Ensembio Times

Microbiome

2008-10-18T05:53:00.001-07:00

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Scientists meeting in Heidelberg, Germany, today announced the formation of the International Human Microbiome Consortium — a team of researchers from around the world interested in unraveling the relationship between the microbes associated with the human body and human health and disease.

…

The IHMC is also inviting other countries to participate in the effort to collect the genomes of all microbes in and on the human body. In a conference call with reporters today, IHMC representatives noted that other countries, including Mexico and India, have already expressed interest in the project.

Teams from participating countries will coordinate their efforts to avoid duplicating their genome sequencing efforts. Some of the projects, such as the US National Institutes of Health’s Human Microbiome Project, are already underway, while others have just formed and are in the process of securing funding.

…

Underground DNA testing

2008-02-25T17:01:00.000-08:00

From Feb 24 2008 NYTimes:

The first, much-anticipated benefits of personalized medicine are being lost or diluted for many Americans who are too afraid that genetic information may be used against them to take advantage of its growing availability.

Abolishing ageing | How to live forever | Economist.com

2008-01-05T13:57:00.001-08:00

Aubrey de Grey, an independent researcher working in Cambridge, England, believes ageing has seven components; deal with all seven, and you stop the process in its tracks. He refers to this approach as strategies for engineered negligible senescence (SENS).

The seven sisters that Dr de Grey wishes to slaughter with SENS are cell loss, apoptosis-resistance (the tendency of cells to refuse to die when they are supposed to), gene mutations in the cell nucleus, gene mutations in the mitochondria (the cell's power-packs), the accumulation of junk inside cells, the accumulation of junk outside cells and the accumulation of inappropriate chemical links in the material that supports cells.

Abolishing ageing | How to live forever | Economist.com

A New DNA Test Can ID a Suspect's Race, But Police Won't Touch It

2008-01-02T06:51:00.000-08:00

A New DNA Test Can ID a Suspect's Race, But Police Won't Touch It

Knome whole-genome sequencing

2007-12-04T11:32:00.001-08:00

Forget SNP-based sequencing, for $350,000 you can get the whole enchilada. From a startup called Knome (pronounced "nome") backed by a Harvard med school expert:

http://www.bio-itworld.com/newsitems/2007/nov/30-knome-launches-whole-genome-sequencing-service/

Framingham gene data open to all

2007-10-03T07:02:00.001-07:00

From Genenome Web:

The National Institutes of Health is releasing massive amounts of genetic and clinical data from the Framingham Heart Study for free to qualified investigators.

NIH said the Framingham SHARe data set includes data on more than 9,300 individuals spanning three generations of more than 900 families and more than 550,000 SNPs.

Get the data here.

Genographic Project Releases First DNA Data

2007-07-03T10:28:00.001-07:00

Results of the National Geographic Genographic Project Releases First DNA Data :: Bio-IT World

One cool thing is that they are releasing all the DNA data to the public.

The Rise of RNA

2007-06-24T20:38:00.001-07:00

The Economist does a good survey of the shakeup happening among biologists as they realize the central importance of RNA in understanding life.

Systems Biology Conference

2007-06-21T14:04:00.001-07:00

The Institute for Systems Biology held its 6th Annual International Symposium, Systems Biology and the Environment, in April 2007 at its research facility in Seattle, Washington.

The two day event featured leading researchers in the areas of energy sources, interactions between the environment and microbial communities, plant systems biology, biological responses to extreme environments, biodiversity, toxicology, and infectious disease.

Conference sessions are viewable free on line here.

Don Rule says the presentations by Sallie Chisholm and Antoine Danchin were pretty interesting. Ben Kerr was the most entertaining.

Amyris making fuel from biology

2007-06-04T18:00:00.001-07:00

The NYTimes reports on Amyris, a new biotech company using its knowledge of metabolism to make extremely efficient fuels.

23andme

2007-05-23T13:59:00.001-07:00

New personalized medicine company to watch:

http://www.23andme.com/

funded by Google.

Does Listerine Cause Cancer?

2007-05-13T14:41:00.003-07:00

My hygienist scared me last week when she mentioned during my appointment that I shouldn't use Listerine or other alcohol-based mouthwashes. Like heavy alcohol consumption, it's been linked to increased level of mouth cancer, she said, and you should either stop using it or switch to a safer, non-alcohol type. I was skeptical that such an old, mainstream product could be carcinogenic, but she assured me that the medical studies were there to prove it. So I checked.

Short answer: she's wrong.

It's true that Listerine contains alcohol -- 21.6% by volume, something to keep in mind if Prohibition ever makes a comeback. Alcoholics are known to suffer from more cancers (especially mouth cancers) and there are studies which show a link. But alcohol does not cause cancer in the lab, so many scientists are skeptical of these studies, especially since high alcohol use can be associated with plenty of other bad habits, like smoking or high-stress lifestyles.

