- September 2, 2010
- 12:17 PM
- 1 view
Six Months to a Sexy New Body
by Paul Statt in Paul Statt Communications
Public transportation, like, say, public health or the public library, just isn’t sexy. But a fat slob isn’t sexy, either, is he? And with public transportation, he could build a sexy new physique in only 6 to 8 months, according to a recent publication in the the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.... Read more »
MacDonald JM, Stokes RJ, Cohen DA, Kofner A, & Ridgeway GK. (2010) The effect of light rail transit on body mass index and physical activity. American journal of preventive medicine, 39(2), 105-12. PMID: 20621257
- September 2, 2010
- 12:14 PM
- 1 view
How To Fight Loneliness
by Rob Mitchum in ScienceLife
Loneliness is bad for your health. The work of John Cacioppo and others has proven this connection repeatedly over the last decade, finding links between loneliness and blood pressure, sleep quality, dementia, gene expression, and many other medical measures. The evidence has built to the point that loneliness could be considered a serious risk factor [...]... Read more »
Masi CM, Chen HY, Hawkley LC, & Cacioppo JT. (2010) A Meta-Analysis of Interventions to Reduce Loneliness. Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc. PMID: 20716644
- September 2, 2010
- 12:08 PM
- 0 views
Diabetes drug may protect against cancer
by Sally Church in Pharma Strategy Blog
Yesterday, I covered some of the key pathways and kinases associated with cell energy metabolism, LKB1 and AMPK. These, together with Insulin-like Growth Factor-I (IGF-I) and the insulin receptor (IR), appear to play important roles in the broader regulation of...... Read more »
Douglas JB, Silverman DT, Pollak MN, Tao Y, Soliman AS, & Stolzenberg-Solomon RZ. (2010) Serum IGF-I, IGF-II, IGFBP-3, and IGF-I/IGFBP-3 Molar Ratio and Risk of Pancreatic Cancer in the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial. Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers . PMID: 20699371
Tao Y, Pinzi V, Bourhis J, & Deutsch E. (2007) Mechanisms of disease: signaling of the insulin-like growth factor 1 receptor pathway--therapeutic perspectives in cancer. Nature clinical practice. Oncology, 4(10), 591-602. PMID: 17898809
Chitnis MM, Yuen JS, Protheroe AS, Pollak M, & Macaulay VM. (2008) The type 1 insulin-like growth factor receptor pathway. Clinical cancer research : an official journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, 14(20), 6364-70. PMID: 18927274
- September 2, 2010
- 12:01 PM
- 0 views
Evolution of cerebral cortex traced back to Precambrian era
In a paper published today in Cell, Detlev Arendt, Raju Tomer and colleagues reveal evidence that the cerebral cortex evolved much earlier than previously believed. Using a new technique to detect and image simultaneously expressed genes in a compact brain area, they discovered that the gene expression patterns in the olfactory processing region (mushroom bodies) [...]... Read more »
Raju Tomer, Alexandru S. Denes, Kristin Tessmar-Raible, & Detlev Arendt. (2010) Profiling by Image Registration Reveals Common Origin of Annelid Mushroom Bodies and Vertebrate Pallium. Cell, 142(5), 800-809. info:/10.1016/j.cell.2010.07.043
- September 2, 2010
- 11:33 AM
- 0 views
Racial Bias of Adult Sensitivity to Infant Facial Care-Seeking Cues
by Michael Long in Phased
John Hodsoll (Queen Mary University, United Kingdom) and coworkers have shown that preferential adult attention to infant facial features is affected by the race of the infant relative to that of the adult, suggesting an influence of experience and environment. This news feature was written on September 2, 2010.... Read more »
Hodsoll, J., Quinn, K. A., & Hodsoll, S. (2010) Attentional Prioritization of Infant Faces Is Limited to Own-Race Infants. PLoS ONE, 5(9). info:/10.1371/journal.pone.0012509
- September 2, 2010
- 11:02 AM
- 0 views
War & Fish
by Journal Watch Online in Journal Watch Online
