Category Archives: Science

African Chickens

By Guest PostFebruary 13, 2013Scienceafrican chicken dna, african chickens, american chickens, chickens in kenya, disease resistance, production facility chicken

UD’s Schmidt studies heat stress, disease resistance in African chickens

Last fall, the University of Delaware’s Carl Schmidt took a trip to Uganda with a team of researchers from Iowa State University and North Carolina State University to get genetic samples from African chickens. The goal was to compare and contrast their genes to one another, and also to American broiler chickens, to gauge how the two species’ genetic makeup helps them cope with heat stress, as well as susceptibility and resistance to different diseases. (more…)

Bisphenol A Affects Sex-Specific Reproductive Behaviors in a Monogamous Animal Species, Says MU Researcher

By Guest PostFebruary 13, 2013Environment, Health, Scienceaggression, american public, anxiety, assess, beer, behavioral effects, behaviors of males, bisphenol a, boys versus girls, bpa, california mouse, canned goods, chemical exposure, cheryl rosenfeld, david geary, denise warzak, eldin jasarevic, female hormones, females, gregory vandas, human body, human societies, mark ellersieck, monogamous rodent, nutritional support, offspring, paper receipts, peromyscus californicus, plastic containers, post natal exposure, pre, r michael roberts, reproductive associated behaviors, researchers, risk to children, rodents, rosenfelds lab, scott williams, sex specific, soda cans, species, university of missouri

Animal Findings Suggest That Gender May Also Influence Chemical Exposure Risks for Humans

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Parents, teachers and psychologists know boys and girls behave differently. However, that difference isn’t taken into account by most methods used to assess the risk to children from chemical exposure, according to Cheryl Rosenfeld, associate professor of biomedical sciences in the University of Missouri’s Bond Life Sciences Center. A series of experiments by Rosenfeld studied the effects of prenatal exposure to bisphenol A (BPA) on later reproductive-associated behaviors using a socially and genetically monogamous rodent, the California mouse, which may better mirror most human societies than other rodents. (more…)

Mars Rock Takes Unusual Form

By Guest PostFebruary 12, 2013Sciencecuriosity mars rover, earth, erosion, mars, mars rock, martian rock, mast camera, mastcam, metallic object, NASA, natural elements, ronald sletten, seattle, shiny appearance, shiny looking rock, similar phenomena, types of rocks, university of washington, unusual appearance, unusual form

On Mars, as on Earth, sometimes things can take on an unusual appearance. A case in point is a shiny-looking rock seen in a recent image from NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover.

Some casual observers might see a resemblance to a car door handle, hood ornament or some other type of metallic object. To Ronald Sletten of the University of Washington, Seattle, a collaborator on Curiosity’s science team, the object is an interesting study in how wind and the natural elements cause erosion and other effects on various types of rocks. (more…)

UCLA Findings Buck Conventional Wisdom about How Stress-Response Protein Works

By Guest PostFebruary 11, 2013Health, Scienceage related, biomarker, cell stress, cell types, chaperones, class of molecules, clouding, conventional wisdom, environmental conditions, epithelial cells, eye institute, eye lens, fibroblast cells, gene, heart muscle degeneration, heat shock factor, heat shock factor4, heat shock protein, hsf1, hsf4, infection, inflammation, jules stein, macular degeneration, monitor for diseases, multiple sclerosis, stress response protein, toxins, transcription factors, ucla researchers, zhe jing, αb crystallin

UCLA researchers, in a finding that runs counter to conventional wisdom, have discovered for the first time that a gene thought to express a stress-response protein in all cells that come under stress instead expresses the protein only in specific cell types.

The research team, from the Jules Stein Eye Institute at UCLA and the UCLA Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, focused on αB-Crystallin, one of a class of molecules known as heat shock proteins, which are involved in the folding and unfolding of other proteins, helping them recover from stress so they can do their job. (more…)

NASA Curiosity Rover Collects First Martian Bedrock Sample

By Guest PostFebruary 10, 2013Scienceamerica, analytical laboratory, avi okon, bedrock, chemin, chemistry and mineralogy, chimra, curiosity rover, drill area, drill systems engineer, first martian bedrock, gale crater, in situ, jet propulsion laboratory, john grunsfeld, john klein, jpl, louise jandura, mars, martian rock analysis, NASA, pasadena, rocks on mars, sam, sample, sample analysis, sample on mars, scott mccloskey, sky crane

PASADENA, Calif. — NASA’s Curiosity rover has, for the first time, used a drill carried at the end of its robotic arm to bore into a flat, veiny rock on Mars and collect a sample from its interior. This is the first time any robot has drilled into a rock to collect a sample on Mars.