As for Listerine, the most exhaustive analysis to date, published in August 2003 in the Journal of the American Dental Association, concluded: "It is unlikely that the use of mouthwashes that contain alcohol increases the risk of developing [cancer]". They looked at nine studies, six of which flat-out concluded there was no link between mouthwash and cancer. Of the remaining three, one proved incorrect on a follow-up and the others suffered from clear sample bias. For example, many users of mouthwash are smokers -- if the study doesn't control for smoking, what good is it?

In fact, the Nov 1, 2006 issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association even went so far as to recommend it, along with brushing and flossing, as part of oral hygiene.

Consumer genetic testing

2006-12-28T07:45:00.000-08:00

Sciona is a Boulder, Colorado company that offers a genetic testing kit for about $250. Called the CellF, it analyzes a total of up to 19 genes and gene variations.

2006-11-28T09:31:00.001-08:00

If you completed BIOMEDIN 214 - Representations and Algorithms for Computational Molecular Biology, you may be interested in the following course offered through the SCPD in the winter quarter and now open for enrollment:
BIOMEDIN 231: Computational Molecular Biology.
BIOMEDIN 231 covers:
- A practical, hands on approach to the major issues concerning representation
- Analysis of biological sequences, structures and gene expression
- Discussion of the reductionist approach and systematic approach Both functional genomics and comparative genomics will be covered.
For detailed information, visit the course BIOMEDIN 231 Web page - http://cmgm.stanford.edu/biochem218/
or the SCPD Web site - http://scpd.stanford.edu/scpd/courses/academic/crseDesc.asp?crseID=300&sdID=11.

2006-10-08T17:46:00.000-07:00

Economist 9/2/2006 reviews synthetic biology in a special report on Life 2.0.

They refer to:

Biotech Hobbyist magazine
Agribiotics is an agricultural biotech firm that grew from a business run in the family basement.
MIT's registry of Standard Biological Parts.

2006-08-10T10:24:00.000-07:00

Economist 8/10/2006
Interesting discussion of the latest scientific understanding on the differences between men and women.

See summaries from Janet Hyde of the University of Wisconsin-Madison on just how different men and women are. She collected all the important meta-analyses that have been conducted on differences between the sexes and concluded that yes there are some slight differences in areas like mental rotation, aggression, and smiling, but no notable differences on mathematics or vocabulary.

2006-06-29T16:59:00.000-07:00

Why should you test for genetic diseases? Because Knowledge is power.

Look at this example for stomach cancer:
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2006/may24/med-cancer-052406.html

2006-04-15T23:11:00.000-07:00

Intelligent Life The nose has it: "With this in mind, Compellis Pharmaceuticals, a small drugmaker in Boston, Massachusetts, hopes to woo dieters with a nose spray that blocks the aromas that make food irresistible. The spray still faces clinical trials, however, before it can land on drug-store shelves."

2006-04-15T09:34:00.000-07:00

Barron's Online - Electronic Investor:
"Clinical Trials.gov (www.clinicaltrials.gov ) and CenterWatch (www.centerwatch.com ) can provide an early heads-up on new clinical trials. DrugPatentWatch (www.drugpatentwatch.com ) dispatches a free monthly newsletter chronicling patent expirations, and offers pricey access to its drug databases. The Food and Drug Administration's site (www.fda.gov ) hosts news and information databases, including one on drug- and medical-product safety.

WebMD (www.webmd.com ) was one of the earliest consumer-health sites, indeed, one of the first worthwhile sites we can remember. It's grown apace over the years. Blogs and discussion boards provide freshness and interactivity, and flesh out topics that might not warrant an article. Recent blogs, for example, debunked the myth that iPods cause hearing loss and discussed recent reports of infections from contact lenses. Diseases are explored at length -- as are healthy habits you might adopt to avoid having to read about them. Its articles are clear and understandable, and massive databases cover topics like drugs, tests, and symptoms.

MayoClinic.com (www.mayoclinic.com ) is not as comprehensive, but worth visiting for a second opinion. The government gets in on the act, too, with Healthfinder (www.healthfinder.gov ), from the Department of Health and Human Services. Both sites feature databases of information about conditions and treatment, as well as related topics. Other sites to check out include MedlinePlus (www.medlineplus.gov ), RxList (www.rxlist.com ), Drugs.com (www.drugs.com ) and Yahoo!'s directory of health sites by subject (http://dir.yahoo.com/health )."

2006-04-15T09:08:00.000-07:00

Barron's Online - Live to 150: "Exercise routines that make you sweat for 21 minutes can effectively turn you 3.7 years younger, writes Dr. Michael F. Roizen of the Cleveland Clinic in his new book, The RealAge Workout. Strength training with dumbbells and such can cut the risks of osteoporosis and other bone disorders by 80%, he says."