War isn’t the answer — but it wasn’t so bad if you were a Scottish haddock. A 6-year pause in commercial fishing caused by World War II helped cod, haddock and whiting populations in Europe’s North Sea recover from years of pre-war exploitation, according to a new analysis. The “accidental” reserve suggests that cold-water fish […] Read More »... Read more »
Doug Beare , & Eddie McKenzie . (2010) An unintended experiment in fisheries science: a marine area protected by war results in Mexican waves in fish numbers-at-age. Naturwissenschaften. DOI: 10.1007/s00114-010-0696-5
- September 2, 2010
- 09:50 AM
- 13 views
Say Hello to Sinoceratops
by Brian Switek in Dinosaur Tracking
It has been a good year for horned dinosaurs. The recent description of Mojoceratops, the discovery of a ceratopsian in Europe, and the long-awaited publication of the New Perspectives on Horned Dinosaurs volume have all given paleontologists reason to celebrate, and a new study led by Xu Xing reports on another significant discovery: the first [...]... Read more »
XU Xing, WANG KeBai, ZHAO XiJin . (2010) First ceratopsid dinosaur from China and its biogeographical implications. Chinese Science Bulletin, 55(16), 1631-1635. DOI: 10.1007/s11434-009-3614-5
- September 2, 2010
- 09:47 AM
- 11 views
Immunity under natural selection
by iayork in Mystery Rays from Outer Space
HapMap 3, officially announced in today’s issue of Nature,1 is an “integrated data set of common and rare alleles” in human populations, built from “1.6 million common single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in 1,184 reference individuals from 11 global populations“. As well as being a resource for genome-wide studies, there are a number of things that can [...]... Read more »
The International HapMap 3 Consortium. (2010) Integrating common and rare genetic variation in diverse human populations. Nature, 52-58. DOI: 10.1038/nature09298
Douroudis K, Kingo K, Silm H, Reimann E, Traks T, Vasar E, & Kõks S. (2010) The CD226 Gly307Ser gene polymorphism is associated with severity of psoriasis. Journal of dermatological science, 58(2), 160-1. PMID: 20399620
Maiti AK, Kim-Howard X, Viswanathan P, Guillén L, Qian X, Rojas-Villarraga A, Sun C, Cañas C, Tobón GJ, Matsuda K.... (2010) Non-synonymous variant (Gly307Ser) in CD226 is associated with susceptibility to multiple autoimmune diseases. Rheumatology (Oxford, England), 49(7), 1239-44. PMID: 20338887
Heron M, Grutters JC, Van Moorsel CH, Ruven HJ, Kazemier KM, Claessen AM, & Van den Bosch JM. (2009) Effect of variation in ITGAE on risk of sarcoidosis, CD103 expression, and chest radiography. Clinical immunology (Orlando, Fla.), 133(1), 117-25. PMID: 19604725
Luke MM, O'Meara ES, Rowland CM, Shiffman D, Bare LA, Arellano AR, Longstreth WT Jr, Lumley T, Rice K, Tracy RP.... (2009) Gene variants associated with ischemic stroke: the cardiovascular health study. Stroke; a journal of cerebral circulation, 40(2), 363-8. PMID: 19023099
- September 2, 2010
- 09:32 AM
- 13 views
Briefings in Bioinformatics – our education paper is available now
Back in April I happened to mention that we (OpenHelix) were writing a paper on informal sources of bioinformatics education (in a Friday SNPets item) and we were asked to announce when the paper came out. Well, we got word late last week that the article has been published. The article appears in a special issue of Briefings in Bioinformatics that is devoted to bioinformatics education. I’m not sure if all the articles in the issue are available yet, but it looks like several are in the j........ Read more »
Williams, J., Mangan, M., Perreault-Micale, C., Lathe, S., Sirohi, N., & Lathe, W. (2010) OpenHelix: bioinformatics education outside of a different box. Briefings in Bioinformatics. DOI: 10.1093/bib/bbq026
- September 2, 2010
- 07:10 AM
- 27 views
The woman whose new memories are erased each night
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
