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Month: December 2012

“We’re not backing down,” says Pamm Larry, who led the charge to get Prop 37 on the ballot

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One of the pro-37 campaigners [was] none other than Pamm Larry, the now internationally known grandmother from Chico who initiated and led the successful grassroots charge to get Prop. 37 on the ballot.

“Even though it appears that we may have lost at the polls, the fact that they [Monsanto, etc.] spent so much money and were so devious and unethical in their tactics, and that the margin was so small, says a lot to me,” Larry said during a recent interview.

“I believe, at the end of the day, truth always prevails, and we’re not going to be quiet about this. We’re not backing down. We’re not going away,” said Larry.

View the original article here: Taking it nationwide: Failed Proposition 37 grows food movement beyond California’s borders

UK, Kenya, China: doing the GMO two-step

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Gotta love the candor of UK Environment Secretary Owen Paterson, who reportedly called consumer opposition to genetically modified (GM) food technology “complete nonsense,” and didn’tstop there, according to this Telegraph article:

Any move to allow the use of GM crops could be highly controversial, but Mr Paterson dismissed critics of the technology as “humbugs” and said that the case for GM food now needed to be made “emphatically”.

 The article notes with some understatement that Paterson’s comments are “likely to alarm” those who oppose GM foods. Such alarm has found a foothold in a recent study reporting tumors in rats fed GM foods, although scientists around the world have found multiple issues with that study. In spite of its shaky scientific standing, however, the report by Seralini et al. appears to have triggered at least one governmental move to a GM ban, in Kenya.

 

View the original article here: UK, Kenya, China Doing The GMO Two-Step

Genomic epidemiology: Tracking superbugs to their source

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As concern grows over an increasing risk of deadly antibiotic-resistant bacteria, a budding field of microbial research, ‘genomic epidemiology’, may also be delivering a solution.

The advantage of [whole genome sequencing], in comparison to pre-existing standard operating procedures used in clinical service laboratories, is that genome analysis can be used to compare microorganisms down to the last nucleotide. In our own work in New South Wales, Australia, with the human pathogenStreptococcus pyogenes, closely related isolates may vary by only 50 or 60 nucleotides across a 2 million nucleotide bacterial genome. Thus, genomic technology can determine whether a patient has been infected with a different bug that is nonetheless closely related (i.e. 50-60 nucleotide differences) versus the identical bug (0 nucleotide differences). These small differences have large consequences. If multiple patients are infected with the identical bug, it suggests a breakdown in clinical practice. This can be addressed to prevent further transmission by sterilisation of surfaces, treatment of patients, treatment of patient contacts, and treatment of potential carriers of the infection. It has not previously been possible to figure out whether patients had been infected with the same bug due to a breakdown in patient management practices, or alternatively closely related bugs, that happen to cause otherwise unrelated infections.

View the original article here: Tracking superbugs to their source

Cells from human urine used to make stem cells

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Biologists in China have published a study detailing how they transformed common cells found in human urine into neural stem cells that can be used to create neurons and glial brain cells. The find holds huge potential for the rapid testing and development of new treatments for neurodegenerative disorders.

View the original article here: Cells Harvested From Human Urine Used to Make Stem Cells

Why aren’t we arguing over stem cells anymore?

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I’m sure if I did a deep enough Google search, I’d  find some reference to stem cells coming up during the recent campaign, but I honestly can’t recall any candidate raising the issue. The blogs were silent. A campaign in which every conceivable social edge issue was deployed observed almost complete radio silence on the issue that just a few years ago riled the political world.

And it has been that science that effectively ended the political debate over stem cells. In other words, the moral objections were not “antiscience” at all. To the contrary, they may the be the spur that has lead to recent breakthroughs.

This was, of course, the argument all along: the promise of stem cells was not restricted to embryonic stem cells. Alternative therapies using adult stem cells could obviate the need to destroy embryos, while still advancing the cause of science.

View the original article here: Why We’re Not Arguing About Stem Cells Anymore

“RIPE” project to increase crops’ photosynthetic efficiency

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The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has received a five–year, $25-million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to improve the photosynthetic properties of key food crops, including rice and cassava. The project, titled “RIPE – Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency,” has the potential to benefit farmers around the world by increasing productivity of staple food crops. Illinois research will take place at the Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB), a state-of-the-art facility whose large shared laboratories accommodate multiple groups and encourage cross-discipline interaction.

View the original article here: Scientists to increase major crops’ photosynthetic efficiency for improved yield

Researchers eager to create parentless embryos with stem cells

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An international fertility conference early next year will teach participants how to create embryos with stem cells. The organisers for the International Conference on Preservation of Fertility in Cancer Patient 2013, to be held in Hong Kong in February, are making astonishing claims. The conference “will teach the neo-creation of sperm and eggs from skin cells using the new techniques of IPS cell culture and gamete differentiation recently perfected in mice in Japan,” they told potential participants. “This will be the future for the most difficult infertility cases, actually making sperm and eggs from somatic cells.  In mice, normal litters have been born with this approach.”

View the original article here: Researchers eager to create parentless embryos with stem cells

We don’t know why Ethiopians breathe easy

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Most people are aware that altitude imposes constraints on individual performance and function. Much of this is flexible; athletes who train at high altitudes may gain a performance edge. But over the long term there are costs, just as there are with computers which are ‘overclocked.’ This is the point where you make the transition from physiology to evolution. Residence at high altitude entails strong selective pressures on populations. Over the past few years there has been a great deal of exploration of the genetics of long resident high altitude groups, the Tibetans,Peruvians, and Ethiopians.

