disease
razib | June 2, 2009Two interesting papers, one which relates KITLG and cancer, and another which connects ABCC11 and cancer. These are familiar genes. KITLG has been implicated in depigmentation, both of skin and hair. ABCC11 in earwax form and body odor. If you knock around a gene there is a high probability that you'll perturb multiple traits. Somethings the relationship between variation on a gene and pathology is more straightforward. Some of the genes responsible for normal human variation in pigmentation were originally of interest due to their implication in albinism, which is a disease with some non-…
razib | May 26, 2009Kambiz of Anthropology.net is back. His first offering reports on a new paper on the evidence for leprosy in India 4,000 years ago.
...Lots of hallmarks in human existence occurred during this time period, some being inventions in system of writing, standardized weights and measures, monumental architecture, and trade networks that stretched to Mesopotamia and beyond. While the pathophysiology of leprosy is up in the air, it is not surprising that communicable diseases, even not very contagious ones like leprosy, also blossomed during the rapid sedentarisation of human populations.
Well, I…
bioephemera | April 27, 2009
This air purifier ad from Sharp is a little creepy, in a Spongebob Squarepants way. I love how you can see their fluorescent organelles! Unfortunately I don't see anything here that resembles a virus, but with swine flu all over the news, this serves as a good reminder to wash your hands.
Ad by Takho Lau for ad agency M&C Saatchi of Hong Kong. Found via Next Nature
grrlscientist | April 19, 2009tags: 'Alala, Hawaiian Crow, Hawaiian Raven, Corvus hawaiiensis, endangered species, conservation
One of the last wild-born `Alalâ to ever be photographed in the wild.
Image: The Honolulu Advertiser.
One of the rarest forest birds in the world, the critically endangered `Alalâ, or Hawaiian Crow, Corvus hawaiiensis, was awarded $14.3 million in conservation funding over the next five years, according to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS).
This funding package will focus on expanding captive propagation, establishing new populations in managed habitat, protecting…
razib | April 16, 2009The New England Journal of Medicine has a series of articles up on the impact of new genomic techniques on medicine, specifically in the domain of pinpointing genetic markers which are correlated with increased risk of a particular disease. David Goldstein has a skeptical take up on the future returns of genomewide association studies, while Joel Hirschhorn is more hopeful. There is another review which takes a middle path, emphasizing the relatively marginal predictive power of many of the risk alleles, but suggesting that techniques and results are bound to improve.
Probably the most…
razib | April 11, 2009Science News has an interesting piece up, Shared Differences: The architecture of our genomes is anything but basic. The main focus is on genetic variation, the possibility that there might be important information in copy number variance, and that the common disease-common variant hypothesis is dead. At least for complex traits that we're interested in like schizophrenia. If any of this is unfamiliar or confusing, I recommend the article, it even has references to the primary literature that you can follow up on.
bleimanb | March 3, 2009A form of deadly herpes is sweeping through American zoos, killing 1 in 5 Asian elephant calves born in the U.S. since 2000 according to a recent article in the New York Times.
It's about suppression.
Researchers and zookeepers know almost nothing about the elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus including how it is spread, which elephants carry it, how to treat it or why it seems to kill only baby elephants. They have, however, begun to recognize some of the myriad symptoms: sluggishness, loss of appetite, swollen heads and pale, bruised tongues. From the time the symptoms are noticed, the…
amillikan | January 29, 2009A notorious bacterial foe has made its first documented appearance in the U.S. and is jumping species around the farm scene. First, MSRA—methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus— was found in chickens. Just recently, research conducted by ScienceBlogger Tara Smith from Aetiology found that ST398, a strain found in pigs, was also found in many of the humans who came into contact with the pigs at a large food production farm in Iowa. While this strain seems to spread readily between animals and humans, its potential for lethal infections is still unclear.
