Monkey lip smacks provide new insights into the evolution of human speech. Scientists have traditionally sought the evolutionary origins of human speech in primate vocalizations, such as monkey coos or chimpanzee hoots. But unlike these primate calls, human speech is produced using rapid, controlled movements of the tongue, lips and jaw. Speech is also learned, while primate vocalizations are mostly innately structured. New research published in Current Biology by W. Tecumseh Fitch, Head of the Department of Cognitive Biology at the University of Vienna, supports the idea that human speech evolved less from vocalizations than from communicative facial gestures.
Researchers at Princeton and the University of Vienna used x-ray movies to investigate lip-smacking gestures in macaque monkeys. Lip smacks are made by many monkey species in friendly, face-to-face situations (e.g. between mothers and their infants). Fascinating facial signals. Next-generation epigenetic cancer pill shown to be safe in phase I trial. Scientists have shown that a brand new type of cancer pill that exploits the emerging field of epigenetics is safe for human use, according to a Phase I trial reported May 1 in Clinical Cancer Research.
Instead of targeting faults in the DNA code, the drug -- discovered in a collaboration between The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) and Chroma Therapeutics -- targets cancer-causing errors in the way the body reads the DNA code. This second and equally important set of instructions takes the form of a series of chemical switches that determine whether genes are turned on or off, and ultimately what the cell will look like and how it will function. Epigenetics influence nature in many ways including the ability of a caterpillar to morph into a butterfly, even though its DNA does not change. Alterations in epigenetic control can also lead to cancer. Lead author Dr Udai Banerji from the ICR and The Royal Marsden says: "This is a new angle of attack against cancer. Oldest human ancestor found in lake sludge › News in Science (ABC Science) News in Science Friday, 27 April 2012 AFP Primordial life After two decades of examining a microscopic algae-eater that lives in a lake in Norway, scientists have declared it to be one of the world's oldest living organisms and human's remotest relative.
The elusive, single-cell creature evolved about a billion years ago and did not fit in any of the known categories of living organisms - it was not an animal, plant, parasite, fungus or alga, they say. "We have found an unknown branch of the tree of life that lives in this lake. It is unique," says University of Oslo researcher Dr Kamran Shalchian-Tabrizi.
"So far we know of no other group of organisms that descends from closer to the roots of the tree of life than this species", which has been declared a new genus called Collodictyon. Scientists believe the discovery may provide insight into what life looked like on Earth hundreds of millions of years ago. Not social creatures "They flourish best alone. Move over DNA: Six new molecules can carry genes - life - 19 April 2012. Eben Bayer: Are mushrooms the new plastic? Fighting Fire With Fire: Vampire Bacteria Has Potential as Living Antibiotic. Listen to the UVA Today Radio Show report on this story by Fariss Samarrai: October 31, 2011 — A vampire-like bacteria that leeches onto specific other bacteria – including certain human pathogens – has the potential to serve as a living antibiotic for a range of infectious diseases, a new study indicates.
The bacterium, Micavibrio aeruginosavorus, was discovered to inhabit wastewater nearly 30 years ago, but has not been extensively studied because it is difficult to culture and investigate using traditional microbiology techniques. However, biologists in the University of Virginia's College of Arts & Sciences, Martin Wu and graduate student Zhang Wang, have decoded its genome and are learning "how it makes its living," Wu said.
The bacterium "makes its living" by seeking out prey – certain other bacteria – and then attaching itself to its victim's cell wall and essentially sucking out nutrients. "We have a map now to work with, and we will see where it leads," he said. Researchers engineered molecule changes itself to detect and attack diseased cells. L.A. Cicero Christina Smolke Imagine if your doctor could look for cancer in your body just by checking for green glowing cells, alerting her to the presence of the disease. Imagine further that she could convince any cancerous cells in your body to commit suicide, while leaving your healthy cells unaffected. In Friday's issue of Science, a Stanford researcher reported engineered biological "devices" that could one day offer these kinds of diagnostic and treatment options.
