- February 1, 2009
- 01:00 PM
- 1,255 views
Single gene allows glowing bacteria to switch from fish to squid
by Ed Yong in Not Exactly Rocket Science
The Japanese pinecone fish searches for food with living headlights. This hand-sized fish harbours colonies of light-producing bacteria in two organs on its lower jaw. The beams from these organs shine forward, and when night falls and the fish goes searching for food, its jaw-lamps light the way.
Elsewhere in the Pacific Ocean, the Hawaiian bobtail squid also uses luminous bacteria, but theirs act as a cloaking device. They produce a dim glow that matches the strength of moonlight from abo........ Read more »
Mark J. Mandel, Michael S. Wollenberg, Eric V. Stabb, Karen L. Visick, & Edward G. Ruby. (2009) A single regulatory gene is sufficient to alter bacterial host range. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/nature07660
- February 1, 2009
- 12:45 PM
- 1,284 views
The market for designer babies
by dgmacarthur in Genetic Future
Razib points to an article suggesting that Australian couples are "flocking" to a US fertility clinic that allows them to screen their potential IVF embryos for sex and even cosmetic traits like skin and eye colour, in addition to variants that predispose to severe disease risk. ("Flocking", in this context, means about 14 couples a month.)This follows on the heels of a fairly widely-publicised study published last week that surveyed around 1,000 genetic counselling patients about their attitude........ Read more »
Feighanne Hathaway, Esther Burns, & Harry Ostrer. (2009) Consumers’ Desire towards Current and Prospective Reproductive Genetic Testing. Journal of Genetic Counseling. DOI: 10.1007/s10897-008-9199-3
- February 1, 2009
- 11:35 AM
- 1,592 views
Lies, Libel and Love Detection
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
Via Mind Hacks, we learn about the case of Francisco Lacerda, a University of Stockholm academic who's been threatened with legal action by the sinister-sounding Nemesysco company. Nemesysco sell software which, they claim, can detect deception and emotions by analyzing the sound of people's voices - lie detection, in other words. (In fact it turns out that it can also be used to detect love, or at least, so they say - see below...)The legal dispute surrounds a 2007 paper authored by Lacerda and........ Read more »
Anders Eriksson, & Francisco Lacerda. (2008) Charlatanry in forensic speech science: A problem to be taken seriously. International Journal of Speech Language and the Law, 14(2). DOI: 10.1558/ijsll.2007.14.2.169
- February 1, 2009
- 10:24 AM
- 1,311 views
A Drug Design Class Act: ∆S or ∆H?
by The Curious Wavefunction in The Curious Wavefunction
One of the most important relations in all of chemistry is the free energy relation ∆G = ∆H - T∆S. Tuning the potency of a ligand binding to a protein involves a fine balance between optimizing both entropy and enthalpy. In his review on the role of these two variables, Johns Hopkins's Ernesto Freire makes a very interesting observation; that for a given series of progressively improved set of drugs binding to a given protein, it's the enthalpy that becomes more and more favourable while t........ Read more »
E Freire. (2008) Do enthalpy and entropy distinguish first in class from best in class?. Drug Discovery Today, 13(19-20), 869-874. DOI: 10.1016/j.drudis.2008.07.005
- February 1, 2009
- 04:00 AM
- 1,083 views
Arrested development, and reproductive incompatibility, from duplicate genes
by Jeremy Yoder in Denim and Tweed
Speciation isn't something that evolution sets out to do - it just sort of happens. One day, a species colonizes two sides of a river, say, migration across the river drops off, and then a few million years of genetic drift later, there are two species where once there was one. The question is, what's the final genetic change that makes the accident of speciation irrevocable?
A paper in this... Read more »
D. Bikard, D. Patel, C. Le Mette, V. Giorgi, C. Camilleri, M.J. Bennett, & O. Loudet. (2009) Divergent evolution of duplicate genes leads to genetic incompatibilities within A. thaliana. Science, 323(5914), 623-6. DOI: 10.1126/science.1165917
K. Bomblies, & D Weigel. (2007) Arabidopsis — a model genus for speciation. Current Op. Genet. , 17(6), 500-4. DOI: 10.1016/j.gde.2007.09.006
- February 1, 2009
- 12:00 AM
- 1,464 views
Aspheric intraocular lenses: mimicking the young eye
by Pablo Artal in Optics confidential
Aspheric intraocular lenses provide cataract patients with better quality of vision. The history of how these lenses were developed trying to copy the optical properties of young eyes is described ... Read more »
P. Artal, E. Berrio, A. Guirao, P. Piers. (2002) Contribution of the cornea and internal surfaces to the change of ocular aberrations with age. J.Opt.Soc.Am.A., 137.
