Biology posts
- February 9, 2010
- 05:20 AM
- 9 views
Evolutionary origins of religion: weak relation to morality
by Björn Brembs in bjoern.brembs.blog
It is a long-standing argument among religious believers that religiosity were necessary for morality. In a recent Trends in Cognitive Sciences article (requires subscription), Pyysiäinen and Hauser argue that morality can arise and indeed can be found without and before any religious education and thus religion is a by-product of pre-existing cognitive properties of the brain. Indeed, religion is not ubiquitous, as for instance the Hadza's religion has been described as 'minimal', and yet, cooperation and morality are - as in all human cultures - thriving. In fact, there is a clear negative correlation between socioeconomic status and supernatural beliefs, further arguing that religiosity is not really all that important for morality to evolve or to persist. Pyysiäinen and Hauser cite a series of studies in moral psychology showing that moral judgments for unfamiliar moral dilemmas are unaffected in individuals without any religious background. In their press release, the authors conclude: "This supports the theory that religion did not originally emerge as a biological adaptation for cooperation, but evolved as a separate by-product of pre-existing cognitive functions that evolved from non-religious functions," says Dr. Pyysiäinen. "However, although it appears as if cooperation is made possible by mental mechanisms that are not specific to religion, religion can play a role in facilitating and stabilizing cooperation between groups."Perhaps this may help to explain the complex association between morality and religion. "It seems that in many cultures religious concepts and beliefs have become the standard way of conceptualizing moral intuitions. Although, as we discuss in our paper, this link is not a necessary one, many people have become so accustomed to using it, that criticism targeted at religion is experienced as a fundamental threat to our moral existence," concludes Dr. Hauser.This leaves open some other, less social cognitive factors contributing to the origin of religiosity, to which to authors allude towards the middle of their article: "[...] the concept of God is based on extending to non-embodied agents the standard capacity of attributing beliefs and desires to embodied agents. According to this view, religious beliefs are a by-product of evolved cognitive mechanisms." The authors are referring to 'theory of mind'. Besides this, still social capacity, there are several other factors contributing to the origins of religion. One such factor is of course our concept of causality and our hunt for last causes. However, the factor that is, of course, closest to my own field of research is that religion works as an operant behavior. This means that religion, for instance, can provide us with a feeling of control where, ultimately, there is none (think rain dance). This is not counter-intuitive and so I'm not the only person who has realized that this may be an important contributing cognitive factor. There is even prior evidence that when experiencing or remembering an experience of lack of control, these cognitive capacities for imagining control and order are enhanced.These insights leave us with a set of pre-existing cognitive abilities providing a fertile ground on which the evolution of religion could occur as a by-product: Our capacity to detect agency (so helpful in our social interactions that we see it even in non-living objects), together with the concept of causality imply that everything happens for a reason and that this reason is the intention of someone. This someone can be controlled using certain rituals as evidenced, for instance, by the rain occurring after a rain-dance. This someone obviously punishes you if you do not perform these rituals, so of course this someone will also punish you if you do not cooperate or otherwise violate the rules of the in-group. In this way, religion provides you with a sense of order and controllability in an uncontrollable world which, in turn, keeps you sane, your society functioning and thus competitive and alive. As one of the commenters on the press release noted, 'competitive' may be the key word here, with religion providing a further tool for promoting self-sacrifice and suicidal fighting which might have provided some particularly religious groups with a competitive advantage.Methinks it's about time for someone to develop a computer model for the evolution of religion, the data are starting to provide enough parameters for such a project.Also in reply to one of the comments on the authors' press release, a very pertinent video via Pharyngula:Ilkka Pyysiäinen, & Marc Hauser (2010). The origins of religion: evolved adaptation or by-product? Trends in Cognitive Sciences : 10.1016/j.tics.2009.12.007... Read more »
Ilkka Pyysiäinen, & Marc Hauser. (2010) The origins of religion: evolved adaptation or by-product?. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. info:/10.1016/j.tics.2009.12.007
- February 8, 2010
- 03:56 PM
- 11 views
Mean Streets
by Roberta Kwok in Journal Watch Online
Roadkill numbers in upstate New York look grim
... Read more »
Barthelmess, E., & Brooks, M. (2010) The influence of body-size and diet on road-kill trends in mammals. Biodiversity and Conservation. DOI: 10.1007/s10531-010-9791-3
- February 8, 2010
- 03:10 PM
- 12 views
Racehorse Research Identifies Speed Gene
by GrrlScientist in Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)
tags: evolutionary biology, molecular biology, Thoroughbred race horses, horses, aerobic capacity, muscle development, myostatin, MSTN, myostatin-suppressing C variant, myostatin-suppressing T variant, Horse Genome Project, Equinome, bpr3.org/?p=52,peer-reviewed research, peer-reviewed paper
Emerging from the mist is Rachel Alexandra, a champion American Thoroughbred who excels at winning both long and short distance races.
