Biology posts
- April 16, 2013
- 03:05 PM
- 63 views
Pre-publication: Brain growth in Homo erectus (plus free code!)
by zacharoo in Lawn Chair Anthropology
The annual meetings of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists were going on all last week, and I gave my first talk before the Association. The talk focused on using resampling methods and the abysmal human fossil record to assess whether human-like brain size growth rates were present in our >1 mya ancestor Homo erectus. This is something I've actually been sitting on for a while, but wanted to wait til the talk to post for all to see. Here's a brief version:Background: Hu........ Read more »
Coqueugniot H, Hublin JJ, Veillon F, Houët F, & Jacob T. (2004) Early brain growth in Homo erectus and implications for cognitive ability. Nature, 431(7006), 299-302. PMID: 15372030
Coqueugniot H, & Hublin JJ. (2012) Age-related changes of digital endocranial volume during human ontogeny: results from an osteological reference collection. American journal of physical anthropology, 147(2), 312-8. PMID: 22190338
DeSilva JM, & Lesnik JJ. (2008) Brain size at birth throughout human evolution: a new method for estimating neonatal brain size in hominins. Journal of human evolution, 55(6), 1064-74. PMID: 18789811
Herculano-Houzel S. (2012) The remarkable, yet not extraordinary, human brain as a scaled-up primate brain and its associated cost. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 10661-8. PMID: 22723358
Herndon JG, Tigges J, Anderson DC, Klumpp SA, & McClure HM. (1999) Brain weight throughout the life span of the chimpanzee. The Journal of comparative neurology, 409(4), 567-72. PMID: 10376740
Leigh SR. (2004) Brain growth, life history, and cognition in primate and human evolution. American journal of primatology, 62(3), 139-64. PMID: 15027089
Neubauer, S., Gunz, P., Schwarz, U., Hublin, J., & Boesch, C. (2012) Brief communication: Endocranial volumes in an ontogenetic sample of chimpanzees from the taï forest national park, ivory coast. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 147(2), 319-325. DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.21641
Sakai T, Matsui M, Mikami A, Malkova L, Hamada Y, Tomonaga M, Suzuki J, Tanaka M, Miyabe-Nishiwaki T, Makishima H.... (2013) Developmental patterns of chimpanzee cerebral tissues provide important clues for understanding the remarkable enlargement of the human brain. Proceedings. Biological sciences / The Royal Society, 280(1753), 20122398. PMID: 23256194
- April 16, 2013
- 01:28 PM
- 91 views
Don’t Worry about Your Liver!
by Geetanjali Yadav in United Academics
How would you feel if you would have an eternal liver, a liver that lasts forever? Recently, researchers have found gene targets which will boost the regenerative capacity of your liver cells. This means a complete cure for all your liver related problems!... Read more »
Wuestefeld, T., Pesic, M., Rudalska, R., Dauch, D., Longerich, T., Kang, T., Yevsa,T.,, Heinzmann, F., Hoenicke, L., Hohmeyer,A., Potapova,A., Rittelmeier, I., Jarek,M., Geffers,R.,, Scharfe, M., Klawonn, F., Schirmacher, P., Malek, N., Ott, M., Nordheim, A., Vogel, A.,, & Manns, M. . (2013) A Direct In Vivo RNAi Screen Identifies MKK4 as a Key Regulator of Liver Regeneration. Cell, 153(2). info:/
- April 16, 2013
- 11:37 AM
- 64 views
Homing Pigeons Never Stop Learning Ways to Get Home
by Elizabeth Preston in Inkfish
A young homing pigeon must learn quickly how to find its way home from the strange neighborhoods where humans insist on leaving it. At first the bird does this by relying on its crudest instincts, returning to its roost along a route full of youthful zigzags. Over time, though, it refines its methods. A mature pigeon takes a much simpler route, because it has drawn itself a more complex map.
