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Posts

May 29, 2013

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2:00 PM | Seeing Eye to Eye With Your Physician
Rita Gorawara-Bhat and her colleagues from the Section of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine are researching how things like eye contact with a physician can affect patient care.

Gorawara-Bhat R, Dethmers DL & Cook MA (2013). Physician eye contact and elder patient perceptions of understanding and adherence., Patient education and counseling, PMID:

ScienceLife
Biology | Medicine
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2:00 PM | How do snails coil?
Typically, snails coil as they grow. The exact shape and characteristics of the coil are known to be a combination of genetic and environmental factors, depending on the snail. There is an interesting story involving snails and the young Jean Piaget. Piaget is famous for his work in psychology, but before that, when he was…

Shimizu, K., Iijima, M., Setiamarga, D., Sarashina, I., Kudoh, T., Asami, T., Gittenberger, E. & Endo, K. (2013). Left-right asymmetric expression of dpp in the mantle of gastropods correlates with asymmetric shell coiling, EvoDevo, 4 (1) 15. DOI:

Greg Laden's Blog
General Science
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1:49 PM | Epidemiology of Childhood Brain Disorders: Conduct Disorder
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control recently published an excellent review of the epidemiology of childhood brain disorders.In a previous post, I reviewed the findings in ADHD and in autism/autism spectrum disorder. In this post, I will summarize some of the key findings of the review for conduct disorder and oppositional defiant disorder.Conduct disorder and oppositional defiant disorder share some characteristics and can be conceptualized as two disorders along a line of severity. […]

Perou R, Bitsko RH, Blumberg SJ, Pastor P, Ghandour RM, Gfroerer JC, Hedden SL, Crosby AE, Visser SN, Schieve LA & Parks SE (2013). Mental health surveillance among children - United States, 2005-2011., Morbidity and mortality weekly report. Surveillance summaries (Washington, D.C. : 2002), 62 (2) 1-35. PMID:

Brain Posts
Medicine | Neuroscience
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1:33 PM | Video Tip of the Week: QIIME for Quantitative Insights Into Microbial Ecology
The other day I was watching scientists in my twittersphere discuss things they were observing at the American Society for Microbiology meeting (#ASM2013 for more chatter). I like to see what kinds of tools are being discussed at meetings–and twitter is quite useful for that–and this particular tweet caught my eye: True RT @phylogenomics: I [...]

Caporaso, J., Kuczynski, J., Stombaugh, J., Bittinger, K., Bushman, F., Costello, E., Fierer, N., Peña, A., Goodrich, J., Gordon, J. & Huttley, G. (2010). QIIME allows analysis of high-throughput community sequencing data, Nature Methods, 7 (5) 335-336. DOI:

OpenHelix Blog
Biology | Biotechnology
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12:30 PM | Interactions between shelter dogs: some new research
Some animal shelters house dogs in pairs or small groups. This can enrich their lives, but it could also potentially be a source of stress if the dogs are not well-matched. A new paper by Irena Petak, of the University of Zagreb, Croatia, examines the communication patterns between dogs housed in groups.At the Dogs Trust in Salisbury, England, there is a sanctuary for long-term residents.  There is a ‘mountain area’ with an artificial mountain and three kennels, and a tree area with […]

Petak, I. (2013). Communication Patterns Within a Group of Shelter Dogs and Implications for Their Welfare, Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science, 16 (2) 118-139. DOI:

Companion Animal Psychology
Psychology | Veterinary Medicine
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12:00 PM | Gas, Knuckles, And The Little Blue Pill
Biology concepts – dissolved gas, cavitation, arthritis, decompression sickness, ebulism, gas embolismIt is certainly true that some folks love cracking their knuckles. The little research that has been conducted indicates that about 25-30% of people are habitual knuckle crackers, with the habit lasting on average 35 years. Fine for them, but we’re the ones who have to listen to it.You approach the piano, interlace your fingers and bend your hands backwards, trying to crack your knuckles. […]