- February 1, 2009
- 12:00 AM
- 1,240 views
Combination Therapy for Childhood Anxiety Disorders
by Shaheen Lakhan in Brain Blogger
Anxiety disorders are among the most common diagnoses in children and adolescents. Anxiety problems that begin in childhood are often quite damaging, leading to low self-esteem, social isolation, inadequate social skills, academic difficulties, and physical manifestations such as headaches and stomachaches. Actual prevalence rates of anxiety disorders reported in the literature vary, but may, in [...]... Read more »
Juliette Liber, Brigit van Widenfelt, Arnold Goedhart, Elisabeth Utens, Adelinde van der Leeden, Monica Markus, & Philip Treffers. (2008) Parenting and Parental Anxiety and Depression as Predictors of Treatment Outcome for Childhood Anxiety Disorders: Has the Role of Fathers Been Underestimated?. Journal of Clinical Child , 37(4), 747-758. DOI: 10.1080/15374410802359692
M. A. Rynn. (2001) Placebo-Controlled Trial of Sertraline in the Treatment of Children With Generalized Anxiety Disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry, 158(12), 2008-2014. DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.158.12.2008
J. T. Walkup, A. M. Albano, J. Piacentini, B. Birmaher, S. N. Compton, J. T. Sherrill, G. S. Ginsburg, M. A. Rynn, J. McCracken, B. Waslick.... (2008) Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Sertraline, or a Combination in Childhood Anxiety. New England Journal of Medicine, 359(26), 2753-2766. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa0804633
- February 1, 2009
- 12:00 AM
- 982 views
Bisphenol A might make you fat
by Joe Dunckley in Cotch
If you'll excuse my tabloid headline writer...
A year ago, I wrote Lies, damn lies, and tissue culture, describing some of the reasons why caution and healthy skepticism are required when assessing the conclusions of tissue culture studies. This is especially the case when the tissue culture studies are being used as part of what Ben Goldacre calls the Daily Mail's great project of sorting all the world's inanimate objects into those which cause cancer, and the rest, which sure........ Read more »
Eric R. Hugo, Terry D. Brandebourg, Jessica G. Woo, Jean Loftus, J. Wesley Alexander, & Nira Ben-Jonathan. (2008) Bisphenol A at Environmentally Relevant Doses Inhibits Adiponectin Release from Human Adipose Tissue Explants and Adipocytes. Environmental Health Perspectives, 1642-1647. DOI: 10.1289/ehp.11537
- February 1, 2009
- 12:00 AM
- 999 views
Standardizing Facial Photographs via IPD May Introduce Error
by Wayne Hooke in The Psychology of Beauty
Much of beauty research requires comparing facial measurements from photographs of different subjects. Optimally, the distance from the sensor in the digital camera (or the film plane) to each subject’s face should be identical. Identical head-camera distances ensure that measurements taken from the photographs retain identical proportionality to measurements taken directly from the faces themselves.
When researchers are unable to control the head-camera distance when making the photogr........ Read more »
Anthony C. Little, Benedict C. Jones, Corri Waitt, Bernard P. Tiddeman, David R. Feinberg, David I. Perrett, Coren L. Apicella, & Frank W. Marlowe. (2008) Symmetry Is Related to Sexual Dimorphism in Faces: Data Across Culture and Species. PLoS ONE, 3(5). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0002106
Anthony C. Little, Benedict C. Jones, Corri Waitt, Bernard P. Tiddeman, David R. Feinberg, David I. Perrett, Coren L. Apicella, & Frank W. Marlowe. (2008) Symmetry Is Related to Sexual Dimorphism in Faces: Data Across Culture and Species. PLoS ONE, 3(5). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0002106
- January 31, 2009
- 06:00 PM
- 1,114 views
In the Journals - Human expansion across the Pacific mapped by language and bacteria
by GrumpyBob in Flies and Bikes
Just as I finish reading (or rather, re-reading) chapters concerning the fate of Easter Island (Rapanui) and of Henderson and Pitcairn Islands in Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive by Jared Diamond, the 23rd January issue of Science arrives, bearing two articles on the spread of humans (Austronesians) from Taiwan and onwards across Micronesia to Polyne [...]... Read more »
R. D. Gray, A. J. Drummond, & S. J. Greenhill. (2009) Language Phylogenies Reveal Expansion Pulses and Pauses in Pacific Settlement. Science, 323(5913), 479-483. DOI: 10.1126/science.1166858
Y. Moodley, B. Linz, Y. Yamaoka, H. M. Windsor, S. Breurec, J.-Y. Wu, A. Maady, S. Bernhoft, J.-M. Thiberge, S. Phuanukoonnon.... (2009) The Peopling of the Pacific from a Bacterial Perspective. Science, 323(5913), 527-530. DOI: 10.1126/science.1166083
C. Renfrew. (2009) ANTHROPOLOGY: Where Bacteria and Languages Concur. Science, 323(5913), 467-468. DOI: 10.1126/science.1168953
- January 31, 2009
- 01:05 PM
- 638 views
Do Physical Therapists Value Outcome Measures?
