Klondike the Extraordinary Puppy

Klondike the Extraordinary Puppy

If you’re a dog person like I am, you may be excited to hear that they wont be going anywhere any time soon. Biology is advancing every day, and one of its recent successes has caught my eye. One little puppy’s survival and thriving growth has given hope to endangered canines and possibly other types of endangered species as well.

Klondike is a Labrador-beagle mix who was born through the process of cryopreservation, the freezing of tissue. After his beagle  mother was artificially inseminated, the embryos were frozen and one was eventually inserted into his surrogate mother, another beagle. Scientists waited until Klondike was nine months old to announce the success of this process. The puppy doesn’t have any major health problems, and has developed normally so far in his life.

Although neither Labradors nor beagles are endangered, this assisted reproduction technique can most likely be used with species such as the red wolf, one of the world’s most endangered canines. Repopulation of this species is now possible, with Klondike as proof! Female dogs can only give birth once or twice a year, so being able to freeze their embryos and preserve genetic diversity is truly a breakthrough.

Biology is constantly developing in new and amazing ways. Now that scientists have successfully given life to a frozen dog embryo, they may be anticipating the same success for other endangered species. Cryopreservation of embryos is a rather new field in biology, and it will be fascinating to learn which species they will use this technique on next!

Posted by Lindsey Dugas (1).

Discovery of Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity

Gluten-Free, Whether You Need It or Not

All my life I have suffered from painful, sporadic stomach aches after eating pasta or wheat based meals. These stomach pains started getting so bad that I decided to see a specialist to determine the cause of my ailment. After numerous blood tests, special diets, and an endoscopy my doctor told me that I had non-celiac gluten sensitivity and was immediately put on a gluten-free diet. I had heard of celiac disease before but had never heard of this condition. According to my doctor more and more people are showing up with symptoms similar to Celiac disease but do not have the actual disease and thus medical professionals have started calling this condition non-celiac gluten sensitivity. This condition’s main quality is, just like it sounds, sensitivity to gluten products and has risen among Americans in the past years due to the increase in gluten- based products.

 According to a New York Times Health Science Article, it is speculated that 1/100 Americans have Celiac disease, which is a genetic mutation that causes the inability of the human digestive system to break down the repeating patterns of amino acids found in glutenin and gliadin, which are proteins found only in gluten based products like wheat, barley, rye and oats. When the pieces of these proteins are passed through the intestine they are mistaken as foreign invaders and cause the immune system to attack them on the villi attached to the walls of the intestine, which provide the body with nutrients. The damage affects a person’s ability to absorb nutrients properly and can become malnourished no matter how much food they eat. Wheat entered the human diet only about 10,000 years ago, with the invention of farming.

 “For the previous 250,000 years, man had evolved without having this very strange protein in his gut… And as a result, this is a really strange, different protein, which the human intestine cannot fully digest. Many people did not adapt to these great environmental changes, so some adverse effects related to gluten ingestion developed around that time.” Dr. Stefano Guandalini, medical director of the University of Chicago’s Celiac Disease Center. 

Over the years more and more varieties of wheat is grown containing higher levels of gluten, which helps produce the soft inside and crusty outside desirable in bread. This has caused more cases of celiac disease to emerge and now this new condition called non-celiac gluten sensitivity that has symptoms similar to celiac disease but do not have the same antibodies or intestinal damage associated with celiac disease. There is no known cause of either conditions and thus there is no prevention or cure. The only treatment is to live a life on a gluten-free diet, although it does not have to be strictly followed for those with the gluten sensitivity.

The gluten-free diet was very difficult to follow at first. You cannot eat any products containing wheat, barley or rye and sometimes oats because they can contain contaminated gluten products. Anything prepackaged is also out because even if the products themselves do not originally contain gluten they can be made in an area of a factory or company where there once was gluten products. All natural foods like fruits, vegetables, rice, corn, and potatoes are staples of the gluten-free diet. Fresh meat, poultry and fish are also fine but they can’t be breaded or made with regular gravy or sauces.

The diet is very limiting at first and I ended up losing a lot of weight because I didn’t feel comfortable eating anything. However after a while I discovered products like corn and rice based muffins, breads, pizza, and pasta. There is no beneficial difference between a regular diet and a gluten free diet for a person without the gluten sensitivity or celiac disease. In fact the muffins and breads contain less vitamins and fiber than the wheat based items but with all the same butter and sugar content. People have to be very careful when going on a gluten free diet because they often have the mentality that if it says its “Gluten-Free” then it must be healthy when in reality it still has the same fat and sugar content. Since being on the gluten-free diet my stomachaches have nearly vanished and also my seasonal allergies have been limited as well. I don’t always keep strictly to the diet but I do make a big effort to avoid the gluten-based foods in the grocery store and my stomach feels much better because of it. 