Blatteau, J., Brubakk, A., Gempp, E., Castagna, O., Risso, J. & Vallée, N. (2013). Sidenafil Pre-Treatment Promotes Decompression Sickness in Rats, PLoS ONE, 8 (4) DOI:

deWeber, K., Olszewski, M. & Ortolano, R. (2011). Knuckle Cracking and Hand Osteoarthritis, The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, 24 (2) 169-174. DOI:

As Many Exceptions As Rules
Biology | Evolution
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7:57 AM | Impulsivity and uric acid
A few years back I posted about an interesting body of research on purine metabolism in relation to the autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) and how some work from the likes of Mary Coleman and Ted Page had reported high levels of uric acid to be coincidentally present in cases of ASD.The gout @ Wikipedia  As with other research angles, the initial interest in this finding of hyperuricosuria - elevated urinary uric acid - and autism did not seem to last. Just like the dusty research […]

Sutin AR, Cutler RG, Camandola S, Uda M, Feldman NH, Cucca F, Zonderman AB, Mattson MP, Ferrucci L, Schlessinger D & Terracciano A (2013). Impulsivity is Associated with Uric Acid: Evidence from Humans and Mice., Biological psychiatry, PMID:

Questioning Answers
Psychiatry | Psychology
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7:43 AM | Should you help a person with OCD do their checks?
Imagine you and your partner are about to enjoy a meal together. They have obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and get incredibly anxious until they've completed a time-consuming sequence of checks and rituals involving their cutlery. Do you offer to help with the checks in the hope of assuaging their anxiety? The process of helping an OCD patient in this way is called "accommodation" and though it may be motivated by compassion and empathy, the authors of a new paper say that it can be a […]

Boeding, S., Paprocki, C., Baucom, D., Abramowitz, J., Wheaton, M., Fabricant, L. & Fischer, M. (2013). Let me check that for you: Symptom accommodation in romantic partners of adults with Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder, Behaviour Research and Therapy, 51 (6) 316-322. DOI:

BPS Research Digest
Neuroscience | Psychology
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6:21 AM | Cryptosporidium, the understudied killer
Diarrhea is the second major killer of children under the age of 5 in developing countries (second to pneumonia). We know much less than we should about the causative agents, severity, burden etc. of diarrhea in developing countries. Funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, A Global Enteric Multicenter Study (GEMS) picked up the task […]

Kotloff, K., Nataro, J., Blackwelder, W., Nasrin, D., Farag, T., Panchalingam, S., Wu, Y., Sow, S., Sur, D., Breiman, R. & Faruque, A. (2013). Burden and aetiology of diarrhoeal disease in infants and young children in developing countries (the Global Enteric Multicenter Study, GEMS): a prospective, case-control study, The Lancet, DOI:

Elliott, D. & Clark, D. (2000). Cryptosporidium parvum Induces Host Cell Actin Accumulation at the Host-Parasite Interface, Infection and Immunity, 68 (4) 2315-2322. DOI:

The Parasite Diary
Biology | Microbiology
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2:54 AM | Future dads of the world relax! Stressing now could affect the health of your future kids
Parents pass on a unique genetic makeup to their children. Little Johnny is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy with a one-of-a-kind thumbprint all because it is encoded in the DNA provided by his parents. But did you know that the quality of the DNA you pass on to your children can be impacted by stressful events […]

Rodgers A.B., Morgan C.P., Bronson S.L., Revello S. & Bale T.L. (2013). Paternal Stress Exposure Alters Sperm MicroRNA Content and Reprograms Offspring HPA Stress Axis Regulation, Journal of Neuroscience, 33 (21) 9003-9012. DOI:

The Synaptic Scoop
Medicine | Neuroscience
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May 28, 2013

