Lasting genetic legacy of environment

BBC NEWS | Health | Lasting genetic legacy of environment

Darwin’s children

Human evolution has speeded up over the past 80,000 years. That raises awkward questions about the concept of “race”

PROBABLY, more bad science has been conducted on the concept of human race than on any other field of biology. The reason is that an awful lot of research into race has been motivated by preconceived ideas that one lot of people are somehow “better” than another lot, rather than being a disinterested investigation of regional variations in a single species and the evolutionary pressures that have created them.

Contrariwise, even well constructed studies, if they do find racial differences, risk opposition from those who deny that people from different parts of the world could ever differ genetically from one another in important ways. As a result, only the foolish or the daring rush in to add to the carnage. It remains to be seen which category the authors of two papers in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences fall into. ...

Darwin’s children

Of Dickens and Darwin

Despite appearances, scientists and literary authors have spent centuries mirroring each other, albeit indirectly

Of Dickens and Darwin

‘Farewell to Alms’: Darwin’s part in the Industrial Revolution

Gregory Clark’s new book suggests an intriguing, even startling answer to what brought about the new technology: natural selection. Specifically, the families that propagated themselves were the rich.

‘Farewell to Alms’: Darwin’s part in the Industrial Revolution

Riding piggyback

Farm animals are infecting people with a new strain of superbug

FILTHY surroundings that are home to a population fed on antibiotics provide the ideal breeding grounds for superbugs. But badly run hospitals are not the only such places. Farms where animals are reared intensively also provide an incubator for drug-resistant diseases. Recent research suggests that veterinary surgeons and farmers in Europe and Canada may be picking up potentially fatal infections from pigs and possibly cattle.

Superbugs evolve when common bacterial infections develop resistance to the drugs used to treat them. The most widespread cause of hospital infections, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, is one such example. About a third of people carry some form of S. aureus on their skin, where the bacteria do no harm. However, if they enter the bloodstream, they can cause disease. And if the resulting illness cannot be treated because the bacteria are drug-resistant, the infection can prove fatal. MRSA killed some 19,000 people in America and 1,600 people in Britain in 2005, the latest year for which figures are available. ...

Riding piggyback

Darwin’s Surprise

Thierry Heidmann’s office, adjacent to the laboratory he runs at the Institut Gustave Roussy, on the southern edge of Paris, could pass for a museum of genetic catastrophe. Files devoted to the world’s most horrifying infectious diseases fill the cabinets and line the shelves. There are thick folders for smallpox . . .

Darwin’s Surprise

Pandemic flu drug order doubles

Britain is doubling its stockpile of antiviral medicines in preparation for any future flu pandemic

Pandemic flu drug order doubles

Males are simple creatures

The secret to why male organisms evolve faster than their female counterparts comes down to this: Males are simple creatures.

Males are simple creatures

Another Very Scary Germ

The development of bacterial strains that are resistant to many antibiotics is a problem that needs to be tackled broadly.

Another Very Scary Germ

UK bird flu outbreak confirmed as H5N1

The cases of avian flu at a Suffolk turkey farm have been confirmed as the highly pathogenic form of the virus that can be deadly to humans

UK bird flu outbreak confirmed as H5N1

A new plague: The epidemic is coming

A new plague: The epidemic is coming – Independent Online Edition > Science & Tech

’55 ‘Origin of Life’ Paper Is Retracted

Alarmed that a 52-year-old paper was stoking the arguments of creationists, a chemistry professor has retracted a paper on the origins of life.

’55 ‘Origin of Life’ Paper Is Retracted

Bird-flu May Become Endemic in Parts of Europe

MILAN - Bird flu virus may become endemic in parts of Europe, with ducks and geese more of a vector for spreading it than previously thought, the U.N. said on Thursday.

“It seems that a new chapter in the evolution of avian influenza may be unfolding silently in the heart of Europe,” Joseph Domenech, chief veterinary officer of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said in a statement.

Bird-flu May Become Endemic in Parts of Europe

Bird-flu May Become Endemic in Parts of Europe

MILAN - Bird flu virus may become endemic in parts of Europe, with ducks and geese more of a vector for spreading it than previously thought, the U.N. said on Thursday.

“It seems that a new chapter in the evolution of avian influenza may be unfolding silently in the heart of Europe,” Joseph Domenech, chief veterinary officer of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said in a statement.

