Breast-Fed Babies May Have Longer Telomeres, Tied to Longevity

There are many positive outcome when breast-feeding a baby during their first six weeks of life, for example a child will develop a healthier immune system. Studies have shown when babies are beast- fed they tend to have a longer telomeres. A telomeres is a structure that lies at the end of a chromosome and secures the genes from any harm. It has been proven that when an individual develop a shorter telomere there is an occurrence of a chronic disease during their adulthood, but individual with longer telomeres will have a longer and healthier life. Researchers are yet to conclude whether telomeres are developed when consuming breast milk during their first six weeks or these structures are already developed at birth.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/08/04/breast-fed-babies-may-have-longer-telomeres-tied-to-longevity/

http://www.onecoox.com/5225/well-breastfed-babies-may-have-longer-telomeres-bound-longevity/

"Mama Dolphins Sing Their Name to Babies in the Womb"

New reasearch suggests that mother dolphins sing their own name to babies in the womb slightly before and up to two weeks after birth. Its the human equivalent of teaching your child to say "mama". Eventually after a few weeks baby dolphins, called calves, also develop a signiture whitsle of their own. Interestingly enough no other dolphin increases the rate of their signiture whistle at any point in the calves development. This is thought to be so that the calf has a definite preference for the moms whistle. This is also interesting because other studies have shown that in utero and in weeks after birth human babies are particularly respinsive to the mothers voice.
(Picture below from http://www.livescience.com/55699-mother-dolphins-teach-babies-signature-whistle.html)

"Gene Therapy Will Cure You, or Your Money Back!"

For the first time ever, doctors in Italy are offering commercial gene therapy to people inflicted with rare diseases. The procedures come with a hefty price tag, but are guaranteed to work - or your money back!

The treatment is called Strimvelis, and it is the first outright cure for the autoimmune disease ADA-SCID, that leaves newborn babies with almost no defense against viruses, bacteria, or fungi, and is often fatal. This same disease was documented in the 1976 movie Bubble Boy about an American child who lived his life inside a plastic bubble.

Strimvelis uses a virus to deploy a missing gene into the bone marrow of afflicted children, allowing the stem cells within the marrow to naturally produce the proper immune defenses for life. It is considered a “repair and replace” strategy because doctors extract stem cells from bone marrow, then soak the cells with viruses to transfer a correct copy of the ADA gene.

Strimvelis was initially developed in Milan, Itlay at the San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy, but pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline purchased the rights to the procedure in 2010. The price tag for the one-time treatment will be $665,000. This makes it one of the most expensive single procedures in all of medicine, but is considered pennies compared to the cost of the established method of treating the disease.

GSK sells $30 billion is drug each year, so revenue from the treatment is not the bottom line. Rather, the British company hopes to master gene therapy technology, including virus manufacturing. Sven Kili, the executive of gene therapy development at GSK stated, "If we can first make products that change lives, then we can develop them into things that affect more people. We believe gene therapy is an area of important future growth; we don’t want to rush or cut corners."

Read more: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602113/gene-therapy-cure-has-money-back-guarantee/

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601390/gene-therapys-first-out-and-out-cure-is-here/

Lizards that Bleed Green????

 Zachary Rodriguez is the scientist who discovered that the Prasinohaema lizards of New Guinea have what as he describes lime green blood. usually this color blood signifies that the izard has a toxic substance called biliverdin. In humans a dosage of biliverdin over 50 macromolecules per liter results in jaundice. At first thought, researchers assumed that the green blood was a defense mechanism for when the predator took its first bite it assumed the blood was toxic, however this is not the case. There is no exact answer at the moment but it ideas such as the biliverdin reducing the  susceptibility to malaria or to cell damage from the sun’s ultraviolet rays, or even adding some extra camouflage for life in trees, have been tossed around.

It is truly crazy the way the world and its creatures work. One of the best parts about science is finding and discovering new and exciting creatures. This green blooded lizard won't just be in the next marvel film but definitely new bio text books to come! 

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/these-lizards-bleed-green?tgt=nr

Environmental Impacts on Fertility

Declining sperm quality has been identified in 5 separate breeds of dogs.  The dogs tested are from a center in England that breeds, raises and trains dogs for as service animals over a 26 year period.  This allowed for a fairly controlled population of subjects compared to other possible studies.  During this time, sperm motility has declined 30% in all the breeds.

The dogs who share our homes are exposed to similar contaminants as we are,” said Richard G. Lea, an associate professor of reproductive biology at the School of Veterinary Medicine and Science at the University of Nottingham. “So the dog is a sentinel for human exposure,” added Dr. Lea, the study’s principal investigator.

The most frightening part is that the testicular tissue of the dogs was tested and concentrations of chemicals that had been common in electrical transformers and paint were located.  The environment that the dogs are living in is the same that the human race is.  For 70 years there has been a studied decline in human sperm quality along with slight increases in rates of testicular cancer and genital tract abnormalities.  There is not a direct correlation between the two, but the fact that they are both declining has sparked the interest in scientists even further.

http://www.nature.com/articles/srep31281

Attempts at Saving the Vaquita

The effects that the fishing industry has on various species in the ocean has been in the news for years.  The vaquita is a tiny porpoise whose population has dwindled to around 60 individuals mostly due to becoming entangled in gillnets and drowning.  Scientists are considering taking action in an attempt to intervene to assist in growing the population again.  Capturing a few to breed in captivity and release back into the wild is an option, though not a fool proof one.

“I don’t like this idea at all,” says Omar Vidal, director general of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Mexico in Mexico City. “The risk of killing a vaquita while catching them is very high. With only 50 or 60 animals left, we can’t play with that.”

Even if scientists are able to successfully capture and transport the vaquitas, there is no guarantee they would reproduce in captivity.  So all of the risk could be for nothing.  While those involved debate on if this plan is the best plan of action or not, the gillnets are still impacting the species.  Another factor is fishermen poaching another fish that coincides closely with the vaquita habitat.  Though the Mexican government has banned the gillnets from the area, the poachers still remain a threat to the species.

http://www.iucn-csg.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/CIRVA-7-Final-Report.pdf

Ability for a Smoother Horseback Ride is from a Mutation

The Vikings may be the ones to thank for the ability to have an easier ride while horseback riding.  Scientists have traced the event to around 850-900 C.E. when the Vikings had possibly brought horses from the UK to Iceland.  The horses were bred in Iceland and then spread throughout Europe.  This information comes from the mutation detected in the DMRT3 gene.

Scientists first detected a mutation in the gene DMRT3, which influences limb movements, in all ambling horses in 2012, but they weren’t sure how it changed the horses’ gait.

 It is possible that the mutation actually effects the developing spinal cord in a way that allows longer strides to occur giving the horses their 4 beat rhythm.

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(16)30752-7