We performed a genome-wide estimation of FST on about 4 millions of SNPs from HapMap project data. We demonstrated a heterogeneous distribution of FST values between autosomes and heterochromosomes. When we compared the FST values obtained in this study with another evolutionary measure obtained by comparative interspecific approach, we found that genes under positive selection appeared to show low levels of population differentiation. We applied a gene set approach, widely used for microarray data analysis, to detect functional pathways under selection. We found that one pathway related to antigen processing and presentation showed low levels of FST, while several pathways related to cell signalling, growth and morphogenesis showed high FST values. Finally, we detected a signature of selection within genes associated with human complex diseases. These results can help to identify which process occurred during human evolution and adaptation to different environments. They also support the hypothesis that common diseases could have a genetic background shaped by human evolution.
Niche theory is central to understanding how species respond geographically to climate change. It defines a species' realized niche in a biological community, its fundamental niche as determined by physiology, and its potential niche--the fundamental niche in a given environment or geographic space. However, most predictions of the effects of climate change on species' distributions are limited to correlative models of the realized niche, which assume that species are in distributional equilibrium with respect to the variables or gradients included in the model. Here, I present a mechanistic niche model that measures species' responses to major seasonal temperature gradients that interact with the physiology of the organism. I then use lethal physiological temperatures to parameterize the model for bird species in North and South America and show that most focal bird species are not in direct physiological equilibrium with the gradients. Results also show that most focal bird species possess broad thermal tolerances encompassing novel climates that could become available with climate change. I conclude with discussion of how mechanistic niche models may be used to (i) gain insights into the processes that cause species to respond to climate change and (ii) build more accurate correlative distribution models in birds and other species.
Continuing with the series (I get more and more feedback that people love this) introducing, a few at a time, the participants of the ScienceOnline2010 conference. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Anil Dash is a pioneer blogger (and of course twitterer) and one of the founders of Six Apart, the company that built blogging platforms including MoveableType (which is used by Scienceblogs.com) and Typepad.
Just yesterday, he made an official announcement that he will be leading Expert Labs (also on Twitter) which is a new project (largely run/funded by AAAS) to facilitate feedback by the experts (including scientists, of course) to the Obama Administration and other government officials. Read the press release, the early media coverage (this one is much better) , an interview with Anil (pdf) and a video. Interestingly, Anil got this job due to writing a blog post stating that the executive branch of the federal government of the United States was the "Most Interesting New Tech Startup of 2009".
At ScienceOnline2010, Anil will run the session Government 2.0 the main purpose of which is for him to get feedback from the leaders of the science and Web community on how to make Expert Labs work the best it possibly can.
A short summary article by Lindsey was then published in the New York Times (which, while making no promises, was interested in the story from the start). That article (and especially in comparison to her blogging) was greeted by quite a lot of commentary, some by media watchers and journalists, some by scientists. See the reactions, for example, by Megan Garber, Miriam Goldstein, John Zhu, Martin Robbins, Mathew Ingram and Sheril Kirshenbaum (and Sheril again - read the comment thread).
The voyage, and the reporting from it (both on traditional and modern media platforms), brought into light the differences between the goals, needs, methods and ethics of journalists and those of scientists. What those differences are, and how they can be surmounted so scientists and journalists can work together and each do a better job, will be the topic of the session that Lindsay will be co-moderating - Talking Trash - which promises to be quite exciting!
Ben MacNeill is a designer here in Chapel Hill. I first met Ben at the 2005 BloggerCon at UNC. When his daughter Trixie was born he started a blog, Trixie Update, on which he recorded and graphed everything he could think of about his daughter's daily patterns: when she slept, ate, had a diaper change, etc. I commented on this, from a perspective of a chronobiologist, in an old blog post about the development and consolidation of circadian rhythms and sleep patterns in human infants. Trixie is far too old to have diapers changed any more, but the setup continues. Ben has developed the software further and is now offering it as an iPhone (or Web) application - the Trixie Tracker which you can use, if you are a new parent, to track everything you want about your baby (and perhaps detect early if something suddenly changes and perhaps requires medical attention). Ben is also on Twitter.
Elia Ben-Ari is a freelance science writer and editor who has published in many good venues over the years. She is active on Twitter. Her latest article (which, understandably, garnered quite a lot of interest online) is Twitter: What's All the Chirping About?
Wayne Sutton is a social media maven. He is a partner of social media marketing agency OurHashtag, the co-host of a social media podcast at TalkSocialNews.com, the host of the online video show WayneSutton.TV, and a veteran blogger. He is on every social networking site imaginable, but here let's just link to his Twitter account. At ScienceOnline2010, Wayne will do an Ignite talk "Why Triangle is Better than Silicon Valley".
There are 25 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Mendeley, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:
Despite its appearing to be a simple question to answer, there has been no consensus as to whether or not the alignments of ancient Greek temples reflect astronomical intentions. Here I present the results of a survey of archaic and classical Greek temples in Sicily and compare them with temples in Greece. Using a binomial test I show strong evidence that there is a preference for solar orientations. I then speculate that differences in alignment patterns between Sicily and Greece reflect differing pressures in the expression of ethnic identity.