Posted by Celina Keating (1)

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/04/gluten-free-whether-you-need-it-or-not/?ref=science

NFL and G.E. Partnership: First Step in Protecting the players

         With the NFL season officially ending last Sunday night, most sports fan will immediately turn their attention to the distractions that is their local teams in the other major sports, i.e. hockey and basketball. Despite the season having ended, the NFL will continue to make headlines during the offseason, and not for incoherent Ray Lewis rants or dramatic fire and brimstone filled speeches about destiny. Instead, the NFL is making headlines with their recent partnership with major fortune 500 company G.E. whose combined efforts will be focused on the epidemic of head trauma that is plaguing football.
         Robert Goodell, NFL commissioner announced the partnership with G.E. last week and used it as an opportunity to spread the message that this partnership is exactly the boost needed to facilitate major growth in the understanding, prevention, and diagnosing of trauma related brain injuries. In recent years the steady increase in the number of concussions can be matched by the leagues efforts to help reduce the risk of concussion and later brain damage caused by repetitive trauma. Within the last few years at least two former NFL players, Chris Henry  and Junior Seau, premature deaths were found to be directly related to their brain trauma.
        The brain trauma found in both players shows brain tissue damage caused by repetitive blows to the head. In the case of Chris Henry in particular, whose brain was donated to science to study, it was found that he suffered from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy or CTE. In CTE brain tissue starts to deteriorate from the brain smashing against its protective casing of the skull, your basic concussion. However, in CTE the damage becomes so severe that an individual may show symptoms of dementia, aggression, depression, and confusion. The reasoning behind CTE's effect on the brain is that the trauma allows for a continual accumulation of tau proteins in the brain. Tau proteins are highly stabilized microtubule found in the axons of neurons located in the brain. In CTE an abundance of damaged and functioning tau proteins occurs and causes the above mentioned symptoms. The build up tau proteins interferes with the normal function of the brain neurons, and as a result has caused brain damage in those who suffer from CTE.
        Clearly playing profession football carries a risk much larger then simply breaking a bone or tearing an ACL, the constant hits to the heads of NFL players is proving to be the most serious part of the sport. With a class action lawsuit looming overhead, it is good to see the NFL putting serious effort into the study of concussions and the brain damage it can cause later in life. However, one can help but wonder if this done as a genuine concern for the NFL's cash crop of talented athletes off which the owners make billions, or as a way to for NFL to protect their own skin.
 Bryan Cohoon

The Fall of the Tasmanian Tiger

       Hunted to extinction in the late 1800s-early 1900s, a genocide of the Tasmanian Tiger was taken in effect because they were supposedly killing sheep (although there is evidence that they were incapable due to insufficient jaw size, but that is a matter for another potential blog post). That to me is more conclusive and realistic evidence of an extinction rather than “they all just got sick and died”, now how often does that really happen? After billions of years, you would think evolution would not allow such a thing to happen at least in such a short period of time. Survival of the fit means survival of the fit, so as a result of such an outbreak there has to be some survivors so they can pass their genes along and allow their offspring to live their life without dying from a disease, and can continue to thrive as they would. I would say Man is the true factor of extinction in these poor thylacines.

       It all started when imperialists sailed in on their fancy boats with their fancy guns and mustaches. Dollar signs in their eyes once they hit the island of Tasmania, or maybe a place to put their sheep? Cutting down the native landscape, siphoning out any resources they can find, and depleting the small mammal and marsupial populations (the primary diet of the Tiger, which also contributed to it's demise). So I'll leave it up to you to decide what you think really killed off this cute and cuddly little guy for all eternity. A microbe, or rich guys with guns. I may just be a pessimist and loathe human kind for what it's done, but I do believe that humans are the ones who inevitably pushed these creatures off the cliff of existence and into a realm of fantasy that can only be accessed through our own conscious minds.

     I've become quite fascinated by the Tasmanian tiger, and I certainly hope that my fellow comrades feel the same as I. I appreciate the fact that a carnivorous hunter could sustain itself on an island. Carnivores require vast amounts of land to successfully hunt, but the style of hunting is not the way we imagine like on the vast African savannas. It's predation on a smaller scale, they were once the top predator, filling their niche quite nicely until they were bombarded. It's a shame that we will never see one alive, but they will live on in our hearts. Some say that there are still Tasmanian Tigers alive and well roaming the island, but let's be honest, it's not a very big place, if there were any left somebody would have found (or captured) a specimen, dead or alive, by now. It is safe to say that they are most definitely extinct, and have been since 1936. 

