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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 21, 2014 at 6:45am

Diverse gene pool critical for tigers' survival: Stanford scholars
Increasing tigers' genetic diversity – via interbreeding and other methods – and not just their population numbers may be the best solution to saving this endangered species, according to Stanford research.
a new research by Stanford scholars shows that increasing genetic diversity among the 3,000 or so tigers left on the planet is the key to their survival as a species. That research shows that the more gene flow there is among tiger populations, the more genetic diversity is maintained and the higher the chances of species survival become. In fact, it might be possible to maintain tiger populations that preserve about 90 percent of genetic diversity. The research focused on the Indian subcontinent, home to about 65 percent of the world's wild tigers. The scientists found that as populations become more fragmented and the pools of each tiger subspecies shrink, so does genetic diversity. This loss of diversity can lead to lower reproduction rates, faster spread of disease and more cardiac defects, among other problems."Genetic diversity is the basis for adaptation."
The results showed that for tiger populations to maintain their current genetic diversity 150 years from now, the tiger population would have to expand to about 98,000 individuals if gene flow across species were delayed 25 years. By comparison, the population would need to grow to about 60,000 if gene flow were achieved immediately. Neither of these numbers is realistic, considering the limited size of protected tiger habitat and availability of prey, among other factors, according to the researchers.

"Since genetic variability is the raw material for future evolution, our results suggest that without interbreeding sub-populations of tigers, the genetic future for tigers is not viable," said co-author Uma Ramakrishnan, a former Stanford postdoctoral scholar in biology and current researcher at the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, India.

Because migration and interbreeding among subspecies appear to be "much more important" for maintaining genetic diversity than increasing population numbers, the researchers recommend focusing conservation efforts on creating ways for tigers to travel longer distances, such as wildlife corridors, and potentially crossbreeding wild and captive tiger subspecies.

"This is very much counter to the ideas that many managers and countries have now - that tigers in zoos are almost useless and that interbreeding tigers from multiple countries is akin to genetic pollution," said Hadly. "In this case, survival of the species matters more than does survival of the exclusive traits of individual populations," says the report.

Understanding these factors can help decision-makers better address how development affects populations of tigers and other animals, the study noted.

Iconic symbols of power and beauty, wild tigers may roam only in stories someday soon. Their historical range has been reduced by more than 90 percent. But conservation plans that focus only on increasing numbers and preserving distinct subspecies ignore genetic diversity, according to the study. In fact, under that approach, the tiger could vanish entirely.

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/april/tigers-genetic-diversity-0...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 21, 2014 at 6:12am

Billionaires With Big Ideas Are Privatizing American Science

As government financing of basic science research has plunged, private donors have filled the void, raising questions about the future of research for the public good.
To show that private science has roots in the first gilded age, though, is not to dismiss Americans’ perceptions that there is something new in the way science is now being funded. Unlike their early-20th-century predecessors, for example, philanthropists today are targeting particular fields themselves and bypassing traditional intermediaries such as trustees, federal actors, and research experts. On the one hand, these intermediaries can be perceived as an unnecessary and time-consuming bureaucratic hurdle that not only stands in the way of donors’ passionate inspirations, but also stalls innovation and avoids risk-taking. On the other hand, their presence can facilitate informed decision-making and serve as a democratizing element, ensuring that several groups of Americans besides the private-sector elite have a say in the course and development of American science.
https://news.yahoo.com/way-wrong-way-privatize-science-121500191.html
One important distinction, however, exists between these two earlier philanthropists and the philanthropists funding private science today. With the Carnegie Institution and the NRC, Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller had invested in building up American science as a holistic unit and leaving it up to foundation trustees, federal actors, and their expert advisers to decide which particular fields and projects to support. By contrast, it seems that philanthropists today are invested in deciding for themselves which particular strands of research in American science are worthy of their funds. As the Times journalist Broad reminds us: “[T]he new science philanthropy is personal, antibureaucratic, inspirational.”

The question is whether we—as Americans—welcome this new model of private science as is, or whether we find something valuable in its older form. More specifically, we need to ask ourselves whether we welcome a world where individual philanthropists decide for themselves which research fields in American science to fund. This contemporary model might encourage funders’ enthusiasm, clear the way for innovation, and encourage risk-taking, but at the very cost of silencing the voices of American trustees, research experts, and policymakers. This second model is perhaps more expedient than the first, but also less democratic.

Such a conversation should not lead us to bemoan one period of private science and celebrate another; but rather, to think critically about the model of private science that we would like to see take shape in the 21st century.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/science/billionaires-with-big-ide...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 21, 2014 at 6:04am

New Meta-analysis Confirms: No Association between Vaccines and Autism

Analysis of 10 studies involving more than 1.2 million children reaffirms that vaccines don’t cause autism; MMR shot may actually decrease risk
A meta-analysis of ten studies involving more than 1.2 million children reaffirms that vaccines don’t cause autism. If anything, immunization was associated with decreased risk that children would develop autism, a possibility that’s strongest with the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine.

The report appears online in the journal Vaccine as an “uncorrected proof.” This means that it has passed through peer review and been accepted for publication, but may still undergo proof-reading changes.
- http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X14006367

http://www.autismspeaks.org/science/science-news/new-meta-analysis-...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 21, 2014 at 5:38am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 21, 2014 at 5:34am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 21, 2014 at 5:31am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 21, 2014 at 5:20am

Cells at the back of your eyes pick up particular light wavelengths and, with a light-sensitive protein called melanopsin, signal the brain’s master clock, which controls the body’s circadian rhythms. Blue light, which in nature is most abundant in the morning, tells you to get up and get moving. Red light is more common at dusk and it slows you down. Now, guess what kind of light is streaming from that little screen in your hand at 11:59 P.M.? “Your iPad, your phone, your computer emit large quantities of blue light,” says sleep researcher and chemist Brian Zoltowski of Southern Methodist University

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 20, 2014 at 7:12am

Surgical Infections Fly under the Radar at Outpatient Clinics
Outpatient surgeries at freestanding medical centers are growing in popularity, but for all their promise, gaps in tracking superbugs and other infections fuel concern
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/under-the-knife-where-inf...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 20, 2014 at 7:09am

Massive dose of measles vaccine clears woman's cancer
US doctors claim to have wiped out a woman's advanced blood cancer with a massive dose of the measles vaccine, enough to inoculate 10 million people.
The woman was part of a clinical trial at the Mayo Clinic demonstrating that cancer cells can be killed with injections of a genetically-engineered virus through a process known as virotherapy.

Two patients in the study received a single intravenous dose of an engineered measles virus (MV-NIS ) that is selectively toxic to myeloma plasma cells. Stacy Erholtz, 49, from Minnesota, was one of the two patients in the study who received the dose last year, and after ten years with multiple myeloma, she has been clear of the disease for over six months now.

"It was the easiest treatment by far with very few side effects", say the researchers

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 20, 2014 at 6:45am

UK’s Science Media Centre lambasted for pushing corporate science
The influential media centre has inspired a range of others around the world

But researchers say it offers a biased, industrial-science view of issues

The findings could help avoid similar pitfalls if any developing world centre is set
http://www.scidev.net/global/journalism/feature/uk-s-science-media-...

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