Slanted Science

Archive for November, 2009

Great news for skinny guys! Scientists have used gene therapy to successfully increase the size and strength of lab monkeys’ muscles.

But calm down, stickboys: the intended use of this research is in treating degenerative muscular diseases. Better keep paying that gym subscription for a while longer yet. Read the rest of this entry »

Bacteria, eh? Nasty little things.

Strutting around, with their tiny little genomes, doing nothing but bringing misery to mankind: food poisoning; meningitis; halitosis and…obesity? That’s the theory being put forward in a new paper published in the journal Science Translational Medicine. Read the rest of this entry »

We are once again in debt to Eric Spitler for the accompanying image. Why not go and check the fellow out at EricSpitler.com?

The FDA is a marvelous institution. Just look at their recent efforts to stamp out the con artists producing useless swine flu cures. But sometimes they go beyond their remit.

Yes, we would like to be protected from scamsters. Yes, we would prefer it if new drugs were thoroughly tested before we were prescribed them.

But do we want you telling us that we can’t have a couple of Red Bull/Jaegermeister DeathBombs on a Friday night? We. Do. Not.

Read on, as we tell you how the FDA is planning to crash our party. Read the rest of this entry »

ALD, or Adrenoleukodystrophy, is an inherited neurodegenerative disease. Patients’ bodies are unable to break down certain types of fat molecules, and these accumulate to toxic levels in cells of the brain and spinal cord. Those cells gradually die. Thus far, there is no cure.

But scientists have just released details of an apparently successful trial of a new approach in the treatment of ALD: gene therapy. Read the rest of this entry »

The wonderful artwork above is used courtesy of Eric Spitler. You should check him out at EricSpitler.com

Scientists have used that most faithful of laboratory animals – the fruit fly – to identify a number of genes involved in behaviors associated with drinking.

With all sincerity, we would like to offer ourselves up as volunteers to take this work into humans. We’re selfless like that.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you arrived here after an internet search for ‘nude mice‘, then you’re either in need of psychiatric care, or else you’d like some more information on a very important laboratory animal. Or both.

Either way: welcome!

Our recent story, describing the significance  of the naked mole rat in cancer research, reminded us of another example of nudity in this field. And so we give to you the nude mouse: over 40 years at the forefront of the race to develop new treatments for cancer and other diseases. Read the rest of this entry »

It has been known for thousands of years that babies cry. They wail, they shriek, they whine.

Rather more recently, we’ve begun to understand that they cry in different ways when certain things are troubling them: hunger, tiredness, loneliness, that strange man with big hands who keeps thrusting a bunch of shiny things in its face and jangling them.

But now, scientists are claiming that they can distinguish the national origin of a baby from the intonation of its cries. Read the rest of this entry »

It has been 40 years since Neil beat Buzz in a best-of-three game of paper/rock/scissors on board Apollo 11, and earned the right to be the first human ever to get moondust on his shoes.

40 years since he uttered the immortal “One small step for man…” line, while – this isn’t widely known – Aldrin stood at the spacecraft’s porthole window, holding a piece of paper with “You Suck! LOL!!!!” written on it.

Since then, mankind has rarely been back to the moon, and never to anywhere solid beyond it. Scientists are now saying that extended spaceflight, as well as increasing the mutation rates in human DNA and its bacterial counterparts, alters the human immune system in potentially harmful ways. Read the rest of this entry »

Hairless, buck-toothed, visually repulsive to most humans, and living their lives in darkened burrows away from the rest of the world, these creatures are advancing scientific knowledge.

But enough about computer programmers, let’s introduce the star of this story: the naked mole rat. These creatures appear to be completely resistant to spontaneous cancers, of the kinds which all other animals succumb to (including, despite the urban myth, sharks). Scientists now believe they have discovered the reason for this immunity to tumorigenesis: a second layer of molecular protection against abnormal cell cycle progression. Read the rest of this entry »

The scientific and religious worlds are soon to collide in an unusual way (that is, one which doesn’t involve Richard Dawkins, a Southern minister, and several tedious hours spent shouting questions at each other about the shape of giraffe’s intestines and the discovery of fish fossils on mountaintops). No, this time the stakes are rather higher than a bruised ego: they could include the welfare of millions of citizens during the winter months.

The reason is that muslims are about to perform their divine duty, and gather together in Mecca, Saudi Arabia to…well, whatever it is that religious people do when they arrive in the most magical of their magic places. Take drugs and smile stupidly, if our experience at the Led Zeppelin reunion gig is anything to go by.

Anyway, here is how this mass gathering may impact the entire world. Read the rest of this entry »