Medical technologies are indispensable to modern medicine. However, they have become exceedingly expensive and complex and are not available to the economically disadvantaged majority of the world population in underdeveloped as well as developed parts of the world. For example, according to the World Health Organization about two thirds of the world population does not have access to medical imaging. In this paper we introduce a new medical technology paradigm centered on wireless technology and cloud computing that was designed to overcome the problems of increasing health technology costs. We demonstrate the value of the concept with an example; the design of a wireless, distributed network and central (cloud) computing enabled three-dimensional (3-D) ultrasound system. Specifically, we demonstrate the feasibility of producing a 3-D high end ultrasound scan at a central computing facility using the raw data acquired at the remote patient site with an inexpensive low end ultrasound transducer designed for 2-D, through a mobile device and wireless connection link between them. Producing high-end 3D ultrasound images with simple low-end transducers reduces the cost of imaging by orders of magnitude. It also removes the requirement of having a highly trained imaging expert at the patient site, since the need for hand-eye coordination and the ability to reconstruct a 3-D mental image from 2-D scans, which is a necessity for high quality ultrasound imaging, is eliminated. This could enable relatively untrained medical workers in developing nations to administer imaging and a more accurate diagnosis, effectively saving the lives of people.
Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is one of the most common known causes of inherited mental retardation. The gene mutated in FXS is named FMR1, and is well conserved from human to Drosophila. In order to generate a genetic tool to study FMR1 function during vertebrate development, we generated two mutant alleles of the fmr1 gene in zebrafish. Both alleles produce no detectable Fmr protein, and produce viable and fertile progeny with lack of obvious phenotypic features. This is in sharp contrast to published results based on morpholino mediated knock-down of fmr1, reporting defects in craniofacial development and neuronal branching in embryos. These phenotypes we specifically addressed in our knock-out animals, revealing no significant deviations from wild-type animals, suggesting that the published morpholino based fmr1 phenotypes are potential experimental artifacts. Therefore, their relation to fmr1 biology is questionable and morpholino induced fmr1 phenotypes should be avoided in screens for potential drugs suitable for the treatment of FXS. Importantly, a true genetic zebrafish model is now available which can be used to study FXS and to derive potential drugs for FXS treatment.
It is well known that facial expressions represent important social cues. In humans expressing facial emotion, fear may be configured to maximize sensory exposure (e.g., increases visual input) whereas disgust can reduce sensory exposure (e.g., decreases visual input). To investigate whether such effects also extend to the attentional system, we used the "attentional blink" (AB) paradigm. Many studies have documented that the second target (T2) of a pair is typically missed when presented within a time window of about 200-500 ms from the first to-be-detected target (T1; i.e., the AB effect). It has recently been proposed that the AB effect depends on the efficiency of a gating system which facilitates the entrance of relevant input into working memory, while inhibiting irrelevant input. Following the inhibitory response on post T1 distractors, prolonged inhibition of the subsequent T2 is observed. In the present study, we hypothesized that processing facial expressions of emotion would influence this attentional gating. Fearful faces would increase but disgust faces would decrease inhibition of the second target. We showed that processing fearful versus disgust faces has different effects on these attentional processes. We found that processing fear faces impaired the detection of T2 to a greater extent than did the processing disgust faces. This finding implies emotion-specific modulation of attention. Based on the recent literature on attention, our finding suggests that processing fear-related stimuli exerts greater inhibitory responses on distractors relative to processing disgust-related stimuli. This finding is of particular interest for researchers examining the influence of emotional processing on attention and memory in both clinical and normal populations. For example, future research could extend upon the current study to examine whether inhibitory processes invoked by fear-related stimuli may be the mechanism underlying the enhanced learning of fear-related stimuli.
Chemicals are used on bed nets in order to prevent infected bites and to kill aggressive malaria vectors. Because pyrethroid resistance has become widespread in the main malaria vectors, research for alternative active ingredients becomes urgent. Mixing a repellent and a non-pyrethroid insecticide seemed to be a promising tool as mixtures in the laboratory showed the same features as pyrethroids. We present here the results of two trials run against free-flying Anopheles gambiae populations comparing the effects of two insect repellents (either DEET or KBR 3023, also known as icaridin) and an organophosphate insecticide at low-doses (pirimiphos-methyl, PM) used alone and in combination on bed nets. We showed that mixtures of PM and the repellents induced higher exophily, blood feeding inhibition and mortality among wild susceptible and resistant malaria vectors than compounds used alone. Nevertheless the synergistic interactions are only involved in the high mortality induced by the two mixtures. These field trials argue in favour of the strategy of mixing repellent and organophosphate on bed nets to better control resistant malaria vectors.
Despite remarkable progress in treatment of chronic heart failure (CHF) over the last two decades, mortality, personal suffering and cost remain staggering, and effective interventions are still a challenge. Previously we reported that a blueberry-enriched diet (BD) attenuated necroapoptosis and inflammation in periinfarct area in a rat model of myocardial infarction (MI). To test the hypothesis that BD will attenuate the course of CHF, including mortality and cardiac remodeling during the first year after induction of MI in rats. Two weeks after coronary artery ligation, rats were divided into two groups of similar average MI size, measured by echocardiography, and then12-mo dietary regimens were initiated as follows: ad libitum regular diet (control, CD, n = 27) and isocaloric food with 2% blueberry supplement (BD, n = 27) also available ad libitum. These dietary groups were compared to each other and to sham group (SH). Mortality over the 12 mo was reduced by 22% in BD compared with CD (p<0.01). In the course of developing CHF, BD had no effect on the body weight, heart rate or blood pressure. Bi-monthly Echo revealed significant attenuation of the LV chamber remodeling, LV posterior wall thinning, and MI expansion in BD compared with CD. In fact, BD arrested the MI expansion. This is the first experimental evidence that a blueberry-enriched diet has positive effects on the course of CHF and thus warrants consideration for clinical evaluation.
Where: National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham
Please join us to commemorate Charles Darwin's 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of "The Origin of Species."
