9 March 2011 - Checkin' Out ADAM

I wanted to make an Adam and Eve joke, or a bioshock reference, but I am so not witty tonight.  Blargrarrgragurgle.

SO.  ADAM-12 is a gene which is normally only slightly active in adults.  It goes up in people who have cancer and some other problems, or normally when a person is pregnant.  Scientists noted that in normal people an inhibitor is present to keep ADAM-12 down (or in parts of the body where less should be present, such as in pregnant women), so they're hypothesizing that with a little more research, an inhibitor or some kind of co-factor that goes along with ADAM-12 could be the answer to controlling the spread of cancer and other problems.  It kinda makes sense, they just gotta figure out how it works and what is causing the change.  For now we know ADAM-12 plays a role in keeping cells together, so it's a good lead.

Personally I'm not real positive they're looking at a cause so much as just another symptom, but I look forward to hearing what they find out!  In the meantime, it just strikes me as "hey we noticed something!  *Looks closer*  Now what does it mean?"  If they can figure it out, though, it'll be another great addition to the ever-gaining-momentum race to cure cancer!  :)

-Miss Mouse



References and Links:
It can also be...an arthritis cure:
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-adam-gene-key-cancer-arthritis.html

Hey!

It's definitely been a long time, huh?  I was going crazy, I couldn't help it anymore, I had to get back to Science...so here I am!

To start us off tonight, Scientists from a group called NORDynamIC (wow.) have published a paper regarding depression and its effect on treatment for Hepatitis C (and vice versa).  The combination of treatments used for chronic HCV can sometimes result in major depression, which was tested via Major Depression Inventory tests, or MDIs.  Results showed that of 306 previously non-depressed HCV patients (determined with MDIs), 114 developed major depression over the course of treatment.  This would sometimes result in early termination of treatment and lead to lower success rates.  Also noted in the study was that a mere 1/3 of those depressed patients were correctly diagnosed for the depression in routine examinations.  No fun!  A separate U.S. study highlighted lower productivity and higher health benefit costs in chronic HCV-affected employees, as well.  To read more, check out the link at the bottom of the post.

Next, in case you haven't heard, a new topical gel has been presented as a preventative for HIV infection in women whose partners do not use protection.  The vaginal gel, called tenofovir, comes with a 39% lower chance of infection, and it turns out it also protects against herpesvirus (HSV-2) by 51%!  Apparently, HSV-2 infection can increase the chances of contracting HIV, so they're pretty impressive results!  I'm not sure I'd rely on those numbers if I didn't have to, but it's absolutely a step in the right direction!

Last for today, a new study of Down's Syndrome mice has taken our knowledge of the matter a step further.  According to the article, when an embryonic brain is developing it requires a certain balance of excitatory and inhibitory neurons.  When there are more of chromosome 21's genes Olig1 and Olig2 in Down's Syndrome mice, significantly more inhibitory neurons are produced, throwing the brain's development out of balance.  When the two genes were genetically engineered to appear only in their normal quantities...voila!  Normal balance!  Very cool.  Since people have the same two genes, this study will likely have a very large impact on the understanding and future treatment of Down's Syndrome.



Hopefully I'll see you here again on Thursday and be back in the normal swing of things!  :)
-Miss Mouse

References and Links:

Sad Hepatitis C Patients

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100720165522.htm

HIV and Herpes Goo

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/07/anti-hiv-gel-also-effective-agai.html

Down's Syndrome Genes
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=2-genes-linked-to-embryonic-brain-impairment-in-downs-syndrome

11 April 2010 - Stressed Mice, Tuned In Medicine, Drug Resistance, and Viruses Creating Energy

Hi!  Hope everyone had a great weekend.  :)

I don't know if you noticed or not, but I added this nifty little Twitter feature to the right hand side of the page, just under "Labels."  This is for those of you who don't want to wait for each post to see new headlines!  I'll be tweeting links to various articles I find here and there, or retweeting as the case may be.  Just a nifty little idea.

