Biology posts
- August 30, 2009
- 04:35 AM
- 667 views
Profile: Christie Wilcox
by Susan Steinhardt in BioData Blogs
Christie Wilcox is now passionate toward conservation biology, although she didn’t originally start off that way. While she always had an affinity to nature and animals, she didn’t realize that she wanted to be a biologist until she “stumbled” upon it in college. “When I’m at the beach and everyone is running away from jellyfish, I get excited and run up closer to check it out!”... Read more »
Smith, N., Wilcox, C., & Lessmann, J. (2009) Fiddler crab burrowing affects growth and production of the white mangrove (Laguncularia racemosa) in a restored Florida coastal marsh. Marine Biology. DOI: 10.1007/s00227-009-1253-7
- August 30, 2009
- 04:35 AM
- 525 views
Profile: Christie Wilcox
by Susan Steinhardt in The PostDoc Forum
Christie Wilcox is now passionate toward conservation biology, although she didn’t originally start off that way. While she always had an affinity to nature and animals, she didn’t realize that she wanted to be a biologist until she “stumbled” upon it in college. “When I’m at the beach and everyone is running away from jellyfish, I get excited and run up closer to check it out!”
Wilcox began at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida, as a double major in physics and marine biology. After her first semester, Christie decided that the more advanced math that physics required was not for her, so she dropped physics and continued with her major in marine biology. Once Christie became more involved in marine biology, she realized that she wanted to focus more on cells and how they function, and their inter-relationships to the whole animal.... Read more »
Smith, N., Wilcox, C., & Lessmann, J. (2009) Fiddler crab burrowing affects growth and production of the white mangrove (Laguncularia racemosa) in a restored Florida coastal marsh. Marine Biology. DOI: 10.1007/s00227-009-1253-7
- August 28, 2009
- 07:35 PM
- 651 views
Riding the Recession
by Journal Watch Online in Journal Watch Online
Global financial crisis might cause spike in marine species transport
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Floerl, O., & Coutts, A. (2009) Potential ramifications of the global economic crisis on human-mediated dispersal of marine non-indigenous species. Marine Pollution Bulletin. DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2009.08.003
- August 28, 2009
- 02:14 PM
- 1,216 views
Influenza PB1-F2 protein and viral fitness
by Vincent Racaniello in virology blog
The second RNA segment of the influenza virus genome encodes the PB1 protein – part of the viral RNA polymerase – and, in some strains, a second protein called PB1-F2. The latter protein is believed to be an important determinant of influenza virus virulence. The absence of a full-length PB1-F2 protein has been suggested [...]... Read more »
Trifonov, V., Racaniello, V., & Rabadan, R. (2009) The Contribution of the PB1-F2 Protein to the Fitness of Influenza A Viruses and its Recent Evolution in the 2009 Influenza A (H1N1) Pandemic Virus. PLoS Currents: Influenza. info:other/
- August 28, 2009
- 10:33 AM
- 672 views
Influenza – more diverse than you thought
by iayork in Mystery Rays from Outer Space
“Virons le virus” (Institut Merieux Benelux, 1991)
One of the important drivers of influenza virus evolution is mixed infection: Infection of the same individual with two different strains of virus, which can then reassort to generate brand-new viral genomes. This presumably what happened, for example, with the recent swine-origin influenza virus (SOIV): some pig was [...]... Read more »
Ghedin, E., Fitch, A., Boyne, A., Griesemer, S., DePasse, J., Bera, J., Zhang, X., Halpin, R., Smit, M., Jennings, L.... (2009) Mixed Infection and the Genesis of Influenza Virus Diversity. Journal of Virology, 83(17), 8832-8841. DOI: 10.1128/JVI.00773-09
- August 28, 2009
- 09:20 AM
- 592 views
Still not "new" or "artificial"
by Daniel in Ego sum Daniel