Learn about the wild world of Ice Age carnivores, brainy birds, and other creatures Darwin missed. Our tour guides will be four postdocs on the frontiers of biology.
We'll begin at 6pm at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham. Parking is free.
National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent)
2024 W. Main Street, Suite A200
Durham, NC 27705
Map: http://bit.ly/rGmKM
Travel Directions: The National Evolutionary Synthesis Center is near the corner of 9th St. and W. Main St. in Durham, on the 2nd floor of the Erwin Mill Building. Free parking is available in front of the building.
I have to say I am myself enjoying doing these introductory posts. I get to Google people, see who they are and what they've been up to lately, discover stuff about friends' past careers I did not know, find them (and follow/subscribe/friend) on Twitter, FriendFeed and Facebook, and generally get all starry-eyed about the amazing group of people who registered for the conference and who I can't wait to see. So, without further ado, here are a few more of them:
Beth Beck is the Outreach Program Manager for Space Operations at NASA Headquarters in Washington DC. And no, she is not a rocket scientist, she is a political scientist. She blogs and tweets. At the conference, Beth will co-moderate the session Broader Impact Done Right.
There are 28 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Mendeley, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:
Historical studies of news media have suggested an association between reporting and increased drug abuse. Period effects for substance use have been documented for different classes of legal and illicit substances, with the suspicion that media publicity may have played major roles in their emergence. Previous analyses have drawn primarily from qualitative evidence; the temporal relationship between media reporting volume and adverse health consequences has not been quantified nationally. We set out to explore whether we could find a quantitative relationship between media reports about prescription opioid abuse and overdose mortality associated with these drugs. We assessed whether increases in news media reports occurred before or after increases in overdose deaths. Our ecological study compared a monthly time series of unintentional poisoning deaths involving short-acting prescription opioid substances, from 1999 to 2005 using multiple cause-of-death data published by the National Center for Health Statistics, to monthly counts of English-language news articles mentioning generic and branded names of prescription opioids obtained from Google News Archives from 1999 to 2005. We estimated the association between media volume and mortality rates by time-lagged regression analyses. There were 24,272 articles and 30,916 deaths involving prescription opioids during the seven-year study period. Nationally, the number of articles mentioning prescription opioids increased dramatically starting in early 2001, following prominent coverage about the nonmedical use of OxyContin. We found a significant association between news reports and deaths, with media reporting preceding fatal opioid poisonings by two to six months and explaining 88% (p<0.0001, df 78) of the variation in mortality. While availability, structural, and individual predispositions are key factors influencing substance use, news reporting may enhance the popularity of psychoactive substances. Albeit ecological in nature, our finding suggests the need for further evaluation of the influence of news media on health. Reporting on prescription opioids conforms to historical patterns of news reporting on other psychoactive substances.
Adaptive behavior requires that animals integrate current and past information with their decision-making. One important type of information is auditory-communication signals (i.e., species-specific vocalizations). Here, we tested how rhesus monkeys incorporate the opportunity to listen to different species-specific vocalizations into their decision-making processes. In particular, we tested how monkeys value these vocalizations relative to the opportunity to get a juice reward. To test this hypothesis, monkeys chose one of two targets to get a varying juice reward; at one of those targets, in addition to the juice reward, a vocalization was presented. By titrating the juice amounts at the two targets, we quantified the relationship between the monkeys' juice choices relative to the opportunity to listen to a vocalization. We found that, rhesus were not willing to give up a large juice reward to listen to vocalizations indicating that, relative to a juice reward, listening to vocalizations has a low value.
Despite a wealth of evidence demonstrating extraordinary maximal performance, little is known about the routine flight performance of insects. We present a set of techniques for benchmarking performance characteristics of insects in free flight, demonstrated using a model species, and comment on the significance of the performance observed. Free-flying blowflies (Calliphora vicina) were filmed inside a novel mirrored arena comprising a large (1.6 m1.6 m1.6 m) corner-cube reflector using a single high-speed digital video camera (250 or 500 fps). This arrangement permitted accurate reconstruction of the flies' 3-dimensional trajectories without the need for synchronisation hardware, by virtue of the multiple reflections of a subject within the arena. Image sequences were analysed using custom-written automated tracking software, and processed using a self-calibrating bundle adjustment procedure to determine the subject's instantaneous 3-dimensional position. We illustrate our method by using these trajectory data to benchmark the routine flight performance envelope of our flies. Flight speeds were most commonly observed between 1.2 ms−1 and 2.3 ms−1, with a maximum of 2.5 ms−1. Our flies tended to dive faster than they climbed, with a maximum descent rate (−2.4 ms−1) almost double the maximum climb rate (1.2 ms−1). Modal turn rate was around 240°s−1, with maximal rates in excess of 1700°s−1. We used the maximal flight performance we observed during normal flight to construct notional physical limits on the blowfly flight envelope, and used the distribution of observations within that notional envelope to postulate behavioural preferences or physiological and anatomical constraints. The flight trajectories we recorded were never steady: rather they were constantly accelerating or decelerating, with maximum tangential accelerations and maximum centripetal accelerations on the order of 3 g.
