Channel 42
Science is the answer to everything.

Mutations in the ATM gene cause neurological problems combined with immune deficiency and radiation sensitivity in humans. ATM controls cells’ response to DNA damage in several cell types. Cdk5, involved in several neurodegenerative diseases, is required to activate ATM.

More: continued here

Dr. André Veillette, a researcher at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal, and his team led by postdoctoral fellow Dr. Mario-Ernesto Cruz-Munoz, will publish in the upcoming issue of the prestigious journal Nature Immunology of Nature Publishing Group. This discovery could have a significant impact on the treatment of cancers and infectious diseases. This breakthrough demonstrates that a molecule known as CRACC, which is present at the surface of NK cells, increases their killer function.

More: continued here

Three new genetic variations that increase the risk of obesity are revealed in a new study, published today in the journal Nature Genetics. The authors suggest that if each acted independently, these variants could be responsible for up to 50 percent of cases of severe obesity.

More: continued here

A study of almost 1500 people published in Nature Genetics has uncovered a genetic mutation that is almost guaranteed to lead to heart disease. The mutation is found worldwide, but appears to be restricted to people with an origin in the Indian subcontinent, where 4 percent of the population are carriers. The size and simplicity of the genetic effect is staggering in a disease that has a wide range of causes, many related to lifestyle.

More: continued here

In the first study of its kind, scientists at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Healt have detected evidence that DNA may not be the only carrier of heritable information; a secondary molecular mechanism called epigenetics may also account for some inherited traits and diseases. The epigenetic heritability may help explain currently unclear issues in human disease.

More: continued here

Algae is a livid green giveaway of nutrient pollution in a lake. Scientists would love to reproduce that action in tiny particles that would turn different colors if exposed to biological weapons, food spoilage or signs of poor health in the blood.

More: continued here

Experiments at Johns Hopkins have found that the gradual maturing of embryonic cells into cells as varied as brain, liver and immune system cells is apparently due to the shut off of several genes at once rather than in individual smatterings as previous studies have implied.

More: continued here

Scientists who study how human chemistry can permanently turn off genes have typically focused on small islands of DNA believed to contain most of the chemical alterations involved in those switches. But after an epic tour of so-called DNA methylation sites across the human genome in normal and cancer cells, Johns Hopkins scientists have found that the vast majority of the sites aren’t grouped in those islands at all, but on nearby regions that they’ve named “shores.”

More: continued here

Pareidolia that should have occurred in 1969, not 2009.

More: continued here

One of the most important mathematical concepts in physics and pure mathematics is continuity. There’s a formal definition for it which for the moment isn’t too relevant, but for our purposes we can think of it in terms of smoothness.

More: continued here