The devices built by Assistant Professor of Bioengineering Christina Smolke, along with a graduate student and a postdoctoral researcher, can sense disease states in cultured human cells and fine-tune their own functions in response to a cell's internal signals. These autonomous biological tools are called "sensor-actuator" devices because they sense what's happening in a cell and act upon what they detect. The researchers built these devices by combining different pieces of DNA into one long stretch. 100 - The Mapping of Humanitys Family Tree.
NOAA Scientists Confirm BP Oil Spill Harms Dolphins and Deep-Sea Corals | Environment | English - StumbleUpon. Scientists Find Sick Dolphins and Deep-Water Corals in Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Zone Two groups of scientists say they have identified signs of poor health in dolphins and in deep-sea corals due to exposure to polluted water in the northern Gulf of Mexico where the Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred nearly two years ago.
The deadly April 2010 disaster is the worst off-shore oil spill in U.S. history. A team of biologists assessing the health of a resident pod of dolphins in the Gulf’s Barataria Bay say their preliminary findings indicate the marine mammals are suffering from low body weight, anemia, low blood sugar, and symptoms of liver and lung disease. Also, nearly half of the 32 dolphins they tested in mid-2011 have abnormally low levels of certain hormones that help with stress response, metabolism and immune function. One of the dolphins they examined was found dead in January, and the researchers fear more will die. The dolphin study is part of the U.S. Exploiting the smell of genetically modified fear - StumbleUpon.
29 March 2012Last updated at 11:06 GMT Biotechnology is back on the political agenda today with the launch of a field trial designed to assess a new variety of aphid repelling GM wheat. Scientists have used genetic engineering to add a peppermint plant gene to wheat that expresses an alarm pheromone that aphids associate with danger. It's the same smell that aphids themselves produce when they're under attack from a predator - warning other bugs to keep clear. And in one of those twists so often found in nature, the odour also attracts the aphids' natural predators - parasitic wasps and labybirds - resulting in a double whammy of fewer pests and more predators homing in on the crop. Aphids are a major pest problem for cereal crops across northern Europe, causing £80m to £120m worth of losses to UK farmers every year. "It's a very clever combination of biotechnology, chemistry and natural ecology" according to Professor Maurice Maloney the Director of Rothamsted Research.
Sleeper cells: How to fight bacteria that play dead - 28 March 2012 - New Scientist - StumbleUpon. Editorial: "Antibiotics are wonder drugs no more" TAKE a lawnmower to a field of grass and, with the blades on the right setting, you can raze it to the ground. It might look brutal, but all you are removing is the leaves. The roots remain. After the mower is gone, the plants start to grow again and within a few days, the field is back. It now looks as if bacteria have a similar trick up their sleeve. A growing list of microbes have been found that are capable of entering a dormant state where all growth and reproduction ceases. Thanks to this trait, which is sometimes dubbed "persistence", they can tolerate extremely high doses of antibiotics without becoming resistant in the normal sense. Bacteria found in fluid used to carry transplant organs | The Sun |News|Politics - StumbleUpon. Bacteria use chat to play the prisoners dilemma game in deciding their fate. When faced with life-or-death situations, bacteria -- and maybe even human cells -- use an extremely sophisticated version of "game theory" to consider their options and decide upon the best course of action, scientists reported in San Diego March 27.
In a presentation at the 243rd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), they said microbes "play" a version of the classic "Prisoner's Dilemma" game. José Onuchic, Ph.D., who headed the research team, said these and other new insights into the "chat" sessions that bacteria use to communicate among themselves -- information about cell stress, the colony density (quorum-sensing peptides) and the stress status and inclinations of neighboring cells (peptide pheromones) -- could have far-reaching medical applications. "Using this form of cell-to-cell communication, colonies of billions or trillions of bacteria can literally reach a consensus on actions that impact people," Onuchic explained.
