All posts; Tags Include "Evolutionary Anthropology"
- December 22, 2013
- 07:12 AM
- 891 views
For type 1 diabetics, stem cells may offer a future without injections
by Perikis Livas in Chilon
Main point
Stem cells, a future treatment for diabetes that emerges from their capacity get transformed to pancreatic cells, capable to produce insulin. Here, scientists describe this breakthough and its potentials for a permanent cure of type 1 diabetes. Another research procedure in mice, that also opens new horizons, refers to the transplantation of pancreatic islets into the anterior chamber of the eye for imaging purposes. This technique can be used to transplant pancreatic buds to study........ Read more »
Blair K. Gage, Travis D. Webber, & Timothy J. Kieffer. (2013) Initial Cell Seeding Density Influences Pancreatic Endocrine Development During in vitro Differentiation of Human Embryonic Stem Cells. PLoS ONE. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0082076
- December 20, 2013
- 10:54 AM
- 685 views
DNA clamp to grab cancer before it develops
by Perikis Livas in Chilon
As part of an international research project, a team of researchers has developed a DNA clamp that can detect mutations at the DNA level with greater efficiency than methods currently in use. Their work could facilitate rapid screening of those diseases that have a genetic basis, such as cancer, and provide new tools for more advanced nanotechnology. The results of this research is published this month in the journal ACS Nano.... Read more »
Idili A, Plaxco KW, Vallée-Bélisle A, & Ricci F. (2013) Thermodynamic Basis for Engineering High-Affinity, High-Specificity Binding-Induced DNA Clamp Nanoswitches. ACS nano. PMID: 24219761
- December 19, 2013
- 05:53 PM
- 767 views
Human Cloning at Last
by Perikis Livas in Chilon
Researchers announced they had derived stem cells from cloned human embryos, a long-awaited research coup that Science‘s editors chose as a runner-up for Breakthrough of the Year.... Read more »
AAAS Science Editors. (2013) Human Cloning at Last. AAAS Science, 342(6165), 1436-1437. DOI: 10.1126/science.342.6165.1436-a
- December 19, 2013
- 09:23 AM
- 729 views
Behold the ‘Plastisphere’
by Perikis Livas in Chilon
Scientists have discovered a diverse multitude of microbes colonizing and thriving on flecks of plastic that have polluted the oceans—a vast new human-made flotilla of microbial communities that they have dubbed the “plastisphere.”... Read more »
Zettler ER, Mincer TJ, & Amaral-Zettler LA. (2013) Life in the "plastisphere": microbial communities on plastic marine debris. Environmental science , 47(13), 7137-46. PMID: 23745679
- December 16, 2013
- 05:02 PM
- 835 views
International Research Team Close Human Evolution Gap
by Perikis Livas in Chilon
Main point
A University of Missouri researcher and her international team of colleagues have found a new hand bone from a human ancestor who roamed the earth in East Africa approximately 1.42 million years ago. They suspect the bone belonged to the early human species, Homo erectus. The discovery of this bone is the earliest evidence of a modern human-like hand, indicating that this anatomical feature existed more than half a million years earlier than previously known.... Read more »
Carol V. Ward, Matthew W. Tocheri, J. Michael Plavcan, Francis H. Brown, & Fredrick Kyalo Manthi. (2013) Early Pleistocene third metacarpal from Kenya and the evolution of modern human-like hand morphology. PNAS Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1316014110
- December 16, 2013
- 12:54 PM
- 688 views
Unusual suspects
by Perikis Livas in Chilon
New collaborative work from computational biologists at MIT and experimental biologists at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), however, is easing that distinction by combining computational and experimental approaches to identifying biologically meaningful RNA folds.... Read more »
Silvi Rouskin, Meghan Zubradt, Stefan Washiet, Manolis Kellis, & Jonathan S. Weissman. (2013) Genome-wide probing of RNA structure reveals active unfolding of mRNA structures in vivo. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/nature12894
- December 14, 2013
- 07:52 AM
- 818 views
Chameleons use colorful language to communicate
by Perikis Livas in Chilon
To protect themselves, some animals rapidly change color when their environments change, but chameleons change colors in unusual ways when they interact with other chameleons. Arizona State University researchers have discovered that these color changes don’t happen “out-of-the-blue” – instead, they convey different types of information during important social interactions.
