Gene Expression

A little knowledge is dangerous

Being public on the internet means having to interact with many different sorts. Recently I’ve been having to deal with a heckler on Facebook. The heckler is actually of a particular type. I’m still trying to learn genetics at this point in my life, so I don’t propose to assert that my opinions are beyond dispute. But there is a variety of discussion which is not fruitful.

An interesting aspect of talking to people about genetics is that totally novice intelligent lay people are often ver …

Gene Expression

(pre)Historical genetics still has to be historical

Credit: Albozagros

The genetics and history of Tibet are fascinating to many. To be honest the primary reason here is elevation. The Tibetan plateau has served as a fortress for populations who have adapted biologically and culturally to the extreme conditions. Naturally this means that there has been a fair amount of population genetics on Tibetans, as hypoxia is a side effect of high altitude living which dramatically impacts fitness. I have discussed papers on this topic before. …

D-brief

Twin Stars Are Closer to Earth Than Thought

Imagine if you could see a car’s headlights from more than 20 miles away. Those must be some headlights! It might even throw your whole understanding of headlights into question – how could there be any this bright? But then, you realize that the car wasn’t 20 miles away, but just 2; instantly, things make sense again.

This is how scientists solved an astronomical mystery involving not headlights, but a double star system named SS Cygni. It’s a kind of system known as a dwarf nova …

D-brief

New Bird Flu May Be Able to Spread Between People

Since it was first identified by Chinese authorities two months ago, the new H7N9 bird flu has infected 131 people in eastern China. The virus produces severe pneumonia, with most patients requiring hospitalization, and statistics [pdf] released last week by the WHO indicate that 32 of those infected have died of the virus.

Now a study in ferrets, considered the best model animal of flu transmission in humans, has found that the virus is transmissible via air and direct contact, making it p …

Body Horrors

Microbial Misadventures: Exploits in Botulism & Pruno In Our Prison Population

I am partial to the odd tipple and, as a resident of the licentious, enabling city that is New Orleans, I’m fortunate to be adequately supported in my booze-seeking ways by the high number of bars and restaurants within stumbling distance of my front porch. But what to do for those of us prohibited from indulging in one of the world’s greatest mood modulators, for those of us, say, incarcerated in America’s prison-industrial complex? In that case, American ingenuity and tenacity wins, always: b …

D-brief

Rise in Whooping Cough Linked to Weak Vaccine

Whooping cough is staging a comeback. According to the CDC, 2012 saw nearly 42,000 pertussis cases—the most since 1955. Many public health officials initially believed the epidemic was due to falling vaccination rates. But a new study published this week in Pediatrics shows that the problem is also due to serious shortcomings of the vaccination itself.

Beginning in the mid-1990s, the U.S. began using a new pertussis vaccine that showed fewer side effects. Instead of injecting killed Borde …

Seriously, Science?

The physics of rug wrinkles.

Sometimes it’s the things we see everyday that we don’t even realize have gone unexplained for millennia. Take rugs, for example. We trip over cat-induced rug wrinkles on a daily basis, but what physical parameters control their formation? What is the most energy-efficient way to remove them? Even though the movement of so-called “rug rucks” are similar to other important phenomena, such as ground movements during earthquakes, we still don’t know that much about them. Fortunately, studies li …

Gene Expression

The algorithms don't lie, but people may err

For the past year or so I’ve been getting queries about what I think about Eran Elhaik’s preprint on the genetic character of European Jews. I found some of the conclusions frankly a little weird, but I assumed that things would be cleaned up for publication. Well, it’s been out for a while now: The Missing Link of Jewish European Ancestry: Contrasting the Rhineland and the Khazarian Hypotheses. But some reporting in The Jewish Daily Forward has brought the author and his detractors a bi …

Out There

How 3D Printers Could Feed Astronauts and Mine Asteroids

If you judged by the recent buzz in the media world, you might think that 3D printers are good for one thing only: creating untraceable guns, on demand, in the privacy of your home. What makes the 3D printer such an intriguing technology, though, is the extremely broad nature of their applications. They can be used to print replacement auto parts (or maybe, someday, entire vehicles). They are great for cranking out rapid prototypes of new kinds of objects–anything from sculptures to false teet …

Gene Expression

The eternal Aboriginal

National Geographic has an interesting article up, unoriginally titled Australia’s Aboriginals. There are lots of great data in there, though not much novel for anyone who has tread this territory before. For example, Aboriginals tend to have much lower morbidity and mortality when they are living their “traditional” lifestyle. This isn’t a particular novel or surprising outcome. Rather, it seems like a supercharged version of the same problem which occurs when immigrants move from develop …