Science News
clock | August 22, 2006Biologist Trying To Crack Communication Code Of Proteins:
"Proteins interact; they 'talk' to each other," the associate professor says. "It's how they know what to do, and it's how most of the things that need to happen for living organisms get done."
---------snip--------------
"To begin understanding how proteins talk, we first made random mutations--we broke things and then asked what happened," Larsen says. "That strategy worked well and allowed us to identify the key 'words.' Now we want to know what the 'words' mean, and we are starting by asking what happens when we mix the 'dialects…
j7uy5 | August 20, 2006The Washington Post today has an article on
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/19/AR2006081900842.html">Brazil's
milestone achievement: this year, their oil exports will
equal or exceed their imports. This is significant for a few
reasons. For one, it shows that it can be done, at least in
one sizable country. Although the fact that they were able to
do it does not prove that we could do it too, it does indicate that we
could be doing a lot better than we are. It also shows that a
country does not have to be an academic or technological powerhouse to…
j7uy5 | August 19, 2006Scientific American has an article in which the
author reviews research into the expertise of chess players.
He ponders the questions of what makes an expert player an
expert, how is the problem-solving strategy of an expert different from
that of a novice, and is there a way to train people to be experts?
What makes this interesting is not so much the questions regarding
chess, in particular; rather, what is interesting is the question of
how generalizable the findings are. The people who study this
question are really interested in the the latter. They
consider chess to be the…
clock | August 19, 2006Have You Ever Seen An Elephant ... Run?:
Dr John Hutchinson, a research leader at the UK's Royal Veterinary College (RVC), has already shown that, contrary to previous studies and most popular opinion, elephants moving at speed appear to be running. Now with funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) his team is using Hollywood-style motion capture cameras combined with MRI and CT scans of elephants to build 3D computer models of elephant locomotion to show the forces and stresses at work on muscles, tendons and bones.
The research team has been working…
clock | August 18, 2006One of the several hypotheses floating around over the past several years to explain the phenomenon of repeated wake-up events in hibernating animals although such events are very energy-draining, is the notion that the immune system needs to be rewarmed in order to fend off any potential bacterial invasions that may have occured while the animal was hibernating:
Now, a group of researchers provided a mathematical model that supports this hypothesis:
"A habit in some animals to periodically wake up while hibernating may be an evolutionary mechanism to fight bacterial infection, according to…
clock | August 17, 2006Many Commercial Drivers Have Impaired Performance Due To Lack Of Sleep
Truck drivers who routinely get too little sleep or suffer from sleep apnea show signs of fatigue and impaired performance that can make them a hazard on the road, according to a major new study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. The study results are published in the August 15th issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
clock | August 17, 2006Snuck into the very end of this, otherwise very interesting article on neurobiology of cephalopods and moths, is this little passage:
As for flies, Tublitz outlined a tantalizing question, as yet unanswered, that has continued to take flight out of his lab for the last decade. Scientists for years, he said, have held "one hard rule" about what constitutes a neuron -- that a neuron cell always arises from the ectoderm of a developing embryo. However, a discovery in Drosophila -- fruit flies -- has softened that assumption.
Cells arising from the mesoderm rest in a layer on top of the fruit fly…
clock | August 16, 2006If you go to the ScienceBlogs front page you will see that The Buzz word of the day is Pluto. And when there is a new Buzz Word, a lot of us tend to post about it - see how many already chimed in on the topic.
I am actually quite happy to see the revisions of the definition of a planet. The old 9-planet system was just too neat and clear-cut, too iconic, to fixed and unmovable.
Let's jolt the masses out of the lull and show them the way science moves and changes and shatters our most valued beliefs!
Twelve planets today, twelve thousand planets tomorrow, twelve million planets in OUR…
j7uy5 | August 16, 2006I just love this story. A long time ago, before ScienceBlogs
even existed, people were out there in the wild, searching for a bird
called the ivory-billed woodpecker.
Grrlscientist has been
href="http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2006/05/birds_in_the_news_59_v2n10.php">keeping
us
href="http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2006/03/ivorybilled_woodpecker_a_ghost.php">updated
on the search, and has
href="http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2006/03/goodbye_beautiful_dream.php">this
illustration and caption to show what it is that everyone is
looking for.
Now we learn…
clock | August 15, 2006Archy is on top of the story, as usual when the story is about people trying to resurrect mammoths!
j7uy5 | August 11, 2006
In 1969, after yet another arrest, Flint native
href="http://www.umich.edu/%7Ebhl/bhl/refhome/jls/John.htm">John
Sinclair was sentenced to 9.5 yrs in prison. The
egregious disproportionality of the sentence led to rallying cries of
FREE JOHN SINCLAIR!
