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Because carbonation is part of the taste: https://www.hhmi.org/news/research-reveals-how-tongue-tastes-carbonation.

Bees consume pollen. Some even call it 'bee bread'...
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in868
http://www.hhmi.org/biointerac...

The hypothesized cost of $25 per sample was bandied about as feasible by the similar (same?) process VirScan.

I wish them luck. We may eventually be able to figure out just how widespread things like lyme disease really are.

For example, I don't even see latin mentioned in any of these...

http://hms.harvard.edu/admissions/default.asp?page=requirements

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~dcal/documents/TSS_NEJM_reading

http://www.hhmi.org/grants/pdf/08-209_AAMC-HHMI_report.pdf

You might impress a stogy old prof on an admissions committee with a latin class on your course transcript, but I doubt it will help you get a jump start on your medical degree more than learning conversational skills in a non-dead foreign language in preparation for patient care in our now increasingly multicultural society.

Apologies to Dr Sheldon Cooper of course, advanced biology courses are probably a better investment of time if one is aiming towards a jump start on a medical degree ;^) Physics, although important, hasn't changed much in it's application to medicine (other than perhaps radiology), but being on top of genetics and cell biology is becoming increasingly important. Getting the basics down early allow time to learn all the new stuff that is coming down the pipe.

I use Google Reader to gather data from any rss feed of interest and also download weekly about 60 podcasts from various sources each week using the Feedreader aggregator. I have to plug, in particular, podcasts (or videocasts) from This Week in Virology, This Week in Parasitism, and This Week in Microbiology, all available via a starting point of www.twiv.tv . (If you think Parasitism is not interesting, listen to TWIP 22.) The Naked Scientist based in Britain offers a nice weekly collection of news gathered from that area. The Australian Broadcasting Network at www.abc.net.au/radio/ offers podcasts about technology oriented towards that part of the world. The Canadian Broadcasting Corp and the BBC also offer podcasts which include new developments in all areas, but don't allow you to specialize in one area, such as medicine or computers. Futures in Biotech ( http://twit.tv/FIB ) has produced some terrific interviews in that area and Leo Laporte and his This Week in Technology does a few podcasts that offer more than his usual troubleshooting genre. http://www.podnutz.com/ is strictly computers, but three podcasts in particular are of interest as trendsetting. They are 274, 302 and 316. They deal with the development and growth of Lisa Hendrickson's career. She's a female computer troubleshooter who is rapidly building a large business that repairs computers remotely and worth watching and learning from as an example of how to grow a new business in the US. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute produces podcasts and videocasts about advancing technology Do a search for NIH Videocasts for presentations by this organization. Econtalk may not be strictly technical, but has outstanding interviews about developments and history that disproves that idea that economics are dry and boring. I've been saving a list of Best Podcasts for over a year and they number now about 90, but amount to over 2GB, so are not readily posted. I also have the addresses of podcasts that are plugged into the Feedreader aggregator that I'll try to add here in case that's of interest if the moderator agrees to include them. Several of these were worth noting, too, like NY Times Tech Talk and RadioLab: http://rss.conversationsnetwork.org/ppq/56641.xml http://podcast.seti.org/index.xml http://www.rtve.es/podcast/radio-5/asunto-del-dia-en-r5/SASUNTO.xml http://feeds.feedburner.com/booksandideaspodcast http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/clickon/rss.xml http://feeds.feedburner.com/Cyberspeak http://feeds.feedburner.com/diffusionradio http://www.econlib.org/library/EconTalk.xml http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=510030 http://feeds.feedburner.com/GlobalChallenges http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/healthc/rss.xml http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/HHMI_Lectures.xml http://podcast.thelancet.com/laneur.xml http://www.materialstoday.com/rss/podcasts/ http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/podcasts/techtalk.xml http://dow

Genetics means "out of your control" and touches on some raw nerve issues, so there's a lot of throwing around of "statistical" information and unrealistic mental models.

