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Who's to blame - pharma or academia? Both? Neither?

Who's to blame - pharma or academia? Both? Neither?

Jun 23 2009 | comment(s)

From bench to bedside - who is the catalyst? Academics? Pharma? Everybody? Nobody? From this recent spate of articles on progesterone and brain trauma, it's tough to say.
The Sex Life of an Improbable Prime Minister

The Sex Life of an Improbable Prime Minister

Jun 23 2009 | comment(s)

If you live outside Italy, you read newspapers more often than Italians do. Thus, you probably are more informed about the recent scandal emerging on the private life of Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's Prime Minister, than Italians. That is because the news of Berlusconi's private parties with scores of young women, paid or otherwise compensated to cheer up the leader, have never made it to italian television!
Breast Cancer - Growth Factor Signaling In Tamoxifen Resistance

Breast Cancer - Growth Factor Signaling In Tamoxifen Resistance

Jun 23 2009 | comment(s)

Differences in growth factor (GF) signaling may cause the poor prognosis in some breast cancer cases. A new study, published in the open access journal BMC Medical Genomics, suggests that some estrogen receptor-positive breast cancers respond poorly to tamoxifen because of increased GF signaling.
How the KT Event and Dinosaur Extinction Shaped Your Genome

How the KT Event and Dinosaur Extinction Shaped Your Genome

Jun 23 2009 | comment(s)

A new journal is out - Genome Biology and Evolution. To my surprise, it actually looks quite good, with high-quality pieces. I generally don't see many new journals I like, but this one fills a needed niche. A lot of genome papers bear on evolution, but the authors aren't really evolutionary biologists; many evolutionary biologists don't have a lot of contact with hard-core genomics. But there is a growing community of researchers who function well in both worlds, and this journal fits that community.

As the editors say:
Inhaling A Heart Attack

Inhaling A Heart Attack

Jun 23 2009 | comment(s)

Research links smog to devastating effects not just on lungs but on hearts, brains and fetal development.

By Greg Critser
June 23, 2009

Not long ago, Jesus Araujo, a cardiology researcher at UCLA, parked a cage full of transgenic mice alongside the 110 Freeway. As a control, he placed another group in a less-polluted space on the Westside. Araujo was interested in learning more about how smog affects the heart and whether bad air could help explain the persistence of heart disease after 25 years of cholesterol management, statins and endless lifestyle advice.
Morning Science Quote

Morning Science Quote

Jun 23 2009 | comment(s)

All men are liable to error; and most men are, in many points, by passion or interest, under temptation to it.

- Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding Book IV, Ch. 20, sec. 17











More Milk, Less Hunger

More Milk, Less Hunger

Jun 23 2009 | comment(s)

Now there's a new reason for the weight-conscious to drink fat free milk at breakfast time, suggests a new study published in the July issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Researchers in Australia found that drinking fat free milk in the morning helped increase satiety, or a feeling of fullness, and led to decreased calorie intake at the next meal, as compared with a fruit drink. The milk drinkers ate about 50 fewer calories (or nearly 9% less food) at lunch.
Solving The Poor Imaging Of Earth's Mantle

Solving The Poor Imaging Of Earth's Mantle

Jun 23 2009 | comment(s)

The Earth's mantle, situated under the Earth's crust, is a key area for understanding geological processes but we only come into contact with Earth's circulating layers in the event of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. It's important to learn more about the characteristics of the Earth's mantle and these characteristics can be portrayed using seismic waves but the techniques used for this purpose still have various shortcomings. Dutch-sponsored research Ebru Bozdag demonstrated this during her doctoral research.
In Schizophrenics, Autopilot Still Works, It's Just Different

In Schizophrenics, Autopilot Still Works, It's Just Different

Jun 23 2009 | comment(s)

We do lots of things without thinking about it, like driving to work while we talk on the phone.   We have a kind of 'autopilot' that kicks in for things we have practiced and it allows us to do other things simultaneously.

For people with schizophrenia it's a little different. Dutch researcher Tamar van Raalten investigated whether a disruption to the automation process, learning by repetition to do something on automatic pilot, explains why people with schizophrenia can process less information. She established that it is not the automation process but the processing of new information that causes problems. 
Academics Drive Conspiracy Theories?

