- March 17, 2010
- 02:28 PM
- 5 views
The Irish Diaspora: Why Even Trinidadians Are a Little Irish
by Krystal D'Costa in Anthropology in Practice
Happy St. Paddy's Day! This Irish national holiday celebrates Patrick who is—arguably—the most recognizable of Irish saints, known for championing Irish Christianity (while using a shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity). The observance has also been viewed as a one day break from the abstinence of the Lenten season. While it still has religious undertones, for a vast majority of people, St.
... Read more »
Rodgers, Nini. (2007) The Irish in the Caribbean 1641-1837: An Overview. Irish Migration Studies in Latin America, 5(3), 145-156. info:/
- March 17, 2010
- 01:53 PM
- 12 views
Leptin Resurrected: Leptin Therapy in Type I Diabetes
by Kari Kenefick in Promega Connections
An online science news item jumped out at me the other day, news about leptin and it’s potential use in type I diabetes. While leptin was certainly familiar, it’s recollection brought vague feelings of disappointment. Wasn’t leptin the naturally occurring fat burning compound that was going to make us all thin?
In case you too are [...]... Read more »
Wang MY, Chen L, Clark GO, Lee Y, Stevens RD, Ilkayeva OR, Wenner BR, Bain JR, Charron MJ, Newgard CB.... (2010) Feature Article: Leptin therapy in insulin-deficient type I diabetes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. PMID: 20194735
- March 17, 2010
- 12:05 PM
- 19 views
Painting lines on the playground - easiest physical activity intervention. EVER.
by Travis Saunders, MSc in Obesity Panacea
In most developed nations, kids get far less physical activity than they did just a few generations ago. Given the strong links between physical inactivity and health risk (and given that we're now seeing "adult" diseases like heart disease and type 2 diabetes in children and teenagers), this has become a very real public health concern. Unfortunately, when it comes to increasing childhood physical activity levels, people often want to reinvent the wheel. For example, many peop........ Read more »
STRATTON, G., & MULLAN, E. (2005) The effect of multicolor playground markings on children's physical activity level during recess. Preventive Medicine, 41(5-6), 828-833. DOI: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2005.07.009
- March 17, 2010
- 11:00 AM
- 12 views
Indigenous people have smaller ecological footprint on Amazon than colonists
by Rob Goldstein in Conservation Maven
A new study in the journal Conservation Biology shows that indigenous people in the northern Ecuadorian Amazon have a lower impact on the rainforest than the colonists who have moved into the area.
This bodes ill for conservation of the Amazon rainforest given the increasing settlement of the region by outsiders, the expansion of the agricultural frontier, and cultural changes in indigenous communities.... Read more »
LU, F., GRAY, C., BILSBORROW, R., MENA, C., ERLIEN, C., BREMNER, J., BARBIERI, A., & WALSH, S. (2010) Contrasting Colonist and Indigenous Impacts on Amazonian Forests. Conservation Biology. DOI: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2010.01463.x
- March 17, 2010
- 10:52 AM
- 15 views
Same-Sex Attraction Does Not Increase Suicide Risk...
by Ultimo167 in Strong Silent Types
A slightly convoluted but ultimately worthwhile study by Zhao et al. (2010), in which they both challenge the proposition that same-sex attraction leads to greater suicide risk, as well as plead with us all to stop thinking of GLB (their term) and its numerous alternatives, as one enormous homogenised blob. Their word of choice is 'oversimplify' (p.105).
