I’m so excited about July’s episodes on NOVA ScienceNOW! The series has a great line-up of genetic and other science segments that can hold anyone’s interest. And it’s perfect if you want your kids to get some brain-juice flowing through the summer.

So beginning June 30 and every Tuesday night at 9pm ET/PT, NOVA at PBS will feature “Super-Science Tuesdays” with new stories from genetics (!!), technology, science and medicine. Check out a couple of these episodes -

June 30 (Tuesday) Episode 1.

Remember the anthrax scare after 9-11 that took months to solve? Well now scientists are using genetic “fingerprinting” to trace the source of the strain, and other microbes responsible for epidemics or poisonings.

And then, there’s a secret “diamond farm” that engineers artificial diamonds that can fool even the diamond experts! I wonder if it’s cheaper too?

July 7 (Tuesday) Episode 2.

Watch a lady scientist study the cannibalistic behavior of the Australian redback spider! And then check out a telescope that’s looking for “Planet Earth 2.0”. On the genetics segment, a scientist hunts for the elusive autism genes.

July 14 (Tuesday) Episode 3.

Two new drugs are now approved by the FDA that can potentially help children with muscular dystrophy, a genetic condition that weakens the muscles. But could these drugs also be abused by athletes?  And also dinosaurs! Or in this episode, how they might have been wiped out by parasitic pandemics.

July 21 (Tuesday) Episode 4.

Picky eaters, anyone? It looks like a scientist is about to show that receptors on taste cells are not only found in the mouth! And… we know sea lions are smart, but can walruses really talk? Good time to find out.

July 28 (Tuesday) Episode 5.

They’re called “moon smashers”, and NASA scientists are going to unleash them on the moon’s surface to see understand more about building a permanent base on the moon. Plus, the songs of zebra finches may help us understand human language. Scientists think the way finches learn to sing is the same way that babies learn to speak. How cool is that?

Images: sxc; sxc

In this ultra-modern, health-conscious world, one would not have thought this to happen. But the World Health Organization has just declared a swine flu pandemic has begun.

WHO declares Swine Flu Global Pandemic, 11 June 2009. Image: Newscom

Although the WHO declared the danger as “moderate severity”, the agency stressed that the threat of the H1N1 virus needs to be taken seriously, as “the virus is now unstoppable.”

The A(H1N1) virus is a combination of three viruses – human, swine and avian, and that made it particularly dangerous to humans as there is no immunity, nor vaccine (to date), to this strain.

UNUSUAL CIRCUMSTANCES

As of June11, there are 28,774 people infected by the A(H1N1), and 144 have died. Most of those infected rapidly recovered, and did not need medical treatment. WHO Director Margaret Chan emphasized that modern technology is helping track the virus at every level. “We’re at an advantage,” she adds because we can closely monitor and thoroughly investigate the spread of the virus and its consequences. “No previous pandemic has been detected so early or watched so closely, in real-time, right at the very beginning.”

However, the H1N1 virus has a different pattern that the ordinary seasonal flu virus. The H1N1 virus preferably infects younger people, and the majority of cases have been in those 25 years old and younger. Most of the severe and fatal infections are seen in people ages 20 to 30 years old, who are not usually susceptible with the seasonal flu. In one third of these cases, the young people were previously healthy and had no signs of chronic illnesses.

What country is most affected by the swine flu? How can you  protect yourself from it, and what do you if you get sick? Answers to these questions and more, after the cut.

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Francis Collins, one of the major players who cracked the genetic code, is in final talks for taking the helm of the National Institutes of Health, reports the Bloomberg News.

As director of the National Human Genome Research Institutes (NHGRI) for 15 years, Collins spearheaded efforts to map the human genetic code. With a lot of help from J. Craig Venter at Celera, the project was completed ahead of schedule in 2003, and opened up a plethora of applications and implications for research into our genetic blueprint.

Collins resigned from the NHGRI position last year, in his own words, to have “greater latitude than my current position allows to pursue other potential positions of service without encountering any possible conflicts of interest, whether real or perceived."

Competition is certainly good for us. One by one, the big league universities in the Boston neighborhood are going OPEN ACCESS.

Open access to publications. Image: sxc.hu

Open access publishing means that research works can be read (online) and used freely by the public without paying subscription fees to journals and publishers. I know personally how expensive it is to subscribe to just one journal, and the information from abstracts are really so limited that having more open access journals is just good for the science.

Last January, the University of California and publication giant Springer agreed to have articles written by UP-affiliated authors to be published immediately and in full, even if the rest of Springer’s articles remain subscription-only.

In early February, Harvard University’s Arts and Sciences agreed to support an open access system. Harvard faculty will also be required to only submit to journals that will publish their work online immediately after acceptance for publication. Following suit, Boston U and MIT independently announced that the work of faculties all across their universities will be accessible to the public for free.

Lest anyone get the wrong idea: Open access is not free. University libraries have to pay open-access journals to have their research published, and the cost for pre-pay memberships have gone up in the last few years. The public does not need to pay subscription fees, but the researchers do. So, MIT will now be storing their research materials at the MIT DSpace : http://dspace.mit.edu/. Boston and Harvard are also working on their own online repositories.

Hopefully, more universities will follow and set up their own websites, or partner with publishers to get the cost of publication lowered and open-access more available.

Image: sxc.hu

I got this off Senator John McCain’s Twitter (yes, he now tweets). Over the last few days, the Arizona lawmaker has been tweeting his version of “The Top Porkiest Projects” in the Omnibus spending bill.

