tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23583696082150458462011-04-21T21:34:28.687-04:00Bio = life; lexeme = meaning. As the name implies, this blog will follow the scientific advances in our understanding of life and attempt to place them in the context of a larger meaning.Burton Webbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10229164946521307841noreply@blogger.comBlogger221100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2358369608215045846.post-77741127288014933692009-02-15T08:23:00.000-05:002009-02-15T08:24:18.280-05:00

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have commented on epigenetic change before. Epigenetics is rapidly emerging as a significant contributor to our understanding of the ways in which our genes influence both behavior and disease. Briefly, epigenetic changes to genes do not result in mutations, alterations in the gene sequence, but they do result in changes in the way a gene is

Burton Webbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10229164946521307841noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2358369608215045846.post-74304096249307550092009-02-06T15:00:00.003-05:002009-02-09T12:13:30.927-05:00

New Scientist is reporting today that the cost of a complete genome sequence has dropped to a mere $5000. This announcement will lead to profound breakthroughs in genetics research - particularly in our understanding of the SNP's genomics scientists say will be necessary for use to design personalized therapies.We will be able to know - for a relatively modest cost - the exact DNA sequences for

Burton Webbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10229164946521307841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2358369608215045846.post-56202454500769129422009-01-09T07:51:00.003-05:002009-01-09T08:38:41.541-05:00

Yesterday, NPR reported on an interesting experimental system developed at the Scripps institute in La Jolla, CA. The article, published this week in Science describes the creation of a set of self-replicating RNA molecules. While this may sound a bit bland to the casual observer, it is a significant breakthrough for evolutionary biologists. For many years biologists have theorized that the

Burton Webbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10229164946521307841noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2358369608215045846.post-37195119508553135612008-09-11T09:41:00.003-04:002008-09-11T09:48:06.482-04:00

I was reading the blog of a friend of mine (Paul Kind) this morning and it started me thinking about the role of community in modifying behavior. Here is a portion of his post: "It seems to me that selflessness over selfishness is a near universal value. Every faith points us in this direction. Whether you follow the teachings of Jesus, Abraham, Muhammad, Siddhartha, or otherwise, selflessness

Burton Webbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10229164946521307841noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2358369608215045846.post-24048283726122624552008-08-22T13:21:00.000-04:002008-08-22T13:22:56.462-04:00

The August 1, 2008 edition of the Journal of Immunology contains a fascinating article by the AAI’s new president, Olivera Finn. Dr. Finn has been a cancer researcher for more that 20 years, working on the mechanisms whereby the human immune system recognizes (or fails to recognize) tumors. She is the discoverer of MUC-1, a glycoprotein that is found in an altered form in many different kinds of

Burton Webbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10229164946521307841noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2358369608215045846.post-81382013293939928672008-08-16T11:24:00.002-04:002008-08-16T12:06:44.796-04:00

For the first time since my wife completed her PhD I am a guest at a professional conference. It is really a terrific feeling seeing Kay in her element and respected for her work. But that is not the subject of this entry. I attended an interesting talk yesterday afternoon on Rhesus monkeys. The researcher, Dr. Steven Sumi, has worked with a large colony of these animals for over 20 years. They

Burton Webbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10229164946521307841noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2358369608215045846.post-34256125487170657312008-07-28T08:52:00.002-04:002008-07-28T09:02:04.521-04:00

I am sitting in a lodge on the side of a mountain in Grand Lake, Colorado and I must confess that this is one of my favorite places in the world. Partly for the scenery, but mostly for the community, solitude, and environmental ethic of this little corner of heaven. Shadowcliff lodge was founded several decades ago on the premise that a mountain resort could be built on sustainability principles.

Burton Webbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10229164946521307841noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2358369608215045846.post-36835980510533009322008-07-18T05:14:00.002-04:002008-07-18T06:11:10.471-04:00

Whew - The FDA announced today that all tomatoes are safe to eat! Yeah! We can all go back to enjoying one of the most healthy and widely distributed foods on the planet. Careful now - the FDA did not announce that the Salmonella outbreak was over - or that the source was discovered - just that tomatoes are OK. In all 1220 people got sick and 224 were hospitalized - there were no reported deaths.

Burton Webbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10229164946521307841noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2358369608215045846.post-20630035677029664552008-07-08T13:42:00.002-04:002008-07-08T14:59:36.070-04:00

A report out today from the Butantan institute in Brazil has reported the development of sperm cells from stem cells extracted from the teeth of male donors. The results will be presented officially tomorrow at the European Society of Human reproduction and Embryology meeting in Barcelona, Spain. In this study the researchers isolated stem cells from the extracted teeth of donors and transplanted

Burton Webbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10229164946521307841noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2358369608215045846.post-2287879692358063512008-07-07T13:06:00.005-04:002008-07-07T13:40:13.203-04:00

I was recently challenged to figure out the "mileage" a friend of mine gets on his bicycle as a function of gallons of milk ingested. More succinctly, how many miles does he get per gallon of milk when riding his bike. Of course this depends on the type of fuel (Whole milk, 2%, or skim), the speed at which you are riding, body weight, percent body fat, basal metabolic rate, etc. For the purpose

Burton Webbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10229164946521307841noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2358369608215045846.post-39410433242210797922008-07-07T10:11:00.002-04:002008-07-07T10:34:07.278-04:00