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8:38 PM | Beta Decay Parity Violation And A Few Fischbach Notes
And now, in the ongoing series inspired by the Fischbach article on the seasonal variation of radioactive decay rates, a few more notes on beta decays.  Today, will be about beta decay and parity, (aka mirror image symmetry), violation.  In 1957[5], C.N. Yang and T.D. Lee performed a survey of the existing experiments involving beta decay and found that there was no experimental evidence showing that beta decays maintained mirror symmetry, (parity), something that had been simply […]

Fischbach E., Freeman B. & Cheng W.K. (1981). General-relativistic effects in hydrogenic systems, Physical Review D, 23 (10) 2157-2180. DOI:

Lee T. & Yang C. (1956). Question of Parity Conservation in Weak Interactions, Physical Review, 104 (1) 254-258. DOI:

Wu C.S. (1957). Experimental Test of Parity Conservation in Beta Decay, Physical Review, 105 (4) 1413-1415. DOI:

Garwin R., Lederman L. & Weinrich M. (1957). Observations of the Failure of Conservation of Parity and Charge Conjugation in Meson Decays: the Magnetic Moment of the Free Muon, Physical Review, 105 (4) 1415-1417. DOI:

Cottingham W.N. & Greenwood D.A. An Introduction to Nuclear Physics, DOI:

Copasetic Flow
Physics
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3:08 PM | New Group of Crystals Will Make LED Light Warmer
Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are studying a new group of crystals to improve materials’ luminescence efficiency. Small crystals that glow different colors may be the missing ingredient for warmer, less clinical LED lighting. Read more »

Liu, F., Budai, J., Li, X., Tischler, J., Howe, J., Sun, C., Meltzer, R. & Pan, Z. (2013). New Ternary Europium Aluminate Luminescent Nanoribbons for Advanced Photonics, Advanced Functional Materials, 23 (16) 1998-2006. DOI:

The Daily Fusion
Environment | Energy
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2:12 PM | Everyone Underestimates Fast-Food Calories (But Especially at Subway)
At a McDonald's shareholder meeting last week, a nine-year-old girl accused CEO Don Thompson of sneaky advertising. Stop "tricking kids into eating your food," she demanded, saying that McDonald's ads tell kids to "keep bugging their parents" until they get that Happy Meal. In the world of fast-food chains, though, the golden arches may not be the sneakiest purveyor of excess calories. Diners in all kinds of fast-food restaurants underestimate the calories they're taking in—and the most […]

Block, J., Condon, S., Kleinman, K., Mullen, J., Linakis, S., Rifas-Shiman, S. & Gillman, M. (2013). Consumers' estimation of calorie content at fast food restaurants: cross sectional observational study, BMJ, 346 (may23 3) DOI:

Inkfish
Biology
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1:14 PM | Examining the Richard III Evidence
Richard III is a highly controversial figure from English history, and this legacy continues today. Shakespeare wrote of him as a villain, exaggerating his scoliosis and writing his malicious dialogue.“And thus I clothe my naked villainy. With odd old ends stol’n out of holy writ; And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.” (Richard III, … Continue reading »

Richard Buckley, Mathew Morris, Jo Appleby, Turi King, Deirdre O’Sullivan & Lin Foxhall (2013). ‘The king in the car park’: new light on the death and burial of Richard III in the Grey Friars church, Leicester, in 1485, Antiquity, 87 519-538.

Bones Don't Lie
Archeology | Anthropology
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12:06 PM | The Trouble With Politicians Who Always Talk About Values
Last spring Paul Ryan spoke about the latest version of his budget, promising it “offers a better path, consistent with the timeless principles of our nation’s founding and, frankly, consistent with how I understand my Catholic faith.” According to Ryan, “We put our trust in people, not in government.” There was nothing new or surprising [...]

