New Dinosaur Discovered: "Thunder Thighs"

A new type of dinosaur was recently discovered in Utah. The bones of the dino have been in a museum in Utah for about 10 years, but it was not until recently that paleontologists like Matt Wedel and Mike Taylor took a second look at the bones and unearthed their mystery. The bones belong to a new species of sauropod named Brontomerus mcintoshi, brontomerus literally meaning "thunder thighs" and mcintoshi after John "Jack" Mcintoshi, a world authority on sauropods. The bones belonged to two separate dinosaurs; a larger adult dino (6 tons, 14 meters in length, about the size of an elephant) and a smaller juvenile (200 kg, 4.5 meters, pony-sized) are thought to be a mother and her young. The special feature of this dinosaur is its unusually large hip bone, definitely much larger than that of any other sauropod. The enlarged hip bone protrudes forward, and it is suspected that this animal had very powerful leg muscles (hence the name "thunder thighs") that would have been used for defense against predators and for flattering the ladies ;-]

While the Brontomerus mcintoshi's unusual hip structure and abnormally large thigh muscles place it in the list of most extreme dinos, this discovery is significant for another reason. For the longest time, it was believed and accepted that sauropods were the most prosperous during the Jurassic Age, but died off during the Early Cretaceous Period. In the last 20 years however, new discoveries, including this one, place sauropods in the Early Cretaceous Period as a diverse and fruitful family. It is still believed, however, that they were much less abundant during the Early Cretaceous Period than they were during the Jurassic Age.

I found this new discovery interesting and honestly rather humorous because of the literal meaning of the dinosaur's name. I'm not really into paleontology that much, so I figured most dinosaurs had already been discovered and all were present and accounted for. To see that new dinos are being discovered even today, 110 million years after their existance, is pretty overwhelming. But like I said, the title "Thunder Thighs" is what really caught my eye.

Article found here!

Cell Phones may Affect Brain Metabolism

An article was published February 22nd, 2011 by Laura Sanders about how a 50 minute call may boost brain activity in regions where the phone is located. Researchers did a study, that shows that after just a few minutes of a call a PET scan revealed that brain regions next to the phone caused higher levels of glucose metabolism. "The human brain is sensitive to electromagnetic radiation that is emitted from cell phones" says coauthor Nora Volkow of the National Institute of Drug Abuse. Brain regions affected change depending on the phone design and how people hold it. Researchers dont know yet if radiation from a phone stimulating the brain is dangerous but this is a significant finding. The reason i found this article interesting was because it shows how cell phones can be affective of the brain and hopefully in the future cell phones will be created that do not stimulate the brain and is safer to talk for long periods of time. http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/70134/title/Cell_phones_may_affect_brain_metabolism

A new phylum in the animal kingdom.

Albert Poustka from the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics and a group of international scientists in Berlin discovered that the Xenoturbellida and the Acoelomorph worms are more closely related to more complex organisms like humans and sea urchins than previously assumed. They are both simple marine worms.The Xenoturbellida and the Aceolomorphy according to what the scientists have discovered share an ancestor with the Duestromes descend. They believe that they once had more characteristics but lost them over time, which they say is typical for Duestromes. They found the ancestor descend in a test of "mini" genes (microRNA) and amino acids from the mitochondrial genomes of Acoelomorpha and Xenoturbellida.

I liked this a lot since we just learned about this in class and for once I sort of new what these kinds of articles were talking about. Its pretty amazing how fast an organism can be changed in the Tree of Life and made as a new phylum more closely related to something.

Source: http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-02-xenacoelomorpha-phylum-animal-kingdom.html

The Culprit for the Spread of Cancer

Dr. Mark Matfield and a team of British scientists have uncovered the gene that is the culprit for the spread of cancerous tumors. This cancer spreading gene is know as the WWP2 gene or the rouge gene. These scientists discovered that this gene enhances the ability of tumors to grow and spread throughout the body. This research was sponsored by the Association of International Cancer Research and they are now using this discovery to find a new generation of drugs that will directly prohibit the WWP2 gene from working. The discovery of a new drug would stop the spread of diseases such as; breast, brain, colon, and skin cancer.

I think this new discovery is great and exactly what we needed. Cancer affects so many people all over the world and this discovery will have a huge impact on how we treat it. Once a successful new drug is created we will be able to safe many people who suffer from cancer now and maybe completely eliminate its existence in the future!

Where Cinema and Biology Meet

According to the New York Times, molecular animation has become a significant part of biology today. Dr. Robert A. Lue, professor of cell biology at Harvard University, has begun constructing not only images of cells, but also animations. Dr. Lue is one of the pioneers of molecular animation, a rapidly growing field that seeks to bring the power of cinema to biology.

“The ability to animate really gives biologists a chance to think about things in a whole new way,” said Janet Iwasa, a cell biologist who now works as a molecular animator at Harvard Medical School.

Molecular animation gives biologists the chance to show people how cells work in a completely different way. However, there is some controversy in this particular field. Some feel that this line of study can be easily turned into fiction rather than fact.

“Some animations are clearly more Hollywood than useful display,” says Peter Walter, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the University of California, San Francisco. “It can become hard to distinguish between what is data and what is fantasy.”

I found this article to be very interesting. I feel that this could really help with education in biology. Personally, I always find myself staring at pictures in the textbook and not really understanding what I'm looking at. If I was able to watch an animation, however, it would be a lot easier to comprehend what was going on. If this ever becomes purely scientific, I feel that it could tremendously help the future.

Cuts and Tumor Growth.

There is a new study that found, my the use of mice, that if someone has a predisposition to getting cancer, having a cut or a burn can increase the chances of that person getting tumor growth around the cut or burn. The article goes on to say that a lot of cancers are related to wounds. That of liver, bone and skin to name a few. The study, done by Sunny Wong and Jeremy Reiter of the University of California, San Francisco concluded that when they 'infected' mice with a mutated cancer cell, no tumors were found on those mice who were not injured at the time. However, when doing the same process to mice who were injured, a cluster of tumors arose at the injury site.

I found this article interesting because I had never really thought of cancer being one of those things that could be effected by a simple cut or minor burn, etc. Sure, it does make sense that if someone already has cancer and are on chemo therapy and gets a cut or burn, of course they are at more risk of infection and other things because their immune system is compromised. Again, this article made me think that such a simple thing as a cut could actually create tumors in someone who is in a predisposition for cancer.

This article was found here

New Genetic Test Leads to Exposure of Incest

An article was published in the journal Lancet on February 11, 2011 about the exposure of incest cases from genetic tests. Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston have been studying child birth defects and developmental delays, and have been performing a new type of genetic test, called single nucleotide polymorphism-based arrays, to plot out a person's genetic makeup. The tests enable them to locate missing or duplicated genes by mapping out a child's genetic code. Often, the inconsistencies found in these tests can explain the child's disability. In several cases, however, scientists found large, duplicate pieces of DNA believed to be inherited from an inappropraite relationship between two relatives. The main concern that stems from this discovery is the possibility of evidence of child sexual abuse, most often girls between ages twelve and sixteen. Doctors now have routine tests to check if a child's disability is caused by incest. If a case does involve incest, doctors are obligated to tell authorities about cases of suspected child abuse.

This discovery of incest cases from new genetic tests has left teams of researchers with an abundance of legal and ethical questions. Dr. Arthur Beaudet, chairman of molecular and human genetics at Baylor, says, "The concern mainly stems from the possibility of children being sexually abused in the home." I think this discovery could turn out to be extremely helpful in court cases of child sexual abuse where no other evidence is available. It may expose some dark family secrets, but it may also provide closure for the victims of this type of abuse. What do you think?