REBLOG! Dr Philip Ball Calls on Scientists to Admit Lack of DNA Evolution Knowledge

REBLOG! via Anna Salleh for Science Online: The simple story we are told about genes being the blueprint of life is “misleading and distorted”, according to a leading science writer. Sixty years ago today, Francis Crick and James Watson published details of the double helix molecular structure of DNA in Nature.

But science writer Dr Philip Ball, who has written a commentary in this week’s Nature, argues the DNA narrative has been oversimplified. Dr Ball is calling for scientists to admit they do not know how evolution works at the molecular level.

“While specialists debate what the latest [genomics] findings mean, the rhetoric of popular discussions of DNA, genomics and evolution remains largely unchanged, and the public continues to be fed assurances that DNA is as solipsistic a blueprint as ever,” Dr Ball wrote in the journal. ”The usual tidy tale of how ‘DNA makes RNA makes protein’ is sanitised to the point of distortion.”

His commentary has raised the hackles of some Australian experts, who defend what has become known as the central dogma of molecular biology. Some years after the landmark paper, Crick articulated the basic idea that “DNA makes RNA, which makes protein”, which ultimately produces an organism’s “observable traits”. But Dr Ball said this narrative is oversimplified :: Read Anna Salleh’s Full Post at ABC News »»»» 

Britain’s Halley VI Antarctic Research Station Opens

REBLOG! Just over a 100 years after Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s Antarctic expedition came to a tragic end, Britain’s latest and greatest Antarctic Research Station has opened. The facility will become fully operational over the coming weeks.

The new research station replaces the 20-year old Halley V, and is the 6th incarnation to occupy the floating Brunt Ice Shelf. The region has been occupied by British science stations since a Royal Society expedition in 1957.

The $US40 million facility was designed by Hugh Broughton Architects and engineering firm AECOM, and represents a continued commitment from the UK’s scientific community to maintain a cutting-edge facility in the region :: Read the full post at Gizmag »»»»

REBLOG! Aussie Scientists Unlock Nature’s Hydrogen Secrets

Two Canberra scientists believe they have made a major breakthrough in how to best produce hydrogen which can be used as a clean and renewable energy source. Professors Rob Stranger and Ron Pace from the Research School of Chemistry at the Australian National University have used computer modelling to reveal the molecular structure of the photosynthesis reaction site in plants.

Professor Pace says the discovery takes a leaf out of nature’s handbook, for the first time identifying the specific water molecules in a plant’s photosystem that are converted into oxygen.

“Nature very early on in the evolutionary process on Earth figured out how to do this particular piece of chemistry with close to 100 per cent efficiency,” Professor Pace said.

Professor Stranger says the work offers clues as to how scientists can create alternative fuel.

“The part of the plant’s photosystem that is important to this process is called the oxygen-evolving-complex (OEC),” Professor Stranger told ABC.net.au.

“If we can steal nature’s secrets and understand how the OEC performs its chemistry, then we can learn to make hydrogen much more efficiently, and hydrogen is the fuel for a totally renewable fuel future.” Read Ewan Gilbert’s full article at abc.net.au »»»»

El Nino Tipped to Form in Spring

ABC.net.au‘s Will Ockenden has a superlative piece on the guessing game that is The Australian Weather. 

Australia looks set to experience the same weather conditions this year that were responsible for the nation’s last devastating drought in the summer of 2009.

The weather bureau say all of its models are pointing to an El Nino weather system forming in October.

Typically, El Nino weather events mean drier conditions across Australia, and despite the plentiful rain along the east coast over the past week, there are still large areas of the country that still have below-average rainfall.

Earlier this year, Australia had been experiencing the La Nina climate pattern, leading to wetter weather.

El Nino occurs when the central and eastern Pacific warms up, causing major shifts in weather patterns :: Read Ockenden’s full article at abc.net.au  »»»»

New Australian Study Questions Pesticide Safety Levels

Anna Salleh from abc.net.au has a superlative piece on the effects of pesticides on the environment. As suspected for many years the pesticide run off from farms may be having a negative affect on the ecology of Australia’s river system. The new report says that pesticides could be damaging river biodiversity at levels that have been traditionally regarded as environmentally safe by authorities, suggests a new study.

Ecotoxciologist Dr Ben Kefford, of University of Technology, Sydney, and colleagues, report their findings online in Environmental Science & Technology.

“Pesticides are having an effect at 10 to 100 times lower concentrations than traditionally thought,”Dr Kefford said.

Kefford goes on to say that when authorities try to protect our streams and rivers from pesticides they rely on thresholds, under which it is assumed pesticides have no effect. For example, the European Union recommends the use of a commonly-used safety factor of 100.

This means if a negative effect on an aquatic organism is only seen at a particular concentration of pesticide, then a safe level of that pesticide is regarded as being one hundredth of this concentration :: Read Anna Salleh’s full article at abc.net.au»»»»

Blogging, it’s personal

Blogging does so much more than simply create leads or generate sales. Blogging creates communities, reinforces branding, but most importantly, blogging instils trust…

Business blogging is an effective tool, an integral cog in your online strategy for generating traffic, leads, sales and brand recognition. Combined with other optimised social media, blogging speaks directly to your customers and prospects without editorial filters.

Blogs are the cornerstone of social media – meaning they are the perfect hub for social media campaigns. Problem is, blogs take a lot of time to write, edit and promote.

That’s where we come in: you provide the inspiration, and we provide the perspiration, from as little as $75 per post, why aren’t you blogging? :: Read the full article »»»»

Sponsored Infograph: Your Brain on Sex

When we talk about lust and desire, the brain isn’t instantly the first organ that comes to mind! The brain however has been called our largest sexual organ, and for good reason. Thanks to it’s pleasure centre the brain tells us when an experience is enjoyable, that’s not all though. Take a look at the many ways the brain impacts on one of the most fundamental feelings humans produce – infograph below – One study revealed that it takes quarter of a second to decide whether or not a person looked desirable.

Discovery Magazine The first imaging studies of sex in the brain have appeared only in the past few years. Serge Stoléru, a neuroscientist at Pierre and Marie Curie University in France, published one on sexual desire in 2003. He and his colleagues showed a series of pictures and films - some erotic, some ordinary – to 15 men. To record the activity in the subjects’ brains, the scientists used PET scans: They injected radioactive tracers into the volunteers and then tracked how the tracers moved in the brain. The radioactive signal accumulated in areas where neurons became active, as their energy was replenished by the surrounding blood vessels.

From this study, researchers revealed that eight of the men were ordinary, sexually speaking. The other seven suffered from hypoactive sexual desire disorder. People with this condition rarely experience sexual desires or fantasies. Stoléru and his colleagues found clear-cut differences between the two groups. In particular, a patch of neurons near the front of the brain—a region called the medial orbitofrontal cortex—was active in the desire-impaired men but quiet in the normal ones. Among its jobs, the medial orbitofrontal cortex keeps our emotions from getting out of control. Perhaps men with hypoactive sexual desire disorder couldn’t feel desire because their brains were keeping their emotions bottled up :: Read the full article »»»»