I was reading a little about research done in the medical field on Science Daily.  It was very interesting.  The more and more I read, I realize just how related our physical and emotional states are.  It is incredible just how great of an effect emotional instability (as seen in depression) can play on one’s life.  For example, people with depression have a 40% higher chance of developing heart failure (according to research done by Ms. Gustad – see article on Science Daily).  At first glance this seems like a shocking statistic.  However, upon closer examination, it is quite self-explanatory.  If one is depressed, their lifestyle completely changes.  They are less active and tend to eat unhealthy foods.  It just continues to amaze me how much affect one’s mental state can have on their physical state.

Tim Caro and his colleagues from the University of California at Davis believe that they have answered the age old question of why zebras have stripes–they believe the stripes ward off bugs. These scientists did extensive geographic testing on different equis species, using phylogeny to compare the major hypothesis for cause behind the stripes. After determining that the stripes were likely insect repellents, they did testing with tsetse flies and tabanid biting flies, discovering that there is indeed correlation between pattern and where the bugs landed. Apparently flies do not like stripes.

Read their article here: http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140401/ncomms4535/full/ncomms4535.html

Hey Guys,

Great job on the posters. Our group had fun going through the entire year and reflecting on what we have done with phages.

This is an article on chemist who claimed that he can cure autism by balancing the amount of glutamate in the body. A lady named Reid and her autistic daughter wiped MSG from their diet. There were very positive results as her daughter became less autistic. I think it is worth checking out.

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/03/20/chemist-claims-reversed-daughter-autism/

Researchers recently examined the remains of two woolly mammoth remains found in the North Sea. What they found is quite interesting. Both specimens, who were most likely the last woolly mammoths in this area, had cervical ribs (ribs attached to the vertebrae in the neck). Upon further analysis, researches discovered that around one third of the total population of found woolly mammoth remains have this condition. This number is very high compared to their modern day relative, the elephant, in which this event only occurs in about 3% of the population. What could cause this high percentage of abnormal bone structure? In humans, cervical ribs are caused by inbreeding and adverse environmental conditions during pregnancy. Researches believe that the same is true here. Perhaps disease, famine, or the extreme cold  caused a decline in the woolly mammoth population size, causing a higher percentage of inbreeding. Or, perhaps the population size was small from the beginning, causing inbreeding to be a large factor throughout their existence. Either way, this discovery sheds new light on the vulnerability of the woolly mammoth species.  The article is linked below.

Extraordinary incidence of cervical ribs indicates vulnerable condition in Late Pleistocene mammoths

Researchers from Harvard University have recently discovered a protein thought only to be used in the womb in elderly subjects. This protein, which they are calling REST, protects the fetal brain during development and was previously thought to disappear after birth. However, their study shows that elderly adults without Alzeimer’s disease have a high level of this protein. It will be interesting to observe what types of therapies come from this discovery.

Here is the article:   http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature13163.html

Dr. Adair said that many of us struggled with the geologic time scale on our last test. This video help me IMMENSELY when studying that information for the test, and I thought it might be helpful for the final as well. Also, it has lots of dinosaur animations, which is always exciting.

Hey Guys,

I can not believe our genome is finally annotated. I had so much fun finding genes that were important to our genome and conversing with others on these genes. My favorite part of annotation was finding new genes. It was really cool to find things that glimmer missed. I think that this Bioinformatics work that we are doing has great potential in the future.

This is an interesting article about a giant virus that scientist found and resurrected in Siberia. It does not infect humans, but the article brings up a good point that if Siberian ice keeps melting, viruses that did infect humans could be revived. It is an interesting concept to think about.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/03/04/giant-virus-resurrected-after-30000-years/

Recently, the remains from three different specimens have been put to together to almost completely reconstruct the skeleton of the Anzu wyliei, pictured above. The remains show some shocking findings. This bird-like dinosaur stood roughly  5 feet tall and 11 feet wide at the hip. Think about it: the hip of the Anzu was about as all as my entire body. Resembling a giant, flightless bird, the Anzu had a toothless beak, feathers, and long, slender legs like an ostrich. However, it also had large claws at the tip of its forelimbs. The finding of the Anzu has proven that caenagnathids form a natural grouping within Oviraptorosauria, a theropod group composed of caenagnathids and oviraptorids. Furthermore, the scaring and healing of some of the bones of the Anzu seem to suggest that they were able to withstand quite a bit of trauma. 