Decades of research have revealed rich cultural repertoires encompassing multiple traditions in wild great apes, a picture crucially complemented by experimental simulations with captive apes. Studies with wild capuchin monkeys, the most encephalized simian species, have indicated a New World convergence on these cultural phenomena, involving multiple traditions and tool use. However, experimental studies to date are in conflict with such findings in concluding that capuchins, like other monkeys, show minimal capacities for social learning. Here we report a new experimental approach in which the alpha male of each of two groups of capuchins was trained to open an artificial foraging device in a quite different way, using either a slide or lift action, then reunited with his group. In each group a majority of monkeys, 8 of 11 and 13 of 14, subsequently mastered the task. Seventeen of the successful 21 monkeys discovered the alternative action to that seeded in the group, performing it a median of 4 times. Nevertheless, all 21 primarily adopted the technique seeded by their group's alpha male. Median proportions of slide versus lift were 0.96 for the group seeded with slide versus 0. 01 for the group seeded with lift. These results suggest a striking effect of social conformity in learned behavioral techniques, consistent with field reports of capuchin traditions and convergent on the only other species in which such cultural phenomena have been reported, chimpanzees and humans.
The use of DNA barcodes for the identification of described species is one of the least controversial and most promising applications of barcoding. There is no consensus, however, as to what constitutes an appropriate identification standard and most barcoding efforts simply attempt to pair a query sequence with reference sequences and deem identification successful if it falls within the bounds of some pre-established cutoffs using genetic distance. Since the Renaissance, however, most biological classification schemes have relied on the use of diagnostic characters to identify and place species. Here we developed a cytochrome c oxidase subunit I character-based key for the identification of all tuna species of the genus Thunnus, and compared its performance with distance-based measures for identification of 68 samples of tuna sushi purchased from 31 restaurants in Manhattan (New York City) and Denver, Colorado. Both the character-based key and GenBank BLAST successfully identified 100% of the tuna samples, while the Barcode of Life Database (BOLD) as well as genetic distance thresholds, and neighbor-joining phylogenetic tree building performed poorly in terms of species identification. A piece of tuna sushi has the potential to be an endangered species, a fraud, or a health hazard. All three of these cases were uncovered in this study. Nineteen restaurant establishments were unable to clarify or misrepresented what species they sold. Five out of nine samples sold as a variant of "white tuna" were not albacore (T. alalunga), but escolar (Lepidocybium flavorunneum), a gempylid species banned for sale in Italy and Japan due to health concerns. Nineteen samples were northern bluefin tuna (T. thynnus) or the critically endangered southern bluefin tuna (T. maccoyii), though nine restaurants that sold these species did not state these species on their menus. The Convention on International Trade Endangered Species (CITES) requires that listed species must be identifiable in trade. This research fulfills this requirement for tuna, and supports the nomination of northern bluefin tuna for CITES listing in 2010.
Determining the structure of ectoparasite-host networks will enable disease ecologists to better understand and predict the spread of vector-borne diseases. If these networks have consistent properties, then studying the structure of well-understood networks could lead to extrapolation of these properties to others, including those that support emerging pathogens. Borrowing a quantitative measure of network structure from studies of mutualistic relationships between plants and their pollinators, we analyzed 29 ectoparasite-vertebrate host networks--including three derived from molecular bloodmeal analysis of mosquito feeding patterns--using measures of nestedness to identify non-random interactions among species. We found significant nestedness in ectoparasite-vertebrate host lists for habitats ranging from tropical rainforests to polar environments. These networks showed non-random patterns of nesting, and did not differ significantly from published estimates of nestedness from mutualistic networks. Mutualistic and antagonistic networks appear to be organized similarly, with generalized ectoparasites interacting with hosts that attract many ectoparasites and more specialized ectoparasites usually interacting with these same "generalized" hosts. This finding has implications for understanding the network dynamics of vector-born pathogens. We suggest that nestedness (rather than random ectoparasite-host associations) can allow rapid transfer of pathogens throughout a network, and expand upon such concepts as the dilution effect, bridge vectors, and host switching in the context of nested ectoparasite-vertebrate host networks.
The emergence in 2009 of a swine-origin H1N1 influenza virus as the first pandemic of the 21st Century is a timely reminder of the international public health impact of influenza viruses, even those associated with mild disease. The widespread distribution of highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza virus in the avian population has spawned concern that it may give rise to a human influenza pandemic. The mortality rate associated with occasional human infection by H5N1 virus approximates 60%, suggesting that an H5N1 pandemic would be devastating to global health and economy. To date, the H5N1 virus has not acquired the propensity to transmit efficiently between humans. The reasons behind this are unclear, especially given the high mutation rate associated with influenza virus replication. Here we used a panel of recombinant H5 hemagglutinin (HA) variants to demonstrate the potential for H5 HA to bind human airway epithelium, the predominant target tissue for influenza virus infection and spread. While parental H5 HA exhibited limited binding to human tracheal epithelium, introduction of selected mutations converted the binding profile to that of a current human influenza strain HA. Strikingly, these amino-acid changes required multiple simultaneous mutations in the genomes of naturally occurring H5 isolates. Moreover, H5 HAs bearing intermediate sequences failed to bind airway tissues and likely represent mutations that are an evolutionary "dead end." We conclude that, although genetic changes that adapt H5 to human airways can be demonstrated, they may not readily arise during natural virus replication. This genetic barrier limits the likelihood that current H5 viruses will originate a human pandemic.
Genome-wide scans of hundreds of thousands of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have resulted in the identification of new susceptibility variants to common diseases and are providing new insights into the genetic structure and relationships of human populations. Moreover, genome-wide data can be used to search for signals of recent positive selection, thereby providing new insights into the genetic adaptations that occurred as modern humans spread out of Africa and around the world. We genotyped approximately 500,000 SNPs in 255 individuals (5 individuals from each of 51 worldwide populations) from the Human Genome Diversity Panel (HGDP-CEPH). When merged with non-overlapping SNPs typed previously in 250 of these same individuals, the resulting data consist of over 950,000 SNPs. We then analyzed the genetic relationships and ancestry of individuals without assigning them to populations, and we also identified candidate regions of recent positive selection at both the population and regional (continental) level. Our analyses both confirm and extend previous studies; in particular, we highlight the impact of various dispersals, and the role of substructure in Africa, on human genetic diversity. We also identified several novel candidate regions for recent positive selection, and a gene ontology (GO) analysis identified several GO groups that were significantly enriched for such candidate genes, including immunity and defense related genes, sensory perception genes, membrane proteins, signal receptors, lipid binding/metabolism genes, and genes involved in the nervous system. Among the novel candidate genes identified are two genes involved in the thyroid hormone pathway that show signals of selection in African Pygmies that may be related to their short stature.