The fresh hole, about 0.63 inch (1.6 centimeters) wide and 2.5 inches (6.4 centimeters) deep in a patch of fine-grained sedimentary bedrock, can be seen in images and other data Curiosity beamed to Earth Saturday. The rock is believed to hold evidence about long-gone wet environments. In pursuit of that evidence, the rover will use its laboratory instruments to analyze rock powder collected by the drill. (more…)

Jurassic Park molecules?

By Guest PostFebruary 10, 2013Science3d architectures, alpha helices, amino acids, animal bodies, autoimmune disorders, beta strands, biochemist, biofuels, bundles of protein, burckhard seelig, chains, copies of genes, diversity, dna sequences, early life, earth, enzyme shapes, enzymes, fa an chao, fossil enzymes, gianluigi veglia, helixes, human dna, jurassic park, molecules, NASA, pcr, pieces of rna, sea anemones, sequencing rna, sponges, starfish, symmetric, university of minnesota, useful function, years of evolution

Enzymes evolved in the lab hold commercial and scientific promise

Whether big, small, slimy, or tall, most animal bodies are symmetric.

Except for sea anemones, starfish, sponges, and the like, animals have bilateral, or right-left, symmetry. Us included.

The bilateral body plan became the norm over eons of evolution. But what about molecules? Have any evolved common structures like a body plan? (more…)

A Boost for Analyzing Biological Sequences

By Guest PostFebruary 10, 2013Scienceanalyzing sequence data, best parameters, biological molecules, biologists, computational biologists, computational model, dan deblasio, detect, DNA, evolutionary past, guessing game, improved software, john kececioglu, model, parameter advising, parameter values, parameters, phenomena, predict missing data, proteins, run alignment software, software tools, species, ua computer scientists, university of arizona

UA computer scientists John Kececioglu and Dan DeBlasio are developing improved software that provides biologists with much more accurate results when analyzing sequence data.

Imagine trying to construct a brick building with fewer than the requisite number of bricks and without a detailed blueprint.

Welcome to the world of computational biologists.

When biologists study proteins, DNA, or other biological molecules that are represented in the computer as sequences, they rely on known information but also must predict missing data. Given that reality, major challenges exist to having accurate results. (more…)

Placental Mammal Diversity Blossomed After Age of Dinosaurs

By Guest PostFebruary 9, 2013Nature, Scienceafrica today, afrotheria, age of dinosaurs, american museum, americas, amnh, andrea cirranello, anthropologist, boundary, branching history, brazil, cloud based, common ancestor, cretaceous age mammal, cretaceous paleogene extinction, cretaceous terrestrial revolution, cyberinfrastructure, diversification, dna sequence data, earth, elephants to aardvarks, encoded by dna, evolutionary history, evolutionary trees, extinct biotic groups, federal university, fernando perini, fossil species, fossils and anatomy, fragmentation of gondwana, genetic, genetic data, genomic data, genomics based model, h richard lane, insect eating animal, john wible, kpg event, late cretaceous, mammal relationships, marcelo weksler, mary silcox, massive dataset, maureen oleary, mesozoic era, michael novacek, minas gerais, molecular clock, molecules and morphology, morphobank, nancy simmons, national museum, national science foundation, natural history, non avian dinosaurs, nsf, optimization, paleontologist, phenomic data, phenomic matrix, phenomic systems, phylophenomics, physical traits, placental mammal diversity, placental mammal tree, publicly accessible database, robb brumfield, scarborough, stony brook university, time of origin, tree of life, university of toronto, well preserved fossils

Scientists build new ‘tree of life’ for placentals, visualize common ancestor

Scientists have reconstructed the common ancestor of placental mammals–an extremely diverse group including animals ranging from rodents to whales to humans–using the world’s largest dataset of both genetic and physical traits. (more…)