... Read more »
Zhao, Y., Montoro, R., Igartua, K., & Thombs, B. (2010) Suicidal Ideation and Attempt Among Adolescents Reporting “Unsure” Sexual Identity or Heterosexual Identity Plus Same-Sex Attraction or Behavior: Forgotten Groups?. Journal of the American Academy of Child , 49(2), 104-113. DOI: 10.1097/00004583-201002000-00004
- March 17, 2010
- 10:36 AM
- 13 views
Nature Takes One Back from Nurture
by Rob Mitchum in ScienceLife
Ah, nature and nurture, those eternal enemies. What once used to be the domain of philosophy and English classes has migrated over the past century to the sphere of science, culminating in the completion of The Human Genome Project in 2003. But far from settling this age-old battle, the HGP may have reinvigorated it. Now [...]... Read more »
Zhang, D., Cheng, L., Badner, J., Chen, C., Chen, Q., Luo, W., Craig, D., Redman, M., Gershon, E., & Liu, C. (2010) Genetic Control of Individual Differences in Gene-Specific Methylation in Human Brain. The American Journal of Human Genetics, 86(3), 411-419. DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2010.02.005
- March 17, 2010
- 10:01 AM
- 21 views
Dopamine and theory of mind: another autism/schizophrenia dichotomy
by sandygautam in The Mouse Trap
Image via Wikipedia
There is an article in press in Neuropsyhcologia by Lackner et al that related Dopamine (DA) levels as measured by Eye Blink Rate (EBR) to preschoolers (3-5 yrs old) Representational theory of Mind (RTM).
The authors hypothesized that as one of the neural correlates of RTM is dMPFC, and as dMPFC has dopamine receptors More >Rating: 0.0/10 (0 votes cast)
Related posts:The Mind – Brain dichotomy: What it means to have a mind Researchers at Harvard, Gray et a........ Read more »
Lackner, C., Bowman, L., & Sabbagh, M. (2010) Dopaminergic functioning and preschoolers’ theory of mind. Neuropsychologia. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.02.027
- March 17, 2010
- 09:55 AM
- 15 views
Nest making, oxytocin, and social bonding
by The Dog Zombie in The Dog Zombie
I encountered Nest making and oxytocin comparably promote wound healing in isolation reared rats [1] while reading about how stress affects wound healing, and it drew me in with its lure of drawing connections between nest making and oxytocin. Oxytocin does a lot of things in the body, but what this paper was interested in was its participation in social bonding. You all must already know the coolest story about oxytocin, the story about the two species of voles. The species are almost identic........ Read more »
Vitalo A, Fricchione J, Casali M, Berdichevsky Y, Hoge EA, Rauch SL, Berthiaume F, Yarmush ML, Benson H, Fricchione GL.... (2009) Nest making and oxytocin comparably promote wound healing in isolation reared rats. PloS one, 4(5). PMID: 19436750
Young, L. (1998) Neuroendocrine bases of monogamy. Trends in Neurosciences, 21(2), 71-75. DOI: 10.1016/S0166-2236(97)01167-3
- March 17, 2010
- 09:15 AM
- 22 views
'Wasabi receptor' is snake's infrared sensor
by Mo in Neurophilosophy
SNAKES have a unique sensory system for detecting infrared radiation, with which they can visualize temperature changes within their immediate environment. Using this special sense, they can image the body heat radiating from warm-blooded animals nearby. This enables them to track their prey quickly and with great accuracy, even in the dark, and to target the most vulnerable parts of the prey's body when they strike. It warns them of the presence of predators, and may also be used to find approp........ Read more »
Gracheva, E., Ingolia, N., Kelly, Y., Cordero-Morales, J., Hollopeter, G., Chesler, A., Sánchez, E., Perez, J., Weissman, J., & Julius, D. (2010) Molecular basis of infrared detection by snakes. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/nature08943
- March 17, 2010
- 09:07 AM
- 12 views
Tip of the Week: Word Add-In for Ontology Recognition
In today’s tip I want to make you aware of a tool that I think will help researchers to present their own data and publications in an accurate and universally searchable way. I learned of the resource (UCSDBioLit) through an article in one of my recent BioMed Central article alert emails. This resource allows authors to mark-up their own publications with XML tags AS THEY WRITE their papers. This will allow faster and more accurate semantic searching of their research.
A huge problem in ........ Read more »
Fink, J., Fernicola, P., Chandran, R., Parastatidis, S., Wade, A., Naim, O., Quinn, G., & Bourne, P. (2010) Word add-in for ontology recognition: semantic enrichment of scientific literature. BMC Bioinformatics, 11(1), 103. DOI: 10.1186/1471-2105-11-103
- March 17, 2010
- 06:27 AM
- 27 views
Hunkin’s Hypothesis: Technology Is What Makes Us Human
by Duncan Hull in O'Really?