Kouzakova, M., Harinck, F., Ellemers, N. & Scheepers, D. (2013). At the Heart of a Conflict: Cardiovascular and Self-Regulation Responses to Value Versus Resource Conflicts, Social Psychological and Personality Science, DOI:

Peer-reviewed by my neurons
Education | Psychology
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10:18 AM | Life Below Zero Degrees
What do you do when you’re looking for life? Well, while there are a lot of new ideas and discoveries lately, expanding the limits of where we know life can occur, an often used phrase is ‘follow the water’. But what if that water’s frozen? Recently, bacteria from the Antarctic permafrost (aka Planococcus halocryophilus strain […]

Mykytczuk, N., Foote, S., Omelon, C., Southam, G., Greer, C. & Whyte, L. (2013). Bacterial growth at −15 °C; molecular insights from the permafrost bacterium Planococcus halocryophilus Or1, The ISME Journal, 7 (6) 1211-1226. DOI:

The Beast, the Bard and the Bot
Biology | Evolution
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9:22 AM | Neural stem cells repair spinal cord injuries in rats
Each and every year, about 12,000 people sustain an Acute Spinal Cord injury (SCI), in the U.S. alone. SCI is a common cause of permanent disability, with symptoms varying from simple muscle weakness to total loss of voluntary muscle movement in the chest, arms, and/or legs. At the moment, there is no way to repair a damaged spinal cord, however researchers are continuously seeking new methods to induce spinal cord regeneration. Yesterday, a collaborative team of researchers, led by scientists […]

van Gorp, S., Leerink, M., Kakinohana, O., Platoshyn, O., Santucci, C., Galik, J., Joosten, E., Hruska-Plochan, M., Goldberg, D., Marsala, S. & Johe, K. (2013). Amelioration of motor/sensory dysfunction and spasticity in a rat model of acute lumbar spinal cord injury by human neural stem cell transplantation, Stem Cell Research & Therapy, 4 (5) 57. DOI:

Stem Cells Freak
Clinical Research | Health
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8:38 AM | Men feel more physically attractive after becoming a father
Hey good looking! Never mind the sleepless nights and domestic disarray, new fathers think they're hot stuff. The finding comes from a survey of 182 heterosexual couples by Alicia Cast and her colleagues. The couples were quizzed three times - just after they got married, a year later, and again a year after that. Whereas women who had a baby in the first year of marriage experienced a subsequent dip in their feelings of physical attractiveness, new fathers showed the opposite pattern. The […]

Cast, A., Stewart, S. & Erickson, M. (2013). Why do men feel more attractive after childbirth?, Journal of Gender Studies, 1-9. DOI:

BPS Research Digest
Neuroscience | Psychology
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6:53 AM | Feeling someone else’s sensation of touch – the neural background, the examples, and you
Touch is the only sensation which we cannot share with another person. The immediacy of touch differentiates it from the distant impressions which sight and audition can give us. However, modern neuroscience is currently revising this picture: you can touch at a distance. One just doesn’t notice it. Can we find people who do? A […]

Keysers C, Wicker B, Gazzola V, Anton JL, Fogassi L & Gallese V (2004). A touching sight: SII/PV activation during the observation and experience of touch., Neuron, 42 (2) 335-46. PMID:

Ramachandran VS & Brang D (2009). Sensations evoked in patients with amputation from watching an individual whose corresponding intact limb is being touched., Archives of neurology, 66 (10) 1281-4. PMID:

Schaefer M, Heinze HJ & Rotte M (2012). Close to you: embodied simulation for peripersonal space in primary somatosensory cortex., PloS one, 7 (8) PMID:

BRAIN'S IDEA
Neuroscience | Psychology
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3:30 AM | Mathematical models of running cockroaches and scale-invariance in cells
I often think of myself as an applied mathematician — I even spent a year of grad school in a math department (although it was “Combinatorics and Optimization” not “Applied Math”) — but when the giant systems of ODEs or PDEs come a-knocking, I run and hide. I confine myself to abstract or heuristic models, […]

Shoval O, Goentoro L, Hart Y, Mayo A, Sontag E & Alon U (2010). Fold-change detection and scalar symmetry of sensory input fields., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 107 (36) 15995-6000. PMID:

Theory, Evolution, and Games Group
Biology | Mathematics
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May 27, 2013

