Big Monopoles, BPA and Autism-DNA Link
Oct 8 at 4:04pm by Aileen
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Kreck
News this week from the rarified realm of science research is both interesting and far-reaching. And no, by far-reaching I’m not talking about discovery that the planet Saturn has a huge, invisible ring nobody noticed before.
In the field of physics, some may have heard of Paul Dirac’s postulated magnetic monopoles – the quantum of the magnetic force, with a single pole instead of two. Dirac postulated that these must exist, and led to his famous ‘strings’ (which eventually led to some current GUT models). But nobody has ever actually ‘seen’ a monopole, so it’s been an open question of whether such beasties exist. Now, an NIST research team believe they’ve found the next best thing, monopoles the size of molecules!
They of course aren’t real monopoles, but apparently behave the same predicted way. Thus these synthetic compounds could allow scientists to do further research in the lab rather than just on paper napkins. They will be testing monopole predictions with these spin ice molecules, such as whether the postulated particles obey Coulomb’s Law. Stay tuned, this could get fascinating quickly!
Next up is a study about the ubiquitous BPA body burdens 93% of us carry around these days. BPA is a common chemical found in some plastics and epoxy resins. A paper published in Environmental Health Perspectives this week from researchers at Simon Fraser University, UNC-CH and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital linked prenatal BPA exposure to unusually aggressive, hyperactive behavior in 2-year old girls.
Neurodevelopmental disorders – ADD, ADHD, the Autism spectrum, etc. – have been most prevalent in young boys, who represent some 80% of the diagnoses. Further research on this environmental contaminant should be watched, as if the connection is solid, we can expect more and more young girls to suffer the same sorts of problems. BPA has also been linked to fertility problems, growth retardation and learning disorders as well as permanent changes to DNA in mice.
Speaking of Autism’s spectrum of neurodevelopmental disorders, researchers from MIT and the Center for Human Genetic Research at Massachusetts General Hospital have discovered that a single letter change in DNA may be indicative of Autism. This is known as a Single Nucleotide Polymorphism [SNP], and researchers tied it to chromosomes 5, 6, 20. The gene on chromosome 5 is associated with neuron development and autistic children showed lower expression.
This is just one piece of what researchers expect is a highly complex genetic puzzle, but it might lead to tests that can identify those at risk of producing autistic children, and identifying it in children very early. It also could help lead to specific treatments in the future. Progress is being made at last in dealing with this spectrum as a real medical condition and not just an indicator of lousy parenting skills. Which has been one of the most hurtful urban myths ever propagated by people who had no idea what they were talking about. That some of them were psychologists and physicians is sad, so we can all be thankful that some real answers are coming in.
Popularity: 43% [?]
The Hindu Goddess Baby
Apr 9 at 11:11pm by Aileen
For something different and profound, consider the case of a baby girl named Lali born near New Delhi, India on March 11. She has a rare birth defect called diprosopus that gave her two faces on one head. ABC News reported that the resident medical officer of the Saifi Hospital where Lali was born has thus far been unsuccessful in his attempts to convince the parents to allow CT scans or MRI to determine whether there are duplicated internal organs or invisible, life threatening deformities that might be corrected by surgery.
Most babies with this condition are stillborn or die shortly after birth, but Lali so far has shown no breathing or digestion difficulties, both mouths are being fed. She was born normally and left the hospital with her mother 8 hours after birth.
This condition is not technically a case of cojoined twinning, where a single embryo duplicates and does not completely separate. Rather, it is due to malfunctioning in the developing embryo of a single protein called Sonic hedgehog homolog [SHH]. SHH protein governs the width of the face and features, and governs proper development of the brain and spinal cord via a signaling cascade.
Popularity: 28% [?]
Mom was Right! You Are What You Eat
Feb 4 at 5:05pm by Aileen
The scary take-home lesson from the 2004 documentary Super Size Me has some new scientific confirmation from recent research at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, though evidence that a fast food diet leads to liver problems and obesity wasn’t what the researchers set out to find.
You Are What You Eat is about research that found – using mice instead of chimpanzees or humans – that some of the obvious differences between humans and chimpanzees can be attributed to the differences in our diets.
The research was published in PLoS One 3(1): e1504 entitled “Somel M., Franz H., Mueller U., Lachmann M., et al (2008) Human and Chimpanzee Gene Expression Differences Replicated in Mice Fed Different Diets.
They fed lab mice one of three different diets for two weeks – raw fruits and vegetables, Institute cafeteria food, and straight McDonalds junk. The fresh fruit and veggies diet differed very significantly on liver effects of the other two diets, which caused thousands of gene expression changes. The McDonalds mice also got fat. The conclusion?
“A significant fraction of the genes that changed in the mouse livers had previously been observed as different between humans and chimpanzees. This indicates that the differences observed in these particular genes might be caused by the difference in human and chimpanzee diets.”
The researchers also noted that these genes appear to have evolved faster than other genes, possibly because of adaptation to new diets. I could not find any indication in the article that humans who go raw vegan become chimpanzees, or that chimpanzees fed cafeteria food or fries and shakes become human. But it is quite interesting that diet alone can significantly affect gene expression (and evolution). Seems that evolutionary biology may have to include diet-caused gene changes as yet another mechanism for generating biodiversity.
Popularity: 10% [?]
BERT and ERNI Play Important Roles in CNS Development
Jan 10 at 10:10pm by Aileen
…and you thought those silly Muppets were just silly!
With the melodic strains of Ernie’s Greatest Hit “Rubber Ducky” echoing my head, fans will be delighted to know that the dynamic duo created by Jim Henson and Frank Oz in 1969 as stars of the famous Sesame Street educational program have even more to do with brain development that originally thought!
Research published in the January 10 online issue of PLoS Biology reports A Mechanism Regulating the Onset of Sox2 Expression in the Embryonic Neural Plate has been discovered.
Popularity: 8% [?]
New Light Shed on Human Evolution
Nov 22 at 2:02pm by Aileen
There have been quite a few recent news reports about research shedding new light on human evolution. Some of it’s in the realm of those interminable Just-So stories biologists never seem to tire of (despite the notable fact that those Just-So stories change regularly according to who’s doing the storytelling today), but some of it’s darned good science.
First up is the newer, better Tale of The Simple Reason Helps Males Evolve More Quickly than females. This one’s particularly entertaining, as Just-So stories go. It comes from researchers at the University of Florida Genetics Institute, to be published in the Proceedings of the NAS. Spokes-researcher Marta Wayne explains it thusly:
“It’s because males are simpler.”
Well Duh. Of course, Wayne explains the long known fact that male inheritance involves simpler genetic architecture as compared to females. No doubt such as the fact that a woman gives birth to the female’s contribution to genetic inheritance of her granddaughters when she gives birth to a daughter. But you’ve just gotta love the conclusion, drawn from research on the ubiquitous fruit fly:
“Researchers believe this relatively uncomplicated genetic pathway helps males respond to the pressures of sexual selection, ultimately enabling them to win females and produce greater numbers of offspring.”
Popularity: 6% [?]
RECENT COMMENTS