Posted by Alicia Champagne (1)

CONTROVERSIES in GENETIC TESTING

CONTROVERSIES in GENETIC TESTING

There are various controversies involved with genetic testing.  Although there are many positive aspects like aiding and extending the human lifespan, there are issues involving social living, discrimination, confidentiality, consent, and equity.  Such issues involve conflict between personal families due to individuals or their immediate relatives being tested. Not only that but it can lead to legal problems.  As members of society, we must ask were do we draw the line on the spectrum and decide where the benefit outweighs the risk?

Genetic testing is a type of screening to see if someone could develop a disease based on his or her genetic makeup or has a genetic disorder or condition.  One may want to have genetic testing done for various reasons: If a family has a history of one specific disease, if one shows symptoms of a genetic disorder and could thus benefit from early diagnosis, or if parents are worried about the possibility of their offspring inheriting a genetic trait from them.  By gaining this information from genetic testing, questions concerning who can find out this information, whether or not other family members should know this information, and whose responsibility it is to reveal this information to family members, if needed, can cause problems.

Having the power of genetic technology to gain knowledge about, test for and make changes in human genetic traits poses a few issues. For example, would it be wrong to choose the preferred traits for your unborn offspring? Also, would knowing and revealing the information about having or being predisposed to a genetic disorder prevent someone from being refused life insurance or healthcare? The fact that information about someone or their family becomes known to the genetic researchers means that other people can learn about this information from the research team, and thus confidentiality is not secured. Although insurance companies require health records, should people be exempt from showing their genetic history? Finally, would genetic testing be available to all classes?

Yes, there are many different scenarios on this matter in terms of whether you are affected directly or indirectly with a disorder.  In addition, with how our society is run in terms of insurance, healthcare, relationships, fairness, and the separation of what should be personal and what should not can cause a lot of tension and stress.  We must be able to have some way of judging when it is ok or not ok to undergo genetic testing based on the situation.

Posted by Marshall Moini (1)

http://www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~mcclean/plsc431/students/friesen.htm (1)

Influenza Virus and its Structure

Over winter break, getting the flu was the talk of the town. Every pharmacy within a ten-mile radius of me had run out of flu shots, and people were in a panic on the news. This is supposed to be the worst flu season ever, and to top it off, the flu season started a few weeks early this year!

The article, “ The Flu’s Proton Escort”, published in Science Magazine, introduces the structure and significance of the M2 protein. In the past few flu seasons, researchers have noticed that there is a mutation in the M2 protein that has made the Influenza virus resistant to two antibiotic drugs, amantadine and rimantadine. As it is, researchers are always trying to come up with a new antiviral drug to help fight the virus by trying to predict the next type of strain. In order to come up with new and better antiviral drugs, they need to get a better understanding of how the M2 structure reacts to the drugs.

The M2 gene is a small protein that lets hydrogen ions access into the viral particle.  It mediates acidification in the interior of the host cell. By changing the pH levels, the virus RNA is able to easily leave the cell, replicate and spread through your body. The structure of M2 contains a trans-membrane helix, that mediates drug binding and channel activity. Because M2 mediates drug binding, it has caused many debates among researchers as their anti-flu drugs are binding at different sites. There are two research groups pointed out in this article that did studies to try and figure out how the M2 is able to do this, and the article goes more in depth of their tests.

In the end of it all there are still questions about the M2 Protein and researchers are still debating about the correct geometry and measurements of the side-chain in the M2 structure and all of the tests and research led to more questions. The flu happens every year, and predicting the right flu strain will continue to be a struggle, but with research, we are just a little bit closer.

Posted by: Cynthia Bui (1)

Compassion or Survival?

Dolphins. Mammals of the sea with a high level of intelligence to boot. I have read some articles about them, specifically because an article on dolphins making a living raft for another caught my interest. It was not the dolphins that made me want to write about them but the concept of feelings versus instinct/survival of the fittest. The life raft the dolphins made for the other dying dolphin in the pod was deemed to be an act of caring and compassion. Labeling it as such it just didn’t sound right, it had to be something instinctual.

Could it be that the dolphins are caring for each other or is it just a survival tactic that benefits the whole pod? Dolphins exist in pods that are used for social interactions, feeding and protection. If a member of the pod ceases to exist then that makes the pod more venerable to attacks and less members to hunt for prey. The pod that was recorded creating a living raft for the injured member could instinctively know the consequences of losing a member. By aiding in the survival that means they would be stronger as a whole and able to defend themselves from predators such as sharks and other dolphin pods. What I am trying to point out, is people tend to enforce a label on what it is that someone or something does instead of looking at the bigger picture of why. It could be feelings of compassion but it could also just be  instinct and survival methods.

What are your opinions? Could it be that the dolphins are showing their compassion for a pod member or are they just trying to survive or both?

 http://news.discovery.com/animals/whales-dolphins/dolphins-create-raft-for-one-of-their-own-230130.htm

Posted by Sunni-Lynn Farias