Other posts
- January 27, 2013
- 05:29 AM
- 286 views
Pandora’s Boxes
by Perikis Livas in Tracing Knowledge
So far the questions about whether nanoparticles are an environmental risk outnumber the answers, which is why the Duke scientists take the precaution of wearing clean-suits while dosing the boxes—no one’s sure what exposure to a high concentration of nanoparticles might do. Among the few things we do know about them are that they sail past the blood-brain barrier and can harm the nervous systems of some animals.... Read more »
Heather Millar. (2013) Pandora’s Boxes. Orion Magazine. info:/
- January 26, 2013
- 10:07 PM
- 230 views
A Little Analysis of the Articles for Science Bloggers
by Usman Paracha in SayPeople
Science blogging is increasingly gaining attraction among the masses. You can consider it as a form of bridge between the common people and the scientists resulting in more awareness of the problems and the solutions.
Paul Knoepfler, an associate professor at the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine, wrote,
“Savvy scientists must increasingly engage with blogs and social media. A new generation of young researchers has grown up with an ever-present Internet. Publishers........ Read more »
Knoepfler, P. (2011) My year as a stem-cell blogger. Nature, 475(7357), 425-425. DOI: 10.1038/475425a
- January 25, 2013
- 08:18 AM
- 165 views
Older Brains Actually Become ‘Full’
by Zach Urbina in United Academics
Newly published research shows that learning gets more difficult as we age, because we can’t push older memories out of our brains. Research conducted by neuroscientists at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University demonstrated that mice with genetically modified brains, made to resemble those of humans in adulthood, had no difficulty forming the kind of strong synaptic connections responsible for learning.... Read more »
Cui, Z., Feng, R., Jacobs, S., Duan, Y., Wang, H., Cao, X., & Tsien, J. (2013) Increased NR2A:NR2B ratio compresses long-term depression range and constrains long-term memory. Scientific Reports. DOI: 10.1038/srep01036
- January 24, 2013
- 04:44 AM
- 104 views
Men Are More Likely to Commit Scientific Fraud
by Carian Thus in United Academics
You’ve probably heard of the scientific fraud conducted by Diederik Stapel, a former professor of social psychology in the Netherlands, which affected at least 55 publications. That he was a male faculty member isn’t that exceptional, according to a recent review of the United States Office of Research Integrity reports. It seems that men are overrepresented among scientists who commit fraud, on all academic levels.... Read more »
Fanga, FC, Bennettb, JW, & Casadevallc, A. (2013) Males Are Overrepresented among Life Science Researchers Committing Scientific Misconduct. mBio, 4(1). info:/doi:10.1128/mBio.00640-12.
- January 24, 2013
- 04:32 AM
- 132 views
The Cello Scrotum Hoax
by Carian Thus in United Academics
Being a professional musician means playing for hours every day, and this devotion can have consequences for the body. Singers may get sore a throat, pianists painful shoulders and male cello players an irritated scrotum – or maybe not.... Read more »
Murphy, J. (1974) Letter: Cello scrotum. BMJ, 2(5914), 335-335. DOI: 10.1136/bmj.2.5914.335-a
- January 22, 2013
- 04:09 AM
- 216 views
ToxBank: the next generation toxicology
by egonw in Chem-bla-ics
Before I moved to my current position in Maastricht, I had the great pleasure to work with Prof. Roland Grafström (check his pathway bioinformatics done with his then PhD Rebecca) and Prof. Bengt Fadeel at the Karolinska Institutet. During this year I part-time worked on ToxBank and part-time on nano-QSAR, and worked on semantics, predictive toxicology, and Open Data. This blog post is about the ToxBank work.