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) just announced that there were 117 deaths in the United States from the mosquito borne virus known as West Nile Virus. Out of an estimated 175,000 who were infected by this virus, 35,000 came down with West Nile fever, 1,227 developed West Nile encephalitis, 63 were paralyzed, and 117 died. The disease incidence was highest in the states where the Rocky

Burton Webbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10229164946521307841noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2358369608215045846.post-65034023340061802222008-07-03T13:36:00.003-04:002008-07-03T13:55:53.522-04:00

OK, it's not biology - so I am out of my element a bit - but this is really cool. Check out the image to the right. This is a ribbon of light that is expanding its way through the universe at the rate of about 10 million kilometers per hour. The astronomers who snapped this amazing pic believe that this is the shock-wave of a star that went through supernova about 8000 years ago. While that is

Burton Webbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10229164946521307841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2358369608215045846.post-87733792364871137012008-06-18T14:28:00.002-04:002008-06-18T16:39:10.813-04:00

For decades scientists and physicians have been telling us to eat right and exercise as a way to reduce our risk of disease - now there is a genetic correlation. Dean Ornish and his colleagues at UCSF have really uncorked the bottle. They assayed healthy prostate tissue from 30 men before and after a major lifesytle change that included diet, exercise, stress reduction, and psychotherapy. What

Burton Webbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10229164946521307841noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2358369608215045846.post-36725958546644517452008-06-17T14:38:00.003-04:002008-06-17T15:31:42.922-04:00

Today in the journal Reproductive Biomedicine Online a report on new technique for freezing eggs harvested for use in in vitro fertilization was reported. According to research done at McGill University in Montreal, CA 200 children were conceived in vitro with eggs harvested and frozen using a technique call vitrification. Most importantly, the success rate nearly identical to that of eggs

Burton Webbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10229164946521307841noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2358369608215045846.post-70706269938116060992008-06-16T15:43:00.003-04:002008-06-17T10:45:12.044-04:00

This week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) Ivanka Savic and her colleagues reported an interesting finding: The brains of homosexual males resemble those of heterosexual females (MRI of the brain) while the brains of lesbian females resemble those of heterosexual males. This observation was supported by PET scans of the blood flow to the amygdala – a region of the

Burton Webbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10229164946521307841noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2358369608215045846.post-20739384410268663742008-06-13T12:21:00.002-04:002008-06-13T13:15:43.390-04:00

Most scientists are essentially optimistic. We believe in a sort of providence - ie. nature has provided all that we need to survive and flourish here on earth. It's a strong ideological statement - but I think I can back it up in a number of ways. The most recent example can be found at Sapphire Energy's website: where they just announced the production of 91 octane gasoline and jet fuel from a

Burton Webbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10229164946521307841noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2358369608215045846.post-27515703549609840352008-06-06T09:53:00.001-04:002008-06-06T09:55:30.433-04:00

This week in the journal Cell: Stem Cell – Steven Goldman’s lab reported the successful transplant of stem cells into the brains of mice with a rare demyelinating disease. Within hours of the study’s release, the BBC and other news outlets were heralding it as a possible breakthrough in our ability to treat multiple sclerosis. While this study does represent some really significant technological

Burton Webbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10229164946521307841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2358369608215045846.post-24333262788081163192008-06-05T09:29:00.002-04:002008-06-05T09:30:17.533-04:00

Sometimes students ask the most interesting questions at the most inappropriate times. I was recently conducting a “peer review” in a Human Biology class with a colleague who was up for promotion when a student asked an intriguing question: “If we know all this about how the body works, what does that leave for God to do?” Because I work at a university that is owned and operated by a protestant

Burton Webbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10229164946521307841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2358369608215045846.post-87115840430228513642008-06-05T09:29:00.001-04:002008-06-05T09:29:43.481-04:00

One of the hidden dangers in the way much of biological and medical science is being conducted in the early 21rst century is that we tend to draw too many conclusions from a reductionist approach to the scientific method. Allow me to illustrate:It’s late Christmas night, you are tired beyond description from a day filled with the nagging details of other people’s lives (your in-laws) and in the

Burton Webbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10229164946521307841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2358369608215045846.post-45435983955038200202008-06-05T09:28:00.000-04:002008-06-05T09:29:12.099-04:00

If you watch the commercials running on television during the daytime you might get the idea that the most pressing problem in the United States today is not the war on terror, homelessness, illiteracy, or AIDS; it is bacteria. Yes, common average everyday bacteria, molds and viruses that people like me call flora – the normal microbiota of everyday life. These poor organisms have been maligned

Burton Webbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10229164946521307841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2358369608215045846.post-43725226764712993752008-06-05T09:27:00.002-04:002008-06-05T09:28:32.069-04:00

According to a recent announcement in the New England Journal of Medicine it will soon be possible to conduct most of the interesting forms of stem cell research in the United States and many other countries around the world. The reason for the “breakthrough” in stem cell research is that there is an apparent loophole in the laws most countries have enacted regarding research in this highly

Burton Webbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10229164946521307841noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2358369608215045846.post-56764035077110750032008-06-05T09:27:00.001-04:002008-06-05T09:27:39.645-04:00

Sometimes the most interesting and potentially insidious science happens for the best of reasons. For more than a decade psychologists have been waiting for geneticists to figure out which genes are involved in the propensity toward and the formation of addiction to habit-forming drugs like cocaine and Mary Jane. Although there have been many candidate genes identified, none of these discoveries

Burton Webbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10229164946521307841noreply@blogger.com0