Cartoonist and engineer Tim Hunkin is probably best known for his exhibits at the Science Museum in London and his Under The Pier Show “a mad arcade of home-made slot machines & simulator rides on Southwold Pier, Suffolk”. His website is a treasure trove of weird and wonderful things.
Tim has an interesting proposition, let’s call [...]... Read more »
Frances Evans. (1998) Two legs, thing using and talking: The origins of the creative engineering mind. AI , 12(3), 185-213. DOI: 10.1007/BF01206195
- March 17, 2010
- 06:25 AM
- 61 views
700-year-old Brain Found Preserved!
by Hesitant Iconoclast in NeuroWhoa!
Evolutionary psychology tends to receive harsh criticism, and often rightly so. One of the main reasons for this is the severe lack of evidence for many of it's proposals given that the paucity of fossilised brains fails to bolster many a case. And it isn't even anyone's fault. That's just the way it goes sometimes, that the brain is a jelly-like substance that is subject to decay after death, and there's no way we can objectively analyse or verify any differences in brains of long ago with brai........ Read more »
Papageorgopoulou, C., Rentsch, K., Raghavan, M., Hofmann, M., Colacicco, G., Gallien, V., Bianucci, R., & Rühli, F. (2010) Preservation of cell structures in a medieval infant brain: A paleohistological, paleogenetic, radiological and physico-chemical study. NeuroImage, 50(3), 893-901. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2010.01.029
- March 17, 2010
- 06:14 AM
- 36 views
Measles week, Part III: Not the answers
by iayork in Mystery Rays from Outer Space
This is part III of Measles week. In Part II (“Emerging disease”) I talked about the origin of measles; in Part I (“Introduction”), I posed the question of why measles case-fatality rates dropped so dramatically over the first half of the 20th century (example chart of death rates here). Today I’m going to quickly [...]... Read more »
Condran, G. (2008) The Elusive Role of Scientific Medicine in Mortality Decline: Diphtheria in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Philadelphia. Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 63(4), 484-522. DOI: 10.1093/jhmas/jrn039
- March 17, 2010
- 05:53 AM
- 36 views
Disclosure of their diagnosis impairs the social functioning of people with schizophrenia
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
People don't need to be treated as a stereotype for harm to occur; their mere belief that they could be viewed in a stereotyped fashion is enough - a phenomenon known as 'stereotype threat'. For example, women reminded of the stereotype that men are better at maths tend to perform more poorly in a subsequent maths task, even if they are actually treated fairly. Now Julie Henry and colleagues have extended this line of research to the domain of mental health. They've found that patients with a sc........ Read more »
Henry, J., Hippel, C., & Shapiro, L. (2010) Stereotype threat contributes to social difficulties in people with schizophrenia. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 49(1), 31-41. DOI: 10.1348/014466509X421963
- March 17, 2010
- 05:32 AM
- 23 views
Mmm... Food-Induced Seizures
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
In a tasty new paper, British neurologists Kate El Bouzidi et al report on the case of a woman who suffered epileptic seizures whenever she saw, or tasted, food:A 44-year-old right-handed woman was walking in the Scottish highlands. Upon unwrapping her lunch, she had a focal seizure with witnessed onset on the right side of the face and secondary generalization... She was airlifted to hospital. Three weeks later, the smell of food triggered another seizure and she was admitted to the neurology u........ Read more »
El Bouzidi K, Duncan S, Whittle IR, & Butler CR. (2010) Lesional reflex epilepsy associated with the thought of food. Neurology, 74(7), 610-2. PMID: 20157165
- March 17, 2010
- 05:00 AM
- 23 views
Oil exploration causing long-term damage to arctic tundra
by Rob Goldstein in Conservation Maven
Proponents for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and government regulators have generally assumed that conducting seismic activities in the winter would avoid damaging the sensitive tundra ecosystem. A new study throws this assumption into doubt...... Read more »
Jorgenson, J., Hoef, J., & Jorgenson, M. (2010) Long-term recovery patterns of arctic tundra after winter seismic exploration. Ecological Applications, 20(1), 205-221. DOI: 10.1890/08-1856.1
- March 17, 2010
- 04:47 AM
- 17 views
Entre « effets de petit monde » et émiettement communautaire: la légitimation culturelle à l’heure de Facebook
by ---a in Bodyspacesociety.eu
par Antonio A. CASILLI (Centre Edgar-Morin, EHESS) [1]
Le texte qui suit a été présenté aux Journées d’études Les réseaux sociaux: Quoi de neuf ?, qui ont eu lieu à l’université de Toulouse II-Le Mirail, 16-17 mars 2010, dans le cadre des activités du Réseau Thématique 26 de l’Association Française de Sociologie.