2006-04-04T18:00:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Forges BioIT Alliance :: Bio-IT World Don Rule (Microsoft) started the BioIT alliance to encourage companies across the industry to collaborate on technology for drug discovery.

2006-02-07T07:35:00.000-08:00

DNA Kits Aim to Link You to the Here and Then - New York Times

2006-01-18T15:30:00.000-08:00

??/???/??/????????????? a Japanese company that specializes in scent technology. Reminds me of ismell.com.

2005-12-31T11:17:00.000-08:00

Smart Cells International ??? stem cells = master cells = smart cells = future miracle cells

2005-12-29T07:45:00.000-08:00

Personal Genome Project mentioned by Scientific American (Jan 06).

2005-12-20T14:51:00.000-08:00

Scientists Find A DNA Change That Accounts For White Skin

Keith Cheng, leader of the Penn State team that published in this week's Science, calculates that the gene, known as slc24a5, is responsible for about one-third of the pigment loss that made black skin white. A few other as-yet-unidentified mutated genes apparently account for the rest.

Although precise dating is impossible, several scientists speculated on the basis of its spread and variation that the mutation arose between 20,000 and 50,000 years ago. That would be consistent with research showing that a wave of ancestral humans migrated northward and eastward out of Africa about 50,000 years ago.

2005-11-26T06:03:00.000-08:00

Barron's Online - Plugged In: "Palatin's claim to future fame rests on a single, as yet unnamed drug, PT-141, an aerosol treatment for sexual dysfunction that could be approved by the FDA by early 2009. Unlike Pfizer's (PFE) Viagra, Glaxo SmithKline's (GSK) Levitra and Eli Lilly's (LLY) Cialis, all of which target the vascular system in men, PT-141 works through the central nervous system, which means it probably will not be contra-indicated for men with high blood pressure or heart problems. But what really excites Semon and others, though they all stress it's a big gamble, is PT-141's apparent success in correcting female sexual dysfunction, a huge but hitherto totally untreated market.
'The first real, honest-to-God, horny-making, body-shaking, equal-opportunity aphrodisiac,' blared New York Magazine in a recent article. The story went on to quote women who said that, as soon as 15 minutes after sniffing the odorless PT-141 through an inhaler, they felt 'genital warmth, tingling and throbbing,' not to mention 'a strong desire to have sex.'"

2005-11-14T19:51:00.000-08:00

Genes worsen effects of statin drugs: study - Yahoo! News

"This study is one piece of the overall equation that we and others are trying to fill in to understand why some people do not respond as well as others to statin therapy," said Dr. Ronald Krauss, director of atherosclerosis research at Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute in California, who led the study.

For the study, Krauss and colleagues tested the DNA of 296 black Americans and 573 whites, all of them typical high cholesterol patients who would normally be prescribed statin drugs.

Krauss' team found nine variations of the gene that carries the code for HMGCoA reductase, the enzyme that statin drugs target to reduce the body's production of cholesterol.

2005-10-19T06:26:00.000-07:00

The Disappointment Gene - Why genetics is so far a boondoggle. By Arthur?Allen

An critical overview of several gene-testing companies.

2005-10-10T20:44:00.000-07:00

NPR : DNA: The Machinery Behind Human Beings - Part 1

Lots of discussion on the human genome project.

Getting to the $1000 genome, at-home DNA testing, etc.

2005-10-10T20:41:00.000-07:00

Product Descriptions for DNA testing. Featured on NPR Oct 10, 2005.

2005-09-01T07:18:00.000-07:00

Kevin Kelly -- Cool Tools takes on DNA testing. They suggest the The Genographic Project, which for $100 will give you a selection of markers based on a cheek swab test.

2005-08-29T06:39:00.000-07:00

Caloric restriction diets won't help you live longer, report John Phelan of the University of California Los Angeles and Michael Rose of the University of California Irvine. People are larger and have other differences with mice and other animals for which super-skinny is a known way to extend lifespan.

Offhand from the news article it looks to me like they are making a claim based on very indirect logic (such as the differences in lifespan among differently-dieted Japanese people). But I thought the whole point of CRD is that you must go extremely radical or not at all. Just eating less won't help (and might hurt). You have to eat a LOT less for many, many years.

2005-08-06T13:48:00.000-07:00

Advancements in PCR Technology are summarized in this article, which mentions faster throughput (to 5 min instead of 20min) machines from Idaho Technology's Razor PCR system.

2005-08-01T06:52:00.000-07:00

The Technology behind 454 Sciences lets you sequence genes very quickly (but so far only 100 base pairs at a time).

[via NYTimes]

2005-07-19T07:11:00.000-07:00

NewsTarget Network News on Health, Medicine and Technology says it is an online news site free from advertising or sponsorships of any kind. Supposedly they provide completely unbiased natural health information.

