humans – Page 5 – Shamskm: A site to exchange knowledge and solutions

Green-Glowing Fish Provides New Insights into Health Impacts of Pollution

By Guest PostApril 23, 2012Environmentbisphenol a, breast, change gender, charles tyler, contraceptive pharmaceutical, decrease, endocrine disrupting chemicals, environmental estrogens, ethinyloestradiol, fluorescent fish, genetic system, green fluorescent signals, humans, industrial detergents, industrial product, male fish, nonylphenol, oestrogen hormone, oestrogenic chemicals, okhyun lee, plastics, reproductive problems, river, sperm count, testicular cancer, tetsuhiro kudoh, transgenic zebrafish, ucl, university college london, university of exeter, wastewater, wildlife, zebrafish

Understanding the damage that pollution causes to both wildlife and human health is set to become much easier thanks to a new green-glowing zebrafish.

Created by a team from the University of Exeter, the fish makes it easier than ever before to see where in the body environmental chemicals act and how they affect health.

The fluorescent fish has shown that oestrogenic chemicals, which are already linked to reproductive problems, impact on more parts of the body than previously thought.

The research by the University of Exeter and UCL (University College London) is published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. (more…)

Newfangled Space-Propulsion Technology Could Help Clean up Earth Orbit

By Guest PostApril 12, 2012Scienceatmosphere, dead satellite, debris, earth, earth orbit, geosynchronous orbit, humans, international space station, mag beam, magnetized beam, magnetized ion plasma, mars, planet, plasma propulsion device, real estate, robert winglee, space junk, spacecraft, system, ultra high speed

Some of the most valuable “real estate” for humans isn’t on Earth at all but rather above the planet’s atmosphere, where all manner of human-made objects orbit. The problem is that those orbits are too crowded with dead satellites and debris, making new launches riskier.

Robert Winglee has spent years developing a magnetized ion plasma system to propel a spacecraft at ultra-high speeds, making it possible to travel to Mars and return to Earth in as little time as 90 days. The problem is that cost and other issues have dampened the desire to send astronauts to Mars or any other planet. (more…)

Will a Genetic Mutation Cause Trouble? Ask Spliceman

By Guest PostMarch 5, 2012Scienceaaa, ata, brown university, chimpanzees, david orenstein, dna sequences, gene, genetic mutation, human genome mutation database, humans, kian huat lim, messenger rna, Rhesus monkeys, shamil sunyaev, spliceman, web based program, william fairbrother

New, free Web-based software described in the journal Bioinformatics analyzes DNA sequences to determine if mutations are likely to cause errors in splicing of messenger RNA. When gene splicing goes awry, a wide variety of diseases can result.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — In a brief paper in the journal Bioinformatics, Brown University researchers describe a new, freely available Web-based program called Spliceman for predicting whether genetic mutations are likely to disrupt the splicing of messenger RNA, potentially leading to disease.

“Spliceman takes a set of DNA sequences with point mutations and computes how likely these single nucleotide variants alter splicing phenotypes,” write co-authors Kian Huat Lim, a graduate student, and William Fairbrother, assistant professor of biology, in an “application note” published in advance online Feb. 10. It will appear in print in April. (more…)

Upper Atmosphere Facilitates Changes That Let Mercury Enter Food Chain

By Guest PostJanuary 5, 2012Environmentaquatic ecosystems, atmosphere, bacteria, bangor, broomfield, chemical reactor, climate conditions, coal burning in asia, daniel jaffe, ecosystem impacts, Europe, food chain, humans, lower stratosphere, maine, mercury, mercury contaminated fish, mercury emissions, metallic element, methyl mercury, North America, oxidation, oxidized mercury, research aircraft, seth lyman, southwest united states, university of washington bothell, upper atmosphere, upper troposphere, vapor

Humans pump thousands of tons of vapor from the metallic element mercury into the atmosphere each year, and it can remain suspended for long periods before being changed into a form that is easily removed from the atmosphere.

