- March 10, 2010
- 05:41 PM
- 0 views
Prehistoric DNA reveals the story of a Pleistocene survivor, the muskox
A muskox (Ovibos moschatus), photographed in Alaska. From Flickr user drurydrama.
Of all the mass extinctions that have occurred during earth's history, among the most hotly debated is the one which wiped out mammoths, saber-toothed cats, giant ground sloths, and the other peculiar members of the Pleistocene megafauna around 12,000 years ago. It was not the most severe mass extinction, not by a long shot, but unlike the end-Cretaceous catastrophe 65 million years ago there is no single "sm........ Read more »
Campos, P., Willerslev, E., Sher, A., Orlando, L., Axelsson, E., Tikhonov, A., Aaris-Sorensen, K., Greenwood, A., Kahlke, R., Kosintsev, P.... (2010) Ancient DNA analyses exclude humans as the driving force behind late Pleistocene musk ox (Ovibos moschatus) population dynamics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0907189107
- March 10, 2010
- 05:00 PM
- 0 views
Disease hunting with whole genome sequences: the good news, and the bad news
by dgmacarthur in Genetic Future
Lupski, J.R., et al. (2010). Whole-genome sequencing in a patient with Charcot-Marie-Tooth neuropathy. New England Journal of Medicine advance online 10.1056/nejmoa0908094Roach, J.C., & et al. (2010). Analysis of genetic inheritance in a family quartet by whole-genome sequencing. Science : 10.1126/science.1186802Two new papers out today - the first ever studies to employ whole-genome sequencing for disease gene discovery - neatly illustrate both the promise and the challenges ........ Read more »
Lupski, J.R. (2010) Whole-genome sequencing in a patient with Charcot-Marie-Tooth neuropathy. New England Journal of Medicine. info:/10.1056/nejmoa0908094
Roach, J.C., & et al. (2010) Analysis of genetic inheritance in a family quartet by whole-genome sequencing. Science. info:/10.1126/science.1186802
- March 10, 2010
- 03:50 PM
- 0 views
Ancient DNA Isolated from Fossil Eggshells May Provide Clues to Eggstinction of Giant Birds
by GrrlScientist in Living the Scientific Life (Scientist, Interrupted)
tags: evolution, evolutionary biology, ancient DNA, aDNA, molecular biology, molecular ecology, archaeology, paleontology, fossil eggshell, extinct birds, giant moa, Dinornis robustus, elephant birds, Aepyornis maximus, Mullerornis, Thunderbirds, Genyornis, bpr3.org/?p=52,peer-reviewed research, peer-reviewed paper, journal club
Elephant bird, Aepyornis maximus, egg
compared to a human hand with a hummingbird egg balanced on a fingertip.
To conduct my avian research, I've isolated and........ Read more »
Charlotte L. Oskam, James Haile, Emma McLay, Paul Rigby, Morten E. Allentoft, Maia E. Olsen, Camilla Bengtsson, Gifford H. Miller, Jean-Luc Schwenninger, Chris Jacomb, Richard Walter, Alexander Baynes, Joe Dortch, Michael Parker-Pearson, M. Thomas P. Gilb. (2010) Fossil avian eggshell preserves ancient DNA. Proc. R. Soc. B. info:/10.1098/rspb.2009.2019
- March 10, 2010
- 12:04 PM
- 0 views
Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Organic Carbon (The Big Three)
by JL in Analyze Everything
I'm a stoichiometry kind of guy (even if I've been relatively unsuccessful lately), and stoichiometry seems to revolve around N, P and C. And really, mostly just N&P. As a result, I've been thinking a lot about how the terrestrial and upstream watershed affects the N, P, and C in receiving waters. So, for instance, if you change the proportion of wetlands, how is the ratio of these nutrients ... Read more »
Saunders, T., McClain, M., & Llerena, C. (2006) The biogeochemistry of dissolved nitrogen, phosphorus, and organic carbon along terrestrial-aquatic flowpaths of a montane headwater catchment in the Peruvian Amazon. Hydrological Processes, 20(12), 2549-2562. DOI: 10.1002/hyp.6215
- March 10, 2010
- 08:00 AM
- 1 view
Rattling neuroethology’s windows
by Zen Faulkes in NeuroDojo
As I’ve written recently, I don’t feel all that at home and comfortable in the field of neuroscience. I feel much more at home in the discipline of neuroethology, which investigates the neural bases of naturally occurring animal behaviour. It is populated by people who still appreciate diversity.