by Eric Robertson in NPA Think Tank
For over a decade, physical therapists have been urged to use standardized outcome measures the management of patients. Standardized outcome measures are tools that survey how a patient can perform certain activites. The tools give the therapist a quatitative way to assess a level of disability and clear ways to track progress. Many tools have been developed by investigators and education about the measures is an integral part of physical therapist curriculum. The tools are theorized to improve ........ Read more »
D. U Jette, J. Halbert, C. Iverson, E. Miceli, & P. Shah. (2008) Use of Standardized Outcome Measures in Physical Therapist Practice: Perceptions and Applications. Physical Therapy. DOI: 10.2522/ptj.20080234
D. U Jette, J. Halbert, C. Iverson, E. Miceli, & P. Shah. (2008) Use of Standardized Outcome Measures in Physical Therapist Practice: Perceptions and Applications. Physical Therapy. DOI: 10.2522/ptj.20080234
- January 31, 2009
- 12:04 PM
- 984 views
Dinner’s up on the ocean floor
by Jacob Aron in Just A Theory
Dolphins are such fascinating creatures, it’s no wonder that I’ve talked about their antics before. Yesterday, I learnt that in addition to their other many talents, dolphins are apparantly adept chefs as well.
Yes that’s right - chefs. Scientist from Australia and Britain observing dolphins in the Upper Spencer Gulf in South Australia were stunned to [...]... Read more »
Julian Finn, Tom Tregenza, & Mark Norman. (2009) Preparing the Perfect Cuttlefish Meal: Complex Prey Handling by Dolphins. PLoS ONE, 4(1). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0004217
- January 31, 2009
- 01:18 AM
- 1,766 views
Sex with Flexible Partners #2
by Johnny in Ecographica
During the first installment in this series on reproductive strategy (available here) the topic of hermaphroditism was introduced and a quick summary of simultaneous hermaphroditism was provided. Moving forward from that discussion, this short essay will provide a synopsis of a category of hermaphroditism referred to as “sequential hermaphroditism.”Recall from the first essay that simultaneous hermaphroditism refers to organisms that can function as both a female and a male during a single m........ Read more »
P MUNDAY, P BUSTON, & R WARNER. (2006) Diversity and flexibility of sex-change strategies in animals. Trends in Ecology , 21(2), 89-95. DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2005.10.020
Kohei Ohta, Mayumi Hirano, Takayuki Mine, Hiroshi Mizutani, Akihiko Yamaguchi, & Michiya Matsuyama. (2007) Body color change and serum steroid hormone levels throughout the process of sex change in the adult wrasse, Pseudolabrus sieboldi. Marine Biology, 153(5), 843-852. DOI: 10.1007/s00227-007-0856-0
C. G. Norton, A. F. Johnson, & R. L. Mueller. (2008) Relative size influences gender role in the freshwater hermaphroditic snail, Helisoma trivolvis. Behavioral Ecology, 19(6), 1122-1127. DOI: 10.1093/beheco/arn099
- January 31, 2009
- 12:00 AM
- 1,741 views
Sex with Flexible Partners: Socio-Ecological Reproductive Strategy #1
by Johnny in Ecographica
Reproductive strategy, simultaneous hermaphroditism... Read more »
Verena S. Brauer, Lukas Schärer, & Nico K. Michiels. (2007) PHENOTYPICALLY FLEXIBLE SEX ALLOCATION IN A SIMULTANEOUS HERMAPHRODITE. Evolution, 61(1), 216-222. DOI: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2007.00018.x
Eric A. Fischer. (1987) Mating behavior in the black hamlet — gamete trading or egg trading?. Environmental Biology of Fishes, 18(2), 143-148. DOI: 10.1007/BF00002602
- January 30, 2009
- 05:57 PM
- 1,576 views
Vaccines and Autism: A Tale of Shifting Hypotheses
by Greg Laden in Greg Laden's Blog
A paper coming out in the next issue of the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases addresses the question of the link between vaccines and autism. This new review article examines three hypotheses linking vaccines to autism:
(1) the combination measles‐mumps‐rubella vaccine causes autism by damaging the intestinal lining, which allows the entrance of encephalopathic proteins;
(2) thimerosal, an ethylmercury‐containing preservative in some vaccines, is toxic to the central nervous system;........ Read more »
Jeffrey S. Gerber, & Paul A. Offit. (2009) Vaccines and Autism: A Tale of Shifting Hypotheses. Clinical Infectious Diseases, 48(4), 456-461. DOI: 10.1086/596476
- January 30, 2009
- 05:00 PM
- 843 views
Year Of The Ox – Charming Tradition Or Load Of Bull?