After having headed the efforts to transplant a bacterial genome from one species to the other and to create a synthetic bacterial genome from scratch, Craig Venter predicts to finally have a synthetic species created before the end of the year. Judging by the results published in advance on the Science express website last week (find it on the print issue of Science soon), it seems his J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) is well on its way. In a post from last year I commented on the JCVI's creation of a synthetic Mycoplasma genitalium genome and lamented the media coverage's choice of terms ("playing god", "man-made life", "creating life from scratch", et c.) to describe the in and of themselves impressive results. I wrote:... terms like "playing god" or "creating new life from scratch" are inaccurate because technically you'd have to insert the artificial genome into a host cell and produce a viable organism, one that could replicate itself, before you'd have created life. Theoretically this isn't impossible or even particularly incredible, but it poses a whole lot of technical demands. And would this life actually really be "new" or even entirely synthetic?With these latest results it seems we're a step closer to just that, even if it still doesn't fulfill the criteria I'd use to characterize a completely new or artificial or even synthetic organism. By cloning a transformed version of a Mycoplasma mycoides genome in yeast cells, then transplanting it into a recipient cell of a closely relates species, Mycoplasma capricolum, and producing viable colonies of engineered M. mycoides, basically "re-booting" cells with a new genome (how cool is that!?), the team at JCVI developed a protocol through which it would be possible to take a completely synthetic genome, clone it and introduce it into "empty" receptor cells to produce a "new" and engineered species. The difficulty had been to successfully transplant the engineered bacterial genome from the yeast cells to the final receptor bacterial cell. The use of yeast cells to engineer the genome is essential since there are well-established genetic tools for yeast that are not available for the bacteria used. To solve this issue the team destroyed the recipient cell's defense against foreign DNA, a restriction endonuclease that cleaves foreign DNA into pieces, and modified the donor genome so that it exhibited the same methylation pattern as native M. capricolum DNA. Methylation is a secondary modification of the DNA molecule that affects gene expression and is used by bacterial cells to prevent their own DNA from being cleaved by endonucleases.It's going to be very interesting to see if JCVI will be able to combine their ability to synthesize a bacterial genome with these latest achievements to create a synthetic species before year's end. Whenever they do it, the question still remains if this would constitute "new" or "artificial" life. In my opinion it would still very much be "old life" put together in new ways, which is still a great feat and an important advance in science, don't get me wrong; but "new life" or "artificial life" are nothing by hype-y buzzwords. I've written two posts about it. The media reports this time around have so far been better than last year, without hyperbolic mentions of "playing god" or anything like that. There's the article I link to at the top of this post from The Times Online, and another at MIT's Technology Review. Meanwhile a post at a Discover Magazine blog opens with:Although scientists may not have come close to cataloging all the different kinds of life on the planet, genetics pioneer Craig Venter is pressing ahead with his plans to create biology version 2.0.Biology version 2.0!? That makes no sense whatsoever. Lartigue, C., Vashee, S., Algire, M., Chuang, R., Benders, G., Ma, L., Noskov, V., Denisova, E., Gibson, D., Assad-Garcia, N., Alperovich, N., Thomas, D., Merryman, C., Hutchison, C., Smith, H., Venter, J., & Glass, J. (2009). Creating Bacterial Strains from Genomes That Have Been Cloned and Engineered in Yeast Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1173759Swedish blog tags: Vetenskap, BiologiTechnorati tags: Science, Biology, Genomics, Venter
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Lartigue, C., Vashee, S., Algire, M., Chuang, R., Benders, G., Ma, L., Noskov, V., Denisova, E., Gibson, D., Assad-Garcia, N.... (2009) Creating Bacterial Strains from Genomes That Have Been Cloned and Engineered in Yeast. Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.1173759
- August 28, 2009
- 08:57 AM
- 596 views
Skylarks don’t talk to strangers…or wanderers
by Katie Kline in EcoTone
Bird songs are among the most complex and fascinating forms of animal communication. Tiny differences in bird songs can often result in “dialects”, where populations of the same species have slightly different variations on the same songs. In a study out today in Naturwissenshaften, ornithologists have taken it a step further. Some skylarks can not [...]
