- November 12, 2009
- 02:53 PM
- 690 views
Might as Well be Water on the Sun
by Invader Xan in Supernova Condensate
Water is all the rage. It gets mentioned in every single high profile space mission of late. Searching for water on Mars, water inside Europa, water in the atmospheres of exoplanets. Going to the Moon? Don’t forget to check for water! All with good reason, of course. Being made of 72.8% water, it’s rather important that wherever we might go in the Universe, we have a ready supply of it. But water’s been found in some surprising places.... Read more »
Wallace L, Bernath P, Livingston W, Hinkle K, Busler J, Guo B, & Zhang K. (1995) Water on the sun. Science (New York, N.Y.), 268(5214), 1155-8. PMID: 7761830
Polyansky, O. (1997) Water on the Sun: Line Assignments Based on Variational Calculations. Science, 277(5324), 346-348. DOI: 10.1126/science.277.5324.346
- November 12, 2009
- 02:36 PM
- 1,253 views
Emotions and self-regulation in chronic pain
by Adiemusfree in Healthskills: Skills for Healthy Living
I posted about the reciprocal effect of emotions on goal content and today I want to look a little further into this.
A profound statement in the paper by Hamilton, Karoly & Kitzman is this: ‘If emotional well-being influences the selection and the valuation of a particular goal, then it is likely that the relationship between [...]... Read more »
Hamilton, N., Karoly, P., & Kitzman, H. (2004) Self-Regulation and Chronic Pain:The Role of Emotion. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 28(5), 559-576. DOI: 10.1023/B:COTR.0000045565.88145.76
- November 12, 2009
- 11:50 AM
- 532 views
Sprucing Up Your Garden with Carbon Nanotubes
by Michael Long in Phased
Alexandru Biris (University of Arkansas) and coworkers observe that carbon nanotubes can help tomato plants grow. This news feature was written on November 12, 2009.... Read more »
Khodakovskaya, M., Dervishi, E., Mahmood, M., Xu, Y., Li, Z., Watanabe, F., & Biris, A. S. (2009) Carbon Nanotubes Are Able To Penetrate Plant Seed Coat and Dramatically Affect Seed Germination and Plant Growth. ACS Nano, 3(10), 3221-3227. DOI: 10.1021/nn900887m
- November 12, 2009
- 10:50 AM
- 572 views
On immunity to Swine-origin Influenza Virus (SOIV)
by iayork in Mystery Rays from Outer Space
Persons who were born before 1957 had a reduced risk of infection … Persons who were born between 1957 and 1975 were at intermediate risk for infection. 1
In Ontario, people over 53 years old had about 1/6 the chance2 of getting the new H1N1; the those between about 33 and 53 had a [...]... Read more »
David N. Fisman, Rachel Savage, Jonathan Gubbay, Camille Achonu, Holy Akwar, David J. Farrell, Natasha S. Crowcroft, & Phil Jackson. (2009) Older Age and a Reduced Likelihood of 2009 H1N1 Virus Infection. The New England Journal of Medicine, 2000-20001. info:/
- November 12, 2009
- 08:39 AM
- 515 views
Fire Ecology Marathon; Nature Red in Tooth and Flame Part-4
by Johnny in Ecographica
The savannas of the southeastern United States are inimitable natural communities that have undergone ecological assembly in the presence of seasonal fire cycles and, as discussed during the first three installments on this topic (available here; Part-1, Part-2, Part-3), are rich in organisms capable of manipulating the regularity, movement and intensity of these wildfires. During the preceding post (Part-3) the phenotypes of two such fire-born species, the longleaf and slash pines, were detaile........ Read more »
Beckage, B., Platt, W., & Gross, L. (2009) Vegetation, Fire, and Feedbacks: A Disturbance‐Mediated Model of Savannas. The American Naturalist, 174(6), 805-818. DOI: 10.1086/648458
- November 12, 2009
- 08:00 AM
- 685 views
When fishermen co-manage marine protected areas: the case of Italy
by Rob Goldstein in Conservation Maven
... Read more »
GUIDETTI, P., & CLAUDET, J. (2009) Comanagement Practices Enhance Fisheries in Marine Protected Areas. Conservation Biology. DOI: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2009.01358.x
- November 12, 2009
- 07:39 AM
- 1,447 views
On Mimicking Phosphotyrosine
by Nick Anthis in The Scientific Activist
When doing science, there's generally one totally optimal way of performing an experiment. But, there may also be several other less optimal means of gathering similar data, and one of those may be much more feasible than the totally optimal method. As a scientist, you have to determine whether this other method is sufficient, or whether it's necessary to expend the extra effort and/or resources on the more difficult method. Sometimes it's totally fine to take the simpler approach (and this will........ Read more »
Anthis, N., Haling, J., Oxley, C., Memo, M., Wegener, K., Lim, C., Ginsberg, M., & Campbell, I. (2009) integrin tyrosine phosphorylation is a conserved mechanism for regulating talin-induced integrin activation. Journal of Biological Chemistry. DOI: 10.1074/jbc.M109.061275
- November 12, 2009
- 07:17 AM
- 635 views
Brands leave their mark on children's brains
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
The idea may be "unpalatable", but companies seeking an edge over their rivals should ensure that children are exposed to their brands as early in life as possible. That's according to Andrew Ellis and colleagues, whose new research shows that the classic "age-of-acquisition" effect in psychology applies to brand names as much as it does to everyday words.Ellis's team found that student participants were quicker to recognise brand names they had encountered from birth. This was demonstrated by p........ Read more »
Ellis, A., Holmes, S., & Wright, R. (2009) Age of acquisition and the recognition of brand names: On the importance of being early. Journal of Consumer Psychology. DOI: 10.1016/j.jcps.2009.08.001
- November 12, 2009
- 05:50 AM
- 593 views
Adaptations for the visual assessment of formadibility: Part II
by Michael Meadon in Ionian Enchantment
In Part I of this series, I summarized the experiments and findings of Aaron Sell and colleagues' paper "Human adaptations for the visual assessment of strength and fighting ability from the body and face". In Part II, I evaluate their claims.
