Life Sciences
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Could life be everywhere? | catchthemicrobe
I’ve always thought brining was to preserve food. Turns out that it can also be used to preserve (some, not all, but alive and kicking) bacteria. Microbial life has been discovered in a brine lake beneath the Antarctic ice after spending almost 3,000 years isolated from external energy sources. Previous studies of the brine in Lake Vida from 2002 had discovered the presence of ancient microbes, however these needed to be thawed before life signs were observed. The most recent result showed Vida to contain a diverse and metabolically active bacteria-dominated ecosystem.Evidence emerged last week that butterflies in Japan have suffered “physiological and genetic damage” caused by radiation released from the damaged reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant . Once again we see another animal species paying the price for nuclear power. In May last year, two months after the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami destroyed three of the Fukushima reactors, scientists and researchers in Japan collected and examined pale grass blue butterflies , a common species in Japan. Their findings are disturbing.
Fukushima radiation causing abnormalities in Japanese butterflies
Recycling Reality: Humans Set to Trash Most Elements on the Periodic Table
Almost all lead is recycled , among the only elements on the periodic table to earn that distinction. With good reason, mind you: the soft metal is a potent neurotoxic known to impact children’s brain development, among other nasty health effects. Today, nearly all lead is used in batteries (though it was once put into gasoline , leading to widespread contamination, and, in places like Afghanistan, still is .)The biological impacts of the Fukushima nuclear accident on the pale grass blue butterfly : Scientific Reports
Abnormalities in field-caught individuals and their F 1 offspring We collected 144 first-voltine adults (111 males and 33 females) from 10 localities (Shiroishi, Fukushima, Motomiya, Koriyama, Hirono, Iwaki, Takahagi, Mito, Tsukuba, and Tokyo) approximately 2 months after the accident on 13–18 May 2011 ( Fig. 1a ; Supplementary Table 1 ). Most of the collected adults appeared morphologically and behaviorally normal, but mild morphological abnormalities were detected in some individuals upon close inspections ( Fig. 1b–e ; Supplementary Table 2 ).
WELCOME TO THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON THE HEALTH IMPACT AND FUTURE POTENTIAL OF BENEFICIAL MICROBES!
It's with great pleasure that we announce the upcoming 3rd TNO Beneficial Microbes Conference , to be held in Noordwijkerhout, the Netherlands, on 26-28 March 2012. The microbiota in the gastro-intestinal tract of man and animals has been shown to be important for health and disease. Moreover, over the past decades the benefit of probiotics has been shown in various areas such as allergy, inflammatory disease, competitive exclusion of pathogens, stool habit, etc. Furthermore, probiotics and prebiotics are used in infant formula to direct the development of the endogenous microbiota. For probiotics, an interaction with the mucosal immune system seems the major mechanism by which these beneficial microbes exert their benefit to the host. Numerous hypotheses on how they might work have been postulated.
Microbiome
A microbiome is the totality of microbes , their genetic elements (genomes), and environmental interactions in a particular environment . The term "microbiome" was coined by Joshua Lederberg , who argued that microorganisms inhabiting the human body should be included as part of the human genome , because of their influence on human physiology. The human body contains over 10 times more microbial cells than human cells. [ 1 ] [ 2 ]Worried About Air Pollution? Don't Hide Indoors: Scientific American Podcast
Energy & Sustainability :: 60-Second Earth :: January 22, 2012 :: :: Email :: Print Scientists are uncovering more and more evidence that the air in buildings can be bad for you. David Biello reports Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way... Read More » You need to get out more.
Where physics meets biology | Athene Donald | Science
Aggregates of the protein fragment (A β 1-40) associated with Alzheimer's disease, grown in a test-tube. Photograph: Danielle Cannon The Higgs boson and the probability that it's been found have been much in the news recently; so has the safe landing on Mars of Nasa's Curiosity. Good times for physicists in making mainstream newspapers, it would seem.
Neuroscientists from the University of California, Berkeley have successfully decoded brain activity into audible sounds. In a study that included 15 subjects, the researchers could understand the decoded words 80 to 90% of the time. This is effectively mind reading.
Neuroscientists create computer program that can decode your thoughts
Brain's stem cells 'eavesdrop' to find out when to act
Aug 06, Medical research This is a single parvalbumin-expressing interneuron (red) surrounded by many adult neural stem cells (green) in the brain’s hippocampus. Credit: Gerry Sun Working with mice, Johns Hopkins researchers say they have figured out how stem cells found in a part of the brain responsible for learning, memory and mood regulation decide to remain dormant or create new brain cells.
By Linda Carroll Scientists have long assumed that fading memories are just a normal part of aging. But a new study suggests that certain 80-somethings can remember every bit as well as people much younger.
Brain function remains sharp in rare 'SuperAgers'
UK Web Focus | Events: Open Practices for the Connected Researcher
About Brian Kelly gave an invited hour-long talk on Open Practices for the Connected Researcher in a seminar which was part of a series of Open Access Week events which took place at the University of Exeter during Open Access Week . The seminar took place in Newman Lecture Theatre B on the Streatham Campus from 12.00-13.00 on Tuesday 23 th October 2012. Abstract The potential benefits of open access to research papers are well-understood.With Rise of Gene Sequencing, Ethical Puzzles
Gretchen Ertl for The New York Times Dr. Robert C. Green of Harvard sees practical and ethical issues in trying to warn anonymous study subjects of disease risks.Genetics Practice Problems You may type in your own answers, then check to see if you were right. If you’re totally stumped, you can tell the computer to show you the answer to a particular question. Monohybrid Cross: In humans, brown eyes (B) are dominant over blue (b)*. A brown-eyed man marries a blue-eyed woman and they have three children, two of whom are brown-eyed and one of whom is blue-eyed.