Related ScienceBlogs Posts:
Swine…
grrlscientist | April 12, 2008tags: What Bugged the Dinosaurs?, dinosaurs, insects, disease, George Poinar, Roberta Poinar, book review
I grew up with a fondness for dinosaurs. Their unbelievable size, their peculiar shapes, and their undeniable absence from the world as I knew it were all sources of fascination. But never once did I think of the dinosaurs as being plagued by biting insects and other blood-sucking arthropods; mosquitoes, flies, ticks and mites were creatures that haunted camping trips, picnics and attics, not the majestic dinosaurs! But according to the new book, What Bugged the Dinosaurs? Insects,…
awild | February 12, 2008Not the real thing of course, but look how cute the plush version is:
The company GiantMicrobes has a delightful line of plush plagues and pestilences. I've pasted a few more below, but you really should visit their site.
retrospectacle | November 28, 2007Gene therapy is the isolation of a gene, which is then packaged into a vector for introduction into the body in hopes that it can correct some aspect of genetic disease. Often this "vector" is a type of virus which had been specifically engineered to be safer than its original version. This usually involves removing the exons responsible for its transmission through all cell types, effectively "disabling" it. The virus will infect target cells and force them to produce the protein of interest, effectively replacing (or overexpressing) the protein in the body--which can be perpetuated.
Gene…
retrospectacle | September 21, 2007Call me an old-fashioned granny, but I do love knitting. I'm not very good (getting better), and what I can knit is limited to hats, mittens, scarves, and the obligatory pot holder. So I think that knitting this complicated and grotesque teratoma is still a bit beyond my skill level......wait!?! A teratoma.....knitted?! Yes, its true, and if you start now, it may be finished by Halloween.
Is that a teratoma or are you just happy to see me?
The word teratoma roughly means "monstrous tumor," and is a germ cell tumor which has some mature differentiated tissue types which are usually very out-…
retrospectacle | August 6, 2007If you aren't personally affected by the skin condition rosacea, you might not even know what it is. However, it affects over 45 million people worldwide, mostly fair-skinned people of European descent. At first, it is characterized by blotchy flushing on the face/neck regions, but eventually causes semi-permanent redness, dialation of blood vessels in the face, itchy eyes, burning sensations, and bumps (see below). Obviously, not pleasant.
The reason underlying this condition has only just recently been pinpointed by Richard Gallo's group, published this week in Nature Medicine. In a…
retrospectacle | April 3, 2007Who ever said there's no fortune and glory in science? I just got wind of several multi-million dollar prizes for scientists who tackle some tough questions: called X-Prizes.
What is an X PRIZE?
An X PRIZE is a multi-million dollar award given to the first team to achieve a specific goal, set by the X PRIZE Foundation, which has the potential to benefit humanity. Rather than awarding money to honor past achievements or directly funding research, an X PRIZE incites innovation by tapping into our competitive and entrepreneurial spirits.
The X PRIZE Foundation began a revolution in private…
retrospectacle | February 11, 2007We've all heard of Mad Cow disease (bovine spongiform encephaly) in the media. A few years back it was as big a sensation as bird flu and twice as scary. The colloquial understanding of the disease was poor: what it was, how humans (or cows) could get it, what should be done to curb its spread, and whether or not there was any treatment. This disinformation led to small-scale hysteria when it came to beef, with some countries (eg Japan) completely banning all beef from nations that were even suspected of having a "mad cow." The beef industry as a whole took a hit, as pubic perception held…
retrospectacle | February 2, 2007In the February issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, U-M researcher Liangyou Rui, Ph.D. and his team report their findings on a protein called SH2B1, a protein in brain cells may act as a linchpin in the body's weight-regulating system. It seems to play a key role in signaling in regards to fat storage, sugar use, energy balance and weight.
The experiments were performed in two types of mice that the team altered genetically so that they only expressed a unique form of the SH2B1 protein in their brain cells. They zeroed in on SH2B1's activity in the hypothalamus: the area of the…
retrospectacle | December 11, 2006Poor gorillas. At least they have an excuse not to believe in evolution, however crappily it might impact their lives.
Recent outbreaks of Ebola among people in Africa also killed thousands of gorillas, animals already threatened by hunting, a new study reports.
Outbreaks in Congo and Gabon in 2002 and 2003 killed as many as 5,500 gorillas and an uncounted number of chimpanzees, a research team led by Magdalena Bermejo of the University of Barcelona in Spain reports in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
While conservationists had raised concern about gorilla mortality previously, Bermejo…