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...
Science Review: The Origin of the Moon
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...
Science Review: Technology Briefs
2012_11: Genomic Epidemiology uses full genome sequencing of pathogens collected from (suspected) patients to trace the transmission vector. [] 2012_11: Biochar is charred (heated without air) biomass, that has the potential to mitigate climate change and – important for its economic viability – benefit agriculture. For the former it removes carbon from the biomass-cycle into a stable...
Science Review: Imperfect sensory information
Concept: Imperfect sensory information. Source: A Nature News & Views, referencing recent original research from Science (April 5, 2013). Background: Previous work proved that there is noise in decision making, leaving open the question as to the noise’s source (e.g. sensory organ, ability to accumulate information, biases, strategy for estimating information importance). Methods: New...
Science Review: PCSK9 assists LDL cholesterol determined cardiac health
Concepts: PCSK9, and LDL cholesterol. Source: A News Feature in Nature (April 9, 2013). Background: PCSK9 circulates in the blood, binding to the LDL receptor on the surface of liver cells, taking them into the cell to be degraded. On the surface, LDL receptors capture LDL cholesterol to remove it from the bloodstream. Mutating/inhibiting PCSK9 leaves more LDL receptors on the surface, thus...
Science Review: Dolphin cognition and communication
Concept: Dolphin cognition, communication. And: Fission-fusion society; joint attention, false belief task. A fission-fusion society is one in which the composition of groups changes according to time, environment, and activity, e.g. fusing to sleep, and fission to forage (via Wikipedia). Joint attention is the shared focus of two individuals on an object. It has been argued to be fundamental for...
Science Review: Saturn’s magnetic ring rain
Concept: Saturn’s magnetic ring rain. Source: Nature News and Views, based on an original research Letter (April 11, 2013). Background: Rings made up of water ice, most of which can be described by Newtonian forces, but those small enough require an explanation of the Lorentz force. If they gain a high enough charge:mass, then they move along the magnetic field. Saturn’s field is...
Pseudoenzyme
A lot of what scientists do is curating nature. That is, describing the different bits of nature, at different scales, categorizing them, and listing their relationships, in which they look for patterns. Scientists did this when they undertook the Human Genome Project, a massive effort to describe the chemical composition and order of human DNA. Having a map of human DNA only spurred further...
Science Review: Keystone species population cycle dampening
Concepts: Keystone species, and population cycle dampening. Source: Science original research Report (April 5, 2013). Background: A keystone species is one that disproportionally affects its ecosystem*. Relationships between predator-prey are generally assumed to be cyclic insofar as their amounts reflect each other in a cyclic manner (e.g. many plants feed many herbivores that increase...
Science Review: Transposon driven neuronal heterogeneity in Drosophila
Concept: Transposon driven neuronal heterogeneity. Source: An original Report in Science (April 5, 2013). Background: This was already shown in yeast and mammals, now in Drosophila. Transposons account for 45% and 20% of the human and Dros genome. Results: Identified and characterised range of transposon activity in the olfactory memory system of mushroom bodies (MBs), especially in the neuron...