Psychologists have documented what they believe to be a clinical first - the case of an amnesic woman whose memory for new material is erased each night that she goes to sleep (movie fans will recognise this as a plot device in the 2004 film 50 First Dates). Referred to as case FL, the woman developed these symptoms after she hit her head in a car accident in 2005, aged 48. Brain scans and neurological exams revealed no signs of brain damage, thus suggesting the woman is exhibiting what's known ........ Read more »
Smith, C., Frascino, J., Kripke, D., McHugh, P., Treisman, G., & Squire, L. (2010) Losing memories overnight: A unique form of human amnesia. Neuropsychologia, 48(10), 2833-2840. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.05.025
- September 2, 2010
- 07:10 AM
- 20 views
Alfred Russel Wallace, a Conspicuous Caterpillar and David Bowie
by Johnny in Ecographica
What do Alfred Wallace and David Bowie have in common with a caterpillar? …in this work, Wallace expanded on one of his theories - a theory that he had previously presented to Charles Darwin and to members of the Entomological Society of London… Aposematism refers to signaling adaptations…... Read more »
Lee, et al. (2010) Can dietary conservatism explain the primary evolution of aposematism?. Animal Behaviour, 79(1), 63-74. DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2009.10.004
- September 2, 2010
- 06:04 AM
- 23 views
Solar system might be older than we thought…
by Kelly Oakes in Basic Space
Researchers from Arizona State University have found the oldest solar system object ever discovered. In fact, it’s so old that it formed up to two million years before the solar system did, according to current estimates. It might be time for a rethink of when and how our little place in the Universe came into [...]... Read more »
Audrey Bouvier, & Meenakshi Wadhwa. (2010) The age of the Solar System redefined by the oldest Pb–Pb age of a meteoritic inclusion. Nature Geoscience. info:/10.1038/ngeo941
- September 2, 2010
- 05:58 AM
- 23 views
Going under and coming to
by admin in Thoughts on thoughts
PLoS One has a paper, A Conserved Behavioral State Barrier Impedes Transitions between Anesthetic-Induced Unconsciousness and Wakefulness: Evidence for Neural Inertia, by Friedman and others here.
The abstract:
One major unanswered question in neuroscience is how the brain transitions between conscious and unconscious states. General anesthetics offer a controllable means to study these [...]... Read more »
Friedman EB, Sun Y, Moore JT, Hung H-T, Meng QC, et al. (2010) A Conserved Behavioral State Barrier Impedes Transitions between Anesthetic-Induced Unconsciousness and Wakefulness: Evidence for Neural Inertia. . PLoS ONE 5(7). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0011903
- September 2, 2010
- 05:30 AM
- 29 views
The consequences of accepting rape myths
by SAGE Insight in SAGE Insight
Oppression through acceptance? predicting rape myth acceptance and attitudes toward rape victims From Violence Against Women Rape myths such as ‘only bad women get raped’ and ‘women ask for it’ serve to blame the victim and exonerate the rapist. As reported rapes in the United States increased at unprecedented rates in the late 1960s and [...]... Read more »
Hockett, J., Saucier, D., Hoffman, B., Smith, S., & Craig, A. (2009) Oppression Through Acceptance?: Predicting Rape Myth Acceptance and Attitudes Toward Rape Victims. Violence Against Women, 15(8), 877-897. DOI: 10.1177/1077801209335489
- September 2, 2010
- 01:56 AM
- 26 views
Queen of the Hormones and the Challenge Hypothesis
by Michael Gutbrod in A Scientific Nature
Just imagine dozens of hormonally driven females all fighting to be the queen. Sounds sexy, right? Those of us males who enjoy the occasional ovary-charged confrontation (I believe the proper term is cat-fight), might want to head out to the backyard and hunt for a wasp’s nest (and if you are still in fantasy land [...]... Read more »
Tibbetts EA, & Huang ZY. (2010) The challenge hypothesis in an insect: juvenile hormone increases during reproductive conflict following queen loss in Polistes wasps. The American naturalist, 176(2), 123-30. PMID: 20515411
- September 1, 2010
