Researchers have found the first drug to treat progeria, an extremely rare genetic disease that causes children to age so rapidly that many die in their teens. The drug, called lonafarnib, is not a cure. But in a study of 28 children lead by Dr. Leslie B. Gordon it reversed changes in blood vessels that usually lead to heart attacks…
After years of studying how cats get their color, researchers have pinpointed an elusive gene underlying spots on cheetahs, stripes in house cats and patterns across the feline world. Called Taqpep, it and two other genes produce proteins central to a cascade of cell-level events that ultimately generate your kitty’s distinctive coat. “It’s something we’ve been curious about for a long…
A study published this week in the well-respected journal Food and Chemical Toxicology has sparked a lot of controversy. In the study, titled “Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize” Dr. Gilles-Eric Séralini and colleagues basically concludes that rats fed a diet of genetically modified corn and small amounts of herbicides got sicker faster…
“The eminent evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould once said: “Our planet has always been in the Age of Bacteria.” But scientists’ rapidly accelerating ability to harness microbes and turn them into what the field of synthetic biology calls “platforms for industrial production” is entirely without precedent. We are witnessing a revolution in the biological sciences of a speed and scale…
Psychologist Dr Ilan Dar-Nimrod from the University of Sydney talks about genetic determinism which he argues is encouraged by media reports that imply a greater risk from disease-related genes than there actually is. “We have about 1600 genetic tests available now,” says Dar-Nimrod. “We should have better knowledge about how to communicate these results in a manner that doesn’t create…
The 26th annual SLSA meeting, titled “Nonhuman”, will take place in Milwaukee, Wisconsin from Sept 27-30, 2012. From its inception, SLSA has distinguished itself from other humanistic scholarly societies through its sustained interest in the nonhuman. Not only does SLSA concern itself with nonhuman actants like tools, bodies, networks, animals, climate, media, or biomes but it is also engaged with such nonhumanistic…