Science News
During our weekly lab meetings we share science news that piqued our interest over the last week. Here, for your edification and enjoyment, is
Science News of the Week!
January 19, 2017
- Stephanie: Communication between viruses guides lysis–lysogeny decisions. Nature article.
January 12, 2017
- Sila: Scientists have figured out how to make wounds heal without scars. A ScienceAlert article referencing an article that appeared in Science,
Regeneration of fat cells from myofibroblasts during wound healing.
May 19, 2016
- Feng: Regulated selection of germinal-center cells into the memory B cell compartment.
Shinnakasu et al. Nature Immunology (2016). doi:10.1038/ni.3460 - Katherine: Zika virus impairs growth in human neurospheres and brain organoids
Garcez et al., 10 Apr 2016, DOI: 10.1126/science.aaf6116.
May 5, 2016
- Kate: It turns out there’s an actual bullshit meter:
“Misperceiving Bullshit as Profound Is Associated with Favorable Views of Cruz, Rubio, Trump and Conservatism”. Stefan Pftattheicher and Simon Schindler, PLOS ONE April 29, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0153419 - Stephanie: Preventing Food Allergy in Infancy — Early Consumption or Avoidance?. An editorial by Gary W.K. Wong, M.D. (N Engl J Med 2016; 374:1783-1784. May 5, 2016. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMe160141) on Randomized Trial of Introduction of Allergenic Foods in Breast-Fed Infants. Michael R. Perking et al., N Engl J Med 2016; 374:1733-1743 May 5, 2016. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1514210
- Katherine: Who’s downloading pirated papers? Everyone John Bohannon, News from Science, Apr. 28, 2016.
April 28, 2016
- Grace: 1 Minute of All-Out Exercise May Have Benefits of 45 Minutes of Moderate Exertion. Gretchen Reynolds, New York Times, reporting on
Twelve Weeks of Sprint Interval Training Improves Indices of Cardiometabolic Health Similar to Traditional Endurance Training despite a Five-Fold Lower Exercise Volume and Time Commitment. Gillen et al, t. PLoS ONE 11(4): e0154075. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0154075 - Stephanie: AstraZeneca launches project to sequence 2 million genomes.
Heidi Ledford, Nature News, Apr 22, 2016. - Katherine: Polio vaccine’s big switch. News at a glance, Science 22 Apr 2016: Vol. 352, Issue 6284, pp. 388-390. DOI: 10.1126/science.352.6284.388 (select Full Text View).
The 3.8 Å resolution cryo-EM structure of Zika virus. Sirohi et al, Science 22 Apr 2016: Vol. 352, Issue 6284, pp. 467-470. DOI: 10.1126/science.aaf5316
April 21, 2016
- Sila: Belize cave was Maya child sacrifice site.
Reported by Bruce Bower, ScienceNews. APRIL 19, 2016. - Katherine: Gene-edited CRISPR mushroom escapes US regulation.
Reported by Emily Waltz, Nature 532, 293 (21 April 2016) doi:10.1038/nature.2016.19754.
Improved route to single-base genome editing.
Reported by Stu Borman, Chemical Engineering News, Volume 94 Issue 17. - Grace: A Math Biopic, With Dev Patel, Applies a Different Calculus.
Katherine Shattuck, New York Times, April 20, 2016.
April 14, 2016
- Stephanie: Restoring cortical control of functional movement in a human with quadriplegia. Bouton et al., Nature (2016) doi:10.1038/nature17435.
The Association Between Income and Life Expectancy in the United States, 2001-2014.
Chetty et al., JAMA. Published online April 10, 2016. doi:10.1001/jama.2016.4226.
Analysis of nearly 600,000 genomes for resilience project.
The Mount Sinai Hospital / Mount Sinai School of Medicine. “Analysis of nearly 600,000 genomes for resilience project.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 11 April 2016. - Kate: Wisconsin 2016 Elizabethkingia anophelis outbreak.
Wisconsin Department of Health Services. - Katherine: Humans best computers in atom-snatching game.
Adrian Cho, Science – News, DOI: 10.1126/science.aaf4119. - Grace: The neural roots of mathematical expertise.
Daniel Ansari, PNAS, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1604758113.
Origins of the brain networks for advanced mathematics in expert mathematicians.
Marie Amalric and Stanislas Dehaene, PNAS April 11, 2016, doi:10.1073/pnas.1603205113
April 7, 2016
- Grace: Cornell study finds some people may be genetically programmed to be vegetarians. Ariana Eunjung Cha reporting on Kothpalli et al. Positive selection on a regulatory insertion-deletion polymorphism in FADS2 influences apparent endogenous synthesis of arachidonic acid. Molecular Biology and Evolution (2016) doi: 10.1093/molbev/msw049.
March 24, 2016
- Stephanie: The cellular composition of the human immune system is shaped by age and cohabitation. Edward J. Carr, et al., Nature Immunology 17, 461–468 (2016) doi:10.1038/ni.3371.
- Sila: Simple test might predict who gets world’s deadliest infectious disease. Kai Kupferschmidt, Science News, Mar. 23, 2016.
- Katherine: Fermat’s last theorem earns Andrew Wiles the Abel Prize. Davide Castelvecchi, Nature News, 15 March 2016.
- Tom: Mathematicians Discover Prime Conspiracy. Erica Klarreich, Quanta Magazine, March 13, 2016.
