Enlarged hearts are found often, but not exclusively, in those who are obese, have diabetes or high blood pressure. People with none of these underlying problems can be affected, as can elite athletes.  For example, a post-mortem diagnosed the problem in Cameroon football midfielder Marc-Vivien Foe, who died in 2003 after collapsing during an international match in France. Elite runner Olympic hopeful Ryan Shay died of complications involving an enlarged heart – the very condition that made him a great runner. An international  research team headed up by Imperial College, UK say they have for the first time linked enlarged hearts with a gene, osteoglycin (Ogn). Work carried out on rodents and some 30 humans indicated that Ogn –... [Read more]

Kissing bug blood sample being taken from a giraffe (Photo courtesy www.bbc.co.uk)  Wildlife continues to make a revival in medical diagnostics and treatment – leeches are back in favor for blood letting and wound management along with maggots for cleaning wounds.  Now we have blood sucking bugs being used for blood collection. Kissing bugs are being used to collect blood from zoo animals in a pilot project underway at two London zoos.  This method has been used to successfully collect blood samples from a hippo, cheetah, giraffe, elephant and white rhino. The Kissing bug gets its label from silently and painlessly collecting blood from a human victim’s lips and eyelids. The Kissing bug crawls onto the animal and releases... [Read more]

(Photo credit: www.marinebio.org)  At the Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in Bonn nearly 200 countries agreed on measures to protect the world’s most threatened wildlife.  They pledged: 1. To set up a deep-sea nature reserve and increase by tens of millions of hectares the area of land protected (the resulting protected area would be twice the size of Germany). 2. To ban experiments to boost plankton growth to reverse climate change, because of the potential risks to other animals. 3. To set global standards for developing biofuels, a renewable energy that has been blamed for deforestation. But environmentalists said the progress achieved at the conference was still failing the UN Millennium Development Goal, which aims... [Read more]

  Stonehenge, UK  (Photo credit: www.activemind.com) A topical article for me as I will be passing Stonehenge today.  It is an amazing feat of 4,500 year old primitive engineering and still provokes feelings of wonder and awe everytime I pass by, especially on solstice and equinox days. Stonehenge served as a burial ground for much longer than had previously been believed, new research suggests. The site was used as a cemetery for 500 years, from the point of its inception. Archaeologists have said the cremation burials found at the site might represent a single elite family and its descendents – perhaps a ruling dynasty. Professor Mike Parker Pearson, from the department of archaeology at the University of Sheffield, and his colleagues... [Read more]

The Genetics and Health article Genetically Modified Foods – Pros and Cons is a student’s favourite and has provoked huge debate both for and against GM foods.  With the food crisis looming Jeremy Cooke of the BBC News takes a look at whether our negative attitude to GM Foods may be about to change.  Another reference to help your studies, guys! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7426054.stm Elaine Warburton  www.geneticsandhealth.com [Read more]