dr. dolittle

Profile picture for user dr. dolittle

Posts by this author

July 6, 2017
Photo by Mike Blyth via Flickr Commons Surfactant is a lipoprotein substance that is secreted by special cells located in the alveoli of our lungs. The alveoli are the grape-like structures where gas exchange happens. Without surfactant, these alveoli would collapse and prevent gas exchange.…
June 28, 2017
Photo by Donnie Ray Jones from Flickr creative commons. A recent study published in Microbiome from researchers at the University of Alberta shows that babies from families with pets had nearly two-fold increases in the amount of two specific microbes in their guts, Ruminococcus and Oscillospira…
June 28, 2017
Photo of a Wagler's pit viper By Gunawan Kartapranata (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons Platelets are important in the formation of blood clots. For this reason, antiplatelet medications are commonly prescribed for people at risk of…
June 25, 2017
Image of a variety of bird eggs from Internet Archive Book Images, via Wikimedia Commons Ever wonder why bird eggs are shaped the way they are and what drives the variations in egg shapes across species? I never really wondered that either until I saw an article in Science that explained a…
June 24, 2017
Photo of zebrafish housed at a research institute. By Karol Głąb CC BY-SA 3.0. via Wikimedia Commons Who would have thought tiny fish could lead to big advances in medicine? Zebrafish (Danio rerio) and mammals have similar anatomy and physiology of the brain, eyes, gut, and cardiovascular…
June 20, 2017
Photo of a kea by Mark Whatmough - Milford Sound, Key Summit, The Divide, Queenstown, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Most of us have heard the phrase: Laughter is contagious. When we hear other people laughing, we often smile even if we have no idea why they are laughing. Dr. Sophie Scott from…
June 19, 2017
Estradiol is the major estrogen in humans. Chemical structure by NEUROtiker (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons I came across an article published in Physiological Reviews with a title so irresistible (Estrogens in Male Physiology), I just had to read it. While I knew that males…
May 30, 2017
Photo of zebrafish (Danio rerio) by Azul (Own work) [Copyrighted free use], via Wikimedia Commons We all know that aerobic exercise is good for us because it helps improve muscle function and our ability to move well. For fish, aerobic exercise helps animals escape predators, catch prey as…
May 26, 2017
Researchers in Brazil are testing a new way to treat burn victims. They have found that tilapia skin is rich in collagen which helps the damaged skin heal better than standard wound dressings and eliminates the need to wait for donor tissue. Check out these videos from YouTube describing this…
May 24, 2017
Photo of flamingos by Cash2013 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31647429 Scientists think they have discovered the reason why flamingos (Phoenicopteridae) stand on one leg. In a new study published in Biology Letters scientists studied both live flamingos…
May 23, 2017
Image of lavender fromGFDL 1.2, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=322384 While lavender aromatherapy has been documented to reduce stress in humans, little is known about its potential for reducing stress in veterinary medicine. Horses can develop elevated heart rates and stress…
May 22, 2017
Image from Pete Markham via Flickr Creative Commons (https://flic.kr/p/8ctqVC) Researchers at the University of Cambridge in Britain recently studied 'willpower' in pet Labrador retrievers. After allowing each dog to smell a hot dog, the researchers placed the hot dog in a hamster cage and…
May 15, 2017
Have you ever heard of 'Goodpasture Syndrome'? I'll admit I haven't. Check out the award-winning video below for the 2017 American Physiological Society's video contest to learn about this syndrome. The video was created by Melissa Traver, Samantha Lyons, and Andrianna Walsh from Centenary College…
May 12, 2017
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria are a pretty scary thing, which is why researchers are working so hard to come up with new and creative ways to fight them off. Take for example nanosponges. In a presentation from the Experimental Biology meeting in Chicago last month, researchers from the University…
May 12, 2017
Front view of a star-nosed mole. Credit: Ken Catania Dr. Kenneth Catania from Vanderbilt University presented his work with star-nosed moles at the Experimental Biology meeting last month in Chicago. These animals are really cool. Here are some facts from Dr. Catania about these crazy-looking…
April 27, 2017
