102 posts · 60,064 views
Blog of Promega Corporation designed to engage scientists in conversations about scientific research and issues that affect scientists.
Promega Corporation
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Kelly Grooms
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Terri Sundquist
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Caroline Sober
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Sara Klink
19 posts
Isobel Maciver
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- February 1, 2012
- 09:04 AM
- 76 views
The Benefits of Sand Bedding for Cattle (and Humans)
by Sara Klink in Promega Connections
For many people, cows are a clean, docile animal viewed at state or local fairs or seen wandering around pastures on a drive through the countryside. However, managing a herd of dairy animals is no small task. Farmers desire healthy animals that consistently give milk every day. For cows in housed primarily in barns, the quality of the bedding used in the stall is important. Not only should bedding be comfortable but also clean, a task made difficult by cows that have no concern about where they........ Read more »
Westphal, A., Williams, M.L., Baysal-Gurel, F., LeJeune, J.T., & McSpadden Gardener, B.B. (2011) General suppression of Escherichia coli O157:H7 in sand-based dairy livestock bedding. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 77(6), 2113-21. PMID: 21257815
- January 6, 2012
- 09:07 AM
- 165 views
Fungi, a Tool for Weed Control?
by Sara Klink in Promega Connections
While I enjoy growing a variety of produce from tomatoes, basil and garlic to blueberries, one thing remains the bane of my existence: weeds. My least favorite: quackgrass. I even dug up an entire garden bed to rid myself of the weed and its long rhizomes. How well do you think that worked? I found that the quackgrass happily grew around the popcorn I planted in that same location. What is a gardener to do? Well, recent research by Veiga et al. demonstrates that fungus can lend a helping hand an........ Read more »
Veiga, R.S., Jansa, J., Frossard, E., & van der Heijden, M.G. (2011) Can arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi reduce the growth of agricultural weeds?. PLoS ONE, 6(12). PMID: 22164216
- November 29, 2011
- 08:50 AM
- 218 views
Finding Life on Mars May Be Complicated by Microbes Hitching a Ride from Earth
by Sara Klink in Promega Connections
“The Andromeda Strain”, a novel written by Michael Crichton, remains one of my favorite science fiction novels for two reasons (spoiler alert for the plot): The US government deliberately sent objects into space to scoop up extraterrestrial microorganisms and examine their potential to be used as a weapon (with the expected consequences of contaminated space probes falling near human habitats and causing trouble), and the deadly organism infecting humans is stopped in its tracks by t........ Read more »
Kwan K, Cooper M, La Duc MT, Vaishampayan P, Stam C, Benardini JN, Scalzi G, Moissl-Eichinger C, & Venkateswaran K. (2011) Evaluation of procedures for the collection, processing, and analysis of biomolecules from low-biomass surfaces. Applied and environmental microbiology, 77(9), 2943-53. PMID: 21398492
- November 9, 2011
- 08:56 AM
- 276 views
Black Raspberry Extract May Lead to Tomorrow’s Cancer Preventative
by Sara Klink in Promega Connections
When deciding which varieties of fruit to cultivate, I chose to plant black raspberries on my small suburban lot. They grow wild in Wisconsin, but fighting through swarms of mosquitos, brush and thorns to pick berries was not my idea of fun. For the last two years, I have received a large crop of juicy black berries that I enjoy eating fresh or process into black raspberry jam to spread on toast. Therefore, I was interested to learn that black raspberries have demonstrated cancer preventative pr........ Read more »
Zhang Z, Knobloch TJ, Seamon LG, Stoner GD, Cohn DE, Paskett ED, Fowler JM, & Weghorst CM. (2011) A black raspberry extract inhibits proliferation and regulates apoptosis in cervical cancer cells. Gynecologic oncology, 123(2), 401-6. PMID: 21831414
- October 21, 2011
- 10:47 AM
- 390 views
Sequencing the Black Death is a Window to the Past
by Sara Klink in Promega Connections
After writing my review of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA article “Targeted enrichment of ancient pathogens yielding the pPCP1 plasmid of Yersinia pestis from victims of the Black Death”, I vaguely wondered if the authors could have sequenced more than a single 10kb plasmid. If the single-copy chromosomal DNA was too scarce, maybe one of the other Yersina pestis plasmids that may exist at a higher copy number (e.g., pMT1) might be sequenced. Well, that questi........ Read more »
Bos KI, Schuenemann VJ, Golding GB, Burbano HA, Waglechner N, Coombes BK, McPhee JB, Dewitte SN, Meyer M, Schmedes S.... (2011) A draft genome of Yersinia pestis from victims of the Black Death. Nature. PMID: 21993626
- September 30, 2011
- 09:24 AM
- 270 views
Dance Macabre: Will 14th Century Remains Reveal the Pandemic Secrets of the Black Death?