Image: Rob Carr, 2009, Associated Press [larger view]
If you've worked at or been around a racetrack very much, as I have, you'll quickly realize that everyone there has their own pet idea for picking winners. Horse breeders have always relied on pedigree analysis and studying the horse's conformation to predict whether a particular racehorse is better suited for running short or longer distances. But this is an inexact science that can waste valuable time, money and sometimes, horses. Which makes one wonder whether modern molecular biology can be applied to the challenge of identifying specific genes that make a particular horse better suited to running sprints or distances?
Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Hill, E., Gu, J., Eivers, S., Fonseca, R., McGivney, B., Govindarajan, P., Orr, N., Katz, L., & MacHugh, D. (2010) A Sequence Polymorphism in MSTN Predicts Sprinting Ability and Racing Stamina in Thoroughbred Horses. PLoS ONE, 5(1). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0008645
- February 8, 2010
- 02:34 PM
- 17 views
Barnacle Sex
by Kelsey in Mauka to Makai
Sad but true: Barnacles (critters who spend the majority of their lives with their heads glued to a hard surface) may be getting more action than you are.
Of course, that depends on how you quantify “action.” Barnacles have a fairly short mating season—compared to our non-stop mating season—but they cram a whole lotta nooky into [...]... Read more »
HOCH, J. (2008) Variation in penis morphology and mating ability in the acorn barnacle, Semibalanus balanoides. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology, 359(2), 126-130. DOI: 10.1016/j.jembe.2008.03.002
Hoch, J. (2009) ADAPTIVE PLASTICITY OF THE PENIS IN A SIMULTANEOUS HERMAPHRODITE. Evolution, 63(8), 1946-1953. DOI: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2009.00668.x
Murata, A., Imafuku, M., & Abe, N. (2001) Copulation by the barnacle Tetraclita japonica under natural conditions. Journal of Zoology, 253(2), 275-280. DOI: 10.1017/S0952836901000243
Neufeld, C., & Palmer, A. (2008) Precisely proportioned: intertidal barnacles alter penis form to suit coastal wave action. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 275(1638), 1081-1087. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2007.1760
- February 8, 2010
- 01:56 PM
- 15 views
Mazel tov! You should have such long telomeres
by ouroboros in Ouroboros: Research in the biology of aging
A study of Ashkenazi Jewish centenarians by Atzmon et al. has revealed that telomere length is correlated with longer lifespan and slower biological aging (reflected in measurements of several biomarkers of aging). Both lifespan and telomere length are, in turn, correlated with polymorphisms at the hTERT and hTERC loci, two genes that respectively encode the [...]... Read more »
Atzmon, G., Cho, M., Cawthon, R., Budagov, T., Katz, M., Yang, X., Siegel, G., Bergman, A., Huffman, D., Schechter, C.... (2009) Evolution in Health and Medicine Sackler Colloquium: Genetic variation in human telomerase is associated with telomere length in Ashkenazi centenarians. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(suppl_1), 1710-1717. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0906191106
- February 8, 2010
- 12:16 PM
- 60 views
MolBio Pick of the Week!: Tumour cell ecosystems, electrical crayfish and fluorescing corals
This week, I'm hosting the MolBio Pick Of the Week, usually hosted on the MolBio Research Highlights Blog. The picks of the week are taken from researchblogging.org, which contains a number of great science blog posts from all areas, however this post only chooses topics aggregated under 'biology'1) Tumour cells are cells in the body that have escaped the control system of the surrounded cells and are therefore about to diversify and mutate to a far greater extent than the cells surrounding them. Iayork at Mystery Rays From Outer Space discusses the ecosystem within tumours that is created by this lack of control:"A tumor, by the time we can detect it, is a collection of many cells, at least billions of them, and those cells are not all the same... Even cells that are unambiguously cancerous are very different within a tumor."The appreciation of different cell types within a tumour creates new considerations for treatment. Rather than targeting the 'average' cell within a tumour, treatments can be geared