Psychopaths, platypus, mammalian infants - REM sleep but no dreams may indicate white matter disconnect.

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

Last January I wondered if psychopaths dream — and noted that the only mammal (or maybe one of the few mammals) that doesn’t dream is a platypus. This post follows up, with a discussion of the “Platypus Defense” as part of the murder trial of Hans Reiser. Plus platypus genome and microRNA and transposable elements [...]

Where do you put your insulin when you don’t have a refrigerator? Or electricity?

Monday, May 19th, 2008

Ok, this is strictly a pharma-geek post, but this is why there is science: combining chemistry, protein structure, medicine, computer science, and third world social sciences, scientists from Cleveland and Chicago made a mini-revolution: uber-insulin that doesn’t need refrigeration. How great is that?

Maybe a little back story: One of my side projects is working with [...]

Your family is more likely to pull the plug if they’re happy with the ICU

Friday, March 7th, 2008

Say you’re on life support, and, you are just racking up the ICU bills. Will your family be a little too enthusiastic in pulling the plug?

The hospital admin knows these bills won’t get paid, since the debt dies with the debtor, in most cases. So what do they do? The butter up your [...]

The Bob Dylan Committee Could Have Been A Delusion Caused By Improper Brain Connectivity

Saturday, March 1st, 2008

Exhibit A: A committee of badly disguised Bob Dylan imposters?
As a child, with “Maggies’ Farm” on the record player, I asked an elder sibling why Bob Dylan looked so different on each of his (vinyl) album jackets. She calmly lied through her teeth, and explained that Bob Dylan was a committee, not a [...]

Open Up Peer Review Because We Are Global

Saturday, February 23rd, 2008

“The Unknown Reviewer” by Swivelchair (work modified from Brymo ’s “Day 57 Brown Baggin It“via Flickr (under attribution license))

Kennedy, D. (2008). Confidential Review–or Not?. Science, 319(5866), 1009-1009. DOI: 10.1126/science.1156250
What are “peer-reviewers” afraid of?
“Peer-review” is the process by which scientific research is legitimized — the work is vetted by others in the industry [...]

On the internet nobody knows you’re a dog. . .

Friday, February 22nd, 2008

In the Western world, we love to anthropomorphize our dogs. There was a New Yorker cartoon, at the dawn of the internet age, where a dog was clicking away at a keyboard, remarking to another little dog, “On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” As they say in Washington, if you want a friend, [...]

“A unified genetic theory for sporadic and inherited autism”

Thursday, February 21st, 2008

“Transposable Elements” by Swivelchair, all rights (if any) totally waived. This work was inspired by the work of Dr. Barbara McClintock.

Here’s today’s research paper:Zhao, X., Leotta, A., Kustanovich, V., Lajonchere, C., Geschwind, D.H., Law, K., Law, P., Qiu, S., Lord, C., Sebat, J., Ye, K., Wigler, M. (2007). A unified genetic theory for sporadic and [...]

Pathological crying can be caused by brain dysfunction

Tuesday, February 5th, 2008

Ricky, don’t cry! You haven’t been Auf’d! [Swivelchair note: Ricky was auf'd]  I hope you’re OK - you know, the very basic areas of the brain are involved in crying. If you can’t stop, I hope it’s not a tumor (see abstract below).

J Clin Neurosci. 2008 Jan 10 [Epub ahead of print]
Brainstem compression [...]

Hail the Groundhog, clairvoyant and new genetic model for testing anti-hepatitis drugs

Saturday, February 2nd, 2008

Happy Groundhog Day! Six more weeks of winter!
The interferon-α gene family of Marmota himalayana, a Chinese marmot species with susceptibility to woodchuck hepatitis virus infection,
Lu, Y.a , Wang, B.a , Huang, H.a , Tian, Y.a , Bao, J.a , Dong, J.a , Roggendorf, M.b , Lu, M.b c , Yang, D.a
a [...]

Cannabis stops pain from hot chili peppers and hot mustard

Friday, February 1st, 2008

Cannabinoids Desensitize Capsaicin and Mustard Oil Responses in Sensory Neurons via TRPA1 Activation Armen N. Akopian,1 Nikita B. Ruparel,1 Amol Patwardhan,1 and Kenneth M. Hargreaves1,2
Akopian et al. 28 5: 1064 — Journal of Neuroscience

Making Chili Powder

(Thank you Sporkist on Flickr (under creative commons attribution license)
Chemicals in marijuana block [...]

Hapmap update: Evolution speeding up; schizophrenia DNA very homozygous and looks like recessive selection

Sunday, December 30th, 2007

Which is better, for genes to change or for them to stay the same?
Is it better to evolve or devolve?
According to new hapmap data, evolution is accelerating with increasing human density and migration. We are evolving more quickly since the Pleistocene, according to a recent report in PNAS by Hawkes et al. Most of [...]