However, what I find most interesting about the recent discoveries in the dinosaur way of life is their resemblance to birds in both physical and behavioral attributes. Recently, I was watching a documentary on the evolution of dinosaurs, and the new theories fascinated me. The documentary said that it is believed that dinosaurs, like the Anzu, laid eggs in a nest and protected them much like birds do today. Furthermore, they suggested that the father  may have also played a large role in raising and protecting his children. This new family dynamic is a very interesting discovery, and I cannot wait to see what else science will unveil from the lives of the dinosaurs.

Link to article: Nearly complete ‘chicken from hell,’ from mysterious dinosaur group

I found an interesting article on the Science Daily website concerning the method plants use to silence genes.  In Biology class we are just beginning to discuss plants and their methods of growth and formation.  I just read a section in our book over the differentiation of cells in plants.  This differentiation is the result of many things including gene silencing.  Each plant cell contains the same genome, but the cells perform different functions.  Therefore, this must be a result of gene silencing, where certain genes are expressed and others are not expressed.  A team from Indiana University was researching how plants cells know which genes to silence.  They observed that unlike some thought, this ability to know which genes to silence is not “hardwired” into their DNA.  In other words, it is not an inherited trait, built into their DNA.  Instead, the ability to silence genes seems to be a learned characteristic, through “molecular memory.”  The genes recognize heritable chemical marks on the genes, and remember to silence or express these based on past experience.  The chemical marks/tags serve as “molecular memory” to help the gene remember to silence these specific genes in future generations.  This was a very interesting article published on March 20, considering we are currently learning about the basics of plant differentiation in class!

Over the break I read a book that has been on my reading list for some time; The Hot Zone by Richard Preston.  For anyone who is interested in virology, epidemiology or enjoys being freaked out by potential pandemics, this is a must read.  It is an incredibly well documented non-fiction thriller, an account of the rise of Ebola throughout the 20th century.  Did you know the Ebola Zaire strain has a 80-90% mortality rate? Scary.  And there is no known treatment.

The book is absolutely fascinating, and as I find epidemiology really interesting, I could not put it down.  While its is a dramatization, Preston does an excellent job of presenting the story of the Ebola virus, from its mysterious origins in the jungles of central Africa to its near US breakout in a Washington, D.C. monkey house.  He has been praised in academic circles for his depiction of the history of the virus.  A word of caution, this book contains the sometimes gruesome descriptions of the effects a hemorrhagic fever has on the human (and monkey) bodies.  The book is fascinating, frightening and haunting reminder of the power of such a miniscule bundle of protein and DNA.   After all Stephen King did call it ”one of the most horrifying things I’ve ever read.”

Today we found a much more efficient method of merging our annotation work.  We got in our groups and discussed our reasoning for extending, inserting, deleting the genes.  This process actually worked wonderfully!  We almost finished and came to a consensus on the entire genome.  However, one thing I learned was just the uncertainty of science.  The importance of educated guessing and asking stupid questions became so much clearer to me in this lab. There were many points in lab today where no of us had any idea of what we were doing.  There was no evidence either way, and we simply had to make an educated guess in one direction.  Because this genome has never been annotated, we are exploring totally unchartered territory.  We are researchers asking stupid questions and making educated guesses, hoping it will lead to further understanding!

Hey guys! Check this out. Its super cool.

Evolutionary and developmental biologist Ulrich Technau and his team at the University of Vienna have discovered that sea anemones display a genomic landscape with a complexity of regulatory elements similar to that of fruit flies or other animal model systems. This suggests that this principle of gene regulation is already 600 million years old and dates back to the common ancestor of human, fly and sea anemone. On the other hand, sea anemones are more similar to plants rather to vertebrates or insects in their regulation of gene expression by short regulatory RNAs called microRNAs. It assumed that plant microRNAs arose independently from animal microRNAs, but their evolutionary origins, as they state in the article, is unclear. This is the first qualitative difference found between Cnidaria and “higher” animals and the findings provide insight on how important levels of gene regulation can evolve independently.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140318113816.htm

I was looking at my twitter account the other day and found this article posted by Scientific American. Being the nerdy person I am, this is basically the only stuff on my twitter feed.

While the end of this article does point out possible selection bias on the part of the researchers, I found this to be extremely interesting. Until reading this article, it had never occurred to me that all of the autistic individuals I know or have heard of are male. This is definitely something good to read if you are interested in genetics!

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/females-are-genetically-protected-from-autism/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter