ResearchBlogging.org News

“Dr. SkySkull” selects several notable posts each week from a miscellany of ResearchBlogging.org categories. He blogs at Skulls in the Stars.

• Coca-Cola and Water Use in India: “Good Till the Last Drop”. Eric Michael Johnson at The Primate Diaries describes the shocking and little-heard of  abuse of water resources by Coca-Cola in India.  (I was drinking a Coke when I read the post.)
• Whatever happened to the audiophile? Over at Sciencebase, David Bradley gives us a different sort of history lesson, and describes the evolution of audio formats and the rise and fall of those stalwarts of audio quality.
• A Synthetic Nose for Coffee and Other Highly Complex Mixtures. Michael Long at Phased describes a remarkable accomplishment: an artificial “nose” that can accurately distinguish between different brands and roasts of coffee.  Why would you need such a thing?  Read the post to find out!
• 60,000 year old decorated ostrich eggshell canteens from Diepkloof, South Africa. Actually, the title alone explains why you should look at this post!  By Julien at A Very Remote Period Indeed.

Vincent Racaniello selects several notable posts each week from molecular and cellular biology and virology. He blogs at virology blog.

• Sixty-five million years ago, life on Earth suffered one of the worst mass extinctions of all time. The hypothesis that the impact of an asteroid in the Yucatan Peninsula played a major role in the end-Cretaceous extinction has now been reaffirmed by a collaborative study involving more than 40 scientists.
• Mice that lack toll-like receptor 5, an innate sensor of bacterial flagellin, have increased fat pad size, blood glucose, insulin, cholesterol and triglyceride levels. These indicators return to wild-type levels when the gut flora of TLR5 knockout mice are depleted by antibiotics, showing that mucosal immune surveillance is crucial for maintaining populations of bacterial symbiotes.
• Vaccinia virus, which is used to immunize against smallpox, has gone feral. It has moved from vaccinated humans into other animals.  In Brazil, feral vaccinia virus has become a significant emerging disease in cattle, from which it jumps back again into humans.

I’ll be back next Friday with more selections.

Jarrett Byrnes focuses on posts in ecology, environmental sciences, and evolution. He blogs at I’m a chordata, urochordata!

• Thoughtomics discussed the tricky strategies of cheating bacteria. Rule #1 – never play poker with Pseudomonas.

• We often think of of plants as passive recipients of all the grazers, parasites, hail, wind and rain that the world heaps on them. Not so much, it would seem. Goldenrod plants can change their growth-form stopping a plant parasite in its tracks. A leaf is not a leaf is not a leaf.

• There is a lot of information in the genomes of our gut bacteria. How much? New work plumbs the depths of terra excreta and finds a dizzying array of diversity. Not only that, but the genome of your gut bacteria relate directly to your health.

Travis Saunders selects several notable posts each week from Health and Clinical Research. He blogs at Obesity Panacea.

• Vaccine fears: what is the pharmacist’s role? Scott of Science Based Pharmacy looks at common vaccine fears, and the ways that pharmacists can combat them.
• The perils of fair weather cocaine.   Dirk Hanson of Addiction Inbox reports on a new study suggesting that the higher the temperature, the higher your risk of overdose.
• “Cracked cancer code”?  Not just yet. Cancer Research UK does a great job of explaining why a new area of research holds promise, but isn’t yet the breakthrough that the media wants it to be.

Travis

Dave Munger selects several notable posts each week from psychology and neuroscience. He blogs at The Daily Monthly and has a weekly column on SEEDMAGAZINE.COM.

• Comparing adult and child brains. The Reading and Word Recognition blog discusses why it’s problematic.
• Do men like curvy women? Yes! Is this a good study? Wayne Hooke explains why that’s a more difficult question.
• Does depression have an upside? The Permutations blog has a thoughtful response among the chorus of criticism of Jonah Lehrer’s recent NYT Magazine article.
• We know that some people are amazingly good at recognizing faces. How did they get that way? Code For Life examines a recent study.

“Dr. SkySkull” selects several notable posts each week from a miscellany of ResearchBlogging.org categories. He blogs at Skulls in the Stars.

