Eideard

If your heritage is non-African, you are part Neanderthal, according to a new study in the July issue of Molecular Biology and Evolution…This latest research confirms earlier findings.

Damian Labuda of the University of Montreal’s Department of Pediatrics and the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center conducted the study with his colleagues. They determined some of the human X chromosome originates from Neanderthals, but only in people of non-African heritage.

“This confirms recent findings suggesting that the two populations interbred,” Labuda was quoted as saying in a press release. His team believes most, if not all, of the interbreeding took place in the Middle East, while modern humans were migrating out of Africa and spreading to other regions…

Neanderthals possessed the gene for language and had sophisticated music, art and tool craftsmanship skills, so they must have not been all that unattractive to modern humans at the time.

“In addition, because our methods were totally independent of Neanderthal material, we can also conclude that previous results were not influenced by contaminating artifacts,” Labuda said.

This work goes back to nearly a decade ago, when Labuda and his colleagues identified a piece of DNA, called a haplotype, in the human X chromosome that seemed different. They questioned its origins…

David Reich, a Harvard Medical School geneticist, added, “Dr. Labuda and his colleagues were the first to identify a genetic variation in non-Africans that was likely to have come from an archaic population. This was done entirely without the Neanderthal genome sequence, but in light of the Neanderthal sequence, it is now clear that they were absolutely right!”

The modern human/Neanderthal combo likely benefitted our species, enabling it to survive in harsh, cold regions that Neanderthals previously had adapted to.

“Variability is very important for long-term survival of a species,” Labuda concluded. “Every addition to the genome can be enriching.”

Someone should explain that to the populist puritans still marching to the George Wallace drum from decades past. Meanwhile -

The admixture and uniting of Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon streams in comparatively modern hominids is something that many students of ethnology felt would be proved sooner or later. Some thought reluctance to accept the work offered by Professor Labuda was prompted more by hopes of “purity” than reality. Folks have to understand that human beings have sex with just about anyone, anytime, anywhere – given the opportunity.

Scientists have found that a gene linked to diabetes and cholesterol is a “master switch” that controls other genes found in fat in the body, and say it should help in the search for treatments for obesity-related diseases.

In a study published in the journal Nature Genetics, the British researchers said that since fat plays an important role in peoples’ susceptibility to metabolic diseases like obesity, heart disease and diabetes, the regulating gene could be target for drugs to treat such illnesses.

“This is the first major study that shows how small changes in one master regulator gene can cause a cascade of other metabolic effects in other genes,” said Tim Spector of King’s College London, who led the study.

More than half a billion people, or one in 10 adults worldwide, are obese and the numbers have doubled since the 1980s as the obesity epidemic has spilled over from wealthy into poorer nations.

In the United States, obesity-related diseases already account for nearly 10 percent of medical spending — an estimated $147 billion a year.

Type 2 diabetes, which is often linked to poor diet and lack of exercise, is also reaching epidemic levels worldwide as rates of obesity rise…

The differences between predilection, tendencies, behavior – voluntary and involuntary – mesh together in a health dialectic that overwhelms societies still relying upon ideologies that think some magic bullet or heavenly prophet will cure all their ills.

Understanding complexity is difficult enough to be off-putting for most. But, simplistic and oversimplified answers rarely provide lasting solutions. But, that’s what people and politicians always want.

Potamopyrgus antipodarum beside a dime for scale

What’s so great about sex? From an evolutionary perspective, the answer is not as obvious as one might think. An article published in the July issue of the American Naturalist suggests that sex may have evolved in part as a defense against parasites.

Despite its central role in biology, sex is a bit of an evolutionary mystery. Reproducing without sex—like microbes, some plants and even a few reptiles—would seem like a better way to go. Every individual in an asexual species has the ability to reproduce on its own. But in sexual species, two individuals have to combine in order to reproduce one offspring. That gives each generation of asexuals twice the reproductive capacity of sexuals. Why then is sex the dominant strategy when the do-it-yourself approach is so much more efficient?

One hypothesis is that parasites keep asexual organisms from getting too plentiful. When an asexual creature reproduces, it makes clones—exact genetic copies of itself. Since each clone has the same genes, each has the same genetic vulnerabilities to parasites. If a parasite emerges that can exploit those vulnerabilities, it can wipe out the whole population. On the other hand, sexual offspring are genetically unique, often with different parasite vulnerabilities. So a parasite that can destroy some can’t necessarily destroy all. That, in theory, should help sexual populations maintain stability, while asexual populations face extinction at the hands of parasites.

Enter Potamopyrgus antipodarum, a snail common in fresh water lakes in New Zealand. What makes these snails interesting is that there are sexual and asexual versions. They provide scientists with an opportunity to compare the two versions side-by-side in nature.

After 10 years of observation…

The team found that clones that were plentiful at the beginning of the study became more susceptible to parasites over time. As parasite infections increased, the once plentiful clones dwindled dramatically in number. Some clonal types disappeared entirely. Meanwhile, sexual snail populations remained much more stable over time. This, the authors say, is exactly the pattern predicted by the parasite hypothesis…

So we may well have to thank parasites—in spite of their nasty reputation—for the joy of sex.

Humans discuss sex all the time. Snails – it appears – do something about it.

Click photo for interview

I find myself accused of a number of heinous acts including “infecting” Wales with GM, acting irresponsibly and possibly of breaking the law. Not bad for a Welsh peasant who simply wishes to try – with the support of the scientific community – to facilitate the introduction of a new and valuable technology into Welsh agriculture.

So what is the precise nature of my supposedly “ill-informed”, “illegal” and “irresponsible” behaviour? The seeds I planted are maize varieties on the EU’s “common list” of approved crops. As such, my legal advice is that it is lawful to plant them within the EU. But according to some of my detractors those rules apparently do not apply in Wales.