towards the most dangerous cells, the ones most likely to lead to metastasis or spreading of the tumour.2) Different animals use different systems to detect their surroundings. Recent research by Patullo and Macmillan into explores the idea that Crayfish use electrical signals to interact with their environment, making them one of the smallest fish to use electrical impulses as signals. So far, research has shown that Crayfish can respond to biologically relevant electrical signals (such as those produced by tadpoles, which they prey on) although as yet there is no neuronal data to support this. Marmorkrebs blog discusses this in detail.3) Coral reefs are some of the largest and most beautiful symbiotic structures on earth. Lucas Brouwers explains that even those corals without much colour can still look beautiful: by producing fluorescence:"When some of these corals are exposed to light of the right wavelength, they return the favor by fluorescing with amazing colours. The diversity of colours displayed by these fluorescent corals is remarkable, ranging from azure blue to a deep crimson red."A recent study by Field and Matz looked at the evolution of these different fluorescent proteins, and created some amazing phylogenic trees drawn with fluorescing bacteria on Petri dishes.That's it from me this week!---Some of the articles discussed in this week's selected posts:Patullo, B., & Macmillan, D. (2010). Making sense of electrical sense in crayfish Journal of Experimental Biology, 213 (4), 651-657 DOI: 10.1242/jeb.039073Park SY, Gönen M, Kim HJ, Michor F, & Polyak K (2010). Cellular and genetic diversity in the progression of in situ human breast carcinomas to an invasive phenotype. The Journal of clinical investigation, 120 (2), 636-44 PMID: 20101094Field, S., & Matz, M. (2009). Retracing Evolution of Red Fluorescence in GFP-Like Proteins from Faviina Corals Molecular Biology and Evolution, 27 (2), 225-233 DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msp230... Read more »
Patullo, B., & Macmillan, D. (2010) Making sense of electrical sense in crayfish. Journal of Experimental Biology, 213(4), 651-657. DOI: 10.1242/jeb.039073
Park SY, Gönen M, Kim HJ, Michor F, & Polyak K. (2010) Cellular and genetic diversity in the progression of in situ human breast carcinomas to an invasive phenotype. The Journal of clinical investigation, 120(2), 636-44. PMID: 20101094
Field, S., & Matz, M. (2009) Retracing Evolution of Red Fluorescence in GFP-Like Proteins from Faviina Corals. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 27(2), 225-233. DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msp230
- February 8, 2010
- 11:58 AM
- 21 views
Wanted: The Tomb of the Father of Modern Astronomy
by Promega Corporation in Promega Connections
What do Swedish war booty, the Frombork Cathedral in Poland, and Napoleon all have in common? Answer: Nicholaus Copernicus. While much is known about the cleric and astronomer, the location of his burial site and the identity of his possible remains were cloaked in mystery. Over the last 200 years, many have searched for Copernicus’s [...]... Read more »
Bogdanowicz W, Allen M, Branicki W, Lembring M, Gajewska M, & Kupiec T. (2009) Genetic identification of putative remains of the famous astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106(30), 12279-82. PMID: 19584252
- February 8, 2010
- 08:00 AM
- 16 views
Species vulnerability to climate change: sharks and sting rays in the Great Barrier Reef
by Rob Goldstein in Conservation Maven
Scientists have developed an innovative model for predicting the vulnerability of multiple species in a geographic area to climate change. They tested the model on sharks and sting rays in the Great Barrier though the approach really is applicable to a wide range of ecosystems...... Read more »
CHIN, A., KYNE, P., WALKER, T., & McAULEY, R. (2010) An integrated risk assessment for climate change: analysing the vulnerability of sharks and rays on Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Global Change Biology. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2486.2009.02128.x
- February 8, 2010
- 07:30 AM
- 20 views
Origins and evolution of pathogens
by stajich in The Hyphal Tip
