All posts from Today
- February 9, 2012
- 02:39 PM
- 10 views
Supercontinents: A method to their madness
by Brooke N in Smaller Questions
In 50-200 million years all of Earth’s continents will meet again to form a single massive supercontinent around the North Pole. Move over Pangaea, meet our next supercontinent: Amasia.
There are currently two hypotheses for the organizing pattern of supercontinents...... Read more »
Mitchell, R., Kilian, T., & Evans, D. (2012) Supercontinent cycles and the calculation of absolute palaeolongitude in deep time. Nature, 482(7384), 208-211. DOI: 10.1038/nature10800
- February 9, 2012
- 01:09 PM
- 17 views
Hunter-gatherers are secretly selfish
by sahelanthropus in EvoAnth
Many suggest food sharing is the foundation of society, sowing the seeds of co-operation that eventually gave rise to the complex culture we know and love. Thus explaining why food sharing developed is an area of importance when it comes to understanding Homo sapiens as we see them today. Of course, as with just about [...]... Read more »
Frank Marlowe. (2004) What Explains Hadza Food Sharing?. Research in Economic Anthropology,, 69-88. info:/10.1016/S0190-1281(04)23003-7
- February 9, 2012
- 10:53 AM
- 27 views
When Did Cetaceans Evolve Echolocation?
by Jim Ryan in Wild Mammals
Modern whales include baleen whales (Mysticeti) and toothed whales (Odontoceti). Baleen whales are large, filter feeding whales that do not echolocate. Odontocete whales tend to be smaller in size, predatory, and are capable of producing high-frequency sounds used in echolocation. In addition, modern odonotcetes have an asymmetrical skull, where the bones of the skull roof extend posteriorly (telescoped) and are shifted to the left side of the skull (asymmetry) (Figure 1). This pronounce........ Read more »
Fahlke, J., Gingerich, P., Welsh, R., & Wood, A. (2011) Cranial asymmetry in Eocene archaeocete whales and the evolution of directional hearing in water. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(35), 14545-14548. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1108927108
- February 9, 2012
- 10:38 AM
- 19 views
Immunoediting in Cancer by Exome Sequencing
by Daniel Koboldt in Massgenomics
Cancer immunoediting is a process by which the immune system controls the growth of nascent tumors and shapes their antigenic properties. It’s a sort of catch-22 of cancer biology; by protecting the host from development of cancer, the immune system ultimately selects for tumor cells that are resistant to its attack. Central to the concept [...]... Read more »
Matsushita, H., Vesely, M., Koboldt, D., Rickert, C., Uppaluri, R., Magrini, V., Arthur, C., White, J., Chen, Y., Shea, L.... (2012) Cancer exome analysis reveals a T-cell-dependent mechanism of cancer immunoediting. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/nature10755
DuPage, M., Mazumdar, C., Schmidt, L., Cheung, A., & Jacks, T. (2012) Expression of tumour-specific antigens underlies cancer immunoediting. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/nature10803
- February 9, 2012
- 09:42 AM
- 18 views
LTP and LTD at the same time? Adventures in Functional Compartmentalization
by TheCellularScale in The Cellular Scale
On Monday we talked about LTP and LTD on a basic level, today we are discussing how they interact with each other. In a recent Open Access paper, Pavlowsky and Alarcon ask the question: Can some synapses on a neuron strengthen while at the same time others weaken? And if so, how do the two processes interact with each other? neurons firing (source)First let's get some background. Synapse strengthening (LTP) and synapse weakening (LTD) both require new proteins to be synthesized........ Read more »
Pavlowsky A, & Alarcon JM. (2012) Interaction between Long-Term Potentiation and Depression in CA1 Synapses: Temporal Constrains, Functional Compartmentalization and Protein Synthesis. PloS one, 7(1). PMID: 22272255
- February 9, 2012
- 07:15 AM
- 23 views
Jurassic Love Song
by Carian Thus in United Academics
For paleontologists it is almost impossible to study sounds of the past. Sounds do not ossify. Yet fossils sometimes offer a solution. An international team of scientists has reconstructed the Jurassic chirping of an extinct insect.... Read more »
