The Hollywood Cell Story

The Inner Life of the Cell is one of the greatest visualization/animations I have ever seen. This beats the best astronomy visualizations I have ever seen. There are some inaccuracies in the movie (e.g. the assembly and disassembly of objects is too ordered to represent the real Brownian motion processes, which would realistically take too long), but it is all done in the name of slick animation and for the glamorization of cellular biology. This is just plain cool!

Nicotine and other cognitive enhancers

I just read a great blog entry on nicotine and it's effects on the brain written by Madam Fathom. She give a great review of how the nerves in the prefrontal cortex behave and how they are effected by nicotine in both a person that smokes and a nonsmoker. I would love for her to do a similar story on modafinil. The maker, Cephalon, claims there is no negative side effects and information from a resent ongoing study seems to indicate what college kids and silicon valley body hackers already know. It improves memory and seems to have a similar effect to nicotine, in that it "may enhance the signal-to-noise ratio" allowing people to concentrate better.

BPS - Body Positioning System

Stanford biologist have just published a paper on the study and discovery of three genes in fibroblasts, which are contained in the deepest epidural layer and in the surface of most organs. They find that the expression of the genes is correlated with location on the body. It is well known that fibroblasts are responsible for embryonic development of limbs and other body parts, but it was thought that they become dormant after the body is fully formed. The working hypothesis of the Stanford scientist is that these and other genes in the fibroblasts are still active and communicate position information to other cells. This allows skin cells to know how much to regenerate in order to heal wounds. It is still unclear as to whether the gene expression is a remnant of the embryonic development stage or if they are continually active and influencing cellular development. If right, the scientist are hopeful that this may lead to the development of organ and limb regeneration by adult cells instead of embryonic stem cells. There is a NYT article on the study here.

Symbiosis and Human Health

It seems as though the science community is starting to explore the symbiotic side to human health and well being. In an article in the New York Times there is a report about research which is looking at the effect different gut microfauna have on ones ability to extract calories from food, suggesting that this could contribute to obesity in some cases. More information can be found at Obetech, LLC. Another article in the same vein (found here) has even more bizarre implications, suggesting that parasites may effect human behavior on a large scale.