Homing pigeons have been subjected to all kinds of research. The latest study used GPS devices, whic........ Read more »
Schiffner, I., & Wiltschko, R. (2013) Development of the navigational system in homing pigeons: increase in complexity of the navigational map. Journal of Experimental Biology. DOI: 10.1242/jeb.085662
- April 16, 2013
- 10:50 AM
- 61 views
Mass. General team develops implantable, bioengineered rat kidney
by Perikis Livas in Tracing Knowledge
Bioengineered rat kidneys developed by Massachusetts General Hospital investigators successfully produced urine both in a laboratory apparatus and after being transplanted into living animals.... Read more »
Kory Dodd Zhao. (2013) Mass. General team develops implantable, bioengineered rat kidney. Massachusetts General Hospital . info:/
- April 16, 2013
- 08:28 AM
- 54 views
Stem Cells Wanted: Alive Not Dead
by Stephanie Swift in mmmbitesizescience
Stem cell therapies are taking off, in a surprisingly unregulated way. While most humans have to go to places like South Korea to receive them, horses, dogs, cats, pigs and tigers are already being treated in North America. The most … Continue reading →... Read more »
Corselli, M., Chin, C., Parekh, C., Sahaghian, A., Wang, W., Ge, S., Evseenko, D., Wang, X., Montelatici, E., Lazzari, L.... (2013) Perivascular support of human hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells. Blood, 121(15), 2891-2901. DOI: 10.1182/blood-2012-08-451864
Glettig, D.L., & Kaplan, D.L. (2013) Extending Human Hematopoietic Stem Cell Survival In Vitro with Adipocytes. BioResearch Open Access. info:/
- April 16, 2013
- 12:57 AM
- 50 views
The poultry microbiome, once again proving that culture-based ecology misleads us all
by Austin Bouck in Animal Science Review
If the world was enriched and homogenized, we would actually have a very good idea of what the microbiological community within looks like. Fortunately, the world is much more complex than the miniature environments we culture in the lab, and high throughput sequencing (HTS) is allowing us to fully appreciate micro-biodiversity. As new information becomes available, many of our models for microbial communities continue to be challenged by the actual composition of species in natural environments........ Read more »
Oakley BB, Morales CA, Line J, Berrang ME, Meinersmann RJ, Tillman GE, Wise MG, Siragusa GR, Hiett KL, & Seal BS. (2013) The Poultry-Associated Microbiome: Network Analysis and Farm-to-Fork Characterizations. PloS one, 8(2). PMID: 23468931
- April 15, 2013
- 01:05 PM
- 78 views
Recent Developments in Blastocystis Research
by Christen Rune Stensvold in Blastocystis Parasite Blog
An #openaccess link to a 2013 review in Advances in Parasitology on recent developments in Blastocystis research.... Read more »
Clark CG, van der Giezen M, Alfellani MA, & Stensvold CR. (2013) Recent developments in blastocystis research. Advances in parasitology, 1-32. PMID: 23548084
- April 15, 2013
- 07:47 AM
- 75 views
Another Penis Story: Size Matters, Up to a Point
by Andrew Porterfield in United Academics
While females are attracted to larger penises, their interest only extends to a degree and penis size isn’t the only trait that concerns them, a new Australian study shows. Although this finding grabbed a lot of headlines, the research also provided insight into how genitalia can evolve, even without having offspring.... Read more »
Mautz, B., Wong, B., Peters, R., & Jennions, M. (2013) Penis size interacts with body shape and height to influence male attractiveness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1219361110
- April 15, 2013
- 05:31 AM
- 6 views
Is that a dolphin whistle I hear? No, it’s either a submarine or Harland Williams.
