Wolfgang Enard of the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology believes he has found the genetic discrepancy in mice and humans that accounts for speech and language. His team is studying the genomic differences that differentiate humans from their primate ancestors. When the human lineage split from chimpanzees, two amino acids were changed in the gene FOXP2 — a change that is thought to be associated with crucial aspects of speaking and understanding language. "Changes in FOXP2 occurred over the course of human evolution and are the best candidates for genetic changes that ... Read More
The Tangled Tale of Black 6 Unraveled
May 31, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
According to a study recently published in the open-access online journal PLoS Biology, a group of scientists have finished mapping the 20,000-plus sequence of genes existing in mice DNA — an accomplishment that could have a big impact on the study of human disease and treatment. All together more than 150 scientists, in at least 13 different locations, analyzed the DNA of the “Black 6" mouse — a common strain of mouse used in laboratory trails — to complete the genome “assembly.” They found that despite having 20 chromosome pairs compared to ... Read More
Rats: Just a Bunch of Homebodies
May 29, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
A study just published in the journal Molecular Ecology has found that while inner-city rodents may appear to roam far and wide, they actually stick to distinct neighborhoods for the majority of their lives. A team of researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health decided to take a close look at rats' movement patterns in Baltimore, in an effort to better understand how rodents transmit diseases to humans and why the city's expensive eradication efforts in the past 50 years have failed to reduce the rodent population. That meant examining wild Norway rats — also ... Read More
This Is a Mouse’s Brain on Prozac
May 27, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
A new experimental mouse model of depression and anxiety — the first to allow simultaneous analysis of the different effects of antidepressant drugs, like Prozac, on the same animal — could lead to the development of better treatments for those disorders, according to a major new study published in the journal Neuron. Until now, the exact molecular influences of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (also known as SSRIs) and other types of antidepressants have not been well understood. "Recently, compelling work in rodents has suggested that SSRIs may stimulate changes in a brain ... Read More
SARS and the Stuff in Your Fish Tank
May 24, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
Severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, began making headlines in 2002 when the disease spread from China's Guandong province to 37 countries around the world killing almost 800 people. But despite its dramatic emergence during the near-pandemic, scientists have been unable to make much progress on therapeutic prevention or post-infection treatment. But now, a recent study of mice has provided some hope — in the form of algae. Mice treated with Griffithsin, or GRFT, which is a lectin protein derived from algae, had a 100 percent survival rate after exposure to the SARS coronavirus; ... Read More