Molecular techniques have revealed that avian mating systems are more diverse and complex than previously thought. We used microsatellite markers to determine genetic parentage, the prevalence of extrapair paternity and quasi-parasitism (i.e. situations where a male's extrapair mate lay in his nest) in a socially monogamous population of three-toed woodpeckers (Picoides tridactylus) in southern Finland. A total of 129 adults and nestlings, representing 5-9 families annually from 2004-2007, were genotyped at up to ten microsatellite loci. The results of genetic assignment tests confirmed that monogamous parentage characterized the majority (84.6%, 22/26) of broods, and that most (93.8%, 75/80) nestlings were the offspring of their social parents. Two of 80 nestlings (2.5%) in two of 26 broods (7.7%) were sired by extrapair males and quasi-parasitism occurred in 3.8% (3/80) of nestlings and 7.7% (2/26) of broods. Hence, the levels of extrapair parentage were low, possibly because both genetic polygyny and polyandry are constrained by the high paternal effort required for parental care. The co-occurrence of low levels of extrapair paternity and quasi-parasitism are discussed in light of ecological and behavioural factors characterizing the species biology.
It is easy to fly into a passion - anybody can do that - but to be angry with the right person to the right extent and at the right time and with the right object and in the right way - that is not easy, and it is not everyone who can do it.
So, hurry up. Write (or choose an existing) post in the area of evolutionary biology and send it in. Two lucky winners will get travel grants to ScienceOnline2010. Yes, we are full, and there are 85 people on the waiting list. But the two NESCent winners have their spots saved just for them!
Reminder: Deadline is December 1st at midnight EST!
Here are the submissions for OpenLab 2009 to date (under the fold). You can buy the 2006, 2007 and 2008 editions at Lulu.com. Please use the submission form to add more of your and other people's posts (remember that we are looking for original poems, art, cartoons and comics, as well as essays):
Make sure that the submitted posts are possible (and relatively easy) to convert into print. Posts that rely too much on video, audio, color photographs, copyrighted images, or multitudes of links just won't do.
As you know you can see everyone who's registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
John McKay is a historian who's been blogging on Archy for, like, forever. He is the undisputed blogospheric the-go-to person on all things related to mammoths, about which (the amazing history of how the world discovered and learned about mammoths) he is now writing a book (many parts of which have already appeared in draft form on his blog). In their spare time, John and his wife run a small business (I tested them and they are awesome) and use Twitter to promote it. At the conference, John will co-moderate the session An Open History of Science.
Rick Weddle is the President and CEO of the Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina, the organization that runs and manages the 50 year old renowned Research Triangle Park. Research Triangle Foundation is one of the major sponsors of our conference, as well as a host of two events: the Friday morning Workshops will be held at the Park Research Center and the Friday night gala will be hosted by them at the RTP headquarters. Of course, the main venue (Sigma Xi), the hotel (Radisson) and several locations of Friday lab/food tours will also be inside the Park. You can follow Rick on Twitter as well.
If you ever saw me at a conference, you probably asked me for one of the famous PLoS t-shirts. Or you did not even have to ask - I just gave you one.
Or perhaps you won one of our contests in the past - a synchroblogging anniversary competition, or a Blog Pick Of The Month - in which case you also got one of the shirts.
If you attended one of the previous ScienceOnline meetings, you got a PLoS ONE shirt.
Over the past two years or so, I went through an enormous box of PLoS swag, not just shirts, but also stickers, mouse-pads, pens, decals, etc. Other PLoS employees do the same, whenever they travel.
And we'll keep doing this, of course. But now, we will have a much broader range of products to offer AND, most importantly, you don't have to wait to meet us - you can now order one for yourself.
Yes, yesterday we launched the amazing PLoS Store. We peer-reviewed all the potential suppliers and chose Zazzle. We even peer-reviewed the shirts ourselves: San Francisco staffers got some shirts, wore them, washed them, and reported that they held up nicely.
Go take a look and get your holiday shopping started!
Formally published papers that have been through a traditional prepublication peer review process remain the most important means of communicating science today. Researchers depend on them to learn about the latest advances in their fields and to report their own findings. The intentions of traditional peer review are certainly noble: to ensure methodological integrity and to comment on potential significance of experimental studies through examination by a panel of objective, expert colleagues. In principle, this system enables science to move forward on the collective confidence of previously published work. Unfortunately, the traditional system has inspired methods of measuring impact that are suboptimal for their intended uses.
The experience of clinical researchers worldwide indicates that a major obstacle to undertaking academic research is the ever-increasing bureaucracy attached to the process. Recent changes in research governance were intended to ensure that clinical trials are safe and informative. However, the regulatory burden is now obstructing high quality science and has become the biggest single threat to research carried out in academia [1]. We illustrate here this international problem by reference to the regulations imposed by the European Union and the incorporation of these restrictions into UK national law concerning Good Clinical Practice (GCP).