Logy Magazine. The major difference between plant and animal cells is the photosynthetic process, which converts light energy into chemical energy. When light isn't available, energy is generated by breaking down carbohydrates and sugars, just as it is in animal and some bacterial cells. Two cellular organelles are responsible for these two processes: the chloroplasts for photosynthesis and the mitochondria for sugar breakdown. New research from Carnegie's Eva Nowack and Arthur Grossman has opened a window into the early stages of chloroplast evolution. Their work is published online by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the week of February 27-March 2.
It is widely accepted that chloroplasts originated from photosynthetic, single-celled bacteria called cyanobacteria, which were engulfed by a more complex, non-photosynthetic cell more than 1.5 billion years ago. A similar process resulted in the creation of mitochondria. Multicellular Life Arises In A Test Tube. NORMAN, Okla. — Since humanity missed the big moment the first time around, biologists trying to understand the origins of complex life have coaxed single-celled microbes to evolve into multicellular forms capable of reproduction. Common lab yeast normally live as single cells that bud off single-celled offspring.
But challenging generations of yeast with conditions that make solo life tough led to spiky multicelled yeast forms within about two months, said Will Ratcliff of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. The experiment suggests going multicellular may happen more readily than previously thought, he told the Evolution 2011 conference June 18. “It was certainly the buzz of the conference,” said Lee Dugatkin of the University of Louisville in Kentucky. Evolutionary biologists rank the shift from one to many cells as one of the major transitions in the history of life. Dugatkin doesn’t find that a drawback, however. Discovery Health &Can humans regrow fingers?& When a hobby-store owner in Cincinnati sliced off his fingertip in 2005 while showing a customer why the motor on his model plane was dangerous, he went to the emergency room without the missing tip.
He couldn't find it anywhere. The doctor bandaged the wound and recommended a skin graft to cover the top of his right-middle stub for cosmetic purposes, since nothing could be done to rebuild the finger. Months later, he had regrown it, tissue, nerves, skin, fingernail and all. This particular hobbyist happened to have a brother in the tissue-regeneration business, who told him to forego the skin graft and instead apply a powdered extract taken from pig's bladder to the raw finger tip. Extracellular matrix is a component of body tissue that functions outside of the body's cells (thus the "extracellular" designation). In human fetuses, the substance works in concert with stem cells to grow and regrow everything from heart aortas to toes.
Spray-on clothing Video. ExPASy Proteomics Server - StumbleUpon. Institute for Systems Biology: Home - StumbleUpon. Critical stage of embryonic development now observable. A novel approach in the study of the development of mammalian embryos was reported on February 14 in the journal Nature Communications. The research, from the laboratory of Professor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz of the University of Cambridge, enables scientists to view critical aspects of embryonic development which was previously unobservable. For several decades it has been possible to culture embryos from a single cell, the fertilised egg, to the blastocyst, a ball of some 64 cells all derived from the first by repeated rounds of cell division.
In practical terms this has allowed the development of the in vitro fertilisation techniques that are used world-wide to assist fertility. It has also enabled scientists to learn much about these early stages of development during which cells take the very first decisions about their future. By contrast, scientists' knowledge of subsequent events has been extremely restricted. Doing Biotech in My Bedroom - Technology Review - StumbleUpon. Do-it-yourself: Cathal Garvey, 26, poses in the biology laboratory he created in his mother’s spare bedroom. In a spare bedroom of his family’s house in County Cork, Ireland, Cathal Garvey is repeating the feats that led to the dawn of the biotechnology age. He’s growing bacteria. He’s adding DNA. He’s seeing what happens. “To transform bacteria was once a huge deal, a new method,” he explains.
Garvey, who is 26, dropped out of a PhD program at a big cancer lab two years ago. Garvey was still working toward his PhD when he tried his first at-home experiment: isolating pale-blue bioluminescent bacteria from squid he purchased from a Cork fishmonger. His goal, he says, is to show that biology can be done in an open-source fashion, and on a shoestring budget. DIY biology is part of a wider trend in design that’s sometimes called maker culture: people are using 3-D printing services or cheap, custom electronic circuits to develop prototypes of gadgets, products, or vehicles.