Concept: De-extinction Source: A Policy Forum piece in Science (April 5, 2013), titled: “What If Extinction Is Not Forever?“ Technology: Three approaches. Back-breeding is possible where genetic variants homologous to extinct species exist in surviving species. Cloning, as by using somatic cell nuclear transfer from an extinct subspecies (i.e. with other extant subspecies). Genetic...
Background: GPCRs known to signal from surface and to be internalized. Fact: Prove that GPCRs signal from endosomes. Interest: Adds complexity to particulars (ie. location) of GPCR signalling. Source: Research Highlights in Nat Rev MCB (May 2013) on Nature article (2013). Fact: RNA polymerase II (Pol II) transcription kinetics are modulated by signalling pathways that affect the rate of...
There is a Research Highlights piece (in Nat Rev Gen [Nature Review Genetics]) on a paper entitled Parallel evolutionary dynamics of adaptive diversification in Escherichia coli (in PLoS Biol), which studies the principle of sympatric diversification, which is the “organismal diversification or speciation that occurs without […] geographical separation of [the] diverging...
De-extinction is the restoration into the world of living specimens of animals that had once been extinct. There are three technologies for de-extinction currently being explored, each one with a target species its project hopes to de-extinct. A. Back-breeding. This is only possible where there exist living species with genetic homologues to the target extinct species. By this method, the desired...
Source: Original research Letter in Nature (April 11, 2013). Background: Although it has been known that Northern latitudes have had extreme temperature highs, it is difficult to prove that those are higher than any in the past. Methods: Use hierarchical Bayesian approach…(?) Results: Recent years have the highest extremes, and approx. 0 lowest extremes. The past 20yrs are 1.16C higher than...
Concept: Animal self-medication. Source: Perspective in Science (April 12, 2013). Background: Self-medication (incl. prophylactic) can be administered to self, inter-generational (e.g. fruit flies lay preferentially in high ethanol foods following detection of parasitoid* wasps), social (e.g. anti-microbial resin incorporated by wood ants into nest). Criteria include that it must be costly (thus...
A Spotlight article[I] that considers the concept of the brain’s chronoarchitecture; the timeline of happenings across the brain as seen from the neurons’ perspective. Different neuronal components (neurons, areas, etc) hear about (get information from) different components at a different (external) time, resulting in different temporal hierarchies. [I] The full title of the 2013...
This is a box which has the ability to transform the nature of a book placed within it, in such a way that the audience (what may be considered the direction to which the author intends their ideas) is changed to a new, specific, target. The box only changes the one book which has been placed inside it, and all other similar books – including those books with otherwise identical text...
A News Focus covering a trend identified at a conference: opsins (light-responsive GPCRs) are found in myriad tissues, including primitive phylogenies (incl. sea-urchins and jellyfish). These researches have led to an increased appreciation of the variety of roles opsins may serve: Light-responsive roles (cf. vision) (e.g. modulating likelihood of stinging cells firing in hydra). Part of multi...
Concept: Giant Impact Theory A Perspective piece in Science on the Giant Impact Theory, as an introduction to two new papers with different simulation solutions. Paper gives background, explains two papers, competing theories, and future challenge to this question. Any simulation needs to explain: [1] the Moon’s angular momentum, and [2] slightly lower density; [3] it’s apparent age...