Further Reading... Read more »
Russell A. Ligon, & Kevin J. McGraw. (2013) Chameleons communicate with complex colour changes during contests: different body regions convey different information. Biology Letters. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2013.0892
- December 13, 2013
- 09:58 AM
- 722 views
Pioneering path to electrical conductivity
by Perikis Livas in Chilon
Sandia National Laboratories researchers have devised a novel way to realize electrical conductivity in metal-organic framework (MOF) materials, a development that could have profound implications for the future of electronics, sensors, energy conversion and energy storage.
Further Reading... Read more »
Talin AA, Centrone A, Ford AC, Foster ME, Stavila V, Haney P, Kinney RA, Szalai V, El Gabaly F, Yoon HP.... (2013) Tunable Electrical Conductivity in Metal-Organic Framework Thin-Film Devices. Science (New York, N.Y.). PMID: 24310609
- December 12, 2013
- 12:06 PM
- 574 views
Little Red Riding Hood and the Second Wave Phylomemeticists
by Joe Roe in On Prehistoric Man
Jamie Tehrani has a great paper in PLOS ONE on The Phylogenetics of Little Red Riding Hood: Researchers have long been fascinated by the strong continuities evident in the oral traditions associated with different...... Read more »
Jamshid J. Tehrani. (2013) The Phylogenetics of Little Red Riding Hood. PLOS ONE. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0078871
- December 12, 2013
- 08:11 AM
- 790 views
Earth science
by Perikis Livas in Chilon
Geophysicists are scouring the globe for evidence of mantle plumes — the presumed source of some mega-eruptions.
Further reading... Read more »
Alexandra Witze. (2013) Earth science Under the volcano. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/504206a
- December 11, 2013
- 05:51 PM
- 1,142 views
Runaway process drives intermediate-depth earthquakes
by Perikis Livas in Chilon
Stanford researchers have uncovered a vital clue about the mechanism behind a type of earthquake that originates deep within the Earth and accounts for a quarter of all temblors worldwide, some of which are strong enough to pose a safety hazard.... Read more »
Germán A. Prieto, Manuel Florez, Sarah A. Barrett, Gregory C. Beroza, Patricia Pedraza, Jose Faustino Blanco, & Esteban Poveda. (2013) Seismic evidence for thermal runaway during intermediate-depth earthquake rupture. Geophysical Research Letters. DOI: 10.1002/2013GL058109
- December 11, 2013
- 02:21 PM
- 754 views
How “good cholesterol” stops inflammation
by Perikis Livas in Chilon
High-density lipoprotein (HDL), known colloquially as “good cholesterol”, protects against dangerous deposits in the arteries. An important function of HDL is its anti-inflammatory properties. An international research team at the Institute of Innate Immunity at the University Hospital of Bonn and the LIMES Institute at the University of Bonn has identified a central switch by which HDL controls the inflammatory response. The results are presented in the current issue of “Natur........ Read more »
De Nardo D, Labzin LI, Kono H, Seki R, Schmidt SV, Beyer M, Xu D, Zimmer S, Lahrmann C, Schildberg FA.... (2013) High-density lipoprotein mediates anti-inflammatory reprogramming of macrophages via the transcriptional regulator ATF3. Nature immunology. PMID: 24317040
Cruz PM, Mo H, McConathy WJ, Sabnis N, & Lacko AG. (2013) The role of cholesterol metabolism and cholesterol transport in carcinogenesis: a review of scientific findings, relevant to future cancer therapeutics. Frontiers in pharmacology, 119. PMID: 24093019
- December 11, 2013
- 08:10 AM
- 736 views
Gene battles behind the turbulent nature of menopause
by Perikis Livas in Chilon
The hormonal mayhem, reduced fertility and hot flushes experienced by a woman in the run up to menopause may owe much to warfare between her own genes, according to a team of scientists working in the United Kingdom and Japan.... Read more »
Francisco Úbeda, Hisashi Ohtsuki, & Andy Gardner. (2013) Ecology drives intragenomic conflict over menopause. Ecology Letters. DOI: 10.1111/ele.12208
- December 8, 2013
- 11:03 AM
- 1,306 views
Neutron stars’ X-ray superbursts …
by Perikis Livas in Chilon
… mystify, inspire Los Alamos scientists
Massive X-ray superbursts near the surface of neutron stars are providing a unique window into the operation of fundamental forces of nature under extreme conditions.... Read more »