For example of statistical confusion:

New research shows that at least 10 percent of genes in the human population can vary in the number of copies of DNA sequences they contain--a finding that alters current thinking that the DNA of any two humans is 99.9 percent similar in content and identity.

http://www.hhmi.org/news/scherer20061123.html

And broken mental models:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewontin's_Fallacy

Until our knowledge improves, you're going to see more "politicization" of DNA-related science.

How do most advanced drugs get created? By socialist governments? Or maybe by underground tech communities? Small businesses? Humanitarian groups? Nope, American and other free market Corporations.

In reality significant funding for pharmaceutical R&D in the USA comes from most of the sources you mention, not just corporate funding. First, there is direct funding from the the Federal Government through the auspices of the National Institute for Health or the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, along with some agencies (like both the FDA and CDC) doing direct research. Second ,there still is a lot of research done by universities and other primarily academic institutions (many of which receive some State and Federal funding). Third, there are non-profit funding groups, usually founded to support research into specific diseases, but some are more general. Corporate funding is only the fourth source of R&D funding, and by actual dollars only account for about one third of the money going towards pharmaceutical research. So in summation, while corporate dollars are useful, they are far from the only thing driving modern pharmaceutical R&D.

Yes. If only someone out there funded medical research. But what could be the benefit from such abstract studies of these "humans" and their "sleep"?

I got undergraduate degrees in physics and EE, went on to get my PhD, and now have my dream job (at least for this point in life). I graduated in 2001 when every investment bank in the world was trying to grab up anyone with an understanding of math.

It just took being more interested in satisfaction with my work than in other things. I spent the early part of the last decade making $8-20k per year, eating ramen noodles, and spending all my time on campus in my lab.

I could have spent that time making 50-100k per year (possibly more) at something that was fairly lackluster and then be out of a job now and broke and stuck in a mortgage that I'll never be able to escape. Instead, my company is trying to find more people like me and is actively hiring and I'm at the cutting edge doing amazing work in my field.
http://www.hhmi.org/jobs/main?action=job&job_id=660

By postponing death with tetracycline, the scientists can keep the altered bugs alive long enough to breed them in large numbers. When released into the wild, they no longer receive tetracycline so the previously silenced gene springs into action. The bugs stay alive long enough to breed with wild females, but their offspring die young.

• Evolution: Fossils, Genes & Mousetraps
• Evolution: Constant Change and Common Threads

By postponing death with tetracycline, the scientists can keep the altered bugs alive long enough to breed them in large numbers. When released into the wild, they no longer receive tetracycline so the previously silenced gene springs into action. The bugs stay alive long enough to breed with wild females, but their offspring die young.

• Evolution: Fossils, Genes & Mousetraps
• Evolution: Constant Change and Common Threads

FYI, HHMI (Howard Hughes Medical Institute) is going public access:

http://www.hhmi.org/about/research/papp.html

I see little reason to think that we'll see any social arguments about this genetic modification that we don't already see about a) steroids, hormones, and precursors or b) genetic modifications in general.

Isn't this linked to the Wired article from over three years ago about experiments at Howard Hughes Medical Institute in which researchers were messing with PPAR-delta and got similar results? Where's the reference to earlier work on the subject?

"There are preliminary indications that primitive cells like stem cells exist in the human heart. Stem cells may have the ability to develop into the various cardiac cell types and form new healthy functioning myocardium. If we can prove the existence of cardiac stem cells and make these cells migrate to the region of tissue damage, we could conceivably improve the repair of damaged heart muscle and reduce heart failure," says Anversa.

Cardiac muscle cells, however, do not reproduce after a certain point:

According to Doris Taylor (Departments of Medicine and Surgery at Duke University Medical Center. She did post-doctoral work in cardiac (heart) molecular biology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.)

You may want to revise your numbers again.
http://ask.yahoo.com/20041227.html
http://www.hhmi.org/cgi-bin/askascientist/highligh t.pl?kw=&file=answers%2Fstructure%2Fans_011.html

Colds and flu are more likely to be transmitted in winter due to the fact that more people are inside, crowded together. http://www.hhmi.org/cgi-bin/askascientist/highligh t.pl?kw=&file=answers%2Fimmunology%2Fans_023.html

A sidebar in the article includes a nice illustration of what two-color vs. three-color mice might perceive.

