Latest Blogs

Printed Space Food: All the Calories, But Still Missing Something

Fri, 24 May 2013 17:25:08 GMT

The other day I had to figure out what to make for dinner. On this mission, we have plenty of raw ingredients — pastas, tofu, dehydrated beef, freeze-dried vegetables, and even complete meals — so I puzzled over the my options for some time. My turn to “cook” fell on a day that we were required, by the HI-SEAS food study, to use just-add-water-and-heat foods only. In the end, I went with a dehydrated meal of sweet and sour pork with rice. On the side, I added rehydrated green beans, couscous

Money can't buy you love, but it can reduce your pain.

Fri, 24 May 2013 17:00:52 GMT

Everyone knows that money can buy you pretty much anything. Well, here are two more things to add to the list: reduced physical pain *and* less social distress. In this study, the researchers had subjects count either paper or money, and just the act of counting money made the subjects less sensitive to subsequent social exclusion or physical pain (via dipping their hands in hot water). So, the next time you're feeling left out, just count your money. It might make people dislike you even mo

Spit-Cleaned Pacifiers Boost Babies' Immune Systems

Fri, 24 May 2013 16:55:59 GMT

The only thing a baby seems to love more than sucking on a pacifier is dropping it on the ground. Health-conscious parents often think they are doing the right thing by sterilizing the dropped binky before giving it back to their child. However new research shows that these parents might want to rethink: When parents clean a pacifier with their own saliva instead, the child is less likely to develop eczema, allergies and other related conditions. For the past century, medical science has fo

A little knowledge is dangerous

Thu, 23 May 2013 23:36:22 GMT

Being public on the internet means having to interact with many different sorts. Recently I've been having to deal with a heckler on Facebook. The heckler is actually of a particular type. I'm still trying to learn genetics at this point in my life, so I don't propose to assert that my opinions are beyond dispute. But there is a variety of discussion which is not fruitful. An interesting aspect of talking to people about genetics is that totally novice intelligent lay people are often ver

(pre)Historical genetics still has to be historical

Thu, 23 May 2013 23:10:11 GMT

Credit: Albozagros The genetics and history of Tibet are fascinating to many. To be honest the primary reason here is elevation. The Tibetan plateau has served as a fortress for populations who have adapted biologically and culturally to the extreme conditions. Naturally this means that there has been a fair amount of population genetics on Tibetans, as hypoxia is a side effect of high altitude living which dramatically impacts fitness. I have discussed papers on this topic before. An

Twin Stars Are Closer to Earth Than Thought

Thu, 23 May 2013 21:49:18 GMT

Imagine if you could see a car’s headlights from more than 20 miles away. Those must be some headlights! It might even throw your whole understanding of headlights into question – how could there be any this bright? But then, you realize that the car wasn’t 20 miles away, but just 2; instantly, things make sense again. This is how scientists solved an astronomical mystery involving not headlights, but a double star system named SS Cygni. It’s a kind of system known as a dwarf nova, which

New Bird Flu May Be Able to Spread Between People

Thu, 23 May 2013 18:49:05 GMT

Since it was first identified by Chinese authorities two months ago, the new H7N9 bird flu has infected 131 people in eastern China. The virus produces severe pneumonia, with most patients requiring hospitalization, and statistics [pdf] released last week by the WHO indicate that 32 of those infected have died of the virus. Now a study in ferrets, considered the best model animal of flu transmission in humans, has found that the virus is transmissible via air and direct contact, making it p

Microbial Misadventures: Exploits in Botulism & Pruno In Our Prison Population

Thu, 23 May 2013 17:59:05 GMT

I am partial to the odd tipple and, as a resident of the licentious, enabling city that is New Orleans, I'm fortunate to be adequately supported in my booze-seeking ways by the high number of bars and restaurants within stumbling distance of my front porch. But what to do for those of us prohibited from indulging in one of the world's greatest mood modulators, for those of us, say, incarcerated in America's prison-industrial complex? In that case, American ingenuity and tenacity wins, always: be

Rise in Whooping Cough Linked to Weak Vaccine

Thu, 23 May 2013 17:08:00 GMT

Whooping cough is staging a comeback. According to the CDC, 2012 saw nearly 42,000 pertussis cases—the most since 1955. Many public health officials initially believed the epidemic was due to falling vaccination rates. But a new study published this week in Pediatrics shows that the problem is also due to serious shortcomings of the vaccination itself. Beginning in the mid-1990s, the U.S. began using a new pertussis vaccine that showed fewer side effects. Instead of injecting killed Bordete

The physics of rug wrinkles.