New research shows that the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere work to transform elemental mercury into oxidized mercury, which can easily be deposited into aquatic ecosystems and ultimately enter the food chain. (more…)

Scientists Use Animal-Free Reagents to Create Clinical-Grade Neurons from Skin Cells

By Guest PostDecember 11, 2011Scienceanimal based reagents, clinical grade cells, clinical use, derivation and differentiation techniques, embryonic stem cells, gmp, good manufacturing practices, human skin cells, human use, humans, induced pluripotent stem, ips, kim irwin, mouse feeder cells, neural precursor cells, neurons, pluripotent stem cells, process, protocols, saravanan karumbayaram, stem cell, ucla, william lowry

Using a specially designed facility, UCLA stem cell scientists have taken human skin cells, reprogrammed them into cells with the same unlimited property as embryonic stem cells, and then differentiated them into neurons while completely avoiding the use of animal-based reagents and feeder conditions throughout the process.

Generally, stem cells are grown using mouse “feeder” cells, which help the stem cells flourish and grow. But such animal-based products can lead to unwanted variations and contamination, and the cells must be thoroughly tested before they can be deemed safe for use in humans. (more…)

Research Sheds New Light on Body Parts’ Sensitivity to Environmental Changes

By Guest PostNovember 23, 2011Sciencealexander shingleton, beacon, blood sugar levels, body parts, brain, changes in nutrition, energy, evolution in action consortium, fruit flies, glucose, humans, insulin, malnutrition, michigan state university, nongenetic, normal size, sensitive to environmental change, sensitivity to environmental issues, type 2 diabetes, variety of diseases, zeroing, zoology

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Research by a team of Michigan State University scientists has shed new light on why some body parts are more sensitive to environmental change than others, work that could someday lead to better ways of treating a variety of diseases, including Type-2 diabetes.

The research, led by assistant zoology professor Alexander Shingleton, is detailed in the recent issue of the Proceedings of the Library of Science Genetics. (more…)

A Tailored Pair of Genes

By Guest PostNovember 22, 2011Scienceagriculture, alfalfa like legume, ancestor of legumes, ancestral genes, ancient plants, asteroid, backbone of protein, bacteria, beans, cretaceous period, crop plants, demise of the dinosaurs, dinosaurs, disaster, earth, eggs, fertilizers, genes, genetically engineer legumes, genomes, humans, legumes, living together, major nutrient, medicago truncatula, model, nevin young, nitrogen, nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer, nitrogen fixation, nitrogen fixing bacteria, nonsynthetic nitrogen fertilizer, peanuts, peas, sequencing genome, soybeans, sperm, synthetic fertilizer, university of minnesota

*For ancient plants, two genes were definitely better than one*

In the wake of the disaster that killed the dinosaurs, the ancestors of today’s crop plants reinvented themselves.

They doubled their genomes, and in that single act set the stage for feeding the world 60 million years later.

In a study published in the Nov. 16 issue of the journal Nature, researchers from the University of Minnesota and other institutions recount how sequencing the genome of a model, alfalfa-like legume revealed the monumental benefits that flowed when the ancestor of legumes acquired an extra copy of every gene. (more…)

Bird Song Yields a New Understanding of Cooperation

By Guest PostNovember 5, 2011Nature, Scienceecuador, eric fortune, humans, johns hopkins university, neuroscientist, site of a volcano, slopes of antisana volcano, tango

*A bird duet springs forth from each bird’s knowledge of the entire song*

The site of a volcano isn’t the first place one might think of to study cooperation. But neuroscientist Eric Fortune of Johns Hopkins University and colleagues went to the slopes of Antisana volcano in Ecuador to study cooperation as it plays out with a very special songbird, the plain-tailed wren. Funded in part by the National Science Foundation, the researchers report their observations in the Nov. 4, 2011, issue of Science.

Rapidly alternating their singing back and forth, female and male wrens cooperate to sing a duet that sounds as if a single bird sang it. The researchers assumed that the brain of each bird would have a memory of its own part of the duet, and also have a memory of the cues from its partner. They were surprised to find that both brains had a record of the complete duet–a performance that neither bird can do by itself. (more…)

Tag Archives: humans