grrlscientist | February 20, 2007Asia is being swamped with an epidemic of counterfeit drugs and the problem is spreading. Malaria medicines have been particularly hard hit; in a recent sampling in Southeast Asia, 53 percent of the antimalarials bought were fakes. But conterfeit antibiotics, tuberculosis drugs, AIDS drugs and even meningitis vaccines have also been found. These counterfeit drugs cause the untimely deaths of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people every year. For example, the World Health Organization estimates that one-fifth of the one million annual deaths from malaria could be prevented…
grrlscientist | February 20, 2007This is a video of wild chimps using stone tools to crack open nut shells so they can get at the nutmeats inside. Most of the chimps have a baby sitting next to them, learning about the reward to be had after crushing the nut with a rock.
grrlscientist | February 19, 2007The oceans are filled with phytoplankton: microscopic plants that are vital to the marine ecosystem because they form the base of the marine food chain. Phytoplankton cannot be seen with the naked eye but from space, satellite images show phytoplankton forming enormous green swirls hundreds of kilometres long in coastal waters. Because phytoplankton consume CO2, increasing their numbers might be a good stratgey for combatting global warming.
"Just like trees, they can take carbon dioxide and give us back oxygen," says Professor Ian Jones, an ocean engineer from the University of Sydney,…
grrlscientist | February 19, 2007Swedish researchers claim that it may be possible to read a person's personality by analyzing their irises. They studied 428 people and correlated iris patterns with warm-heartedness and trust or neuroticism and impulsiveness. The researchers looked at crypts (pits) and contraction furrows (lines curving around the outer edge of the iris), which are formed when pupils dilate.
It was found that those with more crypts were likely to be tender, warm and trusting, while those with more furrows were more likely to be neurotic, impulsive and give in to cravings.
The researchers suggest that a…
grrlscientist | February 19, 2007Advocates against genetically modified (GM) crops in Britain are calling for trials of GM potatoes this spring to be halted after releasing more evidence of links with cancers in laboratory rats. Alan Simpson, a Labour MP and green campaigner, said the findings, which showed that lab rats developed tumors, were released by anti-GM campaigners in Wales. Arpad Pusztai, whose work was criticised by the Royal Society and the Netherlands State Institute for Quality Control, and a colleague used potatoes that had been genetically modified to produce a protein, lectin. They found cell damage in the…
grrlscientist | February 19, 2007
Red-necked wallaby, Macropus rufogriseus frutica.
The photographer writes; Apparently wallabies are very, very cool with people. There was a paved path with gates at either end which wound through an area that had wallabies merrily hopping from one end to the other, casual as you please, munching on grass and jumping like little kangaroos.
Image: grendelkhan.
As long as you send images to me (and I hope it will be for forever), I shall continue to share them with my readership. My purpose for posting these images is to remind all of us of the grandeur of the natural world and that there…
grrlscientist | February 19, 2007There is some good news on the battle against scientific illiteracy: Americans know more about basic science today than they did two decades ago. Perversely, this increasing knowledge is tempered by a growth in the belief in pseudoscience such as astrology and visits by extraterrestrial aliens.
In 1988, only about 10 percent knew enough about science to understand reports in major newspapers, a figure that grew to 28 percent by 2005, according to Jon Miller, a Michigan State University professor. He presented his findings at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement…
grrlscientist | February 19, 2007
Winter Wren, Troglodytes troglodytes.
Image source: Lincoln Karim, Pale Male.
Birds in Science
Scientists have successfully tested their ability to identify and DNA "barcode" entire assemblages of species -- the prelude to a genetic portrait of all animal life on Earth (original article). They report having assembled a genetic portrait of birdlife in the U.S. and Canada, and announce the startling discovery of 15 new genetically distinct species, nearly indistinguishable to human eyes and ears and consequently overlooked in centuries of bird studies. The bird researchers obtained DNA from…
grrlscientist | February 19, 2007"The brain is soft," writes Katrina Firlik in her book, Another Day in the Frontal Lobe (NYC: Random House, 2006). "Some of my colleagues compare it to toothpaste but that's not quite right. Tofu -- the soft variety, for those who know tofu -- may be a more accurate comparison." So begins the interesting tale of the residency of the first female neurosurgeon in America.
After briefly introducing her reader to the history of neurosurgery, Firlik moves on to describe the nature of her specialty, which she says is a combination of science and mechanics. Unlike neurologists and psychiatrists,…
grrlscientist | February 18, 2007
Wild-type mouse embryo 9.5 days post coitum. To assess the effect of targeted cubilin knockdown on blood vessel formation, embryos were immunolabeled with anti-PECAM-1, an endothelial cell marker. Cubilin-deficient embryos display developmental retardation and do not advance morphologically beyond the appearance of WT 8-8.5 dpc embryos.
Image: BMC Developmental Biology. [Archives].