• Uncovering the “Chimpanzee Stone Age”. First, from Brian at Laelaps we have a discussion of stone tool use in chimpanzees — and the archaeology of such tool use!
• Will the Moon mess up a moon-base? For all the talk of setting up a base of operations on the Moon, it is quite easy to forget that it is a relatively hostile environment.  Emma at we are all in the gutter discusses clever attempts to evaluate damage to equipment that was left behind on our previous visits.
• Shrinky Dinks Thermoplastics: Toying With Cutting Edge Research. In a technological advancement I would never have seen coming, Robert at Promega Connections discusses a new, potentially easy and inexpensive, technique for performing microfluidic research.  The inspiration for the work is Shrinky Dinks!
• Science predicted the Chile’s Earthquake. Finally, Pablo of Astu’s Science Blog, who experienced the earthquake in Chile firsthand, explains how science predicted the force and the location of the earthquake remarkably well.

Check back next week for more “miscellaneous” suggestions!

Vincent Racaniello selects several notable posts each week from molecular and cellular biology and virology. He blogs at virology blog.

• How tough is it for microbes survive on Mars? In a chamber made to simulate the Martian atmosphere and weather conditions, bacteria are not killed by gases or temperatures between 20 °C and -100 °C. It’s the UV rays that kills them in minutes.
• The caddisfly glues together its underwater home with a waterproof adhesive made of silk. Unlike the silk produced by terrestrial creatures, caddisfly silk works underwater because it is highly phosphorylated. Studying caddisfly silk may lead to the development of medical glues or tapes that could replace sutures for sealing wounds.
• Many organisms can synthesize antibiotics to hold off microbial pathogens. Beewolves, which are digger wasps, protect their young in their ground burrows by culturing a strain of antibiotic-producing Streptomyces philanthi bacteria.

I’ll be back next Friday with more selections.

Jarrett Byrnes focuses on posts in ecology, environmental sciences, and evolution. He blogs at I’m a chordata, urochordata!

• How should we examine the dynamics of reptile communication in the jungle? With push-up performing robotic lizards!. Duh.

• Save the charismatic megafauna! No, really. A thoughtful review shows that conservation research focuses on big mammals at the exclusion of most other taxa. And this study didn’t even consider invertebrates. As research leads to knowledge which leads to action, this bias could have large and long-lasting implications. (And see also.)

• If you thought we were the only species on earth to have scientists squirreled away in labs developing antibiotics to keep us safe from infection, you’d be wrong. Wasps do it, too. Minus the labs. And the lab coats. Although, wasp in a lab coat! How cute!

• One solution to the lack of recovery of species is the systematic removal of their predator. In the case of Baltic Cod, actually, fishing their predators would have little effect, and is logistically impractical to begin with. Better to aid the species through more direct means.

Travis Saunders selects several notable posts each week from Health and Clinical Research. He blogs at Obesity Panacea.

• What if Bt saved human lives? Biofortified has a terrific post (and even a video!) on the strong impact of Bacillus thuringiensis protein on roundworm, which could improve the lives of millions of children.
• The decline and fall of CB1 antagonists.  Just a few years ago this class of drugs held huge promise for the treatment of obesity – not anymore.  Neuroskeptic explains.
• A personal god boosts the placebo effect. Belief that a Supreme Being cares about you significantly improves the likelihood that you’ll benefit from antidepressant medications.  Sadly, no info on which Supreme Being has the greatest impact.
• Official.  Drinking alcohol leads to hangover.  Norther’s Doctor’s Antidote considers the potentially sobering implications of this bubbly research.

See you all next week!

Travis

Dave Munger selects several notable posts each week from psychology and neuroscience. He blogs at The Daily Monthly and has a weekly column on SEEDMAGAZINE.COM.

• The nattily-redesigned Epiphenom blog tackles a tough question: Why are atheists, on average, more intelligent than believers?
• And while we’re on the subject, Neurophilosopher brings up another interesting quandary about the brain and religion: Do neurosurgery patients get closer to God?
• How looking away from a person can help you avoid running into them, a neat post from Quantum Lobe Chronicles.
• Neuroskeptic takes a look at yet another application of deep brain stimulation: As a treatment for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.