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Briefer, E., Aubin, T., & Rybak, F. (2009) Response to displaced neighbours in a territorial songbird with a large repertoire. Naturwissenschaften, 96(9), 1067-1077. DOI: 10.1007/s00114-009-0567-0
- August 28, 2009
- 08:08 AM
- 1,358 views
[150th post!] GPCR receptor hidden life
by 96well in Reportergene
hidden life of GPCR receptors unveiled with reporter approaches Two recent studies exploited reporter genes to unveil hidden secrets of GPCR signaling which is apparently harder to die than expected. From the cell surface, G-Protein Coupled Receptors are activated by the intended ligand. According to the current feed-back dogma, excessive stimulation results in de-activation (de-sensitization) of the receptor and subsequent internalization.With a genetically-encoded FRET sensor, Païkan Marcaggi and colleagues noted on PNAS that prolonged exposure to a ligand (glutamate) actually increases the sensitivity of the receptor (mGluR) to its ligand, in marked contrast to the desensitization typically observed in such receptors. The group is prototyping a model for receptor activity in which mGluR1 signaling behavior relates primarily to overall duration of glutamate release rather than fluctuations in local neurotransmitter concentration.Following down the feed-back dogma, once internalized, GPCRs are supposed to stop signaling. Davide Calebiro and colleagues recently shared on PLOS Biology the results obtained with a transgenic mouse expressing a fluorescent sensor for GPCRs signaling. By analysing second messengers dynamics, they showed that a GPCR continues to stimulate second messenger production in a sustained manner after internalization.By citing H.P. Rang, Receptor theory is becoming increasingly inadequate as an overall framework for interpreting and analysing drug effects. Studying reporter genes in the context of reporter mice might provide a revolutionary revision in neuroscience, endocrinology and pharmacology.Marcaggi, P., Mutoh, H., Dimitrov, D., Beato, M., & Knopfel, T. (2009). Optical measurement of mGluR1 conformational changes reveals fast activation, slow deactivation, and sensitization Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106 (27), 11388-11393 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0901290106Calebiro, D., Nikolaev, V., Gagliani, M., de Filippis, T., Dees, C., Tacchetti, C., Persani, L., & Lohse, M. (2009). Persistent cAMP-Signals Triggered by Internalized G-Protein–Coupled Receptors PLoS Biology, 7 (8) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000172
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Marcaggi, P., Mutoh, H., Dimitrov, D., Beato, M., & Knopfel, T. (2009) Optical measurement of mGluR1 conformational changes reveals fast activation, slow deactivation, and sensitization. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(27), 11388-11393. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0901290106
Calebiro, D., Nikolaev, V., Gagliani, M., de Filippis, T., Dees, C., Tacchetti, C., Persani, L., & Lohse, M. (2009) Persistent cAMP-Signals Triggered by Internalized G-Protein–Coupled Receptors. PLoS Biology, 7(8). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000172
- August 28, 2009
- 01:18 AM
- 938 views
Friday Weird Science: An Unusual PenPal
by Evil Monkey in Neurotopia
Sci heard of today's Friday Weird Science via the magic of Twitter (follow me if you like. Or don't. Sometimes I tweet haikus). It's actually almost too bad, I was GOING to write something not related to penises, but then this came out, and Sci had no choice. When something this outrageous hits the internet...well someone has to blog it.
Forde, et al. "An unusual penpal: case report and literature review of posterior urethral injuries secondary to foreign body insertion" The Canadian Journal of Urology, 2009.
This is a story of what happens when you combine a man, a sexual encounter, a pen, and a complete and thorough ignorance of human anatomy.
Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Forde JC, Casey RG, & Grainger R. (2009) An unusual penpal: case report and literature review of posterior urethral injuries secondary to foreign body insertion. The Canadian journal of urology, 16(4), 4757-9. PMID: 19671232
- August 28, 2009
- 12:38 AM
- 609 views
The Spread of Power
by Journal Watch Online in Journal Watch Online
Reducing emissions could increase land use for energy
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McDonald, R., Fargione, J., Kiesecker, J., Miller, W., & Powell, J. (2009) Energy Sprawl or Energy Efficiency: Climate Policy Impacts on Natural Habitat for the United States of America. PLoS ONE, 4(8). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0006802
- August 27, 2009
- 11:37 PM
- 638 views
What happened to the eighth dog hair style?
by Keith Robison in Omics! Omics!
For the second time this summer Science has another step forward in understanding the genetics of dog breeds. Previously it was the identification of a post-wolf event which led to short-legged dogs (which includes my faithful assistant); this time it is that a large (600+ dogs) genetic study has shown that vast majority of dog coat types can be explained by just three genes (you'll need a Science subscription to access these).Figure 3 of the paper makes the point quite graphically. The three genes found in the study are FGF5, RSPO2 and KRT71. FGF5 is a secreted growth factor previously implicated in hair development, RSPO2 is a regulator of the Wnt pathway known to be important in hair follicles and KRT71 is a keratin which causes a curly phenotype when mutated in mice. So even though these were found by a genome-wide genetic study, they are all excellent candidate genes. Below is my version of Figure 3 (which has illustrations of the dog breeds). Furnishings are extra hair around the eyebrows. Wolf means the ancestral genotype and novel a genotype that post-dates domestication.PhenotypeExemplarFGF5RSPO2KRT71ShortBasset houndwolfwolfwolfWire Australian terrierwolfnovelwolfWire and CurlyAiredale TerrierwolfnovelnovelLong Golden RetrievernovelwolfwolfLong with FurnishingsBearded CollienovelnovelwolfCurly Irish Water SpanielnovelwolfnovelCurly with FurnishingsBichon Frise novelnovelnovelNow, this covers a lot of furry ground. The paper claims it describes coat configuration in 95% of the 108 breeds examined. There are some strange coats probably not covered by this work (for example, the Komondor and Puli, which grow dreadlocks -- I haven't seen one personally yet). They do note that a few very long haired breeds (Afghan hound) lack the FGF5 mutation found here, suggesting that some breeds use a different genetic strategy.The variants themselves are a mix (mutts?). RSPO2 as a mutation in the 3' non-coding region which the paper shows increases expression by about 3 fold. The FGF5 mutation changes a conserved amino acid from Cys to Phe; that Cys may well be involved in a covalent Cys-Cys bond in the structure (common in secreted proteins). The KRT71 mutation is also a coding region mutation.But the more obvious question to me is they describe 3 essentially binary genetic determinants of coat style -- but describe only 7 combinations not the 8 which could be expected. The missing genotype in the table is wolf-like at FGF5 and RSPO2 but with the novel (post-domestication) genotype at KRT71. Presumably this would yield a short, curly phenotype -- perhaps too short for curling to observed and the trait pair to be selected by breeders.Cadieu, E., Neff, M., Quignon, P., Walsh, K., Chase, K., Parker, H., VonHoldt, B., Rhue, A., Boyko, A., Byers, A., Wong, A., Mosher, D., Elkahloun, A., Spady, T., Andre, C., Lark, K., Cargill, M., Bustamante, C., Wayne, R., & Ostrander, E. (2009). Coat Variation in the Domestic Dog Is Governed by Variants in Three Genes Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1177808... Read more »
Cadieu, E., Neff, M., Quignon, P., Walsh, K., Chase, K., Parker, H., VonHoldt, B., Rhue, A., Boyko, A., Byers, A.... (2009) Coat Variation in the Domestic Dog Is Governed by Variants in Three Genes. Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.1177808
- August 27, 2009
- 09:44 PM
- 658 views
Why we fear Influenza 1 – the antivirals
by Atila Iamarino in Influenza A (H1N1) Blog – English
First of all, to start this blog, and discuss the H1N1 and the flu in general, I decided to start with texts considering the other side of the Influenza. Let’s see what is going on with the virus and the decisions taken towards the virus.
