You Are What You Eat?

Awww..... can you say, "KSR2"?

It's not uncommon to see an obese individual walking about anymore, what with all the fast food and door-to-door pizza deliveries. Well sometimes it really  isn't that person's fault. In fact, scientists recently discovered the gene (KSR2) that affects appetite and metabolism when mutations occur.  These mutations can cause metabolism to slow, and on top of that increase the desire to eat: A DOUBLE WHAMMY!!! What first led scientists to this conclusion was that when taking the KSR2 gene out of mice completely, obesity occurred. KSR2 was then studied in humans, which showed the gene worked similarly to the mice (Don't worry, I'm sure they DID NOT take the entire gene out, that would just be unethical). KSR2 was continuously observed, with mutations causing defects such as lower heart rate and severe resistance to insulin. Scientists began testing mutation-correcting (NOT gene-altering) drugs until one drug in particular, metformin, solved the problem of low fatty acid oxidation levels. My question to you is this: It seems like every week mutations in genes are being corrected for by seemingly simple methods. Could science REALLY be evolving that fast, or are there some factors being overlooked by the optimistic bloggers writing about these research stories?

For more information, click here for the research article.

Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Road to the Cure

Many of us have heard of Inflammatory Bowel Disease, right? Well, a team of scientists recently discovered a new variety of stem cells in the gut of a mouse embryo, cells not like those previously described in the gut. They knew they were able to grow the cells at just the right conditions for them to form mature intestinal tissue, and with this knowledge they transplanted these cells into adult mice with Inflammatory Bowel Disease. It took just 3 hours for the cells to repair infected areas of the gut. Scientists took human stem cells similar to the mice stem cells and are setting up another experiment to see whether the same method works for humans. Let's stay hopeful. My question to you is this: Do you think treatment could really have been this easy all along? Why hasn't this been done before now?

The Research paper can be found here.

Ancient DNA Repairs Itself

Markus Dieser

Brent Cristner

Science uses DNA as a means of identifying, learning about, and dealing with organisms. This makes DNA very important, and therefore crucial in the understanding of evolutionary development over long periods of time. But how does DNA actually stay intact for such long periods? The answer is simple: DNA repair mechanisms. Before I get in to what that means, let me talk about how this answer came to be realized. An LSU professor by the name of Brent Christner, along with his postdoctoral research associate Markus Dieser had already been working with bacteria within ice. They knew that DNA gradually decays, but that somehow they could take virtually perfect DNA from a sample of ~750,000 year old bacteria that was trapped in low layers of ice. Could the DNA be repairing itself, even within such molecule-slowing conditions? By exposing samples of specimens in Siberian permafrost to ionizing radiation (the dosage of which was felt ~250,000 years ago, about the time this permafrost layer was formed) to break up the DNA into small, unidentifiable pieces. These fragments were stored for two years in incubation. Over these two years, the DNA gradually put itself together. My question to you is this: How could this information be helpful to science in the long run?

For more information, here is a link to the research: http://aem.asm.org/content/early/2013/09/23/AEM.02845-13

Lake of Stone

Remember the fable of Medusa? Once you saw her face, your body turned to stone.

Don't look directly at her

An obvious fiction, I mean how can someone just turn into stone?

I told you not to look at her

The answer: calcification. Are you in danger of it? Most likely you're not, unless you live in Lake Natron. However, calcification does not happen overnight, as some stories say. Nick Brandt, a photographer of zoological themes, recently took grim-looking photos of calcified birds he had found washed up on the shores of Lake Natron. His photos depict birds posed perching on sticks, and floating on the sodium-salted waters. Though Brandt knows that the lake is not completely barren, and that just touching the liquid will not immediately cause your body to turn to stone, his pictures seem to suggest the worst. Why birds (and bats)  and not other forms of life you may ask. Well, Brandt suggests these flying creatures flew too close to the lake and fell into the water, unable to get back out. The cause of calcification in the lake is due to the high alkalinity of the water (around a pH of 10), and the high sodium salt content. However, flamingos are prevalent in these parts, along with two species of extremophilic bacteria. My question to you is this: What evolutionary trait could these flamingos possibly have that keeps them from calcifying?