Category Archives: Biology

written by: Annika Olives, Lifestyle Staff Writer It all starts with a spark. And then come the butterflies. Euphoria. Intense emotion. You begin to think theyre the one. Love is one of the most well-studied phenomena in virtually any subject, yet people are still in the dark about a good portion of its magic. Whittling down the definition of this powerful word into a few sentences seems impossible, but that hasnt stopped us from trying for centuries. Researcher Helen Fisher tackled the biological definition. She was interested in how love affects brain activity, so in 2005, Fisher and her colleagues put undergraduates who had self-identified as being madly in love into an fMRI machine. Fisher found that the caudate nucleus, a region of the brain associated with reward detection, expectation and learning specifically how past experiences affect future behaviors lit up when the students were shown pictures of their lovers. However, another section of the brain, the ventral tegmental area, also showed activity. The VTA, as it is called, plays an important role in the reward circuit of the brain: It sends dopamine, a neurotransmitter heavily related to pleasure, forward to the nucleus accumbens. The most interesting part is that … Continue reading →

Local brewers create intern pipeline with WSU Wichita Business Journal The rise of the craft brewing community locally has created new opportunities for Wichita State University students to gain real-world experience. WSU has three biology students working in paid internship positions with local breweries to assist with ... Read the original here: Local brewers create intern pipeline with WSU - Wichita Business Journal … Continue reading →

The DD Kosambi Festival of Ideas has always got speakers who manage to activate the thinking capacity of a human being in a totally new dimension, and this years speakers are no different. The speaker on February 14 at Kala Academy, Panaji, was Shubha Tole, Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai. Her topic interestingly titled Wiring Up the Brain: Jab Yuvraj Singh ne Stuart Broad ke bowling pe che chakke mare, tab unke dimaag mein kya chal raha tha? was nothing to do with cricket and a lot to do with the functioning of the brain. The developmental neuroscientist said that the brain is a computer programmed to build us up. We grow from simple to complex from a single cell to a fully grown living being, said Tole. Her talk was interspersed with humour and experiments. She pointed out that the purpose of life is to procreate and bring new life. What is the purpose of an egg? It is to create more eggs. The main purpose of every living being is to ensure the survival of the species, she said adding that thus science gives us an ultimate exercise in humility. The lesson … Continue reading →

OpGen Presents Rapid Acuitas Genetic Test Data at Advances in Genome Biology and Technology Meeting P&T Community The data were presented at the Advances in Genome Biology and Technology (AGBT) meeting, which is taking place from February 13-16, 2017 in Hollywood Beach, FL. These preliminary results support OpGen's ongoing genomic and bioinformatics efforts ... and more » Read the original here: OpGen Presents Rapid Acuitas Genetic Test Data at Advances in Genome Biology and Technology Meeting - P&T Community … Continue reading →

Publishing their papers in journals, such as these lining a library's shelves, is still the goal of most biologists, but more and more are depositing early versions, or preprints, in online repositories. Sergei25/shutterstock By John TravisFeb. 13, 2017 , 4:45 PM A plan to create a new repository for biomedical and biology preprints has earned the endorsement of nearly a dozen major science funders, including government agencies, major foundations, and research charities. But it also has sparked a debate about whether an existing preprint repository, bioRxiv.org, should be the natural home for such material. Although it has no confirmed funding for the effort, the nonprofit group ASAPbio today announced a request for applications to build what it calls a Central Service for preprints (papers that have not yet been accepted by a journal or undergone peer review). Together with the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the European Research Council, the United Kingdoms Medical Research Council, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Wellcome Trust research charities, and other science funders, ASAPbio released a consensus set of principles and requirements for the proposed repository. For example, the repository must have a scientist-led independent governing board, the groups say, and be free for … Continue reading →

The NDSU department they were studying under is giving their classmates a way to deal with their grief. Danie Thomssen, 18, was from Bismarck, and Carson Roney, 19, was from Oakes. They met through Roney's high school friend Haley Visto, who was Thomssen's roommate at NDSU. For the next few days in Room 218 of Stevens Hall, the NDSU's biological sciences department will provide journals so students can write their condolences or share memories of Thomssen and Roney. The journals will go to the families of the teenagers. "Our hope was to provide a way for the campus community to grieve together," the head of the department said in a statement. Thomssen was driving Saturday when she lost control of her car on an icy patch of Interstate 94 just east of Moorhead and slid into a guardrail, according to the Minnesota State Patrol. Visto was also injured in the crash and was still hospitalized Monday, but she is expected to survive, troopers said Sunday. More here: NDSU provides memorial journals for classmates of two biology students killed in crash - INFORUM … Continue reading →

