Nature – European researchers have identified a gene that is linked to improved memory, but also to increased risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Dominique de Quervain of the University of Basel in Switzerland and his colleagues recruited around 700 healthy young volunteers, obtaining DNA samples from them to analyse the sequence of their PRKCA gene. This gene is one of many known to be involved in the formation of emotional memories, and encodes an enzyme called protein kinase C-?. The researchers then showed the participants a series of emotionally affecting photographs and shortly afterwards asked them to write down short descriptions of the images. Read article
Nature – Not long ago, the story was simple. A vanguard of modern humans left their African birthplace 50,000–60,000 years ago and quickly conquered Asia. They turned left into Europe some 40,000 years ago, later crossing the Bering Strait and marching southward into the Americas. With their advance, Neanderthals and other earlier peoples dwindled and vanished. But in the past five years, the picture has grown more complex — and more interesting. Read article
Deutsche Welle – Researches in the UK and Japan have turned to nature (read, magnetic bacteria) to help produce electronics on a nano scale. They say the bacteria could help us make better hard drives and faster internet connections. Researchers at Britain’s University of Leeds and Japan’s Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology have used a type of bacterium that “eats” iron to create tiny magnets inside themselves, similar to those found in traditional hard drives. Read article
Reuters – Austrian biotech group Intercell has signed a financing deal with Switzerland’s BB Biotech and is in talks with other investors about a private stock placement that could total 20 million euros, it said. The investment, through a wholly owned subsidiary of BB Biotech AG, consists of a 20 million euro ($26.1 million) secured loan and a commitment to invest 5 million euros as part of a proposed private share placement, Intercell said. Read Article
New Scientist – Science can’t yet tell us whether they have more fun – but it has uncovered a new genetic change that makes people blonde. And contrary to long held belief, it seems golden hair hasn’t simply been introduced across the globe by travelling tow heads, but instead evolved separately in different human populations. Read article
We are now well into the era of biotechnology. It is an era in which scientists have made significant advances in discovering the structures and functions of genes and in manipulating them for a wide variety of purposes. Read about many of these discoveries and their ramifications in our Genes and Biotech news archive of 659 articles on the topicCLICK HERE
ScienceDaily — Forced body cooling known as therapeutic hypothermia has reduced in-hospital deaths among sudden cardiac arrest patients nearly 12 percent between 2001 and 2009, according to a Mayo Clinic study being presented at the upcoming American Academy of Neurology 2012 Annual Meeting in New Orleans. Read article
Digital Journal – Notorious agricultural giant Monsanto has teamed up with the Nepalese government to force GMO seeds on to the country’s farmers. Protests in Kathmandu ensued.
In later news, it has been advised that the Nepal’s Ministry of Agriculture has made NO formal agreement. In response to the deal proposed by USAID and public protests and debates on the issue, Hari Dahal the spokesperson of Ministry of Agriculture of Nepal has mentioned that the deal has not been signed and will not be signed by Nepal Government. (updated)Read article
Related article: The perfect drug? Monsanto hooks Nepal on GMO corn
CT – Grain growers are sowing what could be another record canola crop, with southern NSW set to cash in on excellent subsoil moisture. But the industry’s eyes are turning to a landmark court case in Western Australia where an organic farmer has lodged a writ in the Supreme Court for damages from a neighbour’s genetically modified crop. Read article
The Scientist – “It’s a mythological beast of a virus, but it actually exists,” virologist Ken Stedman told Nature of the virus hybrid his team discovered in a volcanic hot spring. Stedman’s team from Portland State University sequenced the DNA genome of the virus, and found that contained sequences encoding proteins from an RNA virus, according to their report published yesterday (April 19) in Biology Direct. Read article
Useful terms: virus, retrovirus.