About one-fifth of all the world's languages are spoken in present day Australia, New Guinea, and the surrounding islands. This corresponds to the boundaries of the ancient continent of Sahul, which broke up due to rising sea levels about 9000 years before present. The distribution of languages in this region conveys information about its population history. The recent migration of the Austronesian speakers can be traced with precision, but the histories of the Papuan and Australian language speakers are considerably more difficult to reconstruct. The speakers of these languages are presumably descendants of the first migrations into Sahul, and their languages have been subject to many millennia of dispersal and contact. Due to the antiquity of these language families, there is insufficient lexical evidence to reconstruct their histories. Instead we use abstract structural features to infer population history, modeling language change as a result of both inheritance and horizontal diffusion. We use a Bayesian phylogenetic clustering method, originally developed for investigating genetic recombination to infer the contribution of different linguistic lineages to the current diversity of languages. The results show the underlying structure of the diversity of these languages, reflecting ancient dispersals, millennia of contact, and probable phylogenetic groups. The analysis identifies 10 ancestral language populations, some of which can be identified with previously known phylogenetic groups (language families or subgroups), and some of which have not previously been proposed.
Several motile, filamentous cyanobacteria display the ability to self-assemble into tightly woven or twisted groups of filaments that form macroscopic yarns or ropes, and that are often centimeters long and 50-200 µm in diameter. Traditionally, this trait has been the basis for taxonomic definition of several genera, notably Microcoleus and Hydrocoleum, but the trait has not been associated with any plausible function. Through the use of phylogenetic reconstruction, we demonstrate that pedigreed, rope-building cyanobacteria from various habitats do not form a monophyletic group. This is consistent with the hypothesis that rope-building ability was fixed independently in several discrete clades, likely through processes of convergent evolution or lateral transfer. Because rope-building cyanobacteria share the ability to colonize geologically unstable sedimentary substrates, such as subtidal and intertidal marine sediments and non-vegetated soils, it is also likely that this supracellular differentiation capacity imparts a particular fitness advantage in such habitats. The physics of sediment and soil erosion in fact predict that threads in the 50-200 µm size range will attain optimal characteristics to stabilize such substrates on contact. Rope building is a supracellular morphological adaptation in filamentous cyanobacteria that allows them to colonize physically unstable sedimentary environments, and to act as successful pioneers in the biostabilization process.
In a new study by Johansson and colleagues published in this issue of PLoS Medicine [12], the authors carry out statistical time-series analyses to examine the dynamic relationship between climate variables and the incidence of dengue in Thailand, Mexico, and Puerto Rico. They find no systematic association between multi-annual dengue outbreaks and El Niño Southern Oscillation.
Evidence from field studies suggests that Culex pipiens, the primary mosquito vector of West Nile virus (WNV) in the northeastern and north central United States, feeds preferentially on American robins (Turdus migratorius). To determine the contribution of innate preferences to observed preference patterns in the field, we conducted host preference trials with a known number of adult female C. pipiens in outdoor cages comparing the relative attractiveness of American robins with two common sympatric bird species, European starling, Sternus vulgaris and house sparrow, Passer domesticus. Host seeking C. pipiens were three times more likely to enter robin-baited traps when with the alternate host was a European starling (n = 4 trials; OR = 3.06; CI [1.42-6.46]) and almost twice more likely when the alternative was a house sparrow (n = 8 trials; OR = 1.80; CI = [1.22-2.90]). There was no difference in the probability of trap entry when two robins were offered (n = 8 trials). Logistic regression analysis determined that the age, sex and weight of the birds, the date of the trial, starting-time, temperature, humidity, wind-speed and age of the mosquitoes had no effect on the probability of a choosing a robin over an alternate bird. Findings indicate that preferential feeding by C. pipiens mosquitoes on certain avian hosts is likely to be inherent, and we discuss the implications innate host preferences may have on enzootic WNV transmission.
In the last few years the landscape has changed dramatically for policymakers seeking to use research evidence in the policymaking process. The landscape has also changed for the many stakeholders seeking to use research evidence to influence the policymaking process. The task once seemed overwhelming given the dearth of synthesized research evidence on the "big", typically multifaceted, questions that matter to policymakers and stakeholders [1],[2]. Now it isn't uncommon for these groups to find dozens of systematic reviews that address the governance, financial, and delivery arrangements within health systems that can determine whether a cost-effective program, service, or drug reaches those who need it. For example, teams of African policymakers, stakeholders, and researchers drew on 30 reviews for what at first glance seems a straightforward question: how to support the widespread use of artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) to treat uncomplicated falciparum malaria. The review of qualitative studies of people's views about and experiences with medicine sellers provided insights that were as central to the process as reviews of the effectiveness of a particular ACT formulation or the home-based management of malaria [3]-[5].
SciCafe presents Naughty vs. Nice: The Biological Basis of Greed and Altruism, featuring biologist Lee Dugatkin, University of Louisville, and AMNH Curator of Invertebrate Zoology Rob DeSalle.
Join fellow New Yorkers to discuss what makes us naughty or nice by uncovering the evolutionary and cultural roots of greed and altruism, and compare these seemingly human behaviors to those of other species.
Surrounded by magnificent geological specimens in the Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth, enjoy the Museum after hours with music, drinks, and thought-provoking conversation at the next installment of the popular new SciCafe series at the American Museum of Natural History. SciCafe features cutting-edge science, cocktails, and conversation and takes place on the first Wednesday of every month.
WHEN Wednesday, December 2, 7 pm
WHERE Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth, American Museum of Natural History, Enter at the 81st Street/Rose Center
ADMISSION Free admission with cash bar; must be 21+ with ID
INFO For more information, please visit amnh.org/scicafe.