by Sara Klink in Promega Connections
Last year, I reviewed a PLoS Pathogens paper that found European Black Plague victims from the mid 14th century were infected with more than one clone of Yersinia pestis. While the Y. pestis-specific sequences amplified from several skeletal samples from various countries were evidence of the bacterium as the etiological agent, questions still remained about the virulence of the outbreak. What allowed that ancient strain of Y. pestis to cause such widespread death? Another group of researchers d........ Read more »
Schuenemann VJ, Bos K, Dewitte S, Schmedes S, Jamieson J, Mittnik A, Forrest S, Coombes BK, Wood JW, Earn DJ.... (2011) From the Cover: Targeted enrichment of ancient pathogens yielding the pPCP1 plasmid of Yersinia pestis from victims of the Black Death. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108(38). PMID: 21876176
- September 29, 2011
- 02:36 PM
- 276 views
Avoid Multiple Freeze/Thaw Cycles: Wooly Bear Caterpillars
by Promega Corporation in Promega Connections
I decided to see what I could discover about my friend, the wooly bear.
The “wooly bear” is actually the freeze-tolerant final instar caterpillar of the common tiger moth Pyrrharctia isabella. These nondestructive caterpillars feed on corn, asters, birches, and sunflowers among other things. They leave their plants as third instar larvae then look for a cool, dark place, usually underneath leaf detritus to overwinter. They survive the freezing winter by producing “antifreez........ Read more »
Marshall, K., & Sinclair, B. (2011) The sub-lethal effects of repeated freezing in the woolly bear caterpillar Pyrrharctia isabella. Journal of Experimental Biology, 214(7), 1205-1212. DOI: 10.1242/jeb.054569
- August 1, 2011
- 09:00 AM
- 564 views
Milk (Fat) Does a Body Good
by Sara Klink in Promega Connections
One Milk Marketing Board campaign uses celebrities to promote its product by photographing them with milk moustaches. Glamour aside, selling cow’s milk is the livelihood of many farmers worldwide and generates a variety of well-appreciated products. What would pizza be without cheese? Summer without ice cream? Lunches without yogurt? Mashed potatoes without butter? Flammkuchen without crème fraiche? You can see where I am going with this. I live in America’s Dairyland where pe........ Read more »
Sun X, Zhang J, Gupta R, Macgibbon AK, Kuhn-Sherlock B, & Krissansen GW. (2011) Dairy milk fat augments paclitaxel therapy to suppress tumour metastasis in mice, and protects against the side-effects of chemotherapy. Clinical . PMID: 21739249
- June 27, 2011
- 08:49 AM
- 535 views
How does the butterfly get its spots?
by Michele in Promega Connections
This summer, my daughter and I have gone on several “bug-hunting expeditions”. These expeditions always begin with the same elaborate routine: donning the explorer vest, collecting the magnifying glass, bug house and butterfly net, and consulting the “bug map”. The goal is to find a caterpillar that we can capture, feed and watch as it [...]... Read more »
Saenko SV, Marialva MS, & Beldade P. (2011) Involvement of the conserved Hox gene Antennapedia in the development and evolution of a novel trait. EvoDevo, 9. PMID: 21504568
- June 17, 2011
- 09:04 AM
- 398 views
The Ants Came Marching: Did Periods of Arctic Warming Help Giant Ants Migrate?
by Kelly Grooms in Promega Connections
I guess you could say that I have been programmed to notice giant creepy crawly things. Starting when my son brought home a book about “Real Life Monsters”, my family has not been able to stop talking about one of the book’s featured monsters, the Goliath Bird Eater spider. While the book’s other stars, the [...]... Read more »
Archibald SB, Johnson KR, Mathewes RW, & Greenwood DR. (2011) Intercontinental dispersal of giant thermophilic ants across the Arctic during early Eocene hyperthermals. Proceedings. Biological sciences / The Royal Society. PMID: 21543354
- June 2, 2011
- 02:35 PM
- 536 views
Minding the As and P: Can Arsenic Substitute for Phosphorus or Not?