Schatz H, Gupta S, Möller P, Beard M, Brown EF, Deibel AT, Gasques LR, Hix WR, Keek L, Lau R.... (2013) Strong neutrino cooling by cycles of electron capture and β- decay in neutron star crusts. Nature. PMID: 24291788
- December 8, 2013
- 07:38 AM
- 889 views
Tiny Drops of Hot Quark Soup
by Perikis Livas in Chilon
New analyses of deuteron-gold collisions at RHIC reveal that even small particles can create big surprises... Read more »
A. Adare, C. Aidala, N. N. Ajitanand, Y. Akiba, H. Al-Bataineh, J. Alexander, A. Angerami, K. Aoki, N. Apadula, Y. Aramaki.... (2013) Quadrupole anisotropy in dihadron azimuthal correlations in central d Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN). Physical Review Letters. arXiv: 1303.1794v1
A. Adare, C. Aidala, N. N. Ajitanand, Y. Akiba, H. Al-Bataineh, J. Alexander, A. Angerami, K. Aoki, N. Apadula, Y. Aramaki.... (2013) Nuclear modification of psi^prime, chi_c and J/psi production in d Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) . Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 202301 (2013). arXiv: 1305.5516v1
- December 7, 2013
- 07:21 AM
- 760 views
Time Warp
by Perikis Livas in Chilon
It all started when David Deutsch, a pioneer of quantum computing and a physicist at Oxford, came up with a simplified model of time travel to deal with the paradoxes that would occur if one could travel back in time. For example, would it be possible to travel back in time to kill one’s grandfather? In the Grandfather paradox, a time traveler faces the problem that if he kills his grandfather back in time, then he himself is never born, and consequently is unable to travel through time to........ Read more »
Todd A. Brun, Mark M. Wilde, & Andreas Winter. (2013) Quantum state cloning using Deutschian closed timelike curves. Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 190401 (2013). arXiv: 1306.1795v3
- December 6, 2013
- 05:28 PM
- 789 views
How our vision dims
by Perikis Livas in Chilon
Groundbreaking new findings by UC Irvine and German chemists about how cataracts form could be used to help prevent the world’s leading cause of blindness, which currently affects nearly 20 million people worldwide. ... Read more »
Kingsley CN, Brubaker WD, Markovic S, Diehl A, Brindley AJ, Oschkinat H, & Martin RW. (2013) Preferential and Specific Binding of Human αB-Crystallin to a Cataract-Related Variant of γS-Crystallin. Structure (London, England : 1993). PMID: 24183572
- December 6, 2013
- 01:04 PM
- 733 views
Coffee or Beer ?
by Perikis Livas in Chilon
“For the first time we’ve identified a few environmental factors that alter telomere length, and we’ve shown how they do it,” said Prof. Kupiec. “What we learned may one day contribute to the prevention and treatment of human diseases.”... Read more »
Romano GH, Harari Y, Yehuda T, Podhorzer A, Rubinstein L, Shamir R, Gottlieb A, Silberberg Y, Pe'er D, Ruppin E.... (2013) Environmental stresses disrupt telomere length homeostasis. PLoS genetics, 9(9). PMID: 24039592
- December 6, 2013
- 11:38 AM
- 1,128 views
The geometry of cancer cells
by Perikis Livas in Chilon
Featuring article
The geometry of cancer cells
Malignant and healthy cells display characteristic fractal patterns, which can be used to tell them apart. ___ Max Planck Institute
Reference paper
Marker-Free Phenotyping of Tumor Cells by Fractal Analysis of Reflection Interference Contrast Microscopy Images
Phenotyping of tumor cells by marker-free quantification is important for cancer diagnostics. For the first time, fractal analysis of reflection interference contrast microscopy images of........ Read more »
Klein K, Maier T, Hirschfeld-Warneken VC, & Spatz JP. (2013) Marker-free phenotyping of tumor cells by fractal analysis of reflection interference contrast microscopy images. Nano letters, 13(11), 5474-9. PMID: 24079895
- December 5, 2013
- 01:02 PM
- 747 views
Expedition Yields Unexpected Clues to Ocean Mysteries
by Perikis Livas in Chilon
A University of Houston (UH) geoscientist and his colleagues are revealing new discoveries about the Earth’s development, following a major international expedition that recovered the first-ever drill core from the lower crust of the Pacific Ocean.
Reference Paper and Further reading at TK's page... Read more »
Gillis KM, Snow JE, Klaus A, Abe N, Adrião AB, Akizawa N, Ceuleneer G, Cheadle MJ, Faak K, Falloon TJ.... (2013) Primitive layered gabbros from fast-spreading lower oceanic crust. Nature. PMID: 24291793
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