I promised firework, and the first rockets are heading upw........ Read more »
Kohonen, P., Benfenati, E., Bower, D., Ceder, R., Crump, M., Cross, K., Grafström, R., Healy, L., Helma, C., Jeliazkova, N.... (2013) The ToxBank Data Warehouse: Supporting the Replacement of In Vivo Repeated Dose Systemic Toxicity Testing. Molecular Informatics. DOI: 10.1002/minf.201200114
- January 21, 2013
- 06:57 AM
- 262 views
About Parthenon Frieze
by Perikis Livas in Tracing Knowledge
The frieze of the Parthenon forms a continuous band with scenes in relief that encircles the upper part of the cella, the main temple, within the outer colonnade. The theme represented was the procession toward the Acropolis that took place during the Great Panathenaia, the festival in honour of the goddess Athena... Read more »
Repository Parthenon Frieze. (2013) About Parthenon Frieze. National Documentation Center. info:/
- January 21, 2013
- 06:03 AM
- 137 views
Re-Thinking Raw Food Diets
by Patrick Meyer in United Academics
Many health-conscious people have turned to raw foodism (also referred to as raw veganism or raw vegetarianism) in the past decade seeking a dietary plan that maximized the nutritional content of food. The core principle of the raw food diet was that cooking removes significant amounts of vitamins and minerals from food as well as enzymes that aid the body in digestion. It seemed like a health nut’s dream: consumers theoretically get the most vitamins and minerals from food with the least ........ Read more »
Talcott, S., Howard, L., & Brenes, C. (2000) Antioxidant Changes and Sensory Properties of Carrot Puree Processed with and without Periderm Tissue. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 48(4), 1315-1321. DOI: 10.1021/jf9910178
Dewanto, V., Wu, X., Adom, K., & Liu, R. (2002) Thermal Processing Enhances the Nutritional Value of Tomatoes by Increasing Total Antioxidant Activity. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 50(10), 3010-3014. DOI: 10.1021/jf0115589
- January 21, 2013
- 06:02 AM
- 125 views
Possible or Impossible: a Even Bigger Whale
by Gunnar de Winter in United Academics
The Blue Whale (or Balaenoptera musculus) is big. Very big. In fact, as far as we know, it’s the largest animal to have ever lived on earth, growing to roughly 30m and weighing in at an impressive 175 tons. But could there be, or have been, a bigger whale?
A recent research article at PLOS ONE took on the challenge of answering this question.... Read more »
Clauset, A. (2013) How Large Should Whales Be?. PloS one, 8(1). info:/
- January 21, 2013
- 06:00 AM
- 107 views
Scientists Create Gasoline From Plants
by Zach Urbina in United Academics
The next step forward in biofuel production has come from an unlikely source, using a century-old process. A team of chemical engineers at the University of California Berkeley has transformed plants into a clean burning propellant that holds potential to replace gasoline.... Read more »
Anbarasan P, Baer Z, Sreekumar S, Gross E, Binder J, Blanch H, Clark D, & Toste F. (2012) Integration of Chemical Catalysis with Extractive Fermentation to Produce Fuels. Nature, 491(7423), 235-239. DOI: 10.1038/nature11594
- January 20, 2013
- 10:12 AM
- 186 views
Our Imperiled World
by Perikis Livas in Tracing Knowledge
I’m holding in my hands two ball bearings, each about two centimeters in diameter. I propose to build a model of our cosmic environment here at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. The first sphere represents the sun. On this scale Earth will be two meters away, and much too small for you to see it. Mars, even smaller, will be another meter farther from the sun. On this scale, where should we place the second sphere, representing the closest star to our own solar system? On top of ........ Read more »
Owen Gingerich. (2013) Our Imperiled World. The American Scholar. info:/
- January 17, 2013
- 12:01 PM
- 126 views
Q&A: Is Industrial Living Making Us—and our Descendants—Obese?
by Andrew Porterfield in United Academics
Common chemicals could be making us obese.... Read more »
Chamorro-García, R., Sahu, M., Abbey, R., Laude, J., Pham, N., & Blumberg, B. (2013) Transgenerational Inheritance of Increased Fat Depot Size, Stem Cell Reprogramming, and Hepatic Steatosis Elicited by Prenatal Obesogen Tributyltin in Mice. Environmental Health Perspectives. DOI: 10.1289/ehp.1205701
- January 17, 2013
- 09:21 AM
- 154 views
Good to Know: Most People Only Breathe out of One Nostril at a Time
by Carian Thus in United Academics
Did you know that around 85% of humans only breathe out of one nostril at a time? This fact may surprise you, but even more remarkable is the following: our body follows a pattern and switches from breathing out of one nostril to the other in a cyclical way.... Read more »
Gotlib T, Samoliński B, & Arcimowicz M. (2002) [Spontaneous changes of nasal patency, the nasal cycle, classification, frequency, and clinical significance]. Otolaryngologia polska. The Polish otolaryngology, 56(4), 421-5. PMID: 12378800
- January 17, 2013
- 06:58 AM
- 116 views
Is There a Leadership Gene?
by Mark Fonseca Rendeiro in United Academics
The conclusion came out of a study involving 4,000 participants who were matched with information about jobs and relationships. One of their main methods of measurement was to see what type of supervisory roles they had at work. The result showed that 1/4th of the group's "leadership variation traits" could be linked to genetics.