An article in PLoS Pathogens by Morris et al describe a hypothesis about the evolution and origins of plant pathogens applying the parallel theories to the emergence of medically relevant pathogens. The authors highlight the importance of understanding the evolution of organisms in the context of emerging pathogens like Puccinia Ug99 for our ability [...]... Read more »
Morris, C., Bardin, M., Kinkel, L., Moury, B., Nicot, P., & Sands, D. (2009) Expanding the Paradigms of Plant Pathogen Life History and Evolution of Parasitic Fitness beyond Agricultural Boundaries. PLoS Pathogens, 5(12). DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1000693
Casadevall, A. (2008) Evolution of Intracellular Pathogens. Annual Review of Microbiology, 62(1), 19-33. DOI: 10.1146/annurev.micro.61.080706.093305
- February 8, 2010
- 05:00 AM
- 16 views
Urban airports, a key refuge for insect conservation
by Rob Goldstein in Conservation Maven
... Read more »
Kutschbach-Brohl, L., Washburn, B., Bernhardt, G., Chipman, R., & Francoeur, L. (2010) Arthropods of a semi-natural grassland in an urban environment: the John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York. Journal of Insect Conservation. DOI: 10.1007/s10841-010-9264-8
- February 8, 2010
- 04:51 AM
- 13 views
MapReduce goes evolutionary
by Abhishek Tiwari in Fisheye Perspective
Scientists from Texas A&M University have developed a new algorithm MrsRF (MapReduce Speeds up Robinson-Foulds) for analyzing large collection of evolutionary trees using MapReduce framework. Matthews et. al, have used their MapReduce algorithm to compute all-to-all Robinson-Foulds (RF) distance matrix on multi-core computing platforms. Calculation of all possible Robinson-Foulds distance pairs is a computationally intensive task. The results show that a significant speedup can be achieved using MrsRF compared to the fastest sequential algorithms.We studied the performance of our MrsRF algorithm on two large biological trees sets consisting of 20,000 trees of 150 taxa each and 33,306 trees of 567 taxa each. Our experiments show that MrsRF is a scalable approach reaching a speedup of over 18 on 32 total cores.Phase 1 of the MrsRF algorithm. Two mappers and two reducers are used to process the input files.Apart from speeding up the phylogenetic analysis, this study presents a new type of MapReducible problem where "the size of the input (t evolutionary trees) is much smaller than the size of the output (t × t RF matrix)". Generally in MapReduce implementations the final output is smaller in size than the initial input. Another important thing which authors point out is getting best performance out of MapReduce implementation on a multi-core cluster depends on the cluster configuration. For instance, they tried their problem set with 32 total cores, a 16 nodes by 2 cores (16 × 2) cluster configuration which outperformed 8 × 4, 4 × 8, and 32 × 1 cluster configuration.Overall their research makes a strong case for using MapReduce framework to design high-performance phylogenetic applications and it can be best for tackling the large evolutionary computational problems such as summarizing the big collections of evolutionary trees. An open-source implementation of MrsRF algorithm is freely available from the Google code.Reference:Matthews, S., & Williams, T. (2010). MrsRF: an efficient MapReduce algorithm for analyzing large collections of evolutionary trees BMC Bioinformatics, 11 (Suppl 1) DOI: 10.1186/1471-2105-11-S1-S15
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Matthews, S., & Williams, T. (2010) MrsRF: an efficient MapReduce algorithm for analyzing large collections of evolutionary trees. BMC Bioinformatics, 11(Suppl 1). DOI: 10.1186/1471-2105-11-S1-S15
- February 7, 2010
- 10:14 PM
- 24 views
I say tomato…
by Anastasia Bodnar in Genetic Maize
Researchers at the National Institute of Plant Genome Research in India have found a surprisingly simple way to extend the shelf life of fresh tomatoes. Most tomatoes will last about 10-15 days before going unappealingly squishy. The enhanced tomatoes last 45 days or more and are firmer than unmodified tomatoes, which I imagine makes for [...]... Read more »
Meli, V., Ghosh, S., Prabha, T., Chakraborty, N., Chakraborty, S., & Datta, A. (2010) Enhancement of fruit shelf life by suppressing N-glycan processing enzymes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0909329107
- February 7, 2010
- 10:14 PM
- 15 views
I say tomato…
by Anastasia Bodnar in Biofortified
