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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"audio-wrap\">\n\u003ch2>Listen:\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>http://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/science/2015/01/20150112science.mp3\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26127\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Plant-mold-feature_image1-e1420852016889-1024x576.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-26127 size-large\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Plant-mold-feature_image1-e1420852016889-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"Plant mold feature_image1\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Professor Wolfgang Schweigkofler holds up a culture of \u003cem>Phytophthora tentaculata\u003c/em> at Dominican University in Marin County. Experts there have spent years studying ways to fight Sudden Oak Death and are now turning their attention to \u003cem>P. tentaculata\u003c/em>. (Daniel Potter/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Twenty years ago, scores of trees began visibly dying off around the Bay Area, in what turned out to be the advent of \u003ca href=\"http://www.suddenoakdeath.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/PRamorumChronology_12.10.14.pdf\">Sudden Oak Death\u003c/a>. The cause was a microscopic parasite, \u003cem>Phytophthora ramorum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Phytophthora \u003c/em>comes from Greek and means “plant destroyer.” (It’s pronounced fie-TOF-thur-uh.) Of its many relatives, perhaps the best known is \u003cem>Phytophthora infestans\u003c/em>, noted for causing the \u003ca href=\"http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/294137/Irish-Potato-Famine\">Irish Potato Famine\u003c/a>. Though sometimes classified among fungi, they’re actually part of a distinct group known as “water molds.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.aphis.usda.gov/import_export/plants/manuals/emergency/downloads/nprg-genericphytophthoras.pdf\">An ominous federal\u003c/a> report five years ago warned of another \u003cem>Phytophthora \u003c/em>species that had not arrived yet in North America. If it were to appear, the report said it “would likely cause severe economic impacts to the nursery trade, as well as environmental impacts on native species.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then in the fall of 2012, it showed up at a nursery in Monterey County. “We were like, what the heck is this?” says state plant pathologist \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK4-NMsDbm8\">Suzanne Latham\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She identified it through DNA testing as \u003cem>Phytophthora tentaculata\u003c/em>. All the plants in the nursery were destroyed, Latham says, “and we thought we had an isolated detection.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, about a year ago, \u003cem>P. tentaculata\u003c/em> showed up again, this time outside the confines of a nursery.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘We were like, what the heck is this?’\u003ccite>— Suzanne Latham,\u003cbr>\nSenior Plant Pathologist\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>An Insidious, Microscopic Hitchhiker\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a remote part of Alameda County, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfwater.org/\">San Francisco Public Utilities Commission\u003c/a> is restoring native species across a vast, grassy terrain. It’s a mitigation project for several water systems the PUC is overhauling. At roughly an area of one hundred football fields, the massive project involved hauling in many thousands of plants that are native to California, at a cost of millions of dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plants included a shrub called toyon and a subshrub called sticky monkey flower. Both turned out to be hosts of \u003cem>P. tentaculata\u003c/em>, which, unbeknownst to workers, was quietly hitchhiking into the site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a soil-born pathogen, \u003cem>tentaculata \u003c/em>attacks and rots plant roots. Infected plants look “water-stressed,” meaning the parasite can masquerade as effects of the drought. It can spread by drifting in water, or with help from people: in contaminated potting soil, perhaps, or in dirt on workers’ boots or tools, or in the treads of truck tires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That invasive species have the potential to sabotage restoration efforts was not news to the PUC. \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypRe4nX6fSo\">Greg Lyman\u003c/a>, a habitat mitigation engineer, says the agency had taken pains to keep pests and pathogens out of the site, with a zero-tolerance approach to potential contamination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Workers who rolled up with dirty equipment had to turn around and go power-wash it before they were allowed onsite.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26142\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Toyon-P.1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-26142\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Toyon-P.1.jpg\" alt=\"A shrub infected with Phytophthora cactorum, which rots plant roots, leading to symptoms like yellowing leaves, stunting and necrosis. (Ted Swiecki/Phytosphere Research)\" width=\"400\" height=\"283\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A shrub infected with \u003cem>Phytophthora cactorum\u003c/em>, which rots plant roots, leading to symptoms like yellowing leaves, stunting and necrosis. (Ted Swiecki/Phytosphere Research)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The zero-tolerance policy meant inspections for nurseries, and throwing out batches of seeds that had even a fraction of a percent of extraneous weeds. To keep pests from creeping into the site, a contractor sterilized the logs used in landscaping inside a huge metal oven, heated with propane to more than 180 degrees. Baking a single batch of about five logs, Lyman says, typically required a full 24 hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite these many precautions, \u003cem>tentaculata \u003c/em>and several other varieties of \u003cem>Phytophthora\u003c/em> have now turned up at the site. How many kinds of plants these pathogens might eat and how much damage they might do is uncertain, but for Lyman, the nightmare scenario would be this: “We’ve introduced a pathogen into the watershed that could decimate a whole ecosystem.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Before It Can Run Wild\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Invasive species, once they’ve found a toehold in a new environment, can be difficult – if not impossible – to fully eradicate. The best time to try, experts say, is before they’ve had a chance to get established.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There were more than eight thousand outplantings of sticky monkey flower and toyon at the site in Alameda County. While not all of them were necessarily infected with \u003cem>tentaculata\u003c/em>, every one of them had to go. Workers lopped each one off at ground level, with the roots still buried.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ripping them out would actually increase the risk of spread,” Lyman explains, “because as you pull them out you would leave some roots behind or you would accidentally spray roots and pathogens outside of controlled areas.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, the hope is to kill the mold where it lays, using a process called “solarization.” This entails putting sheets of plastic over the ground to trap the sun’s heat in the soil, warming it to 120 degrees Fahrenheit or higher, several inches down into the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26146\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 383px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Phytophthora-tentaculata-213x162.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-26146\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Phytophthora-tentaculata-213x162.jpg\" alt=\"Photomicrograph of Phytophthora tentaculata, showing the filaments that grow through plant tissues, secrete toxins and enzymes and absorb nutrients. (Ted Swiecki/Phytosphere Research)\" width=\"383\" height=\"291\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003cem>P. tentaculata\u003c/em> filaments grow through plant tissues, secrete toxins and enzymes and absorb nutrients. (Ted Swiecki/Phytosphere Research)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Lyman says so far dealing with the infection has cost some $700,000, and while he acknowledges trying to halt the pathogen’s spread is a tall order, he insists “it’s not a lost cause. With education, and with changes in the practice, we can make a difference. We will make a difference.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nursery Shakeup\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Tentaculata \u003c/em>has also shown up at nurseries in Monterey, Santa Cruz, Placer and Butte counties, elevating concerns in the industry over the potential spread of tiny invaders. While Watershed Nursery in Richmond has kept it out, “everybody’s a little paranoid now,” says owner Diana Benner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the last year, Benner and her co-owner, Laura Hanson, have added safeguards, like a spongy sort of doormat soaked in disinfectant, so people passing in and out of the chain-link gate won’t track in potential pathogens on the soles of their shoes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’ve replaced wooden potting tables with surfaces that are easier to disinfect. They now sterilize the many pots they reuse. They’re even working on a way to sterilize potting soil, rigging together a pair of metal trashcans with a smoker underneath for heat. A big part of the success or failure of these methods, Benner says, is vigilance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can have all these things set up, and if your staff is not thinking about it constantly, it doesn’t matter,” she says. “So the biggest thing about it has been habits – habits, habits, habits.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Benner also notes the nursery grows plants for restoration projects from seed, which is not believed to be a vector for passing along \u003cem>Phytophthora\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Plant pathologist Ted Swiecki says the danger of spreading exotic pathogens is familiar in places like Australia, where the species \u003cem>Phytophthora cinnamomi\u003c/em> is widespread.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They have huge education campaigns, they’ve been doing various types of treatments in different areas, they have quarantines, all kinds of sanitation stations, all kinds of efforts,” Swiecki says. “We don’t want to end up where they are. In a way, we’re in a version of that with Sudden Oak Death.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, while the microbe that causes Sudden Oak Death can infect many plants and kills only a handful of them, \u003cem>P. cinnamomi\u003c/em> has “a host list of a couple thousand-plus species, which we could add to every day, because most of its hosts aren’t known. And it will kill most of those.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With other exotic varieties of Phytophthora turning up around the Bay Area, Swiecki is urging action: he believes there’s still a chance for native plant nurseries and the restoration projects they supply to take heed, before things get worse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every time we get a new Phytophthora species out there with limited information like \u003cem>tentaculata\u003c/em>,” Swiecki says, “we don’t really know what it’s going to affect and how wide its host range is going to be. And when we have a combination of species out there, we really have a set of wild cards.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/div>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26127\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Plant-mold-feature_image1-e1420852016889-1024x576.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-26127 size-large\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Plant-mold-feature_image1-e1420852016889-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"Plant mold feature_image1\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Professor Wolfgang Schweigkofler holds up a culture of \u003cem>Phytophthora tentaculata\u003c/em> at Dominican University in Marin County. Experts there have spent years studying ways to fight Sudden Oak Death and are now turning their attention to \u003cem>P. tentaculata\u003c/em>. (Daniel Potter/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Twenty years ago, scores of trees began visibly dying off around the Bay Area, in what turned out to be the advent of \u003ca href=\"http://www.suddenoakdeath.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/PRamorumChronology_12.10.14.pdf\">Sudden Oak Death\u003c/a>. The cause was a microscopic parasite, \u003cem>Phytophthora ramorum\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Phytophthora \u003c/em>comes from Greek and means “plant destroyer.” (It’s pronounced fie-TOF-thur-uh.) Of its many relatives, perhaps the best known is \u003cem>Phytophthora infestans\u003c/em>, noted for causing the \u003ca href=\"http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/294137/Irish-Potato-Famine\">Irish Potato Famine\u003c/a>. Though sometimes classified among fungi, they’re actually part of a distinct group known as “water molds.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.aphis.usda.gov/import_export/plants/manuals/emergency/downloads/nprg-genericphytophthoras.pdf\">An ominous federal\u003c/a> report five years ago warned of another \u003cem>Phytophthora \u003c/em>species that had not arrived yet in North America. If it were to appear, the report said it “would likely cause severe economic impacts to the nursery trade, as well as environmental impacts on native species.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then in the fall of 2012, it showed up at a nursery in Monterey County. “We were like, what the heck is this?” says state plant pathologist \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK4-NMsDbm8\">Suzanne Latham\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She identified it through DNA testing as \u003cem>Phytophthora tentaculata\u003c/em>. All the plants in the nursery were destroyed, Latham says, “and we thought we had an isolated detection.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then, about a year ago, \u003cem>P. tentaculata\u003c/em> showed up again, this time outside the confines of a nursery.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘We were like, what the heck is this?’\u003ccite>— Suzanne Latham,\u003cbr>\nSenior Plant Pathologist\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>An Insidious, Microscopic Hitchhiker\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a remote part of Alameda County, the \u003ca href=\"http://www.sfwater.org/\">San Francisco Public Utilities Commission\u003c/a> is restoring native species across a vast, grassy terrain. It’s a mitigation project for several water systems the PUC is overhauling. At roughly an area of one hundred football fields, the massive project involved hauling in many thousands of plants that are native to California, at a cost of millions of dollars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plants included a shrub called toyon and a subshrub called sticky monkey flower. Both turned out to be hosts of \u003cem>P. tentaculata\u003c/em>, which, unbeknownst to workers, was quietly hitchhiking into the site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a soil-born pathogen, \u003cem>tentaculata \u003c/em>attacks and rots plant roots. Infected plants look “water-stressed,” meaning the parasite can masquerade as effects of the drought. It can spread by drifting in water, or with help from people: in contaminated potting soil, perhaps, or in dirt on workers’ boots or tools, or in the treads of truck tires.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That invasive species have the potential to sabotage restoration efforts was not news to the PUC. \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypRe4nX6fSo\">Greg Lyman\u003c/a>, a habitat mitigation engineer, says the agency had taken pains to keep pests and pathogens out of the site, with a zero-tolerance approach to potential contamination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Workers who rolled up with dirty equipment had to turn around and go power-wash it before they were allowed onsite.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26142\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 400px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Toyon-P.1.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-26142\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Toyon-P.1.jpg\" alt=\"A shrub infected with Phytophthora cactorum, which rots plant roots, leading to symptoms like yellowing leaves, stunting and necrosis. (Ted Swiecki/Phytosphere Research)\" width=\"400\" height=\"283\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A shrub infected with \u003cem>Phytophthora cactorum\u003c/em>, which rots plant roots, leading to symptoms like yellowing leaves, stunting and necrosis. (Ted Swiecki/Phytosphere Research)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The zero-tolerance policy meant inspections for nurseries, and throwing out batches of seeds that had even a fraction of a percent of extraneous weeds. To keep pests from creeping into the site, a contractor sterilized the logs used in landscaping inside a huge metal oven, heated with propane to more than 180 degrees. Baking a single batch of about five logs, Lyman says, typically required a full 24 hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite these many precautions, \u003cem>tentaculata \u003c/em>and several other varieties of \u003cem>Phytophthora\u003c/em> have now turned up at the site. How many kinds of plants these pathogens might eat and how much damage they might do is uncertain, but for Lyman, the nightmare scenario would be this: “We’ve introduced a pathogen into the watershed that could decimate a whole ecosystem.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Before It Can Run Wild\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Invasive species, once they’ve found a toehold in a new environment, can be difficult – if not impossible – to fully eradicate. The best time to try, experts say, is before they’ve had a chance to get established.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There were more than eight thousand outplantings of sticky monkey flower and toyon at the site in Alameda County. While not all of them were necessarily infected with \u003cem>tentaculata\u003c/em>, every one of them had to go. Workers lopped each one off at ground level, with the roots still buried.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Ripping them out would actually increase the risk of spread,” Lyman explains, “because as you pull them out you would leave some roots behind or you would accidentally spray roots and pathogens outside of controlled areas.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, the hope is to kill the mold where it lays, using a process called “solarization.” This entails putting sheets of plastic over the ground to trap the sun’s heat in the soil, warming it to 120 degrees Fahrenheit or higher, several inches down into the ground.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26146\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 383px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Phytophthora-tentaculata-213x162.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-26146\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Phytophthora-tentaculata-213x162.jpg\" alt=\"Photomicrograph of Phytophthora tentaculata, showing the filaments that grow through plant tissues, secrete toxins and enzymes and absorb nutrients. (Ted Swiecki/Phytosphere Research)\" width=\"383\" height=\"291\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">\u003cem>P. tentaculata\u003c/em> filaments grow through plant tissues, secrete toxins and enzymes and absorb nutrients. (Ted Swiecki/Phytosphere Research)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Lyman says so far dealing with the infection has cost some $700,000, and while he acknowledges trying to halt the pathogen’s spread is a tall order, he insists “it’s not a lost cause. With education, and with changes in the practice, we can make a difference. We will make a difference.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Nursery Shakeup\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Tentaculata \u003c/em>has also shown up at nurseries in Monterey, Santa Cruz, Placer and Butte counties, elevating concerns in the industry over the potential spread of tiny invaders. While Watershed Nursery in Richmond has kept it out, “everybody’s a little paranoid now,” says owner Diana Benner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the last year, Benner and her co-owner, Laura Hanson, have added safeguards, like a spongy sort of doormat soaked in disinfectant, so people passing in and out of the chain-link gate won’t track in potential pathogens on the soles of their shoes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They’ve replaced wooden potting tables with surfaces that are easier to disinfect. They now sterilize the many pots they reuse. They’re even working on a way to sterilize potting soil, rigging together a pair of metal trashcans with a smoker underneath for heat. A big part of the success or failure of these methods, Benner says, is vigilance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You can have all these things set up, and if your staff is not thinking about it constantly, it doesn’t matter,” she says. “So the biggest thing about it has been habits – habits, habits, habits.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Benner also notes the nursery grows plants for restoration projects from seed, which is not believed to be a vector for passing along \u003cem>Phytophthora\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Plant pathologist Ted Swiecki says the danger of spreading exotic pathogens is familiar in places like Australia, where the species \u003cem>Phytophthora cinnamomi\u003c/em> is widespread.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They have huge education campaigns, they’ve been doing various types of treatments in different areas, they have quarantines, all kinds of sanitation stations, all kinds of efforts,” Swiecki says. “We don’t want to end up where they are. In a way, we’re in a version of that with Sudden Oak Death.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, while the microbe that causes Sudden Oak Death can infect many plants and kills only a handful of them, \u003cem>P. cinnamomi\u003c/em> has “a host list of a couple thousand-plus species, which we could add to every day, because most of its hosts aren’t known. And it will kill most of those.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With other exotic varieties of Phytophthora turning up around the Bay Area, Swiecki is urging action: he believes there’s still a chance for native plant nurseries and the restoration projects they supply to take heed, before things get worse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every time we get a new Phytophthora species out there with limited information like \u003cem>tentaculata\u003c/em>,” Swiecki says, “we don’t really know what it’s going to affect and how wide its host range is going to be. And when we have a combination of species out there, we really have a set of wild cards.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26091\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/HumptyDumpty.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26091\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/HumptyDumpty.jpg\" alt=\"We can now begin to piece back together the DNA of long dead people using the DNA of their modern relatives. (Wikimedia Commons)\" width=\"800\" height=\"532\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">We can now begin to piece back together the DNA of individuals from the past using the DNA of their modern relatives. (\u003ca class=\"nofancybox\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Denslow's_Humpty_Dumpty_pg_5.jpg\">Wikimedia Commons\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Have you ever wondered about one of your relatives from long ago? Maybe he was famous or you want to know where your family’s blue eyes came from or you’re just plain curious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Until recently, you pretty much had to rely on family stories that were passed down through the generations to learn about your ancestors. But that is now set to change. With a little luck, a whole lot of science and genealogy, you may be able to use passed down DNA instead of stories to learn a bit about that great-great-great-grandfather.