by Kylie Sturgess in Podblack Blog
An investigation of Chinese astrology, psychology and the influence of culture and changing times on superstition and tradition - just how good is it that people are worried about ‘Chinese Beliefs and Superstitions: Its Fast Fading Existence?’... Read more »
Kramer, T., & Block, L. (2008) Conscious and Nonconscious Components of Superstitious Beliefs in Judgment and Decision Making. Journal of Consumer Research, 34(6), 783-793. DOI: 10.1086/523288
- January 30, 2009
- 03:30 PM
- 1,110 views
How the fruit fly evolved its (developmental) stripes
by in Chance and Necessity
Patterning the anterior/posterior (head-to-tail) axis of Drosophila melanogaster involves a complicated hierarchy of gene products contributed to the egg by the mother that switch on and off the genes within the zygote that will subdivide the embryo into large sections with different fates from one another. These factors, the gap genes, act in concert with the maternal factors to then regulate a set of genes called pair-rule genes that are expressed in (and will define the fate of) every other ........ Read more »
Michael Z. Ludwig, Casey Bergman, Nipam H. Patel, & Martin Kreitman. (2000) Evidence for stabilizing selection in a eukaryotic enhancer element. Nature, 403(6769), 564-567. DOI: 10.1038/35000615
- January 30, 2009
- 02:10 PM
- 1,295 views
Will Coffee Crack your Chromosomes?
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
Bloggers were amused by the Daily Mail's latest crap science article - a scary cancer story about research that hadn't even been done yet. The article is about a study to be conducted by University of Leicester scientists, which will investigate whether coffee intake by pregnant women is correlated with DNA changes in babies, similar to those seen in leukemia. In other words: coffee-drinking might be associated with some molecular changes which might point to a risk of leukemia. We should ban th........ Read more »
S Dambrosio. (1994) Evaluation of the Genotoxicity Data on Caffeine. Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, 19(3), 243-281. DOI: 10.1006/rtph.1994.1023
- January 30, 2009
- 11:52 AM
- 1,672 views
Back to Basics: Hemispheric Asymmetry in Prefrontal Cortex
by Chris Chatham in Developing Intelligence
A lot has been written about domain-general processing in prefrontal cortex, and a very old lesson often gets overlooked: there are very basic hemispheric asymmetries (particularly in PFC) that divide information processing by modality. A very nice study by Morimoto et al provide a nice reminder of this important feature of neuronal organization, and illustrates that very specific regions of PFC are the only ones to show such hemispheric specialization in tasks that require cognitive control.
........ Read more »
Hiroki M. Morimoto, Satoshi Hirose, Junichi Chikazoe, Koji Jimura, Tomoki Asari, Ken-ichiro Yamashita, Yasushi Miyashita, & Seiki Konishi. (2008) On Verbal/Nonverbal Modality Dependence of Left and Right Inferior Prefrontal Activation during Performance of Flanker Interference Task. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20(11), 2006-2014. DOI: 10.1162/jocn.2008.20138
- January 30, 2009
- 11:08 AM
- 796 views
Autism, Cognition, and the Corpos Callosum
by Nestor Lopez-Duran in Translating Autism
A review of: Christopher J. Keary, Nancy J. Minshew, Rahul Bansal, Dhruman Goradia, Serguei Fedorov, Matcheri S. Keshavan, Antonio Y. Hardan (2009). Corpus Callosum Volume and Neurocognition in Autism Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders DOI: 10.1007/s10803-009-0689-4Just last week I had the opportunity to hear Dr. Richard Davidson, one of the fathers of the field of affective neuroscience, give a lecture in which he discussed brain volume differences in children with autism. The last p........ Read more »
Christopher J. Keary, Nancy J. Minshew, Rahul Bansal, Dhruman Goradia, Serguei Fedorov, Matcheri S. Keshavan, & Antonio Y. Hardan. (2009) Corpus Callosum Volume and Neurocognition in Autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. DOI: 10.1007/s10803-009-0689-4
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