Sex, hormones, and the microbiome

02 Thursday May 2013

Posted by sedeer in Bacteria, Development, Mammals

Tags

Autoimmune disease, Bacteria, biology, Diabetes mellitus type 1, Gut flora, Health, microbes, microbiome, Popular science, science

The microbiome — the kilogram of microbes that each of us carries around — has been shown to be involved in everything from obesity and type 2 diabetes to behaviour and sexual preferences. The composition and effects of the microbiome are very active areas of research, producing results which have challenged the way we think about the evolution and interactions of organisms, including ourselves. In a paper recently published in the journal Science, researchers showed for the first time that the make up of the microbiome differs between the sexes, linking these differences to changes in hormone levels and disease resistance.
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Rats with (not quite) telepathy

08 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by sedeer in Mammals, Mind

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

animals, biology, brain, Miguel Nicolelis, Popular science, Rat, science

Ten years ago, Professor Miguel Nicolelis and his team at Duke University made history. They implanted electrodes — sensors — into a monkey’s brain and trained her to control a robotic arm with her thoughts. That may sound like the stuff of science-fiction, but his latest work is even more incredible. In a paper recently published in Scientific Reports, Professor Nicolelis and his team used similar technology to enable a pair of rats to communicate — one brain to another — even when they were a continent apart. If you’ve read some of the news coverage of this story, you may have gotten the idea that it’s some kind of telepathy, mind control or mind meld. It’s not, but the truth, though more down-to-earth, is no less exciting. Continue reading →

What did we actually learn about GM foods and tumors?

26 Wednesday Sep 2012

Posted by sedeer in Genetics, Mammals

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

animals, Genetically modified food, Genetically modified maize, GMO, Monsanto, Popular science, Roundup, science, science and society, Science communication, Science in Society, Statistics

There’s been a great furor recently about a study which purports to show that rats fed GM corn develop more tumors than rats fed regular corn. I’m actually a bit late to this party; scientists and science writers across the web have already picked apart the flaws in this study, from shoddy statistics to poor design, and Carl Zimmer has called the whole thing “a rancid, corrupt way to report about science“. I don’t have much to add to the chorus; what I’d like to do with this post is to make clear to the layperson what we mean by “bad statistics” and why that makes the study unconvincing.

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Through the gut: how plants in food regulate genes in animals

27 Sunday May 2012

Posted by sedeer in Genetics, Humans, Mammals, Plants

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

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

In an exciting discovery reported last year, a team of Chinese researchers found that some of the genetic material in our food might survive digestion and go on to regulate our genes and affect our physiology. This new mechanism for genetic interactions between very different species raises interesting evolutionary questions and will probably have implications for the study of health and nutrition, but it’s important to understand what the study was actually about, particularly since this will likely affect the debate around GMO foods. Continue reading →

Gut bacteria may cause diabetes

13 Friday Apr 2012

Posted by sedeer in Bacteria, Mammals

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

animals, biology, diabetes, Education, Health, Immune response, insulin, microbes, microbiome, Mouse, Popular science, science, TLR2

According to a recent study, your chances of developing adult onset diabetes may depend on what kind of bacteria are living in your gut. It’s been known for some time that type 2 diabetes can be caused by a combination of genetic and lifestyle factors; over the past few years, it’s become clear that these factors somehow interact with the microbiome, but the nature of this interaction and the microbiome’s role in determining susceptibility to diabetes hasn’t been properly explored. Last year a team of scientists from Brazil published results showing that changes in the community composition could completely reverse the effect of genetic factors.
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Mammals didn’t have to wait for the dinosaurs to die out

24 Saturday Mar 2012

Posted by sedeer in Dinosaurs, Evolution, Mammals

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

adaptive radiation, animals, Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event, dinosaur, diversity, mammal, Popular science, teeth

A study recently published in Nature challenges the prevailing wisdom that the extinction of the dinosaurs paved the way for an explosion of mammalian diversity. By studying the fossils of a group of mammals called multituberculates, the researchers have cast doubt on the traditional view of dinosaurs constraining small, shrew-like mammals to a secondary role as nocturnal insectivores. Instead, this group seems to have diversified millions of years before the dinosaurs died out.
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