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is exactly what the good folks at the San Francisco-based company AncestryDNA \u003ca href=\"http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/12/16/ancestrydna-reconstructs-partial-genome-1th-century-father/\">just did with David Speegle\u003c/a>, a man born sometime around 1806. They were able to use the DNA of Speegle’s living descendants to piece together around 12% of the length of his genome. From this work, they were able to figure out that either he or one of his two wives probably had blue eyes and had the genes for early baldness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is just a start. As we learn more about human DNA, we will be able to learn a whole lot more about this long dead man from his recreated genome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And now that AncestryDNA has worked out how to do this, they may be able to apply it to other deceased individuals as well. We may soon have a whole new way to learn about our past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Little Bit of Luck\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26093\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 200px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/DSpeegle.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26093\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/DSpeegle.jpg\" alt=\"This is a picture of David Speegle. We can use the DNA of his living relatives to add a bit of color to this black-and-white photo. (restorationmovement.com)\" width=\"200\" height=\"374\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This is a picture of David Speegle. We can use the DNA of his living relatives to add a bit of color to this black and white photo. (\u003ca href=\"http://www.therestorationmovement.com/alabama/speegle.htm\">restorationmovement.com\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Most everyone knows that they get half their DNA from their mom and half from their dad. What they might not have thought about is what happens to their DNA if they have just one child. Basically, at its simplest, half their DNA is lost forever!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now of course it isn’t as simple as that. If you have brothers or sisters, they share right around half of their DNA with you and so their kids will share some of your DNA too. And if your parents had brothers and sisters they will share some of your DNA too. And so on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, it becomes very tricky to track down DNA from people with few descendants. Which is why David Speegle made such an ideal test case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He had 26(!) kids with two different wives and over 150 grandkids. His full set of DNA was pretty much passed on to the next generation multiple times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is where the luck comes in. For now, if you wanted something similar done for one of your relatives, you’d need to focus on someone that had lots of kids. That long-lost relative with two kids and four grandkids will probably remain a mystery for the foreseeable future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So the first step is picking a relative with lots of kids and grandkids. But this is by no means the whole story. You also need to know the DNA of lots of your relatives and have lots of accurate, overlapping family trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Lot of Science and Genealogy\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>David Speegle, his kids and his grandkids have all been dead for a very long time. What this means is that anyone alive today has, at most, tiny splinters of his DNA in theirs. These wisps of DNA need to be recognized and then combined to recreate David Speegle’s DNA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26095\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 250px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/DNAbody.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26095\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/DNAbody.jpg\" alt=\"We are getting closer to being able to recreate the genomes of long dead people. (Flickr)\" width=\"250\" height=\"375\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">We are getting closer to being able to recreate the genomes of long dead people. (\u003ca href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/greyloch/9121238998/\">Flickr\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Remember, you can’t compare the DNA of a relative with David’s DNA. His DNA is not available.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, basically you are looking at as many of the people as you can at the bottom level of an enormous family tree that starts with David and his two wives. Fortunately, AncestryDNA has a good number of David Speegle’s descendants in the over 500,000 genomes in their database.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers at AncestryDNA compared the DNA of all of the pairs of people for whom Speegle was the most recent common ancestor, one pair at a time, and looked for common DNA. They found a whole lot of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The next step was to find the DNA that is actually David’s and not some other shared relative’s DNA. This is trickier than it sounds because DNA doesn’t get passed down in predictable chunks from generation to generation. It gets all mixed, matched, and diluted in each generation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is where those family trees come in handy. You can subtract out DNA that is shared because of other relatives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, this is where the David’s two wives really helped. They made it easier to separate out the DNA that came from these two women compared to the DNA that came from David.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Not Just a Parlor Trick\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recreating David’s genome is more than just some heroic academic exercise. It also points to what we can learn about ourselves from testing the DNA of many relatives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, people are using their DNA to trace their family’s ancestry. In fact, whole companies (including AncestryDNA) are based on just that premise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unfortunately, you can lose a lot of information if you test only yourself. Remember, you have only half of your mom and dad’s DNA. What this means is that you may miss more distant ancestry information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Imagine that you had an Asian ancestor 5 or 6 generations back. This might mean that your parent has less than 5% of that Asian ancestor’s DNA in his or her DNA. If you happened to not inherit that part of your parent’s DNA, then the history of your Asian ancestry would be lost. (Click \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/ask-a-geneticist/uneven-passing-dna\">here \u003c/a>for more information on these scenarios.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One way to recover that information would be through something similar to what was done here for David Speegle. By comparing the DNA of lots of relatives you might be able to piece together that lost Asian history and learn a bit about yourself or confirm a family story.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26091\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/HumptyDumpty.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26091\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/HumptyDumpty.jpg\" alt=\"We can now begin to piece back together the DNA of long dead people using the DNA of their modern relatives. (Wikimedia Commons)\" width=\"800\" height=\"532\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">We can now begin to piece back together the DNA of individuals from the past using the DNA of their modern relatives. (\u003ca class=\"nofancybox\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Denslow's_Humpty_Dumpty_pg_5.jpg\">Wikimedia Commons\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Have you ever wondered about one of your relatives from long ago? Maybe he was famous or you want to know where your family’s blue eyes came from or you’re just plain curious.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Until recently, you pretty much had to rely on family stories that were passed down through the generations to learn about your ancestors. But that is now set to change. With a little luck, a whole lot of science and genealogy, you may be able to use passed down DNA instead of stories to learn a bit about that great-great-great-grandfather.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is exactly what the good folks at the San Francisco-based company AncestryDNA \u003ca href=\"http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/12/16/ancestrydna-reconstructs-partial-genome-1th-century-father/\">just did with David Speegle\u003c/a>, a man born sometime around 1806. They were able to use the DNA of Speegle’s living descendants to piece together around 12% of the length of his genome. From this work, they were able to figure out that either he or one of his two wives probably had blue eyes and had the genes for early baldness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is just a start. As we learn more about human DNA, we will be able to learn a whole lot more about this long dead man from his recreated genome.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And now that AncestryDNA has worked out how to do this, they may be able to apply it to other deceased individuals as well. We may soon have a whole new way to learn about our past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Little Bit of Luck\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26093\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 200px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/DSpeegle.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26093\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/DSpeegle.jpg\" alt=\"This is a picture of David Speegle. We can use the DNA of his living relatives to add a bit of color to this black-and-white photo. (restorationmovement.com)\" width=\"200\" height=\"374\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This is a picture of David Speegle. We can use the DNA of his living relatives to add a bit of color to this black and white photo. (\u003ca href=\"http://www.therestorationmovement.com/alabama/speegle.htm\">restorationmovement.com\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Most everyone knows that they get half their DNA from their mom and half from their dad. What they might not have thought about is what happens to their DNA if they have just one child. Basically, at its simplest, half their DNA is lost forever!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now of course it isn’t as simple as that. If you have brothers or sisters, they share right around half of their DNA with you and so their kids will share some of your DNA too. And if your parents had brothers and sisters they will share some of your DNA too. And so on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, it becomes very tricky to track down DNA from people with few descendants. Which is why David Speegle made such an ideal test case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He had 26(!) kids with two different wives and over 150 grandkids. His full set of DNA was pretty much passed on to the next generation multiple times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is where the luck comes in. For now, if you wanted something similar done for one of your relatives, you’d need to focus on someone that had lots of kids. That long-lost relative with two kids and four grandkids will probably remain a mystery for the foreseeable future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So the first step is picking a relative with lots of kids and grandkids. But this is by no means the whole story. You also need to know the DNA of lots of your relatives and have lots of accurate, overlapping family trees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>A Lot of Science and Genealogy\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>David Speegle, his kids and his grandkids have all been dead for a very long time. What this means is that anyone alive today has, at most, tiny splinters of his DNA in theirs. These wisps of DNA need to be recognized and then combined to recreate David Speegle’s DNA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_26095\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 250px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/DNAbody.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26095\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/DNAbody.jpg\" alt=\"We are getting closer to being able to recreate the genomes of long dead people. (Flickr)\" width=\"250\" height=\"375\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">We are getting closer to being able to recreate the genomes of long dead people. (\u003ca href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/greyloch/9121238998/\">Flickr\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Remember, you can’t compare the DNA of a relative with David’s DNA. His DNA is not available.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So, basically you are looking at as many of the people as you can at the bottom level of an enormous family tree that starts with David and his two wives. Fortunately, AncestryDNA has a good number of David Speegle’s descendants in the over 500,000 genomes in their database.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The researchers at AncestryDNA compared the DNA of all of the pairs of people for whom Speegle was the most recent common ancestor, one pair at a time, and looked for common DNA. They found a whole lot of it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The next step was to find the DNA that is actually David’s and not some other shared relative’s DNA. This is trickier than it sounds because DNA doesn’t get passed down in predictable chunks from generation to generation. It gets all mixed, matched, and diluted in each generation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is where those family trees come in handy. You can subtract out DNA that is shared because of other relatives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, this is where the David’s two wives really helped. They made it easier to separate out the DNA that came from these two women compared to the DNA that came from David.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Not Just a Parlor Trick\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recreating David’s genome is more than just some heroic academic exercise. It also points to what we can learn about ourselves from testing the DNA of many relatives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, people are using their DNA to trace their family’s ancestry. In fact, whole companies (including AncestryDNA) are based on just that premise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unfortunately, you can lose a lot of information if you test only yourself. Remember, you have only half of your mom and dad’s DNA. What this means is that you may miss more distant ancestry information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Imagine that you had an Asian ancestor 5 or 6 generations back. This might mean that your parent has less than 5% of that Asian ancestor’s DNA in his or her DNA. If you happened to not inherit that part of your parent’s DNA, then the history of your Asian ancestry would be lost. (Click \u003ca href=\"http://genetics.thetech.org/ask-a-geneticist/uneven-passing-dna\">here \u003c/a>for more information on these scenarios.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One way to recover that information would be through something similar to what was done here for David Speegle. By comparing the DNA of lots of relatives you might be able to piece together that lost Asian history and learn a bit about yourself or confirm a family story.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>[dl_subscribe]California sea otters (\u003cem>Enhydra lutris\u003c/em>) — the frolicking mascots of the coast who draw visitors to aquariums in droves and who float among the kelp beds just beyond the surf line — have the densest fur of any mammal on Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With up to a million hairs per inch, the super-soft coats were once such a lure for hunters that they nearly led to the otters’ demise in the early 1900s. But now, the federally protected species is free to use its luxurious fur for one key purpose: to keep warm in the often chilly Pacific Ocean, particularly during winter months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They live in cold water, and it’s too cold for them,” says Heather Liwanag, a biologist who studied otter fur as part of her Ph.D. research at \u003ca href=\"http://www.ucsc.edu/\">U.C. Santa Cruz\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘If an otter were to use blubber to stay warm the amount of blubber it would need would be bigger than the otter.’\u003ccite>— Heather Liwanag,\u003cbr>\nAdelphi University Biologist \u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Everywhere in the otter’s geographic range, she says, is outside their “thermal neutral zone.” This zone is the range of temperatures in which a mammal can live without expending energy to maintain its internal body temperature. So how do they do it? The same way you or I would—with a nice warm blanket. But theirs is a blanket of air.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re using fur for insulation, but it’s not really the fur that’s insulating them,” says Liwanag, now an assistant professor of biology at \u003ca href=\"http://www.adelphi.edu/\">Adelphi University\u003c/a> in New York.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The true insulating power comes from a layer of air the fur keeps trapped next to their skin. Otter fur has two special properties that make it especially good at creating an insulating layer of air: It’s dense, and it’s spiky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25925\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Sea-otter-guard-hair.jpeg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-25925\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Sea-otter-guard-hair.jpeg\" alt=\"Scanning electron microscope image of a human hair showing scaled texture (Guangwei Min/UCB)\" width=\"640\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Scanning electron microscope image of a sea otter guard hair. The barbed scales allow sea otter fur to form a nearly waterproof layer to protect the otter from the frigid ocean (Heather Liwanag/Adelphi University)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25924\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Human-Hair-SEM.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-25924\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Human-Hair-SEM.jpg\" alt=\"Scanning electron microscope image of a human hair showing scaled texture (Guangwei Min/UC Berkeley)\" width=\"640\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Scanning electron microscope image of a human hair showing scaled texture (Guangwei Min/UC Berkeley)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Otters fur is about 1,000 times more dense than human hair. But it wouldn’t do them any good if it were smooth and perfectly combed. Otters want their hair as tangled as possible, so that the air bubbles they blow into their pelts can’t get out. This is where the spiky aspect comes in handy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Otter pelts feel smooth and soft to us, but if you look at otter hair with a microscope you can see that it’s covered in tiny, geometric barbs. The barbs help the hair mat together so tightly that the fur near the otter’s body is almost completely dry. And keeping the animals dry is key to keeping them warm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are some disadvantages to the otter’s heating system. Because it relies on the trapped air, otters can’t dive too deep because high pressure forces the bubbles out. Also, the air makes them so buoyant they have to work hard to swim down. They sometimes even need to grab a rock or piece of kelp to help stay submerged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://projects1.kqed.org/imageslider/deeplook-otter-slider.html\" width=\"360px\" height=\"300px\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003csmall>\u003cem>Oil disrupts the sea otter fur’s ability to trap insulating air.The oiled section\u003cbr>\nshows bright red where the otter’s body heat is exposed. (California Department\u003cbr>\nof Fish and Wildlife)\u003c/em>\u003c/small>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their unique use of air bubbles to stay insulated and warm is what makes oil spills so dangerous to otters. Oil can mat down otter fur and keep it from holding air. Without the insulation the otter is left unprotected from the frigid ocean water. It doesn’t take long for oiled otters to succumb to hypothermia and drown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many other marine mammals, including whales and sea lions, stay warm a different way — with layers of blubber.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Liwanag, in her thesis research that was published in 2012, compared the insulating powers of fur and blubber under different conditions. She wanted to learn more about how different species of mammals adapted to the marine environment to stay warm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Going in to this thesis, I fully expected blubber to be the better insulator,” she says, “because we see it arise multiple times, across different lineages.” But that wasn’t the case, and it turned out that fur—or really, air—is warmer, at least at shallow depths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If an otter were to use blubber to stay warm,” Liwanag says, “the amount of blubber it would need would be bigger than the otter.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>California sea otters (\u003cem>Enhydra lutris\u003c/em>) — the frolicking mascots of the coast who draw visitors to aquariums in droves and who float among the kelp beds just beyond the surf line — have the densest fur of any mammal on Earth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With up to a million hairs per inch, the super-soft coats were once such a lure for hunters that they nearly led to the otters’ demise in the early 1900s. But now, the federally protected species is free to use its luxurious fur for one key purpose: to keep warm in the often chilly Pacific Ocean, particularly during winter months.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They live in cold water, and it’s too cold for them,” says Heather Liwanag, a biologist who studied otter fur as part of her Ph.D. research at \u003ca href=\"http://www.ucsc.edu/\">U.C. Santa Cruz\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘If an otter were to use blubber to stay warm the amount of blubber it would need would be bigger than the otter.’\u003ccite>— Heather Liwanag,\u003cbr>\nAdelphi University Biologist \u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>Everywhere in the otter’s geographic range, she says, is outside their “thermal neutral zone.” This zone is the range of temperatures in which a mammal can live without expending energy to maintain its internal body temperature. So how do they do it? The same way you or I would—with a nice warm blanket. But theirs is a blanket of air.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They’re using fur for insulation, but it’s not really the fur that’s insulating them,” says Liwanag, now an assistant professor of biology at \u003ca href=\"http://www.adelphi.edu/\">Adelphi University\u003c/a> in New York.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The true insulating power comes from a layer of air the fur keeps trapped next to their skin. Otter fur has two special properties that make it especially good at creating an insulating layer of air: It’s dense, and it’s spiky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25925\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Sea-otter-guard-hair.jpeg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-25925\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Sea-otter-guard-hair.jpeg\" alt=\"Scanning electron microscope image of a human hair showing scaled texture (Guangwei Min/UCB)\" width=\"640\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Scanning electron microscope image of a sea otter guard hair. The barbed scales allow sea otter fur to form a nearly waterproof layer to protect the otter from the frigid ocean (Heather Liwanag/Adelphi University)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25924\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 640px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Human-Hair-SEM.jpg\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-25924\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2015/01/Human-Hair-SEM.jpg\" alt=\"Scanning electron microscope image of a human hair showing scaled texture (Guangwei Min/UC Berkeley)\" width=\"640\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Scanning electron microscope image of a human hair showing scaled texture (Guangwei Min/UC Berkeley)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Otters fur is about 1,000 times more dense than human hair. But it wouldn’t do them any good if it were smooth and perfectly combed. Otters want their hair as tangled as possible, so that the air bubbles they blow into their pelts can’t get out. This is where the spiky aspect comes in handy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Otter pelts feel smooth and soft to us, but if you look at otter hair with a microscope you can see that it’s covered in tiny, geometric barbs. The barbs help the hair mat together so tightly that the fur near the otter’s body is almost completely dry. And keeping the animals dry is key to keeping them warm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are some disadvantages to the otter’s heating system. Because it relies on the trapped air, otters can’t dive too deep because high pressure forces the bubbles out. Also, the air makes them so buoyant they have to work hard to swim down. They sometimes even need to grab a rock or piece of kelp to help stay submerged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http://projects1.kqed.org/imageslider/deeplook-otter-slider.html\" width=\"360px\" height=\"300px\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"yes\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003csmall>\u003cem>Oil disrupts the sea otter fur’s ability to trap insulating air.The oiled section\u003cbr>\nshows bright red where the otter’s body heat is exposed. (California Department\u003cbr>\nof Fish and Wildlife)\u003c/em>\u003c/small>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Their unique use of air bubbles to stay insulated and warm is what makes oil spills so dangerous to otters. Oil can mat down otter fur and keep it from holding air. Without the insulation the otter is left unprotected from the frigid ocean water. It doesn’t take long for oiled otters to succumb to hypothermia and drown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many other marine mammals, including whales and sea lions, stay warm a different way — with layers of blubber.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Liwanag, in her thesis research that was published in 2012, compared the insulating powers of fur and blubber under different conditions. She wanted to learn more about how different species of mammals adapted to the marine environment to stay warm.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Going in to this thesis, I fully expected blubber to be the better insulator,” she says, “because we see it arise multiple times, across different lineages.” But that wasn’t the case, and it turned out that fur—or really, air—is warmer, at least at shallow depths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If an otter were to use blubber to stay warm,” Liwanag says, “the amount of blubber it would need would be bigger than the otter.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Bird Biology Knowledge Expands with the Sequencing of 48 Genomes",