This evidence Sell et. al. present seems compelling with regards to proposition (i): adults appear to be able to make remarkably accurate estimates of upper-body strength from even degraded cues such as static images of faces. As I noted in Part I, howeve........ Read more »
Sell, A., Cosmides, L., Tooby, J., Sznycer, D., von Rueden, C., & Gurven, M. (2009) Human adaptations for the visual assessment of strength and fighting ability from the body and face. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 276(1656), 575-584. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2008.1177
- November 12, 2009
- 05:00 AM
- 546 views
Drug company funded events for health professionals: the state of play in Australia
by Helen Jaques in In Sickness and In Health
The links between the pharmaceutical industry and doctors are many and tangled. Drug companies are keen to schmooze doctors and, directly or not, persuade clinicians to prescribe their drug instead of a similar one by a competitor. One way that drug companies try to influence doctors is by sponsoring events, such as conferences or [...]... Read more »
Robertson, J., Moynihan, R., Walkom, E., Bero, L., & Henry, D. (2009) Mandatory Disclosure of Pharmaceutical Industry-Funded Events for Health Professionals. PLoS Medicine, 6(11). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1000128
- November 12, 2009
- 02:11 AM
- 718 views
The dual-tasking meditation master
by William Lu in The Quantum Lobe Chronicles
I recently read an article in the latest Scientific American Mind magazine discussing the cell mechanisms underlying meditative states. The author briefly mentioned the fact that expert meditators were able to avoid the attentional blink that lay people are prone to experiencing when barraged with rapidly presented visual stimuli.This brought up a question for me. Would expert meditators perform better on dual-tasks compared to age-matched subjects?I believe the answer is in the affirmative. My ........ Read more »
Farb, N., Segal, Z., Mayberg, H., Bean, J., McKeon, D., Fatima, Z., & Anderson, A. (2007) Attending to the present: mindfulness meditation reveals distinct neural modes of self-reference. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 2(4), 313-322. DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsm030
- November 12, 2009
- 12:46 AM
- 674 views
Digging Deeper Into p66Shc and Enhanced Longevity
by Reason in Fight Aging!
Mitochondria, you will recall, are the power plants of our cells, churning out stored energy in the form of ATP molecules, and pollution in the form of damaging free radicals or reactive oxygen species (ROS). Mitochondria have their own DNA, separate from the DNA in the nucleus of our cells, a legacy of their origin as free-roaming bacteria. Free radicals are very reactive, which means that they can tear apart the biochemical machinery of cells by reacting with crucial components. This free radi........ Read more »
Tomilov, A., Bicocca, V., Schoenfeld, R., Giorgio, M., Migliaccio, E., Ramsey, J., Hagopian, K., Pelicci, P., & Cortopassi, G. (2009) Decreased superoxide production in macrophages of long-lived p66Shc-knockout mice. Journal of Biological Chemistry. DOI: 10.1074/jbc.M109.017491
- November 12, 2009
- 12:10 AM
- 799 views
A call for new technological minds for the genome sequencing instrument fields
by Keith Robison in Omics! Omics!