by Sara Klink in Promega Connections
Back in December 2010, there was a press conference held by NASA to announce the discovery of a bacterium found in a high salt, high pH lake with high concentrations of arsenic that seemed to have substituted arsenic for phosphorus in the bacterium’s biomolecules. This set off a wave of response in the blogosphere regarding what Felisa Wolfe-Simon and her team did nor did not do to confirm arsenic was incorporated into DNA molecules. Controversy ranged from the ability of arsenic to form a........ Read more »
Wolfe-Simon, F., Blum, J., Kulp, T., Gordon, G., Hoeft, S., Pett-Ridge, J., Stolz, J., Webb, S., Weber, P., Davies, P.... (2011) Response to Comments on "A Bacterium That Can Grow Using Arsenic Instead of Phosphorus". Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.1202098
- April 13, 2011
- 10:55 AM
- 773 views
Enhancing Mood and Performance with Distraction
by Kari Kenefick in Promega Connections
To begin, a reminder that I do not sign your timesheet, nor am I responsible for your pay or promotion. So you may want to discuss these research findings with your supervisor before hitting the play button. That said, have you seen any funny videos lately? Like the “OK, Go” on treadmills video? Or maybe you have [...]... Read more »
Nadler RT, Rabi R, & Minda JP. (2010) Better mood and better performance. Learning rule-described categories is enhanced by positive mood. Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS, 21(12), 1770-6. PMID: 20974709
- April 11, 2011
- 11:24 AM
- 680 views
How Exercise Can Grow Your Brain
by Halina Zakowicz in Promega Connections
I used to work in a physics lab where I was in charge of regularly transferring liquid helium from a tank to a susceptometer (an instrument often used for superconductivity studies). One day, the helium transfer line that I was holding sprung a leak and I froze a good portion of my finger before I [...]... Read more »
ALTMAN J. (1962) Are new neurons formed in the brains of adult mammals?. Science (New York, N.Y.), 1127-8. PMID: 13860748
Kaplan MS. (2001) Environment complexity stimulates visual cortex neurogenesis: death of a dogma and a research career. Trends in neurosciences, 24(10), 617-20. PMID: 11576677
Plassman BL, Williams JW Jr, Burke JR, Holsinger T, & Benjamin S. (2010) Systematic review: factors associated with risk for and possible prevention of cognitive decline in later life. Annals of internal medicine, 153(3), 182-93. PMID: 20547887
Molteni R, Ying Z, & Gómez-Pinilla F. (2002) Differential effects of acute and chronic exercise on plasticity-related genes in the rat hippocampus revealed by microarray. The European journal of neuroscience, 16(6), 1107-16. PMID: 12383240
Pereira AC, Huddleston DE, Brickman AM, Sosunov AA, Hen R, McKhann GM, Sloan R, Gage FH, Brown TR, & Small SA. (2007) An in vivo correlate of exercise-induced neurogenesis in the adult dentate gyrus. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104(13), 5638-43. PMID: 17374720
Erickson KI, & Kramer AF. (2009) Aerobic exercise effects on cognitive and neural plasticity in older adults. British journal of sports medicine, 43(1), 22-4. PMID: 18927158
- April 8, 2011
- 12:25 PM
- 737 views
Microbiome Studies: We Are More than the Sum of our Parts
by Isobel in Promega Connections
What if you could help protect yourself from certain diseases by populating your gut with “good” bacteria, or selectively getting rid of “bad” ones? Two news articles suggesting this possibility caught my eye this week. The articles both summarized results from the microbiome project–a research effort geared towards developing a deep understanding of how the [...]... Read more »
Wang, Z., Klipfell, E., Bennett, B., Koeth, R., Levison, B., DuGar, B., Feldstein, A., Britt, E., Fu, X., Chung, Y.... (2011) Gut flora metabolism of phosphatidylcholine promotes cardiovascular disease. Nature, 472(7341), 57-63. DOI: 10.1038/nature09922
- April 4, 2011
- 09:14 AM
- 695 views
Virophages: The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend
by Terri Sundquist in Promega Connections
