Monthly Archives: November 2007

Historic Zombie Attack Unearthed

November 9, 2007UncategorizedArchaeologyGreg Laden

Hierakonpolis is a site famous for its many “firsts,” so many, in fact, it is not easy to keep track of them all. So we are grateful(?) to Max Brooks for bringing to our attention that the site can also claim the title to the earliest recorded zombie attack in history….Recent work at Hierakonpolis has, however, revealed compelling evidence that zombies may have been problematic already in Predynastic Egypt (ca. 3500 B.C.).

This zombie work has been going on for some time but mostly very hush hush. Finally, we have a detailed report to sink our teeth into, over at Archaeology.org.Click here to find out more about the ancient zombies.

How to Avoid Inbreeding

November 9, 2007UncategorizedUncategorizedGreg Laden

How do you avoid having sex with your close relatives? Well, not you, specifically, but how is it done generally, or perhaps among mammals in particular? Continue reading How to Avoid Inbreeding →

Giardia: Protozoan of never ending wonders

November 9, 2007UncategorizedGeneticsGreg Laden

… well, OK, maybe that is a slight exaggeration.You know about giardia. Giardia intestinalis. It causes a nasty gut infection, and you get it by drinking water pretty much anywhere in the US (potentially). It is very hard to get rid of.Giardia adapt to immune system attacks (of their host) in a way that passes that adaptation down to their offspring without genes. It is a Lamarkian process. Giardia have no mitochondria, yet many of the genes known to be in mitochondria in eukaryotes are found in the giardian nucleus. So, ancestral giardia probably had mitochondria, but all those genes got transferred over to the nucleus.The absence of mitochondria and the significant reduction of some other organelles has led people to, probably falsely, believe that giardia is some kind of intermediate between prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Again, this is probably a misinterpretation. Giardia, as a eukaryote which has lost specific organelles (yet still does just fine) would be in a sense “more evolved” than any eukaryote. Including, dear reader, you.And now, there is even a newer twist to the story. Continue reading Giardia: Protozoan of never ending wonders →

Nature Neuroscience: Focus on Glia

November 9, 2007Uncategorizedglia, glial cells, myelin, Neurobiology, neurons, neuropathologyGreg Laden

Ever since I started to learn about brains, back in the mid 1980s, from some really brainy brain experts like Terry Deacon and Joe Marcus, I always knew that glial cells were important. But I now read in current material in Nature Neuroscience, that “A decade ago, glia were the neglected stepchildren of neuroscience. Although glia outnumber neurons by about ten to 1 in the adult human brain, providing support for neurons has traditionally been viewed as their primary function. Glial biology has come into its own recently, as researchers have shown that glia are critical for the development of the nervous system and have key roles in various neurodegenerative disorders” (Aamodt 2007). So now I am even more impressed with Terry and Joe’s insights.Essentially, Glia do all the things that happen in the brain except the actual brain circuitry. Filtering, cleaning, structural support, repair of neurons, and so on. They also can do bad things and cause some neruopathies. This sudden (well, this decade anyway) realization of the importance of glial cells prompted piles of research, and this research is being highlighted in the current issue of Nature Neurobiology. The purpose of this blog entry is to provide you with a summary of that issue. Unless you subscribe, you can’t see it, but there area few links that are available to you here. Continue reading Nature Neuroscience: Focus on Glia →

Homeopathy and Curing Cancer

November 9, 2007UncategorizedHealthGreg Laden

A child with Melanoma, a mother tossed in jail, radio talk show hosts, ranting bloggers. It’s a good story.From the Natural Solutions Foundation Web Site:

There is a developing story from California that involves a mother with a 17 year old child who HAD melanoma. The mother, chose to go against her allopathic (conventional) doctor’s orders (to have surgery and chemotherapy) – and instead try advanced natural medicine first – since she understood that supporting the body’s ability to heal is more effective than destroying it as chemotherapy does.Not surprisingly this approach worked! This young man is now CANCER FREE!! However, the allopathic doctor is insisting that the child must have chemotheray as well as surgery, which the mother refuses to have her child undergo. Interestingly, doctor, the allopathic doctor’s unnecessary treatments will be compensated by the insurer or state, while the holistic strategies that actually worked are not eligible for coverage.[Quoted here]

