Featured Articles

Worried About Cancer? Blame JAK

Worried About Cancer? Blame JAK

Sep 17 2007 | comment(s)

Cancer-causing genes can work in more powerful and sneaky ways than have been realized. Scientists have shown that a gene named JAK that is closely related to a common cancer-causing gene in people tips the scales toward cancer in an unexpected manner. JAK disrupts the activity of an organism’s DNA on a broad scale, thwarting a critical molecular event very early on in an embryo’s development.

A team from the University of Rochester Medical Center made the finding through research involving fruit flies, which share much of the same complex cellular signaling as humans.

Why Does My Baby Have A Tail?

Why Does My Baby Have A Tail?

Sep 17 2007 | comment(s)

As I’m having a baby my mind has recently been turned to thoughts of the very weird and wonderful world of developmental biology. As a new parent tracks the progress of their child, you can’t help wonder about some of the really bizarre stages it goes through.
Peat Protects Permafrost

Peat Protects Permafrost

Sep 17 2007 | comment(s)

Peat and vegetation in northern areas may help protect permafrost from the effects of climate change, according to a recent study by McMaster researchers published in Geophysical Research Letters.

Found in arctic regions, permafrost is frozen soil that remains at or below 0 C for at least two consecutive years. Permafrost covers more than 30 per cent of the Earth's surface and about 42 per cent (four million sq. km) of Canada's land area.

"There is no doubt that northern regions are warming and permafrost is melting as shown by numerous observations and modeling studies," said Dr. Altaf Arain, co-author of the study and associate professor in the School of Geography & Earth Sciences.

Like That Manly Smell? It May Be Your Genes

Like That Manly Smell? It May Be Your Genes

Sep 17 2007 | comment(s)

Androstenone is a derivative of testosterone that is a potent ingredient in male body odor. To some it smells like stale urine, others find it sweet and pleasant. Some can't smell it at all.

Androstenone is used by some mammals to convey social and sexual information so if you know a girl who doesn't like the way you smell, it may be genetic variations in a single odorant receptor called OR7D4 - don't take it personally, it's in her genes.

How Accurate Is Epidemiology?

How Accurate Is Epidemiology?

Sep 17 2007 | comment(s)

Because Gary Taubes is probably the country’s best health journalist, his article in today’s NY Times Magazine (”Do We Really Know What Makes Us Healthy?”) about the perils of epidemiology especially interested me. It’s the best article on the subject I’ve read. He does a good job explaining what’s called the healthy-user bias — people who take Medicine X tend to make other healthy choices as well. Does wine reduce heart attacks? Well, probably — but people who drink more wine also eat more fruits and vegetables.

Ornithologists Count Birds To Show Global Warming

Ornithologists Count Birds To Show Global Warming

Sep 17 2007 | comment(s)

If you've ever watched birds at a feeder, you've seen changes in how many birds feed from season to seasons and year to year. Do some of the long-term shifts reflect changes in the environment and climate? To find out, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Project FeederWatch is asking bird watchers for help.

FeederWatchers count the birds at their feeders each week and send the information to the lab. They've helped document unusual bird sightings, winter movements and shifting ranges of some bird species over the past 20 years.

From Emissions To Mercury Contaminated Fish Equals Three Years

From Emissions To Mercury Contaminated Fish Equals Three Years

Sep 17 2007 | comment(s)

A groundbreaking environmental study to be published in a prestigious American science journal proves that mercury atmospheric emissions will end up in fish in as little as three years. Biologists from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, played a key role in designing and carrying out the experiment.

The study concludes that if mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants and other industrial activities were to be cut immediately, the amount showing up in fish would begin to go down within a decade.

This breakthrough study (called METAALICUS – Mercury Experiment to Assess Atmospheric Loading in Canada and the United States) involved government agencies and universities on both sides of the border. It has global implications.

