Traumatizing your DNA

When the Human Genome Project ended a decade ago, scientists thought that they’d closed the lid on all that’s to be known about our genes. But what they really did was open a Pandora’s Box, says theoretical evolutionary biologist Prof. Eva Jablonka of Tel Aviv University’s Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas.

After sifting through hundreds of scientific studies concerned with epigenetics, Prof. Jablonka concludes that some of the effects of stress, cancer, and other chronic diseases we suffer from may be passed on to our offspring through deep and complicated underlying cellular mechanisms that we are just now beginning to understand.

Prof. Jablonka will discuss her findings at an epigenetics conference in North Carolina later this month.

Epigenetic research suggests that the effects of stress and environmental pollution can be passed on to future generations without any obvious change or mutation in our DNA. The problem, Prof. Jablonka points out, is that we have no idea of the extent these effects will have on the human genome of the future. …

Stress can create near invisible effects on gene expression, effects that can be passed from mother or father to child. Some of this operates through microRNA, tiny RNA discovered about a decade ago which work as cellular “micro-managers.” In addition, a process called DNA methylation alters gene function. Various processes “hidden” in chromosomes within the cells appear to be influenced by lifestyle and disease.

As a result, Prof. Jablonka advises that it might be prudent to reconsider all the environmental pollutants being introduced into the planet’s ecosystems. Some pesticides and fungicides are androgen suppressors and have many effects on gene expression — and these effects can be inherited. Whether and how future generations can endure with these altered gene functions are still open questions, she says.  …

via Traumatizing your DNA.

Psychologists find the meaning of aggression

Bottling up emotions can make people more aggressive, according to new research from The University of Texas at Austin and the University of Minnesota that was funded, in part, by a grant from the U.S. Army.

The study, published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, could have important implications for reducing violence and helping people in professions such as law enforcement and the military better cope with long hours and stressful situations.

The psychologists used a pair of classic movie scenes in their research. They found that subjects who were asked to suppress their emotions and show no reaction to a notoriously disgusting scene in the 1983 film “The Meaning of Life” and another in the 1996 film “Trainspotting” were more aggressive afterwards than subjects who were allowed to show their revulsion.

The research reinforces scientists’ understanding of the “ego depletion effect,” which suggests people who must keep their emotions bottled up — not reacting to a difficult boss at work, for example — are more likely to act aggressively afterwards — by yelling at their children, perhaps.

Subjects in the experiment who were deprived of sleep before watching the scenes reacted no differently than those who were well rested. This suggests that fatigue does not make people more aggressive, as some previous studies have suggested. …

via Psychologists find the meaning of aggression.

‘Junk food’ moms have ‘junk food’ babies

A new research report published online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.faseb.org) suggests that pregnant mothers who eat high sugar and high fat diets have babies who are likely to become junk food junkies themselves. According to the report, which used rats, this happens because the high fat and high sugar diet leads to changes in the fetal brain’s reward pathway, altering food preferences. Not only does this offer insight into the ever-increasing rate of human obesity, but it may also explain why some people easily resist fatty and sugary foods, while others seem hopelessly addicted.

“These results will help us to better help women about diet during pregnancy and breastfeeding for giving their infants the best start in life,” said Beverly Muhlhausler, Ph.D., co-author of the study from the FOODplus Research Centre in the School of Agriculture Food and Wine at the University of Adelaide in Adelaide, Australia. …

via ‘Junk food’ moms have ‘junk food’ babies.

Long-term study: Robot-assisted prostate surgery is safe

In the first study of its kind, urologists and biostatisticians at Henry Ford Hospital have found that robot-assisted surgery to remove cancerous prostate glands is safe over the long term, with a major complication rate of less than one percent.

The findings, published online this month by the journal European Urology, follow an earlier Henry Ford study that found nearly 87 percent of patients whose cancerous prostates were removed by robot-assisted surgery had no recurrence of the disease after five years.

“We have always felt that robotic surgery for prostate cancer was safe, but there have been no studies that have looked at long-term safety. This is why the Henry Ford study is so important,” says Mani Menon, M.D., director of Henry Ford’s Vattikuti Urology Institute.

The new research analyzed the surgical outcomes of more than 3,000 consecutive patients at Henry Ford’s Vattikuti Urology Institute from January 2005 to December 2009, and addressed “the lack of standardized reporting” that hampered previous published literature on complications of radical prostatectomy (RP).

In RP, the entire diseased prostate gland and some surrounding tissue are surgically removed, in hopes of preventing the cancer from spreading to other parts of the body.

