Gene Expression

Prince William may have little to no Indian ancestry

The British media is blowing up today about Prince William’s Indian ancestry. Here’s a representative headline: Hunt is on in Gujarat for a distant cousin who shares Prince William’s Indian blood. The science here is straightforward. Apparently some British researchers found third cousins of Lady Diana Spencer. These individuals, like Diana, are descended from a woman named Eliza Kewark. This woman, William’s great, great, great, great, great grandmother was an ethnic Armenian who was resident …

Field Notes

In Hawaii, as on Mars, Lava Tubes Hide Secrets Beneath the Surface

This is the ninth in a series of reports from the HI-SEAS simulated Mars mission. Read others in the series here.

Most of our time on this simulated Mars mission is spent inside a geodesic dome. We conduct research, make and document meals for our food study, do chores, and fill out psychological and behavioral surveys. It’s no surprise, then, that adventure is hard to come by.

But on Wednesday of this week, three of us gave it our best shot. We donned our green spacesuit simulators  …

Collide-a-Scape

In Bed With the GMO Devil

There are two kinds of people who write about genetically modified foods: Those who believe that GMOs are bad and those who don’t. In case you haven’t figured it out, I’m in the latter group.

Unfortunately, the simplistic debate between these two camps has devolved into a Three Stooges slapfest:

More specifically, one group shrieks about “seeds of death” and Monsanto’s evil plot to sterilize humanity while the other group (the one I belong to) responds with alternating mockery and sobe …

Seriously, Science?

How much cocaine can a honey bee take?

What happens when you give cocaine to honey bees? Surprisingly, these aren’t the first researchers to address this question. However, to date, no one has tested the bees’ tolerance for the drug. Enter this study, which sought to determine whether bees, like humans, demonstrate an increased tolerance to high doses of cocaine after being exposed to lower doses. (Spoiler alert: they do). We’re left with just one question: what’s the honey like?

 Cocaine Tolerance in Honey Bees

“Increasi …

ImaGeo

On the Verge of Another Extraordinary Greenland Meltdown?

Last summer, melting of surface snow and ice in Greenland went down in the record books as being far more extensive than that seen in any year since satellite records began in 1979. At one point, during a spate of extraordinarily warm weather, 97 percent of the Greenland Ice Sheet experienced some degree of surface melting.

It’s still too soon to say exactly what this year will ultimately bring. But so far, the early part of the warm season in Greenland is looking eerily similar to what h …

D-brief

How the Supreme Court Gene Patent Decision Will Affect Biotech

Naturally occurring human genes cannot be patented, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously today, paving the way for cheaper gene testing for patients.

The decision centered on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, mutated versions of which can dramatically increase an individual’s risk of breast and ovarian cancer. Myriad Genetics, a Utah company, was the first to sequence those genes, and they patented the sequence in 1996. Since then, Myriad had enjoyed a monopoly as the only company that can provide  …

Water Works

Monitoring Water With GRACE

In an article in the journal Science this week, University of California-Irvine professor of engineering James Famiglietti and NASA hydrologist Matthew Rodell make the case for improving the GRACE satellite program, which has been critical to understanding global water supplies.
GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) has given us so much, and while scheduled for a 2017 relaunch, these water wonks argue that there are tweaks that could make it an even better water management tool. Mo …

Seriously, Science?

Babies in go-carts. For science!

Unfortunately, this paper isn’t about babies playing Mario Kart…but it’s close! The authors were curious about when during development the “fear of heights” kicks in. So they put babies through a series of experiments, some of which involved the babies driving a “powered mobility device” (i.e., baby go-cart) or holding babies over a “visual cliff”. The result? Fear of heights begins right around the time that babies become more mobile, indicating that the development of “proprioception” – …

ImaGeo

Eruption of Massive, Tornado-Spawning Thunderstorms Captured in Spectacular Satellite Animation

Operating in a special mode, the GOES-14 weather satellite captured a stunning animation of the birth and growth of massive thunderstorms over the Upper Midwest yesterday. Click on the image above to watch it.

The thunderstorms spawned tornadoes, large hail, tree-toppling winds, and widespread power outages.  But so far the storm system has failed to produce a derecho — a widespread, highly damaging cluster of thunderstorms arrayed in a line. Forecasters had warned that formation of a  …

Collide-a-Scape

High Tech World Triggers a Modern-Day Syndrome

Oh, for the days:
Remember when everyone used to be really, really worried about power lines? youtube.com/watch?feature=…

— Ketan Joshi (@ArghJoshi) June 13, 2013
Those were worried Australians in the mid-2000s, so it wasn’t all that long ago.

In the United States, people were really, really worried in the 1980s and 1990s about getting cancer from power lines, thanks in large part to a crusading journalist who had latched on to the story, which I’ve previously discussed. Naturally, …