- 09:00 PM
- 39 views
Amazingly Awesome, Circadian Innovation: The Hair Follicle
by Allison in Dormivigilia
Japanese researchers have brainstormed an innovative and noninvasive technique for measuring clock gene expression in living humans and how such expression is modified by lifestyle changes....the hair follicle!!!... Read more »
Akashi M, Soma H, Yamamoto T, Tsugitomi A, Yamashita S, Yamamoto T, Nishida E, Yasuda A, Liao JK, & Node K. (2010) Noninvasive method for assessing the human circadian clock using hair follicle cells. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. PMID: 20798039
- September 1, 2010
- 08:41 PM
- 26 views
New land for agriculture coming mainly at the expense of tropical ecosystems
by Phil Camill in Global Change: Intersection of Nature and Culture
There have traditionally been two ways to produce more food for an increasing population: Convert native ecosystems like forests and grasslands into agricultural fields (what we call “extensification”) or make the yields on existing croplands go up, through the use of things like machinery, fertilizers, irrigation, pesticides, and GMOs (what we call “intensification”).
Historically, these processes [...]... Read more »
H. K. Gibbs, A. S. Ruesch, F. Achard, M. K. Clayton, P. Holmgrene, N. Ramankutty, and J. A. Foley. (2010) Tropical forests were the primary sources of new agricultural land in the 1980s and 1990s. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. info:/
- September 1, 2010
- 06:28 PM
- 36 views
HapMap 3: more people ~ more genetic variation
by Razib Khan in Gene Expression
Across the ~3 billion or so base pairs in the human genome there’s a fair amount of variation. That variation can be partitioned into different classes, somewhat artificial constructions of human categorization systems, but nevertheless mapping on to real demographic or life history events of particular importance. Some of the variation is specific to populations, [...]... Read more »
The International HapMap 3 Consortium. (2010) Integrating common and rare genetic variation in diverse human populations. Nature. info:/10.1038/nature09298
- September 1, 2010
- 03:17 PM
- 61 views
Self-Righteousness and Kink: Perfect Together?
by David Berreby in Mind Matters
Props to my colleague Lindsay Beyerstein for this great catch yesterday: Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle's campaign received a donation from someone who listed her employer as "husband" and her occupation as "slave." Maybe it's just a joke (boring). Or maybe this couple is in one of those Christian "submitted wife" relationships (unlikely, given that "slave" isn't the sort of rhetoric that culture promotes). But maybe this is an "out" dominant/submissive couple. That shouldn't be a ........ Read more »
Benjamin Edelman. (2009) Red Light States: Who Buys Online Adult Entertainment?. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 23(1). DOI: 10.1257/jep.23.1.209
Zhong CB, & Liljenquist K. (2006) Washing away your sins: threatened morality and physical cleansing. Science (New York, N.Y.), 313(5792), 1451-2. PMID: 16960010
Schnall S, Benton J, & Harvey S. (2008) With a clean conscience: cleanliness reduces the severity of moral judgments. Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS, 19(12), 1219-22. PMID: 19121126
- September 1, 2010
- 02:32 PM
- 31 views
Blood Flow and Fahraeus Effect
by Arunn in Unruled Notebook
The dependence of apparent viscosity of human blood on the capillary size it is flowing through is identified as the Fahraeus-Lindqvist effect (1931). This was explained in the earlier Blood Flow in Capillaries note. There is a related but different effect called the Fahraeus effect (1929). This is the decrease in average concentration of red [...]... Read more »
Sutera, S. P., Seshadri, V., Croce, P. A. and Hochmuth, R. M. (1970) Capillary blood flow: II. Deformable model cells in tube flow. Microvascular Research, 2(4), 420-433. DOI: 10.1016/0026-2862(70)90035-X
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