Viruses are small DNA- or RNA-based infectious agents that can replicate only inside living cells of a host organism. Most people know what a virus is, and many of us harbor at least one or two of them at some point during the cold and flu season. However, I would guess that many of us [...]... Read more »
Yau S, Lauro FM, Demaere MZ, Brown MV, Thomas T, Raftery MJ, Andrews-Pfannkoch C, Lewis M, Hoffman JM, Gibson JA.... (2011) Virophage control of antarctic algal host-virus dynamics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. PMID: 21444812
- March 30, 2011
- 08:35 AM
- 736 views
Don’t Judge a Cheetah by Its Spots: New Insights into the Genetics and Evolutionary History of African and Asiatic Cheetahs
by Kelly Grooms in Promega Connections
The genetics of wild cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) populations has a special significance for me. In fact, it could be said that the population genetics of cheetahs changed my life. I first learned about the low genetic variability in cheetahs in a darkened lecture hall at Iowa State University in 1988. I was so fascinated by [...]... Read more »
Charruau P, Fernandes C, Orozco-Terwengel P, Peters J, Hunter L, Ziaie H, Jourabchian A, Jowkar H, Schaller G, Ostrowski S.... (2011) Phylogeography, genetic structure and population divergence time of cheetahs in Africa and Asia: evidence for long-term geographic isolates. Molecular ecology, 20(4), 706-24. PMID: 21214655
- March 28, 2011
- 10:57 AM
- 726 views
DIY: Build a Baby Who Loves Broccoli
by Caroline Sober in Promega Connections
I’m about six months pregnant with my husband’s and my first child, a wee thing of unknown gender and much kicking that we’ve taken to affectionately calling “The Colonel.” Amid all the voracious reading that modern moms like me seem compelled to do, I was intrigued to see the results of a study from the [...]... Read more »
Todrank J, Heth G, & Restrepo D. (2010) Effects of in utero odorant exposure on neuroanatomical development of the olfactory bulb and odour preferences. Proceedings. Biological sciences / The Royal Society. PMID: 21123261
- March 16, 2011
- 01:02 PM
- 533 views
Vitamin D: How Supplements Affect Serum 25(OH)D Levels
by Kari Kenefick in Promega Connections
A few years ago a dietician friend sent me an interview with Dr. Michael Holick about vitamin D deficiency. I was stunned by the long reach of this vitamin on human health and physiology. In the past 5–7 years interest in vitamin D deficiency and reports on its connection to various chronic conditions in humans, [...]... Read more »
Cedric F. Garland, Christine B. French, Leo L. Baggerly, Robert P. Heaney. (2011) Vitamin D Supplement Doses and Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D in the Range Associated with Cancer Prevention. Anticancer Research, 607-612. info:/21378345
- March 11, 2011
- 10:13 AM
- 831 views
When Being Dense is Good: Mindfulness, Meditation and Increasing Gray Matter
by Kelly Grooms in Promega Connections
When my my Mother’s sister, Pat, was seven years old, she was in a car-bicycle accident that resulted in some very serious brain trauma. She spent better than a year learning to walk and talk again, and although there were some lasting personality changes, she went on to earn a nursing degree and live an [...]... Read more »
Hölzel BK, Carmody J, Vangel M, Congleton C, Yerramsetti SM, Gard T, & Lazar SW. (2011) Mindfulness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density. Psychiatry research, 191(1), 36-43. PMID: 21071182
- March 9, 2011
- 10:46 AM
- 803 views
Just a Spoonful of Honey is Medicine Enough
by Sara Klink in Promega Connections
As we face more challenges when treating and healing humans, revisiting therapies that fell out of favor has become more common. For example, people with open wounds that are not healing receive judicious applications of maggots to remove necrotic tissue and promote healing. Leeches are used for patients after surgery to prevent blood clotting in [...]... Read more »
Kwakman, P., te Velde, A., de Boer, L., Vandenbroucke-Grauls, C., & Zaat, S. (2011) Two Major Medicinal Honeys Have Different Mechanisms of Bactericidal Activity. PLoS ONE, 6(3). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0017709
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