BBC – Researchers have succeeded in mimicking the chemistry of life in synthetic versions of DNA and RNA molecules. The work shows that DNA and its chemical cousin RNA are not unique in their ability to encode information and to pass it on through heredity. The work, reported in Science, is promising for future “synthetic biology” and biotechnology efforts. It also hints at the idea that if life exists elsewhere, it could be bound by evolution but not by similar chemistry. Read article
A macroepigenetic approach to identify factors responsible for the autism epidemic in the United States
Clinical Epigenetics 2012, 4:6 doi:10.1186/1868-7083-4-6
Published: 10 April 2012
Authors: Renee Dufault, Walter J Lukiw, Raquel Crider, Roseanne Schnoll, David Wallinga and Richard Deth
Abstract:
The number of children ages 6 to 21 in the United States receiving special education services under the autism disability category increased 91 % between 2005 to 2010 while the number of children receiving special education services overall declined by 5 %. The demand for special education services continues to rise in disability categories associated with pervasive developmental disorders. Neurodevelopment can be adversely impacted when gene expression is altered by dietary transcription factors, such as zinc insufficiency or deficiency, or by exposure to toxic substances found in our environment, such as mercury or organophosphate pesticides. Read article
Reuters – A coalition of more than 2,000 U.S. farmers and food companies said Wednesday it is taking legal action to force government regulators to analyze potential problems with proposed biotech crops and the weed-killing chemicals to be sprayed over them. Dow AgroSciences, a unit of Dow Chemical, and Monsanto Co. are among several global chemical and seed companies racing to roll out combinations of genetically altered crops and new herbicides designed to work with the crops as a way to counter rapidly spreading herbicide-resistant weeds that are choking millions of acres of U.S. farmland. Read article
RT – The Nepalese government has teamed up with notorious agricultural giant Monsanto to force farmers use its GMO seeds. The strain, banned in several EU countries, will be used to substitute imports and boost the starving nation’s maize production. Corn is one of Nepal’s biggest crops but the country produces only about half of what it needs for its feed industry, and imports some 130,000 tons annually to cover the deficit. Still, over 40 per cent of the Nepalese population is malnourished. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is lending the starving country a helping hand. More specifically the hand of Monsanto, an agricultural goliath which reaps as much controversy as it does seed. Read article
UPI – Scientists say a prostate cancer treatment developed by a Danish company uses viruses with human DNA to stimulate the immune system to target cancer cells. Bavarian-Nordic Immunotherapeutics of Kvistgaard said the treatment leaves healthy cells unaffected. Read article
The East African – Uganda expects to take its first genetically modified crop to the market in 2014 when a regulatory framework to guide production will have been enacted, say scientists at the National Agriculture Research Organisation NARO. Yona Baguma, a senior research officer at NARO says ongoing trials on bananas, cassava, maize, cotton and potatoes are promising and once licensed GM crops have the potential to give Ugandans food security while widening the export base. Read article
Hindustani Times – India’s biotechnology regulator will be apprising the state governments on the benefits of Genetically Modified (GM) food crops as country’s biotechnology industry is hitting a roadblock because of many states saying no to GM crops. The latest in the list is Congress-ruled Rajasthan which has refused to allow field trials of GM crops. “No trials of GM crops should be conducted in the State until final decision in this matter is taken,” said an order issued by state government. “The government, after considering different aspects of it, has taken a view to wait until a national consensus is evolved.” Read article
Digital Journal – Vermont, U.S.A. wants to regulate labeling of foods which contain GMO products, but Monsanto has threatened to sue the entire state if they do so. Includes an informative video on the tactics of Monsanto. Digital Journal recently reported on the “Label it Yourself” campaign, launched by critics of Monsanto’s genetically modified food. The activists say that foods should be labeled to warn buyers of the possible health-damaging qualities of this food. Read article
Digital Journal – Monsanto is once again in the news. This time they and other corporations are being sued for allegedly “knowingly poisoning farmers” in Argentina. Farmers from Argentina allege agri-giant Monsanto, together with Philip Morris and other U.S. tobacco companies, asked them to use chemicals on their crops. Said chemicals have allegedly caused “devastating birth defects.” Read article
Australian Popular Science – The first human eggs grown from human stem cells could be fertilised with human sperm cells later this year, potentially revolutionising fertility treatment for women. This could be one more step on the path toward reproduction sans human interaction – in this case, a potential parent wouldn’t even need to donate her eggs. But it could also turn stem cells into an infinite loop, of egg cells into embryos into stem cells, and on and on, in a fractal-like repetition of reproduction. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital were able to coax…ovarian stem cells into becoming immature human egg cells… Now these same scientists, working with a team at Edinburgh University, want to fertilise them. Read article
Courthouse News – Monsanto, Philip Morris and other U.S. tobacco giants knowingly poisoned Argentinean tobacco farmers with pesticides, causing “devastating birth defects” in their children, dozens of workers claim in court. The farmers, on their own behalf and for their injured children, sued Altria Group fka Philip Morris Cos., Philip Morris USA, Carolina Leaf Tobacco, Universal Corporation fka Universal Leaf Tobacco Company, Monsanto, and their affiliates and Argentine subsidiaries, in New Castle County Court. Read article
ScienceDaily — The ranking of a monkey within her social environment and the stress accompanying that status dramatically alters the expression of nearly 1,000 genes, a new scientific study reports. The research is the first to demonstrate a link between social status and genetic regulation in primates on a genome-wide scale, revealing a strong, plastic link between social environment and biology. Read article
Reuters – BASF said on Thursday it will undertake trial cultivation of potatoes containing genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) this year on less than one hectare on sites in Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands. The German chemicals group said in January it will transfer its main research into GMOs crops from Germany to the United States because of continued resistance to the crops in Europe. Read article
Bloomberg – Monsanto Co. (MON), the world’s largest seed company, raised its full-year earnings forecast and reported second-quarter profit that exceeded analysts’ estimates as an early U.S. spring boosted corn plantings. Net income rose 19 percent to a $1.21 billion, or $2.24 a share, in the three months through February, from $1.02 billion, or $1.88, a year earlier, St. Louis-based Monsanto said today in a statement. Earnings excluding legal costs were a record $2.28, topping the $2.12 average of 17 analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Read Article
NineMSN – A West Australian organic farmer whose crops were contaminated by genetically modified (GM) canola has lodged a writ in the Supreme Court seeking damages for his loss of income. In what could be a landmark case, farmer Stephen Marsh from Kojonup, in the state’s southwest, is taking his neighbour to court after 70 per cent of his farm was stripped of its organic certification in 2010. Read article
