295 posts · 130,747 views
Phased presents science journalism written for a lay audience, intending to cover technical subjects in an accessible manner. It covers science directly from the technical literature, and a wide range of subject areas.
Michael Long
295 posts
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- July 23, 2011
- 01:55 PM
- 551 views
Can Human Metabolism Produce Sugar from Fat?
by Michael Long in Phased
Computational studies suggest that human metabolism can produce glucose from fatty acids. This may explain why the Atkins diet isn't quickly lethal, and why the Inuit aren't inherently obese.... Read more »
Kaleta, C., de Figueiredo, L. F., Werner, S., Guthke, R., Ristow, M., & Schuster, S. (2011) In Silico Evidence for Gluconeogenesis from Fatty Acids in Humans. PLoS Computational Biology, 7(7). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1002116
- July 11, 2011
- 11:35 PM
- 483 views
Towards Inducing and Maintaining Permanent Cancer Dormancy
by Michael Long in Phased
Common medical and immunological assumptions of cancer dormancy should be re-evaluated in order to render it a viable therapeutic approach.... Read more »
Jonathan W. Uhr, & Klaus Pantel. (2011) Controversies in clinical cancer dormancy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. info:/10.1073/pnas.1106613108
- June 29, 2011
- 03:53 PM
- 721 views
Towards Implanted Medical Devices Powered by Glucose
by Michael Long in Phased
A device based on glucose oxidase, catalase, laccase, and carbon nanotubes delivers the best performance ever seen for an enzymatic glucose biofuel cell.... Read more »
Zebda, A., Gondran, C., Le Goff, A., Holzinger, M., Cinquin, P., & Cosnier, S. (2011) Mediatorless high-power glucose biofuel cells based on compressed carbon nanotube-enzyme electrodes. Nature Communications, 370. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1365
- June 17, 2011
- 07:40 AM
- 602 views
Why Click Beetles Cannot Control Their Landing Orientation
by Michael Long in Phased
Physics calculations lend support to the idea that click beetles evolved their jumping mechanism for righting themselves after landing on their back, rather than as a predation escape mechanism.... Read more »
Gal Ribak, & Daniel Weihs. (2011) Jumping without Using Legs: The Jump of the Click-Beetles (Elateridae) Is Morphologically Constrained. PLoS ONE, 6(6). info:/10.1371/journal.pone.0020871
- June 11, 2011
- 09:20 PM
- 290 views
Are Socioeconomic Health Disparities Perpetuated in Part by Public Behavior?
by Michael Long in Phased
Two different neighborhoods within the same city exhibit strikingly different levels of public smoking, drinking, and physical activity, much more than that predicted by survey and census data, with possible implications in perpetuating health disparities along socioeconomic lines.... Read more »
Daniel Nettle. (2011) Large Differences in Publicly Visible Health Behaviours across Two Neighbourhoods of the Same City. PLoS ONE, 6(6). info:/10.1371/journal.pone.0021051
- June 6, 2011
- 06:15 PM
- 568 views
Generating Functional Neurons Directly from Human Fibroblasts
by Michael Long in Phased
Connective tissue cells have been directly converted into functional neurons, avoiding stem cell intermediates likely to be carcinogenic, an important step towards replacing cells lost in Parkinson's disease.... Read more »
Ulrich Pfisterer, Agnete Kirkeby, Olof Torper, James Wood, Jenny Nelander, Audrey Dufour, Anders Björklund, Olle Lindvall, Johan Jakobsson, & Malin Parmar. (2011) Direct conversion of human fibroblasts to dopaminergic neurons. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. info:/10.1073/pnas.1105135108
- June 3, 2011
- 03:15 PM
- 677 views
Towards Preventing Detrimental Physiological Changes in Space
by Michael Long in Phased
Short-term spaceflight does not hinder RNA interference efficacy in roundworms, and may be a means of preventing protein muscle degradation in humans during long-term space missions.... Read more »
Timothy Etheridge, Kanako Nemoto, Toko Hashizume, Chihiro Mori, Tomoko Sugimoto, Hiromi Suzuki, Keiji Fukui, Takashi Yamazaki, Akira Higashibata, Nathaniel J. Szewczyk.... (2011) The Effectiveness of RNAi in Caenorhabditis elegans Is Maintained during Spaceflight. PLoS ONE, 6(6). info:/10.1371/journal.pone.0020459
- May 30, 2011
- 09:50 PM
- 593 views
Black Women Perceived as Being More White Receive Judicial Leniency in the United States
by Michael Long in Phased
Skin tone correlates with sentencing and time served for recent black female prison convicts in North Carolina (United States).... Read more »
Viglione, J., Hannon, L., & DeFina, R. (2011) The impact of light skin on prison time for black female offenders. The Social Science Journal, 48(1), 250-258. DOI: 10.1016/j.soscij.2010.08.003
- May 29, 2011
- 02:05 PM
- 605 views
Beneficial Biological Effects of Polyhydroxy Fullerenes
by Michael Long in Phased
A nanomaterial commonly presumed to be universally toxic appears to be beneficial to algae, plants, fungi, and invertebrates.... Read more »
Gao, J., Wang, Y., Folta, K. M., Krishna, V., Bai, W., Indeglia, P., Georgieva, A., Nakamura, H., Koopman, B., & Moudgil, B. (2011) Polyhydroxy Fullerenes (Fullerols or Fullerenols): Beneficial Effects on Growth and Lifespan in Diverse Biological Models. PLoS ONE, 6(5). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0019976
- May 28, 2011
- 06:00 PM
- 588 views
Bacteria for Low-Cost Alkaloid Production
by Michael Long in Phased