"headTitle": "Bird Biology Knowledge Expands with the Sequencing of 48 Genomes | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25302\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/FlockOfBirds.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25302\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/FlockOfBirds.jpg\" alt=\"Scientists have learned so much about birds from sequencing the genomes of 48 different species of them. And there is plenty more they will learn as they continue to analyze the data. (Wikimedia Commons) \" width=\"800\" height=\"437\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Scientists have learned so much about birds from sequencing the genomes of 48 different species of them. And there is plenty more they will learn as they continue to analyze the data. (\u003ca class=\"nofancybox\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flickr_-_Government_Press_Office_(GPO)_-_Flock_of_Birds.jpg\">Wikimedia Commons\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In a stunning feat of scientific prowess, a large group of scientists has completely sequenced the genomes of 48 different bird species. Well, actually getting all those A’s, G’s, C’s and T’s wasn’t the big deal. This part gets easier and easier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No, the really hard part of the project was organizing and managing all of that data. The researchers needed to create new computational tools and use over 300 years of computing time to take the data and use it to create an evolutionary tree for these 48 birds. No wonder this part of the project took over three years!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This will be a common theme in the big genome projects to come. Sequencing will be easy, managing the data hard. Hopefully what these researchers learned can be used to help future researchers deal more easily with these mountains of data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even though it took a lot of work, this bird project was definitely worth it. These scientists learned a whole lot about birds and their evolutionary history that couldn’t be learned any other way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, they found that the patterns of genes that are turned on for birdsong are similar to the ones that are turned on for human speech. That blue jay is using some of the same genes to sing that Taylor Swift uses! This is just one of their many findings about how modern birds work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25333\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/FeatheredDinosaur.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25333\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/FeatheredDinosaur.jpg\" alt=\"There was a burst of bird evolution right after the dinosaurs disappeared. (Flickr)\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">There was a burst of bird evolution right after the dinosaurs disappeared. (\u003ca href=\"https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/22/27464271_94d1b35278.jpg\">Flickr\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Their biggest findings, though, were about the evolutionary history of birds. For example, the researchers could see in bird DNA an explosive burst of diversity that happened between 67 and 50 million years ago. Most likely birds first flocked to and then adapted to the new niches made available when most of the dinosaurs were wiped out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers could also see that vocal learning probably appeared independently in a variety of birds. In other words, there wasn’t a single ancestor back in time who developed this trait and who then passed that ability on to all birds alive today. This trait popped up multiple times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They could also see that most land birds came from one really nasty carnivore. And they could see the effects of inbreeding on the DNA of the crested ibis. And the list goes on. What I have described so far is really just the tip of the iceberg of what they have learned and what they will continue to learn from this data in the future. I can’t wait until this is applied to turtles or snakes or whatever else. We are going to learn so much about how plants and animals work and how they evolved. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Fall of Teeth\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One fascinating bit of detective work to come out of this study was the evolutionary history of tooth loss in birds. The ancestors of birds used to have teeth and modern birds do not. Tooth loss might have been like vocal learning and popped up independently multiple times. Or it might have appeared in a common ancestor of all birds. It looks like the second possibility is the right one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25335\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Croc.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25335\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Croc.jpg\" alt=\"Unlike his cousins the birds, this crocodile's tooth development genes still work which is why he still has teeth. (Flickr)\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Unlike his cousins the birds, this crocodile’s tooth development genes still work which is why he still has teeth. (\u003ca href=\"https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/53/146700348_5443cc3ad9_b.jpg\">Flickr\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The way to tell which possibility is correct is to look at the tooth development genes that still linger in bird genomes. If all birds have the same inactivating mutation, then they all probably came from the same common, toothless ancestor. This is because there are lots of ways to break a gene and the odds of it happening in the same way in two different populations is very unlikely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if different groups of birds have unique mutations that inactivated gene(s), then toothlessness probably appeared independently a number of times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By comparing six of these genes in the 48 different bird species, the researchers concluded that most likely birds can be traced back to a common toothless ancestor from around 116 million or so years ago. Birds all shared the same inactivating mutations in six key tooth development genes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now after 116 million years, these genes are understandably a bit beat up since once a gene is inactivated, there is no natural selection to keep the gene from building up mutations. This is why the researchers needed to look at the genomes of 48 different bird species to figure out that tooth loss happened once in bird history. You need to be able to see many different genomes to be able to put the pieces back together again from the remnants of old genes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just because birds share the same common, toothless ancestor that does not necessarily mean that all animals that have lost their teeth do. When the researchers compared these bird genes to the same genes of other toothless animals like turtles and anteaters, they found these animals had different mutations. So all toothless reptiles, birds, and mammals did not come from some common ancestor. Teeth were lost at multiple times through multiple mutations over the course of the last hundreds of millions of years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This will undoubtedly be the first of many future studies that may allow us to see how animals gained and lost traits. And who knows, maybe a similar study will one day help us learn why we gained traits like speech and lost traits like body hair over time. It is amazing what we are learning and what we will be able to learn sooner than you might think.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "In a stunning feat of scientific prowess, a large group of scientists has completely sequenced the genomes of 48 different bird species. But as sequencing gets easier, managing all of that data is turning out to be the real challenge.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25302\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/FlockOfBirds.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25302\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/FlockOfBirds.jpg\" alt=\"Scientists have learned so much about birds from sequencing the genomes of 48 different species of them. And there is plenty more they will learn as they continue to analyze the data. (Wikimedia Commons) \" width=\"800\" height=\"437\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Scientists have learned so much about birds from sequencing the genomes of 48 different species of them. And there is plenty more they will learn as they continue to analyze the data. (\u003ca class=\"nofancybox\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flickr_-_Government_Press_Office_(GPO)_-_Flock_of_Birds.jpg\">Wikimedia Commons\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In a stunning feat of scientific prowess, a large group of scientists has completely sequenced the genomes of 48 different bird species. Well, actually getting all those A’s, G’s, C’s and T’s wasn’t the big deal. This part gets easier and easier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No, the really hard part of the project was organizing and managing all of that data. The researchers needed to create new computational tools and use over 300 years of computing time to take the data and use it to create an evolutionary tree for these 48 birds. No wonder this part of the project took over three years!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This will be a common theme in the big genome projects to come. Sequencing will be easy, managing the data hard. Hopefully what these researchers learned can be used to help future researchers deal more easily with these mountains of data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even though it took a lot of work, this bird project was definitely worth it. These scientists learned a whole lot about birds and their evolutionary history that couldn’t be learned any other way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, they found that the patterns of genes that are turned on for birdsong are similar to the ones that are turned on for human speech. That blue jay is using some of the same genes to sing that Taylor Swift uses! This is just one of their many findings about how modern birds work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25333\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/FeatheredDinosaur.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25333\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/FeatheredDinosaur.jpg\" alt=\"There was a burst of bird evolution right after the dinosaurs disappeared. (Flickr)\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">There was a burst of bird evolution right after the dinosaurs disappeared. (\u003ca href=\"https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/22/27464271_94d1b35278.jpg\">Flickr\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Their biggest findings, though, were about the evolutionary history of birds. For example, the researchers could see in bird DNA an explosive burst of diversity that happened between 67 and 50 million years ago. Most likely birds first flocked to and then adapted to the new niches made available when most of the dinosaurs were wiped out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers could also see that vocal learning probably appeared independently in a variety of birds. In other words, there wasn’t a single ancestor back in time who developed this trait and who then passed that ability on to all birds alive today. This trait popped up multiple times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They could also see that most land birds came from one really nasty carnivore. And they could see the effects of inbreeding on the DNA of the crested ibis. And the list goes on. What I have described so far is really just the tip of the iceberg of what they have learned and what they will continue to learn from this data in the future. I can’t wait until this is applied to turtles or snakes or whatever else. We are going to learn so much about how plants and animals work and how they evolved. Stay tuned.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Fall of Teeth\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One fascinating bit of detective work to come out of this study was the evolutionary history of tooth loss in birds. The ancestors of birds used to have teeth and modern birds do not. Tooth loss might have been like vocal learning and popped up independently multiple times. Or it might have appeared in a common ancestor of all birds. It looks like the second possibility is the right one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25335\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Croc.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25335\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Croc.jpg\" alt=\"Unlike his cousins the birds, this crocodile's tooth development genes still work which is why he still has teeth. (Flickr)\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Unlike his cousins the birds, this crocodile’s tooth development genes still work which is why he still has teeth. (\u003ca href=\"https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/53/146700348_5443cc3ad9_b.jpg\">Flickr\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The way to tell which possibility is correct is to look at the tooth development genes that still linger in bird genomes. If all birds have the same inactivating mutation, then they all probably came from the same common, toothless ancestor. This is because there are lots of ways to break a gene and the odds of it happening in the same way in two different populations is very unlikely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But if different groups of birds have unique mutations that inactivated gene(s), then toothlessness probably appeared independently a number of times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By comparing six of these genes in the 48 different bird species, the researchers concluded that most likely birds can be traced back to a common toothless ancestor from around 116 million or so years ago. Birds all shared the same inactivating mutations in six key tooth development genes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now after 116 million years, these genes are understandably a bit beat up since once a gene is inactivated, there is no natural selection to keep the gene from building up mutations. This is why the researchers needed to look at the genomes of 48 different bird species to figure out that tooth loss happened once in bird history. You need to be able to see many different genomes to be able to put the pieces back together again from the remnants of old genes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Just because birds share the same common, toothless ancestor that does not necessarily mean that all animals that have lost their teeth do. When the researchers compared these bird genes to the same genes of other toothless animals like turtles and anteaters, they found these animals had different mutations. So all toothless reptiles, birds, and mammals did not come from some common ancestor. Teeth were lost at multiple times through multiple mutations over the course of the last hundreds of millions of years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This will undoubtedly be the first of many future studies that may allow us to see how animals gained and lost traits. And who knows, maybe a similar study will one day help us learn why we gained traits like speech and lost traits like body hair over time. It is amazing what we are learning and what we will be able to learn sooner than you might think.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Stanford Identifies Drug That May Improve Cardiac Stents",
"headTitle": "Stanford Identifies Drug That May Improve Cardiac Stents | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25154\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Blausen_0034_Angioplasty_Stent_01_800x450.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25154\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Blausen_0034_Angioplasty_Stent_01_800x450.png\" alt=\"Stent in human coronary artery. (Wikimedia, Blausen gallery 2014) \" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stent in human coronary artery. (\u003ca href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blausen_0034_Angioplasty_Stent_01.png\">Wikimedia\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"//en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Blausen_gallery_2014\">Blausen gallery 2014\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Researchers from Stanford University School of Medicine believe they’ve found a drug for cardiac stents that can more effectively prevent stent complications.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over a million people in the U.S. each year undergo angioplasty heart surgery using a drug-coated stent to treat blocked arteries, according to the \u003ca title=\"American Heart Association statistics\" href=\"http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/129/3/e28\">American Heart Association\u003c/a>. A stent is a tiny wire mesh tube that is permanently implanted into the artery at the blockage point, creating a scaffold that props open the artery to reduce the chance of a heart attack. However, placement of bare metal stents can themselves damage the artery lining, causing scar tissue to grow and narrow the artery. Known as in-stent stenosis, this typically occurs 3-6 months after the surgical procedure and can lead to chest pain and even heart attacks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To help prevent in-stent stenosis, doctors use stents coated with drugs that inhibit tissue regrowth to help prevent the blood vessels from reclosing. Unfortunately, these drugs can also inhibit beneficial regrowth of the vessel’s blood lining (endothelium) that aids the healing process. So patients still need to take blood-thinners for up to a year to reduce the risk of a blood clot developing in the stent and blocking the artery. This need for blood thinners is a serious problem for many people with other health issues; for instance, it means they can’t have surgery while taking the medication.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stanford researchers have now identified a drug to coat cardiac stents that helps prevent in-stent stenosis without affecting the healing of the blood vessel lining. Their new research is described in a \u003ca title=\"JCI journal article\" href=\"http://www.jci.org/articles/view/77484\">paper published\u003c/a> this month in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. Dr. Euan Ashley, associate professor of cardiovascular medicine and genetics at Stanford University Medical Center, led the research team.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘The major finding of the study is that artery stent disease acts surprisingly like a tumor in the blood vessel wall.’ \u003ccite>— Euan Ashley, Stanford University Medical Center\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>The researchers first sought to more fully understand the genetic pathways of coronary artery disease using a “big data” computational biology approach. Using data from previous studies, they analyzed large datasets of coronary artery tissue samples and genome information from patients who had developed in-stent stenosis after undergoing angioplasty and stenting. Based on network analyses, the researchers hypothesized that there is an increased risk of in-stent stenosis due to the interplay of two genes, GPX1 and ROS1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GPX1 deficiency is known to be independently associated with coronary artery disease in humans. However, ROS1 expression is mostly known for its role in highly malignant cancers, such as lung cancers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We didn’t know anything about ROS1,” said Ashley in a \u003ca title=\"Stanford press release\" href=\"https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2014/11/big-data-approach-at-stanford-helps-pinpoint-possible-new-stent.html\">press release\u003c/a>. “It hadn’t been studied in cardiovascular disease. We knew it was an important gene in cancer. We thought, that’s odd, since the growth caused by stents is almost like a tumor.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They confirmed their theory by performing an extensive series of laboratory experiments using human tissue samples and genetically engineered knockout mice. Some of these studies involved surgically implanting drug-coated stents in mice with clogged arteries. The researchers inhibited the ROS1 genes by coating these stents with crizotinib – a chemotherapy drug used to treat certain ROS1-positive lung cancers. They found that crizotinib inhibited in-stent stenosis without affecting the lining of the blood vessels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25160\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Ashley_MouseStent_800x450.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25160\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Ashley_MouseStent_800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Small mouse-sized stent used by Stanford researchers. (Courtesy of Euan Ashley)\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A tiny mouse-sized stent used by the Stanford researchers in their mice studies. (Courtesy of Euan Ashley)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The major finding of the study is that artery stent disease acts surprisingly like a tumor in the blood vessel wall,” said Ashley in the press release. “Inhibiting it with nonspecific pharmaceutical agents, as we do now, leads to heart attacks from clots caused by lack of endothelial lining on the stent. Whereas, targeting it with the drug we use here, crizotinib, acts much more specifically and inhibits the disease without affecting the endothelium.