With viruses such as [...]... Read more »
De Clercq, E. (2002) STRATEGIES IN THE DESIGN OF ANTIVIRAL DRUGS. Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, 1(1), 13-25. DOI: 10.1038/nrd703
- August 27, 2009
- 02:30 PM
- 1,074 views
Continuity or Discontinuity: are our minds purely shaped by natural selection?
by Wintz in A Replicated Typo
The debate concerning the origin of our minds stems back to the diverging opinions of Darwin (1871) and Wallace (1870). When Charles Darwin first discussed the evolution of our seemingly unique cognitive faculties, he proposed that there is “no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties.” (Darwin, 1871, pg. 66). [...]... Read more »
Robinson, G., Fernald, R., & Clayton, D. (2008) Genes and Social Behavior. Science, 322(5903), 896-900. DOI: 10.1126/science.1159277
Hawks, J., Wang, E., Cochran, G., Harpending, H., & Moyzis, R. (2007) Recent acceleration of human adaptive evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(52), 20753-20758. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0707650104
Bolhuis, J., & Wynne, C. (2009) Can evolution explain how minds work?. Nature, 458(7240), 832-833. DOI: 10.1038/458832a
John Skoyles. (2009) The paleoanthropological implications of neural plasticity. CogPrints. info:/
- August 27, 2009
- 01:02 PM
- 756 views
Mitochondrial Gene Replacement, Now in Primates
by Reason in Fight Aging!
Mitochondria are the cell's power plants, important in the operation of metabolism, how that metabolism determines life span, and many age-related diseases. As described in the mitochondrial free radical theory of aging, a small number of mitochondrial genes are known to be crucial to its operation as the cell's power plant. Damage to those genes is a natural consequence of the operation of a mitochondrion, and leads to a Rube Goldberg sequence of events in which is a healthy cell is turned into a damaged cell that spews forth damaging biochemicals into your body. As those errant cells accumulate, their actions collectively give rise to many of the unwelcome forms of change and damage that come with age: systems failing, organs shutting down, and important biochemical processes running awry because their component molecules are corrupted. Given all this, we can see that the ability to replace genes in mitochondrial DNA is a foundation for methods of repairing and eliminating this contribution to the aging process. The course of human life suggests that such a working technology would only have to be applied once every few decades. Of all the branches of potential longevity science, replacement of mitochondrial DNA is one...... Read more »
Tachibana, M., Sparman, M., Sritanaudomchai, H., Ma, H., Clepper, L., Woodward, J., Li, Y., Ramsey, C., Kolotushkina, O., & Mitalipov, S. (2009) Mitochondrial gene replacement in primate offspring and embryonic stem cells. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/nature08368
- August 27, 2009
- 12:00 PM
- 1,466 views
Scientists are only two years from developing a cure for breast cancer?
by Orac in Respectful Insolence
Want to know what will start my teeth grinding when I read it in a newspaper? That's easy. It's headlines like this one, which appeared two days ago in The Telegraph:
Scientists two years from developing 'potential cure' for breast cancer
The subtitle was even worse:
British scientists could be just two years away from developing a drug that may be a "potential cure" for breast cancer, it has been claimed.
Hear that grating? It's the sound of my teeth grinding together. The reason is simple. It's just plain silly to make claims like this about a basic science paper given that, as I have discussed before, it often takes decades for basic science observations to wend their way through that long strange trip to becoming actual therapies used by clinicians. The life cycle of translational research is long, and efforts to speed it up have only met with mixed success:
Researchers have found that the cancer manipulates molecules, called microRNAs, to allow malignant cells to spread throughout the rest of the body.
The discovery means they can now work on developing a drug to stop this process.
Dr Justin Stebbing, senior lecturer and consultant medical oncologist at London's Imperial College, is one of the experts behind the breakthrough.
