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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 23, 2014 at 6:19am

How Gut Bacteria Help Make Us Fat and Thin
Intestinal bacteria may help determine whether we are lean or obese
Adults who do daily battle with obesity, the main causes of their condition are all too familiar: an unhealthy diet, a sedentary lifestyle and perhaps some unlucky genes. In recent years, however, researchers have become increasingly convinced that important hidden players literally lurk in human bowels: billions on billions of gut microbes.

New evidence indicates that gut bacteria alter the way we store fat, how we balance levels of glucose in the blood, and how we respond to hormones that make us feel hungry or full. The wrong mix of microbes, it seems, can help set the stage for obesity and diabetes from the moment of birth.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-gut-bacteria-help-mak...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 23, 2014 at 6:14am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 23, 2014 at 5:54am

Dustup emerges over gravitational waves discovery

Scrutiny of BICEP2’s evidence of inflation suggests signals could come from Milky Way dust

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/dustup-emerges-over-gravitation...

Backlash to Big Bang Discovery Gathers Steam
Physicists cast doubt on a landmark experiment’s claim to have observed gravity waves from the big bang
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/backlash-to-big-bang-disc...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 22, 2014 at 7:30am

Scientists Uncover How EBV Hides
A new study has shown that the Epstein-Barr virus flies below the immune system’s radar by restricting the production of the protein EBNA1.
Epstein-Barr virus infects more than 90 percent of the world’s population and is linked to a number of cancers including Burkitt’s lymphoma, nasopharyngeal carcinoma and Hodgkin’s lymphoma. There are currently no vaccines to prevent EBV and other herpes virus-associated cancers.
http://www.nature.com/nchembio/journal/v10/n5/full/nchembio.1479.html

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 22, 2014 at 7:28am

Training The Immune System To Target Brain Cancer
By exploiting the fact that many brain tumors harbor cytomegalovirus, scientists have used the patient’s immune system to target brain cancer.
Scientists have made headway in the treatment of the aggressive brain cancer glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) with the use of immunotherapy. This study was published in the journal Cancer Research.
Researchers developed a technique to modify the patients’ T-cells in the laboratory, effectively “training” them to attack the virus, and then returned them to the patient’s body while keeping them on chemotherapy. It is thought that the killer T-cells destroy the cancer cells along with the virus-infected cells.
http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/early/2014/05/07/0008-547...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 22, 2014 at 7:16am

Biomechanics of ants: New Research: The neck joints of ants could withstand loads of about 5,000 times the ant's body weight, and that the ant's neck-joint structure produced the highest strength when its head was aligned straight, as opposed to turned to either side.
"The design and structure of this interface is critical for the performance of the neck joint. The unique interface between hard and soft materials likely strengthens the adhesion and may be a key structural design feature that enables the large load capacity of the neck joint."
The simulations confirmed the joint's directional strength and, consistent with the experimental results, indicated that the critical point for failure of the neck joint is at the neck-to-head transition, where soft membrane meets the hard exoskeleton. The neck joint [of the ant] is a complex and highly integrated mechanical system. Efforts to understand the structure-function relationship in this system will contribute to the understanding of the design paradigms for optimized exoskeleton mechanisms.
'' Scientists study biomechanics behind amazing ant strength''
https://www.osc.edu/press/scientists_study_biomechanics_behind_amaz...

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

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