Having said that neuroethology is my intellectual home, I would like to rattle the windows in my own house a bit.
Neuroethology has a bunch of great people working on cool stories. And yet it is n........ Read more »
Bullock, T. (1999) Neuroethology has pregnant agendas. Journal of Comparative Physiology A: Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology, 185(4), 291-295. DOI: 10.1007/s003590050389
- March 10, 2010
- 06:15 AM
- 1 view
Vaccinia virus in Brazil: What a long, strange trip
by iayork in Mystery Rays from Outer Space
Krishna, milking a cow
Vaccinia virus is a widespread virus whose natural host remains unknown. It turns out to be pretty good at jumping across species.
Vaccinia, of course, is the vaccine against smallpox. Even though smallpox is eliminated in the wild,1 vaccinia is still very widely used in research and even, to some extent, in [...]... Read more »
Moussatché N, Damaso CR, & McFadden G. (2008) When good vaccines go wild: Feral Orthopoxvirus in developing countries and beyond. Journal of infection in developing countries, 2(3), 156-73. PMID: 19738346
Alzhanova, D., Edwards, D., Hammarlund, E., Scholz, I., Horst, D., Wagner, M., Upton, C., Wiertz, E., Slifka, M., & Früh, K. (2009) Cowpox Virus Inhibits the Transporter Associated with Antigen Processing to Evade T Cell Recognition. Cell Host , 6(5), 433-445. DOI: 10.1016/j.chom.2009.09.013
Essbauer, S., Pfeffer, M., & Meyer, H. (2010) Zoonotic poxviruses☆. Veterinary Microbiology, 140(3-4), 229-236. DOI: 10.1016/j.vetmic.2009.08.026
DRUMOND, B., LEITE, J., DAFONSECA, F., BONJARDIM, C., FERREIRA, P., & KROON, E. (2008) Brazilian Vaccinia virus strains are genetically divergent and differ from the Lister vaccine strain. Microbes and Infection, 10(2), 185-197. DOI: 10.1016/j.micinf.2007.11.005
Abrahão, J., Guedes, M., Trindade, G., Fonseca, F., Campos, R., Mota, B., Lobato, Z., Silva-Fernandes, A., Rodrigues, G., Lima, L.... (2009) One More Piece in the VACV Ecological Puzzle: Could Peridomestic Rodents Be the Link between Wildlife and Bovine Vaccinia Outbreaks in Brazil?. PLoS ONE, 4(10). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0007428
- March 10, 2010
- 05:18 AM
- 1 view
Are emotions in music universal?
by Henkjan Honing in Music Matters
While there are plenty of theories on how music and emotion might be related (see Juslin & Västfjäll, 2008 for a overview), there is still little empirical support to decide on how far music and specific associated emotions - such as happiness, fear, sadness or anger - are merely a result of association and/or culturally determined, or in fact shared and a result of brain mechanisms that we all share. Last year Current Biology published an interesting study on the recognition of three basic em........ Read more »
Fritz, T., Jentschke, S., Gosselin, N., Sammler, D., Peretz, I., Turner, R., Friederici, A., & Koelsch, S. (2009) Universal Recognition of Three Basic Emotions in Music. Current Biology, 19(7), 573-576. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2009.02.058
Juslin, P., & Västfjäll, D. (2008) Emotional responses to music: The need to consider underlying mechanisms. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 31(05). DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X08005293
- March 10, 2010
- 12:08 AM
- 1 view
The remote rural community that thinks letting someone die is as bad as killing them
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
In recent years cognitive scientist Marc Hauser has gathered evidence that suggests we're born with a moral instinct. This moral intuition has been likened to the universal grammar that Chomsky famously suggested underlies our linguistic abilities - certain principles are set in stone, whilst the precise parameters can be set by culture. Thousands of people from multiple countries and different religions and demographic backgrounds have given their verdict on fictional scenarios presented online........ Read more »
Abarbanell, L., & Hauser, M. (2010) Mayan morality: An exploration of permissible harms. Cognition. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2009.12.007
- March 9, 2010
- 04:52 PM
- 1 view
Landscape approaches for the study of aquatic ecosystems
by JL in Analyze Everything
Well, I'm trying to read a paper a day (this can be really hard with 2 kids and a job that doesn't encourage it), and today I randomly pulled up this paper: Johnson and Host "Recent developments in landscape approaches for the study of aquatic ecosystems" (full cite below). Let's just say that there's a lot here. Basically, this paper is part of a big-time retrospective done by J-NABS in ... Read more »
Johnson, L.B. and G.E. Host. (2010) Recent developments in landscape approaches for the study of aquatic ecosystems. Journal of the North American Benthological Society, 29(1), 41-66. info:/10.1899/09-030.1
- March 9, 2010
- 02:35 PM
- 1 view
Evolutionary history of early primates places human origins in context
A simplified evolutionary tree of primate relationships showing the placement of Darwinius in relationship to other groups. From Williams et al., 2010.