Why is high altitude adaptation of interest? First, it’s clear and distinct. Coding the two phenotypes is not that difficult. Second, the adaptive value is clear. Though people can survive at high altitudes, most do not flourish. And third, you have several distinct populations which are phylogenetically diverse. In other words, you can test evolution across multiple lineages, and see if the phenotypic and genetic features resemble each other, or differ. To some extent we know the answer: though there are overlaps, altitude adaptations differ both in their physiological presentation, and in their genetic architecture. Because it is such a powerful force, the shape of adaptation to high altitudes gives us a better sense of the arc of evolution across diverse populations and times.

View the original article here: We don’t know why Ethiopians breathe easy

Canada: Food security and GM food regulation growing issues

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Over the last decade, the desire to grow food at home and in community gardens has grown rapidly, pushed along by people of all ages who feel that our food supply is in jeopardy.

In essence, the status quo just won’t grow so people have taken matters into their own hands and gardens. I have to be careful talking about our food supply because the giant multinational corporations that control genetically modified or genetically engineered food production would sue me into poverty and shame for stating my opinion.

View the original article here: Food security a growing issue

Arctic GMO apple: Is it getting closer?

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Is the GMO apple getting closer to reality? I talked to one source this week who believes the USDA decision on the GMO non browning Arctic apple could be mere weeks away.

If the USDA renders a positive judgment on the Arctic apple, as many expect, it remains to be seen if there will be legal challenges soon thereafter. Whatever the case, Neal Carter and the Arctic apple will merit our attention in the months ahead. He is going it alone in this quest for the GMO apple.

View the original article here: Arctic GMO apple: Is it getting closer 

Homosexuality linked to epigentics

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As long as natural selection has been an accepted scientific theory, homosexuality has been a riddle for scientists. If a person is attracted to people of the same gender, he or she cannot have biological children with their chosen partner. For most of history, before in vitro fertilization, that meant that homosexuality could not be carried out genetically. In addition, because homosexuality makes it more difficult to have biological children, researchers could not understand how it was possible that the trait would survive across genetics. However, scientists believe that they may have cracked the code, and the answer does lie slightly in genetics.

View the original article here: Homosexuality’s Cause Isn’t Genetics, but the Answer Does Lie in the Womb

Honeybee epigenetics may explain why bees are so sensitive to environmental changes

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Scientists from the University of Sheffield, Queen Mary, University of London and the Australian National University, have found that honeybees have a ‘histone code’ — a series of marks on the histone proteins around which their DNA is wrapped in order to fit into the nucleus of a cell. This code is known to exist in humans and other complex organisms in order to control changes in cell development — but this is the first time it’s been discovered in the honeybee.

View the original article here: New Components of Epigenetic ‘Code’ for Honey Bee Development Discovered

Uganda must beware of GM foods

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 The government of Uganda is in final stages of introducing Genetically Modified (GM) crops in the country as a quick fix to the declining food production. The country already invests close to Shs1 billion annually in developing GM crops. GM crops are produced through use of suppressive techniques to artificially transfer genetic material from one organism to another to create a different variant.

In stark contrast, last week, the Kenyan government, after being the fourth African country to allow the importation of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), after South Africa, Egypt and Burkina Faso, halted the importation of GM foods because they were uncertain of their health and environmental effects.

View the original article here: This country must not lose its organic market for GM foods

National Institute of Public Health: ENCODE project biggest research advance of 2012

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1. ENCODE
For sheer scientific shock value this year, nothing beat the prosaically-named ENCyclopedia Of DNA Elements (ENCODE) project. ENCODE, funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute , set out to map the active parts of the human genome where the prevailing belief had been that 2 percent was genes and 98 percent was “junk DNA” or, at best, the dark matter of the genome. In September, 30 papers in Nature, Science, and other journals reported that 80 percent, not 2 percent, of the genome was transcribed with over 20,000 non-coding RNA sequences serving as active biological elements of the genome.24 The biggest finding of the year is also the most humbling: we are still in the earliest stages of understanding the blueprints that make us human.

View the original article here: The Top Ten Research Advances of 2012

Efficacy of tobacco taxes tied to genes

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Tobacco use has declined sharply since the 1960s, but for the past 20 years about 20 percent of the population has continued to smoke. The imposition of steep tobacco taxes in many states has not lowered the smoking rate.

Now an economist has published an unusual study in the December issue of PLoS One that suggests a reason: About half of the population has a variation in a specific gene connected to nicotine addiction that makes them more likely to respond to cigarette tax increases.

View the original article here: Efficacy of Tobacco Taxes Tied to Gene Type

ABC’s Jim Avila launches another fishy food attack

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Dinner at Jim Avila’s house must be a real party – that is, if Avila himself believes his hysterical food scaremongering. The ABC senior national correspondent has launched job-killing attacks against the beef industry and the poultry industry, and now he’s having a go at the fish.

Avila’s latest bogie-food is a new breed of salmon he worries could cause cancer, and he’s going after the company aspiring to market it. But, as usual with Avila’s reporting, something seems fishy

View the original article here: ABC’s Avila Launches Fishy Food Attack

Does whole genome sequencing circumvent gene patents?

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 What happens when, during the course of whole-genome sequencing (WGS) a patient or research subject, an investigator sequences and analyzes a disease gene that has been patented? The U.S. Supreme Court will shed some light on this question next year when it issues its ruling in the long-running Myriad Genetics saga. 

View the original article here: Does Whole Genome Sequencing Circumvent Gene Patents?