Genome Sequencing Diagnostics Have Significant Problems, As New Research Demonstrates

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Genome sequencing diagnostics has some serious limitations to it, as researchers at the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute recently discovered when they came across three children who had some of the rare inherited conditions collectively known as Congenital Disorders of Glycosylation (CDG), but only in some of the cells of their body, not all. The children are ‘mosaics’ — the term used for people who have different genomes in different parts of their body. The press … Read More

NASA’s Mars Rover Opportunity Breaks Record For Off-Planet Driving By A US Made Vehicle

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Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA’s relentless solar-powered Mars rover Opportunity has now set a new record — greatest distance traveled by a US made vehicle on another world. The Opportunity rover was originally scheduled only for a three-month mission that began back in January 2004, but the solar-powered rover has shown itself to be quite tough and long-lasting — greatly outlasting the original mission. The new record set by Opportunity eclipses a record set more than 40 years ago … Read More

Asteroid 1998 QE2 — Asteroid Big Enough To Cause Extinction Event Passes By The Earth On May 31 2013

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Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

An asteroid big enough to cause an extinction event if it were to impact the Earth will pass by us at a distance of about 3.6 million miles on May 31, 2013. That’s about the distance that theEarth is from the Moon, times 15. The asteroid — asteroid 1998 QE2 — isn’t any danger to us anytime in the near-future, but it is an interesting opportunity, giving researchers the chance to observe a 230-foot — … Read More

Medical Breakthrough: ‘Patient-Specific’ Embryonic Stem Cells Achieved By Cloning

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Human cell-line colony being cloned in vitro through use of cloning rings. Own work - photo credit: Bob Walker in 2006

A team of reproductive biologists led by Shoukhrat Mitalipov at the Oregon Health and Science University (Beaverton, OR) have successfully created ‘patient-specific’ embryonic stem cells (ESCs) through cloning. The improved cloning technique used by the team is much more efficient than previous approaches that have achieved only partial successes. The breakthrough will surely reignite ethical debate over the controversial technique that has long-promised cures for diseases such as diabetes and Parkinson’s disease, to name just … Read More

Dolphin Detected Woman’s Cancer?

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Image Credit: Henry A-W, Wiki Commons

A news story about a woman who swam with dolphins and was somehow inspired to visit a doctor who identified a cancer tumor, has speculated a dolphin might have helped. A Panama City Beach, Florida woman went on a dolphin cruise and once in the water with about 15 dolphins something strange happened. One male dolphin stayed near her and even bumped her. Then it did a flip in front of her. She told the … Read More

Insecticides Cause Slow Starvation In Aquatic Organisms, Discovery Shows Limits Of Conventional Toxicity Tests

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Image Credit: EAWAG, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology

A very commonly used insecticide, imidacloprid (a neonicotinoid), has now been found by new research to be extremely toxic to aquatic organisms, often leading to their death. It’s very important to note that the “slow starvation” caused by the insecticide is undetectable by conventional toxicity tests, which are done on a much shorter time frame than the new research was. Which means that many chemicals which are now considered to be “non-toxic”, in various regards, … Read More

97% Of Research Papers Say Global Warming Is Manmade

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Image Credit: Public Domain

A recent study of research papers published from 1991 to 2011 that took a view on human-related climate change found 97% of them were agreement that humans are a factor. The study was published in Environmental Research Letters, Volume 8, Number 2. A large team of researchers made up the study group, which had affiliations with quite a number of organizations, such as the University of Queensland, Australia, the School of Psychology, University of Western … Read More

Long-Predicted Fractal Energy Pattern Observed For First Time By Physicists

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The Hofstadter Butterfly

Forty years ago, a mysterious and beautiful “butterfly-shaped” magnetic energy pattern was theorized by famed physicist and Pulitzer Prize winning writer Douglas Hofstadter. But due to previous limitations in the laboratory technology used to generate strong magnetic fields, this pattern had here-to-fore never materialized. Today, two separate but cross-collaborating research teams — one of which is from the High Magnetic Field Laboratory (MagLab) at Florida State University (Tallahassee, Florida) — reported the first ever observations … Read More

Fish Species Moving North Due To Climate Change

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Image Credit: Public Domain

University of British Columbia scientist William Cheung has documented a gradual shifting of some fish species further north than their typical ranges. Some tropical commercial species are being found by fishing boats in waters near New England. Ocean water in the tropics is becoming too warm due to climate change, so they are seeking cooler places. If tropical waters continue to increase in temperature, habitat for local fish will shrink and they may not be … Read More

Save Polar Bears By Reducing Driving Speeds

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Image Credit: Alan Wilson, Wiki Commons

Sea ice has been in a decline recently, and that is very bad news for polar bears. They conduct much of their lives on sea ice, including locating mates and reproducing. ‘Sea ice extent averaged for the month of April 2013 was 14.37 million square kilometers (5.54 million square miles). This is 630,000 square kilometers (243,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average for the month, and is the seventh-lowest April extent in the … Read More