Thu, 23 May 2013 16:00:38 GMT

Sometimes it's the things we see everyday that we don't even realize have gone unexplained for millennia. Take rugs, for example. We trip over cat-induced rug wrinkles on a daily basis, but what physical parameters control their formation? What is the most energy-efficient way to remove them? Even though the movement of so-called "rug rucks" are similar to other important phenomena, such as ground movements during earthquakes, we still don't know that much about them. Fortunately, studies li

The algorithms don't lie, but people may err

Wed, 22 May 2013 22:50:36 GMT

For the past year or so I've been getting queries about what I think about Eran Elhaik's preprint on the genetic character of European Jews. I found some of the conclusions frankly a little weird, but I assumed that things would be cleaned up for publication. Well, it's been out for a while now: The Missing Link of Jewish European Ancestry: Contrasting the Rhineland and the Khazarian Hypotheses. But some reporting in The Jewish Daily Forward has brought the author and his detractors a bi

How 3D Printers Could Feed Astronauts and Mine Asteroids

Wed, 22 May 2013 21:25:57 GMT

If you judged by the recent buzz in the media world, you might think that 3D printers are good for one thing only: creating untraceable guns, on demand, in the privacy of your home. What makes the 3D printer such an intriguing technology, though, is the extremely broad nature of their applications. They can be used to print replacement auto parts (or maybe, someday, entire vehicles). They are great for cranking out rapid prototypes of new kinds of objects--anything from sculptures to false teeth

The eternal Aboriginal

Wed, 22 May 2013 19:29:40 GMT

National Geographic has an interesting article up, unoriginally titled Australia’s Aboriginals. There are lots of great data in there, though not much novel for anyone who has tread this territory before. For example, Aboriginals tend to have much lower morbidity and mortality when they are living their "traditional" lifestyle. This isn't a particular novel or surprising outcome. Rather, it seems like a supercharged version of the same problem which occurs when immigrants move from developin

Single Gene Leads to Longer Lifespan Across Species

Wed, 22 May 2013 17:27:54 GMT

Mitochondria are the cell's workhorse, transforming the calories we eat into useable energy. They have also been the subject of lots of scrutiny over longevity, since lifespan is intimately tied up with metabolism. Now a new study reports that mitochondrial malfunction may actually be the key to extending life. Although loss of mitochondrial function has been associated with increased lifespan in a number of species, the reasons behind this effect have been poorly understood. It's also been

Neanderthal Babies Weaned Early, Fossil Teeth Suggest

Wed, 22 May 2013 17:06:51 GMT

“Got milk?” It’s not just a ubiquitous ad slogan — a primate infant’s access to breast milk has significant consequences for a species' life cycle. For the first time, researchers have been able to look back 100,000 years to understand how Neanderthal infants might have been nursed and weaned. According to a study published today in Nature, patterns of barium distribution in the fossilized teeth of a juvenile Neanderthal indicate that the individual began weaning at seven months, comparabl

Can weather swing an election?

Wed, 22 May 2013 15:30:28 GMT

It's pretty obvious that weather can affect overall voter turnout; many people just don't want to go out in the rain, even if it's to exercise their civic duty. But does weather affect some political parties more than others? Are right-wing voters more likely to skip the polls on a rainy day? Do Democrats forget to vote when the surf's up? Well, not many people go surfing in the Netherlands, but they do have elections and weather, and this study describes the relationship between the two.

Saiga through the bottleneck...and back?

Wed, 22 May 2013 12:26:57 GMT

In the 1980s I was fascinated by the pictorially oriented books on the wildlife of the world which dated to the 1960s and 1970s. One of the great conservation success stories of that era were the Saiga antelope of Eurasia. In 1920 there were only 1,000-2,0000 Saia left in the world. By the 1960s their numbers were in the millions. And so it was until the 1980s. But the combination of the collapse of the Soviet Union, for which the Saiga was a notable conservation success, and the rise of

Is Portland Anti-Science?

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:53:58 GMT

For years, Portland has ranked as one of America's greenest cities. While its eco-minded culture has been famously lampooned in Portlandia, the city's environmentally friendly reputation is well earned, as (Seattle-based) Grist notes: Portland’s public transit system is held up as a model for the country. Per capita carbon emissions are down 26 percent since 1990. Portland consistently tops lists for most bike-friendly city. The city even has an eco-pub. So how is it possible that the citizens

Dog and man: a 30,000 year friendship

Wed, 22 May 2013 01:16:20 GMT

To the left is a figure which illustrates the phylogenetic inferences from a new paper in Nature Communications, The genomics of selection in dogs and the parallel evolution between dogs and humans (see Carl Zimmer's coverage in The New York Times). Why is this paper important? The first thing that jumped out at me is that because they're using whole genomes (~10X coverage) of a selection of dogs and wolves the results aren't as subject to the bias of using "chips" of polymorphisms discovere

The Forces that Narrow the Climate Debate

Tue, 21 May 2013 22:34:41 GMT

Last week on Twitter I lamented the simplistic public discourse on climate change, how it's often framed by those who dismiss the legitimate concerns of a warming planet and those who play up those concerns. American Politicians, especially those with leadership positions in the Republican and Democratic parties, could steer the debate into calmer waters if they chose, since what they write and say on controversial issues usually makes news. You can stop laughing now. A recent Washingt