Academics Drive Conspiracy Theories?

Jun 23 2009 | comment(s)

Most conspiracy theories wouldn't gain much traction without unhinged academics:

"The most destructive people linked to conspiracy theories and denialism are those with academic appointments - and those who can manipulate their backgrounds to appear as if they have had academic appointments."


Why? Probably because they write are fluently and prolifically than the guy you meet at 2pm in the bar who can't stop going on about all of those people on Hillary Clinton's hit list. (Hey, if you're in the bar at 2pm, you're asking for it.)
A Science Of Human Language - Part #4

A Science Of Human Language - Part #4

Jun 23 2009 | comment(s)

A Science Of Human Language - Part #4


In Part #1
of this series, I suggested that a grammar heavily based in syntax was not sufficiently scientific as a general theory of how language functions.

Part #2  was an overview of how linguistic error-handling processes can add to the reliability and predictability of communication using human language.
Nature Methods Gets Drosophila Wrong

Nature Methods Gets Drosophila Wrong

Jun 22 2009 | comment(s)

Drosophila can't catch a break.  Even Nature, which never runs a press release about one of its studies without putting 'prestigious' in front of its name, fell prey to a glaring error regarding the little critter, as seen on the cover of Nature Methods.

The problem?  The cover attached, presumably, to "Tools for Drosophila" article is  not actually Drosophila.
The Bookworm And The Encyclopedias - The Solution

The Bookworm And The Encyclopedias - The Solution

Jun 22 2009 | comment(s)

The Bookworm And The Encyclopedias - The Solution



Last Monday I posed a simple math puzzle:


A set of 10 encyclopedias is sitting on a bookshelf in left-to-right numerical order.


Each single volume contains 1,000 pages.    


A bookworm eats its way directly and linearly through them in a straight line.


It starts on page 1 of volume 1.


It ends on page 1,000  of volume 10.


Question:    Not counting any covers, flysheets, etc., how many pages does the bookworm eat ?
Breakthrough - Fruit Fly Gets Genetic Code For Human Neuromuscular Disease

Breakthrough - Fruit Fly Gets Genetic Code For Human Neuromuscular Disease

Jun 22 2009 | comment(s)

Scientists at VIB, the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology, have successfully introduced genes coding for a variant of the Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) disease, into fruit flies. CMT is one of the most common hereditary disorders of the peripheral nervous system. VIB research – directed by Albena Jordanova, Patrick Callaerts and Vincent Timmerman - shows that the flies recapitulate several symptoms of the human disease.
DNA Is Like Your Phone Line

DNA Is Like Your Phone Line

Jun 22 2009 | comment(s)

DNA is like your phone line. As Northwestern University biophysicist Johnathan Widom put it in a talk recently, DNA simultaneously encodes multiple overlapping signals, just like your phone line that allows you to call home while you're surfing the net via DSL. Written into your DNA is the code for the amino acid sequences of the proteins produced by your genes, as well as the so-called 'non-coding' regulatory sequences which essentially encode when, where, and how much your genes are expressed.
The Incredibly Shrinking Supersymmetry

The Incredibly Shrinking Supersymmetry

Jun 22 2009 | comment(s)

Prologue
Save The Date: AAAS Symposium On Communicating Science to the Public August 17th 2009

Save The Date: AAAS Symposium On Communicating Science to the Public August 17th 2009

Jun 22 2009 | comment(s)

If you happen to be in the San Francisco metropolitan area the week of August 16th, 2009 and can't get enough science, I'll be emcee'ing a symposium on communicating science to the public at the 90th Annual Meeting of the AAAS pacific region.
Emotions Can Help Predict Future Eating Disorders

Emotions Can Help Predict Future Eating Disorders

Jun 22 2009 | comment(s)

A Ph.D. thesis at the University of the Basque Country has analyzed the role played by a number of emotional variables, such as the way in which negative emotions are controlled or attitudes to emotional expression, and to use these variables as tools to predict the possibility of suffering an eating disorder.