Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Monkey, Man-Machine
I never really got anywhere in my "further research" on the bipolar genetics paper I mentioned yesterday, so I'll just go with what detail I have:
A consortium of researchers at the NIMH and abroad scanned the genomes of BPD and control groups and have identified a number of genes associated with the disorder, including one of particular interest for treatment. They identified the DGKH gene on chromosome 13, which produces an enzyme called diacylglycerol kinase eta which has something to do with the pathway on which Lithium works to control mood swings, as a possible target for novel therapies. It's not clear from the press release what the enzyme does or how it works, so if anyone knows I'd love to hear from you (leave a comment!).
Also in the brain, Chinese researchers may have found a key mutation that helped make humans what they are (i.e., different from apes and monkeys). Neuropsin is an enzyme produced in the brain and involved in learning and memory, a longer form of which is present in humans, but not other animals. This group found that this alternate splice seen in humans arose at our split from other apes and monkeys, about 5 million years ago. I really am crap on my genetics, and only having abstracts to go on doesn't help, but I think this is cool so I'm writing it!
And in other news of the not-quite-human, it seems that battlefield robots are rising the ranks of the US army as quickly as actual soldiers: human units become so attached to their bots that they award them medals and even complaining that testing them in minefields is inhumane. Is this a beginning of robot rights? The Three Laws must, to a good degree, go both ways, I think, for things to work out well.
A consortium of researchers at the NIMH and abroad scanned the genomes of BPD and control groups and have identified a number of genes associated with the disorder, including one of particular interest for treatment. They identified the DGKH gene on chromosome 13, which produces an enzyme called diacylglycerol kinase eta which has something to do with the pathway on which Lithium works to control mood swings, as a possible target for novel therapies. It's not clear from the press release what the enzyme does or how it works, so if anyone knows I'd love to hear from you (leave a comment!).
Also in the brain, Chinese researchers may have found a key mutation that helped make humans what they are (i.e., different from apes and monkeys). Neuropsin is an enzyme produced in the brain and involved in learning and memory, a longer form of which is present in humans, but not other animals. This group found that this alternate splice seen in humans arose at our split from other apes and monkeys, about 5 million years ago. I really am crap on my genetics, and only having abstracts to go on doesn't help, but I think this is cool so I'm writing it!
And in other news of the not-quite-human, it seems that battlefield robots are rising the ranks of the US army as quickly as actual soldiers: human units become so attached to their bots that they award them medals and even complaining that testing them in minefields is inhumane. Is this a beginning of robot rights? The Three Laws must, to a good degree, go both ways, I think, for things to work out well.
Labels: army, Asimov, bipolar disorder, DGKH, enzymes, evolution, geneitcs, humanity, humans, Lithium, neuropsin, neuroscience, psychology, robots
Friday, April 13, 2007
Watch Out for Coughing Cowboys!
This ain't your grandfather's gonorrhea. Due to careless antibiotic use and of course to careless sexual practices, the US is seeing a ginormous rise in proportion of drug-resistant strains of this STD. Currently only one class of antibiotic seems to remain effective, and how long that will last no one can guess.
Speaking of making babies, a UK group claims to have grown immature sperm from bone marrow stem cells, potentially hinting at future fertility treatment advances. Gives new meaning to the concept of "boning" somebody...
But what genes get passed on? Hopefully not a faulty copy of FTO, which greatly increases risk of obesity. We may also soon know a good bit more about how genes evolve and change over time from the newly sequenced macaque genome.
Finally, if you thought bird flu and monkey pox were bad, wait till you hear about cow tuberculosis! It appears that this potentially lethal infection is, contrary to previous thought, transmissable from human to human. D'oh!
Speaking of making babies, a UK group claims to have grown immature sperm from bone marrow stem cells, potentially hinting at future fertility treatment advances. Gives new meaning to the concept of "boning" somebody...
But what genes get passed on? Hopefully not a faulty copy of FTO, which greatly increases risk of obesity. We may also soon know a good bit more about how genes evolve and change over time from the newly sequenced macaque genome.
Finally, if you thought bird flu and monkey pox were bad, wait till you hear about cow tuberculosis! It appears that this potentially lethal infection is, contrary to previous thought, transmissable from human to human. D'oh!
Labels: antibiotic resistance, bacteria, bird flu, bone marrow, bovine, cowboys, cows, evolution, fertility, genes, genome, gonorrhea, macaque, obesity, sex, sperm, STDs, stem cells, TB, tuberculosis
Monday, December 11, 2006
More Birth and Death
The rise of large animal life has long baffled biologists; the so-called "Darwin's Dilemma" fuels not only scientific inquiry and curiosity, but also gets used by crazies as 'evidence' that evolution isn't real. The 'Dilemma' is this - that for billions of years, life on Earth was pretty simple (well, small anyways), but then suddenly all kinds of large animals started appearing, and it's unclear why.