Bird-flu May Become Endemic in Parts of Europe

In the Age of the Superbugs: What Is the Remedy?

19,000 Americans died in hospitals and nursing homes in 2005. They were victims of a scary “superbug” a bacterial staph infection for which there is now no known cure. Experts warn that we are facing a “medical typhoon” unless we act to contain this menace of methicillinresistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. When I grew up, “superbug” [...]

In the Age of the Superbugs: What Is the Remedy?

First humans ‘lived at southern tip of Africa’

Primitive humans who inhabited the coast of South Africa 165,000 years ago and lived on a diet rich in shellfish could be the original ancestors of everyone alive today, a study suggests.

First humans ‘lived at southern tip of Africa’

Environment: The Hidden Health Risk of Cell Phones

Research into the link between regular cell phone use and brain cancer reveals the risks rise significantly after 10 years.

Environment: The Hidden Health Risk of Cell Phones

Fascinating Bohr

The physicist (and Einstein’s esteemed colleague and sometime intellectual opponent) Niels Bohr gave biologists a new conceptual tool

Fascinating Bohr

Study: Loss Of Genetic Diversity Threatens Species Diversity

Davis, California – Human activities are eliminating biological diversity at an unprecedented rate. Critical when you consider that variation in plants and animals gives us a rich and robust assemblage of foods, medicines, industrial materials and recreation activities. A new study shows this is bad news for all species.

Lead researcher Dr. Richard Lankau says, “This is one of the first studies to show that genetic diversity and species diversity depend on each other,” Lankau said.

Study: Loss Of Genetic Diversity Threatens Species Diversity

News: Eat (Less) to Live (Longer)

News: Eat (Less) to Live (Longer)

Human Dignity and Public Bioethics

The New Atlantis – Human Dignity and Public Bioethics – Gilbert Meilaender

Japan Focus: Politics and Ideology, Social Issues - HIV/AIDS: The Looming Asia Pacific Pandemic

HIV/AIDS: The Looming Asia Pacific Pandemic Bill Bowtell Contemplating the appalling mismanagement of the global political response to the emergence and early years of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, it is hard not to come to the conclusion that the greatest enemy of rational public policy making is not, as might have been expected in the case of AIDS, nihilism and paralyzing despair. Rather, the staggering inability of the global community to prevent the long, relentless march of AIDS from its African origins to the shores of the Asia Pacific owes a great deal to the limitless capacity of human beings for invincible optimism. Time and again, evidence that the HIV virus was a dangerous threat requiring decisive pre-emptive containment action was ignored or discounted. Cultural Taboos and the AIDS Pandemic For fear of offending cultural taboos, confronting uncomfortable truths about sexuality, or just in the blind hope that something would turn up, the world simply did nothing much at all to…

Japan Focus: Politics and Ideology, Social Issues – HIV/AIDS: The Looming Asia Pacific Pandemic

Is ‘Do Unto Others’ Written Into Our Genes?

Where do moral rules come from? From reason? From God? Some suggest morality can be found buried deep in evolution.

Is ‘Do Unto Others’ Written Into Our Genes?

The grim history of disappearing fish

In 2005, scientists aboard a research vessel in the northwest Atlantic – about as far from land as possible – waited anxiously during the two hours it took their small, remotely operated submersible to make its descent to the summit of a mid-ocean peak more than half a mile below.

The grim history of disappearing fish

Insights: The Trouble with Men

Insights: The Trouble with Men

Children of the sun

All light-generating substances, as well as the oxygen they consume, stem ultimately from trapped solar energy. The pulsing points of light in the depths of our oceans are distant offspring of the sunlight. Biochemist Gottfried Schatz follows light across time and space, from the Big Bang to the ocean floor.

Children of the sun

Pandemic Influenza: Past, Present and Future

Pandemic Influenza offers a global perspective on the history and contemporary prospects of pandemic influenza. This article was published in Population and Development Review, Vol 33, 3, September 2007 and at Japan Focus on September 7, 2007. Landis MacKellar is Leader, Health and Global Change Project, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Vienna. He is the coauthor of Population and Climate Change.

Japan Focus: Social Issues – Pandemic Influenza: Past, Present and Future

Is a Virus Behind the Bee Plague?

Scientists have identified a virus that might have triggered the problem.

Is a Virus Behind the Bee Plague?

Bird by bird, the avian population is shrinking

The songs of tens of millions of birds have been silenced. It feels as if the lights are dimming.