The business of the law is to make sense of the confusion of what we call human life - to reduce it to order but at the same time to give it possibility, scope, even dignity.
As you know you can see everyone who's registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Stacy Baker has changed schools since last year, but she's coming back nonetheless, again with eight of her students. As you may remember, her session on the use of the Web in middle/high science classroom from the perspective of the Facebook generation was the Big Hit of ScienceOnline09. Miss Baker has developed a classroom website and blog, she tweets and also writes a blog targeted at other teachers. She now teaches at Staten Island Academy which is experimenting with the Web and social networks quite a bit. Read my interview with Miss Baker from a few months ago. She and her students will be moderating a session Blogging the Future - The Use of Online Media in the Next Generation of Scientists at ScienceOnline2010.
If you go either to the page that lists all the Friday morning Workshops or the main Saturday/Sunday Program page you will see that each session has a title, names (and links to homepages) of moderators and a brief description.
Now, you can also see that at the end of each description there is a link that says "Discuss here". If you click on any of those links, you will be transported to the individual wiki page of that particular session/demo/workshop.
Moderators have been asked to use those individual pages. They may expand the description so it's longer. They may put their notes there. Or add important links. Or add/link/embed important files. They may ask questions: what do you want discussed there? And they will answer your questions if you put them there - just edit the page and ask. An entire discussion may (and hopefully will) occur on that page.
If you blog about a particular session, or write an MSM piece about it, or have images or audio/video files of it, please remember to post the permalink on that session's page as well. We want these pages to be archives of what happens at the conference. As we'll try to livestream and record all sessions, we'll also link or embed the recordings on the individual pages as well - a record for the future.
The conference lasts, in physical space, only about three days. But each and every session can have a much longer life, on its individual wiki page, both before and after the meeting.
Reminder: Deadline is December 1st at midnight EST!
Here are the submissions for OpenLab 2009 to date (under the fold). You can buy the 2006, 2007 and 2008 editions at Lulu.com. Please use the submission form to add more of your and other people's posts (remember that we are looking for original poems, art, cartoons and comics, as well as essays):
Make sure that the submitted posts are possible (and relatively easy) to convert into print. Posts that rely too much on video, audio, color photographs, copyrighted images, or multitudes of links just won't do.
Description: Field Trip Earth (FTE) is the conservation education website operated by the North Carolina Zoological Society. FTE works closely with field-based wildlife researchers and provides their "raw materials"--field journals, photos, datasets, GIS maps, and so on--to K-12 teachers and students. The website is in use by classrooms in all 50 US states and 140 countries world-wide, and was recently designated as a "Landmark Website" by the American Association of School Librarians. Discuss here.
Description: How is science portrayed in mass market multi-media? We will examine the ways that the many available audio and video formats present scientific ideas, and the pros, and the cons to what reaches your eyes and ears. We will also embark on a conversation to investigate what can be done by the average scientist to help make science in the media even better. Discuss here.
Description: A series of parallel revolutions are occurring in science as data, analysis, ideas, and even scientific manuscript authoring are moving away from the desktop and into the cloud. In this session we will focus on science and the cloud starting with the concept of Open Access, moving to cloud-based computation and its use cases, and how new efforts are bringing cloud approaches to the entire authorship and review process. Discuss here.
Description: Our panel of journalist-blogger hybrids - Carl Zimmer, John Timmer, Ed Yimmer Yong, and David Dobbs- will discuss and debate the future of science journalism in the online world. Are blogs and mainstream media the bitter rivals that stereotypes would have us believe, or do the two sides have common threads and complementary strengths? How will the tools of the Internet change the art of reporting? How will the ongoing changes strengthen writing about science? How might these changes compromise or threaten writing about science? In a world where it's possible for anyone to write about science, where does that leave professional science journalists? And who actually are these science journalists anyway? Discuss here.
E.Privacy, ethics, and disasters: how being online as a doctor changes everything - Pal MD and Val Jones.
Description: We all know that there are potential pitfalls to having a prominent online presence, but for physicians, the implications affect more than just themselves. How should doctors and similar professionals manage their online life? What are the ethical and legal implications? Discuss here.
Time isn't a commodity, something you pass around like cake. Time is the substance of life. When anyone asks you to give your time, they're really asking for a chunk of your life.
As you know you can see everyone who's registered for the conference, but I highlight 4-6 participants every day as this may be an easier way for you to digest the list. You can also look at the Program so see who is doing what.
Antony Williams is the Vice President of Strategic Development for ChemSpider at Royal Society of Chemistry. He lives in Raleigh, NC, blogs on ChemSpider blog and tweets. At the conference, Antony will be quite busy - he will co-moderate the session "Citizen Science and Students", give two Ignite talks ""Crowdsourced Chemistry - Why Online Chemistry Data Needs Your Help" and "Games in Open Science Education", and do a Demo of "ChemSpider - Crowdsourced Curation of Online Chemistry Data".
Jeff Ives writes and manages print and online communications and content for the New England Aquarium. He can be found on Twitter. At the conference, Jeff will co-moderate the session "Broader Impact Done Right".
Kelly Rae Chi is a graduate of the Medical Journalism Program at UNC and a freelance science and technology writer here in the Triangle. Follow her on Twitter.
Rob Gluck is the veteran of all our conferences. He blogs on Science On Tap and tweets.
There are 17 new articles published yesterday and 24 new articles today in PLoS ONE. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Mendeley, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:
To answer five research questions: Do Norwegian physicians know about the three important aspects of EBM? Do they use EBM methods in their clinical practice? What are their attitudes towards EBM? Has EBM in their opinion changed medical practice during the last 10 years? Do they use EBM based information sources?