Queen's College researchers looked at evidence of the atmospheric composition in past eras, and found that the sudden development of large animals happened as atmospheric oxygen levels were dramatically increasing. Oxygen is, of course, critical to sustaining life as we know it on Earth, and large quantities of it are necessary to sustain large animals: before there was much oxygen around, big animals wouldn't have survived, but once there was enough to support them, one can speculate that larger size began to hold many advantages.
In terms of more recent beginnings of life, the evidence strongly indicates that breastfeeding babies is the best thing to do for them. Despite this, about 60% of American women don't breastfeed even for the first six months of life, which is the base recommendation for health, and researchers wonder why. An Australian study found that women who take an epidural pain killer during labor are less likely to breastfeed their babies.
It's not clear whether the drug itself is responsible for the difference, or if it's just that women who go without are more likely to stick it out in terms of breastfeeding. My guess is that it's a bit of column A and a lot of column B, but then, I'm a cynic.
On the other end of gestation, it appears that anti-impotence drugs, which increase NO transmission, may actually help the body fight cancer. That's right: Viagra for cancer! Researchers found that the increased NO levels interfere with immune down-regulating myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs), allowing the system to detect and kill cancers more effectively. Awesome!
Queen's College researchers looked at evidence of the atmospheric composition in past eras, and found that the sudden development of large animals happened as atmospheric oxygen levels were dramatically increasing. Oxygen is, of course, critical to sustaining life as we know it on Earth, and large quantities of it are necessary to sustain large animals: before there was much oxygen around, big animals wouldn't have survived, but once there was enough to support them, one can speculate that larger size began to hold many advantages.
In terms of more recent beginnings of life, the evidence strongly indicates that breastfeeding babies is the best thing to do for them. Despite this, about 60% of American women don't breastfeed even for the first six months of life, which is the base recommendation for health, and researchers wonder why. An Australian study found that women who take an epidural pain killer during labor are less likely to breastfeed their babies.
It's not clear whether the drug itself is responsible for the difference, or if it's just that women who go without are more likely to stick it out in terms of breastfeeding. My guess is that it's a bit of column A and a lot of column B, but then, I'm a cynic.
On the other end of gestation, it appears that anti-impotence drugs, which increase NO transmission, may actually help the body fight cancer. That's right: Viagra for cancer! Researchers found that the increased NO levels interfere with immune down-regulating myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs), allowing the system to detect and kill cancers more effectively. Awesome!
Labels: atmosphere, birth, breastfeeding, cancer, Darwin, epidural, evolution, nature, NO, science, Viagra
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Is Newer Better?
Undeniably, a central dogma of our consumerist culture is that the newest is the best - rather ironically in contrast to Americans' generally overwhelming nostalgia - but science ultimately has no time for such preferences. Sure, it'd be nice if the newest drug was always the best, and comforting if we humans were the newest and best that evolution had to offer. Turns out we're not so unique, and old cures often surpass new ones.
What sets humans apart from other animals is mainly our brains. Our myelinated neurons make transmission faster, and help us perform all that hard thinking we think we're so good at. On the downside, it seems that easily disrupted myelin sheaths may be what makes us so vulnerable to neuropsychiatric disorders like Alzheimer's.
We also have spindle cells, long 'express route' neurons linking senses to visceral processing centers to reaction centers in the brain, which help us react quickly to emotional situations and stimuli. Spindle cells were long thought unique to humans and our closest great ape relatives, helping to define what makes us 'special.' Now it seems that larger cetaceans have spindle cells too - and have had them 15 million years longer than primates. A beautiful case of convergent evolution, this finding also calls further in to question the ethics of whale hunting, and could change the way we think about our interaction with whales overall.
Over the years, we've used our myelinated brains and spindle cells to change all sorts of things about our world - including years of selectively breeding crops to suit our needs. It seems, however, that our wheat breeding may have been doing more harm than good: domesticated wheat have had silenced a gene - GPC-B1 - that seems to make wheat grow faster and have better nutritional content. Researchers are working to reverse this by cross-breeding domestic and wild wheats, hoping that the result will be a much more nutritive crop, which could help alleviate hunger.
Finally, researchers looking for a new anti-inflammatory drug to replace the disgraced likes of Vioxx have turned to a rare African plant, Aframomum melegueta, used by traditional African medics, and even gorillas(!) for millennia. The plant also seems to have pretty potent anti-microbial activity, including against MRSA. The downside? It's already extremely rare, and I can't see major commercial interests being especially good for species survival.
What sets humans apart from other animals is mainly our brains. Our myelinated neurons make transmission faster, and help us perform all that hard thinking we think we're so good at. On the downside, it seems that easily disrupted myelin sheaths may be what makes us so vulnerable to neuropsychiatric disorders like Alzheimer's.
We also have spindle cells, long 'express route' neurons linking senses to visceral processing centers to reaction centers in the brain, which help us react quickly to emotional situations and stimuli. Spindle cells were long thought unique to humans and our closest great ape relatives, helping to define what makes us 'special.' Now it seems that larger cetaceans have spindle cells too - and have had them 15 million years longer than primates. A beautiful case of convergent evolution, this finding also calls further in to question the ethics of whale hunting, and could change the way we think about our interaction with whales overall.