Surgeons Successfully Remove Gall Bladder Through A Vagina

Surgeons Successfully Remove Gall Bladder Through A Vagina

Sep 17 2007 | comment(s)

French surgeons successfully removed a woman’s gall bladder through her vagina, according to a report in the September issue of Archives of Surgery.

The history of surgery has moved toward less invasive procedures, according to background information in the article. “Whenever it was possible, patients would ask for a surgical procedure that left no outer scarring and resulted in no postoperative pain,” the authors write. “Patients, both male and female, independent of age and body shape, dislike scars, not only for cosmetic reasons but because scars indicate they have undergone treatment because of illness.

Airborne Soot Found To Contribute 50 Percent Of CO2's Heating Effect

Airborne Soot Found To Contribute 50 Percent Of CO2's Heating Effect

Sep 16 2007 | comment(s)

Overturning the conventional theory that airborne soot emissions cause regional cooling it has been found that brown clouds of airborne soot can contribute up to a third of atmospheric warming anomalies in the tropics formerly ascribed to CO2 (50 percent of the atmospheric heating caused by CO2 emissions), with its effects ranging as far as the more-temperate American west coast and mountains ranges.

China's Soot Heating Pacific Region, Western USA

China's Soot Heating Pacific Region, Western USA

Sep 16 2007 | comment(s)

Easily 40 percent of the observed atmospheric warming in the Pacific is due to the shroud of soot drifting eastward from Asia. Prof. V. Ramanathan and fellow researchers are reporting that soot's 2.5 W/cu.m. green house effect is partially offset by its surface dimming effect, such that its net effect is still 1 W/cu.m. With the vast Pacific covering 30 percent of the Earth's surface, aerosol soot - black carbon particulates - plays a significant factor in global warming, potentially 12 percent of all global warming.

Don't Blame Kilimanjaro's Glacier Loss On Global Warming

Don't Blame Kilimanjaro's Glacier Loss On Global Warming

Sep 16 2007 | comment(s)

Increased solar radiance and decreased snowfall have been implicated as the true culprits in Kilimanjaro's glacier loss. The temperatures on Kilimanjaro's summits almost never rise above freezing, leading researchers to look for other causes for the ongoing glacial recession on Kilimanjaro's peak. Other studies have suggested that deforestation has severely impacted the arboreal microclimates that provide recharge precipitation to Kilimanjaro's glacial packs.

2003 NASA Study: Soot Fall In Arctic Has 25 Percent Global Warming Impact

2003 NASA Study: Soot Fall In Arctic Has 25 Percent Global Warming Impact

Sep 15 2007 | comment(s)

Soot's global impact on atmospheric warming: NASA researchers found the amount of sunlight absorbed by soot is two-to-four times larger than previously assumed. Reducing sulfates without reducing soot will exacerbate soot's effect because sulfates' high reflectivity index (albedo) counterbalances soot's heat-trapping effect to varying degrees.

..and...

Kyoto Refrigerant Projects Subverted, Harm Ozone Layer

Kyoto Refrigerant Projects Subverted, Harm Ozone Layer

Sep 15 2007 | comment(s)

U.N. officials have stated that Kyoto's carbon-credit system is being subverted via cheating while contributing to the destruction of the ozone layer - counter-productive to the Montreal Protocol's goal to preserve it.

Online Gaming Promotes Social Interaction

Online Gaming Promotes Social Interaction

Sep 15 2007 | comment(s)

Online multiplayer communities are social networks built around multiplayer online computer games. Members of these communities typically share an interest in online gaming and a great deal of the interaction between them is technologically mediated. Marko Siitonen from University of Jyväskylä studied social interaction in online multiplayer communities in his doctoral thesis of speech communication.

- Online multiplayer gaming is a playground which can give us clues about the future of social and technological developments, Siitonen states.

Online multiplayer games enable the formation of lasting relationships

Online multiplayer games typically encourage interaction between players: some go even as far as demanding it.