Here are science/genetics projects that Sen. McCain consider earmarks or pork-barrel:

• “$819, 000 for catfish genetics research in Alabama”
• “$1,427,250 for genetic improvements of switchgrass - I thought switchgrass genes were pretty good already, guess I was wrong.”
• “$1 million for mormon cricket control in Utah - is that the species of cricket or a game played by the brits?”
• “$650,000 for beaver management in North Carolina and Mississippi”
• “$250,000 to enhance research on Ice Seal populations”
• “$209,000 to improve blueberry production and efficiency in GA”
• “$900,000 for fish management - how does one manage a fish…”
• “$7,100,000 for the conservation and recovery of endangered Hawaiian sea turtle populations”

I’m not sure these are “pork” projects. Some of them I would consider important to the sciences. But I would have to agree with the senator on this one project as truly pork-and-beans:

• $1.7 million for pig odor research in Iowa

What do you think?

“… something borrowed, something blue!”

Nah, no one is getting married from Genetics and Health. But the quote is apt at describing the changes at this site in the next few weeks.

Genetics and Health has been a terrific place to get information on (almost) every topic covered by the fields of genetics, health and medicine. But I am so thrilled about the upbeat direction that the site is headed, because it will reach a wider base of readers, be more reader-friendly and you will love the new look!

Genetics can be intimidating (even I feel that way, believe me), and that’s what I want to change. At least I’ll try my best to. So we’ll have a weekly feature that explains genes in simpler terms. We’ll have fun with mini-quizzes and stuff that students can use. I’m interested in bringing in more stories from those who know family or have personal genetic conditions. Mine is a very strong family history of allergies. I absorb anything in the literature that help me understand it better and help my family manage our allergies. I am sure my stories can help someone else, and vice versa.

So anyway, these are some of the changes I have in mind. Do you have other things you want Genetics and Health to cover? I welcome suggestions!

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Would it surprise you to know that American teenagers are interested in science, technology, engineering and math?

A survey found that an “overwhelming majority – 85 percent to be exact - of teenagers expressed interest in how things work” in the sciences. The 2009 Lemelson-MIT Innovation Index (LMII) also found that 80 percent felt their schools prepared them for careers in the STEM fields.

Unfortunately, that interest does not translate to pursuing higher studies or careers in the sciences. Why? These teenagers don’t know anyone working in the field or have a clue of what the fields are all about.

Take home message? Taking a little time to mentor interested teenagers might increase our future crop of scientists someday.

In “Help wanted: US teens need science and engineering mentors” blogger Matt Ford details his experience on mentoring, science outreach and shows you how to become one if you are interested.

Image: Newscom

Just these past weeks I read about three articles about misconduct of postdoctoral fellows and research scientists.

The first was from a UCLA professor who falsified data on cancer treatment research, and used the data for grants and a publication. In 2005, Mai Nguyen was barred from conducting research for three years, but she has since published 10 articles under her married name, and continues to teach at UCLA.

The second misconduct came from a UCSF postdoctoral fellow who changed her own data files (36 files!) and changed images from another researcher’s experiments. None of Nima Afshar’s results were published anywhere, and she is nowhere to be found at the time the report came out last week.

The latest was from an NIH postdoctoral fellow who changed gel images to get the desired results for a paper in prominent peer-reviewed journals. The images and papers were retracted. Kazuhiro Tanaka has denied any wrongdoing but no longer conducts research.

It seems that it took years before any of the misconducts were brought to the investigating body. If data were falsified deliberately, then it would take someone looking closely at the files to notice something “off”, but that would also mean that person would have access to the files. Won’t it be natural that a colleague working on a similar or follow-up experiment to sense something? It becomes more unlikely to discover a misconduct when years have passed and the data is lost among so many other files.

So if no one else notices it for years, then how easy is it to actually get away with committing fraud in research?

What are your thoughts? How common is this practice? What can possibly be done about it at the level of the researcher’s lab to create a check-and-balance early on?

Microorganisms and bacteria living in our intestines help with proper digestion of food by breaking down nutrients and helping our body absorb them better. Although much is known about the function of microorganisms, there is still much to study about the relationship between gut microorganisms and weight.  Scientists are particularly interested in the relationship between the kinds of gut microorganisms and amount of calories harvested from carbohydrates and sugars, as evidence to this could help with weight management. Researchers also want to find out how the various microorganism communities compare in different individuals.

A new study appearing online this week found that gut microorganisms are linked with obesity. Researchers found that obese individuals carried more hydrogen-producing and consuming microbes that could increase the amount of energy processed from their food.

The study also found that the kinds of microbe communities change after gastric bypass surgery-assisted weight loss. Changing the gut environment – its acidity, amount of stomach acid, even length of the intestine – can potentially change the types of microorganism that thrive inside.

More research is needed to confirm the results, especially regarding the effect on weight. It is not known whether microbial community in the gut is a cause or a consequence of obesity. But if gut microorganisms are found to contribute to weight problems, then it is possible to develop treatments for obesity or identify markers that can predict at risk individuals.

The study will be published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [source: GenomeWeb]

Irochka - Fotolia.com

In the mad scramble to save the US economy with bailouts, tax cuts and recovery plans, it’s good to know that President Elect Barak Obama and the new Congress has recognized the need to invest in and further fund the scientific community.

It may not be obvious, but putting money into the sciences has an immediate impact in the economy. Funding creates opportunities for hiring well-paying stable jobs in research and staffing. It allows the institutions to “pay it forward” by granting funds to universities, hospitals and independent research.

“Each NIH grant yields seven new jobs and each NIH dollar spent is worth two in economic impact.”

That’s why Congress has budgeted over $5.5 billion to go towards the different scientific institutes, including giving the National Institutes of Health $2 billion, the National Science Foundation $3 billion, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about $462 million.

You can read the details of this news here: Bailing out life science