Design
Cross sectional survey in 2006.
Setting
Norway.
Participants
966 doctors who responded to a questionnaire (70% response rate).
Results
In total 87% of the physicians mentioned the use of randomised clinical trials as a key aspect of EBM, while 53% of them mentioned use of clinical expertise and only 19% patients' values. 40% of the respondents reported that their practice had always been evidence-based. Many respondents experienced difficulties in using EBM principles in their clinical practice because of lack of time and difficulties in searching EBM based literature. 80% agreed that EBM helps physicians towards better practice and 52% that it improves patients' health. As reasons for changes in medical practice 86% of respondents mentioned medical progress, but only 39% EBM.
Conclusions
The results of the study indicate that Norwegian physicians have a limited knowledge of the key aspects of EBM but a positive attitude towards the concept. They had limited experience in the practice of EBM and were rather indifferent to the impact of EBM on medical practice. For solving a patient problem, physicians would rather consult a colleague than searching evidence based resources such as the Cochrane Library.
Human language has evolved on a biological substrate with phylogenetic roots deep in the primate lineage. Here, we describe a functional analogy to a common morphological process in human speech, affixation, in the alarm calls of free-ranging adult Campbell's monkeys (Cercopithecus campbelli campbelli). We found that male alarm calls are composed of an acoustically variable stem, which can be followed by an acoustically invariable suffix. Using long-term observations and predator simulation experiments, we show that suffixation in this species functions to broaden the calls' meaning by transforming a highly specific eagle alarm to a general arboreal disturbance call or by transforming a highly specific leopard alarm call to a general alert call. We concluded that, when referring to specific external events, non-human primates can generate meaningful acoustic variation during call production that is functionally equivalent to suffixation in human language.
Fig trees are pollinated by fig wasps, which also oviposit in female flowers. The wasp larvae gall and eat developing seeds. Although fig trees benefit from allowing wasps to oviposit, because the wasp offspring disperse pollen, figs must prevent wasps from ovipositing in all flowers, or seed production would cease, and the mutualism would go extinct. In Ficus racemosa, we find that syconia ('figs') that have few foundresses (ovipositing wasps) are underexploited in the summer (few seeds, few galls, many empty ovules) and are overexploited in the winter (few seeds, many galls, few empty ovules). Conversely, syconia with many foundresses produce intermediate numbers of galls and seeds, regardless of season. We use experiments to explain these patterns, and thus, to explain how this mutualism is maintained. In the hot summer, wasps suffer short lifespans and therefore fail to oviposit in many flowers. In contrast, cooler temperatures in the winter permit longer wasp lifespans, which in turn allows most flowers to be exploited by the wasps. However, even in winter, only in syconia that happen to have few foundresses are most flowers turned into galls. In syconia with higher numbers of foundresses, interference competition reduces foundress lifespans, which reduces the proportion of flowers that are galled. We further show that syconia encourage the entry of multiple foundresses by delaying ostiole closure. Taken together, these factors allow fig trees to reduce galling in the wasp-benign winter and boost galling (and pollination) in the wasp-stressing summer. Interference competition has been shown to reduce virulence in pathogenic bacteria. Our results show that interference also maintains cooperation in a classic, cooperative symbiosis, thus linking theories of virulence and mutualism. More generally, our results reveal how frequency-dependent population regulation can occur in the fig-wasp mutualism, and how a host species can 'set the rules of the game' to ensure mutualistic behavior in its symbionts.
Human infections with highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses of the H5N1 subtype, frequently reported since 2003, result in high morbidity and mortality. It is feared that these viruses become pandemic, therefore the development of safe and effective vaccines is desirable. MVA-based H5N1 vaccines already proved to be effective when two immunizations with high doses were used. Dose-sparing strategies would increase the number of people that can be vaccinated when the amount of vaccine preparations that can be produced is limited. Furthermore, protective immunity is induced ideally after a single immunization. Therefore the minimal requirements for induction of protective immunity with a MVA-based H5N1 vaccine were assessed in mice. To this end, mice were vaccinated once or twice with descending doses of a recombinant MVA expressing the HA gene of influenza virus A/Vietnam/1194/04. The protective efficacy was determined after challenge infection with the homologous clade 1 virus and a heterologous virus derived from clade 2.1, A/Indonesia/5/05 by assessing weight loss, virus replication and histopathological changes. It was concluded that MVA-based vaccines allowed significant dose-sparing and afford cross-clade protection, also after a single immunization, which are favorable properties for an H5N1 vaccine candidate.
American Scientist Pizza Lunch convenes again at noon, Tuesday, Nov. 24 at Sigma Xi's headquarters in Research Triangle Park.
The speaker will be Alex Huang, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State University. Prof. Huang is directly engaged with trying to reduce this country's dependence on carbon-emitting fossil fuels. He directs a national research center working on a redesign of the nation's power grid to better integrate alternative energy sources and new storage methods.
American Scientist Pizza Lunch is free and open to science journalists and science communicators of all stripes. Feel free to forward this message to anyone who might want to attend. RSVPs are required (for a reliable slice count) to cclabby@amsci.org
Directions to Sigma Xi:
http://www.sigmaxi.org/about/center/directions.shtml
Reminder: Deadline is November 30th at midnight EST!
Here are the submissions for OpenLab 2009 to date. As we have surpassed 440 entries, all of them, as well as the "submit" buttons and codes and the bookmarklet, are under the fold. You can buy the 2006, 2007 and 2008 editions at Lulu.com. Please use the submission form to add more of your and other people's posts (remember that we are looking for original poems, art, cartoons and comics, as well as essays):
