February 2012
26 posts
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New cancer drug sabotages tumour's escape route →
Some untreatable cancers could soon be held in check by an experimental drug that targets not only the tumour itself, but also how it evolves to spread through the body.
The new drug, Cabozantinib, or cabo for short, simultaneously neutralises two mechanisms cancers need to survive. First, it chokes each tumour’s blood supply by blocking a molecule on the surface of its blood vessels,...
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ohyeahdevelopmentalbiology:
what do you call a fish without eyes?
Follicle-stimulating hormone
Still funny
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Stem cells used to 'heal' heart attack scars
femininescience:
Damage caused by a heart attack has been healed using stem cells gathered from the patient’s own heart, according to doctors in the US.
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fredbobturtles asked: Heya, can you explain Homologous recombination to me in layman's terms? Thankies
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'Immortal' Tasmanian devil brings vaccine hope →
A bizarre facial cancer threatening to wipe out the Tasmanian devil probably evolved from a single female about 16 years ago, new scans of the cancer reveal. The scans are also helping to identify gene mutations found in the cancer but not healthy tissue, which might provide targets for a vaccine to rescue the endangered species.
Devil facial tumour disease is unusual in that the cancer cells...
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'DNA robot' targets cancer cells →
Scientists have developed and tested a “DNA robot” that delivers payloads such as drug molecules to specific cells.
The container was made using a method called “DNA origami”, in which long DNA chains are folded in a prescribed way.
Then, so-called aptamers - which can recognise specific cell types - were used to lock the barrel-shaped robot.
New Article
Original...
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Game: The Great Sperm Race. →
Mission of The Great Sperm Race is to be the first on the egg! Race against 250.000.000 other sperm and fertilize the egg. Control the single sperm with the arrow keys. Be fast but keep distance from the sticky walls!
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Watch a killer T cell in action as it attacks a... →
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Entire genome of extinct human decoded from fossil →
Researchers have now been able to sequence the entire Denisova genome using 10 milligram of a finger bone fragment that was found in the Denisova-Cave in Southern Sibiria. © MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology
Click link to read more.
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Watchlaura-mariesaul:
Organic 2 by AMagill on Flickr.
Morphogenesis & Pattern Formation Mathematical biology and Morphogenesis was the last work in which Turing worked on. He wanted to decode the markings and patterns formed in nature such as patterns on animals or patterns formed in plant structures and how they emerge. His reaction-diffusion model was the basis to understanding pattern...
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Alan Turing Pardon Denied of the Day →
smooshingaround:
bdoing:
Alan Turing Pardon Denied of the Day: The British House of Lords hasdecided not to pardon World War II codebreaker and computing pioneer Alan Turing, who committed suicide in 1954 after being convicted of homosexuality, chemically castrated, and stripped of his security clearance.
“A posthumous pardon was not considered appropriate as Alan Turing was properly...
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Clint Eastwood helps reveal secrets of brain... →
Clint Eastwood might sound like an unlikely candidate to help investigate the evolution of the brain, but he has lent a helping hand to researchers doing just that. It turns out that brain regions that do the same job in monkeys and humans aren’t always found in the same part of the skull.
Previous studies comparing brains across species tended to assume that human brains were just...
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SPACE DOCTOR! →
Welcome to the Extraterrestrial Gene Therapy Lab!
As Space Doctor, you’ll use your gene therapy knowledge to treat three ailing aliens who come into your clinic.
Before starting, you might want to review Tools of the Trade and the Gene Therapy Case Studies found in other sections of this module.
Space doctor hell yeah!
January 2012
24 posts
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'Panic button' could help cancer defy drugs →
Stressed yeast cells frantically reshuffle their chromosomes in a desperate last bid to find a combination that survives. This “panic” response enables them to rapidly evolve resistance to drugs.
The discovery might also apply to cancer, because cancer cells often have abnormal numbers and arrangements of chromosomes. Understanding one of the mechanisms by which cancers develop...
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Dinosaur Bones: What ancient proteins can tell us... →
Remember in Jurassic Park when they got dinosaur DNA from an ancient mosquito’s stomach? Well, if they had been interested in dinosaur proteins, they only had to look at a dinosaur bone. Dinosaur bones are at least 65 million years old. And all of the meat has turned to stone. Over this amount of time and with this much abuse, scientists thought no DNA or proteins could survive. They were...
themoonorquit:
Evolution Is Still Happening: Beneficial Mutations in Humans
mothonawindow:
Tetrachromatic vision. Most mammals have poor color vision because they have only two kinds of cones, the retinal cells that discriminate different colors of light. Humans, like other primates, have three kinds, the legacy of a past where good color vision for finding ripe, brightly colored fruit...
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Get Over It: Men and Women Are from the Same... →
jtotheizzoe:
Agustín Fuentes shreds a recent paper from PLoS ONE that claims a litany of “sex differences” in trying to define “masculinity-femininity” at the SciAm guest blog:
“Sex” and “Gender” are not the same thing. Sex is a biological state that is measure via chromosomal content and a variety of physiological and developmental measures. Gender is the roles, expectations and perceptions...
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“Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of...”
– Carl Sagan (via noneofyourbismuth)
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Gel Electrophoresis Virtual Lab →
Have you ever wondered how scientists work with tiny molecules that they can’t see? Here’s your chance to try it yourself! Sort and measure DNA strands by running your own gel electrophoresis experiment.
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Synthetic Windpipe Is Used to Replace Cancerous... →
Surgeons in Sweden have replaced the cancerous windpipe of a Maryland man with one made in a laboratory and seeded with the man’s cells.
Read more
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Palaeontologia Electronica →
everydaypalaeontologist:
for all those who want to read palaeo papers but without access to Vertebrate Palaeo/Nature etc.
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Lizards may be made smarter by warming world →
When the heat is on, lizards become smarter – potentially giving them a competitive edge as the world warms.
Click link to read more.
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Medical Pioneers (20th Century Lives)
ardisworlde:
Medical Pioneers (20th Century Lives) 20th Century Lives: Medical Pioneers includes some of the world’s most dynamic and influential people in the history of medical science, from Alexander Fleming and Christiaan Barnard to Crick and Watson. It provides a fascinating insight into the experiences and achievements of these talented and inspirational people and sheds light on how they...
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The Story of Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells.
Until fairly recently, differentiation was seen as final and irreversible. Once a cell became specialized, it was referred to as “terminally differentiated;” it was considered locked in and unable to become a different cell type. However, in 2007, scientists were able to turn a differentiated cell back into a stem cell with the potential to become any type of cell in the body. The...
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“Haematopoiesis,
Not just hypo-thesis.
I’m cultured, I tell ya,
...”
–
From Keith Macpherson - I couldn’t resist composing this after the mention of the charmingly misspelled word hematopoetic in your story on blood grown in the lab from stem cells(12 November, p 8):