RECENT POSTS 
Seven years ago, to mark the then tenth anniversary of the announcement of the birth of the folkloric Dolly the sheep, and in the still reverberating wake of the South Korean cloning scandal, I practiced my fledgling/intermittent/debatable/wanton science communication skills with the penning of an article on the issue of ‘cloning.’ It being an anniversary with a ’0′ on the end, combined with topical relevance, suggested I might be lucky enough to get it published. And I was thus very... Read more
18 May 2013 |
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Every weekend, I publish a roundup of the week’s SciLogs.com blog posts along with some reactions from the comment feeds and social media. Big news this week is that SciLogs.com bloggers won two of the eleven Science Seeker Awards with an additional two of our bloggers nominated as finalists. The winners are Nathalia Holt and Pete Etchells; Nsikan Apkan and Jalees Rehman (highlighted by BoingBoing’s science editor) were finalists. Needless to say, we’re all very excited! To keep in touch... Read more
18 May 2013 |
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I am tickled pink. I wrote something for a magazine, an informational piece on the Cryptococcus gattii outbreak currently ongoing in the US (on which I expanded in my last blog post). My essay was published yesterday, on May 16, with the launch of the UK edition of the online news magazine, The Conversation. One of the editors for The Conversation is none other than the Scilogs community's very own, Dr. Akshat Rathi (he of the Allotrope fame; read his... Read more
17 May 2013 |
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Every day we provide you with #SixIncredibleThingsBeforeBreakfast to nibble away at. Here you can fill your brain with the most intellectually stimulating “amuse bouches” from the past week – a veritable smorgasbord for the cranium. They’re all here for you to load up your plate – this week’s “Morsels for the mind”. Enjoy! **** Feather, fur & fin – birds, beasts, fishes, and the things they do Best friends forever. Genome sequences suggest that dogs diverged from wolves 32K years... Read more
17 May 2013 |
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“Monsters are tragic beings. They are born too tall, too strong, too heavy. They are not evil by choice. That is their tragedy." Ishirō Honda (1911-1993) Sometimes monstrous things lurk at our feet. As proof positive, while I was gazing down the other day, I spotted a monstrously large dandelion flower right where I stood. Now, dandelions are quite commonplace at this time of the year. Mild temperatures and moist soil have promoted an explosion of blooms. Parklands and lawns... Read more
17 May 2013 |
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What can the members of multiple animal species (cat, dog, bird, ferret, llama, alpaca, elk, goat, sheep, horse, porpoise) have in common with humans? Deeper philosophical questions aside, all of them have fallen prey to a deadly fungus spreading gradually, but steadily, in western North America (southwest Canada; US states of the Pacific Northwest, PNW) for over a decade.1 Well, what-ho, what-ho Cryptococcus gattii (CG), I believe we have been introduced. The disease, cryptococcosis, generally, affects the lungs first, later... Read more
16 May 2013 |
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Despite the repeated claims that journalism is dying, we’re seeing a lot of news outlets spring into being. One of those new outlets, The Conversation, is taking a fairly interesting approach – marrying academia and journalism under one banner. The Conversation, which is based in the U.K., launched May 16. It is a free news site that (according to a teaser it posted online) is “produced by academics and journalists” and aims to “source news, commentary and the latest research... Read more
16 May 2013 |
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I came across an interesting study about the consensus in the scientific community on anthropogenic global warming (AGW), i.e. the idea that human activity is very likely causing most of global warming. What makes this study so interesting is the fact that it involved a “citizen science” approach. Volunteers who contributed to the Skeptical Science website were asked to grade the abstracts of 11,944 scientific papers on global climate change that were published in the years 1991-2011. These volunteers assessed... Read more
16 May 2013 |
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Neanderthals are, of course, central to much of the research going on at the MPI-EVA. To be honest, I didn't know all that much about them and had to do some reading. I found that a lot of great stuff has been written about Neanderthals and I began to put together a little notebook on Spundge to have it all in one place. I have now made it public, please feel free to take a look. I am not a... Read more
15 May 2013 |
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SUMMARY: The newly-sequenced scarlet macaw genome will provide many important insights into avian and human biology, behaviours and genetics and will contribute to parrot conservation. Scarlet macaw, Ara macao, in flight.Image: Tambopata Research Center. [NOTE: This image has been altered; it has been cropped.] After many years of research into the behaviours, diseases, genetics and life history of scarlet macaws, a team of scientists have taken their studies to the next level. Christopher Seabury, an Assistant Professor of Genetics at... Read more
15 May 2013 |
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The questions and answers below relate to the Research Techniques Made Simple (RTMS) entitled " Genome-Wide Epigenetics" in the June 2013 issue of Journal of Investigative Dermatology. To view the article, go to the RTMS web page. Questions & Answers 1) Heterochromatin refers to: A. Actively transcribed regions of DNA to which transcription factors actively bind B. The core structure around which 147 base pairs of DNA bind C. Constitutively closed and transcriptionally repressed areas of genome... Read more
15 May 2013 |
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There can be few words as poignant as ‘endling’, the name given to the last surviving individual of a species. Tell me you don’t find this image of Benjamin, the last Thylacine, heartbreaking? Or that you weren’t moved by the plight of Lonesome George? And what about Martha, the passenger pigeon? Doesn't her story make you weep at our limitless environmental profligacy? But what links all of these endlings is that we know they were once members of a thriving... Read more
15 May 2013 |
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You might not realise it, but statistics rule your life. Think about that for a minute. Because even if you claim you know nothing about maths, maths knows a lot about you. Consider what you did even when you woke up this morning. After you brushed your teeth, you might have put on some face cream that you bought because the TV advert told you 87% of people who used it reported an improvement in the appearance of fine lines and... Read more
15 May 2013 |
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SciLogs.com bloggers won two of the eleven Science Seeker Awards, announced last night. Nathalia Holt and Pete Etchells won the Best medical sciences post and the Best post about peer-reviewed research respectively. SciLogs.com bloggers Nsikan Apkan and Jalees Rehman were finalists in the two categories as well. Huge congratulations to all four of them! As you’d expect, all four posts are excellent reads so check them out: Nathalia’s post, Weaving together the DNA of parenthood: “In 2007, Anne Morriss and... Read more
15 May 2013 |
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There are several ways how can you interpret your negative results:... Read more
15 May 2013 |
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