How a Gene Duplication Helped Our Brains Become 'Human'

What genetic changes account for the vast behavioral differences between humans and other primates? Researchers so far have cataloged only a few, but now it seems that they can add a big one to the list. A team of researchers led by scientists has shown that an extra copy of a brain-development gene, which appeared in our ancestors' genomes about 2.4 million years ago, allowed maturing neurons to migrate farther and develop more connections.

Surprisingly, the added copy doesn't augment the function of the original gene, SRGAP2, which makes neurons sprout connections to neighboring cells. Instead it interferes with that original function, effectively giving neurons more time to wire themselves into a bigger brain.

Squid Ink from Jurassic Period Identical to Modern Cuttlefish Ink

A finding in  an extremely rare case of being able to study organic material that is hundreds of millions of years old this suggests that the ink screen escape mechanism of cephalopods. Cuttlefish, squid and octopus has not evovled since the Jurassic period, and the melanin could be preserved intact in the fossils of a range of organisms.

The investigators compared the chemical composition of the fossil melanin to the melanin in the ink of the modern cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis, common to the Mediterranean North and Baltic seas

Animal Adaptations

All animals live in habitats. Habitats provide food, water, and shelter which animals need to survive, but there is more to survival than just the habitat. Animals also depend on their physical features to help them obtain food, keep safe, build homes, withstand weather, and attract mates. These physical features are called physical adaptions. Physical adaptations do no develop during an animal's life but over many generations. The shape of a bird's beak, the number of fingers, color of fur, etc... are examples of physical adaptations which help different animals to survive 

Human Evolution Changed by Climate Change

According to a paper published in Science, models of how animal and plant distributions are affected by climate change may also explain aspects of human evolution. This approach takes existing knowledge of the geographical spread of other species through the warming and cooling of the ice ages to provide a model that can be applied to human origins. Climate is believed to be the driving force behind most of these evolutionary processes, including geographical range change. It dictates which species are where at what time, driving their geographical spread or contraction. The research  leads to interesting conclusion as to how and why Neanderthals, and indeed the Denisovans, evolved in the first place.

Reflection on Sex Ed

In this unit I learned much more then I suspected. For starter I learned the scientific names of parts of both female and male genitals. Also I learned about new diseases and by making the brochure it helped understand what happens and what it can do to people health and body. I enjoyed acting and doing more hands on project understanding the subject and getting a good idea what it was. I learned more about sexual racism which was interesting to see that this what some people see other genders as. Overall I really learned a lot. 

Sex Education and Abstinence

Over ninety percent of parents want teens to abstain from sexual activity until they have at least finished high school. Teens who abstain from sexual activity have substantially improved life outcomes. For example, teen who abstinent in high school are almost twice as likely to attend and graduate from college when compared sexually active teens from identical social backgrounds.

Modern society has popular culture promoting promiscuity and casual sex. Abstinence education programs are on of the few alternative voices. Abstinence education programs are effective in reducing sexual activity against enormous pop culture pressure.

Survey: Nearly Half of Students Sexually Harassed in School

48% of surveyed middle and high school students said they were sexually harassed at least once, typically be their peers, during 2010-2012 school year, according to a report released Monday AAUW, a group that advocates  for gender equality in schools.

Girls were more likely to experience harassment than boys. 56% of girls said they were sexually harassed at least once in the past school year, compared to 40% of boys. 44% of students were harassed in person, while 30% of students said they were harassed digitally, either through Facebook, text messaging, or E-mail.

Student respondents said girls whose "bodies are really developed, more than other girls" are most likely to be sexually harassed, followed by girls who are either very petty or considered not pretty. Boys who are "not very masculine" and overweight students are also at high risk for being harassed in according to the report.

What is a Healthy Relationship

A healthy relationship is when two people develop a connection based on mutual respect, trust, honesty, support, good communication, etc... All of these take work. Each relationship is most likely a combination of both healthy and unhealthy characteristics. Relationships need to maintained and healthy relationships take work. This applies to all relationship; work relationships, friendships, family, and romantic relationships. A healthy relationship should bring more happiness than stress into your life. Every relationship will have stress at times, but you want to prevent prolonged mental stress on either member of the relationship.

Do Animals have Sex for Pleasure?