The study of human origins can be a paradoxical thing. We know that we evolved from ancestral apes (and, in fact, are just one peculiar kind of ape), yet we are obsessed with the features that distinguish us from our close relatives. The "big questions" in evolutionary anthropology, from why we stand upright to how our brains became so larg........ Read more »
Williams, B., Kay, R., & Kirk, E. (2010) New perspectives on anthropoid origins. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0908320107
- March 9, 2010
- 08:00 AM
- 1 view
A neuron for free will
by Zen Faulkes in NeuroDojo
The question for neuroscience is how nervous systems generate behaviour and cognition. In general, we think there’s a hierachical command scheme, as the quick and dirty sketch below shows.
It’s been hard to move from general principles and “black boxes” to real neurons. A good chunk of effort in neuroethology has gone into understanding the sensory capabilities of different animals, and cracking how pattern generators could generate the detailed plan for movements, especially rhythmic ........ Read more »
Kagaya, K., & Takahata, M. (2010) Readiness Discharge for Spontaneous Initiation of Walking in Crayfish. Journal of Neuroscience, 30(4), 1348-1362. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4885-09.2010
- March 9, 2010
- 02:15 AM
- 1 view
Personality and Retirement
by Dr Shock in Dr Shock MD PhD
Who retires gracefully, who adjusts to retirement easily and who doesn’t. Which personality traits play a part in successful retirement?
The five factor model of personality or the Big Five can be used to see how personality traits are linked to how people adjust to retirement. It has been done in the past for other life [...]
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Robinson, O., Demetre, J., & Corney, R. (2010) Personality and retirement: Exploring the links between the Big Five personality traits, reasons for retirement and the experience of being retired. Personality and Individual Differences. DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2010.01.014
- March 9, 2010
- 12:46 AM
- 1 view
60,000 year old decorated ostrich eggshell canteens from Diepkloof, South Africa
by Julien Riel-Salvatore in A Very Remote Period Indeed
Sometimes, it's what a paper doesn't emphasize that's the most thought-provoking and has the most far-ranging implications. A case in point is the recent paper by Texier et al. (2010) on decorated (i.e., engraved/incised) ostrich eggshell fragments from the Middle Stone Age site of Diepkloof in South Africa. The paper provides a lot of information about the sequence of deposits at the site, as well as on their archaeological contents. They emphasize specifically the layers attributed to the Howi........ Read more »
Henshilwood, C., d'Errico, F., & Watts, I. (2009) Engraved ochres from the Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa. Journal of Human Evolution, 57(1), 27-47. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2009.01.005
Texier, P., Porraz, G., Parkington, J., Rigaud, J., Poggenpoel, C., Miller, C., Tribolo, C., Cartwright, C., Coudenneau, A., Klein, R.... (2010) A Howiesons Poort tradition of engraving ostrich eggshell containers dated to 60,000 years ago at Diepkloof Rock Shelter, South Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0913047107
- March 8, 2010
- 03:00 PM
- 1 view
How do researchers use online journals?