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stanford researchers still have a lot more work to do before crizotinib-coated stents will be clinically available. However, this research should translate to the clinic more quickly since crizotinib is already an FDA approved drug.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25154\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Blausen_0034_Angioplasty_Stent_01_800x450.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25154\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Blausen_0034_Angioplasty_Stent_01_800x450.png\" alt=\"Stent in human coronary artery. (Wikimedia, Blausen gallery 2014) \" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Stent in human coronary artery. (\u003ca href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blausen_0034_Angioplasty_Stent_01.png\">Wikimedia\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"//en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Blausen_gallery_2014\">Blausen gallery 2014\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Researchers from Stanford University School of Medicine believe they’ve found a drug for cardiac stents that can more effectively prevent stent complications.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over a million people in the U.S. each year undergo angioplasty heart surgery using a drug-coated stent to treat blocked arteries, according to the \u003ca title=\"American Heart Association statistics\" href=\"http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/129/3/e28\">American Heart Association\u003c/a>. A stent is a tiny wire mesh tube that is permanently implanted into the artery at the blockage point, creating a scaffold that props open the artery to reduce the chance of a heart attack. However, placement of bare metal stents can themselves damage the artery lining, causing scar tissue to grow and narrow the artery. Known as in-stent stenosis, this typically occurs 3-6 months after the surgical procedure and can lead to chest pain and even heart attacks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To help prevent in-stent stenosis, doctors use stents coated with drugs that inhibit tissue regrowth to help prevent the blood vessels from reclosing. Unfortunately, these drugs can also inhibit beneficial regrowth of the vessel’s blood lining (endothelium) that aids the healing process. So patients still need to take blood-thinners for up to a year to reduce the risk of a blood clot developing in the stent and blocking the artery. This need for blood thinners is a serious problem for many people with other health issues; for instance, it means they can’t have surgery while taking the medication.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stanford researchers have now identified a drug to coat cardiac stents that helps prevent in-stent stenosis without affecting the healing of the blood vessel lining. Their new research is described in a \u003ca title=\"JCI journal article\" href=\"http://www.jci.org/articles/view/77484\">paper published\u003c/a> this month in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. Dr. Euan Ashley, associate professor of cardiovascular medicine and genetics at Stanford University Medical Center, led the research team.\u003c/p>\n\u003caside class=\"pullquote alignleft\">‘The major finding of the study is that artery stent disease acts surprisingly like a tumor in the blood vessel wall.’ \u003ccite>— Euan Ashley, Stanford University Medical Center\u003c/cite>\u003c/aside>\n\u003cp>The researchers first sought to more fully understand the genetic pathways of coronary artery disease using a “big data” computational biology approach. Using data from previous studies, they analyzed large datasets of coronary artery tissue samples and genome information from patients who had developed in-stent stenosis after undergoing angioplasty and stenting. Based on network analyses, the researchers hypothesized that there is an increased risk of in-stent stenosis due to the interplay of two genes, GPX1 and ROS1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>GPX1 deficiency is known to be independently associated with coronary artery disease in humans. However, ROS1 expression is mostly known for its role in highly malignant cancers, such as lung cancers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We didn’t know anything about ROS1,” said Ashley in a \u003ca title=\"Stanford press release\" href=\"https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2014/11/big-data-approach-at-stanford-helps-pinpoint-possible-new-stent.html\">press release\u003c/a>. “It hadn’t been studied in cardiovascular disease. We knew it was an important gene in cancer. We thought, that’s odd, since the growth caused by stents is almost like a tumor.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They confirmed their theory by performing an extensive series of laboratory experiments using human tissue samples and genetically engineered knockout mice. Some of these studies involved surgically implanting drug-coated stents in mice with clogged arteries. The researchers inhibited the ROS1 genes by coating these stents with crizotinib – a chemotherapy drug used to treat certain ROS1-positive lung cancers. They found that crizotinib inhibited in-stent stenosis without affecting the lining of the blood vessels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25160\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Ashley_MouseStent_800x450.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25160\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Ashley_MouseStent_800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Small mouse-sized stent used by Stanford researchers. (Courtesy of Euan Ashley)\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A tiny mouse-sized stent used by the Stanford researchers in their mice studies. (Courtesy of Euan Ashley)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“The major finding of the study is that artery stent disease acts surprisingly like a tumor in the blood vessel wall,” said Ashley in the press release. “Inhibiting it with nonspecific pharmaceutical agents, as we do now, leads to heart attacks from clots caused by lack of endothelial lining on the stent. Whereas, targeting it with the drug we use here, crizotinib, acts much more specifically and inhibits the disease without affecting the endothelium.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stanford researchers still have a lot more work to do before crizotinib-coated stents will be clinically available. However, this research should translate to the clinic more quickly since crizotinib is already an FDA approved drug.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "UC Berkeley Study Says Migratory Birds Use Infrasound to Avoid Storms",
"headTitle": "UC Berkeley Study Says Migratory Birds Use Infrasound to Avoid Storms | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25249\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/800px-Shorebirds_01.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25249\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/800px-Shorebirds_01.jpg\" alt=\"Shorebirds congregate around San Francisco Bay during the winter to feed on the abundant intertidal animal species. (Ingrid Taylar/Wikimedia)\" width=\"800\" height=\"584\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shorebirds migrate from their northern breeding grounds to San Francisco Bay during the winter to feed on the abundant intertidal animal species. (\u003ca title=\"Ingrid Taylar, Wikimedia Commons\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shorebirds_01.jpg\">Ingrid Taylar/Wikimedia\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The turning of the days and the tilt of our earth’s axis have brought us to winter with the solstice just days away. Literally meaning, “the sun-standing-still” as it reverses from shorter to longer days, winter solstice also finds us with an influx of birds to the Bay Area — everything from \u003ca title=\"White-crowned sparrows, Cornell All About Birds website\" href=\"http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/White-crowned_Sparrow/lifehistory\">white-crowned sparrows\u003c/a> in the shrubs and \u003ca title=\"Yellow-rumped warblers, Cornell All About Birds website\" href=\"http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Yellow-rumped_Warbler/lifehistory\">yellow-rumped warblers\u003c/a> in the trees to flocks of ducks and shorebirds at the Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s well-known that daylight length is an important migratory trigger, along with hormonal changes. How birds find their way to their destination, though, is an unfolding mystery. In 2000, research by Jon Hagstrum, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, found that before supersonic flights were discontinued, the infrasonic noise from Concorde jets could interfere with the ability of racing pigeons to find their way home. Infrasound occurs at low frequencies, below normal human hearing, at 20 Hz (cycles per second) or lower. Natural infrasound is generated by events such as earthquakes, pounding ocean waves, volcanoes and severe storms. Hagstrum’s paper was the first evidence beyond the laboratory that birds use infrasound to orient themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25251\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 241px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/warbler410-241x162.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-25251\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/warbler410-241x162.jpg\" alt=\"Golden-winged warblers spend their winters in Central and South America before returning to North America's Great Lakes and Appalachian Mountain regions to breed. There is growing urgency to study them as their population is only 5 percent of historic levels in the Appalachians due to factors such as habitat loss and hybridization with other species. (Courtesy of )\" width=\"241\" height=\"162\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Golden-winged warblers, focus of the UC Berkeley study, winter in Central and South America before returning to North America’s Great Lakes and Appalachian Mountain regions to breed. There is growing urgency to study them as their population in the Appalachians is only 5 percent of historic levels due to habitat loss and hybridization with other species. (Courtesy of Henry Strebly)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(14)01428-6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Another study\u003c/a> just published in \u003ca title=\"Current Biology website\" href=\"http://www.cell.com/current-biology/home\">Current Biology\u003c/a> states infrasound is also a cue for evacuation migration. A research team in April 2014 led by ecologist \u003ca title=\"Dr. Henry Streby, UC Berkeley\" href=\"https://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/beislab/BeissingerLab/?page_id=239\">Henry Streby\u003c/a> at the University of California, Berkeley, was tracking a population of golden-winged warblers in the mountains of eastern Tennessee. They discovered that the birds left their breeding grounds and flew south to the Gulf of Mexico one to two days ahead of the arrival of powerful \u003ca title=\"About Weather website, Supercells\" href=\"http://weather.about.com/od/s/g/supercells.htm\">supercell storms\u003c/a>. Their report related that when the birds made their exit, the storm was still 250-560 miles away, and local cues to inclement weather – changes in atmospheric pressure, temperature and wind speed – were largely absent. Infrasound seemed to be a logical explanation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is the first time we’ve documented this type of storm avoidance behavior in birds during breeding season,” said Streby. “We know that birds can alter their route to avoid things during regular migration, but it hadn’t been shown until our study that they would leave once the migration is over and they’d established their breeding territory to escape severe weather,” said Streby. “The warblers in our study flew at least 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) total to avoid a severe weather system. They then came right back home after the storm passed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25250\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 216px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/800px-White-Crowned_Sparrow-216x162.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-25250\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/800px-White-Crowned_Sparrow-216x162.jpg\" alt=\"White crowned sparrows spend the winter in the lower 48 States with some found year-round in the Sierra. (Ingrid Taylar/Wikimedia)\" width=\"216\" height=\"162\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">White-crowned sparrows spend the winter in the lower 48 States with some found year-round in the Sierra. (\u003ca title=\"Ingrid Taylar, Wikimedia Commons\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:White-Crowned_Sparrow.jpg%20\">Ingrid Taylar/Wikimedia\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Through this kind of research, we may learn more about environmental pressures that can affect species of concern such as the golden-winged warblers, as well as better understand the animals that share our world. As the winter solstice approaches, take a little time to appreciate nature and the diversity of wildlife around us: take a walk and enjoy the outdoors and the weather. Check out some naturalist-guided programs happening this weekend in the \u003ca title=\"East Bay Regional Parks activities\" href=\"http://www.ebparks.org/activities\">Regional Parks\u003c/a>. You might even want to document the solstice by noting the length of daylight on the \u003ca title=\"Journey North, Sunlight and Seasons Map\" href=\"http://www.learner.org/jnorth/maps/photo_fall2014.html?layers=dec\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Journey North website\u003c/a> and check out how long the day lasts in other parts of North America on December 21.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "It’s well-known that daylight length is an important migratory trigger, but a new study from UC Berkeley finds birds use infrasound, or tones lower than the normal range of human hearing, to flee bad weather. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25249\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/800px-Shorebirds_01.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25249\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/800px-Shorebirds_01.jpg\" alt=\"Shorebirds congregate around San Francisco Bay during the winter to feed on the abundant intertidal animal species. (Ingrid Taylar/Wikimedia)\" width=\"800\" height=\"584\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shorebirds migrate from their northern breeding grounds to San Francisco Bay during the winter to feed on the abundant intertidal animal species. (\u003ca title=\"Ingrid Taylar, Wikimedia Commons\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shorebirds_01.jpg\">Ingrid Taylar/Wikimedia\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The turning of the days and the tilt of our earth’s axis have brought us to winter with the solstice just days away. Literally meaning, “the sun-standing-still” as it reverses from shorter to longer days, winter solstice also finds us with an influx of birds to the Bay Area — everything from \u003ca title=\"White-crowned sparrows, Cornell All About Birds website\" href=\"http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/White-crowned_Sparrow/lifehistory\">white-crowned sparrows\u003c/a> in the shrubs and \u003ca title=\"Yellow-rumped warblers, Cornell All About Birds website\" href=\"http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Yellow-rumped_Warbler/lifehistory\">yellow-rumped warblers\u003c/a> in the trees to flocks of ducks and shorebirds at the Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s well-known that daylight length is an important migratory trigger, along with hormonal changes. How birds find their way to their destination, though, is an unfolding mystery. In 2000, research by Jon Hagstrum, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, found that before supersonic flights were discontinued, the infrasonic noise from Concorde jets could interfere with the ability of racing pigeons to find their way home. Infrasound occurs at low frequencies, below normal human hearing, at 20 Hz (cycles per second) or lower. Natural infrasound is generated by events such as earthquakes, pounding ocean waves, volcanoes and severe storms. Hagstrum’s paper was the first evidence beyond the laboratory that birds use infrasound to orient themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25251\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 241px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/warbler410-241x162.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-25251\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/warbler410-241x162.jpg\" alt=\"Golden-winged warblers spend their winters in Central and South America before returning to North America's Great Lakes and Appalachian Mountain regions to breed. There is growing urgency to study them as their population is only 5 percent of historic levels in the Appalachians due to factors such as habitat loss and hybridization with other species. (Courtesy of )\" width=\"241\" height=\"162\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Golden-winged warblers, focus of the UC Berkeley study, winter in Central and South America before returning to North America’s Great Lakes and Appalachian Mountain regions to breed. There is growing urgency to study them as their population in the Appalachians is only 5 percent of historic levels due to habitat loss and hybridization with other species. (Courtesy of Henry Strebly)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(14)01428-6\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Another study\u003c/a> just published in \u003ca title=\"Current Biology website\" href=\"http://www.cell.com/current-biology/home\">Current Biology\u003c/a> states infrasound is also a cue for evacuation migration. A research team in April 2014 led by ecologist \u003ca title=\"Dr. Henry Streby, UC Berkeley\" href=\"https://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/beislab/BeissingerLab/?page_id=239\">Henry Streby\u003c/a> at the University of California, Berkeley, was tracking a population of golden-winged warblers in the mountains of eastern Tennessee. They discovered that the birds left their breeding grounds and flew south to the Gulf of Mexico one to two days ahead of the arrival of powerful \u003ca title=\"About Weather website, Supercells\" href=\"http://weather.about.com/od/s/g/supercells.htm\">supercell storms\u003c/a>. Their report related that when the birds made their exit, the storm was still 250-560 miles away, and local cues to inclement weather – changes in atmospheric pressure, temperature and wind speed – were largely absent. Infrasound seemed to be a logical explanation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is the first time we’ve documented this type of storm avoidance behavior in birds during breeding season,” said Streby. “We know that birds can alter their route to avoid things during regular migration, but it hadn’t been shown until our study that they would leave once the migration is over and they’d established their breeding territory to escape severe weather,” said Streby. “The warblers in our study flew at least 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) total to avoid a severe weather system. They then came right back home after the storm passed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25250\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 216px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/800px-White-Crowned_Sparrow-216x162.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-25250\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/800px-White-Crowned_Sparrow-216x162.jpg\" alt=\"White crowned sparrows spend the winter in the lower 48 States with some found year-round in the Sierra. (Ingrid Taylar/Wikimedia)\" width=\"216\" height=\"162\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">White-crowned sparrows spend the winter in the lower 48 States with some found year-round in the Sierra. (\u003ca title=\"Ingrid Taylar, Wikimedia Commons\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:White-Crowned_Sparrow.jpg%20\">Ingrid Taylar/Wikimedia\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Through this kind of research, we may learn more about environmental pressures that can affect species of concern such as the golden-winged warblers, as well as better understand the animals that share our world. As the winter solstice approaches, take a little time to appreciate nature and the diversity of wildlife around us: take a walk and enjoy the outdoors and the weather. Check out some naturalist-guided programs happening this weekend in the \u003ca title=\"East Bay Regional Parks activities\" href=\"http://www.ebparks.org/activities\">Regional Parks\u003c/a>. You might even want to document the solstice by noting the length of daylight on the \u003ca title=\"Journey North, Sunlight and Seasons Map\" href=\"http://www.learner.org/jnorth/maps/photo_fall2014.html?layers=dec\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Journey North website\u003c/a> and check out how long the day lasts in other parts of North America on December 21.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Spineless: New Photography Collection Celebrates Our Undersea Cousins",