2005-07-12T20:35:00.000-07:00

Finding Design in Nature - New York Times

What Christoph Schönborn, the Roman Catholic cardinal archbishop of Vienna, thinks about Evolution.

2005-06-03T06:28:00.000-07:00

The Doctor Is In - : a new column in Slate that summarizes the previous month's health news.

This month discusses new findings that statin drugs reduce cancer risk, the latest news that being overweight might be okay, and other miscellaneous health news.

2005-06-01T05:37:00.000-07:00

Codon Devices is a new east-coast firm working on synthetic DNA, or "'Photoshop For DNA' as Forbes.com calls it.

My first question is how long you can make the sequences, since I know that has always been the bottleneck. Also, how fast can you synthesize?

2005-05-25T05:53:00.000-07:00

The Search for 100 Million Missing Women - An economics detective story. By Stephen J.?Dubner?and Steven D.?Levitt: "Baruch Blumberg's Hepatitis B: The Hunt for a Killer Virus?she discovered a strange fact. In a series of small-scale medical studies in Greece, Greenland, and elsewhere, researchers had found that a pregnant woman with hepatitis B is far more likely to have a baby boy than a baby girl. It wasn't clear why?it may be that a female fetus is more likely to be miscarried when exposed to the virus."

2005-05-17T10:19:00.000-07:00

DNAPRINT is a company that sells genomics products to law enforcement, including DNAWITNESS, which predicts that racial profile for someone based on their DNA. Also, RETINOME, which predicts eye color.

2005-05-14T05:52:00.000-07:00

Blame Canada - Don't flush your Adderall XR. By Sydney?Spiesel: "At the moment, there are two ADHD drugs in the stimulant class: methylphenidate (Ritalin and Concerta) and amphetamine (Adderall). As far as I've been able to tell, the two kinds of stimulants work just about identically and are equally effective."

2005-05-13T07:44:00.000-07:00

WSJ.com talks about the "Grandmother Effect" on babies.

Frank Gilliland of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, led a study of 908 children and found that grandmothers who smoke are more likely to have grandchildren with asthma, regardless of what the mother did.

2005-05-13T07:18:00.000-07:00

Major Advance Made On DNA Structure

DNA is usually understood computationally as a sequence of letters: A,G,C,T. In reality, it's a chemical molecule and proteins that bind to it must respect its status as a package of atoms which can only bind in a limited number of ways. Apparently some Oregon State University researchers have figured out the possible sequences of molecules that can bind with DNA, greatly constraining the search space you go through when doing protein folding calculations.

2005-05-09T17:08:00.000-07:00

Anti-cholesterol drug may ward off Alzheimer's - Yahoo! News

The year-long study concluded that prescribing 80 milligrams of Lipitor daily to patients diagnosed with mild to moderate Alzheimer's "may have a positive effect on the progressive deterioration of cognitive function and behavior" compared to patients taking a placebo, lead author Larry Sparks wrote.

Previous animal research has suggested high blood cholesterol levels play a role in the progression of Alzheimer's, which is identified after death by the tangled plaques that form in victims' brains, the report said.

But note that the study was funded by Pfizer.

2005-04-08T07:29:00.000-07:00

News from the science and technology of humans.
By William Saletan

Excellent summary of recent developments in biology.

2005-03-16T05:32:00.000-08:00

British newspaper survey of statin drug problems in La Leva di Archimede (ENG): Deaths Lead to Complete Safety Review of Heart Drugs

Interestingly, Britain measures cholesterol levels in milimoles/liter, so a "good" level is under about 5.0, rather than, say 200, which is common in the U.S.

2005-03-15T05:37:00.000-08:00

DNA Direct is a company that specializes in genetic testing, offering a variety of tests, each priced at a few hundred dollars. Most of the tests are for breast cancer, cystic fibrosis, or infertility-related conditions. Unfortunately they don't yet seem to offer tests for alzheimer's or heart disease.

Wired News profiled the company, which was also featured on NPR.

2005-03-15T05:27:00.000-08:00

Wired News: Are Nanobacteria Making Us Ill?

Finnish biochemist Olavi Kajander claims that some 20-200 nanometer particles are responsible for many infectious diseases and represent a tiny form of life. Unclear what they are, although his original assertion that they include RNA was disproven.

Is CoQ10 good for you?

2005-03-10T19:57:00.000-08:00

How do you know that CoQ10 is good for you, or that its important for the heart?

The American Heart Association says this about CoQ10

Less CoQ10 has been observed in some people with cardiac failure due to different causes.Much of the research has been done in patients with congestive heart failure.Some of these studies have shown positive results and others haven't.With one exception, these studies have been done with small numbers of patients for relatively short periods.It's important to note that CoQ10 was given in addition to traditional drug treatments.This makes it hard to know which treatment was the effective one.