Henry Ford Hospital pioneered the use of robots to assist surgeons in the delicate procedure, and the new study notes that robot-assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP) is now the most common technique in the U.S. for treating localized prostate cancer.

via Long-term study: Robot-assisted prostate surgery is safe.

First French bulldog with sex reversal identified in Spain

Tana, a female French bulldog, was brought to a veterinary centre for her first vaccination. Specialists there were alerted by the size of her clitoris, which was “larger than normal”, and they started to carry out tests. These revealed the first ever genetic alteration ever detected in the reproductive system of this breed – the female puppy had cryptorchid testicles (outside the scrotum).

Genetic alteration of the reproductive system or sexual reversal “has been described in many species, such as goats, pigs, horses and even human beings”, Marcos Campos, lead author of the study and also a researcher at the CEU-Cardenal Herrera University and director of the Reprovalcan assisted reproduction centre for small animals, tells SINC.

The puppy Tana, which was three months old when brought for her first consultation, presented symptoms compatible with having a genetic alteration of the reproductive system – she had a large clitoris. “She was a chromosomally XX female but with masculine gonads (cryptorchid testicles) due to the presence of other genes that determined the formation of testicles in the absence of the genes present on the Y chromosome”, explains Campos.

This alteration, which has also been described in another 18 breeds of dog around the world, is “uncommon but it can occur”. Sex reversal causes sterility and, over the long term, may predispose the animal to pathologies such as infections or tumours of the gonads, “since this is not a normal genital”, the veterinarian explains.

The study, which has been published in Reproduction in Domestic Animals, showed that the urethra ended in the bladder, and the clitoris, which was 0.8 centimetres long, contained a penis bone, which predisposed it to urinary infections that would likely cause the dog to be infertile. …

via First French bulldog with sex reversal identified in Spain.

Why Some Kids Are Harmed by Mother’s Alcohol, But Others Aren’t

Exposure to alcohol in the womb doesn’t affect all fetuses equally. Why does one woman who drinks alcohol during pregnancy give birth to a child with physical, behavioral or learning problems — known as fetal alcohol spectrum disorder — while another woman who also drinks has a child without these problems?

One answer is a gene variation passed on by the mother to her son, according to new Northwestern Medicine research. This gene variation contributes to a fetus’ vulnerability to even moderate alcohol exposure by upsetting the balance of thyroid hormones in the brain.

The Northwestern Medicine study with rats is the first to identify a direct genetic mechanism of behavioral deficits caused by fetal alcohol exposure. The study is published today in the FASEB Journal.

“The findings open up the possibility of using dietary supplements that have the potential to reverse or fix the dosage of the thyroid hormones in the brain to correct the problems caused by the alcohol exposure,” said Eva E. Redei, senior author of the study and the David Lawrence Stein Professor of Psychiatry at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

“In the not-too-distant future we could identify a woman’s vulnerability to alcohol if she is pregnant and target this enzyme imbalance with drugs, a supplement or another method that will increase the production of this enzyme in the hippocampus, which is where it’s needed,” Redei said.

Efforts to educate pregnant women about the risks of alcohol have not changed the percentage of children born with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, Redei noted. …

via Why Some Kids Are Harmed by Mother’s Alcohol, But Others Aren’t : Northwestern University Newscenter.

Mustaine: Black magic haunts me

Megadeth rocker Dave Mustaine refuses to play heavy rock anthem The Conjuring live – because the track is laden with black magic imagery and occult spells.

The singer became fascinated in witchcraft as a teen and he’s convinced spells he cast have come back to haunt him.

Now a strict Christian, he’s keen to distance himself from his dark past – and refuses to play his song The Conjuring from 1986 album Peace Sells… but Who’s Buying on tour – because the lyrics about black magic still affect him.

He tells Total Guitar magazine, “Performance wise, The Conjuring is one of the heaviest songs on the record, but unfortunately it’s got black magic in it and I promised that I wouldn’t play it any more, because there’s a lot of instructions for hexes in that song.

“Although it seems kinda corny, anybody who’s a Wiccan (witch) or a warlock or anything like that will know that all of that stuff is instrumental.

“When I got into black magic I put a couple of spells on people when I was a teenager and it haunted me forever, and I’ve had so much torment. People say, ‘Goddamn, Dave never gets a break, he’s had such a hard life,’ and I just think, ‘No, Dave didn’t – he got into black magic and it ruined his life.’