"headTitle": "Spineless: New Photography Collection Celebrates Our Undersea Cousins | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25087\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Spineless_p47-1024x682.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-25087\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Spineless_p47-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"frilled anemone\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A rare view of a frilled anemone–most of us never see the stalk exposed or all the tentacles extended. (Susan Middleton)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>What would a nature photographer consider “the most beautiful animal I’ve ever photographed in thirty years”: a wild tiger, a tropical bird, a leaping dolphin? For \u003ca title=\"Susan Middleton Homepage\" href=\"http://www.susanmiddleton.com/Susan_Middleton/Home.html\">Susan Middleton\u003c/a>, it was a juvenile giant Pacific octopus. The animal’s image graces the cover of Middleton’s new book, \u003ci>Spineless: Portraits of Marine Invertebrates, the Backbone of Life\u003c/i>, published by Abrams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25089\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 200px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Spineless10070JF-1-867x1024.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-25089\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Spineless10070JF-1-867x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Book cover\" width=\"200\" height=\"236\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Spineless: Portraits of Marine Invertebrates, the Backbone of Life by Susan Middleton, Abrams, 2014.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Although the individual in the photograph is less than an inch long, it could grow to weigh over a hundred pounds. “Even at this age it had a big attitude, like it knew where it was headed,” said Middleton during a book launch at the San Francisco Public Library last week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cb>Unknown animals facing known danger\u003c/b>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Middleton, currently a research associate at the California Academy of Sciences, is well-known for her conservation photography, particularly portraits of endangered species and, in one memorable case, \u003ca title=\"Shed Bird Plastic Photographs\" href=\"http://marinedebrisart.blogspot.com/2011/03/susan-middleton-portraits-of-rare-and.html\">every single piece of plastic\u003c/a> that contributed to the death of a young seabird.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Conservation” often makes us think of elephants, condors, or lemurs, although such spined animals comprise a tiny fraction of the planet’s species. The other 98% are invertebrates—creatures without backbones, like jellyfish, snails, and worms—and they are also threatened by global changes. But scientists know too little about most invertebrate species to assess their health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think of them as being on the front lines,” said Middleton. “I’m concerned about them, because I have not only an appreciation for their beauty and strangeness, but a genuine affection for them.” She considered using photography to illustrate the dangers they face, but ultimately decided to leave that to the text of \u003cem>Spineless\u003c/em>, which includes her own essays and a foreword by prominent marine biologist \u003ca title=\"TED - Sylvia Earle\" href=\"https://www.ted.com/speakers/sylvia_earle\">Sylvia Earle\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25086\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 288px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Spineless_flatworm-288x162.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-25086\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Spineless_flatworm-288x162.jpg\" alt=\"flatworm\" width=\"288\" height=\"162\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Portrait of an orange-rimmed flatworm. (Susan Middleton)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The photographs simply focus on the beauty of the animals—although that is a canny choice. Middleton studied portraiture with influential fashion photographer \u003ca title=\"Richard Avedon - About\" href=\"http://www.avedonfoundation.org/about/\">Richard Avedon\u003c/a>, who used the same techniques for his \u003ci>Vogue\u003c/i> covers as Middleton now uses for her nature images. “I know what works for advertising,” she said. “Animals can use all the help they can get in the public relations department.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cb>Some cousins are harder to love\u003c/b>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Animal life is divided into over thirty distinct groups; the majority of these are worm-shaped. There are flatworms and roundworms, ribbon worms and acorn worms, peanut worms, jaw worms, arrow worms—not to mention earthworms and leeches. The variety is astounding, but even Middleton said, “It took me a while to understand and appreciate the worms.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like many children, the young Middleton felt a “visceral fear” of worms. It wasn’t until well into her work on \u003ci>Spineless\u003c/i> that her attitude was altered by some worm-loving scientists—and the worms themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The worms that build the tubes were the real thing that won me over,” Middleton said, referring to a group called \u003ca title=\"Real Monstrosities - Ice Cream Cone Worms\" href=\"http://www.realmonstrosities.com/2013/10/ice-cream-cone-worm.html\">ice cream cone worms\u003c/a>, which carefully glue individual grains of sand into mosaic, cone-shaped houses. “They’re like little artisans. They’re very picky about the sand grains they collect.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of a different type of tube worm, frilly with tentacles and spangled with iridescence, Middleton just said: “Better than anything Pixar could invent.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even worms without bright colors or remarkable tubes can hide surprising beauty. One day the invertebrate biologist \u003ca title=\"Gustav Paulay - UFL\" href=\"http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/malacology/paulay.htm\">Gustav Paulay\u003c/a> offered Middleton a bland-looking brown flatworm to photograph. He was excited to have found the rare species, but Middleton was nonplussed. Nevertheless, she brought it back to her studio. Before her lens the worm became a contortionist, exhibiting routines that would be the envy of any professional gymnast. Neither Paulay nor his students had ever seen such behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cb>Meeting Our Family One By One\u003c/b>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25088\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 350px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Spineless_p6-7-1024x682.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-25088\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Spineless_p6-7-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"beautiful sea slug\" width=\"350\" height=\"233\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The name “opalescent nudibranch” certainly suits this stunner sea slug. (Susan Middleton) \u003ccite>(Susan Middleton)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Middleton has been asked how she gets her subjects to behave. “I can’t get them to do anything,” she answers. “They’re not trained animals.” Her technique is pure patience. She gives them fresh water and keeps them happy with the help of the scientists who know them best. And she waits. “I can wait five hours for an anemone to open. There’s no hurrying it up.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, not every individual takes to the limelight. Middleton had photographed a giant Pacific octopus before, without achieving the sort of portrait you’d put on a book cover. But the one that posed for \u003cem>Spineless\u003c/em> had the perfect personality. “When it came into the lab, I knew this was the one,” she said. “I could just tell.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Individual diversity is one of the most beautiful things that we share with the invertebrates—indeed, with all life. “One opalescent nudibranch is different from another,” said Middleton at the San Francisco book launch. “I was amazed by that, though I shouldn’t be, because everyone in this room looks different.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Invertebrates are our cousins in an evolutionary sense—from our common ancestors we inherited many inventions that we now take for granted, like the bilateral symmetry so fundamental to our faces. But spined and spineless creatures are also related through our current shared experience in a rapidly changing world. “We’re in this together,” said Middleton. “We’re part of one big living family.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25087\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Spineless_p47-1024x682.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-25087\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Spineless_p47-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"frilled anemone\" width=\"1024\" height=\"682\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A rare view of a frilled anemone–most of us never see the stalk exposed or all the tentacles extended. (Susan Middleton)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>What would a nature photographer consider “the most beautiful animal I’ve ever photographed in thirty years”: a wild tiger, a tropical bird, a leaping dolphin? For \u003ca title=\"Susan Middleton Homepage\" href=\"http://www.susanmiddleton.com/Susan_Middleton/Home.html\">Susan Middleton\u003c/a>, it was a juvenile giant Pacific octopus. The animal’s image graces the cover of Middleton’s new book, \u003ci>Spineless: Portraits of Marine Invertebrates, the Backbone of Life\u003c/i>, published by Abrams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25089\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 200px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Spineless10070JF-1-867x1024.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-25089\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Spineless10070JF-1-867x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Book cover\" width=\"200\" height=\"236\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Spineless: Portraits of Marine Invertebrates, the Backbone of Life by Susan Middleton, Abrams, 2014.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Although the individual in the photograph is less than an inch long, it could grow to weigh over a hundred pounds. “Even at this age it had a big attitude, like it knew where it was headed,” said Middleton during a book launch at the San Francisco Public Library last week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cb>Unknown animals facing known danger\u003c/b>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Middleton, currently a research associate at the California Academy of Sciences, is well-known for her conservation photography, particularly portraits of endangered species and, in one memorable case, \u003ca title=\"Shed Bird Plastic Photographs\" href=\"http://marinedebrisart.blogspot.com/2011/03/susan-middleton-portraits-of-rare-and.html\">every single piece of plastic\u003c/a> that contributed to the death of a young seabird.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Conservation” often makes us think of elephants, condors, or lemurs, although such spined animals comprise a tiny fraction of the planet’s species. The other 98% are invertebrates—creatures without backbones, like jellyfish, snails, and worms—and they are also threatened by global changes. But scientists know too little about most invertebrate species to assess their health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think of them as being on the front lines,” said Middleton. “I’m concerned about them, because I have not only an appreciation for their beauty and strangeness, but a genuine affection for them.” She considered using photography to illustrate the dangers they face, but ultimately decided to leave that to the text of \u003cem>Spineless\u003c/em>, which includes her own essays and a foreword by prominent marine biologist \u003ca title=\"TED - Sylvia Earle\" href=\"https://www.ted.com/speakers/sylvia_earle\">Sylvia Earle\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25086\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 288px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Spineless_flatworm-288x162.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-25086\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Spineless_flatworm-288x162.jpg\" alt=\"flatworm\" width=\"288\" height=\"162\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Portrait of an orange-rimmed flatworm. (Susan Middleton)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The photographs simply focus on the beauty of the animals—although that is a canny choice. Middleton studied portraiture with influential fashion photographer \u003ca title=\"Richard Avedon - About\" href=\"http://www.avedonfoundation.org/about/\">Richard Avedon\u003c/a>, who used the same techniques for his \u003ci>Vogue\u003c/i> covers as Middleton now uses for her nature images. “I know what works for advertising,” she said. “Animals can use all the help they can get in the public relations department.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cb>Some cousins are harder to love\u003c/b>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Animal life is divided into over thirty distinct groups; the majority of these are worm-shaped. There are flatworms and roundworms, ribbon worms and acorn worms, peanut worms, jaw worms, arrow worms—not to mention earthworms and leeches. The variety is astounding, but even Middleton said, “It took me a while to understand and appreciate the worms.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like many children, the young Middleton felt a “visceral fear” of worms. It wasn’t until well into her work on \u003ci>Spineless\u003c/i> that her attitude was altered by some worm-loving scientists—and the worms themselves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The worms that build the tubes were the real thing that won me over,” Middleton said, referring to a group called \u003ca title=\"Real Monstrosities - Ice Cream Cone Worms\" href=\"http://www.realmonstrosities.com/2013/10/ice-cream-cone-worm.html\">ice cream cone worms\u003c/a>, which carefully glue individual grains of sand into mosaic, cone-shaped houses. “They’re like little artisans. They’re very picky about the sand grains they collect.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of a different type of tube worm, frilly with tentacles and spangled with iridescence, Middleton just said: “Better than anything Pixar could invent.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even worms without bright colors or remarkable tubes can hide surprising beauty. One day the invertebrate biologist \u003ca title=\"Gustav Paulay - UFL\" href=\"http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/malacology/paulay.htm\">Gustav Paulay\u003c/a> offered Middleton a bland-looking brown flatworm to photograph. He was excited to have found the rare species, but Middleton was nonplussed. Nevertheless, she brought it back to her studio. Before her lens the worm became a contortionist, exhibiting routines that would be the envy of any professional gymnast. Neither Paulay nor his students had ever seen such behavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cb>Meeting Our Family One By One\u003c/b>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_25088\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 350px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Spineless_p6-7-1024x682.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-25088\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Spineless_p6-7-1024x682.jpg\" alt=\"beautiful sea slug\" width=\"350\" height=\"233\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The name “opalescent nudibranch” certainly suits this stunner sea slug. (Susan Middleton) \u003ccite>(Susan Middleton)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Middleton has been asked how she gets her subjects to behave. “I can’t get them to do anything,” she answers. “They’re not trained animals.” Her technique is pure patience. She gives them fresh water and keeps them happy with the help of the scientists who know them best. And she waits. “I can wait five hours for an anemone to open. There’s no hurrying it up.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, not every individual takes to the limelight. Middleton had photographed a giant Pacific octopus before, without achieving the sort of portrait you’d put on a book cover. But the one that posed for \u003cem>Spineless\u003c/em> had the perfect personality. “When it came into the lab, I knew this was the one,” she said. “I could just tell.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Individual diversity is one of the most beautiful things that we share with the invertebrates—indeed, with all life. “One opalescent nudibranch is different from another,” said Middleton at the San Francisco book launch. “I was amazed by that, though I shouldn’t be, because everyone in this room looks different.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Invertebrates are our cousins in an evolutionary sense—from our common ancestors we inherited many inventions that we now take for granted, like the bilateral symmetry so fundamental to our faces. But spined and spineless creatures are also related through our current shared experience in a rapidly changing world. “We’re in this together,” said Middleton. “We’re part of one big living family.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "what-gives-the-morpho-butterfly-its-magnificent-blue",
"title": "What Gives the Morpho Butterfly Its Magnificent Blue?",
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"content": "\u003cp>[dl_subscribe]There are more than 140,000 species of butterflies and moths in the world, fluttering on every continent except Antarctica. Their wings contain countless patterns and colors, providing critical tools for camouflage, finding mates and scaring off predators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A Bay Area professor is trying to learn more about how those colors develop and evolve – by going very, very small.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.patellab.net/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nipam Patel\u003c/a>, a professor in the Molecular & Cell Biology Department at the University of California, Berkeley, studies the thousands of tiny cells, known as scales, on butterflies’ wings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From a distance, the rows and rows of scales look like vivid patterns that decorate a butterfly’s wings. But up close, each scale is like a dab of paint in a \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointillism\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cspan class=\"Normal__Char\">Pointillist \u003c/span>\u003c/a>painting or a tile in a mosaic; they represent an individual unit of color.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24660\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/morpho00058-1024x771.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-24660\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/morpho00058-1024x771.jpg\" alt=\"Scales on the wing of Morpho peleides. Image courtesy of Nipam Patel / UC Berkeley\" width=\"1024\" height=\"771\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lepidoptera, the name of the order that encompasses butterflies and moths, translates to “scaly wings” — as seen here on the wing of Morpho peleides. (Nipam Patel / UC Berkeley)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Each scale is…a single cell, and as far as cells go, they are huge, much larger than the typical cells in our bodies,” says Patel, who also works in Berkeley’s Integrative Biology Department. “A human blood cell is about 10 microns in size — a pretty typical size for a cell in our bodies. A butterfly scale is…a huge one, about 50 microns across and 200-250 microns long.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24695\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Morpho-peleides-blue-structure-15kX.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24695\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Morpho-peleides-blue-structure-15kX.jpg\" alt=\"Morpho peleides scale image (15kx) taken with a scanning electron microscope. (Ryan Null / UC Berkeley)\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Morpho peleides scale image (15kx) taken with a scanning electron microscope. (Ryan Null / UC Berkeley)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Some butterfly scales are colored by pigments. But others rely on something called “structural color” -– the production of color by nano-sized elaborate shapes that reflect and bend light. Structural color is why we perceive the \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morpho\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Morpho butterfly\u003c/a>, a dazzling type of blue butterfly found in South America, Mexico and Central America, as bright blue, along with \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/11/12/347736896/how-animals-hacked-the-rainbow-and-got-stumped-on-blue\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">peacock feathers, iridescent beetles and blue eyes\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Blue is one the rarest colors made as a pigment,” notes Ryan Null, a graduate student in Patel’s lab. “Most animals can’t produce blue pigments.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24713\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1000px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/ucberkeleymorpho3.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24713\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/ucberkeleymorpho3.jpg\" alt=\"Varying species of Morpho butterflies. Jenny Oh/KQED\" width=\"1000\" height=\"700\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Varying species of Morpho butterflies. (Jenny Oh/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One area of ongoing research in the lab centers on \u003ca href=\"http://www.patellab.net/research/structural-color/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">structural color in butterflies\u003c/a> as it relates to evolutionary developmental biology. The researchers are working to understand how nanostructures in butterflies’ wings are built during the third stage of a their life cycle, known as pupal development. Patel and Null wanted to observe how structural color takes shape on the wings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because this normally occurs inside a Morpho’s opaque pupa and isn’t visible, they remove wings from pupae, grow them in a Petri dish, then study the process. Like developing a photograph or brushing paint on a blank canvas, colors and patterns slowly appear on the ghostly white wings over time – as shown in short \u003ca href=\"http://vimeo.com/77247171\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">time-lapse movies \u003c/a>they’ve filmed of several different butterfly species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJEw79Eafck\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Ridges on the scales’ surface are a key component that affects \u003ca href=\"http://www.colours.phy.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Physics-Handout-v6_after-print.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">how the wing refracts light\u003c/a>. (Video courtesy of Nipam Patel / UC Berkeley)\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The scientists, who use high-powered microscopes to study their subjects, hope that by focusing on the very tiny, their research could be applied in innovative ways in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What’s cool about this work is that in contrast to the way people currently mimic naturally occurring structural colors — by using industrial processes deposit layers of heavy metals by electricity that’s expensive and energy-intensive — butterflies and moths have evolved a way to create these stunning colors with a string of sugar molecules,” says Null.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They appear to be the basic components of all animal cells. The genetic program controlling the creation of the nanostructures is elegant, robust and done in a way that is not hazardous to the life of the animal. If we can figure out how the butterflies do what they do, we have the potential to apply what we learn to a vast array of problems like creating cars that have their “paint” grown from the surface of their sheet metal, vivid cosmetics that are inherently safe for use with minimal testing, and even making solar cells more efficient.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24712\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1000px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/ucberkeleymorpho2.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24712\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/ucberkeleymorpho2.jpg\" alt=\"Morpho didius from Nipam Patel's specimen collection. Jenny Oh/KQED\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Morpho rhetenor from Nipam Patel’s specimen collection. (Jenny Oh/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "What does it mean to be blue? The wings of a Morpho butterfly are some of the most brilliant structures in nature, and yet they contain no blue pigment -- they harness the physics of light at the nanoscale. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>There are more than 140,000 species of butterflies and moths in the world, fluttering on every continent except Antarctica. Their wings contain countless patterns and colors, providing critical tools for camouflage, finding mates and scaring off predators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A Bay Area professor is trying to learn more about how those colors develop and evolve – by going very, very small.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://www.patellab.net/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nipam Patel\u003c/a>, a professor in the Molecular & Cell Biology Department at the University of California, Berkeley, studies the thousands of tiny cells, known as scales, on butterflies’ wings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From a distance, the rows and rows of scales look like vivid patterns that decorate a butterfly’s wings. But up close, each scale is like a dab of paint in a \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointillism\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cspan class=\"Normal__Char\">Pointillist \u003c/span>\u003c/a>painting or a tile in a mosaic; they represent an individual unit of color.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24660\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/morpho00058-1024x771.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-24660\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/morpho00058-1024x771.jpg\" alt=\"Scales on the wing of Morpho peleides. Image courtesy of Nipam Patel / UC Berkeley\" width=\"1024\" height=\"771\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lepidoptera, the name of the order that encompasses butterflies and moths, translates to “scaly wings” — as seen here on the wing of Morpho peleides. (Nipam Patel / UC Berkeley)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Each scale is…a single cell, and as far as cells go, they are huge, much larger than the typical cells in our bodies,” says Patel, who also works in Berkeley’s Integrative Biology Department. “A human blood cell is about 10 microns in size — a pretty typical size for a cell in our bodies. A butterfly scale is…a huge one, about 50 microns across and 200-250 microns long.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24695\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Morpho-peleides-blue-structure-15kX.