They did a survey called Guidelines for the Evaluation and Management of Chronic Heart Failure in the Adult where they analyzed all the available evidence for and against. I find it very hard to refute their claims, especially when the only well-articulated arguments I see in favor of CoQ10 are advertisements from vitamin companies.

2005-02-16T06:42:00.000-08:00

The Fanatic Cook: Statins, and a Not-well-publicized Side Effect

an apparently well-thought summary of how statins work, and an argument for taking CoQ10.

2005-02-02T06:44:00.000-08:00

Lipitor, Zocor, Pravachol: Cholesterol Lowering Drugs Cause Cancer? - Health Supreme

points to an article by Shane Ellison, M.Sc. analyzing a 1996 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Thomas B. Newman MD, MPH and co-workers showing a link between lipid-lowering drugs and cancer in laboratory animals.

2005-01-20T17:27:00.000-08:00

A new article in S. Dorus et al. "Accelerated evolution of nervous system genes in the origin of Homo sapiens." Cell 119, 1027-1040 (2004). says that genes known to be involved in brain size evolved very quickly, indicating strong selective pressure.

As The Guardian's summary puts it, quoting Bruce Lahn, an assistant professor of human genetics at the University of Chicago and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute:

Professor Lahn's research, published this week in the journal Cell, suggests that humans evolved their cognitive abilities not owing to a few sporadic and accidental genetic mutations - as is the usual way with traits in living things - but rather from an enormous number of mutations in a short period of time, acquired though an intense selection process favouring complex cognitive abilities.

Oleic acid and cancer prevention

2005-01-10T15:02:00.000-08:00

Work being reported today by Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Evanston, Illinois claims to show that oleic acid dramatically cuts the levels of a gene called Her-2/neu, which is associated with aggressive tumors in many breast cancers.

2005-01-08T06:20:00.000-08:00

Why take statins? asks a reader. Here's my answer:

I'm persuaded by the evidence of the 4S study that shows in a double-blind placebo test of over 4,000 adults, simvastatin (i.e. Zocor) helps in the area that counts most: heart disease. This study proves a long-term ability of Zocor to keep you alive, period. Is it because statins lower cholesterol? We think so, but even if there's some other reason (like something to do with c-reactive protein), I know for sure that simvastatin helps me.

Side effects are of course a potential problem, but I haven't noticed any in myself, and there are side effects to everything you do. You have to balance the risks and the rewards.

Zocor makes you dumber!

2005-01-05T16:28:00.000-08:00

Reuters reports on a study by Dr. Matthew F. Muldoon, from the University of Pittsburgh, that shows a slight negative affect on cognitive functioning by users of Zocor.

Here's the abstract from
American Journal of Medicine, December 1, 2004.

Purpose
In our initial study of the potential effects of cholesterol-lowering interventions on cognitive functioning, treatment with lovastatin as compared with placebo caused performance decrements on several neuropsychological tests, whereas scores on other tests were unaffected. The current study was designed to confirm and extend those findings.

Methods
The study comprised 308 hypercholesterolemic adults between 35 and 70 years of age. Employing a randomized double-blind design, we assigned participants to daily treatment with placebo, 10 mg of simvastatin, or 40 mg of simvastatin for 6 months. A neuropsychological test battery was administered to assess cognitive functioning at baseline and at the end of the treatment period.

Results
A total of 283 subjects completed the study: 94 subjects on placebo, 96 taking 10 mg of simvastatin, and 93 taking 40 mg of simvastatin. Compared with placebo, decremental effects of simvastatin treatment were found on tests previously observed to be sensitive to statins (P = 0.008; difference in summary z scores = 0.18; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.07 to 0.29) and on tests not previously administered (P = 0.04; difference in summary z scores = 0.17; 95% CI: 0.05 to 0.29), but not on tests previously observed to be insensitive to statins (P = 0.84; difference in summary z scores = 0.02; 95% CI: -0.07 to 0.10). For the three tests specifically affected by simvastatin, effects on cognitive performance were small, manifest only as failure to improve during the 6 months of treatment (compared with placebo), and were confounded by baseline differences on one test.

Conclusion
This study provides partial support for minor decrements in cognitive functioning with statins. Whether such effects have any long-term sequelae or occur with other cholesterol-lowering interventions is not known.

2005-01-05T13:30:00.000-08:00

Clayton Cramer's BLOG has a summary of the recent news about Zocor and memory loss.

His conclusion: avoid statins unless you absolutely need them.

I'm less inclined to jump to such a quick conclusion. Zocor is definitely a powerful drug, but with zillions of users taking it for many years, the adverse effects must be very low if they exist at all.

2004-12-21T15:20:00.000-08:00

BusinessWeek, in The End Of Obesity As We Know It, reports on Sanofi-Aventis' Acomplia, a drug that tackles the cannabinoid type 1 (CB1) receptor in the brain, making people less interested in over-eating or smoking.

