Mar 2, 2008

Rubbing Up the Gene Genie

Posted in Bio, genetics at 11:00 am by David Bradley -- 2 Comments; add yours

Sciencebase is this week proud to play host to the Gene Genie Blog Carnival thanks to an offer from Bertalan “Berci” Meskó over on the excellent ScienceRoll. For those who don’t already know, a Blog Carnival doesn’t usually involve a lot of be-costumed revellers dancing through the streets to the sound of the samba band, but is a gathering of …

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Sep 28, 2007

Slowburn Treatment for Chronic Disease

Posted in Bio, Health at 4:00 pm by David Bradley -- 7 Comments; add yours

For years, the notion that bacteria could cause ulcers was brushed aside, until the work of Robin Warren, who “rediscovered” the gut microbe Helicobacter pylori, was finally accepted. More recently, periodontal disease, a bacterial infection of the gums, has been implicated in heart disease, it’s the toxins released by the bacteria that are to blame. And in a recent discussion with one leading researcher about the genetics of …

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Sep 12, 2007

Male-Female Crabs Split their Difference

Posted in Bio, Chemistry, Health, spectroscopy at 12:00 pm by David Bradley -- Click to comment

David Johnson and Robert Watson thought they had seen all there was to see in the Chesapeake Bay in almost three decades until they pulled out a crab from the way that had a male left half and a female right half. Now, that crab, acquired by Romuald Lipcius of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at the College of William & Mary, has moved sideways into the world …

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Sep 6, 2007

MMR and Statistical Manipulation

Posted in Bio, Health at 4:00 pm by David Bradley -- 52 Comments; add yours

When I was still at high school, way back in the late 1970s, there was a health scare that got a lot of media attention. Apparently, there was a perceived risk that the whooping cough vaccine could cause brain damage. The fall off in vaccination for this disease is claimed to have led to the widespread outbreaks of whooping cough in 1979 and 1982, there having previously been almost zero …

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Aug 1, 2007

Intellectual genetics

Posted in Bio, genetics at 4:00 pm by David Bradley -- Click to comment

Two worthy legal moratoria - the Agreement on the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)
and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) - are potentially in direct conflict when it comes to plant genetic resources and intellectual property rights, at least that is the conclusion of legal expert Megan Bowman. However, potential conflicts could be reconciled in this context by applying the common sense notion of remaining …

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Jul 30, 2007

Mice and a slice

Posted in Bio, spectroscopy at 4:00 pm by David Bradley -- Click to comment

A new methodology for fibre-optic Raman mapping and FTIR imaging of secondary cancer cells, metastases, and detecting tumour cells has been developed by researchers in Germany. The technique facilitates imaging of samples thicker than 50 micrometres and could be used in detecting cancer cells, as a tool for molecular histopathology, in metabolic fingerprinting, general disease diagnostics.

Team member Christoph Krafft is currently in the Department of Materials and Natural Resources, …

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Jul 4, 2007

Master AND commander

Posted in Bio at 9:37 pm by David Bradley -- 3 Comments; add yours

An fMRI scan of the upper echelons of the human brain, reveals that there are apparently two commanders at the helm, according to US neuroscientists; it is as if Russell Crowe were joined by his twin brother to captain the ship. The work may suggest new insights into behavioural problems that occur following brain injury.

Neuroscientist Steven Petersen and his team at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis also …

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