Then there is the charge that I have “infected Wales with GM“. With what I ask? Genetic modification is a process as opposed to a product and as such cannot be bought or sold any more than “keyhole surgery”. The analogy of GM technology as a contagion is simply false.

Have I removed consumer choice? Again, I believe not. That choice was taken away several decades ago – unless you choose to survive entirely on wild fruit and nuts. We are all either wearing or consuming plant products that have been bred using technology that involves artificially manipulating plant genes. I can’t think of a single crop plant in the UK that has not been bred by artificially mutating its genes using chemicals or radiation. The group of techniques that are commonly referred to as genetic manipulation are simply more precise and safer ways of doing the same thing…

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Amateur biologists are goofing around with genetics in garage-based labs that some fear could unleash new and dangerous life forms.

The new effort, dubbed biohacking, harkens to revolutions in infotech hatched by individuals that founded Apple, Hewlett Packard and Google.

While, individual kitchen-counter chemists may become biohackers, the field has already become organized: One of the more serious examples is a community lab set up by a Cambridge, Mass. group called DIYbio (do-it-yourself biology). Co-founder Mackenzie Cowell said amateurs might do things as diverse as creating new vaccines to using squid genes to make tattoos that glow.

“We should try to make science more sexy and more fun and more like a game,” Cowell.

I hope he said more than that. Otherwise, he’s an idiot.

I suppose that sooner or later some bright high school sophomore will poison half a town or turn the residents of Boston into green glowing mush. Then, the concept of stringent control, both for safety and verifiable results, will add gene patrols to local police departments.

Laws banning marriage between first cousins are based on outdated assumptions about a high degree of genetic risk for offspring and should be repealed, according to a population genetics expert.

In an opinion article published in the US open-access journal PLoS Biology, Professors Hamish Spencer and Diane Paul argue that laws against cousin marriage are ill-advised. “Neither the scientific nor social assumptions behind such legislation stand up to close scrutiny,” says Professor Spencer. For example, a 2002 expert review of studies regarding birth defects in offspring of cousins found that the risk was much smaller than generally assumed.

The US National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC) report estimated the average risk as 1.7 – 2 per cent higher than the background population risk of congenital defects and 4.4 per cent higher than general risk for dying in childhood.

“Women over the age of 40 have a similar risk of having children with birth defects and no one is suggesting they should be prevented from reproducing. People with Huntington’s Disease or other autosomal dominant disorders have a 50 per cent risk of transmitting the underlying genes to offspring and they are not barred either,” Professor Spencer says.

I’ll keep my mouth shut on this one. I have kin who read my blog.

In the middle of the South Atlantic, 1,500 miles from any other land mass lies the most remote inhabited island in the world, Tristan da Cunha.

This in itself is quite extraordinary, but the island is also unique for an entirely different reason – half of its 261 residents suffer from asthma.

By analysing the islanders’ genes Dr Zamel achieved what would have been impossible with any other population – the isolation of one particular gene – known as ESE3.

This gene is involved with the deposition of collagen in the airways. If the gene is faulty then the airway walls are thickened and constricted, making it more difficult to breathe.

However, Dr Zamel’s discovery in Tristan da Cunha is exceptional, and it does not explain the allergy explosion in the rest of the world.

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I’ve spent the last six months travelling around the world to investigate GM crops. I wanted to find out if they had a role to play in our agricultural systems or whether the environmental and health concerns make it too risky.

The first thing I found was that much of the rest of the world does not share Europe’s concerns about GM technology.

GM crops were planted on over 100 million hectares last year – that’s about 10% of the world’s crops which are now genetically modified. And it really seems to be working for the farmers.

I visited Argentina where they’ve adopted GM technology in a big way. Every year they plant an area larger than Britain with GM soya beans.

The beans are much more profitable to grow than conventional beans and they have become the country’s biggest export. They almost single-handedly rescued Argentina from economic meltdown when they were introduced in the late 1990s.

But there have been downsides. The GM production system works best when grown on a large scale and many smaller farmers have been squeezed off their land by the expansion of the mega-farms and huge areas of natural forest are being cleared to make way for more soya.

Which, of course, doesn’t have a damned thing to do with crops being GM or not. Agri-business lurches ahead with monopolization no matter what the crop.

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Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have identified two signaling pathways that are activated in response to exercise and converge to dramatically increase endurance. The team of scientists report that simultaneously triggering both pathways with oral drugs turned laboratory mice into long-distance runners and conferred many of exercise’s other benefits.

In addition to their allure for endurance athletes, drugs that mimic the effects of exercise have therapeutic potential in treating certain muscle diseases, such as wasting and frailty, hospital patients unable to exercise, veterans and others with disabilities as well as obesity and a slew of associated metabolic disorders where exercise is known to be beneficial.

Previous work with genetically engineered mice in the Evans lab had revealed that permanently activating a genetic switch known as PPAR delta turned mice into indefatigable marathon runners. In addition to their super-endurance, the altered mice were resistant to weight gain, even when fed a high-fat diet that caused obesity in ordinary mice. On top of their lean and mean physique, their response to insulin improved, lowering levels of circulating glucose…

Then came the ultimate couch potato experiment. The researchers fed untrained mice AICAR, a synthetic AMP analog that directly activates AMPK. After only four weeks and without any prior training, these mice got up and ran 44 percent longer than untreated, untrained mice. “That’s as much improvement as we get with regular exercise,” says Narkar.

The research team is also smart enough to initiate parallel development of tests to detect these drugs – to stop drug cheats from using them in sport.