08 Friday Feb 2013
Tags
animals, ankle, Australopithecus afarensis, biology, Bipedalism, climbing, evolution, Human, Kiga people, Popular science, science, Twa
While popular imagination may be fascinated by when our ancestors first began to walk upright, scientific debate has focused on whether these early humans were still skilled climbers. A group of researchers in New Hampshire addressed the issue in a paper recently published in PNAS, gleaning new data from modern humans who climb regularly.
05 Tuesday Feb 2013
Posted in Humans
Tags
anthropology, cheese, dairy, food, Human, Lactose intolerance, Linear Pottery culture, milk, People, Poland, Popular science, prehistory, science
Cheese may be a gourmet’s delight and a major industry these days, but it was probably originally just a good way to keep milk from spoiling and to deal with lactose intolerance. In a paper published in Nature last month, a team of scientists from the UK, US and Poland used evidence from pottery remains to show that this venerable art stretches back at least 7,000 years.
17 Thursday Jan 2013
Posted in Humans, Science communication
Tags
biology, Cancer, Health, Human, Lung cancer, Metastasis, Popular science, science, Science communication, Science in Society, sclc patients, small cell lung cancer, Tumor, tumour cells
A team of researchers in the UK have discovered how the absence of a single gene makes it easier for tumour cells to migrate more freely in lung cancer patients. More people suffer — and die — from lung cancer than any other kind. Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is an extremely aggressive form of lung cancer thanks to its tendency to metastasise quickly, spreading to other organs early. In order to migrate, metastasising tumour cells have to break free of the extracellular matrix (ECM), the network of material around our cells which supports them and binds them to each other. That’s where this particular gene, Fam38A, comes into the story. Continue reading
26 Monday Nov 2012
Tags
Bacteria, bacteriophage, biology, gut bacteria, Gut flora, Human, microbes, microbiome, phage, Popular science, Prophage, science, virus
Your body has ten times more bacterial cells than human cells containing 150 times as much genetic material. I’ve written several posts about how our gut bacteria, the microbiome, can influence the development of allergies, obesity and type-2 diabetes. We’ve only recently started studying the microbiome and there’s still a lot to learn; it’s quite an active area of research. For example, just last year scientists discovered that individuals could be divided into three groups based on the composition of their microbiome, but new research has cast doubt on that idea. And yet, like a matryoshka doll, our biology has still another surprise in store for us: wherever bacteria are found, there are viruses which infect them. As we learn more about the microbiome and its implications, some scientists have turned their attention to the the viral microbiome, the viruses that prey on our gut bacteria and shape their community. Continue reading
20 Tuesday Nov 2012
Posted in Humans
Tags
bad news, Behavior, bias, biology, brain, confirmation bias, good news, Human, neurobiology, Optimism, Popular science, science, society
The human brain seems to be wired for forward-looking optimism. In 2007, Tali Sharot and a team of scientists at University College London showed that people who were asked to imagine positive and negative future events consistently felt like the positive events are closer in time; the positive future events also felt closer than events in the past, whether positive or negative. More recently, Dr. Sharot has turned her attention to the “good news/bad news effect”, our tendency to update our beliefs to reflect good news more than bad news. Over the last few years, she and her team have identified the part of the brain responsible for this behaviour and even shown how to disrupt it.
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09 Friday Nov 2012
Posted in Arthropods, Humans, Hymenoptera, Mind
Tags
animals, ants, Behavior, biology, Cognition, Human, Insecta, Popular science, science, Science in Society
Several years ago, scientists published an excellent study about how desert ants find their way home after foraging. The story got a lot of media attention; unfortunately, much of the coverage described the ants “counting steps”, which isn’t what the researchers reported and feeds into existing myths rather than broadening our scope. To explain what I think is wrong with that approach, I’m going to tell you a story about ants on stilts, body swapping and how we perceive space. Continue reading
Inspiring Science 
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