... thus explaining why mice show no outward tendencies towards jealousy or violence, and behave in a highly cautious manner at all times.

If you eat your cake, do you still have it?

Yeah, fat genes. Good one. There is no such thing. If there were such a thing, we could breed a race of superfat humans who can exercise constantly and still gain weight. Second law, eat your heart out! ...

...I'm sorry to hear that you hate real cities. I know that culture and the arts can be a pain in the ass and are best eradicated. And I hate having to see all those interesting people all over the place. Man, I wish I could move back to Midwest City so I could drive everywhere and never interact with anybody. ...

Or it could become something like Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which was set up as a tax shelter for Howard's aviation income and now is by far the largest private funding organization for high-risk, high-impact biomedical research.

I'm guessing they can afford the lawyers it would take to write the foundation's mandatory goals into it's charter.

um...there are several different techniques used to harvest stem cells. Do a Google search on stem cell harvesting...

They can even be harvested from embryos without destroying it. In fact, the embryos in question that had a stem cell removed where later put into the womb of a female mouse, and 23 of the 47 came to term in spite of having cells removed. The 47/23 ratio is the same rate as the control test of coming to term as embryos that had not been tampered with...

They can also be harvested from your own bone marrow and blood, although these cells are already partially specialized. There is research into de-differentiate of the cells. This article is all the way back from 1999. Here is more information on de-differentiation, in which cells from a fruitfly have been successfully changed back to stem cells. Human trials are a bit off yet, but it's not a far leap to being able to do the same in our cells.

The anti-stem cell crowd has ingraved in so many people's minds that "stem cells=dead babies". That might have been true in the late 1990s...but not true anymore. The information is widely avalible on the net to current research. Many people, especially religious people in the US, feel the whole idea of cloning is so creepy as to do anything to stop it, even if they have to lie about it.

I would just tell you to Google yourself, but you're being annoying, so here:

It was actually smallpox.

Whenever a large population of non-immunes exists, epidemics happen.

The model does not aim to predict the emergence of new strains of influenza, but it does suggest that a short-lived general immunity to the virus might affect the virus's evolution.

The model takes into account the effects of specific immunization against viral strains, but also infectivity randomness and the presence of a short lived strain-transcending immunity recently suggested in the literature.

A pandemic is possible when an influenza A virus makes a dramatic change (i.e., "shift") and acquires a new H or H+N. This shift results in a new or "novel" virus to which the general population has no immunity... Since, by definition, a novel virus is a virus that has never previously infected humans, or hasn't infected humans for a long time, it's likely that almost no one will have immunity, or antibody to protect them against the novel virus. If the novel virus is related to a virus that circulated long ago, older people might have some level of immunity.

Most of this seems really obvious to me, but what the hell do I know...

Hmmm, not exaclty sure if this is what you mean by "volumetric spirit flow rate," but just so you know alcohol is metabolized in a linear fashion.

I have never heard of the "eye is constantly moving so we can see" theory/idea. Sounds like BS to me.

I came across this years ago... had to drag out an old psychology book to find a reference.

Look for: Stabilized images on the retina by R. M. Pritchard

I found an associated study... and this article. But, could not find the real deal freely available.

Basically they attached a projector to a contact lens that was worn by the patient so that images could be projected into the eye yet remain in a constant position relative to the eye. (The were trying to eleminate "eye jitter".) The result was that the images were perceptible when introduced, but slowly "faded" away and disappeared.

Because you can't absorb it all at once. Check how eyes try to catch as many of the fotons flying around as they can. For the same reason chlorophyl in plants has an 'antenna complex'.

Bad luck you cannot patent this idea as it is already in use, see for instance this paragrpah on reflection , describing such an efficiency increasing trick.

