p style=text-align:leftBy Janelle Weaver/pp style=text-align:left/pp style=text-align:leftBy sequencing the genomes of three patients with rare genetic disorders, and comparing them with genetic information from unaffected family members, two studies have managed to narrow down the causes of the diseases./pp style=text-align:left/pp style=text-align:leftBetween them, the analyses bring the number of individuals who have had their full genomes sequenced from seven to twelve./pp style=text-align:left/pp style=text-align:leftA team led by David Galas of the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, Wash., sequenced the genomes of a family of four in which the two children had extremely rare genetic disorders--Miller syndrome and primary ciliary dyskinesia1. a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=genomes-for-the-whole-family[More]/a
p style=text-align:leftBy Janet Fang/pp style=text-align:left/pp style=text-align:leftA study of sexually scrambled chickens suggests that sex in birds is determined in a radically different way from that in mammals./pp style=text-align:left/pp style=text-align:leftResearchers studied three chickens that appeared to be literally half-male and half-female, and found that nearly every cell in their bodies--from wattle to toe--has an inherent sex identity. a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=chickens-split-sex-identity[More]/a
p Tuberculosis is a serious public health challenge in the developing world, where the infection claims roughly two million lives each year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) . Yet the disease, which is a leading killer of patients with HIV/AIDS, is cumbersome to detect, resulting in delayed or inappropriate treatment, greater spread of the infection and preventable deaths. a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=tuberculosis-detector[More]/a
p Dear EarthTalk: Short of massive efforts to build a public transportation infrastructure, which doesnrsquo;t appear likely anytime soon, what is being done to address traffic congestion, which is reaching absurd levels almost everywhere? --John Daniels, Baltimore /p a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=earth-talk-auto-dicted[More]/a
pThe forward momentum of medical progress is manifest, it could be argued, in the $50 billion spent in 2008 on pharmaceutical research and development in the quest to bring new drugs to market. But little scientific or governmental infrastructure exists to ensure that each new treatment is actually an improvement over existing therapies--and to tease out what therapies are best for which patients. a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=comparative-effectiveness[More]/a
pYou know how uncomfortable it feels when you really have to go to the bathroom? And you have to hold it in? If researchers get their way, disease-carrying mosquitoes will spend their last moments being that uncomfortable. Cornell University scientists [Peter M. Piermarini, et al] have been trying to disrupt the life cycle of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which spread dengue fever. The mosquitoes pick up the virus when they feed on one human and transmit it in their saliva to their next victim./ppTherersquo;s no vaccine for dengue, and no fully protective treatment. So the only recourse has been to figure out how to best kill the mosquitoes themselves. Herersquo;s where urination comes in. When the mosquito takes a blood meal, it has to get rid of fluid and salt so it doesnrsquo;t overload--and die. Scientists have discovered a key protein in the renal tubes of these mosquitoes that helps with the necessary excretion. Blocking the protein keeps a mosquito from urinating. [See http://bit.ly/defrih ] Without whizzing, they become too heavy to fly away. The researchers say theyrsquo;re thus more likely to be swatted or eaten. So look for new insecticides that stop mosquitoes from lightening their liquid load. With fatal results./p a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=message-to-mosquitoes-urine-trouble-10-03-10[More]/a
pThe origins of language have long been a mystery, but mounting evidence hints that our unique linguistic abilities could have evolved from gestural communication in our ancestors. Such gesturing may also explain why most people are right-handed./ppResearchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center recently exshy;amshy;ined captive chimpanzees and found that most of them predominantly used their right hand when communicating with one another--for example, when greeting another chimp by extending an arm. The animals did not show this hand preference for noncommunicative actions, such as wiping their noses. Such lateralized hand use suggests that chimpanzees have a system in their left brain hemisphere that is coupled to the production of comshy;municative gestures, says study author William Hopkins. The same cerebral hemisphere is host to most language functions in humans, which hints that an ancestral gestural system could have been the precursor for language, he says./p a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=chimps-talk-with-their-hands[More]/a
pI donrsquo;t know how many e-mails I have received fromchildren who are terrified that 2012 will somehow involve the end of life as we know it, all because of an unfounded fringe religious prophecy that has received mass-market exposure with the release of a recent Hollywood movie. I have tried to reassure those children (and not a few adults) that this date represents nothing more cosmically special than the year of the next presidential election./ppHaving said that, however, I just realized there might be a genuine connection between 2012 and an end-of-days menace!/p a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=end-of-days-danger[More]/a
pEvery 30 minutes, all of the blood in our bodies is filtered through two fist-size kidneys. But diseases such as diabetes can cause them to fail, leading to a build-up of chemicals in the blood that without dialysis (mechanical blood filtration) or a kidney transplant would be fatal. And the wait for a new kidney can be long, unless someone you know is willing to give one of theirs to you. a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=kidney-donor-mortality[More]/a
p style=text-align:leftBy Matt Kaplan/pp style=text-align:left/pp style=text-align:leftExtremely well-preserved DNA discovered in the fossilized eggshells of extinct bird species suggests that they could be a source of ancient genetic material for sequencing efforts./pp style=text-align:left/pp style=text-align:leftEggshells are commonly found at fossil sites worldwide. a href=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=pristine-dna-fossil-eggshell[More]/a