by Justin Gregg in Justin Gregg
claimtoken-516ec066cd42e As we all know from watching The Hunt for Red October, submarine sonar operators have an almost super-human ability to identify underwater sounds. They can tell the difference between different types of military ships based solely on the sound produced by the engine, and it would be almost impossible to transmit man-made communication signals [...]... Read more »
Liu S, Qiao G, & Ismail A. (2013) Covert underwater acoustic communication using dolphin sounds. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 133(4). PMID: 23556695
- April 14, 2013
- 08:26 PM
- 60 views
The resilience of coral reefs
by Mostly Open Ocean in Mostly Open Ocean
Many people are justifiably concerned with the potential impacts of climate change and ocean acidification on coral reefs. But, coral reefs have been declining for at least the last 25 years and probably much longer, overwhelmingly due to threats that are unrelated to climate change. If we do not address these impacts we will continue to lose coral cover and reefs will be more vulnerable to climate change and ocean acidification.A coral outcrop on the Great Barrier Reef (photo Wikipedia)A new pa........ Read more »
Gilmour, J., Smith, L., Heyward, A., Baird, A., & Pratchett, M. (2013) Recovery of an Isolated Coral Reef System Following Severe Disturbance. Science, 340(6128), 69-71. DOI: 10.1126/science.1232310
- April 14, 2013
- 10:52 AM
- 86 views
Fatigue severity and serum leptin levels in chronic fatigue syndrome
by Paul Whiteley in Questioning Answers
In the very complicated world of medical research and science, the days of one chemical, one metabolite, or one gene driving and sustaining ill-health and particular diseases or conditions seem to be all but long past. Sure, there are conditions which on the surface seem to be driven by only one factor, but more often than not is the realisation that we humans are very complicated creatures indeed.Leptin @ Wikipedia I was therefore interested to read the paper by Elizabeth Stringer and col........ Read more »
Stringer, E., Baker, K., Carroll, I., Montoya, J., Chu, L., Maecker, H., & Younger, J. (2013) Daily cytokine fluctuations, driven by leptin, are associated with fatigue severity in chronic fatigue syndrome: evidence of inflammatory pathology. Journal of Translational Medicine, 11(1), 93. DOI: 10.1186/1479-5876-11-93
- April 14, 2013
- 05:30 AM
- 17 views
Egalitarians’ dilemma and the cognitive cost of ethnocentrism
by Artem Kaznatcheev in Evolutionary Games Group
Ethnocentrism (or contingent altruism) can be viewed as one of many mechanisms for enabling cooperation. The agents are augmented with a hereditary tag and the strategy space is extended from just cooperation/defection to behaviour that can be contingent on if the diad share or differ in their tag. The tags and strategy are not inherently [...]... Read more »
Kaznatcheev, Artem. (2010) The cognitive cost of ethnocentrism. Proceedings of the 32nd annual conference of the cognitive science society. info:/
- April 13, 2013
- 04:26 PM
- 83 views
Can we predict evolution?
by Bjørn Østman in Pleiotropy
Evolution is predictable if we know population size, mutation rate, and the fitness landscape.... Read more »
Szendro IG, Franke J, de Visser JA, & Krug J. (2013) Predictability of evolution depends nonmonotonically on population size. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 110(2), 571-6. PMID: 23267075
Ostman B, Hintze A, & Adami C. (2012) Impact of epistasis and pleiotropy on evolutionary adaptation. Proceedings. Biological sciences / The Royal Society, 279(1727), 247-56. PMID: 21697174
- April 13, 2013
- 10:54 AM
- 64 views
Seeing Inside Cells: Array Tomography
by TheCellularScale in The Cellular Scale
I wrote a lot about dopamine and its complicated nature last month after coming back from the IBAGs conference, so for a change of pace, I'll talk about some truly amazing new techniques that allow us to see inside cells with unprecedented resolution and at unprecedented volumes.I've previously discussed some traditional techniques for visualizing specific details in neurons, and this month I'm going to talk about some of the newest fanciest ways to look at cellular scale information. Firs........ Read more »
Micheva KD, Busse B, Weiler NC, O'Rourke N, & Smith SJ. (2010) Single-synapse analysis of a diverse synapse population: proteomic imaging methods and markers. Neuron, 68(4), 639-53. PMID: 21092855
- April 12, 2013
- 10:44 PM
- 77 views
The Artful Badger
by Denise O'Meara in A dribble of knowledge
Badgers (Meles meles) In Ireland...... Read more »
Del Cerro, I., Marmi, J., Ferrando, A., Chashchin, P., Taberlet, P., & Bosch, M. (2010) Nuclear and mitochondrial phylogenies provide evidence for four species of Eurasian badgers (Carnivora). Zoologica Scripta, 39(5), 415-425. DOI: 10.1111/j.1463-6409.2010.00436.x