Marketing Head-Fake: Why The Same Price Discount Sometimes Looks Better

Marketing Head-Fake: Why The Same Price Discount Sometimes Looks Better

Sep 15 2007 | comment(s)

Quick: You’re walking by a store window and you see a sign that says, “20% off the original price plus an additional 25% off the already reduced sale price.” So, how much is the discount" Consumers often mistakenly think the total discount is 45% off the original price when, in fact, the true discount is 40%. A thought-provoking new study from the October issue of the Journal of Consumer Research explores why consumers frequently think a double discount is a better deal than a single discount of the same total magnitude.

“Retailers frequently use the strategy of double discounts for their regular promotions or to induce customers to open a credit card account with them. Such errors in peoples’ judgments of the net effect of multiple price discounts . . .

RX J0524+42 Is The Missing Link In The Evolution Of Magnetic CV Stars

RX J0524+42 Is The Missing Link In The Evolution Of Magnetic CV Stars

Sep 15 2007 | comment(s)

An international team of astronomers might have discovered the missing link in the evolution of the so-called magnetic cataclysmic variable stars. They determined the spin and orbital periods of the binary star Paloma. They found that the Paloma system has a weird way of rotating that fills the gap between two classes of magnetic cataclysmic stars. Their results will soon be published in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

Cataclysmic variables (CVs) are a class of binary stars made up of a white dwarf [1] and a normal star much like our Sun. Both stars orbit so close to each other that the white dwarf accretes matter from the companion star. In most of the several hundred CVs known, the matter spirals around the white dwarf, forming a disk, before being accreted and incorporated into the star.

The Less-Than-Obvious Value Of Evolutionary Explanations

The Less-Than-Obvious Value Of Evolutionary Explanations

Sep 15 2007 | comment(s)

An interesting Economist article about sex differences in a visual task calls an evolutionary explanation a “just-so story.” I don’t know if the late Stephen Jay Gould, evolutionary theorist, Harvard professor, and “one of the most influential and widely-read writers of popular science of his generation” (Wikipedia), invented this form of dismissal, but certainly he was fond of it. Here, for example:

Cytochrome P450 And Cytochrome B5: 'Mother Nature's Blowtorch'

Cytochrome P450 And Cytochrome B5: 'Mother Nature's Blowtorch'

Sep 15 2007 | comment(s)

Using atom-level imaging techniques, University of Michigan researchers have revealed important structural details of an enzyme system known as "Mother Nature's blowtorch" for its role in helping the body efficiently break down many drugs and toxins.

The research has been detailed in a series of papers, the most recent published online this month in the journal BBA Biomembranes.

The system involves two proteins that work cooperatively. The first, cytochrome P450, does the actual work, but only when it gets a boost from the second protein, cytochrome b5. To complicate matters, the two proteins can interact only when both are bound to a cell membrane.

N-cofilin May Be Key Molecule In Protecting Against Some Neuron Disorders

N-cofilin May Be Key Molecule In Protecting Against Some Neuron Disorders

Sep 15 2007 | comment(s)

Many neuronal disorders, including epilepsy, schizophrenia and lissencephaly – a form of mental retardation -, result from abnormal migration of nerve cells during the development of the brain. Researchers from the Mouse Biology Unit of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Italy, have now discovered that a protein that helps organising the cells’ skeleton is crucial for preventing such defects.

Voltage Sensing And Transduction In Ci-VSP Protein

Voltage Sensing And Transduction In Ci-VSP Protein

Sep 15 2007 | comment(s)

The voltage sensor of voltage-gated ion channels is a conserved protein domain that senses millivolt changes in transmembrane potential, to regulate ion permeation through the channel. A recently discovered protein, Ci-VSP, has a voltage sensor that is coupled not to an ion channel but to a phosphatidylinositide phosphosphatase, the activity of which depends on membrane potential.

In a new paper published in The Journal of Physiology, Murata and Okamura, from the Okazaki Institute for Integrative Bioscience, examine a voltage-sensitive phosphatase that converts an electrical to a chemical signal; they directly demonstrate that the enzyme activity of Ci-VSP changes in a voltage-dependent manner through the operation of the voltage sensor.