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8:05 PM | Transparent Graphene Electrode Makes Flexible Solar Cells Possible
In a recent article published in journal Advanced Functional Materials, researchers describe a new graphene-coated transparent electrode made of silver nanowires. Because of its ability to bend without breaking, the new invention can be used to create flexible solar cells, computer and consumer electronics displays and future “optoelectronic” circuits for sensors and information processing. Read more »

Chen, R., Das, S., Jeong, C., Khan, M., Janes, D. & Alam, M. (2013). Co-Percolating Graphene-Wrapped Silver Nanowire Network for High Performance, Highly Stable, Transparent Conducting Electrodes, Advanced Functional Materials, DOI:

The Daily Fusion
Environment | Energy
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1:18 PM | Can a bacterium help you lose weight ?
Yes, it's called Cholera. There, story over. Nothing to see here. All right, I'll try to leave the snark aside for this story.  It's just that every time I look at a story extolling the virtues of a new weight loss treatment based only on data from mice, I get slightly sceptical. But let's take a look at this new piece of research published in PNAS this week and give the research a fair hearing. The bacterium that is the focus of this research is Akkermansia mucinophila. This bacterium […]

Everard A., Belzer C., Geurts L., Ouwerkerk J.P., Druart C., Bindels L.B., Guiot Y., Derrien M., Muccioli G.G. & Delzenne N.M. & Cross-talk between Akkermansia muciniphila and intestinal epithelium controls diet-induced obesity, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI:

Memoirs of a Defective Brain
Microbiology | Biology
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10:55 AM | Can Pot Smoking Counter the Negative Metabolic Consequences of Atypical Antipsychotics?
DISCLAIMER: This is a hypothetical question and not a medical recommendation. But it might be an idea worth investigating in epidemiological studies.Everyone knows that pot gives you the munchies. So the paradoxical finding that marijuana use is associated with a lower prevalence of obesity and diabetes came as a quite surprise to me. Now, a new study has concluded that pot smokers also have lower fasting insulin levels and smaller waistlines (Penner et al., 2013).I'll let the authors summarize […]

Koola, M., McMahon, R., Wehring, H., Liu, F., Mackowick, K., Warren, K., Feldman, S., Shim, J., Love, R. & Kelly, D. & (2012). Alcohol and cannabis use and mortality in people with schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders, Journal of Psychiatric Research, 46 (8) 987-993. DOI:

Le Foll, B., Trigo, J., Sharkey, K. & Strat, Y. (2013). Cannabis and Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) for weight loss?, Medical Hypotheses, 80 (5) 564-567. DOI:

Lev-Ran, S., Le Foll, B., McKenzie, K., George, T. & Rehm, J. (2013). Cannabis use and cannabis use disorders among individuals with mental illness, Comprehensive Psychiatry, DOI:

Penner, E., Buettner, H. & Mittleman, M. (2013). The Impact of Marijuana Use on Glucose, Insulin, and Insulin Resistance among US Adults, The American Journal of Medicine, DOI:

The Neurocritic
Neuroscience | Psychology
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10:35 AM | ¿”Almas gemelas”, “polos opuestos”…o nada de eso? Personalidad y satisfacción en las relaciones de pareja
¿Qué hace que una relación de pareja sea satisfactoria? Si saliéramos a la calle e hiciéramos una mini-encuesta o si nos parásemos a escuchar las conversaciones que a diario se […]

Furler, K., Gomez, V. & Grob, A. (2013). Personality similarity and life satisfaction in couples, Journal of Research in Personality, 47 (4) 369-375. DOI:

PSY'N'THESIS
Psychology | Social Science
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3:30 AM | Distributed computation in foraging desert ants
For computer scientists, ants are most familiar from ant colony optimization. These algorithms rely on simulating how ants lay, follow, and modify pheromone trails to find efficient paths from their hives to food sources. Hence, it might come as a surprise that this is not a universal feature of ants. The cataglyphis niger desert ant […]

