Learning Biology is an evolving process. The science keeps changing towards a greater understanding and sometimes the conclusions that were drawn are not always right. For example, blood letting or bleeding a person used to be the treatment for some diseases. That was an acceptable form of treatment but now we wonder as to what…
Biological assays are typically done on cell lines. However, many of the cell lines are so different from the cell systems that are encountered in real life, or in vivo that the results can often be flawed. To be perfectly physiological, scientists use primary human cells harvested from patients are cadavers. These are great systems…
In gene knockout studies, scientists delete or stop expression of one gene and then check to see if that gene is required. In these studies, if a gene is critical – say for cell division then cells do not divide and the gene is termed essential, the mutations in that gene would be termed lethal…
In summer 2012, Krainc’s lab published a paper on the biochemical cause for the link between Gaucher’s disease and Parkinson’s. It is known in the literature that Gaucher’s disease families have a higher incidence of Parkinson’s disease, however the reason was unknown. Gaucher’s disease is an inherited disorder caused by the mutations of the GBA…
People spend a significant amount of time playing games and solving puzzles. It has always been argued that there must be some benefit that could be derived from the endeavors. Many man-hours, computer computation and power go into playing games. Obviously, they serve some physiological and psychological functions since so many people continue playing games….
There have been several research publications that have tried to establish a link between immune system and gut microflora. The field has led to several confusing results, but a paper published in 2012 (Chung et al, Cell: 149, 1578) may help some of the confusion. They found that the maturation of intestinal immune system is…
Open source text search engine There are many technologies available that get slightly better packaged and then sold commercially. Often times the technologies are so superb and crowd sourced so well that it is surprising that many people do not consider it as a valid strategy for their laboratories or companies. Take the example of…
Distributed light sensing Squid can really hide well in their environment. It is important for their survival since they have minimal active defenses but how is it important to us? Office of Naval Research thought that it was important enough to grant a $ 6 million grant to Roger Hanlon of Woods Hole Marine Biological…
Cheap robots by the millions Typically it costs many hundreds of dollars to make a robot that can do something substantial. However, researchers at the Fraunhofer institute have created molded or stamped robots that can be created very cheaply – they imagine them to be like disposable gloves. Make them, use them and then throw…
Harvard Wellman Center for Photo medicine’s two scientists, Gather and Yun, have shown that they can generate laser light from single cells. These HEK293 cells were transiently transfected with GFP. The expressed GFP (~300 microMolar) showed optical amplification of light. The cells had to placed in an artificial cavity and stimulated by external pulsed laser…
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