Subscribe today for full access on your desktop, tablet, and mobile device. Let friends in your social network know what you are reading about Port Clinton High School biology students performed a DNA extracting experiment in class on Feb. 6. Try Another Audio CAPTCHA Image CAPTCHA Help CancelSend A link has been sent to your friend's email address. A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. Submitted Published 9:47 a.m. ET Feb. 13, 2017 | Updated 17 hours ago From left, Andrew Fillmore, teacher Eileen Meisler, Ryon Nelson, and Jackson Kennedy discuss how to extract a strand of DNA during a biology class.(Photo: Submitted) Port Clinton High School biology students are learning about DNA and performed a DNA extracting experiment in class on Monday, February 6 using strawberries and dish soap to open the cell and nuclei membranes. Since DNA is contained inside the nucleus of a cell, students needed to break down the plant matter, then break open the cell and finally break the nucleus of the cell. Following the various steps of the experiment, students were able to extract the white string strands of DNA that appeared.For more pictures visit http://www.pccsd.net. Read or Share this story: http://ohne.ws/2kCtG5k … Continue reading →

CONWAY, Ark. (February 13, 2017) Hendrix College biology professor Dr. Matthew D. Moran recently published The Stars of Eridani , his first science fiction novel. It is my first attempt at a fictional book, said Moran. My goal was to write a story of humans expanding into the galaxy but without impossible technologies (like warp drive).So I tried to write a hard science fiction story that would be plausible in the future. I also have a focus on the biology of the world they are trying colonize and how it would conflict with our biology, which I believe will actually be the biggest challenge to this endeavor, Moran added.And of course, like any good science fiction, the story is symbolic of the current human condition, in particular, what we are doing to our planet. Morans favorite science fiction author is Isaac Asimov, and he is a fan of the authors The Foundation series. Asimov argued that humans will be human regardless of our technological advances and will continue to have the same social issues and conflicts, Moran said.I am also a fan of Joe Haldeman, especially the book Forever War, which I think is just beautifully written, and I am … Continue reading →

WEST LIBERTY West Liberty University junior Bryce Kesling is spending time on the streets this academic year. As a human biology major with plans to become a physician assistant, he feels its a perfect place to learn. Im taking part in the Homeless Outreach Partnership Effort here in Wheeling with Dr. Bill Mercer and others. Its sort-of street medicine service work where we take supplies and help out the homeless, he explained. The outreach takes place throughout the year and involves hospital residents, volunteers, nursing students, physician assistants and others. The group serves dozens of needy folks every week. In the fall and spring, the outreach takes place in the field or on the streets. Then from December till spring the clinic moves indoors to the Youth Services System Winter Freeze Shelter, Northwood Shelter and the Salvation Army, all located in Wheeling. Kesling is the son of Mark and Pam Kesling of Weirton and he hopes to enter WLUs graduate program for physician assistants after he graduates in May 2018. He also is a student ambassador for the WLU Admissions Department and serves as an officer of the WLU Physician Assistant Club. This homeless work is really important to me. … Continue reading →

ABOUT 120,000 types of protein molecule have yielded up their structures to science. That sounds a lot, but it isnt. The techniques, such as X-ray crystallography and nuclear-magnetic resonance (NMR), which are used to elucidate such structures do not work on all proteins. Some types are hard to produce or purify in the volumes required. Others do not seem to crystallise at alla prerequisite for probing them with X-rays. As a consequence, those structures that have been determined include representatives of less than a third of the 16,000 known protein families. Researchers can build reasonable computer models for around another third, because the structures of these resemble ones already known. For the remainder, however, there is nothing to go on. In addition to this lack of information about protein families, there is a lack of information about those from the species of most interest to researchers: Homo sapiens. Only a quarter of known protein structures are human. A majority of the rest come from bacteria. This paucity is a problem, for in proteins form and function are intimately related. A protein is a chain of smaller molecules, called amino acids, that is often hundreds or thousands of links long. By … Continue reading →