A 10,000 year old mammoth will soon be brought back to life.
That statement looks a bit like a really bad movie intro but it is actually planned to happen.
Russian and korean scientist have joined together in order to attempt to use genetics to have an Indian elephant give birth to a mammoth clone. Cloning has been around for a while now and always seems to highly controversial (look up Dolly the sheep), but if this is able to take place it would be truly amazing.
Mammoth remains were discovered in Siberia and scientist had been trying to extract DNA from it. They received a breakthrough when they were successfully able to reproduce mammoth blood protein. I am honestly still in a state of disbelief but I found it on an incredibly trusted source and everything that I've looked for confirmation on has been proven true.
The plan is to attempt this the same way that all the other clones have taken place. In general, this involves implanting the mammoth's DNA into the nuclei of a donor elephant egg. This will effectively create an elephant egg with mammoth DNA that can then be given to a surrogate Indian Elephant. After the 22 month gestation period we may have the first living mammoth since the last ice age. Many discoveries were made just by looking at the blood proteins, who knows what we will learn from a live mammoth.
Boyle, Rebecca. "Russian and Korean Researchers Will Inject Mammoth DNA Into Elephant Eggs, Resurrecting 10,000-Year-Old Beast." Popular Science. N.p., 14 Mar. 2013. Web. 14 Oct. 2013.
Monday, October 14, 2013
Monday, October 14th
Everybody should go find the nearest jar of peanut butter and take a smell.
I was reading all these fun and interesting science things on the PopScience website when i stumbled upon a very interesting article. Apparently, simply being able to smell peanut butter through your left nostril is a way for you to detect if you are increasingly prone to have Alzheimer's decease.
Sounds crazy right? Well, apparently this is due to the way the nerve endings in your brain work. According to data from the University of Florida "The ability to smell is associated with the first cranial nerve and is often one of the first things to be affected in cognitive decline." Strangely, Alzheimer's patients have their smell affected in many ways. While this isn't something that is normally the first thought when people discuss the disease it can play a major role in detection. Even stranger the left nostril is impaired much more than the right is.
The experiment was done by measuring the distance from the peanut butter the patient could be while still being able to detect the odor. Apparently, in Alzheimer patients the peanut butter had to be 10 centimeters closer to the nose when smelling through the left nostril than through the right.
Normally our sense of smell uses to different sensations when detecting odors. The first (kinda obviously) is smell while the other is a trigeminal sense. The best description of this is that burning or stinging sensation you get when you smell certain scents. Peanut butter is detected purely as a smell through the nose, without any of the other trigeminal sense.
The fact that scientists were able to discover this is purely amazing and the fact that it is such a cheap and a little bit silly sounding at first is just a bonus.
Nosowitz, Dan. "If You Can Smell This, You May Not Have Alzheimer's." Popular Science. N.p., 09 Oct. 2013. Web. 14 Oct. 2013.
I was reading all these fun and interesting science things on the PopScience website when i stumbled upon a very interesting article. Apparently, simply being able to smell peanut butter through your left nostril is a way for you to detect if you are increasingly prone to have Alzheimer's decease.
Sounds crazy right? Well, apparently this is due to the way the nerve endings in your brain work. According to data from the University of Florida "The ability to smell is associated with the first cranial nerve and is often one of the first things to be affected in cognitive decline." Strangely, Alzheimer's patients have their smell affected in many ways. While this isn't something that is normally the first thought when people discuss the disease it can play a major role in detection. Even stranger the left nostril is impaired much more than the right is.
The experiment was done by measuring the distance from the peanut butter the patient could be while still being able to detect the odor. Apparently, in Alzheimer patients the peanut butter had to be 10 centimeters closer to the nose when smelling through the left nostril than through the right.
Normally our sense of smell uses to different sensations when detecting odors. The first (kinda obviously) is smell while the other is a trigeminal sense. The best description of this is that burning or stinging sensation you get when you smell certain scents. Peanut butter is detected purely as a smell through the nose, without any of the other trigeminal sense.
The fact that scientists were able to discover this is purely amazing and the fact that it is such a cheap and a little bit silly sounding at first is just a bonus.
Nosowitz, Dan. "If You Can Smell This, You May Not Have Alzheimer's." Popular Science. N.p., 09 Oct. 2013. Web. 14 Oct. 2013.
Thursday, October 3, 2013
Genetic Patents
A major dilemma in the field of Genetics is the ability to patent specific genes. While they were first issues in the 1980s after a court case, it was later decided by the members of the Human Genome Project that all human DNA sequences would be freely open to the public, making them unable to be patented. While this decision took place in 1997 and has nearly held up the duration the debate is often brought up that scientist should be able to benefit from these discoveries.
This year the Supreme Court made it official by declaring unanimously to make it illegal to put a patent on a isolated gene or on a gene sequence. This will help people all over the world because it removes many potential roadblocks that could be encountered when undergoing Gene Therapy.
"Intellectual Property." Intellectual Property. National Human Genome Research Institute, 19 June 2013. Web. 03 Oct. 2013.
This year the Supreme Court made it official by declaring unanimously to make it illegal to put a patent on a isolated gene or on a gene sequence. This will help people all over the world because it removes many potential roadblocks that could be encountered when undergoing Gene Therapy.
"Intellectual Property." Intellectual Property. National Human Genome Research Institute, 19 June 2013. Web. 03 Oct. 2013.
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