2004-11-23T07:07:00.000-08:00

WSJ.com - Not All Forms of Vitamin E Should Be Vilified: "Labels aren't always helpful in distinguishing between the two, though. An analysis by the independent testing group Consumerlab.com found one 'natural' brand to contain some synthetic vitamin E. And you'll almost never find the word 'synthetic' on any label. You therefore have to decipher the ingredients: 'dl-alpha-tocopherol' means it's synthetic; a 'd' instead of 'dl' indicates it's natural.
The 'alpha-tocopherol' part refers to one of more than eight forms of vitamin E found in plants. Most supplements, whether synthetic or natural, contain only the alpha-tocopherol form because it's the most prevalent in our blood and the most studied."

2004-11-20T16:54:00.000-08:00

Barron's Online - Technology Trader: "A NEW APPROACH TO TREATING DISEASE, known as RNA interference, was proven practical earlier this month by researchers at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. In the science journal Nature on Nov. 10, the Alnylam scientists said they'd reduced blood cholesterol levels in mice by nearly half, after blocking the genetic instructions that cause cells to overproduce the artery-clogging substance."

2004-10-27T14:17:00.000-07:00

ABC News: Scientists Find Ancient Hobbit-Sized People:
Reports on the discovery of 18,000-year-old skeletons in Indonesia of 3-foot-tall humans.

I wonder if there's any evidence of other human characteristics like language, fire, or tool use.

2004-10-15T04:40:00.000-07:00

Discovery Channel :: News :: Study: Genes, Family Size Linked to Homos

A study led by Francesca Corna and psychologists at the University of Padova compares 100 homosexual men with 100 heterosexual men and finds that none of the straight men have maternal relatives who are gay (out of 370), while on the paternal side the number was eight (out of 604). Previous studies have tried to show a link with Xq28, and the theory goes gay men are more likely to be younger brothers.

The study appears in Proceedings of The Royal Society B.

2004-10-12T07:02:00.000-07:00

This year's Nobel Prize in Medicine went to a researcher who pioneered the study of human taste and smell, and now Thomas Frey from The DaVinci Institute speculates on ways the discovery of smell genes might turn into products in the future.

2004-10-03T12:00:00.000-07:00

The Seattle Times: Health: Scientists find coffee really is addictive

quotes Roland Griffiths, professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Johns Hopkins, who published the findings with his colleague, Laura Juliano, who teaches at American University. The study results are published in the October issue of the journal Psychopharmacology.

"Griffiths and Juliano assessed the validity of 66 studies on caffeine withdrawal over many decades. Fifty percent of people had headaches, and 13 percent had clinically significant distress or impairment of function."

2004-10-02T06:32:00.000-07:00

People who take vitamin supplements have a higher cancer risk /a> according to a new meta-study conducted by Drs. David Forman of Leeds University in England and Douglas Altman of Cancer Research United Kingdom and published in the Oct 2nd issue of Lancet.

The study claims a 30% higher risk for people using beta carotene and Vitamin A, and a 10% risk for beta carotene and Vitamin E. The total risk, 6%, amounts to an equivalent of 9,000 people per million supplement users.

My biggest question about the study is that it is in fact a meta-study, or a review of 14 previous trials, and not a direct study, which is the only kind that really counts.

2004-09-20T21:29:00.000-07:00

Wired News: Quick Read on Your Genetics the story of Geneballs, from Angus Johnston at University of Queensland in Australia. Quickly analyzes your genes.

2004-09-16T17:39:00.000-07:00

National Cancer Institute Announces Major Commitment to Nanotechnology for Cancer Research

2004-09-16T14:57:00.000-07:00

A study by researchers at Duke University and University College London, published in Current Biology -- Rockman et al. shows how a mutation spread among Europeans 25,000 years ago that is associated with lower incidences of heart disease.

2004-08-30T21:40:00.000-07:00

The NY Times reports on a Study that Questions Value of Big Doses of Heart Drug.

A test of several thousand patients compared Zocor with a placebo and found that aggressive treatment (80mg) after a heart attack didn't do much.

2004-08-29T07:18:00.000-07:00

The New Scientist reports an experiment conducted by Article: Language may shape human thought?| New Scientist: "Peter Gordon, a psychologist at Columbia University", that apparently shows that language shapes thought, at least in the ability to tracks numbers.

Pirahã is a language with a counting system that only includes the concepts "one", "two", and "many". In the experiment, seven speakers are asked to do various tasks that require memory of numbers beyond three and they fail regularly.

I'm not a linguistic determinist, which is the term this article uses for people who believe language shapes thought. I think Benjamin Whorf was wrong, and this experiment may contradict that. So I'd like to see more details before taking this research seriously.

2004-08-28T06:11:00.000-07:00

Slate has an article about Vitamin D that I respect for its balance and reasonable look at the issues, pro and con.

