Author Archives: Bora Zivkovic

Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter, died yesterday after a freak accident while filming a documentary. He was impaled by a stingray through the chest. RIP.

Study Finds How Organs Monitor Themselves During Early Development:

Scientists at NYU School of Medicine have unraveled the signals in a feedback loop governing ovarian development. This work has been several years in the making and is being published on August 27 in the advance online issue of the journal Nature.

This is a big, complicated and exciting study in Drosophila.
Scientists Discover Memory Molecule :

Scientists have succeeded in erasing memory in animal models. These findings may be useful for the treatment of disorders characterized by the pathological over-strengthening of synaptic connections, such as neuropathic pain, phantom limb syndrome, dystonia and post-traumatic stress.

Beware of the title! “Gene for X” and “Molecule for Y” are automatic red flags! The study is interesting, though.
NASA Study Solves Ocean Plant Mystery:

A NASA-sponsored study shows that by using a new technique, scientists can determine what limits the growth of ocean algae, or phytoplankton, and how this affects Earth’s climate.

Er, not plants…protists. Seeding the oceans with iron in order to get the dinoflaggelates to take-up CO2 is an old idea.
Evolution Of Old World Fruit Flies On Three Continents Mirrors Climate Change:

Fast-warming climate appears to be triggering genetic changes in a species of fruit fly that is native to Europe and was introduced into North and South America about 25 years ago.
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In the paper, the researchers note that “the genetic shift is remarkably rapid and is detectable even for samples separated by fewer than two decades.” They add that such rapid genetic changes are likely to occur much more quickly in organisms with short life spans, such as a fruit fly, which can produce several generations in a single year.
“In the long term, this suggests that climate warming is already having genetic effects, at least on these organisms,” Huey said. “The good news is that these flies may be able to adapt, at least to some extent, to a warming climate. However, organisms with longer intervals between new generations, humans or sequoia trees for example, probably can’t adapt nearly as readily.

This is a very intreresting study. The article (I do not have the paper itself) does not seem to state if the researchers think the heat allows/triggers chromosomal inversions, or if the inversions are adaptations to higher temperature in the way some nucleotide repeats aid in temperature compensation of the fruitfly circadian clock and are thus found along a latitudinal gradient.
Crows Targeted In War Against West Nile Virus:

They’ve seen the aerial assaults; they’ve studied the weapons of mass destruction; they know the method of operation. Now, equipped with “body bags,” they’re on a “hunt-and-gather” mission to pick up the victims of the serial killer. The feathered victims. They are soldiers in a war against the West Nile virus. The battleground is Davis, zip code 95616, county of Yolo, one of the nation’s hot spots.
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“Corvids serve as the primary reservoirs or incubators for the virus,” said Reisen. “Corvid surveillance is crucial to stopping the transmission of the virus.” Crows are good hosts for mosquitoes, Reisen said. “There’s an amazing amount of virus in the bloodstream of infected crows, sometimes as much as 10 billion virus particles in one millimeter of blood. They’re like a big sack of virus.”

Video Cameras Learn From Insect Eyes:

The bane of all wedding videos — that picture of the bride in front of the window where her face is so dark that you can’t see the features — may soon be a thing of the past. By mimicking how insects see, a University of Adelaide researcher can now produce digital videos in which you can see every detail. The technique solves a critical problem for surveillance cameras, where the clarity of images is everything.

Hydrogen Peroxide Sensor Could Aid Security:

A new family of molecules used to detect hydrogen peroxide and other reactive chemicals in living cells could be a useful addition to anti-terrorist arsenals, says the University of California, Berkeley, chemist who developed these substances last year.

Model Of Internal Clocks Reveals How Jet Lag Disrupts The System:

Symptoms of extreme jet lag may result from the body overshooting as it tries to adjust to particularly large leaps forward in time, suggests new research from the University of Massachusetts Amherst that models circadian rhythms in rats. To transition smoothly to a different time zone, the researchers recommend advancing in chunks of not more than four hours, thus allowing the body’s clocks to remain coordinated.

New Growth In Old Eyes:

Nerve cells in the retinas of elderly mice show an unexpected and purposeful burst of growth late in life, according to researchers at UC Davis.

Genome Info From ‘Plant Destroyers’ Could Save Trees, Beans And Chocolate:

An international team of scientists has published the first two genome sequences from a destructive group of plant pathogens called Phytophthora — a name that literally means “plant destroyer.” The more than 80 species of fungus-like Phytophthora attack a broad range of plants and together cost the agriculture, forestry and nursery industries hundreds of billions of dollars each year.

Global Text Project Aims To Create Free, Wiki-based Textbooks For Developing Nations:

Education can play a fundamental role in reducing poverty, but high-quality and up-to-date textbooks are often too expensive for most people in developing countries.
To make education more accessible, a professor in the University of Georgia Terry College of Business is spearheading an effort to produce free online textbooks using a modified version of the Wiki software that powers the Web site Wikipedia.
“The textbook model doesn’t work for developing nations,” said Rick Watson, J. Rex Fuqua Distinguished Chair for Internet Strategy and director of the UGA Center for Information Systems Leadership. “They can’t get the books down to a price that people in the developing world can afford. You essentially have to give the books away.”

Very interesting! Any thoughts (read the whole thing)?

Ancient Raptors Likely Feasted On Early Man, Study Suggests:

A new study suggests that prehistoric birds of prey made meals out of some of our earliest human ancestors. Researchers drew this conclusion after studying more than 600 bones from modern-day monkeys. They had collected the bones from beneath the nests of African crowned eagles in the Ivory Coast’s Tai rainforest. A full-grown African crowned eagle is roughly the size of an American bald eagle, which typically weighs about 10 to 12 pounds.

Red Fish, Blue Fish: Distinctive Color Keeps Gene Pools Healthy:

Long-running evolutionary biology research on fish populations by UC Riverside scientist David Reznick has yielded new findings into how fish keep their gene pools healthy. Female fish tend to choose males with distinctive or rare coloration, thus ensuring that no one genetic line smothers out less common ones.

Dogs And Smog Don’t Mix: Pets In Homes May Lead To Increased Rates Of Bronchitis In Children:

A new study from USC researchers suggests that having a dog in the home may worsen the response to air pollution of a child with asthma.

Sunscreens Can Damage Skin, Researchers Find:

Are sunscreens always beneficial, or can they be detrimental to users? A research team led by UC Riverside chemists reports that unless people out in the sun apply sunscreen often, the sunscreen itself can become harmful to the skin.

How The Body’s T Cells React To Parasitic Diseases:

While scientists understood how T cells worked in certain kinds of diseases, one area has remained murky: disorders caused by protozoan parasites. Now, because of a study just published and led by scientists at the University of Georgia, researchers are closer than ever to understanding how T cells respond to parasitic diseases that kill millions each year.

Researchers Identify Antibiotic Protein That Defends The Intestine Against Microbial Invaders:

Researchers at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center have identified a protein that is made in the intestinal lining and targets microbial invaders, offering novel insights into how the intestine fends off pathogens and maintains friendly relations with symbiotic microbes.