Not all animals have sex for pleasure. But there are a few species of animals like humans, Bonobo monkeys and dolphins that have been known to mate for pleasure, not just to make offspring. However most animals mate out of the primal need to produce offspring and increase the genetic pool before they die. Females are primarily the ones that encourage mating and rutting to occur because they become receptive to males during a particular time of year or during a particular time period. Males feel the need to breed as many females as possible to spread his genetics as much as possible.

Brian Mapping Reveals How Genes Organize the Surface of the Brain

The first atlas of the surface of the human brain based upon genetic information has been produced by a national team of scientist, led by researchers a the University of California. The atlas reveals that the cerebral cortex-the sheet of neutral issue enveloping he brain - is roughly divided into genetic divisions that differ from other brain maps based on physiology or function. The genetic atlas provides scientists with new tool for studying and explaining how the brain works, particularly the involvement of genes. 

MSG allergy is fake science

In May of 2009, the medical journal Clinical and Experimental Allergy published a review of more than a decade of scientific research into "the possible role of MSG in the so-called 'Chinese restaurant syndrome'".Chinese restaurant syndrome is the popular slang for allergies or adverse reactions that some people claim they get after eating food containing the flavor-enhancer MSG, that is widely used in many processed foods and also added to many Asian dishes.

What is amazing about the publication of this research is not that it concludes MSG allergy is a myth, but that a scientific journal still needs to bother debunking such pseudoscience at all

'Lab on a Chip' device to study Malaria

 
British Columbia researcher Hongshen Ma has developed a simple and accurate device to study malaria. This disease affects 500 million people per year worldwide and claims a million lives. Malaria is spread by mosquitoes this tiny parasite that infects human red blood cells. Ma and his team have designed a "lab on a chip' device to better understand the changes in red blood cells caused by this parasite (plasmodium falciparum, the most common species of malaria parasites). The device will help those conducting laboratory research of clinical trials evaluate the efficacy for different compounds in treating malaria.

Epigeneic Modifications To DNA Caused By Exercise

Did you ever think that DNA can be changed when you exercised. In the Cell Metabolism, has found that when healthy but men and women work out for a couple of minutes, it produces a fast change in their DNA. Also not only does exercise do this but also study's have shown that coffee could influence muscle in the same way. When exercising the DNA molecules within the muscles are being chemically and structurally altered (changed)  in very important ways. These modifications to the DNA at exact location  appear to be easily events in the genetic reprogramming of muscle for strength in the structural and metabolic benefits of exercise. This article I just explained just goes back to my last blog post showing how genes are being tuned on and off when needed. This is another big step for understanding genetics because it might help us by understanding how genes are being turned on and off.

Guiding Question: Approximately how much time do cells spend in each phase of the cell cycle?

Interphase--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------20

Prophase------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------10

Metaphase----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3

Anaphase-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2

Telophase------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1

Conclusion: These graphs represent how much time it takes each cells spends in each stage. What I found interesting is that the first stage takes the longest and after that they take shorter and shorter time that it spends at each stage. I really liked this experiment because it shows you how long the cell spends at each stage.

How Insecs 'Remodel' Their Bodies Between Life Stages

       How can an insect remake itself so completely that that it appears to be a different creature altogether, not just once but several times in a lifetime? A team led by Ian and Dianne Ducan of Washington University  are working with fruit flies rather than butterflies. The fruit flies go through 3 main stages: the larva, the pupa, and the adult. In earlier work it had shown that larva and adult forms are patterned by the same "signaling systems," that transfer a signal from receptor on the surface of cells to target genes within cell nuclei. But what they did not understand is how the same signaling system can form the larva in one case and the adult fly in the other. They were then able to show that a gene expressed only in the pupal stage redirects genes than in earlier stages. This gene itself controlled by a steroid hormone that turns on many other genes as well.

      I found this article very interesting because it shows how genes are being turned on like for example how this one gene can do this difficult process of changing the flies. I really enjoyed reading this article because we find flys so annoying but at the same time they are very unique because of there different stages of transformation.

