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Recent discovery of a food allergy candidate gene on chromosome 5q22.1
Allergies are a broad category of disorders that all have one common trait, immune reactions to normally non-harmful substances. They are chronic diseases (ranked 5th on the list among chronic diseases in the US) that can dramatically degrade the lifestyle of those affected depending on the degree of severity. About 55% of the population has an [...]
Also posted in Cell Biology, Genetics, Microbiology 2184 Comments
Mitochondria, Efficient Energy Production with Dangerous Side Effects?
Scientists from Harvard Teaching Medical Hospital have discovered that Mitochondria respond to trauma by creating patient inflammation and a response not unlike bacterial infection. Best known as the energy producing powerhouses of the cell (being home of the Citric Acid Cycle and oxidative phosphorylation), Mitochondria have long been recognized as ancient symbiots – not originally [...]
Also posted in Cell Biology, Evolutionary Biology, Health & Medicine 2889 Comments
Alternate “life” styles: scientists predict the possibility of a Shadow Biosphere
The possibility of strange forms of alien life seems to have just got a whole lot closer to home. Astrobiologists from Arizona State University, Florida, UC Boulder, NASA, Harvard and Australia have recently theorized about a “shadow biosphere” – a biosphere within a biosphere where alternative biochemistry may be thriving in a way that we haven’t yet [...]
Nature’s Exciting Expectations for the New Year
It seems that Nature magazine has high hopes (and don’t we all) for research progress in 2010. Among goals such as glimpsing the origins of the universe and other Earth-like planets, the biological topics expected to make big impacts are: Stopping/preventing species loss globally Synthetic genome from pioneers such as Craig Venter A surge in [...]
Also posted in Cell Biology, Ecology and Environmental Biology, Genetics, Genomics, Lists Tagged Climate, Craig Venter, HIV, Nature, Stem cells 1944 Comments
Evidence for Environmental and Epigenetic Cause of Autism
A study published a few months ago in the journal NeuroToxicology investigates the non-random variation in prevalence of autism. The study has shown that the highest frequency of autism occurs in areas of the study location (Minnesota) with increased amounts of pollution in the environment, such as mercury and pesticides. The study concludes there is [...]
Also posted in AntiScience, Genetics Tagged Autism, Epigenetics, Genetics, Vaccinations 2540 Comments
Transgenic, Green Monkeys Provide Possibility of Primate Model Organisms
This story is a few months old, but I was reading through the Nature homepage and came across their selected Images of the Year slideshow. Many of these images have to do with various space-related or physics themes, but of particular interest to me when browsing through the images was a gorgeous image of fluorescent [...]
Also posted in Genetics, Health & Medicine, Zoology Tagged Genetics, Marmosets, Nature, Primates, Transgenics 4468 Comments
More Proof That Smoking Leads to Small-Cell Lung Cancer
In a Nature article published earlier this week, UK and US researchers have provided more proof that smoking has a direct effect on the development of small-cell lung cancer. This study describes 22,910 somatic mutations characterized by massively parallel sequencing technology (including 134 in highly important exon coding regions) in the small-cell lung cancer cell [...]
Also posted in Cell Biology, Genetics, Genomics, Health & Medicine Tagged Cancer, Cell Biology, Genetics, Genomics, Lung Cancer, Mutations, Nature 3398 Comments
Back to the future: bone proteins discovered in 100 million year old fossil