WHO warns of epidemic risk

Infectious diseases are spreading faster than ever, the World Health Organization annual report says.

WHO warns of epidemic risk

Designing buildings, using biology

Today’s architects turn to biology more than ever before. Here’s why

Designing buildings, using biology

Society insects

Society insects – TLS Highlights – Times Online

Better Planet: Beepocalypse

Can we save honey bees from Colony Collapse Disorder?

Better Planet: Beepocalypse

Our Biotech Future

By Freeman Dyson

It has become part of the accepted wisdom to say that the twentieth century was the century of physics and the twenty-first century will be the century of biology. Two facts about the coming century are agreed on by almost everyone. Biology is now bigger than physics, as measured by the size of budgets, by the size of the workforce, or by the output of major discoveries; and biology is likely to remain the biggest part of science through the twenty-first century. Biology is also more important than physics, as measured by its economic consequences, by its ethical implications, or by its effects on human welfare.

Our Biotech Future

Deadly flu virus mutating rapidly: WHO

Deadly flu virus mutating rapidly: WHO : thewest.com.au

Audubon’s flock

IT WAS A COFFEE-TABLE BOOK so gargantuan that only Paul Bunyan could have thumbed through it with ease, and the man who made it often seems the stuff of American tall tales himself.

Audubon’s flock

At risk: vaccines

No single medical advance has had a greater impact on human health than vaccines. Before vaccines, Americans could expect that every year measles would infect four million children and kill 3,000; diphtheria would kill 15,000 people, mostly teenagers; rubella (German measles) would cause 20,000 babies to be born blind, deaf, or mentally retarded; pertussis would kill 8,000 children, most of …

At risk: vaccines

Drug-resistant bugs on rise outside hospital: study

Drug-resistant bugs on rise outside hospital: study | U.S. | Reuters

Science and art on the ant heap

Science and art on the ant heap – TLS Highlights – Times Online

Flu pandemic will happen

SJ-R.COM – School of medicine alumnus: Flu pandemic will happen

What’s Ailing Health Care?

The New Atlantis – What’s Ailing Health Care? – James C. Capretta

Study: Superbugs Emerge Among Urban Poor

My Way News – Study: Superbugs Emerge Among Urban Poor

Is female of the species as deadly as the male?

Is female of the species as deadly as the male? | Uk News | News | Telegraph

An Idiot’s Guide to Evolution

The dirty Darwinian secret is now out of the closet: If evolution is true, then it must be true about everything. Most Darwinians used to be very restrained about the relevance of their theory for cultural and moral issues, for obvious reasons. If evolution is true about everything, then randomness and competition are the foundations [...]

Link to An Idiot’s Guide to Evolution

The concept of race is meaningless

Roger Highfield describes a project that shows “Native American DNA” has been in the UK for hundreds of years

Link to The concept of race is meaningless

Oral sex can cause throat cancer

People who have had more than five oral-sex partners appear 250% more likely to have throat cancer than those who do not engage in this activity

Link to Oral sex can cause throat cancer

The Deep by Claire Nouvian

Andrew Robinson on The Deep by Claire Nouvian – Literary Review

Chimps ‘more evolved’ than humans

Perhaps humans are not the pinnacle of evolutionary success – chimpanzees are the more evolved species, according to new genetic research

Link to Chimps ‘more evolved’ than humans

Rethinking Species

Link to Rethinking Species

Can a Biosphere Be Selfish?

Link to Can a Biosphere Be Selfish?

Air travel poses major threat to biodiversity, say scientists

Air travel poses major threat to biodiversity, say scientists | Science | Guardian Unlimited

Drug-Resistant Gonorrhea Forces Treatment Change

The CDC says the major antibiotics used to the treat gonorrhea are no longer effective. Now there’s only one therapy left.

Link to Drug-Resistant Gonorrhea Forces Treatment Change

Is Biology Reducible to the Laws of Physics?

American Scientist Online – Is Biology Reducible to the Laws of Physics?

Two Tales of a City

American Scientist Online – Two Tales of a City

Mammals Took Their Sweet Time to Flourish, Study Shows

The mass extinction of the dinosaurs and other life did not immediately clear the way for today’s dominant species.