La communication (ici en [...]... Read more »
Antonio A. Casilli . (2010) Légitimation intersubjective de la présence en ligne et formation de réseaux sociaux : Une approche ethno-computationnelle. II Journées d'études du RT 26 (Réseaux sociaux) de l'Association Française de Sociologie "Les réseaux sociaux: quoi de neuf ?", 16-17 mars, Université de Toulouse II - Le Mirail. info:/
- March 16, 2010
- 11:02 PM
- 20 views
What's the difference between HeLa and HeLa S3 cells? Part III: Theodore "Ted" Puck, MD, and the first clonal isolation of human tumor cells
by Abel Pharmboy in Terra Sigillata
This post is the third in a series on the origin and history of HeLa S3 cells. The first post details how I came about to ask this question when launching my independent research laboratory. The second post details the life and careers of the legendary physician-scientist pioneer, Dr. Florence Rena Sabin.
Today, we take up a discussion where we will finally learn the origin of HeLa S3 cells, complete with original literature citations.
A recap
We left our previous discussion with the final ........ Read more »
Puck TT and Marcus PI. (1955) A rapid method for viable cell titration and clone production with HeLa cells in tissue culture: the use of X-irradiated cells to supply conditioning factors. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 41(7), 432-437. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.41.7.432
Puck TT, Marcus PI, and Cieciura SJ. (1956) Clonal growth of mammalian cells in vitro: growth characteristics of colonies from single HeLa cells with and without a "feeder" layer. Journal of Experimental Medicine, 103(2), 273-284. DOI: 10.1084/jem.103.2.273
Puck TT, & Fisher HW. (1956) Genetics of somatic mammalian cells: I. Demonstration of the existence of mutants with different growth requirements in a human cancer cell strain HeLa. Journal of Experimental Medicine, 104(3), 427-434. PMID: 19867118
Sato G, Fisher HW, and Puck TT. (1957) Molecular growth requirements of single mammalian cells. Science, 126(3280), 961-964. DOI: 10.1126/science.126.3280.961
- March 16, 2010
- 08:08 PM
- 40 views
Mad Neanderthals, peer review and scholarly publication
by Julien Riel-Salvatore in A Very Remote Period Indeed
There's been a growing rumble in the world of scientific publishing for the past several months, focusing especially on the nature and practices of the journal Medical Hypotheses. Briefly put, MH is a non-peer-reviewed journal that publishes original, controversial and thought-provoking ideas ("hypotheses" defined in the broadest possible sense, I guess you could say) about the medical realm sensu lato. Now, as reported by Science Insider, MH's editor, Bruce Charlton (here's his blog presenting ........ Read more »
Riel-Salvatore J. (2008) Mad Neanderthal disease? Some comments on "A potential role for Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies in Neanderthal extinction". Medical hypotheses, 71(3), 473-4. PMID: 18524493
UNDERDOWN, S. (2008) A potential role for Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies in Neanderthal extinction. Medical Hypotheses, 71(1), 4-7. DOI: 10.1016/j.mehy.2007.12.014
- March 16, 2010
- 07:55 PM
- 37 views
On the evolution of toilets
by Thomas Kluyver in Thomas' Plant-Related Blog
Just when you think you’ve seen it all, you learn about something completely unexpected. In this case, it’s a new way to get nitrogen, an important nutrient for all living things. Where the soil is poor in nitrogen, various plants have developed ways to trap insects and the like, among them the pitcher plants. Now [...]... Read more »
Chin, L., Moran, J., & Clarke, C. (2010) Trap geometry in three giant montane pitcher plant species from Borneo is a function of tree shrew body size. New Phytologist. DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-8137.2009.03166.x
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