HHMI

The gene for colorblindness is tied to the X chromosome and is recessive. The reason that more males have colorblindness is that the Y chromosome is treated as having the gene.

On topic; Color difficulties usually come into play with puzzle games. I wish that Capcom would release a playable version of Super Puzzle Fighter II X someday. I've been able to play Puzzle Bobble and Columns by using shapes and got pretty good with Klax by using sound as an assistance, but SPFIIX is completely unplayable. For a game that only uses 4 different colors they could at least make them somewhat different.

For a better solution, check out Triptych which has a color select mode. I personally think that they should list that as one of their main features.

BTW, I am a colorblind female who plays games and frequents Slashdot. (How's that for rare)

I would be interested in how this would help people with problems related to the smaller-scale hairlike follicles that are found in the ear (cilia). Some people experience hearing loss due to damaged cilia, though I believe in many it's due to damage to the "stirrup."

Hair is more than just that which is on your head (or visible on the rest of your body). Knowing more about the creation/behavior of the tiny hairs which line various internal parts of our bodies, and moreover being able to fix them, could be very useful indeed

I just saw Susan Lindquist (as far as I know, the woman who came up with this whole idea) give a talk on Hsp90 (the protein in question) yesterday. Since NewScientist isn't exactly forthcoming with the article, here are a few alternate resources.

• Nature Science Update
• The Nature article that started it all. Check out the Full Text if you want the full story (but you'd better be a biologist if you want to understand it).
• Lindquist's HHMI page

try here

In the "new stuff about amino acids" department, several researchers have recently discovered that there is a fifth taste in addition to sweet, sour, salty and bitter. It has been called umami and has been extensively researched at Howard Hughes Medical Center. Naturally the Japanese have established a whole new research center on this at SRUT (Japanese character module required) so can a special edition of Iron Chef be far behind?

It's a really interesting effect and I don't doubt that it's got something to do with the mechanisms of memory, but there's a lot of evidence for the role of changes in gene expression in memory as well. Take a look at Doctor Eric Kandel's research. There's a reason he got the Nobel Prize, the Wolf prize, the Lasker Award, the Gairdner Award, the Harvey Prize, and the National Medal of Science - the man has done an immense amount to elucidate the basis of memory. I know it's more fashionable around here to think of neurons as something to hook up to electrodes, but like just about everything biological it's a little bit more complicated than that. I'd place real money on both effects being part of the process.

Researchers have identified a new axon guidance receptor found in the tips of growing neurons that can exist in more than 38,000 slightly different forms. The unprecedented diversity of proteins derived from this single gene may offer an important hint that a fundamental code directs the precise wiring of trillions of neurons in the brain...

Researchers have identified a new axon guidance receptor found in the tips of growing neurons that can exist in more than 38,000 slightly different forms. The unprecedented diversity of proteins derived from this single gene may offer an important hint that a fundamental code directs the precise wiring of trillions of neurons in the brain...

Researchers have identified a new axon guidance receptor found in the tips of growing neurons that can exist in more than 38,000 slightly different forms. The unprecedented diversity of proteins derived from this single gene may offer an important hint that a fundamental code directs the precise wiring of trillions of neurons in the brain...

To understand genetic engineering you need to understand the technology and also the organism on which it is being used. A fair grounding in general biology, the model organisms used to develop the technology, the basics of molecular biology, some genetics and cell biology is needed. Most genetic engineering is developed by finding out how some portion of biology works, and then imitating it for human purposes. Genetic engineering is like copying source code--scientists study the organism (the original code), and then crudely copy it giving a new genetic engineering technology.

These links can give you a start, but if you are seriously interested, pick up an introductory college text with molecular biology, cell biology, or genetics in the title.

Here are some resources available on the web:

Primer on Molecular Genetics (Department of Energy)

MIT Biology Hypertextbook

Primer on Molecular Genetics from the U.S. Department of Energy

Biotech Applied follow the Biotech Applied and Biotech Chronicles links

(Small) glossary of genetic terms put together by the National Human Genome Research Institute

Info on research (with great graphics) funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Jim Lund