BIOL 1610 Spring 2018 Biology in the News

Some recent studies are calling us to be more cautious about our cell phone usage. There have been some studies on lab rats over the last two years that have started linking cell phone usage to higher cancer rates. Basically what the experiment was, Scientists exposed a bunch of lab rats to about the same amount of RF radiation (Radio Frequency, the kind of radiation cell phones use to communicate with cell towers) cell phones and wireless routers and basically all of our modern internet devices, expose us to. Long story short the Rats had a noticeably higher rate of schwannomas, and cancer in glial cells than regular non-exposed rats.  There were some other really cool findings from the study too. For example only Male lab rats contracted Schwannomas (cancer of Schwann cells in nerve tissue) and only female lab rats were found to have glioma. (cancer in glial cells, cells that help brain cells) They also found higher levels of other types of cancer such as skin cancer, prostat...

Gary Frisk 3/30/2018 Blog Post The Not So Junk DNA We have always been told that we are closely related to chimpanzees. DNA exome sequencing has shown that we vary by less than 1% in our protein encoding segments of our DNA. This article discusses the work of Katherine Pollard, a biostatistician at the Gladstone Institutes and the University of California, San Francisco, and her team, have found a significant difference between the introns, or “junk DNA,” of humans and most animals, and how that “junk” is possibly why we are so different from all other life on the planet. Pollard’s earlier work sequenced the differences between human and chimpanzee genomes. The 716 differences are called “human accelerated regions” (HARs). Technology to study the affects of these HARs had to catch up to this discovery. Working with Nadav Ahituv, a geneticist at U.C.S.F., they used biotechnology to splice HAR DNA into neurons they created using human and chimpanzee check cells. Doing th...

               Opioid’s are a serious problem that according to Edward Bilsky, an opioid pharmacologist and provost at Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences, can potentially be eliminated. Opioid addiction is a problem that needs to be faced as soon as possible. Utah has many different ads that are sure to be seen driving on the freeway, but we are not the only state that has an issue. Many people have died and many more will continue to die “In 2015, 2 million Americans suffered from prescription opioid addiction, and more than 33,000 died of an opioid overdose” (pg. 44) There is a solution to the problem at hand.               In Jonathon Keats’ article, building a better Painkiller, Christopher Stein stumbled upon something that would change the way that opioids are researched. He noticed that among rats an inflamed leg would be numb to the effects of touch, but anot...

A Columbia University Ph. D track student, Brian A. Smith, has invented a system which he calls the RAD, or Racing Auditory Display, which is a more sophisticated system then the currently available technology for allowing those with impaired sight access to video gaming in the racing genre. According to Smith, the systems that are currently available either "overload the player with too much information," or resort to no complexity at all in order to cater to their target audience's disability. The article states that the program Smith integrated his platform to is Unity. After doing a little research online, I learned that Unity was used in the creation of the Android version of Temple Run, Angry Birds 2, and even a game that I've wasted some hours on, Plague Inc, so the engine is built for enjoyable games with a healthy level of complexity. Using the article and the included video was difficult, as it refused to load fully, but I found a version on YouTube that all...

Problems with the Unicorns of the Sea By Adam Chappell I read an article entitled “Heart monitors on wild narwhals reveal alarming responses to stress.”  I found it through the National Science Foundation’s page that was linked to on our course website.  You can find it here if you want to learn more: https://news.ucsc.edu/2017/12/narwhals.html This particular article was published on Dec. 7, 2017, and outlines some new findings about narwhals that have never been documented before. The article describes how a team of scientists got permission in 2012 to work with native hunters to study narwhals.  These scientists would rescue narwhals caught in the hunters’ nets, and before releasing them, they would attach a heart-rate monitor to the narwhals that would stay attached for 1-3 days.  After that time, the device would float back to the surface of the water, where it would be collected, and the data could be studied. In previous years, these scientists were...