"There are no available drugs as yet but they should be available within a couple of years. This is a potential cure for breast cancer," he told the Daily Express.
"This is a step on the way to it and it helps us understand the way breast cancer cells grow and divide and if we understand this then we understand how it stop it." Read the rest of this post... | Read the comments on this post...... Read more »
Castellano, L., Giamas, G., Jacob, J., Coombes, R., Lucchesi, W., Thiruchelvam, P., Barton, G., Jiao, L., Wait, R., Waxman, J.... (2009) The estrogen receptor- -induced microRNA signature regulates itself and its transcriptional response. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0906947106
- August 27, 2009
- 10:16 AM
- 587 views
Bacterial freeloaders, early metastasis and more in my picks of the week from RB
by Alejandro Montenegro-Montero in MolBio Research Highlights
Another week has gone by and some very interesting blog posts have been aggregated into Researchblogging.org. Every week [see my inaugural post on the matter], I'll select some blog posts I consider particularly interesting in the field of molecular biology [see here to get a sense of the criteria that will be used] and list them here for you to check out.This week, I've selected four posts:1) ... Read more »
Diggle, S., Griffin, A., Campbell, G., & West, S. (2007) Cooperation and conflict in quorum-sensing bacterial populations. Nature, 450(7168), 411-414. DOI: 10.1038/nature06279
Czárán T, & Hoekstra RF. (2009) Microbial communication, cooperation and cheating: quorum sensing drives the evolution of cooperation in bacteria. PloS one, 4(8). PMID: 19684853
DYKOVA, I., FIALA, I., & PECKOVA, H. (2008) Neoparamoeba spp. and their eukaryotic endosymbionts similar to Perkinsela amoebae (Hollande, 1980): Coevolution demonstrated by SSU rRNA gene phylogenies. European Journal of Protistology, 44(4), 269-277. DOI: 10.1016/j.ejop.2008.01.004
Hüsemann, Y., Geigl, J., Schubert, F., Musiani, P., Meyer, M., Burghart, E., Forni, G., Eils, R., Fehm, T., & Riethmüller, G. (2008) Systemic Spread Is an Early Step in Breast Cancer. Cancer Cell, 13(1), 58-68. DOI: 10.1016/j.ccr.2007.12.003
Tolar J, & Neglia JP. (2003) Transplacental and other routes of cancer transmission between individuals. Journal of pediatric hematology/oncology : official journal of the American Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, 25(6), 430-4. PMID: 12794519
- August 27, 2009
- 09:31 AM
- 559 views
Science News: Week of August 23, 2009
by Susan Steinhardt in BioData Blogs
Our weekly compilation of science news for the week of August 23, 2009.... Read more »
Cziko, A., McCann, C., Howlett, I., Barbee, S., Duncan, R., Luedemann, R., Zarnescu, D., Zinsmaier, K., Parker, R., & Ramaswami, M. (2009) Genetic Modifiers of dFMR1 Encode RNA Granule Components in Drosophila. Genetics, 182(4), 1051-1060. DOI: 10.1534/genetics.109.103234
Tachibana, M., Sparman, M., Sritanaudomchai, H., Ma, H., Clepper, L., Woodward, J., Li, Y., Ramsey, C., Kolotushkina, O., & Mitalipov, S. (2009) Mitochondrial gene replacement in primate offspring and embryonic stem cells. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/nature08368
Oh, J., Weng, S., Felton, S., Bhandare, S., Riek, A., Butler, B., Proctor, B., Petty, M., Chen, Z., Schechtman, K.... (2009) 1,25(OH)2 Vitamin D Inhibits Foam Cell Formation and Suppresses Macrophage Cholesterol Uptake in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. Circulation, 120(8), 687-698. DOI: 10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.109.856070
- August 27, 2009
- 08:10 AM
- 2,002 views
Arctic root revisited
by Daniel in Ego sum Daniel
This post is slightly delayed since, you know, stuff gets in the way. But better late than never. A comment on my post "lack of evidence for arctic root "natural medicine" raised a few points that I think are worthy of delving into. I wrote that post quite hastily with the only intention of just mentioning the review by Blomkvist, Taube and Larhammar published in Planta Medica, so it also gives me the opportunity to revisit the subject more in depth.Firstly, let's state the facts as presented by the comprehensive scientific review of the most recent medical studies of arctic root/roseroot published by Blomkvist et. al. Six of the seven recent (since 2000) studies that supposedly showed an effect of arctic root/roseroot had significant flaws, including