A team of researchers at Children's Hospital at Philadelphia are working to develop an artificial womb that they hope will help human babies born prematurely to develop normally. They are testing this amazing technology in premature lambs. Here is a video from Tech Insider that was posted to…
April 27, 2017
Dr. Clara do Amaral is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Dayton in Ohio where she studies freeze tolerance in frogs. She received a Research Recognition Award from the Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology section of the American Physiological Society at the 2017 Experimental Biology…
April 27, 2017
Here are the highlights from the final day of the meeting: Carbon monoxide (CO) is not all that bad: Michael Tift, graduate student at Scripps Institute of Oceanography, described how the body naturally produces CO when red blood cells are broken down and CO can actually be protective against…
April 25, 2017
Thank you Dr. Barb Goodman (Director of SD Biomedical Research Infrastructure Network, Fellow of the American Physiological Society, Sanford School of Medicine of the University of South Dakota) who sent me information about thirsty koalas. Koalas typically hydrate themselves from the leaves of…
April 25, 2017
The August Krogh Distinguished lecture was awarded to Dr. Warren Burggren, who gave a fantastic lecture on epigenetics, or modifications to gene expression. He discussed how epigenetic changes to our genes are reversible. So when a stimulus like hypoxia changes our genes, these epigenetic changes…
April 24, 2017
Highlights from today's sessions included: Norelia Ordonez-Castillo, undergraduate student from Fort Hays State University, presented her research on channel catfish. According to Norelia, these fish can become obese so her research was geared towards trying to find out how their receptor for LDL…
April 24, 2017
Yesterday was a great day for comparative physiology! Highlights from the seminars on comparative physiology: Melissa Reiterer, graduate student from Florida Atlantic University, presented her research on how freshwater turtles (Trachemys scripta) survive for long periods of time without oxygen…
April 22, 2017
Day 1 of the meeting was as inspiring as usual. The Porter Fellow Reunion Reception took place this evening. This 50 year-old program is designed to support trainees as they conduct research projects in physiology and learn to become independent researchers. It was amazing to see so many past and …
April 18, 2017
Image of a Komodo dragon By Charlesjsharp - Own work, from Sharp Photography, sharpphotography, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Researchers at George Mason University have created a synthetic version of a peptide found in the blood of Komodo dragons (Varanus komodoensis). They dubbed the…
April 13, 2017
Image of an obese rhesus monkey at a zoo in Japan. Image from Daily Mail. A new study published in American Journal of Physiology - Endocrinology and Metabolism shows that rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) who spontaneously develop obesity with aging are prone to insulin resistance and diabetes,…
April 13, 2017
The 2017 Experimental Biology conference is almost here! Here are some of this year's highlights: Dr. Michael Welsh from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and University of Iowa will be presenting the Walter B. Cannon Award Lecture. He will be speaking about Cystic Fibrosis. This year's Nobel…
March 29, 2017
Dopamine is an important hormone released from neurons involved in reward pathways. Researchers at Cornell University wanted to know if dopamine signaling was involved in how birds learn songs. Their findings, recently published in Science, present evidence that neurons in the brain of zebra…
March 27, 2017
A new article published in Physiological Reviews compared some remarkable similarities and differences between naked mole rats and humans. Both are relatively long-lived, highly social and have low natural selection pressures. But, this is about all they have in common. While humans are prone to…
March 24, 2017
Image of Rana dybowski by Pierre Fidenci, via Wikimedia Commons Leptin is a hormone that signals the brain to suppress appetite in humans. While researchers at the University of Michigan described a similar appetite regulating role for leptin in South African clawed frogs (Xenopus), they also…
March 20, 2017
A new study shows that globally, spiders consume 400-800 million tons of prey each year. That's roughly more than double the amount of fish and meat that humans consume. Impressive...yet creepy at the same time. I suppose we should thank them for their pest control efforts. Sources: M Nyffeler, K …