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24695\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Morpho-peleides-blue-structure-15kX.jpg\" alt=\"Morpho peleides scale image (15kx) taken with a scanning electron microscope. (Ryan Null / UC Berkeley)\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Morpho peleides scale image (15kx) taken with a scanning electron microscope. (Ryan Null / UC Berkeley)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Some butterfly scales are colored by pigments. But others rely on something called “structural color” -– the production of color by nano-sized elaborate shapes that reflect and bend light. Structural color is why we perceive the \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morpho\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Morpho butterfly\u003c/a>, a dazzling type of blue butterfly found in South America, Mexico and Central America, as bright blue, along with \u003ca href=\"http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/11/12/347736896/how-animals-hacked-the-rainbow-and-got-stumped-on-blue\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">peacock feathers, iridescent beetles and blue eyes\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Blue is one the rarest colors made as a pigment,” notes Ryan Null, a graduate student in Patel’s lab. “Most animals can’t produce blue pigments.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24713\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1000px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/ucberkeleymorpho3.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24713\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/ucberkeleymorpho3.jpg\" alt=\"Varying species of Morpho butterflies. Jenny Oh/KQED\" width=\"1000\" height=\"700\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Varying species of Morpho butterflies. (Jenny Oh/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One area of ongoing research in the lab centers on \u003ca href=\"http://www.patellab.net/research/structural-color/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">structural color in butterflies\u003c/a> as it relates to evolutionary developmental biology. The researchers are working to understand how nanostructures in butterflies’ wings are built during the third stage of a their life cycle, known as pupal development. Patel and Null wanted to observe how structural color takes shape on the wings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because this normally occurs inside a Morpho’s opaque pupa and isn’t visible, they remove wings from pupae, grow them in a Petri dish, then study the process. Like developing a photograph or brushing paint on a blank canvas, colors and patterns slowly appear on the ghostly white wings over time – as shown in short \u003ca href=\"http://vimeo.com/77247171\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">time-lapse movies \u003c/a>they’ve filmed of several different butterfly species.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJEw79Eafck\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>Ridges on the scales’ surface are a key component that affects \u003ca href=\"http://www.colours.phy.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Physics-Handout-v6_after-print.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">how the wing refracts light\u003c/a>. (Video courtesy of Nipam Patel / UC Berkeley)\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The scientists, who use high-powered microscopes to study their subjects, hope that by focusing on the very tiny, their research could be applied in innovative ways in the future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What’s cool about this work is that in contrast to the way people currently mimic naturally occurring structural colors — by using industrial processes deposit layers of heavy metals by electricity that’s expensive and energy-intensive — butterflies and moths have evolved a way to create these stunning colors with a string of sugar molecules,” says Null.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They appear to be the basic components of all animal cells. The genetic program controlling the creation of the nanostructures is elegant, robust and done in a way that is not hazardous to the life of the animal. If we can figure out how the butterflies do what they do, we have the potential to apply what we learn to a vast array of problems like creating cars that have their “paint” grown from the surface of their sheet metal, vivid cosmetics that are inherently safe for use with minimal testing, and even making solar cells more efficient.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24712\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1000px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/ucberkeleymorpho2.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24712\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/ucberkeleymorpho2.jpg\" alt=\"Morpho didius from Nipam Patel's specimen collection. Jenny Oh/KQED\" width=\"1000\" height=\"667\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Morpho rhetenor from Nipam Patel’s specimen collection. (Jenny Oh/KQED)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Getting Genetic-Based Health Data Just Got Easier in Canada and the U.K.",
"headTitle": "Getting Genetic-Based Health Data Just Got Easier in Canada and the U.K. | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24815\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/BritishFlafFamily.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24815\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/BritishFlafFamily.jpg\" alt=\"Because she lives in the U.K., she can learn about some of her health risks from her 23andMe genetic test. If she lived in the U.S. she could not. (Wikimedia Commons)\" width=\"800\" height=\"501\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Because she lives in the U.K., she can learn about some of her health risks from her 23andMe genetic test. If she lived in the U.S. she could not. (\u003ca class=\"nofancybox\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:British_working_class.jpg\">Wikimedia Commons\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Here in the U.S., if you want to get health information from your direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic test, you need \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/06/30/you-can-transform-your-genetic-ancestry-data-into-health-info-but-your-results-may-vary/\">to use an online resource like Promethease\u003c/a>. The same is no longer true in Canada and the U.K. Their regulatory authorities have given the genetic testing company \u003ca href=\"https://www.23andme.com/\">23andMe\u003c/a> the green light to start offering them health-based results like they used to for American consumers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back in 2013, \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2013/12/09/consumer-genetic-testing-company-23andme-faces-its-own-test-from-the-fda/\">the FDA ruled that 23andMe could no longer provide health information\u003c/a> as part of their services. What this meant was that U.S. customers could only use the results from the million or so simultaneous genetic tests 23andMe runs to find close relatives and to better understand their family’s ancestry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A big reason why the FDA forbade 23andMe from releasing health data was that they felt that 23andMe was overselling their product. And for some health issues, they were probably right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It looks like 23andMe got approval in the U.K. and Canada by only reporting on the subset of genetic conditions and traits that had a solid, well-understood genetic foundation. This is why they offer the results for just over 100 genetic conditions and traits in these two countries instead of the 260 or so that were offered in the U.S. 23andMe also stresses more obviously that their test is for informational and not diagnostic purposes. These two changes seem to have put them back onto the path of acceptability for regulatory agencies in the U.K. and Canada.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24838\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Cake.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24838\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Cake.jpg\" alt=\"If the results were organized differently, DTC genetic test customers might get to have their cake and eat it too. (Flickr)\" width=\"300\" height=\"281\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">If the results were organized differently, DTC genetic test customers might get to have their cake and eat it too. (\u003ca href=\"https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2380/2416470297_cfbb6c0fa7_z.jpg?zz=1\">Flickr\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>If 23andMe had offered only this subset of tests when they started out, there might have been less blowback from the FDA. They might still be offering important health information to their customers in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, hindsight is 20/20. 23andMe was (is) a pioneer in the field and is still at the forefront of DTC genetic testing. They had no roadmap for what they were doing which means there were going to be bumps along the way. If the new services are anything to go by, it looks like they are learning from their mistakes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But one concern is that they may be learning the wrong lesson. It may be that presenting all of their original findings differently could be just as safe as the stripped down version and provide additional information. Customers could have had their solid information and their more ephemeral information too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Plusses and Minuses of the New Information\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As I said, 23andMe probably oversold what they offered in the U.S. But by preventing any health information at all from being released, the FDA threw the baby out with the bath water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was a lot of good, solid information in these tests that could really help people in their day to day lives. This is the information now available to people in the U.K. and Canada but not in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, without DTC genetic tests, it can be a real pain to figure out if you are a carrier for a disease like cystic fibrosis or hemochromatosis. At the very least you need a doctor’s appointment and for many of the more rare diseases, you probably need a family history to justify the test. Either that or you will probably have to pay the high out of pocket expense.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is much easier with one of these DTC tests. You just spend $99, spit in a vial, and wait for your results.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This kind of information can be very helpful for couples considering having children. If the test shows that both parents are carriers for one of these recessive diseases, then each of their kids would have a 1 in 4 chance of ending up with the disease. Even if the odds are against this, it is still definitely important information to have!\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24829\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 350px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/DNAmutation.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24829\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/DNAmutation.jpg\" alt=\"Customers in Canada and the U.K. can learn about DNA differences that affect their and their future children's health risks. (palikam)\" width=\"350\" height=\"280\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Customers in Canada and the U.K. can learn about DNA differences that affect their and their future children’s health risks. (\u003ca href=\"http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs29/f/2008/101/0/3/DNA_Mutation_by_palikam.jpg\">palikam\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This is just one example of the kind of test that can give results you can use. They can also give you important information about your risks for diseases like breast cancer (think Angelina Jolie) and help doctors get your prescription dosage right, just to name a couple. These are no longer easily obtainable by U.S. customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, a DTC test is not necessarily equivalent to the one you get from a doctor. Often (but not always) the doctor’s test comes with explanations that can help someone decide whether the result matters, whether more testing is warranted and so on. And of course the DTC test needs to be reliable for it to be meaningful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the other point the FDA made in their ruling. They need for each of the hundreds of health-based tests that 23andMe offers to be solid enough for customers to make an informed decision based on the results. It is obviously critical that this be true for people to make important decisions based on the data and the FDA should make sure the tests are reliable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What the new information available to customers in Canada and the U.K. is lacking are the more speculative findings. Which is too bad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is kind of fun to be at the forefront of the genetic revolution using your own data. I like seeing what the most recent research has to say about something like Type 2 diabetes (which runs in my family) and getting it written up for me in terms of my genetic information is a fun way to learn. And this works for me because as a geneticist, I know that any genetic results for Type 2 diabetes being offered right now aren’t really worth much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which is why companies like 23andMe should probably have flagged these sorts of results as speculative from the get go. Don’t put them in the same list as the 100 or so conditions that are more definitive. Don’t use bar graphs to show a customer’s risk as that makes it seem more real than it is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conditions like Type 2 diabetes should be binned together in a section where the company comes out and says that these results don’t mean a lot because we are just starting to understand the genetic basis of these diseases. They would also need to mention that even a complete genetic understanding of any of these conditions wouldn’t be the whole picture since the environment plays a big role too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reorganizing the information would give more value to the customer. They would get solid advice for some conditions like customers can now get in the U.K. and Canada and still get to find out where science is on the others. A win-win for customers, doctors and the FDA.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24815\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/BritishFlafFamily.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24815\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/BritishFlafFamily.jpg\" alt=\"Because she lives in the U.K., she can learn about some of her health risks from her 23andMe genetic test. If she lived in the U.S. she could not. (Wikimedia Commons)\" width=\"800\" height=\"501\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Because she lives in the U.K., she can learn about some of her health risks from her 23andMe genetic test. If she lived in the U.S. she could not. (\u003ca class=\"nofancybox\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:British_working_class.jpg\">Wikimedia Commons\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Here in the U.S., if you want to get health information from your direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic test, you need \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2014/06/30/you-can-transform-your-genetic-ancestry-data-into-health-info-but-your-results-may-vary/\">to use an online resource like Promethease\u003c/a>. The same is no longer true in Canada and the U.K. Their regulatory authorities have given the genetic testing company \u003ca href=\"https://www.23andme.com/\">23andMe\u003c/a> the green light to start offering them health-based results like they used to for American consumers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back in 2013, \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/2013/12/09/consumer-genetic-testing-company-23andme-faces-its-own-test-from-the-fda/\">the FDA ruled that 23andMe could no longer provide health information\u003c/a> as part of their services. What this meant was that U.S. customers could only use the results from the million or so simultaneous genetic tests 23andMe runs to find close relatives and to better understand their family’s ancestry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A big reason why the FDA forbade 23andMe from releasing health data was that they felt that 23andMe was overselling their product. And for some health issues, they were probably right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It looks like 23andMe got approval in the U.K. and Canada by only reporting on the subset of genetic conditions and traits that had a solid, well-understood genetic foundation. This is why they offer the results for just over 100 genetic conditions and traits in these two countries instead of the 260 or so that were offered in the U.S. 23andMe also stresses more obviously that their test is for informational and not diagnostic purposes. These two changes seem to have put them back onto the path of acceptability for regulatory agencies in the U.K. and Canada.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24838\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Cake.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24838\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Cake.jpg\" alt=\"If the results were organized differently, DTC genetic test customers might get to have their cake and eat it too. (Flickr)\" width=\"300\" height=\"281\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">If the results were organized differently, DTC genetic test customers might get to have their cake and eat it too. (\u003ca href=\"https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2380/2416470297_cfbb6c0fa7_z.jpg?zz=1\">Flickr\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>If 23andMe had offered only this subset of tests when they started out, there might have been less blowback from the FDA. They might still be offering important health information to their customers in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, hindsight is 20/20. 23andMe was (is) a pioneer in the field and is still at the forefront of DTC genetic testing. They had no roadmap for what they were doing which means there were going to be bumps along the way. If the new services are anything to go by, it looks like they are learning from their mistakes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But one concern is that they may be learning the wrong lesson. It may be that presenting all of their original findings differently could be just as safe as the stripped down version and provide additional information. Customers could have had their solid information and their more ephemeral information too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>The Plusses and Minuses of the New Information\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As I said, 23andMe probably oversold what they offered in the U.S. But by preventing any health information at all from being released, the FDA threw the baby out with the bath water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There was a lot of good, solid information in these tests that could really help people in their day to day lives. This is the information now available to people in the U.K. and Canada but not in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, without DTC genetic tests, it can be a real pain to figure out if you are a carrier for a disease like cystic fibrosis or hemochromatosis. At the very least you need a doctor’s appointment and for many of the more rare diseases, you probably need a family history to justify the test. Either that or you will probably have to pay the high out of pocket expense.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is much easier with one of these DTC tests. You just spend $99, spit in a vial, and wait for your results.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This kind of information can be very helpful for couples considering having children. If the test shows that both parents are carriers for one of these recessive diseases, then each of their kids would have a 1 in 4 chance of ending up with the disease. Even if the odds are against this, it is still definitely important information to have!\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24829\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 350px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/DNAmutation.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24829\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/DNAmutation.jpg\" alt=\"Customers in Canada and the U.K. can learn about DNA differences that affect their and their future children's health risks. (palikam)\" width=\"350\" height=\"280\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Customers in Canada and the U.K. can learn about DNA differences that affect their and their future children’s health risks. (\u003ca href=\"http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs29/f/2008/101/0/3/DNA_Mutation_by_palikam.jpg\">palikam\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This is just one example of the kind of test that can give results you can use. They can also give you important information about your risks for diseases like breast cancer (think Angelina Jolie) and help doctors get your prescription dosage right, just to name a couple. These are no longer easily obtainable by U.S. customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, a DTC test is not necessarily equivalent to the one you get from a doctor. Often (but not always) the doctor’s test comes with explanations that can help someone decide whether the result matters, whether more testing is warranted and so on. And of course the DTC test needs to be reliable for it to be meaningful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the other point the FDA made in their ruling. They need for each of the hundreds of health-based tests that 23andMe offers to be solid enough for customers to make an informed decision based on the results. It is obviously critical that this be true for people to make important decisions based on the data and the FDA should make sure the tests are reliable.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What the new information available to customers in Canada and the U.K. is lacking are the more speculative findings. Which is too bad.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is kind of fun to be at the forefront of the genetic revolution using your own data. I like seeing what the most recent research has to say about something like Type 2 diabetes (which runs in my family) and getting it written up for me in terms of my genetic information is a fun way to learn. And this works for me because as a geneticist, I know that any genetic results for Type 2 diabetes being offered right now aren’t really worth much.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Which is why companies like 23andMe should probably have flagged these sorts of results as speculative from the get go. Don’t put them in the same list as the 100 or so conditions that are more definitive. Don’t use bar graphs to show a customer’s risk as that makes it seem more real than it is.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conditions like Type 2 diabetes should be binned together in a section where the company comes out and says that these results don’t mean a lot because we are just starting to understand the genetic basis of these diseases. They would also need to mention that even a complete genetic understanding of any of these conditions wouldn’t be the whole picture since the environment plays a big role too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reorganizing the information would give more value to the customer. They would get solid advice for some conditions like customers can now get in the U.K. and Canada and still get to find out where science is on the others. A win-win for customers, doctors and the FDA.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Bay Area Rainfall Ushers in Mating Season for Amorous Amphibians",
