Category Archives: Biology

Back to the future: bone proteins discovered in 100 million year old fossil

Exciting research published this week in PloS ONE suggests that biomolecular structures may persist in fossils far more abundantly and steadily as previously thought. Before this publication, two options were thought to exist for specifically identifying biomolecular structures: (1) you can find it in large bones buried in fluvial sandstone; or (2) you’re S.O.L. All [...]
Also posted in Evolutionary Biology, Microscopy, Paleobiology, Proteomics, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 1093 Comments

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 [...]
Also posted in Astrobiology | Tagged | 2911 Comments

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 , , , , | 1944 Comments

Most Cited Articles Roundup 2009: H1N1 Flu Virus

Similar to the previous post about the Most Cited Articles of 2009, I thought it might be interesting to look at some of the other big topics of this past year and what research done this past year was considered most impacting by the research community. For the next few weeks I will be posting [...]
Also posted in Health & Medicine, Lists | Tagged , , , , , | 2512 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 , , , | 2540 Comments

Top 10 Most Cited Biology Articles of 2009

With a new year ahead of us and tons of exciting research to be done it’s time to be a little retrospective about all that the scientific community has accomplished this last year. The following are the top 10 most cited biology articles published in 2009 as recorded in the ISI Web of Knowledge: Human [...]
Also posted in Lists | Tagged , , | 4676 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 , , , , | 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 , , , , , , | 3398 Comments