Double X Science - It's In Your Genes

Search Results for: label/omega3 fatty acids

  • Biology Explainer: The big 4 building blocks of life–carbohydrates, fats, proteins, and nucleic acids

    …ll selection of different materials: bricks, mortar, iron, glass, and wood. Arranged in different ways, these few materials can yield a huge variety of structures. We encountered functional groups and the SPHONC in Chapter 3. These components form the four categories of molecules of life. These Big Four biological molecules are carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids. They can have many roles, from giving an organism structure to be…

    Authored by on June 8, 2012

  • Drill, baby, drill — microbial-style

    …lab director, Anthony Sinskey . What Brigham, Lu, and their colleagues did was convince a soil bacterium called Ralstonia eutropha to turn carbon into gasoline –- specifically, the four-carbon molecules iso-butanol and 3-methyl-1-butanol. Ralstonia eutropha bacteria in culture How’d they do that? It was a simple matter of microbial engineering. As detailed in MIT’s description: … in the microbe’s natural state, when…

    Authored by on September 10, 2012

  • Striking a balance between health and sustainability: a study inspired by a love for sushi

    Sushi for sale (Source) by Jeanne Garbarino, DXS biology editor A conservation scientist walks into a [sushi] bar… You’ve probably heard that eating a diet including fish, especially fatty fish, is good for us. Fish can be a source of high quality, lean protein, and also provide heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids. However, there are risks associated with eating some types of fish. For instance, fish that are at…

    Authored by on September 19, 2012

  • After Newtown missteps, journalists get guidelines

    …almost twice as likely to say that they don’t want to live or work near a person with mental illness if they read an article about a person with mental illness involved in a mass shooting, according to a study published March 20 in the American Journal of Psychiatry. Interestingly, this tendency is the same even if the article avoids any mention of mental illness. This may be because this link between violence and mental illness is deeply engrain…

    Authored by on March 27, 2013

  • Dinosaur Aunts, Bacterial Stowaways, & Insect Milk

    …diversity and abundance of lactic acid bacteria in the milk of rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta). J Med Primatol. 40: 52-58 Martin et al. 2012. Sharing of Bacterial Strains Between Breast Milk and Infant Feces. J Hum Lact. 28: 36-44 Oftedal 2012. The evolution of milk secretion and its ancient origins. Animal. 6: 355-368. Peterson et al. 2007. The phylogeny and evolution of host choice in the Hippoboscoidea(Diptera) as reconstructed using four mol…

    Authored by on July 17, 2012

  • Organic versus conventional foods–no winner?

    …ganically produced foods. Perhaps their advertising is poorly targeted. Oddly enough, the researchers did find some potentially higher nutritional benefits of some organic foods, such as more “heart-healthy” omega 3 fatty acids in organic milk compared to conventionally produced milk. What about you? Do you buy organic? If so, what are your reasons?  ————————- For further reading, check…

    Authored by on September 4, 2012

  • Real science vs. fake science: How can you tell them apart?

    …ust doesn’t feel fresh.” Suddenly, millions of women watching that commercial were mentally analyzing their level of freshness “down there” and pondering whether or not to purchase Summer’s Eve. 3. What kind of language does it use? Does it use emotion words or a lot of exclamation points or language that sounds highly technical (amino acids! enzymes! nucleic acids!) or jargon-y but that is really meaningless in the…

    Authored by on December 11, 2011

  • Depressing genes

    ter all, that’s one of the reasons why scientists are trying to identify risk genes: to design better treatments for those disorders. [Image credit: DNA, public domain image from US govt. Image of Prozac, credit Tom Varco, CC 3.0 license.] [Siobhan Mitchell obtained a Neurobiology Ph.D. at the State University New York at Albany (SUNY Albany), followed by a post-doctoral fellowship at University of Washington, Seattle. She currently works at the…

    Authored by on May 17, 2013

  • Autism and the DSM-5

    …ial social aspect of this change, and the one thing that might, when it comes to autism, elevate the DSM-5 above the level of doorstop. [Image credit: Dave Bullock, UK, via Wikimedia Commons under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 generic license.]…

    Authored by on April 23, 2013

  • Is the bar high enough for screening breast ultrasounds for breast cancer?

    …n controversial. What’s new is the “Are You Dense?” patient movement and legislation to inform women that they have dense breasts. Merits and pitfalls of device approval The approval of breast ultrasound hinges on a study of 200 women with dense breast evaluated retrospectively at 13 sites across the United States with mammography and ultrasound. The study showed a statistically significant increase in breast cancer detection when ultrasound was…

    Authored by on September 21, 2012

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