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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 11, 2014 at 8:16am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 11, 2014 at 7:24am

Is de-extinction a real possibility?
Yes, says, this article:
Fact or Fiction?: Mammoths Can Be Brought Back from Extinction
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-mammoths-...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 9, 2014 at 9:07am

Probiotics prevent deadly complications of liver disease
Probiotics are effective in preventing hepatic encephalopathy in patients with cirrhosis of the liver, according to a study by the Govind Ballabh Pant Hospital, New Delhi.

Hepatic encephalopathy is the deterioration of brain function — a serious complication of liver disease.

The research shows that probiotics modify the gut microbiota to prevent hepatic encephalopathy.

According to experts, the results offer a safe, well tolerated and a cheaper alternative to current treatments.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 9, 2014 at 9:06am

Climate change will make food less nutritious: Study
Plants make food from carbon dioxide in the air, using energy from sunlight. So, if carbon dioxide levels in the air are going up due to climate change, plants should be making more food, right? Wrong, says a new study published last week in the science journal Nature.

According to the study conducted by a team of US, Australian and Japanese scientists, carbon dioxide emissions are slowly making the world's staple food crops less nutritious. Wheat, maize, soybeans and rice will see their levels of nutrients iron and zinc, as well as proteins, go down between now and 2050.

Rice, maize, soybeans and wheat are the main source of nutrients for over 2 billion people living in poor countries. But with climate change and the rising amount of CO2 in the air we breathe, their already low nutrient value compared to meat, for instance, is set to decrease.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 9, 2014 at 8:20am

Antibiotic Resistance Revitalizes Century-Old Virus Therapy
The use of viruses that kill bacteria as a tool for treating infections are under study again by Western researchers and governments
http://www.nature.com/news/phage-therapy-gets-revitalized-1.15348

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 9, 2014 at 7:32am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 5, 2014 at 9:02am

The secret to baby girls’ enhanced ability to survive to birth could lie in a risk-averse strategy, according to a study of placental gene expression.

Integrative transcriptome meta-analysis reveals widespread sex-biased gene expression at the human fetal–maternal interface

Abstract

As males and females share highly similar genomes, the regulation of many sexually dimorphic traits is constrained to occur through sex-biased gene regulation. There is strong evidence that human males and females differ in terms of growth and development in utero and that these divergent growth strategies appear to place males at increased risk when in sub-optimal conditions. Since the placenta is the interface of maternal–fetal exchange throughout pregnancy, these developmental differences are most likely orchestrated by differential placental function. To date, progress in this field has been hampered by a lack of genome-wide information on sex differences in placental gene expression. Therefore, our motivation in this study was to characterize sex-biased gene expression in the human placenta. We obtained gene expression data for >300 non-pathological placenta samples from 11 microarray datasets and applied mapping-based array probe re-annotation and inverse-variance meta-analysis methods which showed that >140 genes (false discovery rate (FDR) <0.05) are differentially expressed between male and female placentae. A majority of these genes (>60%) are autosomal, many of which are involved in high-level regulatory processes such as gene transcription, cell growth and proliferation and hormonal function. Of particular interest, we detected higher female expression from all seven genes in the LHB-CGB cluster, which includes genes involved in placental development, the maintenance of pregnancy and maternal immune tolerance of the conceptus. These results demonstrate that sex-biased gene expression in the normal human placenta occurs across the genome and includes genes that are central to growth, development and the maintenance of pregnancy

http://molehr.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/05/20/molehr.ga...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 5, 2014 at 8:29am

Spiders could be the key to saving bees from harmful toxins after researchers found a bio-pesticide created using spider venom and a plant protein is highly toxic to a number of insect pests – but safe for honeybees.
Common neonicotinoid pesticides are believed to be behind the catastrophic decline in honeybees and this decline could have a serious impact on food production.

A team at Newcastle University tested a combination of a natural toxin from the venom of an Australian funnel web spider and snowdrop lectin called Hv1a/GNA fusion protein bio-pesticide.

The researchers found this new pesticide allows honeybees to forage without harm, even when they received unusually high doses of it. Honeybees perform sophisticated behaviours while foraging that require them to learn and remember floral traits associated with food.
The team’s findings have been published this week in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 5, 2014 at 8:13am

Scientists prove bees make mental maps
Previous theory indicated that bees oriented themselves only by noting their relative position to the Sun. New research shows that bees produce cognitive maps of the area they inhabit much like mammals do. The research was conducted led by James F. Cheeseman from the University of Auckland in New Zealand and colleagues from New Zealand, Germany, and the United States. The study was presented in the June 2, 2014, edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 5, 2014 at 8:10am

Researchers from the University of Edinburgh found people who spoke two or more languages had significantly better cognitive skills later in life
(Wow! I speak five languages! - K)
Learning a second language slows the speed at which brains age, a study has found, even if it learned in adulthood.
Researchers from the University of Edinburgh found people who spoke two or more languages had significantly better cognitive skills later in life compared with what would be predicted from their IQ results in childhood.

The team, led by Dr Thomas Bak, from the Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, looked at data taken from intelligence tests on 262 English people at 11-years-old who could all speak at least two languages.

The tests were then repeated when they were in their seventies.

From that group, 195 learned a second language before turning 18 and 65 had acquired a second language after that age.

Researchers found that reading, verbal fluency and intelligence were better than what was expected from their test in childhood, particularly with reading and intelligence.

This was the case even if the second language was acquired in adulthood.
The study was published in the journal Annals of Neurology

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