O'Meara, D., Edwards, C., Sleeman, D., Cross, T., Statham, M., Mcdowell, J., Dillane, E., Coughlan, J., O'Leary, D., O'Reilly, C.... (2012) Genetic structure of Eurasian badgers Meles meles (Carnivora: Mustelidae) and the colonization history of Ireland. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 106(4), 893-909. DOI: 10.1111/j.1095-8312.2012.01927.x
Zachos, F., Apollonio, M., Bärmann, E., Festa-Bianchet, M., Göhlich, U., Habel, J., Haring, E., Kruckenhauser, L., Lovari, S., McDevitt, A.... (2013) Species inflation and taxonomic artefacts—A critical comment on recent trends in mammalian classification. Mammalian Biology - Zeitschrift für Säugetierkunde, 78(1), 1-6. DOI: 10.1016/j.mambio.2012.07.083
- April 12, 2013
- 04:21 PM
- 67 views
Om Nom Nom: The Links Between Plant Diversity and Herbivory
by Melissa Chernick in Science Storiented
I usually start a post with the reason why a particular article caught my eye. Today, I’m not sure why my eyeballs glommed on to this paper, but they did. As it turns out, they have a pretty good taste in articles. Who knew?An early view paper from the Journal of Ecology looks at how the large herbivores of the African savanna affect the diversity and community structure of plants. More and more studies these days are taking a phylogenetic approach to community ecology questions. That is, they........ Read more »
Kowiyou Yessoufou, T. Jonathan Davies, Olivier Maurin, Maria Kuzmina, Hanno Schaefer, Michelle van der Bank, & Vincent Savolainen. (2013) Large herbivores favour species diversity but have mixed impacts on phylogenetic community structure in an African savanna ecosystem. Journal of Ecology. info:/10.1111/1365-2745.12059
- April 12, 2013
- 11:39 AM
- 92 views
Getting CLARITY: Hydrogel process developed at Stanford creates transparent brain
by Perikis Livas in Tracing Knowledge
Combining neuroscience and chemical engineering, researchers at Stanford University have developed a process that renders a mouse brain transparent. The postmortem brain remains whole — not sliced or sectioned in any way — with its three-dimensional complexity of fine wiring and molecular structures completely intact and able to be measured and probed at will with visible light and chemicals.... Read more »
ANDREW MYERS. (2013) Getting CLARITY: Hydrogel process developed at Stanford creates transparent brain. Stanford School of Medicine. info:/
- April 12, 2013
- 11:07 AM
- 76 views
April 12, 2013
by Erin Campbell in HighMag Blog
I think I speak for many when I say that dinosaurs were the first objects of our life-long science obsessions. Their size, history, and ferocious good looks fascinate even the youngest preschoolers. Although my obsession turned to microscopic things, some folks remained true to their love of dinosaurs and history. Today’s image is a treat, and a great example of how the basic questions in developmental biology know no timeline.The study of dinosaur embryos at the cellular lev........ Read more »
Reisz, R., Huang, T., Roberts, E., Peng, S., Sullivan, C., Stein, K., LeBlanc, A., Shieh, D., Chang, R., Chiang, C.... (2013) Embryology of Early Jurassic dinosaur from China with evidence of preserved organic remains. Nature, 496(7444), 210-214. DOI: 10.1038/nature11978
- April 12, 2013
- 07:40 AM
- 86 views
Exploring The Brain Without Cutting It Open
by Katja Keuchenius in United Academics
Until now we were able to use scans (like the one pictured on the left) to have a quick look at the brain. But to dig deeper into the mystery hidden in our skull, scientists had to slice the matter up, which makes it hard for them to keep the general overview of the brain. Now there’s a new way: biologists managed to make brains transparent.... Read more »
Chung, K., Wallace, J., Kim, S., Kalyanasundaram, S., Andalman, A., Davidson, T., Mirzabekov, J., Zalocusky, K., Mattis, J., Denisin, A.... (2013) Structural and molecular interrogation of intact biological systems. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/nature12107
- April 12, 2013
- 04:53 AM
- 98 views
ADHD and a sunny disposition
by Paul Whiteley in Questioning Answers
'Light it up blue' is probably a familiar phrase to many of those involved with autism as being the message championed by Autism Speaks on World Autism Awareness Day (2 April). The intention is noble enough: to bring autism to the attention of the world at large and importantly, keep their attention and resources focused on autism. I might add that awareness is one thing; actually 'doing something about autism' - whether that means improving prospects or modifying the course of autism or just le........ Read more »
Arns M, van der Heijden KB, Arnold LE, & Kenemans JL. (2013) Geographic Variation in the Prevalence of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: The Sunny Perspective. Biological psychiatry. PMID: 23523340
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