It concludes that Americans generally need more Vitamin D than they’re getting, and the best protection is to get 10 minutes of sun exposure a couple times a week.

2004-08-13T06:41:00.000-07:00

The Centers for Disease Control says the Flu Shot Last Year Proved Effective:

A study of more than 1,300 people in Colorado, including more than 300 who were confirmed by a laboratory to have influenza, found that the vaccine worked about 52% of the time for healthy adults and 38% of the time for those with previous medical conditions, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

2004-08-06T06:32:00.000-07:00

WSJ.com - Gene Machines [subscription required] lists several companies involved in gene sequencing:

* The 454 Life Sciences unit of Curagen
* Helicos BioSciences, a tiny company in Cambridge, Mass

James Golden, an analyst with Life Science Insights, a market-research firm in Framingham, Mass is quoted.

2004-07-13T08:13:00.000-07:00

Get your LDL level below 70, says a panel at the National Institutes of Health's National Cholesterol Education Program in this WSJ article: WSJ.com - New, Lower Goal Is Set for Cholesterol

Note that my LDL is around 85, which is well under the mainstream guidelines that say you should keep it under 100. The Merck 2002 Heart Protection Study proved that Zocor reduces risks of heart disease, and the Prove-It trial showed that getting LDL=62 from Lipitor resulted in fewer deaths than people who only got it to 95.

2004-07-13T08:02:00.000-07:00

The WSJ [subscription required] reports on several sites that buy and sell used textbooks:

www.bn.com and www.TextbookBuyer.com

"A used copy of "Organic Chemistry" -- the 1,296-page premed bible -- that retails new for about $140 -- recently fetched the seller $46 at www.Bookbyte.com. It brought in $43 at www.eCampus.com."

2004-07-06T07:05:00.000-07:00

Test your body for mercury levels: an article from WSJ.com - Tests Emerge to Assess Risks From Eating Fish, summarizes some of the places that will test you for a fee:

Body Balance sells a $59.95 home mercury test that involves clipping a hair sample.
Quest Diagnostics in Peterboro, N.J., one of the nation's largest medical-test companies.
Canyon Ranch offers health packages like its $530-plus "Optimal Health Basic Prevention" program.

But what do you do if the test comes back with too-high levels? Answer: chelation therapy, from places like Sanoviv Medical Institute in Baja, Calif. which charges $10K for a two-week program.

Some of the drugs available: Succimer, which is approved to treat lead poisoning, is used off-label to treat mercury exposure. Another more controversial chelation agent is EDTA (ethylenediamine tetraacetic acid). The drugs work by binding with metal ions in the blood. But be careful: the same activity that reduces mercury in your body will also reduce levels of important minerals like zinc, so pop vitamins while on the program.

How much mercury is safe? See the FDA's report.

2004-06-29T11:53:00.000-07:00

Muscle-Bound Boy Offers Hope for Humans (washingtonpost.com)

"Athletes find a way of using just about anything," said Elizabeth M. McNally of the University of Chicago, who wrote an article accompanying the findings in last week's New England Journal of Medicine. "This, unfortunately, is no exception."

"This will certainly intensify efforts to move forward aggressively on this research," said Se-Jin Lee, a professor of molecular biology and genetics at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, who helped study the boy.

2004-06-22T07:04:00.000-07:00

"Daddy, why did God make mosquitoes?" is a question my children have asked from time to time. The New York Times talks to Elizabeth Willott, an entomologist at the University of Arizona to get the answer: they're part of the web of life. They spread diseases that kill off some animals that would otherwise multiply too quickly, and they protect some wilderness areas from encroachment by people and others.

2004-06-21T06:53:00.000-07:00

WSJ.com - 'Chemo Brain' May Be Caused By Cancer Itself [subscription required]: some studies at the UT M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston show that 35% of breast cancer patients show cognitive impairment prior to treatment (probably caused by the cancer) and 61% decline from a baseline after chemotherapy.

2004-06-17T06:26:00.000-07:00

WSJ.com - The Informed Patient [subscription required] surveys how to get direct online access to information about clinical trials.

Currently existing registries are run by the National Institutes of Health and a host of private organizations. Web sites like MedlinePlus.gov offer direct links to most published medical studies, which in some cases are free or else can be purchased directly from the journal. And more help is under development, such as an upcoming guide from the National Library of Medicine on understanding reports.

For example, data from the Women's Health Initiative, a study of hormone-replacement therapy (www.nia.nih.gov/menopause/faq-detailed.htm), offers details on risk of heart attack, colon cancer and hip fractures that woman wouldn't be able to find just from the pill package.

The site www.trialscentral.org publishes free reports on how to enroll in clinical trials.

Also see National Cancer Institute's cancer.gov, the National Library of Medicine's ClinicalTrials.gov and MedlinePlus.gov.