Gu, J., Montealegre-Z, F., Robert, D., Engel, M., Qiao, G., & Ren, D. (2012) Wing stridulation in a Jurassic katydid (Insecta, Orthoptera) produced low-pitched musical calls to attract females. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1118372109
- February 9, 2012
- 07:00 AM
- 24 views
February 9, 2012
by Erin Campbell in HighMag Blog
We all know that exercise is good for our bodies, and when we hear people talking about it in the media, the benefits are discussed in big-picture terms. A recent paper describes the effects of exercise at the cellular level, and gives me new motivation to get my ass in gear. Well, after I finish this heart-shaped Dunkin’ Donut (don’t give me that smug look…you know it’s delicious). Autophagy is the process in which a cell metabolizes its own organelles and proteins. Autophagy takes........ Read more »
He, C., Bassik, M., Moresi, V., Sun, K., Wei, Y., Zou, Z., An, Z., Loh, J., Fisher, J., Sun, Q.... (2012) Exercise-induced BCL2-regulated autophagy is required for muscle glucose homeostasis. Nature, 481(7382), 511-515. DOI: 10.1038/nature10758
- February 9, 2012
- 05:36 AM
- 26 views
Why parkin has scientists backing the future of Parkinson's research
by Andrew Watt in A Hippo on Campus
Back in the '80s the name Michael J. Fox was more or less interchangeable with that of Marty McFly, the effortlessly cool protagonist from the Back to the Future trilogy who introduced an entire generation of kids to hoverboards, self-lacing shoes and flux capacitors. Not to mention 'Johnny B Goode'. These days however Fox's name is more likely to have us thinking of his fight with Parkinson's disease, which he was diagnosed with back in 1991, or the advocacy work he does for his ........ Read more »
Obeso JA, Rodríguez-Oroz MC, Benitez-Temino B, Blesa FJ, Guridi J, Marin C, & Rodriguez M. (2008) Functional organization of the basal ganglia: therapeutic implications for Parkinson's disease. Movement disorders : official journal of the Movement Disorder Society. PMID: 18781672
- February 9, 2012
- 04:00 AM
- 16 views
DNA barcoding pest crop bugs: from old to new species
by Mauro Mandrioli in The aphid room
Aphids are generally identified using morphological characters. However, their small size, the presence of intra-specific polymorphism, the occurrence of environmentally induced variations and the reduction in morphological characters make their identification difficult. Yet accurate identifications are needed because many species of aphids are pests in agriculture, forestry and horticulture and they cause damages not only [...]... Read more »
Pérez-Hidalgo N, Martínez-Torres D, Collantes-Alegre JM, Muller WV, Nieto Nafría JM. (2012) A new species of Rhopalosiphum (Hemiptera, Aphididae) on Chusquea tomentosa (Poaceae, Bambusoideae) from Costa Rica. Zookeys. info:/
- February 9, 2012
- 03:22 AM
- 30 views
How the zebra got his stripes?
by Colin Beale in Safari Ecology
Most animals in the savanna come in one shade of brown or another, except for zebra. Zebra, as everyone knows, are stripey. Black with white stripes, at that; or are they white with black stripes? Anyway, why they're stripey has puzzled many people for a very long time: even Wallace and Darwin debated whether zebra stripes make them conspicuous or not! For stripes to have evolved there must be some evolutionary advantage, but what, exactly is it? There are a huge number of theories out the........ Read more »
Egri, A., Blaho, M., Kriska, G., Farkas, R., Gyurkovszky, M., Akesson, S., & Horvath, G. (2012) Polarotactic tabanids find striped patterns with brightness and/or polarization modulation least attractive: an advantage of zebra stripes. Journal of Experimental Biology, 215(5), 736-745. DOI: 10.1242/jeb.065540
- February 9, 2012
- 12:02 AM
- 25 views
Baseline Neurocognitive Test Performance and Symptoms may be Influenced by Depression
by Jane McDevitt in Sports Medicine Research (SMR): In the Lab & In the Field
The objective of this study was to examine depression and baseline neurocognitive function and concussion symptoms in male and female high school and college athletes.... Read more »
Covassin T, Elbin RJ 3rd, Larson E, & Kontos AP. (2012) Sex and Age Differences in Depression and Baseline Sport-Related Concussion Neurocognitive Performance and Symptoms. Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine. PMID: 22246342
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