News Article

Sep

2010

In the Light of a Streetlamp, Young Blue Tits Get More Action

Discover, September 16, 2010.

It can be hard to sleep with a light shining in your window, but for the male blue tit, this night-lighting gives him a sexual advantage. Researchers have found that male tits that live near streetlights wake up and start to sing on average three minutes earlier than the rest of the gang.

These birds are more likely to be chosen as mates because under normal conditions, early risers are the strongest fully grown birds. When adventurous lady-birds go looking for extramarital affairs in the morning light they are attracted to early risers because they assume they are the macho, macho men of the group. As a result, any male blue tit–even a young and scrawny fellow–that lives within 50 feet of a streetlight gets about twice as much extramarital action, and has more offspring than male tits that live in other parts of the neighborhood. Read More >

Sep

2010

iPhone App Lets You Tell Drivers Exactly What You Think of Them

Discover, September 16 2010.

A new smart phone app aims to get you communicating with the drivers around you, and we don’t mean yelling choice obscenities through the window or shaking your fist of rage when someone cuts you off. By photographing, typing, or saying a license plate number and state you’ll be able to message the driver–if they’re also signed up for the service, named Bump. The message recipient can choose how they get their messages, through text or the Bump.com website. Bump launches today on iPhones, and an Android app will soon be ready as well. Venture Beat talked to Bump’s CEO, Mitch Thrower about the idea:

Thrower says his social network for cars brings to mind a classic scene in the film American Graffiti…. Actor Richard Dreyfuss sees a beautiful blonde played by Suzanne Somers in a white T-Bird. She blows a kiss at him. He tries to follow her but can’t catch up. Maddeningly, he never sees her again. Oh, if he had only gotten her license plate. Read More >

Sep

2010

Pregnant Women Need Fear No Cell Phone Radiation: Belly Armor Is Here!

Discover, September 15 2010.

If requiring stores to label their cell phones with radiation-output levels wasn’t enough, San Francisco has found a new way to revel in cell phone hysteria: Now one of its trendy maternity boutiques sells radiation-shielding maternity clothes.

These clothes are specifically designed to shield their little unborn hipster babies from computer and cell phone radiation. Radiation-shielding maternity clothing has been popular in China for years, but a young company is now marketing its line of Belly Armor directly to San Francisco’s expectant mothers. Read More >

Sep

2010

Video: Fast plants

The Scientist, September 9 2010.

Marvels of evolution and adaptation, plants and fungi have developed myriad methods of spreading their seeds or spores. Some of these dispersal events happen with blinding speed, and researchers are exploring these dramatic behaviors in the world’s fastest plants and fungi using ultra-high speed video cameras. Feast your eyes on our smorgasbord of fast-moving, spore-shooting, seed-spreading organisms. Read More >

Sep

2010

Insulin regulates translation

The Scientist, September 6, 2010.

By controlling how many ribosomes coat a certain mRNA in C. elegans, intracellular insulin signaling can regulate how many copies of a protein are made, and how quickly, giving cells more flexibility when responding to changes in the environment.

The results, published, in the September 8th issue of Cell Metabolism, hold implications for a range of fields, including aging and diabetes, in which insulin signaling is known to play a role. “We have found a new way in which insulin controls the proteins that are made, and some of those proteins are really important for the survival of the worms,” said lead author Gordon Lithgow, of the Buck Institute for Age Research. “That throws up questions as to whether insulin is doing the same in humans and that presents a whole new set of targets for potential therapies or interventions in both aging and diabetes.” Read More >

Sep

2010

Bright moves

The Scientist (print), September 2010.

The paper

X. Wang, et al., “Light-mediated activation reveals a key role for Rac in collective guidance of cell movement in vivo,” Nature Cell Biology, 12:591–98, 2010.

The finding

When Denise Montell and her team at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine engineered an actin cytoskeleton-regulating protein to be light sensitive, they discovered it could also control cellular movement in vivo. Read More >

Sep

2010

Surprise breast cancer source

The Scientist, September 1 2010.

Some breast cancer tumors may not originate from stem cells as previously believed, according to a study published in the September 3rd issue of Cell Stem Cell. The discovery is an important step in the development of treatments for these cancers.

“Understanding the origins of these types of breast cancer is not only critical for developing preventative strategies against the disease but also for developing new targeted therapies,” said Matthew Smalley, a mammary cell biologist at the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Centre in London and lead author on the study. Read More >

Aug

2010

Nanosensor peers inside cell

The Scientist blog August 12th, 2010.

A new virus-sized probe can look deeper into cells than ever before, and finally allows scientists to monitor intracellular activities without disrupting the cells’ external membranes, according to a study published today in Science.

“This is a paper that can bring breakthrough and revolutionary insight into our understanding of intracellular structures,” said Zhong Lin Wang, who develops nanotechnologies at the Georgia Institute of Technology but was not involved in the work. The new device is a type of sensor known as a transistor, which detects changes in electrical activity when touching or inserted into a cell. Read More >

Aug

2010

How huntingtin kills neurons?

The Scientist blog, August 11th, 2010.

Researchers have revealed new clues to how a defective form of the huntingtin protein may cause the deadly changes that lead to Huntington’s disease — by potentially disrupting the process of neurogenesis, thereby decreasing neural progenitor cells.

“[This is] the first study to demonstrate that normal huntingtin has fundamental developmental roles in mitotic spindle function during development and in the process of neurogenesis,” said Mark Mehler, a neurologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine who was not involved in the study. Mehler previously found that in Huntington’s, and other neurodegenerative diseases, this kind of defect can lead to neuronal death later in life. In Huntington’s disease, mutations in the huntingtin protein lead to progressively severe psychiatric, cognitive, and motor dysfunction through the death of brain cells. Read More >

Jul

2010

Tasty transgenics

The Scientist blog, July 27, 2010.

AquaBounty Technologies made big news when they announced they were getting close to approval for their fast-growing transgenic salmon, but this isn’t the only transgenic project with its eyes on our food supply. Several other projects are underway to develop transgenic animals that may eventually make their way into agriculture’s mainstream and end up in your grocery aisle. And scientists aren’t just interested in bigger animals — they’re also looking at making meat that’s more environmentally friendly, and healthier. Read More >