Widely-used medically-relevant compounds, often costly due to low-yield extraction from plants, are on their way to becoming readily and cheaply isolated from genetically engineered bacteria.... Read more »
Nakagawa, A., Minami, H., Kim, J.-S., Koyanagi, T., Katayama, T., Sato, F., & Kumagai, H. (2011) A bacterial platform for fermentative production of plant alkaloids. Nature Communications, 326. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1327
- May 27, 2011
- 08:45 PM
- 712 views
Filtering Out Propaganda from the Medical Literature
by Michael Long in Phased
A checklist can help scientists who evaluate technical medical manuscripts to recognize medical propaganda, thereby helping to prevent unwarranted hype from becoming mainstream knowledge.... Read more »
Gambrill, E., & Reiman, A. (2011) A Propaganda Index for Reviewing Problem Framing in Articles and Manuscripts: An Exploratory Study. PLoS ONE, 6(5). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0019516
- May 26, 2011
- 03:10 PM
- 525 views
Countering Antibiotic Resistance in Tuberculosis
by Michael Long in Phased
Tuberculosis may be defeated through a new therapeutic approach, based on countering the microbial stress response and restoring normal metabolism.... Read more »
Baek, S., Li, A., & Sassetti, C. (2011) Metabolic Regulation of Mycobacterial Growth and Antibiotic Sensitivity. PLoS Biology, 9(5). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1001065
- May 21, 2011
- 06:10 PM
- 670 views
Limitations of Rosetta for Biomacromolecular Structural Modeling
by Michael Long in Phased
Rosetta needs to be optimized for atomic-scale resolution if it is to reach its maximum potential for predicting the three-dimensional shape of proteins and nucleic acids.... Read more »
Das, R. (2011) Four Small Puzzles That Rosetta Doesn't Solve. PLoS ONE, 6(5). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0020044
- May 18, 2011
- 03:55 PM
- 612 views
Phytoplankton Resiliency to the Chicxulub Mass Extinction
by Michael Long in Phased
Phytoplankton can rebound after nearly a century of dormancy in the dark, explaining why these microbes were resilient after the most recent global photosynthesis disruption and the accompanying mass extinction.... Read more »
Ribeiro, S., Berge, T., Lundholm, N., Andersen, T. J., Abrantes, F., & Ellegaard, M. (2011) Phytoplankton growth after a century of dormancy illuminates past resilience to catastrophic darkness. Nature Communications, 311. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1314
- May 17, 2011
- 11:45 PM
- 622 views
Force-Enhanced, Non-Covalent Cell-Cell Binding
by Michael Long in Phased
A bacterial appendage has evolved to bind to epithelial cells much more strongly with increasing mechanical force.... Read more »
Aprikian, P., Interlandi, G., Kidd, B. A., Le Trong, I., Tchesnokova, V., Yakovenko, O., Whitfield, M. J., Bullitt, E., Stenkamp, R. E., Thomas, W. E.... (2011) The Bacterial Fimbrial Tip Acts as a Mechanical Force Sensor. PLoS Biology, 9(5). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000617
- May 16, 2011
- 10:05 PM
- 562 views
Small Radio Transmitters Record Bumblebee Transit Behavior
by Michael Long in Phased
Bumblebees may commonly travel distances of over two kilometers, and range a home habitat of over 100 acres.... Read more »
Hagen, M., Wikelski, M., & Kissling, W. D. (2011) Space Use of Bumblebees (Bombus spp.) Revealed by Radio-Tracking. PLoS ONE, 6(5). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0019997
- May 16, 2011
- 05:10 PM
- 799 views
Cheap and Easy Isolation of Single-Chirality Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes
by Michael Long in Phased
Gel chromatography is used to purify a valuable nanotechnology material.... Read more »
Liu, H., Nishide, D., Tanaka, T., & Kataura, H. (2011) Large-scale single-chirality separation of single-wall carbon nanotubes by simple gel chromatography. Nature Communications, 309. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1313
- May 9, 2011
- 07:25 PM
- 624 views
Easy Interrogation of Three-Dimensional Cellular Arrays
by Michael Long in Phased
An easy approach is reported for experimentally interrogating living cells in a primitively realistic mimic of their native growth environment.... Read more »
Derda, R., Tang, S. K. Y, Laromaine, A., Mosadegh, B., Hong, E., Mwangi, M., Mammoto, A., Ingber, D. E., & Whitesides, G. M. (2011) Multizone Paper Platform for 3D Cell Cultures. PLoS ONE, 6(5). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0018940
- May 3, 2011
- 11:07 PM
- 632 views
Electrochemotherapy May Be Hindered by pH Fronts
by Michael Long in Phased
Model studies in agar gels suggest that the pH gradient is substantial, and may hinder treatment.... Read more »
Turjanski, P., Olaiz, N., Maglietti, F., Michinski, S., Suárez, C., Molina, F. V., & Marshall, G. (2011) The Role of pH Fronts in Reversible Electroporation. PLoS ONE, 6(4). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0017303
- April 26, 2011
- 04:30 PM
- 649 views
Producing and Extracting Biofuel Precursors from Cyanobacteria
by Michael Long in Phased
Cyanobacteria were genetically engineered to overproduce fatty acids, which were readily extracted.... Read more »
Liu, X., Sheng, J., & Curtiss III, R. (2011) Fatty acid production in genetically modified cyanobacteria. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1103014108
Liu, X., Fallon, S., Sheng, J., & Curtiss, R. (2011) CO2-limitation-inducible Green Recovery of fatty acids from cyanobacterial biomass. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1103016108
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