Oct 30 2009
New research suggests that your skills behind the wheel may be affected by your genes.
To better understand the effects of a variant in the BDNF gene on motor skills learning, Steven Cramer and colleagues at UC Irvine tested 29 subjects in a driving simulator. Their results, published in the journal Cerebral Cortex, might make [...]
Oct 28 2009
Medco Health Solutions, Inc., announced this week that it will conduct a clinical trial to assess whether clopidogrel bisulfate (Plavix®, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sanofi-aventis) is just as effective as the newer drug prasugrel (Effient™, Eli Lilly and Company) in people who lack a genetic variation that inhibits their metabolism of clopidogrel. This new research has [...]
Oct 23 2009
There are over 50,000 people in North America who define themselves as Hutterites, though you probably have never met one. One of the main branches of the Anabaptists, Hutterites live in self-sustaining communities throughout the rural northwestern United States and Canada.
Like their sister branches, the Amish and the Mennonites, the history and culture of [...]
Oct 19 2009
Lupus, which means “wolf” in Latin, gets its name from the skin manifestations sometimes seen in the disease. A physician in the 13th century thought they looked like wolf bites.
In autoimmune disorders, the immune system — which normally protects us from harmful, foreign substances — goes into overdrive and starts attacking the body’s own cells, [...]
Oct 16 2009
Previously in The Spittoon, we discussed two papers that identified genetic variants associated with hemoglobin levels in circulating blood.
But blood consists of much more than hemoglobin, and it is responsible for much more than just transporting oxygen. This week Nature Genetics published the results of two of the largest blood studies to date, which together [...]
Oct 15 2009
Here’s how it goes for me: a few afternoons a year, usually when I haven’t slept or eaten right, but sometimes for no apparent reason, I begin to sense a pressure behind my left eyebrow and to feel queasy. By now I know what’s coming, and I resign myself to another miserable evening and a [...]
Oct 14 2009
The Near East – a swath of land that encompasses the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, and everywhere in between – has been populated by humans longer than anywhere else in the world save Africa. It is where agriculture was born and spread into Eurasia. It is where the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt [...]
Oct 12 2009
Doctors routinely order the complete blood count (CBC) for their patients because they can learn a lot about a person’s health by measuring the numbers of different types of blood cells in the circulation, their sizes and the ratios between them.
One component of the CBC is usually a measure of the total amount of hemoglobin, [...]
Oct 09 2009
A segment of chromosome 14 folded to reveal a fractal curve using Origami. Designed and folded by Jason Ku. Photo by Erik Demaine.
How do you get three billion pairs of As, Cs, Ts and Gs—about six feet worth of DNA—into the nucleus of a tiny cell?
Most students of biology would answer by saying [...]
Oct 08 2009
Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and Prince Alexei, 1911.
The princes of early 20th century Europe had a problem. The source of their wealth and power — the royal blood coursing through their veins — could also sentence them to an early death.
A mutation that spontaneously arose in the DNA of Britain’s Queen Victoria doomed many of her [...]
