Toggle light / dark theme

😃


A piece of high school genetics, relied on for many sorts of genetic testing, has been found to have exceptions. Although mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is normally received from the mother, three families have been identified where people received some of their mtDNA, three-quarters in the most extreme case, from their father. The finding may change the way we treat mitochondrial diseases and brings genetic testing for maternal ancestry into question.

MtDNA exists separately from the rest of our DNA, inside the thousands of mitochondria within each cell, rather than the cell nucleus. It is so widely accepted as being from the mother’s side it is sometimes known as the Eve Gene, the idea being that it can be traced back to some primeval mother of all living humans. Testing of mtDNA is used to identify maternal ancestry.

However, all that will have to change after Dr Shiyu Luo of the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

#BREAKING: A case of the new coronavirus strain that spread quickly in the United Kingdom has been confirmed in Florida. 8.wfla.com/385dkxa


TAMPA (WFLA) – A case of the new coronavirus strain that spread quickly in the United Kingdom has been confirmed in Florida.

The Florida Department of Health announced on Twitter Thursday that the individual is a man in his 20s who is currently in isolation in Martin County. The department noted the man has no travel history.

The state said it is working with the CDC on the investigation into the case.

While it’s probably most famous for its role in gene editing, CRISPR does more than just that: its ability to precisely cut and alter DNA could lead to new antibiotics, faster diagnosis tools, and more.

Hosted by: Hank Green.

SciShow has a spinoff podcast! It’s called SciShow Tangents. Check it out at http://www.scishowtangents.org.
———
Support SciShow by becoming a patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scishow.
———
Huge thanks go to the following Patreon supporters for helping us keep SciShow free for everyone forever:

Marwan Hassoun, Jb Taishoff, Bd_Tmprd, Harrison Mills, Jeffrey Mckishen, James Knight, Christoph Schwanke, Jacob, Matt Curls, Sam Buck, Christopher R Boucher, Eric Jensen, Lehel Kovacs, Adam Brainard, Greg, Ash, Sam Lutfi, Piya Shedden, KatieMarie Magnone, Scott Satovsky Jr, charles george, Alex Hackman, Chris Peters, Kevin Bealer.
———
Looking for SciShow elsewhere on the internet?
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/scishow.
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/scishow.
Tumblr: http://scishow.tumblr.com.
Instagram: http://instagram.com/thescishow.
———
Sources:
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2020/press-release/
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/337/6096/816
https://www.livescience.com/58790-crispr-explained.html.
https://www.idtdna.com/pages/support/faqs/which-repair-pathw
hej-or-hdr.
https://www.cdc.gov/antibiotic-use/stewardship-report/pdf/stewardship-report.pdf.
https://medlineplus.gov/druginfo/meds/a685015.html.
https://www.livescience.com/44201-how-do-antibiotics-work.html.
https://www.cdc.gov/antibiotic-use/community/about/antibioti
-faqs.html.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5725362/
https://disruptionhub.com/destroying-disease-crispr/
https://www.technologyreview.com/2017/04/17/106060/edible-cr
tibiotics/
https://www.asmscience.org/content/journal/microbiolspec/10.
3-2016
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28959937/
https://www.cdc.gov/cdiff/what-is.html.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.04.20091231v1
https://blog.addgene.org/finding-nucleic-acids-with-sherlock-and-detectr.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41421-018-0028-z.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41596-019-0210-2
https://www.genome.gov/about-genomics/fact-sheets/Polymerase
Fact-Sheet.
https://www.organdonor.gov/statistics-stories/statistics.html.
https://www.kidney.org/atoz/content/transplant-waitlist.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC88959/

Pig Valve Replacements: 10 Important Facts


https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/xenotransplantation.
https://www.nature.com/news/new-life-for-pig-to-human-transplants-1.18768
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/357/6357/1303
https://retrovirology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12
0411-8
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6264/1101
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4997577/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5932395/
https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/Retrovirus.
https://www.cdc.gov/ticks/diseases/index.html.
https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/transmission/index.html.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/0
e-disease/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6452264/

A community-guided genome editing project can fight Lyme disease


https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/vector-borne-diseases.