irrelevant comparisons, inappropriate statistical methods, exaggerated conclusions, and mistakes in the presentation of the data. These mistakes go beyond simple holes in the statistics, they are of embarrassingly poor scientific quality. Some of the problems are quite extraordinary. For instance, Spasov et al. based their final conclusion on a follow-up study that was not described in their article and remains unpublished. Darbinyan et al. claimed to have found a significant improvement over placebo despite contradictory results that they explained away with an unfounded assumption. The second study by Darbinyan et al. used irrelevant tests and an inappropriate statistical comparison. Bystritsky et al. and Fintelman and Gruenwald claim to have observed an effect but did not use a placebo control. Shevtsov et al. is riddled with misprints and mix-ups which make it difficult for the reader to interpret the text and understand the procedure. Also, the use of pulse pressure as a measure for physical fitness is incorrect, and the levels of statistical significance presented in the study appear unreasonably high.They also reviewed four studies (and two reviews) that had not found any effects of arctic root/roseroot in the same critical way and found no errors, but commented that one of the studies had used a small number of test subjects making it of questionable value.The Swedish Herbal Institute (SHI henceforth), makers and marketers of arctic root/roseroot preparations, were involved in four of the six flawed studies. Spasov et al. published in 2000; two studies by Darbinyan et al. published in 2000 and 2003; and Shevtsov et al. published in 2003. As exposed in the op-ed in Dagens Nyheter and summarized in my previous post, there were suspicious circumstances surrounding the publication of two of these articles, both co-authored by Georg Wikman of SHI. These circumstances certainly cast a shadow of doubt over the company as a serious research institution. It should be enough to make any reasonably skeptical person realize that there were serious faults committed in both the scientific and editorial processes.The question is then: How much scrutiny is reasonable? Shouldn't the consumers be allowed to decide for themselves what works for them? Why attack good people and companies that just want to provide people with a product they want? The first point raised in the comment to my previous post was that small companies, such as the SHI don't have the resources available to big pharmaceutical corporations. They are simply doing the best they can with what they have to discover and market the benefits of natural products. Furthermore they should be commended for their efforts and innovation and for having the guts to invest in this research and for giving something back even though they don't have to. The second point is that by referring to the name of this particular company, Swedish Herbal Institute, as deceptive I'm doing the company wrong and hurting the nice folks there. I really find little merit in SHI's supposed "efforts" to do "research". It's pretty clear to anyone that they have not gone through any sort of scientifically satisfying process in generating or publishing their data, despite the ridiculous boasts on their website. I fail to see how their resources (or lack thereof) or their good will has anything to do with their adherence to proper scientific proceedings. Should those companies that can't afford the proper scientific procedures simply be exempt from them? As if it were optional. And why should they be exempt from critical and scientific scrutiny of their work simply because they are nice caring people who provide a service some people want? As a minimum, they should not be permitted to promote and market their product with statements such as "clinically proven to enhance energy and improve mental clarity during stressful periods of work or studies" or "proven efficacy in clinical studies published in international scientific journals", which are clear exaggerations of the already unfounded scientific claims. Both statements appear prominently on SHI's website, as exemplified in the image below, and on many national ads. Currently the Swedish Medical Products Agency lists this arctic root preparation as a so called "traditional herbal medicinal product" (link), meaning that it has been tested for safety but has a very limited scientific foundation, its