... Read more »
De Neve, J., Mikhaylov, S., Dawes, C., Christakis, N., & Fowler, J. (2013) Born to lead? A twin design and genetic association study of leadership role occupancy. The Leadership Quarterly, 24(1), 45-60. DOI: 10.1016/j.leaqua.2012.08.001
- January 17, 2013
- 05:40 AM
- 296 views
Jews Deserved the Holocaust: Blaming the Victim Phenomenon
by Carian Thus in United Academics
We all want to believe that we live in a just world, where everything happens for a reason. Because, to believe otherwise, it would mean that no matter how we behave, something terrible could happen to us and that idea makes us anxious.... Read more »
Lerner MJ, & Simmons CH. (1966) Observer's reaction to the "innocent victim": compassion or rejection?. Journal of personality and social psychology, 4(2), 203-10. PMID: 5969146
Lerner, M., & Miller, D. (1978) Just world research and the attribution process: Looking back and ahead. Psychological Bulletin, 85(5), 1030-1051. DOI: 10.1037//0033-2909.85.5.1030
- January 16, 2013
- 11:35 AM
- 160 views
Stapled Peptides Target ‘Undruggable’ Diseases
by Andrew Porterfield in United Academics
One huge problem with developing drugs lies with protein behavior. Distorted proteins which cause disease can be very hard to reach from outside the cell, while protein-based drug candidates very often break apart, or can’t navigate intricate cell anatomy well enough to make a connection.... Read more »
Sheridan, C. (2010) Roche backs Aileron's stapled peptides. Nature Biotechnology, 28(10), 992-993. DOI: 10.1038/nbt1010-992c
- January 15, 2013
- 08:47 AM
- 129 views
Waxing and Trimming Brings The End of Pubic Lice
by Zach Urbina in United Academics
There are few, if any, species of organisms whose extinction we could all agree would be beneficial, however in the case of the pubic louse, we may have found an exception. Commonly known as “crabs,” the notorious pubic louse is disappearing.
Australia’s sexual health clinic in Sydney has not reported a woman with pubic lice since 2008 and male cases are down 80%, from roughly 100 incidences ten years ago.
‘It used to be extremely common; its now rarely seen,’........ Read more »
Smolak, L., & Murnen, S. (2011) Gender, Self-Objectification and Pubic Hair Removal. Sex Roles, 65(7-8), 506-517. DOI: 10.1007/s11199-010-9922-z
- January 15, 2013
- 04:13 AM
- 129 views
Data Visualization: Detecting International Election Fraud Using Statistics
by Zach Urbina in United Academics
Even if you cheat, the geeks will always win. This simple but elegant statistical approach proves to be a remarkable method of detecting centrally sanctioned election fraud. Two glaring examples in Uganda and Russia show clusters of outlying votes in the upper right region of the plots. Those questionable areas, circled in red, indicate 100% turnout and 100% of votes for the winner. The Canadian plot show two diverse clusters, indicating differntiation between the Québécois and E........ Read more »
Klimek P,, Yegorov Y,, Hanel R, , & Thurner S. (2012) Statistical Detection of Systematic Election Irregularities. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(41), 16469-16473. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1210722109
- January 14, 2013
- 08:32 PM
- 178 views
More Milk drinking in a Nation, More chances of winning Nobel Prizes
by Usman Paracha in SayPeople
Researchers have found that the nations that drink a lot of milk and consume milk products have more ability to win Nobel prizes.
This research has been published online in the journal Practical Neurology.
In the last quarter of the last year, a research was published in the New England Journal of Medicine showing that the nation’s chocolate consumption has strong relation to the Nobel Prize winning ability. The research proposed that the flavonoid content of the chocolate is respons........ Read more »
Linthwaite, S., & Fuller, G. (2013) Milk, chocolate and Nobel prizes. Practical Neurology, 13(1), 63-63. DOI: 10.1136/practneurol-2012-000471
- January 14, 2013
- 05:26 AM
- 144 views
Can MOOC’s Really Transform Education?
by Jason Carr in Wired Cosmos
Traditional colleges often struggle with limited space availability in popular (or even core curriculum) courses. Higher education costs in the U.S. have sky-rocketed in recent years. A recent USA Today article reported that costs to attend a 4-year public university rose a staggering 15% between 2008 and 2010. To make matters worse, many graduates that [...]... Read more »
Dalal D, Brancati FL, & Sisson SD. (2012) Factors affecting learner satisfaction with an internet-based curriculum. Southern medical journal, 105(8), 387-91. PMID: 22864092
Mark Hochberg, J. (2006) Online Distance Education Pedagogy: Emulating the practice of global business. Distance Education, 27(1), 129-133. DOI: 10.1080/01587910600654841
Forster, A. (2012) , edited by E. Burge, C. Campbell Gibson , and T. Gibson . Distance Education, 33(3), 429-436. DOI: 10.1080/01587919.2012.723169
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