First off, experiments in mice have found that the brains of those mice with only one copy of a gene that produces "brain-derived neurotrophic factor," or BDNF, are more affected by stress.  Apparently, stress in these mice causes the hippocampus area of the brain to shrink and the dendrites to withdraw, whereas mice with the normal two copies of the gene, and therefore a normal amount of BDNF, show no physical change in that area of the brain.  Researchers are now searching to find ways to control the amount of BDNF protein so they can determine when in development supplementation would be most effective.  Very interesting!

I know I heard about hallucinogenic testing going on here and there in the recent past, but I just found another article about it.  Scientists are gathering in California this week for a pretty big conference on the topic, particularly for use with OCD, end of life anxiety, depression, PTSD, and other psychological disorders.  I cannot say this doesn't make me pretty happy.  Check out the article link at the bottom of the post to read about various tests and reactions to psilocybin in groovy experiments.  :)

Everyone's biggest fear when it comes to antibiotics is that a superbug will become resistant to everything and we'll have nothing left to beat infections with, right?  Or is that just mine?  In any case, researchers have taken a close look at vancomycin, the "last resort" antibiotic, and actually determined the mechanism by which bacteria develop resistance to it.  It had been debated whether bacteria were tipped off to the antibiotic by noticing it directly, or noticing what it was doing to their cell walls.  It turns out the former is the case, the knowledge of which may help to develop sneakier antibiotics that could still go unnoticed.  Considering the growing number of people who are affected by resistant infections, this is pretty great progress!

Last for the weekend - researchers have devised a more direct method of splitting water molecules for use in solar powered energy...things.  Mimicking the photosynthesis process of plants, a group of scientists have utilized a harmless virus in a gel (to hold conformation) to do the splitting so that hydrogen can be stored for use at any time, rather than only when the sun is shining.  Original in its particular method, the system is still in its creation phase and needs to become more cost effective, efficient, and complete before going into effect.  An end date isn't set, but it's a valuable concept and it's nice to see that it works!

Check out the Twitter feed on the right hand side of the page to see the articles I didn't include today, but were still pretty neat.

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you Tuesday!

-Miss mouse

References and Links:

Stressed Out Mice

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100410141344.htm

Psychedelic Medicine

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/science/12psychedelics.html

Resistance!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100411143401.htm

Virus Energy

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100411143403.htm

8 April 2010 - Omnomnomium, Things That Don't Suffocate, Volcanoes, Animal-Census, Autism

Hey!

As promised, I've got some pretty interesting news today!  :)

First, you've probably already heard about element 117, and its recent, albeit brief, appearance in a Russian cyclotron.  Researchers fired calcium ions for 150 days at a target made of berkelium, finally producing SIX atoms of 117.  They existed for less than a second before decaying.  Now...what to call it?  Some amazing suggestions (from #namefornewelement on Twitter) include:

     - Yomommium

     - Nonsensium

     - Omnomnomium

     - Newishium

     - Holycrapium

     - Internetium

     - Surprisium

     - Pandemonium

     - Fatassium

     - DeLoreum

     - Noobium

     - Steve

     - Wowthatsheavyum

     - MasterChiefium

     - Unobtainium

     - Oneseventeenium

     - Wootonium

     - Porkchopsium

That's...amazing.  :)

Next, the first multicellular organisms able to survive completely without oxygen have been found in the sediment of the Mediterranean.  These three species of Loricifera are smaller than a millimeter and, oddly enough, have no mitochondria.  In pretty much every other animal cell, mitochondria are responsible for converting nutrients to energy.  These critters, however, use structures called hydrogenosomes to convert their food to energy without ever needing to use oxygen.  Since their rather extreme environment resembles ancient Earth before widespread oxygen, it's possible these little guys might be a peek into the past.

Also, the Venus Express orbiter has found new infrared evidence that suggests Venus maaay in fact have active volcanoes.  Of course by active, they mean within the past 250,000 years for most of them.  Since Venus sports fewer scars by asteroids than expected, it had been theorized before that either a massive volcanic event covered most of the surface at once a long time ago, or ongoing volcanoes have filled in various craters here and there over time.  This finding suggests the recent, active volcanoes option, which has interesting implications for the evolution of Earth, which is similar in many ways to Venus.

