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Inspiring Science

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Inspiring Science

Category Archives: Mammals

The Right Way to Fall

07 Wednesday May 2014

Posted by sedeer in Links, Mammals

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animals, Behavior, biology, cat, Education, freefall, gecko, Popular science, science

My latest story on Beacon is about how cats and other animals manage to always land on their feet. It turns out to be a pretty impressive maneuver, and geckos have evolved and entirely different trick to accomplish the same thing:

There’s no need to go far afield to find wonders of the natural world; sometimes it just takes a shift of perspective to notice how they abound in our homes and neighborhoods. Cats, for example, are exquisite animals, with an uncanny ability to take a fall harmlessly by righting themselves in midair. Several years ago, my cat slipped off a sixth-storey ledge, falling something like 20 meters onto hard concrete. She was limping for a few weeks, but her knee healed and there’s no sign of the injury left. How cats manage such a feat is a question which has occupied scientists for over a century; it’s been the subject of in-depth studies in physics, physiology, and even robotics. While some of the details are still unclear, the essential picture is that cats (almost) always land on their feet thanks to an impressive spine-flexing twist maneuver which turns them upright in midair.

Head over to Beacon for the full story…

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Dying for sex

12 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by sedeer in Evolution, Mammals

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animals, Behavior, biology, Education, evolution, mating, Popular science, reproduction, science, sex

Unfortunately, I’ve been too busy to attend to Inspiring Science this week. Rather than putting out a rushed post, I decided to republish this piece which I originally wrote for Accumulating Glitches last year. I hope you like it!

(Photo credit: Michael Barritt & Karen May, via Wikimedia Commons)Some spiders get eaten by their mates, and male salmon famously fight to the death for access to females, but we generally don’t think of reproduction being quite as risky for mammals. We may prance and pose or jockey for attention, and mating might even be quite painful, but it’s usually not lethal. Among mammals, “live to mate another day” seems to be the guiding principle. Exceptions to this rule are found in the dasyurids and didelphids, groups of small carnivorous marsupial species living in Australia and South America, respectively. “These species experience extreme sexual behaviour,” said Dr. Diana Fisher of the University of Queensland. Males and females mate with multiple partners and matings can go on for many hours. Afterwards, the males all die. Continue reading →

How much sugar is too much?

23 Wednesday Oct 2013

Posted by sedeer in Humans, Mammals

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

biology, Coca-Cola, Diet (nutrition), food, Health, High-fructose corn syrup, Human, Popular science, science, Sugar

A 50cl Italian coke can. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)Everyone knows that too much sugar is bad for you, but how much is too much? According to a study published earlier this year, the amount of additional dietary sugar considered safe by regulatory agencies was enough to impact the health of mice, reducing the lifespan of females and the fertility of males. Continue reading →

Skin bacteria regulate the immune response

25 Wednesday Sep 2013

Posted by sedeer in Bacteria, Disease, Mammals

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Bacteria, biology, Complement system, Health, Immune system, microbes, microbiome, Mouse, Popular science, science

E. coli (Photo credit: Wikipedia)The skin is one of our body’s first lines of defense, but it’s also home to a rich community of microbes — the skin microbiome.  These bacteria are important in protecting us from pathogens; changes in the skin microbiome are linked with conditions ranging from dermatitis to psoriasis.  In a paper published this month in the journal PNAS, a team of scientists from the University of Pennsylvania showed that these bacteria don’t just live on our skin, but also play a role in regulating our immune response. Continue reading →

Correction: Plants micro-RNAs might not regulate animal genes

09 Tuesday Jul 2013

Posted by sedeer in Genetics, Humans, Mammals, Plants

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biology, digestion, DNA, Gene expression, GMO, Health, horizontal transfer, Human, MicroRNA, Mouse, nutrition, Popular science, RNA, science

Around a year ago I wrote about a study which showed that micro-RNAs from plants that were eaten could regulate genes in the animal that ate them.  It was an exciting and important finding.  The study claimed that the miRNAs survived passage through the digestive tracts of mice, got into their bloodstream and traveled to their liver, where they regulated genes involved in cholesterol metabolism.  This week I read a post on Virginia Hughes’ blog Only Human where she discusses several follow-up studies which haven’t been able to reproduce the original results.  That doesn’t necessarily mean the study was wrong, but it certainly raises doubts.  In her post, Virginia also links to a rebuttal letter she received from the author of the original study, so it looks like the debate is on!  I’ll try to keep an eye on the subject and report back about it as things develop, but in the meantime read Virginia’s excellent summary of the current state of affairs.  Showing that creatures can directly regulate genes in organisms of another kingdom of life would be a major finding, so I’m really glad that there’s debate about it.  That’s how science should work: we should try to repeat studies, remain critical and open-minded, and challenge each other.

The viruses that made us

29 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by sedeer in Development, Evolution, Genetics, Humans, Mammals

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

biology, DNA, evolution, Genome, horizontal gene transfer, Popular science, science, virus

Enterobacteria phage λ, Lambda phage-coliphage λ, José F. Vargas, http://elnefashu.deviantart.com/ (Photo credit: PHYLOMON)Viruses make their living by breaking into cells and using the machinery and energy in the cell to reproduce.  Once inside, some viruses immediately hijack the cell and make copies of themselves which burst out into the world to infect new cells.  Other viruses take a staid approach, though.  Instead of taking over the cell, they quietly slip a copy of their genes into its DNA.  When the cell divides, it copies the newly acquired viral genes along with the rest of its genome.  It’s a better deal for the virus, since all of the cell’s descendants will be carrying viral genes which can eventually come out of hiding to commandeer the cell and replicate.  A really lucky virus is one that finds itself inside an egg cell.  Getting into the DNA of a single cell means getting copied into all of its daughter cells, but getting into the DNA of an egg cell means getting copied into every cell in the organism that grows from the egg…and from there into all of the organism’s offspring.  Lucky viruses that succeed in pulling off that trick can still break out and cause trouble, but they can also become integrated into their host’s genome; instead of struggling to reproduce, they can then just kick back and enjoy the ride while we lumber along, making copies of them whenever we make new cells or have children. Continue reading →

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All text and original images by Sedeer El-Showk. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

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