"headTitle": "Bay Area Rainfall Ushers in Mating Season for Amorous Amphibians | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24484\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/1024px-Ambystoma_californiense_california_tiger_salamander_in_hands.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24484\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/1024px-Ambystoma_californiense_california_tiger_salamander_in_hands.jpg\" alt=\"Endangered California tiger salamanders find refuge in the Bay Areas hills. (John Clecker, USFWS/Wikimedia)\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Endangered California tiger salamanders find refuge in the Bay Areas hills. (\u003ca title=\"John Clecker, Wikimedia\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ambystoma_californiense_california_tiger_salamander_in_hands.jpg%20\">John Clecker, USFWS/Wikimedia\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>We’ve had so much wonderful rainfall this week that’s been collecting in puddles, soaking into the ground and bringing our commutes to a slow crawl. Imagine the relief to wildlife, especially water-dependent amphibians in the hills around the bay. Though our native frogs, toads and salamanders are adapted to our Mediterranean climate — with some seeking shelter in moist places under rocks and logs and others entering estivation or “summer sleep” — the drought has been tough on all of them. Three years of low rainfall has brought our lack of water to the “extreme” point on the nation’s \u003ca title=\"Drought Monitor\" href=\"http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/\">drought monitor\u003c/a> and many amphibians have suffered or died. The Santa Cruz Sentinel featured a story, \u003ca title=\"Drought overcomes Newts and Frogs, Santa Cruz Sentinel\" href=\"http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/social-affairs/20141028/drought-overcomes-newts-and-frogs-in-ben-lomond\">“Drought Overcomes Newts and Frogs in Ben Lomond”\u003c/a> in October — one that mirrors the situation throughout the Bay Area. For species that are already suffering declines with nearly one-third lost around the world, the drought has hit them especially hard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The rain, while not enough to bring us out of drought status yet, should be enough to begin filling ponds and creeks and entice frogs and salamanders out of their summer shelters to begin courtship and mating. In fact, so many migrate across a road in \u003ca title=\"Tilden, EBRPD website\" href=\"http://www.ebparks.org/parks/tilden\">Tilden Regional Park\u003c/a> above Berkeley that the park district closes the road in winter and early spring to safeguard their passage. The EBRPD Stewardship department staff has been surveying amphibian populations for the last 20 years with a \u003ca title=\"Amphibians EBRPD 2007 report\" href=\"http://www.ebparks.org/Assets/files/stew_Amphibian_Final_Report_2007.pdf\">full report\u003c/a> available on the park website. This is one of the longest survey of amphibians in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24483\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 216px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/1024px-Adult_northern_red_legged_frog_on_bright_green_leaf_rana_aurora-216x162.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-24483\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/1024px-Adult_northern_red_legged_frog_on_bright_green_leaf_rana_aurora-216x162.jpg\" alt=\"Northern red-legged frogs, a threatened amphibian species, breed in ponds and creeks around the Bay Area. (John Betasso, USFWS/Wikimedia)\" width=\"216\" height=\"162\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Northern red-legged frogs, a threatened species, breed in ponds and creeks around the Bay Area. (\u003ca title=\"John Betasso, Wikimedia\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adult_northern_red_legged_frog_on_bright_green_leaf_rana_aurora.jpg%20\">John Betasso, USFWS/Wikimedia\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Some key findings in the report include that seasonal ponds, creeks and streams as well as stock ponds for cattle in the parks are important habitats for many species of amphibians. Non-native bullfrogs are a problem for amphibian populations, especially threatened and endangered red-legged and yellow-legged frog species and California tiger salamanders. Our ponds that dry up in summer, however, don’t support bullfrogs that require two winters to mature. Native amphibians have a chance to reproduce without the predation of bullfrogs in these areas. Garter snakes, large predacious water beetles (often referred to as “toe biters”) and dragonfly larvae will eat young amphibians in ponds and streams where they’re present. Chytrid fungus is a growing problem for frogs worldwide with infection spread through the pet, laboratory and food trades. The \u003ca title=\"Save the Frogs website\" href=\"http://www.savethefrogs.com/threats/chytrid/%20\">Save the Frogs website\u003c/a> has a lot of information about the movement to halt the spread of chytrid fungus. Climate change is also changing habitats vital to amphibians around the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24485\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 216px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/1024px-Mountain_Yellow-Legged_frog-216x162.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-24485\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/1024px-Mountain_Yellow-Legged_frog-216x162.jpg\" alt=\"Endangered yellow-legged frogs have just a fragment of their breeding habitat left in our area. (Rick Kuyper, USFWS/Wikimedia)\" width=\"216\" height=\"162\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Endangered yellow-legged frogs have just a fragment of their breeding habitat left in our area. (\u003ca title=\"Rick Kuyper, Wikimedia\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mountain_Yellow-Legged_frog.jpg%20\">Rick Kuyper, USFWS/Wikimedia\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>To see the amphibian action this time of year, it’s best to go out into the hills after a rain and look for them in small ponds and creeks. Remember to observe them in their natural habitats and leave them unmolested. You can join a naturalist on a park exploration to see them and learn more about their amazing survival skills and fascinating lives. Check the \u003ca title=\"Activities, EBRPD\" href=\"http://www.ebparks.org/activities\">East Bay Regional Parks website\u003c/a> for more information about upcoming programs. You can use the handy amphibian identification guide from \u003ca title=\"Bay Area Amphibians, CA Herps.com\" href=\"http://www.californiaherps.com/identification/bayareaherps.html#FrogsandToads%20\">California herps.com\u003c/a> online to see what species you might find in our area. More information about the mating habits of California newts can be found in my previously published article, \u003ca title=\"CA Newt blog KQED QUEST, Nelson-Embry\" href=\"http://science.kqed.org/quest/2012/03/30/life-aquatic-and-terrestrial-california-newts/\">“Life Aquatic and Terrestrial for California Newts”\u003c/a> for KQED QUEST.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Amphibians face tough times as nearly one-third of the species has already lost worldwide. Learn about our local amphibians and what the East Bay Regional Parks District is doing to protect them.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24484\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1024px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/1024px-Ambystoma_californiense_california_tiger_salamander_in_hands.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24484\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/1024px-Ambystoma_californiense_california_tiger_salamander_in_hands.jpg\" alt=\"Endangered California tiger salamanders find refuge in the Bay Areas hills. (John Clecker, USFWS/Wikimedia)\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Endangered California tiger salamanders find refuge in the Bay Areas hills. (\u003ca title=\"John Clecker, Wikimedia\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ambystoma_californiense_california_tiger_salamander_in_hands.jpg%20\">John Clecker, USFWS/Wikimedia\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>We’ve had so much wonderful rainfall this week that’s been collecting in puddles, soaking into the ground and bringing our commutes to a slow crawl. Imagine the relief to wildlife, especially water-dependent amphibians in the hills around the bay. Though our native frogs, toads and salamanders are adapted to our Mediterranean climate — with some seeking shelter in moist places under rocks and logs and others entering estivation or “summer sleep” — the drought has been tough on all of them. Three years of low rainfall has brought our lack of water to the “extreme” point on the nation’s \u003ca title=\"Drought Monitor\" href=\"http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/\">drought monitor\u003c/a> and many amphibians have suffered or died. The Santa Cruz Sentinel featured a story, \u003ca title=\"Drought overcomes Newts and Frogs, Santa Cruz Sentinel\" href=\"http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/social-affairs/20141028/drought-overcomes-newts-and-frogs-in-ben-lomond\">“Drought Overcomes Newts and Frogs in Ben Lomond”\u003c/a> in October — one that mirrors the situation throughout the Bay Area. For species that are already suffering declines with nearly one-third lost around the world, the drought has hit them especially hard.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The rain, while not enough to bring us out of drought status yet, should be enough to begin filling ponds and creeks and entice frogs and salamanders out of their summer shelters to begin courtship and mating. In fact, so many migrate across a road in \u003ca title=\"Tilden, EBRPD website\" href=\"http://www.ebparks.org/parks/tilden\">Tilden Regional Park\u003c/a> above Berkeley that the park district closes the road in winter and early spring to safeguard their passage. The EBRPD Stewardship department staff has been surveying amphibian populations for the last 20 years with a \u003ca title=\"Amphibians EBRPD 2007 report\" href=\"http://www.ebparks.org/Assets/files/stew_Amphibian_Final_Report_2007.pdf\">full report\u003c/a> available on the park website. This is one of the longest survey of amphibians in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24483\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 216px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/1024px-Adult_northern_red_legged_frog_on_bright_green_leaf_rana_aurora-216x162.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-24483\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/1024px-Adult_northern_red_legged_frog_on_bright_green_leaf_rana_aurora-216x162.jpg\" alt=\"Northern red-legged frogs, a threatened amphibian species, breed in ponds and creeks around the Bay Area. (John Betasso, USFWS/Wikimedia)\" width=\"216\" height=\"162\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Northern red-legged frogs, a threatened species, breed in ponds and creeks around the Bay Area. (\u003ca title=\"John Betasso, Wikimedia\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adult_northern_red_legged_frog_on_bright_green_leaf_rana_aurora.jpg%20\">John Betasso, USFWS/Wikimedia\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Some key findings in the report include that seasonal ponds, creeks and streams as well as stock ponds for cattle in the parks are important habitats for many species of amphibians. Non-native bullfrogs are a problem for amphibian populations, especially threatened and endangered red-legged and yellow-legged frog species and California tiger salamanders. Our ponds that dry up in summer, however, don’t support bullfrogs that require two winters to mature. Native amphibians have a chance to reproduce without the predation of bullfrogs in these areas. Garter snakes, large predacious water beetles (often referred to as “toe biters”) and dragonfly larvae will eat young amphibians in ponds and streams where they’re present. Chytrid fungus is a growing problem for frogs worldwide with infection spread through the pet, laboratory and food trades. The \u003ca title=\"Save the Frogs website\" href=\"http://www.savethefrogs.com/threats/chytrid/%20\">Save the Frogs website\u003c/a> has a lot of information about the movement to halt the spread of chytrid fungus. Climate change is also changing habitats vital to amphibians around the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24485\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 216px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/1024px-Mountain_Yellow-Legged_frog-216x162.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-24485\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/1024px-Mountain_Yellow-Legged_frog-216x162.jpg\" alt=\"Endangered yellow-legged frogs have just a fragment of their breeding habitat left in our area. (Rick Kuyper, USFWS/Wikimedia)\" width=\"216\" height=\"162\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Endangered yellow-legged frogs have just a fragment of their breeding habitat left in our area. (\u003ca title=\"Rick Kuyper, Wikimedia\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mountain_Yellow-Legged_frog.jpg%20\">Rick Kuyper, USFWS/Wikimedia\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>To see the amphibian action this time of year, it’s best to go out into the hills after a rain and look for them in small ponds and creeks. Remember to observe them in their natural habitats and leave them unmolested. You can join a naturalist on a park exploration to see them and learn more about their amazing survival skills and fascinating lives. Check the \u003ca title=\"Activities, EBRPD\" href=\"http://www.ebparks.org/activities\">East Bay Regional Parks website\u003c/a> for more information about upcoming programs. You can use the handy amphibian identification guide from \u003ca title=\"Bay Area Amphibians, CA Herps.com\" href=\"http://www.californiaherps.com/identification/bayareaherps.html#FrogsandToads%20\">California herps.com\u003c/a> online to see what species you might find in our area. More information about the mating habits of California newts can be found in my previously published article, \u003ca title=\"CA Newt blog KQED QUEST, Nelson-Embry\" href=\"http://science.kqed.org/quest/2012/03/30/life-aquatic-and-terrestrial-california-newts/\">“Life Aquatic and Terrestrial for California Newts”\u003c/a> for KQED QUEST.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>[dl_subscribe]There’s something buried in the Arctic soil that could have a huge effect on the future of our planet’s climate. Scientists from \u003ca href=\"http://www.lbl.gov/\">Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory\u003c/a> have descended on Barrow, Alaska to study permafrost — soil that remains frozen throughout the seasons, often for thousands of years. They’re interested in permafrost because it has the potential to release an enormous amount of greenhouse gases in a short amount of time if rising temperatures cause the permafrost to thaw.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24402\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Hubbard-and-Gusmeroli.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24402\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Hubbard-and-Gusmeroli.jpg\" alt=\"Susan Hubbard and Alessio Gusmeroli collecting ground penetrating radar data. \" width=\"720\" height=\"540\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Susan Hubbard driving and Alessio Gusmeroli (UA Fairbanks) collecting ground penetrating radar data. Photo: John Peterson/LBNL\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Nearly one quarter of the land in the Earth’s Northern Hemisphere is permafrost, and the decaying plant matter within it contains about twice as much carbon as is presently in the atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24409\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Susan-Hubard.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24409\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Susan-Hubard.jpg\" alt=\"Susan Hubbard exploring the different types of Arctic vegetation\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Susan Hubbard, LBNL’s representative on the NGEE-Arctic project exploring the different types of Arctic vegetation present at the Barrow, AK field site.\u003cbr>Photo: Roy Kaltschmidt/LBNL\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ngee-arctic.ornl.gov/\">The Next Generation Ecosystem Experiment – Arctic\u003c/a>, is a collaborative project between Lawrence Berkeley Lab and seven other institutions to study this ecosystem in incredible detail. The researchers began work in 2012, and plan to continue their research through 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24404\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2499px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/XBD201307-03354-271.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24404\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/XBD201307-03354-271.jpg\" alt=\"Craig Ulrich collecting imagery of the land surface using sensors mounted on a kite.\" width=\"2499\" height=\"1668\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Craig Ulrich of LBNL collecting imagery of the land surface using sensors mounted on a kite. Photo: Roy Kaltschmidt/LBNL\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>They aim to combine information from a wide range of techniques – from \u003ca href=\"http://www.earthsound.ie/electrical-resistivity-tomography.html\">Electrical Resistance Tomography\u003c/a> that measures the soil’s moisture, salinity and texture, to a kite outfitted with a camera that reveals the surface vegetation and topography. By bringing together a variety of techniques, they hope to learn all they can about this one specific location. The team plans to use the knowledge to create more accurate computer models of our planet’s climate, which will allow scientists to better understand how permafrost everywhere will react to changes in temperature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The combination of above and below ground geophysical imaging of the Arctic tundra has enabled us to, for the first time, ‘see’ complex interactions occurring between land surface, active layer, and permafrost processes that contribute to carbon cycling,” says Susan Hubbard, Director of the Earth Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In order to predict how large swaths of permafrost will react to changing conditions, the researchers must learn exactly what the soils are made of — down to the microscopic level. They need to know where the permafrost is and how deep it goes. They need to know what minerals it contains, including how much water and gas, and what tiny organisms live there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24411\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1836px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/20140423_125037.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24411\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/20140423_125037.jpg\" alt=\"Drilling permafrost cores in Barrow, AK. Photo: Craig Ulrich/LBNL\" width=\"1836\" height=\"3264\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Drilling permafrost cores in Barrow, AK. Photo: Craig Ulrich/LBNL\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One aspect of the project requires the researchers to drill down from the surface and extract long solid cylinders of frozen soil. They ship the frozen samples back to research labs for a battery of tests. At Lawrence Berkeley Lab, they’re using a CT scanner, similar to those found in hospitals, to measure and examine the makeup of the cores, because different substances react differently to changing temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24412\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 3840px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Kneafsey-CT.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24412\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Kneafsey-CT.jpg\" alt=\"Tim Kneafsey loading a permafrost core onto a CT scanner at LBNL. Photo: Josh Cassidy/KQED\" width=\"3840\" height=\"2160\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tim Kneafsey loading a permafrost core onto a CT scanner at LBNL. Photo: Josh Cassidy/KQED\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While the “active layer” near the soil’s surface can freeze each fall and thaw each summer, the permafrost layer further below may stay frozen for thousands of years. Within it lays the remnants of ancient plants and bacteria that have stayed dormant, trapped in the frozen soil. It also contains greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide and methane, which are the waste products created by bacteria as they break down the dead plant matter buried in the soil. If the soil thaws, the ancient bacteria will get to work decomposing the plant matter and releasing greenhouse gases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24403\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2499px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/XBD201307-03354-026.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24403\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/XBD201307-03354-026.jpg\" alt=\"Craig Ulrich of LBNL collecting Electrical Resistance Tomography data\" width=\"2499\" height=\"1668\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Craig Ulrich of LBNL collecting Electrical Resistance Tomography data using sensors buried in the Alaskan soil. Photo: Roy Kaltschmidt/LBNL\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The extra greenhouse gases could trap heat in the atmosphere, which would in turn thaw more permafrost. This could result in a catastrophic feedback loop that would accelerate the warming of the planet. Another possibility is that a warming climate might create longer growing seasons in the summer, which would allow more plants to grow at the surface. As the plants grow, they could trap more carbon out of the atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to its vast size, the Arctic tundra is also extremely complex. The different geological features make it difficult to predict how the large swaths of land will react to warming, researchers say. Current models suggest that between 7 percent and 90 percent of permafrost may thaw by the year 2100. That wide range shows that scientists need to gain a more detailed understanding of the systems at play in order to achieve more precise predictions about the future.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>There’s something buried in the Arctic soil that could have a huge effect on the future of our planet’s climate. Scientists from \u003ca href=\"http://www.lbl.gov/\">Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory\u003c/a> have descended on Barrow, Alaska to study permafrost — soil that remains frozen throughout the seasons, often for thousands of years. They’re interested in permafrost because it has the potential to release an enormous amount of greenhouse gases in a short amount of time if rising temperatures cause the permafrost to thaw.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24402\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Hubbard-and-Gusmeroli.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24402\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Hubbard-and-Gusmeroli.jpg\" alt=\"Susan Hubbard and Alessio Gusmeroli collecting ground penetrating radar data. \" width=\"720\" height=\"540\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Susan Hubbard driving and Alessio Gusmeroli (UA Fairbanks) collecting ground penetrating radar data. Photo: John Peterson/LBNL\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Nearly one quarter of the land in the Earth’s Northern Hemisphere is permafrost, and the decaying plant matter within it contains about twice as much carbon as is presently in the atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24409\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 720px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Susan-Hubard.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24409\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Susan-Hubard.jpg\" alt=\"Susan Hubbard exploring the different types of Arctic vegetation\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Susan Hubbard, LBNL’s representative on the NGEE-Arctic project exploring the different types of Arctic vegetation present at the Barrow, AK field site.\u003cbr>Photo: Roy Kaltschmidt/LBNL\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ngee-arctic.ornl.gov/\">The Next Generation Ecosystem Experiment – Arctic\u003c/a>, is a collaborative project between Lawrence Berkeley Lab and seven other institutions to study this ecosystem in incredible detail. The researchers began work in 2012, and plan to continue their research through 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24404\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2499px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/XBD201307-03354-271.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24404\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/XBD201307-03354-271.jpg\" alt=\"Craig Ulrich collecting imagery of the land surface using sensors mounted on a kite.