Back on Earth, a group of ecologists are planning to collect information on 160,000 species of life all over the planet to form a "barometer of life."  They selected the species involved in order to best represent all ecosystems, and the plan is to update it every five years with new information from hundreds of cooperating experts and scientists.  It's basically a census, but for animals, plants, and other.  The project is hoping to provide better and more complete information to aid in gauging the "health" of the planet, determining risks to biodiversity and the environment by companies and human activities, drawing attention to the environment and its inhabitants, and directing spending.  The project itself will cost an estimated 60 million USD, and will run an annual cost of around $5 million after that.

Last today, a few articles recently came out detailing advancements in Autism research.  For those of you who know me well, you already know how big of a deal Autism spectrum disorders are for me, so this is really exciting!  First, a program at Canisius College involving 5 weeks of "summer camp" programs for children affected by high functioning autism, Asperger's, and PDD-NOS paired with parent education has shown marked improvement in the emotional behaviors of participants.  Compared with control groups, children in the program showed better social skills, emotional recognition, and conversational skills.  The program is working on improving to a level where it can be distributed to communities.  Second, it's been shown in separate experiments that oxytocin may be able to improve facial expression and emotion recognition in autistic individuals.  The study was done on a small group of ADS-affected adolescents; the experimental group was given an oxytocin nasal spray and the control group a placebo spray.  The experimental group showed clear improvement in recognizing emotions and facial expressions, but they say more testing will be needed to back up these results before we can be sure.  Lastly, methods have been discovered involving DNA tagging, or methylation, to both diagnose autism disorders via blood tests or other DNA samples (rather than brain testing), and to potentially reverse its effects.  There wasn't much to the article, but I really look forward to hearing more!  :)

That's it for today, see you this weekend!

-Miss Mouse

References and Links:

Element 117

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100406181611.htm

Multicellular Organisms Sans Oxygen

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/04/anoxic-animals/

Volcanic Venus

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/04/venus-volcanism/

Barometer of Life

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/apr/08/barometer-of-life

Autism

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100408123245.htm

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/563095/

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100408105200.htm

30 March 2010 - Woah, go check this out!

This is a really exciting post!

First and absolutely foremost – The LHC will be attempting its first high energy collision tonight (today?), and you can follow the live updates here:
The really cool webcast:  http://webcast.cern.ch/lhcfirstphysics/
Cern’s twitter, with tweets on the process AS IT HAPPENS:  http://twitter.com/CERN

I don’t know about you guys, but I am psyched!  I would also HIGHLY recommend watching this very educational video…haha:


Another groundbreaking current event, is regarding the habit of patenting genes.  If you aren’t up on how gene patenting affects scientists and their experimentation, you really, really should be.  The argument has essentially been – can you patent something you discovered, if it already existed as a product of life?  Can you patent a test for it, or its use in research?  While credit is certainly due, it seems to me personally that it has a very crucial negative of holding back scientific progress relating to serious issues of health and life, simply by restricting use or charging obscene royalties.  Do a google or wiki search if you’d like to learn more – there are decades of information on the topic.

The current issue is with a company called Myriad Genetics.  They held a patent on genes called BRCA1 and 2, affecting breast and ovarian cancer.  Since they had merely discovered the genes that were already there, the patent was removed with the reasoning that they can’t call it theirs if it already existed.  It seems they will appeal, but let me explain the result if this ruling holds true.  Overturning patents on such genetic “property” translates to more affordable clinical testing for patients, and the possibility of further research by competing scientific companies involving genes that were once another company’s sole intellectual property.  I personally feel this is a breakthrough that will reopen doors for researchers and patients alike, but there is obviously another side to the coin.  Science has always been a competitive field, with putting your name on things being the key to gaining financial backing and opportunities.  Check out the links and blog at the bottom of the post to learn more about the trial, its results, and potential consequences.



For more Science news, I’ll see you on Thursday!
-Miss Mouse



References and Links:
Cern and LHC info
http://webcast.cern.ch/lhcfirstphysics/
http://twitter.com/CERN
Gene Patenting
http://timesonline.typepad.com/science/2010/03/the-end-of-gene-patenting.html
Genomics Law Report Blog
http://www.genomicslawreport.com/index.php/2010/03/29/breaking-district-court-rules-myriad-breast-cancer-patents-invalid/