by Martin Fenner in Gobbledygook
Last Monday I was listening to a very interesting presentation by Ian Rowlands, reader in scholarly communication in the Department of Information Studies at University College London. He and his colleagues are interested in how researchers find and use...... Read more »
Nicholas, D., Clark, D., Rowlands, I., & Jamali, H. (2009) Online use and information seeking behaviour: institutional and subject comparisons of UK researchers. Journal of Information Science, 35(6), 660-676. DOI: 10.1177/0165551509338341
- March 8, 2010
- 09:53 AM
- 1 view
Science blogs and public engagement with science
by Coturnix in A Blog Around The Clock
As you may know, I love the Journal of Science Communication. It publishes some very interesting and useful scholarly articles on a wide array of issues pertaining to the communication, education and publishing of science. I wish more science bloggers (and non-blogging scientists) read it and blogged about their articles. Unfortunately, human nature being as it is, most of the excellent papers go by un-noticed by the blogosphere, while an occasional sub-standard paper gets some play - it is so m........ Read more »
Inna Kouper. (2010) Science blogs and public engagement with science: Practices, challenges, and opportunities. Journal of Science Communication, 9(1). info:/
- March 8, 2010
- 02:21 AM
- 1 view
Formal, Informal, and Hidden Curricula of a Psychiatry Clerkship
by Dr Shock in Dr Shock MD PhD
Both the hidden and informal curriculum take place after or next to the theoretical teaching, the formal teaching and has an important part in the shaping of the medical students’ professionalism and professional values. Moreover, these forms of the curriculum have a major impact on the learning potential of med students. Yet little is known [...]
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Wear D, & Skillicorn J. (2009) Hidden in plain sight: the formal, informal, and hidden curricula of a psychiatry clerkship. Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, 84(4), 451-8. PMID: 19318777
- March 8, 2010
- 12:08 AM
- 2 views
We're slower at processing touch-related words than words related to the other senses
by Christian Jarrett in BPS Research Digest
People are slower at responding to tactile stimuli than to input from the other senses. It's not immediately obvious why this should be. It's unlikely to be for mechanical reasons: the retina in the eye is slower at converting input into a neural signal than is the skin. Psychologists think the answer may have to with attention. Perhaps we're not so good at keeping our attention focused on the tactile modality compared with the others. Now Louise Connell and Dermot Lynott have added to the pictu........ Read more »
Connell L, & Lynott D. (2010) Look but don't touch: Tactile disadvantage in processing modality-specific words. Cognition, 115(1), 1-9. PMID: 19903564
- March 7, 2010
- 12:00 PM
- 2 views
Smell a lady, shrug off flu - how female odours give male mice an immune boost
by Ed Yong in Not Exactly Rocket Science
Sex might be fun but it's not without risks. As your partner exposes themselves to you, they also expose you to whatever bacteria, viruses or parasites they might be carrying. But some animals have a way around that. Ekaterina Litvinova has found that when male mice get a whiff of female odours, their immune systems prepare their airways for attack, increasing their resistance to flu viruses.
Litvinova worked with a group of mice that were exposed to bedding that had previously been soiled by ........ Read more »
Litvinova, E., Goncharova, E., Zaydman, A., Zenkova, M., & Moshkin, M. (2010) Female Scent Signals Enhance the Resistance of Male Mice to Influenza. PLoS ONE, 5(3). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0009473
- March 6, 2010
- 04:51 PM
- 2 views
Ooze like an amoeba, float like a bird - wish we could still do that when stressed!
by Student @ Fresno State in Fresno, Evolving
Here's another fun weird science story from NPR, about a creature that might be in the dirt in your own backyard:
20100305 Me 03 by Npr
Download now or listen on posterous
Naegleria-NPR.mp3 (1426 KB)
Courtesy of Lillian Fritz-Laylan
Naegleria gruberi grows a pair of flagella when under stress. But unlike a sperm tail, it puts these appendages out front, and swims by breast stroke. The organism is stained to emphasize its anatomy.
If you prefer to read the story rather th........ Read more »
Fritz-Laylin, L., Prochnik, S., Ginger, M., Dacks, J., Carpenter, M., Field, M., Kuo, A., Paredez, A., Chapman, J., & Pham, J. (2010) The Genome of Naegleria gruberi Illuminates Early Eukaryotic Versatility. Cell, 140(5), 631-642. DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2010.01.032
- March 6, 2010
- 01:24 PM
- 2 views
Black men in women’s work do not get to ride the glass escalator
by Christina Pikas in Christina's LIS Rant
This post reviews a fairly recent article that examines the experiences of black men in nursing and asks whether they experience the "glass escalator" effect or if the work is racialized as well as gendered.
As requested by some fellow Sciblings, I recently blogged about an older article* that coined the term glass escalator. In my post I was uncertain about how the findings from the study were viewed by experts familiar with that body of work. In the comments, Kris D, who identifies........ Read more »
Wingfield, A. (2009) Racializing the Glass Escalator: Reconsidering Men's Experiences with Women's Work. Gender , 23(1), 5-26. DOI: 10.1177/0891243208323054
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