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Early Study Linking Vaccines to Autism Officially Retracted
The Lancet, one of the world’s leading medical journals, retracted a study on February 2nd that linked autism to vaccinations. The study by Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues, originally published in 1998, is titled “Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children.” The study was one of the first scientific publications that spurned [...]
Surprise! Jenny McCarthy Completely Ignores Scientific Research
I’m sure by now that we’re all aware of the actress and “activist” Jenny McCarthy and her crusade against the medical and biomedical research community. Her unfounded and dangerous belief that vaccines increase the frequency of autism has been making a splash in the easily convinced minds of many parents who are desperate to help [...]
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 Biology, Genetics, Zoology Tagged Genetics, Marmosets, Nature, Primates, Transgenics 4469 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 Biology, Cell Biology, Genetics, Genomics Tagged Cancer, Cell Biology, Genetics, Genomics, Lung Cancer, Mutations, Nature 3399 Comments
RNA Interference Technology Will Improve Pharmaceutical Production
RNA interference, or RNAi, has become a novel and useful tool for silencing gene expression in both cells and organisms as well as in developing therapies for diseases. A new study out of Taiwan has recently been published outlining how RNAi technology can be used to vastly increase the quantity and quality of recombinant protein [...]
Also posted in Biology, Cell Biology, Genetics, Genomics, Proteomics Tagged Biotechnology Advances, Chinese Hamster Ovary Cells, Genetics, Genomics, Pharmaceuticals, Proteomics, Recombinant Proteins, RNA interference, RNAi 962 Comments
Neurons May Be Up To 50% More Efficient Than Previously Thought
A recent publication in Nature has suggested that rather than being only 30% efficient, neurons, the workhorse cells of our brains, may be acting at up to 70-80% efficiency. This has heavy implications, considering that neurons consume approximately 20% of our body’s consumed energy. The question must now be asked: what exactly are those little [...]
Also posted in Cell Biology, Microbiology Tagged Biology, Cell Biology, Nature, Neurons 720 Comments
Discoverer of Leptin Describes its Effect on Appetite Via Seratonin
Leptin nixes appetite through serotonin Read the original Cell paper
New Findings Uncover 3 Genetic Links to Alzheimer’s
A new letter in Nature Genetics has shown genetic links of 3 new genes to the onset of Alzheimer’s. The study, featured in the latest edition of the journal, involved 45 different institutions, over 16000 individuals, and is considered the most in-depth and powerful study of its kind. It is expected that these new findings [...]
Mitochondria, Efficient Energy Production with Dangerous Side Effects?