Naturally, the mother and child were hunted down and harassed by authorities:

An unholy alliance of California Child Protective Services (CPS) with a hostile doctor and judge is attempting to railroad Laurie Jessop, framed as a threat to her son and the establishment for finding a way to cure him of malignant melanoma. She is now on trial, under a gag order, since she had gone to the press. When she was arrested, she was put in maximum security, solitary confinement, in the Orange County, CA jail. They claim that everything about. her says anti-Establishment, so she was told, as she was considered a threat in starting a riot.[source]

This story will become the centerpiece of pro-homeo antio-allo pathic medical pot shotting for a long time. Unless, of course, the truth gets out.It appears on further inspection (not done by me) that the story is a hoax. From Orac of Respectful Insolence:

The story was so obviously fraudulent, so obviously full of holes, so clearly ridiculous to anyone with even a little knowledge about melanoma and how it is treated, and so clearly containing elements suggestive of an urban legend, that anyone with a even modicum of responsibility and critical thinking skills would have investigated it before spreading it far and wide across the Internet and blogsophere. Clearly the Angry Scientist is no such person. He’s drunk the Kool Aid and is still trying to defend this story…[source]

Go here for the most current post by Orac on this story.

HIV: Congo to Haiti to Pandemic

November 8, 2007UncategorizedAIDS, Haiti, Health, HIVGreg Laden

Lots of people are talking about this latest paper on HIV. It is an “open access” paper in the PNAS, and you can get it here.Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that can cause AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). It is a member of a larger group of viruses (the Smian immunodeficiency viruses) which are generally thought to be of African origin. There are two types of HIV (HIV-1, and HIV-2), with HIV-1 being the more virulent and, in human populations, most widespread.There are several theories as to the origin of HIV. When I was in Zaire in the mid 1980s, people in the cities were insisting that several Zairois had been brought to the US and infected with “Sida” (AIDS) and sent back t Zaire unaware of their condition to spread the disease. It has been suggested that HIV was accidentally included in polio vaccine. These and other ideas are highly unlikely, as it turns out. Continue reading HIV: Congo to Haiti to Pandemic →

Are you having trouble reading this?

November 8, 2007UncategorizedHealthGreg Laden

You roll your head, hoping to loosen the knots in your neck, and shut your eyes. After rubbing them you settle back into staring, hunched inches away from the computer screen. Despite the brief reprise your vision remains cloudy, causing the words on the monitor to blur. At this point, you need to know: With each further click on the keyboard, video watched on YouTube, and e-mail sent–are you damaging your vision?

The answer? It depends. Go here to find out.Thanks, Scott, for the tip.

Why is global warming important?

November 8, 2007UncategorizedGlobal WarmingGreg Laden

When discussing global warming (and more broadly, climate change), especially here in the Great White North, it is often quipped that a little global warming is not necessarily a bad thing. So what if cold regions get warmer? That would be good for growing more food, having a warmer winter, and so on. Also, when we note the very large “natural” climate changes and contrast this with what is happening now, some people conclude that human-induced global warming is small change and therefore unimportant.There are two reasons why this is wrong. Continue reading Why is global warming important? →

Improving Brain Function

November 8, 2007UncategorizedNeurobiologyGreg Laden

How the brain works … what it does, how it does it, and how well it does it … is a matter of how neurons are arranged in relation to each other, in circuits. But that is only part of the story. These neurons also need to function properly, and the connections between them need to function properly. For instance, it is thought that Einstein’s brain (he was a smart-guy, we assume) was not especially large, but it is though the had a somewhat better than average setup for keeping his neurons happy.A protein called postsynaptic density-95 (PSD-95) acts as a structural element around which other components of the synapse … the “connection” between two nerurons” is built. The more PSD-95 available, the better the connection, according to MIT researchers with a recent paper in Nature.It was already known that mice with an altered PDD95 gene … to produce an ineffective protein … had trouble with memory and learning.The newly reported research describes the molecular processes associated with the function of this protein. There could be real-life applications of this work. According to Morgan H. Sheng, Menicon Professor of Neuroscience at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory:

“Adding a phosphate group to a single amino acid allows PSD-95 to promote synapse size and strength, … Therefore, promoting this process could help improve cognitive function.”

