Scientists at the Sol Goldman Pancreatic Cancer Research Center at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have used "personalized genome" sequencing on an individual with a hereditary form of pancreatic cancer to locate a mutation in a gene called PALB2 that is responsible for initiating the disease. The discovery marks their first use of a genome scanning system to uncover suspect mutations in normal inherited genes.
The coding error in PALB2, which stands for "partner and co-localizer of BRCA2" causes a shortened version of the protein encoded by this gene, rendering it incapable of working with another cancer-related gene, BRCA2, to repair broken DNA. Mutations in BRCA2 are also known to cause hereditary forms of cancer.
In the past two years, University of Texas Southwestern researchers have used a computer-based text-searching tool they developed, called eTBLAST, to analyze millions of abstracts randomly selected from Medline, one of the largest databases of biomedical research articles. They turned up nearly 70,000 highly similar citations.
Their subsequent analysis of a small sampling of these, including human inspection of the articles in question, revealed 207 pairs of articles with signs of potential plagiarism.
In a commentary appearing in Science, the UT Southwestern researchers outline the wide range of reactions they received when they followed up with both victims and perpetrators of possible misconduct, as well as responses from journal editors.
Nature -- presumably through the mechanism of Darwinian selection -- has endowed us with a balanced system of pains and pleasures that correspond respectively to the sort of things we should avoid or seek in order to further our survival and reproduction. It is not surprising that the brain produces a sensation of pain when we bleed: if it didn't we may run the risk of bleeding to death without noticing (or noticing too late). Similarly, it is hardly surprising that our brain releases pleasure chemicals (literally, neural drugs) to reward us when we do something useful, like finding and eating a sugar or fat-ladened substance.
The latest news on napping would have you believe that it’s a harbinger of doom. The Research Institute at the California Pacific Medical center studied communities of elderly women and linked napping and excess sleep in general to increased death from anything. By this logic, the entire nap-happy nation of Spain should watch out for falling pianos.
Show Me The Science Month Day 22
How do genes work together to build body traits? This is one of the hottest questions in genetics today, and the answer holds implications not only for our understanding of evolution, but also health, agriculture, and wildlife conservation. A
recent paper in Science (by Scientific Blogging's own
Redneck Geneticist) takes a look at how genetic variants work together to generate the physical diversity that we see in living organisms.
SAN DIEGO, March 4 /PRNewswire/ --
- Sierra Wireless and SGS Wireless join the CCF Board of Directors
The CCF (CDMA Certification Forum), a global non-profit organization dedicated to establishing test efficiency to streamline time to market and minimize costs associated with CDMA device certification, announced today its 2009 Board of Directors and its new members.
The newly elected Board members are Tracy Griffin from Sierra Wireless and Dawn Saad from SGS.
LONDON, March 4 /PRNewswire/ -- A new website has been launched which helps companies make money from their spare desks by renting them out to freelancers and small businesses. Desk Space Genie is the UK's first website dedicated to the growing phenomenon of desk space rental.
Ciaron Dunne of Desk Space Genie explains why desk space rental is taking off in the UK: Desk space rental is different to traditional office rental because the space is generally available on short, flexible contracts and the 'desker' gets to move into an existing set-up, complete with broadband internet and work colleagues.
Contrary to popular belief (trekkies especially) space is not yet the final frontier - we still have plenty of unexplored frontier closer to home yet farther away from pop culture imagination: the oceans. The deep ocean remains one of the last truly explored regions, and it remains almost as mysterious as any distant galaxy.
According to Discovery Channel’s epic documentary, Blue Planet, Seas of Life, "Over 60% of our planet is covered by water more than a mile deep. The deep sea is the largest habitat on earth and is largely unexplored. More people have traveled into space than have traveled to the deep ocean realm."
TORONTO, March 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Scotia Capital and Scotiabank today announced the acquisition of select assets and employees from UBS Energy. The acquisition included trading and analytical technology, and approximately 60 front, mid- and back office personnel. Specific terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
We are very pleased to have completed this acquisition of a preeminent energy trading platform, said Matt Giffen, Managing Director and Head of Scotia Capital's Global Energy Solutions. Having reviewed a host of other potential opportunities, it is clear the proprietary technology and professional staff acquired from UBS Energy are market leading in every respect. The platform positions us to better serve clients.
WALTON-ON-THAMES, England, March 4 /PRNewswire/ --
- Enables Enterprises to Slash Storage Costs Instead of Staff and Achieve Significant Payback
Xenos Group Inc. (TSX: XNS) today launched Xenos DSR(TM), a high performance document storage reduction solution for enterprise content management (ECM). Xenos DSR reduces the amount of physical storage required to archive the high volumes of content-rich documents sent to customers - such as monthly statements, bills and correspondence - by more than 90 per cent. As such, it offers a proven way for enterprises to drastically reduce operational costs, providing an alternative to staffing or service reductions.