Over the years, we've used our myelinated brains and spindle cells to change all sorts of things about our world - including years of selectively breeding crops to suit our needs. It seems, however, that our wheat breeding may have been doing more harm than good: domesticated wheat have had silenced a gene - GPC-B1 - that seems to make wheat grow faster and have better nutritional content. Researchers are working to reverse this by cross-breeding domestic and wild wheats, hoping that the result will be a much more nutritive crop, which could help alleviate hunger.
Finally, researchers looking for a new anti-inflammatory drug to replace the disgraced likes of Vioxx have turned to a rare African plant, Aframomum melegueta, used by traditional African medics, and even gorillas(!) for millennia. The plant also seems to have pretty potent anti-microbial activity, including against MRSA. The downside? It's already extremely rare, and I can't see major commercial interests being especially good for species survival.
Labels: antiinflammatory, breeding, cetaceans, crops, drugs, evolution, hunger, myelin, neuroscience, spindle cells, wheat
Monday, November 20, 2006
Change and Brain Damage
Evolutionary change is something we don't usually get to see in action, except in fruit flies and bacteria. Research in the Bahamas (whose ethics I wouldn't touch with someone else's 10-foot-pole) seems to have stimulated an amazingly rapid series of developments in lizards. After introduction (by researchers) of predator lizards to six islands, the native populations of smaller lizards quickly began to adapt to have longer legs - better for running away. The small lizards behavior changed soon though, as they discovered that hiding in trees was better protection from the predators. Thus, six months after long legs were in fashion, small legs - good for climbing - became the dominant trait. This is so cool I can't stand it!
While the most recent global conference on climate change ended more or less in shambles, at least one really scary idea got serious airtime. Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen spoke about his proposal, first published last summer, of using smog to combat global warming. The idea is that, as when a volcanic eruption sends tonnes of sulfuric soot into the atmosphere and cools the planet for a while, humans could fly blimps full of sulfates up for release, and they would similarly act as a solar shield.
There are so many reasons why I don't like this idea. First of all, it is at best just a way of delaying actually dealing with global warming. Secondly, what happens when all that soot falls to the Earth? Do we really want to be covered in ash all the time? Thirdly, what will blocking all that UV do to plant life? I'd imagine it'd offset the carbon balance even more, by lowering photosynthesis rates. Not to mention depriving people of vitamin D.
But people often forget these details. Is it because they smoke pot? Rutgers researchers have found that THC screws up the synchronized firing necessary in hippocampal neurons for memory formation. The study did not address long-term changes, but they are, of course, a possibility if these results are real (I am perpetually dubious of any US-based marijuana research, as it is so often tainted by the political agendas of funders and regulators).
Speaking of "stupid days," apparently some short guy called "Tom Cruise" married some scrawny chick called "Katie Holmes" this weekend. Apparently this was bigger and more important news than kidnappings in Iraq or school shootings in Germany or Ruth Brown's death. (That last one should be more important because (a) she was a true revolutionary, and also (b) her death is permanent, whereas I'd not give this marriage more than 11 months) What also bothers me is the Scientologist wedding vows that were apparently to be used. He promised her "a pan, a comb, perhaps a cat," and she essentially promised to not mind his indiscretions. Hardly seems like something any modern woman in her right mind would accept.
While the most recent global conference on climate change ended more or less in shambles, at least one really scary idea got serious airtime. Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen spoke about his proposal, first published last summer, of using smog to combat global warming. The idea is that, as when a volcanic eruption sends tonnes of sulfuric soot into the atmosphere and cools the planet for a while, humans could fly blimps full of sulfates up for release, and they would similarly act as a solar shield.
There are so many reasons why I don't like this idea. First of all, it is at best just a way of delaying actually dealing with global warming. Secondly, what happens when all that soot falls to the Earth? Do we really want to be covered in ash all the time? Thirdly, what will blocking all that UV do to plant life? I'd imagine it'd offset the carbon balance even more, by lowering photosynthesis rates. Not to mention depriving people of vitamin D.
But people often forget these details. Is it because they smoke pot? Rutgers researchers have found that THC screws up the synchronized firing necessary in hippocampal neurons for memory formation. The study did not address long-term changes, but they are, of course, a possibility if these results are real (I am perpetually dubious of any US-based marijuana research, as it is so often tainted by the political agendas of funders and regulators).
Speaking of "stupid days," apparently some short guy called "Tom Cruise" married some scrawny chick called "Katie Holmes" this weekend. Apparently this was bigger and more important news than kidnappings in Iraq or school shootings in Germany or Ruth Brown's death. (That last one should be more important because (a) she was a true revolutionary, and also (b) her death is permanent, whereas I'd not give this marriage more than 11 months) What also bothers me is the Scientologist wedding vows that were apparently to be used. He promised her "a pan, a comb, perhaps a cat," and she essentially promised to not mind his indiscretions. Hardly seems like something any modern woman in her right mind would accept.
Labels: climate change, crazy, evolution, global warming, hippocampus, marijuana, media, memory, news, Scientology, stupid, THC, TomKat