There's a great article in the current Nature Biotechnology (alas, you'll need a subscription to read the full text) titled "The challenges of sequencing by synthesis" as this post detailing the challenges around the current crop of sequencing-by-synthesis instruments. The paper was written by a number of the PIs on grants for $1K genome technology.While there is one short section on the problem of sample preparation, the heart of the paper can be found in the other headings: surface chemistryf........ Read more »
Fuller CW, Middendorf LR, Benner SA, Church GM, Harris T, Huang X, Jovanovich SB, Nelson JR, Schloss JA, Schwartz DC.... (2009) The challenges of sequencing by synthesis. Nature biotechnology, 27(11), 1013-23. PMID: 19898456
- November 11, 2009
- 11:42 PM
- 546 views
Small Change
by Journal Watch Online in Journal Watch Online
Expensive nature tourism isn’t necessarily better for local economies
... Read more »
Sandbrook, C. (2009) Local economic impact of different forms of nature-based tourism. Conservation Letters. DOI: 10.1111/j.1755-263X.2009.00085.x
- November 11, 2009
- 07:15 PM
- 982 views
23andMe gets scooped on hair curl genes
by dgmacarthur in Genetic Future
Medland et al. (2009). Common Variants in the Trichohyalin Gene Are Associated with Straight Hair in Europeans. The American Journal of Human Genetics DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2009.10.009A couple of weeks ago I reported on a presentation by 23andMe's Nick Eriksson at the American Society of Human Genetics meeting in Honolulu, in which Eriksson presented data on a series of genome-wide association studies performed by the company using genetic and trait data from its customers.Along with genetic ........ Read more »
Medland, S., Nyholt, D., Painter, J., McEvoy, B., McRae, A., Zhu, G., Gordon, S., Ferreira, M., Wright, M., & Henders, A. (2009) Common Variants in the Trichohyalin Gene Are Associated with Straight Hair in Europeans. The American Journal of Human Genetics. DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2009.10.009
- November 11, 2009
- 06:46 PM
- 1,854 views
Impacts, Ocean Mixing, Iron, and Life
by CM in The Iapetus Beat
Banded Iron Formation near Timmons in Northern Ontario; 2.7 billion years old. From Laurentian University.
John Slack and William Cannon, two USGS geologists based in Reston, Virginia, have a paper in this month’s Geology that suggests a link between a major asteroid impact and the cessation of banded iron deposition 1.85 billion years ago. Scientists love to correlate impacts with major geological events. We’ve recently seen research suggesting an extraterrestrial impact or i........ Read more »
Slack, J., & Cannon, W. (2009) Extraterrestrial demise of banded iron formations 1.85 billion years ago. Geology, 37(11), 1011-1014. DOI: 10.1130/G30259A.1
- November 11, 2009
- 06:12 PM
- 829 views
Constancy of the discodermolide hairpin motif
by The Curious Wavefunction in The Curious Wavefunction
Our paper on the conformational analysis of discodermolide is now up on the ACS website. The following is a brief description of the work.Discodermolide (DDM) is a well-known highly flexible polyketide that is the most potent microtubule polymerization agent known. In this capacity it functions very similar to taxol and the epothilones. However the binding mode of DDM will intimately depend on its conformations in solution. To this end we have performed multiple force field conformational search........ Read more »
Jogalekar, A., Kriel, F., Shi, Q., Cornett, B., Cicero, D., & Snyder, J. (2009) The Discodermolide Hairpin Structure Flows from Conformationally Stable Modular Motifs. Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 2147483647. DOI: 10.1021/jm9015284
- November 11, 2009
- 06:12 PM
- 719 views
Constancy of the discodermolide hairpin motif
by The Curious Wavefunction in The Curious Wavefunction
Our paper on the conformational analysis of discodermolide is now up on the ACS website. The following is a brief description of the work.Discodermolide (DDM) is a well-known highly flexible polyketide that is the most potent microtubule polymerization agent known. In this capacity it functions very similar to taxol and the epothilones. However the binding mode of DDM will intimately depend on its conformations in solution. To this end we have performed multiple force field conformational search........ Read more »
Jogalekar, A., Kriel, F., Shi, Q., Cornett, B., Cicero, D., & Snyder, J. (2009) The Discodermolide Hairpin Structure Flows from Conformationally Stable Modular Motifs. Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 2147483647. DOI: 10.1021/jm9015284
- November 11, 2009
- 04:43 PM
- 1,240 views
Does Progesterone Treatment Prevent Preterm Birth? A Case of “Skim Milk Masquerades as Cream”
by Henci Goer in Science & Sensibility
This is off my usual beat, but a relative asked me to investigate progesterone treatment to prevent preterm birth. In her first pregnancy, membranes ruptured at 31 weeks and the baby was born a week later. (The baby was fine thanks to her mother taking good care of herself in pregnancy, steroids to mature her [...]... Read more »
Dodd JM, Flenady V, Cincotta R, & Crowther CA. (2006) Prenatal administration of progesterone for preventing preterm birth. Cochrane database of systematic reviews (Online). PMID: 16437505
- November 11, 2009
- 04:35 PM
- 711 views
Pneumonia is world’s biggest childhood killer
by geekheartsscience in geek!
Pneumonia is an acute respiratory infection of the lungs caused by viruses, bacteria and fungi. Despite pneumonia being treatable and preventable, estimates suggest that over 2 million children die every year from pneumonia, making it the leading cause of childhood death worldwide.
On the 2nd November the World Health Organisation and the United Nations Children’s Fund [...]... Read more »
Enarson, P., Gie, R., Enarson, D., & Mwansambo, C. (2009) Development and Implementation of a National Programme for the Management of Severe and Very Severe Pneumonia in Children in Malawi. PLoS Medicine, 6(11). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1000137
topics
join us!
Do you write about peer-reviewed research in your blog? Use ResearchBlogging.org to make it easy for your readers — and others from around the world — to find your serious posts about academic research.
If you don't have a blog, you can still use our site to learn about fascinating developments in cutting-edge research from around the world.