indications being based only on traditional use for longer than 30 years. This stands in contrast to the claims presented in the marketing of the product. Ref: www.shi.seEven if done in good faith, this can only be qualified as deception. Especially now that the scientific faults of the studies have been exposed. The fact that SHI has a commercial interest in the product and continue to promote is under false scientific claims just gives anyone the more reason to be skeptical about their intentions. As for the second point, the term "institute" is not protected in Sweden, but it would be naive of anyone to deny that both the words "Swedish" and "institute" are sensitive issue when it comes to the naming of companies. A parallel can be drawn to the UK where "British", "English", "Scottish" et.c. and "institute" are protected and are clearly found to "imply national or international pre-eminence" and require the support of representative and independent bodies before they can be approved in a company name (reference).The name "Swedish Herbal Institute", or "Örtmedicinska Institutet" in Swedish, definitely suggests an official level of prominence that the company doesn't have and is therefore misleading. It deceptively mirrors the names given to national institutes, governing agencies and representative bodies such as Smittskyddsinstitutet (Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control), Konjunkturinstitutet (Swedish National Institute of Economic Research), Folkhälsoinstitutet (Swedish National Institute of Public Health) and others. They are welcome to continue providing those that feel arctic root works for them with their product, but to do so under the false pretenses that the product has a confirmed clinical effect or that it has gone through the correct scientific testing of the purported effects in the first place is simply unacceptable and worthy of criticism. The fact that the criticism may hurt the company or the people involved in it is irrelevant. In fact, they should welcome the opportunity to defend their statements in the leading morning newspaper of the country and one of the prominent journals in their field, where the criticism has been presented. So far it's been very silent though.Blomkvist, J., Taube, A., & Larhammar, D. (2009). Perspective on Roseroot Studies Planta Medica DOI: 10.1055/s-0029-1185720Swedish blog tags: Pseudovetenskap, Naturmedicin, RosenrotTechnorati tags: Pseudoscience, Natural medicine, ... Read more »
Blomkvist, J., Taube, A., & Larhammar, D. (2009) Perspective on Roseroot Studies . Planta Medica. DOI: 10.1055/s-0029-1185720
- August 27, 2009
- 06:25 AM
- 1,211 views
Shade coffee farmers attitudes towards wildlife
by Julie Craves in Coffee & Conservation
Attitudes and knowledge of shade-coffee farmers towards vertebrates and their ecological functions [PDF]. 2009. P. López-del-Toro, E. Andresen, L. Barraza and A. Estrada. Tropical Conservation Science 2:299-318. The authors of this study interviewed 36 Mexican shade coffee farmers regarding their...
... Read more »
López-del-Toro P., Andresen, E., Barraza, L., & Estrada, A. (2009) Attitudes and knowledge of shadecoffee farmers towards vertebrates and their ecological functions. Tropical Conservation Science, 3(2), 299-318. info:/
- August 27, 2009
- 04:01 AM
- 714 views
Upstream blast
by Jeremy in Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Blast is one of the worst rice diseases. I believe that, thanks to the breeders, most modern varieties have decent levels of resistance. After all, they can be used in varietal mixtures to protect traditional glutinous rice varieties from blast. Unfortunately, much of this resistance is not durable, because the pathogen overcomes it [...]... Read more »
Zhu, Y., Chen, H., Fan, J., Wang, Y., Li, Y., Chen, J., Fan, J., Yang, S., Hu, L., Leung, H.... (2000) Genetic diversity and disease control in rice. Nature, 406(6797), 718-722. DOI: 10.1038/35021046
Fukuoka, S., Saka, N., Koga, H., Ono, K., Shimizu, T., Ebana, K., Hayashi, N., Takahashi, A., Hirochika, H., Okuno, K.... (2009) Loss of Function of a Proline-Containing Protein Confers Durable Disease Resistance in Rice. Science, 325(5943), 998-1001. DOI: 10.1126/science.1175550
Normile, D. (2009) New Strategy Promises Lasting Resistance to a Rice Plague. Science, 325(5943), 925-925. DOI: 10.1126/science.325_925
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