Last December, I went to a pub in Ypsilanti, to see the guy play his
music. Outside, there were these free-newsletter dispensers.
I saw the juxtaposition, felt moved by the irony, and snapped
a picture.
Seed
Magazine is cool. The most recent issue
(September 2006; not online yet) has a one-pager on a topic similar to
the FREE…
clock | August 11, 2006Not just in the USA. Visceral queeziness coupled with religious sentiment coupled with scientific ignorance appears in other parts of the world as well, as in the UK
The Scottish Council on Human Bioethics, a professional group based in Edinburgh, has published a report on the ethical implications of the practice in the journal Human Reproduction and Genetic Ethics. The report is online at www.schb.org.uk.
The article lists some examples of research:
Later research has spawned human-animal creations, the report said. These usually die at the embryonic stage, but often survive if the…
clock | August 11, 2006Teens Who Do Use Condoms Often Don't Use Them Properly:
A worrying number of young people who do use condoms don't use them correctly, so risking unwanted pregnancy or infections, reveals research published ahead of print in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections. But a good relationship with their mothers seemed to be associated with correct condom use, the research showed.
Paleontologist Discovers South American Mammal Fossils:
Fossils of a new hoofed mammal that resembles a cross between a dog and a hare which once roamed the Andes Mountains in southern Bolivia around 13 million years…
clock | August 10, 2006As the temperatures rise, different organisms respond differently. Some migrate to higher latitudes or altitudes. Others stay put but change the timing of reproduction and other seasonal activities. As a result, ecosystems get remodeled.
So, for instance, insect pollinators and flowers they pollinate may get out of sync.
Animals tend to use photoperiod as a major clue for seasonal timing, with temperature only modulating the response to some extent.
Plants, on the other hand, although they certainly can use photoperiod, are much more strongly influenced by temperature. Non-biologists who…
clock | August 9, 2006Dominant Meerkats Render Rivals Infertile:
When pregnant, dominant female meerkats subject their subordinates to escalating aggression and temporary eviction causing them to become overly stressed and as a result infertile, a new study finds.
Does Environment Influence Genes? Researcher Gives Hard Thoughts On Soft Inheritance:
Organisms, including humans, all inherit DNA from generation to generation, what biologists call hard inheritance, because the nucleotide sequence of DNA is constant and only changes by rare random mutation as it is passed down the generations.
But there also is…
clock | August 8, 2006Researcher Studies Sleep Deprivation's Effect On Decisions:
Everyone needs sleep, but temporary periods with no sleep can be a reality of military operations. To get answers on sleep questions for the military as well as civilians, for nearly four years Dr. Sean Drummond, a Department of Defense-funded researcher, has studied the effects of sleep deprivation on the brain, namely in decision making, as well as how long it takes to recover from periods of no sleep.
Early Exposure To Synthetic Estrogen Puts 'DES Daughters' At Higher Risk For Breast Cancer:
So-called "DES daughters," born to…
clock | August 8, 2006Today's New York Times has a good article about jet-lag: The Science of Zzzzz's. I am glad to hear that JetBlue is using scientific advice in helping their pilots be fresh and alert, especially now that JetBlue has started flying from RDU.
clock | August 8, 2006New Depression Findings Could Alter Treatments.
Kids on antidepressants more likely to commit suicide? I have heard about this several times before, but I believe this is a first study directly asking this question:
"The researchers found no link between the antidepressant drugs and suicidal behavior in depressed patients 19 or older. But children and adolescents in the study who were taking antidepressants were about 50 percent more likely than those not on the drugs to try to kill themselves. And they were about 15 times as likely as those not on the medications to complete the act,…
clock | August 7, 2006Sexual Lyrics Prompt Teens to Have Sex:
Teens whose iPods are full of music with raunchy, sexual lyrics start having sex sooner than those who prefer other songs, a study found.
Whether it's hip-hop, rap, pop or rock, much of popular music aimed at teens contains sexual overtones. Its influence on their behavior appears to depend on how the sex is portrayed, researchers found.
The article does point out skepticism by a couple of other researchers, but the title and the lede suggest that they'd prefer the readers to ignore the skepticism.
evolgen | August 1, 2006According to this press release, cancer cells can be kept from dividing by preventing them from making cell walls. Cell walls? Yeah, cell walls. Like plants or bacteria. Last time I checked, animal cells ain't got no walls. Ordinarily, I'd attribute this to a stoopid reported getting the information screwed up, but here's a quote from the lead author of the paper:
"Last year we discovered that a protein called SREBP1 that regulates the synthesis of lipids needed for new cell walls was regulated during the cell cycle."
Cell membranes are made of lipids. Membranes! MEMBRANES!! Not walls. I'd…