“Fortunately for me, with all the work and the love of my friends, and not giving up with my guitar playing, I got over it. So I look back now and I think, ‘Hmm, I don’t wanna play The Conjuring’.”

via Mustaine: Black magic haunts me | Music | Entertainment | Toronto Sun.

He has always had an active imagination. Still does. Nice bass sound around 1:25. I have no idea what he is saying. Can’t really hear the lyrics.

Biology’s ‘dark matter’ hints at fourth domain of life

Step far enough back from the tree of life and it begins to look quite simple. At its heart are just three stout branches, representing the three domains of life: bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes. But that’s too simple, according to a band of biologists who believe we may be on the verge of discovering the fourth domain of life.

The bold statement is the result of an analysis of water samples collected from the world’s seas. Jonathan Eisen at the University of California, Davis, Genome Center has identified gene sequences hidden within these samples that are so unusual they seem to have come from organisms that are only distantly related to cellular life as we know it. So distantly related, in fact, that they may belong to an organism that sits in an entirely new domain.

Most species on the planet look like tiny single cells, and to work out where they fit on the tree of life biologists need to be able to grow them in the lab. Colonies like this give them enough DNA to run their genetic analyses. The problem is, the vast majority of these species – 99 per cent of them is a reasonable bet – refuse to be cultured in this way. “They really are the dark matter of the biological universe,” says Eisen.

To probe life’s dark matter, Eisen, Craig Venter of the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, and their colleagues have resorted to a relatively new technique called metagenomics. This can “sequence the crap out of any DNA samples”, whether they are collected from the environment or come from lab cultures, says Eisen.

When Eisen and Venter used the technique on samples collected from the Global Ocean Sampling Expedition, they found that some sequences belonging to two superfamilies of genes – recA and rpoB – were unlike any seen before.

“The question is, what are they from?” says Eisen. Because the team has no idea what organism the genes belong to, the question remains unanswered. There are two possibilities, he says. “They could represent an unusual virus, which is interesting enough. More interestingly still, they could represent a totally new branch in the tree of life.” …

some believe that mimivirus, the largest known virus, may also represent a new domain of life: despite being recognised as a virus, it contains many genes found only in cellular organisms. “People have suggested they might be a fourth branch themselves,” says Eisen. “If you think of those mimiviruses as a fourth branch, maybe our sequences represent a fifth branch – we just don’t know yet.” …

via Biology’s ‘dark matter’ hints at fourth domain of life – life – 18 March 2011 – New Scientist.

Philadelphia Breast Surgeon Moonlights as Knife Thrower

Meet Dr. Ted Eisenberg, holder of the world record for the most breast surgeries performed in a lifetime.

Rest assured, ladies — you’re probably in safe hands.

Not content with handling scalpels all day, in his spare time Eisenberg is a competitive knife thrower.

Inspired by fictional Australian outback hero Crocodile Dundee and James Bond movies, the Philadelphia surgeon is a delicate artist by day who relaxes after hours with tomahawks and hunting knives.”It’s a little unusual, it is a little different, but it’s not that different from bowling or golf, which you can watch on TV all day, every day,” Eisenberg told AOL News.

“I have always thought it was kind of cool watching James Bond movies, Crocodile Dundee — anybody who was able to wield a knife and throw it across the room and make it stick.  …

via Philadelphia Breast Surgeon Moonlights as Knife Thrower.

It would be a little less disturbing if his targets didn’t look like … never mind.

New plant species offers insights into how evolution works

Scientists have revealed that a new plant species is providing an insight into how evolution works and could help improve crop plants.

The new plant species, Tragopogon miscellus, appeared in the United States 80 years ago. It came about when two species in the daisy family, introduced from Europe, mated to produce a hybrid offspring.

The species had mated before in Europe, but the hybrids were never successful. However in America something new happened. The number of chromosomes in the hybrid spontaneously doubled, and at once it became larger than its parents and quickly spread.

Scientists studied the Tragopogon miscellus to understand how evolution works.

They found that the new plant species had relaxed control of gene expression in its earliest generations. But today, after 80 years of evolution, different patterns of gene expression are found in every plant.

“We caught evolution in the act,” said Doug Soltis, co-leader of the research team. New and diverse patterns of gene expression may allow the new species to rapidly adapt in new environments.

Crossing different plant species to produce hybrids is a process used in farming to produce greater yields and stronger plants. Studying how this works in nature can give us new ideas to apply to agriculture.

The work was carried out at the University of Florida and Iowa State University and involved scientists from Queen Mary, University of London, Massey University in New Zealand, and Shanxi Normal University in China. …

via New plant species offers insights into how evolution works | Discovery Online.