Researchers at the National Institute of Plant Genome Research in India have found a surprisingly simple way to extend the shelf life of fresh tomatoes. Most tomatoes will last about 10-15 days before going unappealingly squishy. The enhanced tomatoes last 45 days or more and are firmer than unmodified tomatoes, which I imagine makes for [...]... Read more »
Meli, V., Ghosh, S., Prabha, T., Chakraborty, N., Chakraborty, S., & Datta, A. (2010) Enhancement of fruit shelf life by suppressing N-glycan processing enzymes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0909329107
- February 7, 2010
- 12:28 PM
- 70 views
the evolutionary mystery of human breasts
by Greg Fish in weird things
There’s just something mysterious about breasts. No, not how entire business empires are built on the basis of showing them to a ravenous public. That’s not exactly what you’d call a mystery. The big question is why the female human breast evolved the way it is today. Is it a matter of comfort and security [...]... Read more »
Vorbach, C., Capecchi, M., & Penninger, J. (2006) Evolution of the mammary gland from the innate immune system?. BioEssays, 28(6), 606-616. DOI: 10.1002/bies.20423
- February 7, 2010
- 10:28 AM
- 26 views
Where the wild things glow
by Lucas in thoughtomics
Brown is not the colour that springs to mind when you hear the word ‘coral’. We are more accustomed to pictures of coral reefs with more aesthetically pleasing colours, like red or purple. That’s not an accurate representation of reality though: a large part of coral species has a more brownish colouring, due to the [...]... Read more »
Field, S., & Matz, M. (2009) Retracing Evolution of Red Fluorescence in GFP-Like Proteins from Faviina Corals. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 27(2), 225-233. DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msp230
- February 7, 2010
- 09:49 AM
- 16 views
Heat shocking adaptive evolution…
by Jim Caryl in mental indigestion
IN evolutionary theory there is a phenomenon known as canalisation, a process in which the phenotype (i.e. the outward physical appearance of an organism) remains invariant, despite genetic or environmental perturbations. It suggests that a mechanism exists to buffer the phenotype from such changes, which may ultimately explain why species can remain mostly unchanged for [...]... Read more »
Specchia, V., Piacentini, L., Tritto, P., Fanti, L., D’Alessandro, R., Palumbo, G., Pimpinelli, S., & Bozzetti, M. (2010) Hsp90 prevents phenotypic variation by suppressing the mutagenic activity of transposons. Nature, 463(7281), 662-665. DOI: 10.1038/nature08739
- February 7, 2010
- 07:29 AM
- 21 views
MM#11 Answer: Rhizochromulina: algal amoeba
by Psi Wavefunction in Skeptic Wonder
Remember this from a looooooong time ago?Rhizochromulina. Mischievously looks like a chlorarachniophyte... [source]As a warning, about the only marginally comprehensive ochrophyte phylogeny I found was in TC-S & Chao, J Mol Evol. It looks like this, and makes me want to cry:[no comment needed] (TC-S & Chao 2006 J Mol Evol)In case those names look simply alien to you, you're not alone. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they'd stump some phycologists. Ochrophyte phycologists. This, my friends, is where we enter the bottomless pit of chaos that is Cavalier-Smith Taxonomy. It's a special kind of taxonomy, so I capitalised it.So Rhizochromulina belongs to Actinochrysia in Alophycidae in Hypogyristea in Marista in Ochrophyta. I wonder if the latter is the only one of those which human beings actually use. Eikrem et al. (2004 Phycologia) put Rhizochromulina and co. in Dictyophyceae, which seems to be the taxon used by the world outside Tom's head. Seems like Dictyophyceae = Actinochrysia exactly; save for a milirank difference. That way, Tom gets to take an old, well-accepted group and liven things up with a fresh name. And get his own attached to it. Damn good deal he's got there...Anyway back to algal amoebae...Rhizochromulina's fellow Dictyophyceans include the silicoflagellate Dictyocha, a 'heliozoan' Ciliophrys and a loricate flagellate Apedinella[photo]. And Pteridomonas, which appears to be a wannabe Choanoflagellate. Such a small group, such morphological diversity. Although, I don't know whether I can say that yet...Initially I wanted to do a big overview of Stramenopile (fine, "Heterokont", happy?) amoebae, and take a look at their phylogenetic distribution to try to guess how easy it can be