- Akshaya: Early short-term treatment with neutralizing human monoclonal antibodies halts SHIV infection in infant macaques. Ann J. Hessell, et al., Nature Medicine (2016) doi:10.1038/nm.4063.
March 17, 2016
- Akshaya: The live attenuated dengue vaccine TV003 elicits complete protection against dengue in a human challenge model. Beth D. Kirkpatrick, et al., Science Translational Medicine 16 Mar 2016: Vol. 8, Issue 330, pp. 330ra36 DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aaf1517.
- Kate: Moving beyond metagenomics to find the next pandemic virus. Vincent Racaniello.
- SARS-like WIV1-CoV poised for human emergence. Vineet D. Menachery, et al., PNAS vol. 113 no. 11, 3048–3053, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1517719113.
March 10, 2016
- Stephanie: Corruption corrupts
Simon Gächter, Jonathan F. Schulz, Intrinsic honesty and the prevalence of rule violations across societies. Nature (2016) doi:10.1038/nature17307 - Stephanie: Forensic DNA evidence is not infallible
Cynthia M. Cale, Nature News. Oct 28, 2015. - Sila: Hair forensics could soon reveal what you look like, where you’ve been
Hanae Armitage, Nala Rogers. Science. Mar. 8, 2016 - Katherine: How your microbiome can put you at the scene of the crime
Kai Kupferschmidt, Science. Mar. 8, 2016. - Katherine: Statisticians issue warning over misuse of P values
Monya Baker. Science. 07 March 2016. - Kate: Congenital Zika Syndrome
Virology Blog. March 8, 2016.
March 3, 2016
- Tom: Viral Immune System
Some viruses have their own immune systems and it works kind of like CRISPER. Popular Science. February 29, 2016.
February 25, 2016
- Sila: The selfish gene
THE ‘SELFISH’ R2D2 GENE TOTALLY DISSES DARWIN. Futurity. February 24, 2016. Also see the paper here. - Kate:Ocean hum
Mysterious Ocean Buzz Traced To Daily Fish Migration. NPR. February 22, 2016. - Grace:Her parents must be proud – a patent judge and a PhD in cell biology!
A billion-dollar patent fight over gene editing hits the courts.STAT. February 25, 2016.
January 28, 2016
- Katherine: Computer to humans: “Go take a hike”
Adrian Cho, ‘Huge leap forward’: Computer that mimics human brain beats professional at game of Go. Science, Jan. 27, 2016. DOI: 10.1126/science.aae0281. - Stephanie: Viruses go viral
Zika virus and a new outbreak of Ebola in ‘The week in science’. Nature 529, 260–261 (21 January 2016). doi:10.1038/529260a. For more details, see articles in Science and the NY Times. - Tom: Schizophrenia risk breakthrough
Schizophrenia risk from complex variation of complement component 4. Nature. Jan 27, 2016.
DOI: 10.1038/nature16549. - Grace: old news = 257,885,161-1
Kenneth Chang, “New Biggest Prime Number = 2 to the 74 Mil … Uh, It’s Big”, The New York Times, Jan. 21, 2016.
January 21, 2016
- Kate: Planet Nine from Outer Space
EVIDENCE FOR A DISTANT GIANT PLANET IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM. The Astronomical Journal, 151:22 (12pp), 2016 February. DOI:10.3847/0004-6256/151/2/22. - Grace: Things haven’t changed much in 10,000 years.
Prehistoric Massacre Hints at War Among Hunter-Gatherers. James Gormanjan. NY Times January 20, 2016. Reporting on the research article: Inter-group violence among early Holocene hunter-gatherers of West Turkana, Kenya. Nature 529, 394–398 (21 January 2016) doi:10.1038/nature16477. - Katherine: Science funding boosted in 2016 spending bill
Jeffrey Mervis, Budget agreement boosts U.S. science. Science, Dec. 18, 2015 DOI: 10.1126/science.aae0133.
December 3, 2015
- Kate: Resistance gene to important antibiotic transferred between E. coli and other bacteria in Chinese human and pig populations
Emergence of plasmid-mediated colistin resistance mechanism MCR-1 in animals and human beings in China: a microbiological and molecular biological study. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(15)00424-7.
November 19, 2015
- Stephanie: A promising treatment for chronic hepatitis C virus
Sofosbuvir and Velpatasvir for HCV Genotype 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6 Infection. New England Journal of Medicine (November 16, 2015) DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1512610 - Sila: Singing the praise of bioengineered vocal cords
Scientists grow working vocal cord tissue in the lab. Science (18 November 2015) DOI:10.1126/science.aad7454 - Feng:Quantum and Tom: Entanglement
Quantum weirdness proved real in first loophole-free experiment. Daily news (28 August 2015)
Lawrence M. Krauss, Tangled Up in Entanglement. The New Yorker (31 October 2015) - Katherine: Exoplanet birth
Stanford astronomers observe the birth of an alien planet. Stanford Report, November 18, 2015
November 12, 2015
- Stephanie: A potential SARS-like virus in Chinese horseshoe bat populations
A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence. Nature Medicine (2015) doi:10.1038/nm.3985 - Lauren: Hawaiian dengue outbreak
Hawaii Confronts Dengue Outbreak as 33 Are Infected. New York Times (11 November 2015)