Link to Mammals Took Their Sweet Time to Flourish, Study Shows

Worlds Most Important Crops Hit By Global Warming Effects

By Steve Connor
Global warming over the past quarter century has led to a fall in the yield of some of the most important food crops in the world, according to one of the first scientific studies of how climate change has affected cereal crops

Link to Worlds Most Important Crops Hit By Global Warming Effects

Evolution myths

Evolution myths – TLS Highlights – Times Online

The Doctor’s World: Rise of a Deadly TB Reveals a Global System in Crisis

An outbreak of extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis killed 52 people in South Africa, raising questions about a global program meant to keep the disease under control.

Link to The Doctor’s World: Rise of a Deadly TB Reveals a Global System in Crisis

Species evolve faster in cooler climes

An analysis of birds and mammals across the Americas has reached the surprising conclusion that new species emerge more frequently in temperate regions than in tropical ones

Link to Species evolve faster in cooler climes

Honeybees Vanish, Leaving Keepers in Peril

Honeybees Vanish, Leaving Keepers in Peril – New York Times

Smoking-gun Proof That Misuse of Antibiotics Breeds Superbugs

Smoking-gun Proof That Misuse of Antibiotics Breeds Superbugs

Link to Smoking-gun Proof That Misuse of Antibiotics Breeds Superbugs

Darwin’s God

In the world of evolutionary biology, the question is not whether God exists but why we believe in him. Is belief a helpful adaptation or an evolutionary accident?

Link to Darwin’s God

Pandemic flu may be only two mutations away

Scientists find what made the 1918 flu pandemic so easy to catch – and it was not what they thought

Link to Pandemic flu may be only two mutations away

Darwin’s Bulldog and the Time Machine

Link to Darwin’s Bulldog and the Time Machine

‘Doomsday’ vault design unveiled

The final design for an Arctic “doomsday” seed vault, which will house all known varieties of crops, is unveiled.

Link to ‘Doomsday’ vault design unveiled

1 in 150 Children in U.S. Has Autism, New Survey Finds

1 in 150 Children in U.S. Has Autism, New Survey Finds – washingtonpost.com

Defending Darwinism

American Scientist Online – Defending Darwinism

How seashells disprove Creationism

How seashells disprove Creationism

Scientists Recreate 1918 Flu and See Parallels to Bird Flu

Infection with a reconstructed version of the 1918 virus incited a deadly chemical reaction in the laboratory animals, a group of scientists said in the journal Nature.

Link to Scientists Recreate 1918 Flu and See Parallels to Bird Flu

Link to Scientists Recreate 1918 Flu and See Parallels to Bird Flu

Deadly H5N1 may be brewing in cats

We have been spared a flu pandemic because the H5N1 virus is not very infectious. That could soon change

Link to Deadly H5N1 may be brewing in cats

Link to Deadly H5N1 may be brewing in cats

1918 Flu Virus Limited The Immune System

A Frankenstein version of the “Spanish flu” virus, assembled from parts in the laboratory, has shed new light on how the microbe killed tens of millions of people worldwide in 1918 and 1919.

Link to 1918 Flu Virus Limited The Immune System

Link to 1918 Flu Virus Limited The Immune System

Rats, Not Men, to Blame for the Death of Easter Island

Independent Online Edition > Environment

The DNA so dangerous it does not exist

Could there be forbidden sequences in the genome – ones so harmful that they are not compatible with life?

Link to The DNA so dangerous it does not exist

Flu ‘could wipe out 62 million’

A global flu pandemic in 2007 could kill more people than the 1918 outbreak, health experts warn.

Link to Flu ‘could wipe out 62 million’

News: Warning: A Flu Pandemic Today Could Kill As Many As 80 Million People

Link to News: Warning: A Flu Pandemic Today Could Kill As Many As 80 Million People

Answering Darwin’s Dilemma

Link to Answering Darwin’s Dilemma

Carnal Knowledge | How we evolved into male and female

According to scientists, the very first organisms to dare engage in sex were more like Adam and Steve than Adam and Eve. That’s because sex was invented before heterosexuality – before males or females for that matter.

Link to Carnal Knowledge | How we evolved into male and female

Scientists seek to unlock mysteries of the deep

The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Scientists seek to unlock mysteries of the deep

Epidemic in Africa: Ebola Virus Kills Thousands of Gorillas

Outbreaks of the deadly Ebola virus has killed up to 5,500 gorillas in West Africa. A study released on Friday says that together with commercial hunting, the virus could threaten the species with extinction.