for cells to switch between amoeboid and flagellate forms through their evolution, and whether the easier direction would be from flagellate to amoeba or vice versa. This has some implications in cellular evolution, as well as the overall eukaryotic tree and its much-contested root. TC-S 2009 JEM(free access) argued (sigh.) for an important aspect of the unikont-bikont split being cytoskeletally amoeboid vs. flagellate cell morphologies (see my Naegleria post for further info), as well as evoking lateral transfer of myosin II (a motor protein [mostly] unique to unikonts, that is, opisthokonts like us and amoebozoans(Richards & TC-S 2005 Nature)) to Heteroloboseans (bikonts), enabling their complete transformations between amoebae and flagellates. Ok, take home message: I wanted to have a closer look at the EPIC MESS that is eukaryotic cellular evolution.I wanted to fix this mess with a group that's well-known, relatively well-studied (or so I thought), with its phylogeny all sorted out. Ooops. Ochrophytes, despite being home for kelps and diatoms and such, do not qualify, apparently -- their phylogeny is a mess, many of their groups completely understudied, and...yeah, my little amoeba exercise kind of failed miserably as I fell deeper and deeper into confusion.Furthermore, I need to figure out how the various ways of being amoeboid, flagellate, and amoeboflagellate really differ from each other, and how best to classify them to analyse the situation properly. At best, this will take A LOT of reading. But this is overly optimistic -- it assumes that there exists proper reading material in the first place! This story might actually have to wait until we learn more protistan cell biology.Now that Rhizaria also seems to be among Chromalveolates, things get even weirder. Rhizaria is full of amoebae, full of flagellates, and everything in-between. Although as far as I know, most Rhizarians have at least some flagellate stage, even the Chlorarachniophytes. Rhizaria is also a huge mess, and even more obscure than the Ochrophytes. There's just SO MUCH untapped diversity and opportunity for biologists of all sorts to truly study eukaryotic evolution as it ought to be studied...which is why I get so livid over how cell biology is generally taught -- from this dull, lifeless zoocentric "This gene is linked to cancer" perspective where they seem to think that memorising signal transduction pathways is a worthwhile activity.No, learning about just how many ways a cell can be is far more worthwhile and educational. It's much more informative to learn biology from a perspective of diversity. I'd argue this is even true for the biomed-oriented spawn of Satan researchers: any kind of biology without comparative work is blind and shortsighted, and to understand how a particular cell type responds in a particular form of cancer, one must first understand how eukaryotic cells work, period. And it's shameful and stupid to foresake the rest of the Eukaryotic Tree when any help is so desperately needed in comprehending the mess that 3 billion years of evolution have left us in.Enough of my ranting (taking a cell physiol course at the moment, feeling rather sore about the obsession with macrophages and cancer cell signalling)... have another Ochrophyte amoeba:Chrysamoeba. (Hibberd 1971 Eur J Phycol)Some Rhizarians look vaguely like that too. Hmmm.Yeah, I really hit a brick wall with this post. Don't really have the time to sort out messy fields at the moment, as much fun as it is. Anyway, right, midterm...References:... Read more »
CAVALIER-SMITH, T. (2009) Megaphylogeny, Cell Body Plans, Adaptive Zones: Causes and Timing of Eukaryote Basal Radiations. Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology, 56(1), 26-33. DOI: 10.1111/j.1550-7408.2008.00373.x
Eikrem, W, Romari, K, Latasa, M, Le Gall, F, & et al. (2004) Florenciella parvula gen. et sp. nov.(Dictyochophyceae, Heterokontophyta), a small flagellate isolated from the English Channel. Phycologia, 43(6), 658-668. info:/
Hibberd, D. (1971) Observations on the cytology and ultrastructure of Chrysamoeba radians Klebs (Chrysophyceae). European Journal of Phycology, 6(2), 207-223. DOI: 10.1080/00071617100650231
- February 7, 2010
- 06:35 AM
- 29 views
Beware The Clam of Forgetfulness
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