A primer from Englewood, Colo.-based Craig Hospital for Spinal Cord Injuries (www.craighospital.org), titled "Those Scary Statistics," helps explain statistics used in research.

2004-06-16T07:07:00.000-07:00

DNA card takes the mystery out of meat | CNET News.com

2004-06-16T06:44:00.000-07:00

JAMA published a report by Paul M. Ridker, director of the Center for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston that found some alleles that affect the efficacy of statin drugs. The study, also reported in WSJ.com - Genes Play Role In Who Benefits From Statin [subscription required] is another example of personalized medicine that might go mainstream.

2004-06-10T07:09:00.000-07:00

Harvard research, summarized in this WSJ article (subscription required: WSJ.com - As Early as Age 40, Genes in the Brain Begin to Deteriorate) published in the journal Nature the results of a study using genechips. They tested the expression of 11,000 genes from brain tissue in 30 people at various ages and found 20 genes critical for memory and learning that decline in activity at age 40 and beyond.

Senior author Bruce Yanker is a professor of neurology and neuroscience at Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital in Boston.

Also see Gary Small, director of the Center on Aging at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies the effect of lifestyle changes on aging.

2004-06-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

Wired summarizes /a> the latest BIO conference with news from Pyxis Genomics (technology for traceable pork), Genomic Health and SurroMed (personalized medicine), and others.

Also see the FDA site with a searchable database of genetically altered food crops.

2004-06-07T07:08:00.000-07:00

Cargill claims to have found some genes responsible for good-tasting beef /a>, making it possible to create a blood test that can sort cows before slaughter.

2004-06-05T20:38:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting Interview with Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger, discussing his work on the 1918 flu virus.

2004-06-05T16:19:00.000-07:00

Institute for Systems Biology has software called Cytoscape that helps scientists better understand complex systems.

2004-06-04T15:09:00.000-07:00

Here are some ideas for biotech products in energy. In particular, check out the Canadian company Iogen, that makes biotech fuels.

2004-06-04T15:07:00.000-07:00

Edward Rubin's team at the Lawrence Berkeley lab in California knocked out 1.6M bases of non-coding DNA from mice and found that nothing happened.

2004-05-31T16:48:00.000-07:00

I know about BlueGene but here's a summary of all life sciences efforts at IBM

2004-05-29T20:45:00.000-07:00

Wired News: Drug Farms Forced Underground about pharming projects that use huge underground quarries as a place to grow biotech crops.

2004-05-29T20:14:00.000-07:00

An update on DigiScent, sort of: Slashdot reports on a new effort published Wine Spectator about a way to generate wine smells. Although the technology is different, the article references DigiScent.

2004-05-27T15:19:00.000-07:00

A new study from Nature suggests that although humans and chimpanzees differ only slightly at the nucleotide sequence level (1.23% to 5%), at the gene level the differences are much more significant: only 17% of genes are identical. The Scientist :: Chimps are not like humans

2004-05-26T15:51:00.000-07:00

You'd think somebody would set up an Internet-based study that get tons of volunteers to enter information about sleep habits, eating habits, sickness frequency, etc. etc. and then provide summary statistics to look for patterns.

Obviously there are tons of checks you'd need, but couldn't some value come from a basic effort?

See this proposal for a new study sponsored by NIH:The Scientist :: A 500,000-person study?

2004-05-25T07:17:00.000-07:00

An article in New Scientist talks about Nanobacteria, and the work of Olavi Kajander and Neva Ciftcioglu of the University of Kuopio in Finland and their company Nanobac. A team of scientists under John Lieske from Mayo Clinic has apparently replicated the results, which hint that there is a previously-unknown class of very small organims that can cause calcification in kidney stones and other disorders.

2004-05-20T05:29:00.000-07:00

Biotech investing is one great big casiono: WSJ.com - Biotech's Dismal Bottom Line: More Than $40 Billion in Losses

But is this the entire story? I wonder if the estimate counts drugs or discoveries that end up being sold to Big Pharma and move ahead profitably after that. If a biotech company is purchased by an "ordinary" drug firm, does this index consider that to be the end of the biotech part of that story?

2004-05-17T06:22:00.000-07:00

A study by Italian researcher Fabrizio Benedetti of the University of Turin Medical School, published in Nature Neuroscience shows that placebos can help: WSJ.com - Parkinson's Study Shows Effects Of Placebo Can Be Quite Real

2004-05-13T06:26:00.000-07:00

After reading this: Wired News: The Unfolding Saga of the Web
You might want to check out the IBM WebAhead project, led by Stuart Feldman.

2004-05-07T06:34:00.000-07:00

BioMedNet Reviews has a nice summary of the latest tools in bioinformatics.

2004-05-06T15:16:00.000-07:00

Studies of the structural similarities of viruses hints that ancient viruses may have preceded the evolution of cellular life itself.