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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 19, 2014 at 8:52am

Antiviral microbicides effective against HIV in lab tests have had inconsistent results in people. A new study that includes semen and vaginal fluids, often missing elements in laboratory studies, finds that semen actually inhibits microbicides from killing HIV.

But the study, published in the November 12 Science Translational Medicine, also finds that semen didn’t diminish the antiviral effect of one microbicidal drug called maraviroc, which works differently from others. While most microbicides target components of HIV itself, maraviroc targets the receptor protein that serves as the entry point on cells that HIV is seeking to invade.

Maraviroc stopped infection when tested in cervical cells exposed to semen-treated HIV, suggesting that agents targeting these protein receptors on cells might be more promising than those aimed at the virus itself.
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/science-ticker/semen-seems-counter...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 19, 2014 at 8:44am

– Moldy houses are hard on the lungs, and new results in mice suggest that they could also be bad for the brain. Inhaling mold spores made mice anxious and forgetful, researchers reported November 15 at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.

Cheryl Harding, a psychologist at the City University of New York, and colleagues dripped low doses of spores from the toxic mold Stachybotrys into mouse noses three times per week. After three weeks, the mice didn’t look sick. But they had trouble remembering a fearful place. The mice were also more anxious than normal counterparts. The anxiety and memory deficits went along with decreases in new brain cells in the hippocampus — a part of the brain that plays a role in memory — compared with control mice.

Harding and colleagues also found that the behaviors linked to increased inflammatory proteins in the hippocampus. Exposure to mold’s toxins and structural proteins may trigger an immune response in the brain. The findings, Harding says, may help explain some of the conditions that people living in moldy buildings complain about, such as anxiety and cognitive problems.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/mold-may-mean-bad-news-brain

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 19, 2014 at 7:18am

Scientists Sequence Genomes of 17 World’s Oldest Living People to see if they could uncover the genetic basis for extreme human longevity.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone....
Supercentenarians are the world’s oldest people, living beyond 110 years of age. 74 are alive worldwide, with 22 living in the United States.

Dr Kim and his colleagues from Stanford University, the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, and the University of California Los Angeles, performed whole-genome sequencing on 17 supercentenarians to explore the genetic basis underlying their extreme longevity.
One possibility is that a specific mutation could alter the protein-coding region in a gene and confer a significant increase in longevity. Such a mutation could act in a dominant or recessive fashion, and might be shared by a significant fraction of the supercentenarian genomes.”

“Another possibility is that there may be a gene that confers extreme longevity when it is altered by any one of a number of protein alterations.”

“Many of the supercentenarians may carry variants in the same gene, but the variant in each supercentenarian may be different. The variants could act in a dominant fashion and affect only one of the two alleles. Or else they could act in a recessive fashion such that both alleles would be affected, either with the same variant or with different mutations in each allele.”

The scientists analyzed rare protein-altering variants, but found no significant evidence of enrichment for a single rare protein-altering variant or for a gene harboring different rare protein altering variants in the supercentenarians compared to control genomes (379 European individuals from the 1000Genomes Project).

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 19, 2014 at 7:01am

Adaptive evolution: Can we read the future from a tree?
A new method uses genealogies based on sequence data to predict short-term evolutionary patterns.
http://elifesciences.org/content/3/e05060

Evolutionary biology is gaining predictive power in an increasing number of systems, which include viruses, bacteria and populations of cancer cells. In these systems, high mutation rates make evolution happen in front of our eyes. Every year, for example, the human influenza virus replaces 2% of the amino acids in the protein domains that interact with the immune system of its host. Using modern genome sequencing, we can now monitor the genetic history of entire populations and reconstruct their genealogical trees. Such trees show how the individuals of today's populations are connected to their evolutionary ancestors.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 18, 2014 at 8:29am

A team of astronomers has solved the mystery as to why certain young galaxies flame out in a blaze of glory.

These young "starburst" galaxies that would shut down their star formation to join a category scientists call "red and dead" had puzzled astronomers for long.

Starburst galaxies result from the merger or close encounter of two separate galaxies.

"To form stars you need dense gas. When the gas gets dense enough and is not too hot, small portions of of that gas can collapse to form stars. Without a lot of cool dense gas, stars cannot be formed," said Gregory Rudnick, associate professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Kansas in the US.

Previous research showed spouts of gas shooting outward from such galaxies at up to two million miles per hour.

But astronomers did not know of what led to the gas being expelled.

Rudnick and fellow researchers found that energy from the star formation itself created a shortage of gas within the starburst galaxies, shutting down the potential for further crafting of stars.

There is so much star formation that it is possible the energy from the star formation itself is able to stop the star formation," Rudnick added.

Black holes once thought to be responsible for causing these outflows did not have any role to play in them, said the study that appeared in the journal Monthly Notices.

This is why some galaxies lose their star forming ability.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 18, 2014 at 8:13am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 18, 2014 at 6:13am

Race Finished (Book)
Is there any biological foundation for current or past "racial" distinctions?
Like I said before there isn't!
http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/race-finished

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 16, 2014 at 10:04am

Update on knee replacements
Two major studies published this year, researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond conducted a surgical-validity assessment. Using criteria developed in Europe, they concluded that knee replacements could be judged appropriate for only those whose arthritis in the knee was medically proven to be advanced. This means not just severe pain but also impaired physical function, like an inability to climb stairs, get out of a chair or walk without aid. Based on others' work done in Spain, the researchers also determined that surgical replacements were better suited for patients older than 65. Their reasoning? The implanted materials wear out after a couple of decades, meaning a 45-yearold patient might need an additional knee replacement during his lifetime.
In a separate study , the same researchers also found that people who were good candidates for surgery benefited substantially from the sur gery , reporting much less knee pain and much better physical functioning in the months immediately following the procedure and again two years later. On one commonly used measure of knee function, their scores improved by about 20 points on average. By contrast, subjects whose surgeries the scientists deemed inappropriate did not improve much. After a year, their scores on knee function had risen by only about two points.
The message is not that people should wait until their knees break down completely before replacing them. But they should question the need for surgery . If you do not have bone-on-bone arthritis, in which all of the cushioning cartilage in the knee is gone, think about consulting a physical therapist about exercise programs that could strengthen the joint, reducing pain and disability. Losing weight helps, too.
-Virginia Commonwealth University

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 15, 2014 at 6:13am

Whole-Genome Sequencing of the World’s Oldest People
Analysis of world's oldest people reveals there's no gene for long life

Scientists have sequenced the entire genome of 17 of the world’s oldest living people to find that their secret is… they have no secret. Or if they do, it's just really good at hiding.

http://www.plosone.org/article/authors/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourn...
http://www.sciencealert.com/analysis-of-world-s-oldest-living-peopl...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 14, 2014 at 8:59am

Bengaluru to house Asia’s first Science Gallery
Where Art and Science collide goes the motto of Science Gallery. In four years, Bengaluru will witness a similar collision when it houses Asia's first and the world's third such prestigious gallery.

It will offer science enthusiasts in the country a chance to meet the world's biggest brains and learn about their research and innovations. The Science Gallery is likely to be set up at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in 2018.

The Karnataka government on Thursday signed a memorandum of agreement with Science Gallery International (SGI), Dublin, Ireland. The first SG was set up in Dublin in 2008 and the second one is coming up in London by 2016.

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