                                                            Cognitive Defect                 After reading “Cognitive Deficits Caused by a Disease-Mutation in the α3 Na+/K+-ATPase Isoform.”by news nature furthered my understanding of many nuerological diseases and the urge to find a cure and fast.  Alternating childhood of hemiplegia , ALS, epilepsy , and many other diseases all have one thing in common they are neurological they all deal with a defect/mutation in the Sodium Potassium Pump.The “Pump” maintains the NA+ and K+ electrochemical gradient. There is no cure for any of the diseases yet but they are working on it ...

We have all heard about global warming, climate change, and rising sea levels in the news and in our science classes at school. And while we know that these changes will have an affect on the world and our environment another pressing concern brought to light by paleontologist John Huntley has been about the effect of infectious diseases and parasites changing with the rising and warm tides. Huntley basis for this research directed his attention to about 11,700 years ago when higher and waters caused a large increase in the number of parasites in clams around the risen coasts. These infectious parasites were able to adapt and thrive more in a changed environment and this is the concern of many scientists as the sea levels are once again beginning to raise and warm as they did in the past. Huntley and his collages did extensive research around these clams and climate change and their study took them to some very diverse locations.They went to Northern Italy and to China's Pearl Ri...

Biologist have said that single cells have a mind of their own, they can decide to be part of a tissue, or take another more interesting route towards a disease to fight. Although that is all interesting, scientists are still trying to figure out, exactly how many different types of cells are in tissues. Researchers from University of Washington and Allen Institute for brain Science, have developed a method that can classify and track the many cells in a simple tissue sample. Just a few short weeks ago, a journal article posted about this method called “SPLIT-seq” this reliably tracts gene activity in a level of single cells. (Urton, James) SPLIT-seq translates to meaning, “Split Pool Ligation-based Transcriptome Sequencing”. (Urton, James) This has a traditional approach with adding a bit of flare, or new twist. According to author Greg Seelig, “Cells differ from each other based on the activity of their genes”. You could think of this as genes either switching on or switching o...

Alison Abbott in her article “Reduced-calorie diet shows signs of slowing ageing in people” (Abbott, A.) describes a part of a trial called the Comprehensive Assessment of Long term Effects of Reducing Intake of Energy (CALERIE). The 53 participants in the study were not obese, and they were split into a group that ate 15% less calories than normal, and a control group that ate a normal number of calories. The study lasted for two years. They measured the oxygen intake, carbon dioxide exhaled, and the nitrogen content of urine to come to their conclusions. The calorie restricting group could better use calories then the control group when they were asleep. Abbott talks about how mitochondria is important in the life span of things like worms and flies. We learned in our biology class that the mitochondria is an organelle in a cell that is responsible for the production of atp that provides the energy necessary to power the cell, and my guess is that lowering calorie intake will someho...

In doing research for this blog I found an article on biology News Net titled “Study finds shark fins & meat contain high levels of neurotoxins linked to Alzheimer’s disease”. This was interesting to me because I have had many members of my family who have had Alzheimer’s so I was curious to see what possible link there could be. I know first hand how difficult it is just for the families of individuals with this disease. The article details a study done by scientists from the University of Miami. Theses scientists tested 10 different species of shark found in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. They were testing specifically for two toxins: mercury and beta-N-Methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA). According to the article BMAA has been linked to neurodegenerative disease such as Alzheimer's. The found that there was a large concentration of these two toxins in the fins and muscles of all the shark species. The article did not state the percentage of the concentration of these toxins...

The advancement of science is changing the way we look at the world. The impossible has now become the everyday routine, and the limitations we once had on humanity are diminishing. Currently there is no cure for AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) and the battle against HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) is slow and costly. However, researchers have found a way that may fight HIV and even eliminate the virus entirely.             HIV targets the immune system by lowering the T cells (Killer T cells) in the body which protect against infection and disease. With a weakened immune system, HIV eventually leads to AIDS. Though there is treatment for HIV, there is no cure and a person with HIV will have it for life. The article, Genetically Modified T Cells Might Help Fight HIV, was about a group of scientists that changed the way T cells were made in the body to fight against HIV. A similar technique was used against cancer i...