Every day, PubCrawler emails to tell me about the latest papers that match various search terms. It means I never miss a relevant paper, but it also means I get told about an awful lot of irrelevant ones. Sometimes though, the title alone grabs my attention and demands a read. Such as yesterday's Risk assessment of the amnesic shellfish poison, domoic acid, on animals and humans. Shellfish causing amnesia?It turns out that there's a neurotoxin, domoic acid, which can indeed cause brain damage including memory loss. It's produced by certain algae, and can accumulate inside shellfish, especially mussels.Domoic acid is responsible for amnesic shellfish poisoning, which struck a cluster of over 100 people in Canada in 1987; 4 died, and several others suffered permanent neurological symptoms, including epilepsy and most notoriously, anterograde amnesia, the inability to form new memories.Autopsies revealed prominent damage to the hippocampus and nearby temporal lobe areas. Domoic acid victims were therefore very similar to Henry Molaison (HM), the most famous amnesia sufferer, whose memory loss was caused by the surgical removal of the same areas.Domoic acid is related to kainic acid, which neuroscientists will have heard of: it's widely used in epilepsy research to give animals seizures, amongst other things. Both are excitotoxins - they kill neurons by over-activating them, which opens ion channels allowing calcium to enter the cell and reach toxic levels. They're able to do this because of their chemical similarity to glutamate, the brain's most common neurotransmitter (and the one that the drug ketamine antagonizes).Since 1987, there have been no further cases in humans, thanks to shellfish harvesting regulations. Marine animals and birds continue to suffer however, especially sea lions, although interestingly, sharks seem to be immune despite having the same glutamate receptors as mammals.Overall, this is one more reason I'm glad to be a vegetarian. Although, that said, there are some equally nasty neurotoxins in plants...Kumar KP, Kumar SP, & Nair GA (2009). Risk assessment of the amnesic shellfish poison, domoic acid, on animals and humans. Journal of environmental biology / Academy of Environmental Biology, India, 30 (3), 319-25 PMID: 20120452... Read more »
Kumar KP, Kumar SP, & Nair GA. (2009) Risk assessment of the amnesic shellfish poison, domoic acid, on animals and humans. Journal of environmental biology / Academy of Environmental Biology, India, 30(3), 319-25. PMID: 20120452
- February 7, 2010
- 06:00 AM
- 32 views
Revisiting 'Autism, Vaccines, and The Oprah Effect'
by Susan Steinhardt in BioData Blogs
In June I commented on the autism - vaccine controversy and the role that Oprah had in promoting it. Seven moths later, I am revisiting this issue. 12 years ago, Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues first published his findings in The Lancet providing ‘evidence’ suggesting they had tracked down a shocking cause of autism – that being the MMR Vaccine. Last week The Lancet published a retraction of Wakefield’s paper stating that “it has become clear that several elements of the 1998 paper by Wakefield et al are incorrect.” ... Read more »
WAKEFIELD, A., MURCH, S., ANTHONY, A., LINNELL, J., CASSON, D., MALIK, M., BERELOWITZ, M., DHILLON, A., THOMSON, M., & HARVEY, P. (1998) Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. The Lancet, 351(9103), 637-641. DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(97)11096-0
The Editors of The Lancet, . (2010) Retraction—Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. The Lancet, 375(9713), 445-445. DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(10)60175-4
- February 6, 2010
- 09:24 PM
- 14 views
Scientists at India’s NIPGR Create a Longer-Lasting Tomato (Studying The Regulation of Fruit Ripening)
by James in James and the Giant Corn
Author’s note: This would seem to be the week for vegetables I hated as a kid. Yesterday was onion, today tomato, if there’s a story about brinjal/eggplant in the next few days we’ll have hit all the big ones.
I was recently pointed to an early publication paper that went up on the Proceedings [...]... Read more »
Meli, V., Ghosh, S., Prabha, T., Chakraborty, N., Chakraborty, S., & Datta, A. (2010) Enhancement of fruit shelf life by suppressing N-glycan processing enzymes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0909329107
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