This will be in the November 8th Nature and is reported here as well.

Giraffe at Augrabies

November 8, 2007UncategorizedUncategorizedGreg Laden

i-26ee7843ca4d883fb63ea74021ec2172-Augrabies_giraffe.jpg Giraffa camelopardalis .. the tallest of all land animals.It is said that giraffes evolved a long neck in order to feed off the top of trees, avoiding competition with other browsing mammals. However, most leaves are actually eaten by insects who can get to these leaves as well as any other. Personally, I think the long neck is an adaptation to having very long legs. The long neck allows the giraffe to reach water without having to get too far down on the ground or lay on its side.

Sherwin Nuland: A history of electroshock therapy (TED)

November 8, 2007UncategorizedNeurobiologyGreg Laden

YA Genome: Fruit Flies

November 8, 2007UncategorizedDrosophila, fruit flies, Genetics, genomesGreg Laden

I’m sure you’ ve heard, but in case not: Not one, not two, not even three, but TEN new genomes were just released, bringing the total for fruit fly genomes to twelve species.These fruit flies diverged several tens of millions of years ago, which in the large picture, is kinda recent. This will allow a useful meso-time scale comparative study across diverging genomes trapped in somewhat less divergent phenotypes.We are now starting to see patterning in the fundamental nature of selection For instance, it is now possible to begin to estimate the relative rate of genetic change at the base-pair level that is accounted for by different kinds of selective forces, such as sexual selection, selection on the immune system, and so on, and to place this in the broader context of neutral process.A good place to start reading about this is here, at Nature News.

Technology News

November 8, 2007UncategorizedTechnologyGreg Laden

Summary: Will “BBC” stand for Bill’s British Cuckolds”?; US Computer Users are blissfully ignorant, it turns out; List of Ten Most Addictive Games is out. Continue reading Technology News →

Where Are They Now? Lemurs Let Loose Live

November 8, 2007UncategorizedUncategorizedGreg Laden

Ten years ago, thirteen lucky lemurs were taken from Duke’s primate center and the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City, and other facilities, and let loose in their native lands in Madagascar.These were black and white ruffed lemurs, Varecia variegata variegata. They are rain forest dwellers native to Madagascar.Several were almost instantly eaten by predators, which is not at all surprising because the Predator IQ is pretty much determined by environmental factors in primates (as is intelligence in general). Of the original 13, three survive today.Lemurs being lemurs, there was also romance, and in the end there are now six or more offspring born of five of the original animals. Most of the offspring that were born in the wild were also eaten by predators, more than would have happened if they were born of wild primates, most likely. This is not surprising, since the ability to do complex thing in primates is not inherited genetically, but rather, passed on through cultural processes, and none of the original lemurs were savvy about predators.Hopefully as generations go by, the survival rate will go up, and if that happens fast enough, this group will not go extinct.The story is detailed, with more pictures and even sound files you can listen to, here at Duke’s site.

Interesting Science News

November 7, 2007UncategorizedUncategorizedGreg Laden

I’ve been driving all day and I’ll be teaching all night. I so wish I could write about each of the following very interesting stories:

Key to False Memories Uncovered from PhysOrg.com
Duke University Medical Center neuroscientists say the places a memory is processed in the brain may determine how someone can be absolutely certain of a past event that never occurred.[…]

PCs Could Run Multiple Operating Systems from PhysOrg.com
(AP) — Tired of Windows? The next generation of laptops may let you jump from one operating system to another to play movies, surf the Web or read e-mail.[…]

(Note: You can do this now with a multi-boot system. But why not just run one good OS, like, say, LInux?)

Kitten-cuddling mice explain the science of smell from PhysOrg.com
Japanese scientists have created genetically-modified mice that, shorn of their ability to sense dangerous smells, will even snuggle up to a kitten, according to a study released on Wednesday by the journal Nature.[…]

Direct gaze makes you more attractive from PhysOrg.com
Looking directly at someone makes you more attractive to them according to research published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, today (Wednesday 7 November, 2007).[…]

This one, I will absolutely return to at a later time:

When animals evolve on islands, size doesn’t matter from PhysOrg.com
A theory explaining the evolution of giant rodents, miniature elephants, and even miniature humans on islands has been called into questions by new research published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.[…]