Link to Epidemic in Africa: Ebola Virus Kills Thousands of Gorillas

A Shadow Biosphere

A Shadow Biosphere :: Astrobiology Magazine ::

Next to this fish, sharks are great white wimps

Next to this fish, sharks are great white wimps | Chicago Tribune

Typhoid is with us to stay

A drug resistant form in spreading, according to a genetic study that suggests the bug will endure. Roger Highfield reports.

Link to Typhoid is with us to stay

Hungry ancients ‘turned cannibal’

Starvation and cannibalism were part of life for a population of Neanderthals living 43,000 years ago.

Link to Hungry ancients ‘turned cannibal’

An Answer to the World’s Energy Problems?

ABC News: An Answer to the World’s Energy Problems?

Can flu viruses survive winter in frozen lakes?

Link to Can flu viruses survive winter in frozen lakes?

Hens with bigger ‘hairdos’ get more sex

Female chickens with the largest fleshy crests on their heads receive the most sperm from the dominant cock ? will they have a happier Thanksgiving?

Link to Hens with bigger ‘hairdos’ get more sex

Diseases appear on rise with temperature

Diseases appear on rise with temperature

Grandma’s Veggies May Have Been More Nutritious

NPR : Grandma’s Veggies May Have Been More Nutritious

How fish twist the racial tale

Europeans and Asians are cousins under the skin, but not on the surface, says Prof Steve Jones.

Link to How fish twist the racial tale

Experts say Britain vulnerable to bird flu pandemic

Experts in Britain believe the government should have stockpiled more than one antiviral drug in order to tackle a bird flu pandemic and say Britain has been left vulnerable because the stockpile of anti virus drugs is deficient.

Link to Experts say Britain vulnerable to bird flu pandemic

HHS purchases more vaccines for an influenza pandemic

HHS has announced the purchase of additional vaccine that could be used in the event of a potential influenza pandemic.

Link to HHS purchases more vaccines for an influenza pandemic

World’s most deadly bugs… in the hands of terrorists

World’s most deadly bugs… in the hands of terrorists
NEW technology that would give terrorists the power to create deadly bacteria and viruses from scratch is only years away from completion and threatens to make existing controls on biological weapons obsolete, experts warned yesterday.

Scientists Ponder ‘the Lilliput Effect’

Scientists ponder ‘the Lilliput effect’
They’re exploring how species cope with stress and why bigger is better until catastrophe hits.

Clues to Pandemic Bird Flu Found

Clues to pandemic bird flu found
Scientists believe they have found some of the steps needed for bird flu to turn into a pandemic strain.

Next Flu Pandemic: What To Do Until The Vaccine Arrives

Next Flu Pandemic: What To Do Until The Vaccine Arrives
New York NY (SPX) Nov 13, 2006 – Experts believe the world is overdue for influenza pandemic. However, unless effective action against pandemic flu is taken now, we are in “dire straits,” according to a paper published in the November 10 issue of Science. The articled titled, “Next Flu Pandemic: What to Do Until the Vaccine Arrives?,” calls for research during the regular season flu season to better understand the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions such as social distancing, hand washing, face masks, and the like.

50 Million People Struck by Animal Diseases

Mathaba News

Asia on the Brink of Diabetes Disaster

Asia on Brink of Diabetes Disaster

PARIS (AFP)—Health services across Asia could crash in the face of a worsening epidemic of obesity-led diabetes, experts warn.

In 2003, 194 million people in Asia had diabetes and by 2025, the tally could be 333 million, according to a paper published by the British journal The Lancet ahead of World Diabetes Day next Tuesday.

“Childhood obesity has increased substantially and the prevalence of Type 2 diabetes has now reached epidemic levels in Asia. The health consequences of this epidemic threaten to overwhelm health-care systems in the region,” the study says sternly.

“Urgent action is needed, and advocacy for lifestyle changes is the first step.”

Read the entire article

In Ancient Fossils, Seeds of a New Debate on Warming

In Ancient Fossils, Seeds of a New Debate on Warming – New York Times

Puberty Hitting Girls as Young as 4 Years Old

ABC News: Puberty Hitting Girls as Young as 4 Years Old

This crop revolution may succeed where GM failed

Jeremy Rifkin: Gene splicing has been made obsolete by a cutting-edge technology that greatly accelerates classical plant breeding. [Guardian Unlimited Life]