Image Sources:
https://bit.ly/34obJ3l.
https://bit.ly/3amD49S
https://bit.ly/2LNiTIb.
https://bit.ly/3akas1d.
https://bit.ly/2LHTm2V
https://bit.ly/3nw39aj.
https://bit.ly/3p1UOM6
https://bit.ly/3p09OKj.
https://bit.ly/3gVHsOu.
https://bit.ly/3atinZU
https://bit.ly/2LB6yXh.
https://bit.ly/37to7RO
https://bit.ly/2J05WK3
https://bit.ly/388IO4w.
https://bit.ly/3gXCHE1
https://bit.ly/2Ki4V0i.
https://bit.ly/34oFSzz.
https://bit.ly/3nyoUGz.
https://bit.ly/2J3keJU
https://bit.ly/38cGkCi.
https://bit.ly/3am8VHO
https://bit.ly/3p5hyKS
https://bit.ly/3r9ABWg

Summary: Treatment with LAU-0901, a synthetic molecule that blocks pro-inflammatory platelet-activating factor, in addition to aspirin-triggered NPD1, reduced the size of damage areas in the brain, initiated repair mechanisms, and improved behavioral recovery following ischemic stroke.

Source: LSU

Research conducted at LSU Health New Orleans Neuroscience Center of Excellence reports that a combination of an LSU Health-patented drug and selected DHA derivatives is more effective in protecting brain cells and increasing recovery after stroke than a single drug.

The team focused on cytokines, small proteins released in the body in response to inflammation. They concentrated on the most elevated cytokines in COVID-19 patients and found one duo that stood out.

Turns out, the drugs to treat these cytokine reactions, or cytokine storms, already exist.

When tried on mice, the medication protected them from COVID-19 death and from sepsis, a deadly infection of the blood.


MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) — Scientists at St. Jude may have figured out how COVID-19 kills, and more importantly, how to stop it.

I have to admit, they really sound “alien-like” if you ask me. 😃


Just when we thought octopuses couldn’t be any weirder, it turns out that they and their cephalopod brethren evolve differently from nearly every other organism on the planet.

In a surprising twist, in April 2017 scientists discovered that octopuses, along with some squid and cuttlefish species, routinely edit their RNA (ribonucleic acid) sequences to adapt to their environment.

This is weird because that’s really not how adaptations usually happen in multicellular animals. When an organism changes in some fundamental way, it typically starts with a genetic mutation — a change to the DNA.

Dr. Nicole Prause, PhD is an American neuroscientist researching human sexual behavior, addiction, and the physiology of sexual response. She is also the founder of Liberos LLC, an independent research institute and biotechnology company.

Dr. Prause obtained her doctorate in 2007 at Indiana University Bloomington, with joint supervision by the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, with her areas of concentration being neuroscience and statistics. Her clinical internship, in neuro-psychological assessment and behavioral medicine, was with the VA Boston Healthcare System’s Psychology Internship Training Program. Her research fellowship was in couples’ treatment of alcoholism was at Harvard University.

Dr. Prause became a tenure track faculty member at Idaho State University at the age of 29. After three years there, she accepted a position as a Research Scientist at the Mind Research Network, a neuro-imaging facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

In 2012, Dr. Prause was elected a full member of the International Academy of Sex Research and accepted a position as a Research Scientist on faculty at the University of California, Los Angeles in the David Geffen School of Medicine. While there, she was promoted to Associate Research Scientist in 2014.

Dr. Prause founded Liberos LLC in 2015 and she continues to practice as licensed psychologist in California.

“While myocarditis is a rare condition—affecting roughly 22 out of every 100000 people each year—it is nevertheless a recognized cause of death among professional athletes, even in the absence of previous heart trouble. A 2015 study found that among NCAA athletes who died of a sudden cardiac event, 10 percent experienced myocarditis, and a Myocarditis Foundation report found that the condition causes 75 deaths per year in athletes between the ages of 13 and 25. ESPN reports that COVID-19 has been linked with myocarditis at a higher frequency than other viruses have been, based on limited studies and anecdotal evidence. A recent study of 100 patients in Germany found that 60 percent suffered from myocarditis following their COVID-19 diagnoses, independent of pre-existing conditions. To assess the presence of myocarditis in college athletes that have recovered from COVID-19, the authors selected 26 students at Ohio State University, including men and women. None of the participants, who played football, soccer, lacrosse, basketball, or track, had previous heart conditions before being tested.”


Images of the players’ hearts showed signs of inflammation consistent with myocarditis, a rare but potentially fatal condition.