\" width=\"2499\" height=\"1668\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Craig Ulrich of LBNL collecting imagery of the land surface using sensors mounted on a kite. Photo: Roy Kaltschmidt/LBNL\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>They aim to combine information from a wide range of techniques – from \u003ca href=\"http://www.earthsound.ie/electrical-resistivity-tomography.html\">Electrical Resistance Tomography\u003c/a> that measures the soil’s moisture, salinity and texture, to a kite outfitted with a camera that reveals the surface vegetation and topography. By bringing together a variety of techniques, they hope to learn all they can about this one specific location. The team plans to use the knowledge to create more accurate computer models of our planet’s climate, which will allow scientists to better understand how permafrost everywhere will react to changes in temperature.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The combination of above and below ground geophysical imaging of the Arctic tundra has enabled us to, for the first time, ‘see’ complex interactions occurring between land surface, active layer, and permafrost processes that contribute to carbon cycling,” says Susan Hubbard, Director of the Earth Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In order to predict how large swaths of permafrost will react to changing conditions, the researchers must learn exactly what the soils are made of — down to the microscopic level. They need to know where the permafrost is and how deep it goes. They need to know what minerals it contains, including how much water and gas, and what tiny organisms live there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24411\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1836px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/20140423_125037.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24411\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/20140423_125037.jpg\" alt=\"Drilling permafrost cores in Barrow, AK. Photo: Craig Ulrich/LBNL\" width=\"1836\" height=\"3264\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Drilling permafrost cores in Barrow, AK. Photo: Craig Ulrich/LBNL\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>One aspect of the project requires the researchers to drill down from the surface and extract long solid cylinders of frozen soil. They ship the frozen samples back to research labs for a battery of tests. At Lawrence Berkeley Lab, they’re using a CT scanner, similar to those found in hospitals, to measure and examine the makeup of the cores, because different substances react differently to changing temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24412\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 3840px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Kneafsey-CT.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24412\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/Kneafsey-CT.jpg\" alt=\"Tim Kneafsey loading a permafrost core onto a CT scanner at LBNL. Photo: Josh Cassidy/KQED\" width=\"3840\" height=\"2160\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tim Kneafsey loading a permafrost core onto a CT scanner at LBNL. Photo: Josh Cassidy/KQED\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While the “active layer” near the soil’s surface can freeze each fall and thaw each summer, the permafrost layer further below may stay frozen for thousands of years. Within it lays the remnants of ancient plants and bacteria that have stayed dormant, trapped in the frozen soil. It also contains greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide and methane, which are the waste products created by bacteria as they break down the dead plant matter buried in the soil. If the soil thaws, the ancient bacteria will get to work decomposing the plant matter and releasing greenhouse gases.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24403\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2499px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/XBD201307-03354-026.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24403\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/12/XBD201307-03354-026.jpg\" alt=\"Craig Ulrich of LBNL collecting Electrical Resistance Tomography data\" width=\"2499\" height=\"1668\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Craig Ulrich of LBNL collecting Electrical Resistance Tomography data using sensors buried in the Alaskan soil. Photo: Roy Kaltschmidt/LBNL\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The extra greenhouse gases could trap heat in the atmosphere, which would in turn thaw more permafrost. This could result in a catastrophic feedback loop that would accelerate the warming of the planet. Another possibility is that a warming climate might create longer growing seasons in the summer, which would allow more plants to grow at the surface. As the plants grow, they could trap more carbon out of the atmosphere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to its vast size, the Arctic tundra is also extremely complex. The different geological features make it difficult to predict how the large swaths of land will react to warming, researchers say. Current models suggest that between 7 percent and 90 percent of permafrost may thaw by the year 2100. That wide range shows that scientists need to gain a more detailed understanding of the systems at play in order to achieve more precise predictions about the future.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "New Study Sheds Light On Two Regions of DNA Linked to Male Homosexuality",
"headTitle": "New Study Sheds Light On Two Regions of DNA Linked to Male Homosexuality | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24258\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/HoldingHands.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24258\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/HoldingHands.jpg\" alt=\"Two DNA regions may contribute to male homosexuality. (Wikimedia Commons)\" width=\"800\" height=\"463\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Two DNA regions may contribute to male homosexuality. (\u003ca class=\"nofancybox\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gay_pride_090_-_Marche_des_fiert%C3%A9s_Toulouse_2011.jpg\">Wikimedia Commons\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There is little doubt any more among the research community that sexual preference is a combination of both nature and nurture. In other words, it comes about because of both genes and the environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The next questions to answer have more to do with how much each contributes and which genes and environmental factors are involved. A \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25399360\">new study\u003c/a> has begun to shed light on the genetic side of the equation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this study, researchers looked at over 400 pairs of brothers who were both gay and found two regions in the genome that may play a role in male sexual orientation. These regions were found on chromosome 8 and on one of the sex chromosomes, the X.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As expected for something as complex as sexual attraction, neither region is the whole story. There are undoubtedly many, many genes in many different parts of the genome involved in this part of brain development. There will be heterosexual men who have the genetic variations identified in this study and homosexual men who do not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And of course genes aren’t the whole story. The environment plays an important role as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, \u003ca href=\"http://www.pnas.org/content/103/28/10771.full\">men with lots of older brothers are more likely to be gay than first born sons\u003c/a>. This is true even for brothers reared apart which means it isn’t the older brothers themselves influencing the younger brother directly. Rather it is the effect on the mom of having multiple sons which triggers some effect in the next male fetus as he develops in her womb. This is just one of many environmental influences like this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Again, this obviously does not mean all younger brothers are gay and all first born men are straight. It just means that men with lots of older brothers are more likely to be gay and that first born sons are less likely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24261\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/LargeFamily.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24261\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/LargeFamily.jpg\" alt=\"The younger sons are more likely to be gay. (Wikimedia Commons)\" width=\"300\" height=\"214\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The younger sons are more likely to be gay. (\u003ca href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Large_family_group,_Chwilog_NLW3363021.jpg\">Wikimedia Commons\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This all points to sexual orientation in men being a complex mix of genetics and the environment. Some men will have a genetic predisposition towards being gay but will not have encountered any of the environmental triggers while others will have no genetic predisposition but will be gay because of multiple environmental triggers. And everything in between.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One thing this means is that even if scientists find every DNA region that plays a role in a man’s sexual orientation, they still probably won’t be able to predict if a boy will grow up to be attracted to men or women. A boy might have all the variations that point to being gay and still be attracted to women because of how the environment has influenced his genes, his development, his cells and so on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is important to note that this study only looked at homosexual men, not women. This is because a growing amount of research points to sexual orientation being determined differently in each sex. When researchers look at both men and women in the same studies, there is a big chance that subtle effects like the ones seen in this study will be missed. Scientists need to do a separate study in women to understand the genetics behind their sexual orientation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Regions Not Genes\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nThe researchers in this study did not find any specific gene involved in male sexual preference. As is common in these studies, they are at the first step where they have narrowed down parts of the genome that may be involved. Now they can focus on these regions and find the specific differences responsible for these brothers’ sexual orientation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24269\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/XYbathroom.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24269\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/XYbathroom.jpg\" alt=\"A region on the X chromosome may cause women to have more babies and increase the chances that a man will be gay. (Peter Eimon)\" width=\"300\" height=\"316\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A region on the X chromosome may cause women to have more babies and increase the chances that a man will be gay. (\u003ca href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/pmeimon/8483407989/in/photostream/\">Peter Eimon\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The next step will be to figure out whether these regions translate to more gay men or whether these researchers have stumbled onto something that happens to be specific for this set of brothers. This will not necessarily be a slam dunk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The data in this study is definitely suggestive that these regions on chromosome 8 and the X chromosome are important but they are nowhere near overwhelming. More work will need to be done to confirm that these regions play a role. And then the real work of identifying which genetic differences affect which genes can begin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>X Marks the Spot\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The region on the X chromosome is particularly intriguing. It matches up with \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8332896\">a study done back in 1993\u003c/a> that found the same region, Xq28, that was involved in male sexual orientation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The X chromosome has been a favorite of scientists because it may help to explain how being gay has survived in the population as a sizeable minority. After all, most genetic differences that lead to having fewer kids should fade away over time. Unless, that is, there is some way that it can also lead to more children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One idea scientists have had is that women who have the genetic differences on their X that increase a man’s chances of being gay have more babies. Her increase offsets his decrease and so the genetic variants stay in the population. There is even data to support this hypothesis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is a good theory but definitely needs more testing. And keep in mind that this region on the X is one of at least two and probably more regions involved in male sexual preference. It is unlikely that every region that might lead to homosexuality in men has some sort of compensatory effect in women.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead it may just be that because there is such a complex relationship between these genes and the environment, that these genes don’t have a big impact on the number of kids over time. In each generation, only a few of the men with these differences go on to be homosexual. This might mean that the genetic differences do not have a significant effect on the number of kids in each generation. Obviously more research needs to be done.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "There is little doubt any more among the research community that sexual preference is a combination of both nature and nurture. In other words, it comes about because of both genes and the environment. The next questions to answer have more to do with how much each contributes and which genes and environmental factors are involved.",
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"title": "New Study Sheds Light On Two Regions of DNA Linked to Male Homosexuality | KQED",
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"headline": "New Study Sheds Light On Two Regions of DNA Linked to Male Homosexuality",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24258\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/HoldingHands.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24258\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/HoldingHands.jpg\" alt=\"Two DNA regions may contribute to male homosexuality. (Wikimedia Commons)\" width=\"800\" height=\"463\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Two DNA regions may contribute to male homosexuality. (\u003ca class=\"nofancybox\" href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gay_pride_090_-_Marche_des_fiert%C3%A9s_Toulouse_2011.jpg\">Wikimedia Commons\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>There is little doubt any more among the research community that sexual preference is a combination of both nature and nurture. In other words, it comes about because of both genes and the environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The next questions to answer have more to do with how much each contributes and which genes and environmental factors are involved. A \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25399360\">new study\u003c/a> has begun to shed light on the genetic side of the equation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In this study, researchers looked at over 400 pairs of brothers who were both gay and found two regions in the genome that may play a role in male sexual orientation. These regions were found on chromosome 8 and on one of the sex chromosomes, the X.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As expected for something as complex as sexual attraction, neither region is the whole story. There are undoubtedly many, many genes in many different parts of the genome involved in this part of brain development. There will be heterosexual men who have the genetic variations identified in this study and homosexual men who do not.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And of course genes aren’t the whole story. The environment plays an important role as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For example, \u003ca href=\"http://www.pnas.org/content/103/28/10771.full\">men with lots of older brothers are more likely to be gay than first born sons\u003c/a>. This is true even for brothers reared apart which means it isn’t the older brothers themselves influencing the younger brother directly. Rather it is the effect on the mom of having multiple sons which triggers some effect in the next male fetus as he develops in her womb. This is just one of many environmental influences like this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Again, this obviously does not mean all younger brothers are gay and all first born men are straight. It just means that men with lots of older brothers are more likely to be gay and that first born sons are less likely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24261\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/LargeFamily.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24261\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/LargeFamily.jpg\" alt=\"The younger sons are more likely to be gay. (Wikimedia Commons)\" width=\"300\" height=\"214\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The younger sons are more likely to be gay. (\u003ca href=\"http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Large_family_group,_Chwilog_NLW3363021.jpg\">Wikimedia Commons\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This all points to sexual orientation in men being a complex mix of genetics and the environment. Some men will have a genetic predisposition towards being gay but will not have encountered any of the environmental triggers while others will have no genetic predisposition but will be gay because of multiple environmental triggers. And everything in between.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One thing this means is that even if scientists find every DNA region that plays a role in a man’s sexual orientation, they still probably won’t be able to predict if a boy will grow up to be attracted to men or women. A boy might have all the variations that point to being gay and still be attracted to women because of how the environment has influenced his genes, his development, his cells and so on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It is important to note that this study only looked at homosexual men, not women. This is because a growing amount of research points to sexual orientation being determined differently in each sex. When researchers look at both men and women in the same studies, there is a big chance that subtle effects like the ones seen in this study will be missed. Scientists need to do a separate study in women to understand the genetics behind their sexual orientation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Regions Not Genes\u003c/strong>\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nThe researchers in this study did not find any specific gene involved in male sexual preference. As is common in these studies, they are at the first step where they have narrowed down parts of the genome that may be involved. Now they can focus on these regions and find the specific differences responsible for these brothers’ sexual orientation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_24269\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 300px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/XYbathroom.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-24269\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/science/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2014/11/XYbathroom.jpg\" alt=\"A region on the X chromosome may cause women to have more babies and increase the chances that a man will be gay. (Peter Eimon)\" width=\"300\" height=\"316\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A region on the X chromosome may cause women to have more babies and increase the chances that a man will be gay. (\u003ca href=\"https://www.flickr.com/photos/pmeimon/8483407989/in/photostream/\">Peter Eimon\u003c/a>)\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The next step will be to figure out whether these regions translate to more gay men or whether these researchers have stumbled onto something that happens to be specific for this set of brothers. This will not necessarily be a slam dunk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The data in this study is definitely suggestive that these regions on chromosome 8 and the X chromosome are important but they are nowhere near overwhelming. More work will need to be done to confirm that these regions play a role. And then the real work of identifying which genetic differences affect which genes can begin.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>X Marks the Spot\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The region on the X chromosome is particularly intriguing. It matches up with \u003ca href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8332896\">a study done back in 1993\u003c/a> that found the same region, Xq28, that was involved in male sexual orientation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The X chromosome has been a favorite of scientists because it may help to explain how being gay has survived in the population as a sizeable minority. After all, most genetic differences that lead to having fewer kids should fade away over time. Unless, that is, there is some way that it can also lead to more children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One idea scientists have had is that women who have the genetic differences on their X that increase a man’s chances of being gay have more babies. Her increase offsets his decrease and so the genetic variants stay in the population. There is even data to support this hypothesis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is a good theory but definitely needs more testing. And keep in mind that this region on the X is one of at least two and probably more regions involved in male sexual preference. It is unlikely that every region that might lead to homosexuality in men has some sort of compensatory effect in women.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead it may just be that because there is such a complex relationship between these genes and the environment, that these genes don’t have a big impact on the number of kids over time. In each generation, only a few of the men with these differences go on to be homosexual. This might mean that the genetic differences do not have a significant effect on the number of kids in each generation. Obviously more research needs to be done.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
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"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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},
"closealltabs": {
"id": "closealltabs",
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"order": 1
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"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
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"order": 9
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"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
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"subscribe": {
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
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},
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
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"order": 15
},
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
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"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
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},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
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"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm",
"meta": {
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"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
}
},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
"title": "PBS NewsHour",
"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/pbs-newshour",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
}
},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
"title": "Perspectives",
"tagline": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991",
"info": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Perspectives_Tile_Final.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/perspectives/",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 14
},
"link": "/perspectives",
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"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/432309616/perspectives",
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},
"planet-money": {
"id": "planet-money",
"title": "Planet Money",
"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
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