Feinerman, O. & Korman, A. (2012). Memory Lower Bounds for Randomized Collaborative Search and Implications to Biology, 26th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC), DOI:

Theory, Evolution, and Games Group
Biology | Mathematics
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1:55 AM | Forefoot, rearfoot or YOUR-foot strike?
At your next 10k or marathon, take a moment to observe the feet of the passing herd and you’ll note one commonality: most runners – nearly 90% 1 - will contact the ground with their heel first. But like your mother said, just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t mean you should too! In fact, … Continue reading »

Enders H, von Tscharner V & Nigg BM (2013). The effects of preferred and non-preferred running strike patterns on tissue vibration properties., Journal of science and medicine in sport / Sports Medicine Australia, PMID:

Runner's Rationale
Biology | Health
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12:37 AM | In the quest to slow aging, have researchers found the Holy Grail?
What if I told you that it may be possible to live longer than ever while remaining sharp as a tack? Now what if I told you that you’re NOT going to like the key to achieving this immortality? Ready? To live longer and prosper all you have to do is restrict your calorie intake […]

Graff J., Kahn M., Samiei A., Gao J., Ota K.T., Rei D. & Tsai L.H. (2013). A Dietary Regimen of Caloric Restriction or Pharmacological Activation of SIRT1 to Delay the Onset of Neurodegeneration, Journal of Neuroscience, 33 (21) 8951-8960. DOI:

The Synaptic Scoop
Medicine | Neuroscience
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May 26, 2013

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11:55 AM | Schizophrenia and child abuse in the media
A couple of weeks ago, the Observer printed a debate headlined “Do we need to change the way we are thinking about mental illness?” I read it with interest, as I happen to think that we do need to change, and that the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM5) has numerous problems. The discussion was opened by Simon Wessely, a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, who responded No. He didn’t exactly defend the DSM5, but he disagreed […]

Varese, F., Smeets, F., Drukker, M., Lieverse, R., Lataster, T., Viechtbauer, W., Read, J., van Os, J. & Bentall, R. (2012). Childhood Adversities Increase the Risk of Psychosis: A Meta-analysis of Patient-Control, Prospective- and Cross-sectional Cohort Studies, Schizophrenia Bulletin, 38 (4) 661-671. DOI:

BishopBlog
Neuroscience | Psychology
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8:27 AM | More on urinary metabolomics in autism research
The -omics. Y'know all those new-fangled disciplines which have sprung up to describe how sciences looks at genes, bacteria, etc. We used to call it plain old scientific analysis, but now depending on what your sample medium or technology or your target species is, its been rebranded and repackaged as an -omic.Shepherdess @ Wikipedia  I've talked about a few of the -omics quite a bit on this blog and their relationship to systems biology; ranging from microbiomics (studying bacteria) to […]

Emond P, Mavel S, Aïdoud N, Nadal-Desbarats L, Montigny F, Bonnet-Brilhault F, Barthélémy C, Merten M, Sarda P, Laumonnier F & Vourc'h P (2013). GC-MS-based urine metabolic profiling of autism spectrum disorders., Analytical and bioanalytical chemistry, PMID:

Mavel, S., Nadal-Desbarats, L., Blasco, H., Bonnet-Brilhault, F., Barthélémy, C., Montigny, F., Sarda, P., Laumonnier, F., Vourc′h, P., Andres, C. & Emond, P. (2013). 1H–13C NMR-based urine metabolic profiling in autism spectrum disorders, Talanta, 114 95-102. DOI:

Questioning Answers
Psychiatry | Psychology
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2:31 AM | Fly Eyes!
Imagine what it would feel like to be a fly, with most of your head covered in eyes, allowing you to see in pretty much any direction. That’s exactly what Axel Borst studies: motion vision in the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster), one of the most widely studied species of fly. The behavioral model that has […]

Borst A., Haag J. & Reiff D.F. (2010). Fly Motion Vision, Annual Review of Neuroscience, 33 (1) 49-70. DOI:

UCSD Neurosciences
Biology | Neuroscience
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