When Protein Folding Goes Wrong

The standard for nanotechnology is nature's own proteins. These biomoleculare nanomachines - macromolecules made from peptide chains of amino acid -  are able to fold themselves into a multitude of shapes and forms that enable them to carry out an equally multitude of functions important to life. Asimportant as protein folding is to virtualy all biological systems, the mechanisms behind this process have remained a mystery. Protein folding is the process by which a protein structure assumes its functional shape or conformation. A team of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy have determined the crystal structure of a critical control element within chaperonin,  the protein complex responsible for the correct folding of other proteins. The misfolding of proteins has been linked to many diseases, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and some forms of cancer relating back to the projects we just did in Science

Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD's)

       

STD's (Sexually Transmitted  Disease), STI's (Venereal diseases), and VD (venereal diseases), are diseases or infections that have a significant probability of transmission between humans by means of sexual contact. Depending on the STD the person may or may not be able to spread the infection even if no signs of the disease is present. For an example, a person is much more likely to spread herpes infection when blister are present than when they are absent.

The search for a vaccine to prevent infection with two types of herpes simplex is under way. A new vaccine, previously thought to protect uninfected women who have infected partners, has now been found useless against one form. The failure of the vaccine really suggests that we need to look at new approaches to H.S.V. 

Molecular Link Established Between Genetic Defect and Heart Malformation

UNC researchers have discovered how the genetic defect underlying one of the most common heart diseases keeps the critical organ from developing properly. According to the new research the mutation sin the gene called SHP-2 distort the shape of cardiac muscle cells so they are unable to form a fully functioning heart. This study also shows that the treatment with a drug that regulates cell shape and rescues the cardiac defect. This could one day benefit Noonan syndrome patients.

I thought that this was very interesting because it reminded me of the open note test we had in science. The discovery will help save lives. 

6 Fingers is the Dominate Trait

6 Fingers

     When we started learning about it this year I remember having a discussion with my 7th grade science teacher Mrs. Neuhaus-Palmer about having 6 fingers as a dominate trait. We discussed during a unit on DNA.

Recently I was doing some research on this topic and after looking at many sources, I have discovered that having 6 fingers is the dominant trait. When I first heard this, I was very surprised because there are so few people that have 6 fingers. While researching this topic I found out that even though a trait is dominant, it doesn't mean that it will be the prevalent form in the population. In our society, most people would consider 6 fingers  a deformity. This might stop people from having a romantic relationship for fear of passing on the trait. Because 5 fingers is considered normal, when children with 6 fingers are born, their       parents would have the child's extra finger cut off to make them fit in.

Predicting if you survive from cancer after surgery

An assay which measures the activity of 14 genes in lung cancer rumors can accurately predict who will recover well from surgery and who will probably die within 5 years. An assay is an analysis that is carried out to determine something. The test (assay)measures the activity of 14 genes the persons tumor. This test is tested after surgery, and the taken out tumor is taken to the laboratory. Gene activity patterns are analyzed and the expert can rate the persons risk catorgory from low, medium, and high. Knowing this will be good for some people if they will survive but for people who won't survive will be hard to know that you will die in 5 year. It really depends on what happens because no one likes bad news.

Reflection

1.Through many generations of cross-breeding pea plants, Mendel discovered that certain traits show upin offspring without any blending of parent characteristics. The pea plants were either green or yellow, short or tall. In this experiment he found that 3 out of the 4 pea plants were green meaning 1/4 was yellow and 3/4 green. But this also meant that green was the dominate color. But get accurate data I estimated that he had to test this experiment about 30,000 times to get a close and accurate estimation.


2.In my experiment were my group had to draw for marble out of the box and see if we got black or yellow. What we found out was that the yellow was pulled out more times then the black some of the reasons were that there was more yellow then black. But what was also interesting was the fact that instead of 3:1 ratio it was in fact a ratio of 2:1. But to prove this we would have to do many more tests to have a better estimate.

3.Like said above I think that he must have done at
least 30,000 tests to get a practical answer.

GATTACA

         I really like the movie. The movie has to do with genetics and how doctors from the future are able to get the best genes from both of the parents and form a super baby and not only that they were also able to choose what type of gender they want the baby to be. But I really liked the story to it. How this man was discriminated because he wasn't ''perfect'' but he had a dream to go up in space. He wanted this so much that he fulfilled his dream even though he wasn't ''perfect''.