As long as you send images to me (and I hope it will be for forever), I shall continue to share them with my readership. My purpose for posting these images is to remind all of us of the grandeur of the natural…
grrlscientist | February 18, 2007Tuberculosis is a stubborn infection that takes takes six months to treat effectively. As a result, this is the source of many problems in developing countries and when dealing with the homeless. However, doctors from London's St George's Medical School will test a combination of two antibiotics on 1,200 patients in four African countries. These two antobiotics, rifapentine and moxifloxacin, are already in use for this purpose, but are used separately.
This trial, which will start in July, is aimed to both test the effectiveness and safety of the drug combination and to see if a four-month…
grrlscientist | February 18, 2007A research team from the University of Arizona found that the average office desktop harbours 400 times more bacteria than the average office toilet seat. Additionally, they also discovered that, on average, women have three to four times the amount of germs in, on, and around their work area.
The researchers said women's habit of keeping snacks in their drawers could explain why their desks were more germ-ridden.
They also warned that make-up and lotions helped to transfer bacteria.
But they did find that men's wallets are the germiest thing that they looked at.
Cited story.
.
tags:…
grrlscientist | February 17, 2007Located in the Andes Mountains of South America, the Quelccaya Ice Cap is the largest tropical body of ice in the world. According to recent research, one of the glaciers in this ice cap, the Peruvian Qori Kalis (pictured), is rapidly melting and could soon vanish completely, providing the clearest evidence yet for global warming.
"I would not be surprised to see half of it disappear in this coming year," said climatologist Lonnie Thompson, from Ohio State University, at the Advancement of Science's (AAAS) annual meeting in San Francisco.
Thompson has been studying the Qori Kalis glacier…
grrlscientist | February 17, 2007
Knockdown of the kinesin Eg5 leads to mitotic defects. Knockdown of Eg5 levels by treatment with siRNA results in cells with monopolar spindles and a mitotic delay (right hand cell). Microtubule staining is shown in green, Eg5 in red and DNA in blue.
Image: BMC Developmental Biology. [Archives].
As long as you send images to me (and I hope it will be for forever), I shall continue to share them with my readership. My purpose for posting these images is to remind all of us of the grandeur of the natural world and that there is a world out there that is populated by millions of unique…
grrlscientist | February 17, 2007When Mount Pinatubo erupted in 1991, 10 tons of sulfur were blasted into the stratosphere, which is 10-40 kilometers above the earth's surface. As a result of this eruption, earth's average surface temperature decreased by 0.6 degrees celsius (1 degree Fahrenheit) for two years afterwards.
The plan is to send rockets carrying sulfur up to the stratosphere, where they would explode.
"After the injection at high altitude, it started to move around the globe with the air motions; first in an east-west direction, but also with time in a north-south direction. After about a year, the initial…
grrlscientist | February 17, 2007Japanese firm Fujitsu is perfecting a technology that can hide information in plain sight by encoding data into a picture that is invisible to the human eye but can be decoded by a cell phone camera. Fujitsu believes this technology will have important uses in the publishing industry.
"The concept is to be able to link the printed page into the digital domain," said Mike Nelson, general manager for sales operations at Fujitsu Europe.
The technique was first used 2,500 years ago when the Greeks sent warnings of attacks on wooden tablets and then covering them in wax and tattooing messages on…
grrlscientist | February 17, 2007The second edition of the new blog carnival, Oekologie, is now available. For those who are not familiar with Oekologie, it is the the carnival of the finest ecology and environmental science writing in the blogosphere.
.
tags: blog carnival, Oekologie, nature
grrlscientist | February 16, 2007
Carolina Wrens, Thryothorus ludovicianus,
on the photographer's front porch light puffed up to keep warm.
Note the polka dots -- a pattern not seen when the plumage is normally laid down.
Image: John Schukman
As long as you send images to me (and I hope it will be for forever), I shall continue to share them with my readership. My purpose for posting these images is to remind all of us of the grandeur of the natural world and that there is a world out there that is populated by millions of unique species. We are a part of this world whether we like it or not: we have a choice to either…
grrlscientist | February 16, 2007
The Panamanian golden frog, Atelopus zeteki,
is one of roughly 110 species of harlequin frog (Atelopus),
many of which are dying out. Although this species still survives, its
numbers have fallen significantly.
Image source.
Zoos around the world are collecting thousands of threatened species of amphibians to protect them from a deadly fungus. They plan to breed and rear them in captivity until the fungus can be stopped.
The rapid loss of amphibians, particularly many species of frogs, is a growing threat due to the chytrid fungus, which infects the skin of frogs and other amphibians,…
grrlscientist | February 16, 2007Born after just 24 weeks of gestation and weighing only 1lb 8oz., Lewis Goodfellow was a premature baby. Worse, one of his lungs failed so he was unable to get enough oxygen into his bloodstream. Things became so dire for this infant that the family began to make funeral arrangements.
However, doctors at the Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary in the UK then decided to try an experiment that might save the baby's life: Viagra (Sildenafil). Viagra is more commonly associated with male impotence, but it works by opening up small blood vessels in the body. Doctors hoped it would do the same for…