Orgasm seems to be the hot topic for science news this summer. We had the genetic basis of female orgasm a couple of weeks ago and now The Register is reporting how women’s brains switch off when they are brought to orgasm by their partner. How can they tell? Bedside MRI apparently. So if you have a few million dollars to spare, says the naughty little publication, you can spot a fake.
Category: Biology
Genetic Orgasm
It’s no surprise that one of the most widely repeated news items this week is the finding that genetics is involved in a woman’s ability to achieve an orgasm: Google Search: orgasm genetics. But, does this give men a sexual get out clause? Probably not, the research suggests that couples may simply have to “work” harder. One thing that is missing from all the discussion in the news is how a particular gene package actually precludes orgasm. They talk about women who can orgasm through masturbation but not intercourse, and emphasise that environmental and psychological factors are also involved, but is it a brain chemistry effect (genetically speaking) or perhaps just a matter of anatomy?
Anyway, how would you like to have beaucoup des petit morts? Killer orgasms, in other words.
Premature communication
One unfortunate beachcomber almost trod in something resembling a severed human penis and testicles, on a New Zealand beach and called the police: Cod story of the week!
However, it was a premature communication, according to the Oddstuff website. It turned out to be some kind of anemone, although no private dick with a marine biology degree was on hand to confirm this.
Meanwhile, fishermen reported sighting a merman, complete with requisite green-black hair, gills, webbed hands, and “protruding stomach”, reports Ananova.
Are these two stories linked? It all seems very fishy to me…
Who Needs Genes?
It seems that a meeting underway in Exeter this week may very well draw the conclusion that genes, the mainstay of the whole of the last half century or more of biological science, don’t actually exist, at least according to the published abstract from UPenn’s Karola Stotz and colleagues (link died since time of writing).
Stotz explains that daily findings from the life sciences continually imply that the gene as a particulate entity in the genome is not supported by the evidence. They also suggest that science journalists, as both reporters and critics, perhaps have a role to play in the public understanding of post-genomic science. Presumably, this means we should somehow be mediating the discovery of a supposed gene for this disease or that behaviour, and explaining clearly that there are very few biologists now who see “genes” as the particulate entities that explained Mendel’s findings all those years ago. Indeed, headlines shouting about an “asthma gene”, “a gene for homosexuality”, or “the gene controlling suicidal tendencies” must be spiked as of now (and maybe always should have been). I’ll be on my best behaviour in this regard from now on, although I cannot promise I don’t have the gene for being contrary and so might renege on my promise…
The Taxonomy of Daftodils
No sooner had I blogged my daftodils photo than answers to my species query started to arrive. Science librarian Rebecca Hedreen, of the Buley Library (presumably digging deep for useful horticultural information for her readers), was first in, suggesting that the plant in question is actually Narcisssus photoshopia. Apparently, this species comes in a variety known as Narcisssus photoshopia elementis, which is available to the virtual gardener on a budget!
Rational Drug Design
Science Writer David Bradley is currently working on an RSS newsfeed for Simulated Biomolecular Systems, better known as SimBioSys Inc, a Canadian company that specialises in chemistry software with a difference.
UPDATE: Keen-eyed readers will probably have noticed that Sciencebase is no longer working on this project with the chemistry software company. However, I can point you to some exciting developmental work between my co-workers at Chemspider.com and Symbiosis.
Symbiosis is working with ChemSpider on the LASSO project with ChemSpider. Indeed, LASSO descriptor is now available for almost all 18+ million structures in the Chemspider structure database. They have also added the virtual screening results for all ligands against 40 target families, from the DUD database of decoys.
Chemspider recently revealed the preliminary results of this very large cross screening work and the two businesses are now working together to clean up the interface and more powerful search capabilities.
Libido inhibitors
According to an article in the New York Times, a drug used to counteract the libido-inhibiting side-effects of Prozac and other selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRI) used as antidepressants in men and women, has a side effect of its own. Apparently, a female patient taking the popular SSRI Zoloft, was prescribed Wellbutrin to try and resurrect her vanished libido. She reported a rather odd shopping experience to her physician in which she had “suffered” an unusual side effect of the drug – an orgasm that lasted, on and off, for two hours.
The patient was apparently delighted, but her physician was concerned that the drug had triggered an episode of hypersexual mania. However, the side effects have not come again, although the patient’s libido has returned and she is enjoying an active sex life once again. I wonder what she’d make of spray-on condoms and the nasal libido spray.
Doubling up biological names – Tautonyms
I wrote this tiny snippet back in the day and a long time ago discovered that they’re called tautonyms, they basically represent the “type” of a given genus. I wrote about it recently with respect to the many birds that I’ve photographed with tautonymic binomials. Also, some more recent items on tautonyms here and here.
Rattus rattus (black rat) is coming to a town near you, while Gallus gallus (wild chicken) has got scientists all in a flap (you’ll find out why later this week). Then there’s Bubo bubo (the eagle owl)…Buteo buteo (common buzzard), and many others. Some tautonyms are trebled – Gorilla gorilla gorilla, being the Western Lowland Gorilla.
UPDATE Christie Wilcox just mention Boops boops on twitter, it’s a seabream colloquially called a bogue.
Genetically Modified Cocaine
Developed nations continue to argue the toss about the safety of genetically modified crops and foods, but meanwhile in remotest Colombia, coca farmers are reported to have produced a GM coca plant.
There is much bluster from the authorities that the plants are nothing but a product of improved fertilisers or a better compost. But, that smacks of denial to me. The plants are almost three metres tall, are resistant to most common weedkillers and apparently produce four times (according to the Financial Times; eight times, says The Independent) as much cocaine as normal plants. If that’s just the result of a trip to the local garden centre for a sack of soil improver, then someone can send me a couple of bags for my tomato plants next spring!
Poisonous Zebra Mussels
Inland lakes in Michigan that have been invaded by zebra mussels, an exotic species that has plagued bodies of water in several states since the 1980s, have higher levels of algae that produce a toxin that can be harmful to humans and animals, according to a Michigan State University researcher.
In a paper published in the recent issue of Limnology and Oceanography, Orlando ‘Ace’ Sarnelle, an associate professor in MSU’s Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, and colleagues report that lakes that are home to zebra mussels have, on average, three times higher levels of a species of blue-green algae known as Microcystis.
Those same lakes also have about two times higher levels of microcystins, a toxin produced by the algae.
‘If these blooms of blue-green algae are a common side effect of zebra mussel invasion, then hard-fought gains in the restoration of water quality may be undone,’ Sarnelle said. ‘Right now, it appears that the numbers of blooms in Michigan have been increasing and appear to be correlated with the spread of zebra mussels.’
Initially, water samples were taken from nearly 100 inland lakes in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, ranging from Benzie County in the northwest to Oakland County in the southeast, that had established zebra mussel populations.
Follow-up experiments by Sarnelle and colleagues in west Michigan’s Gull Lake showed that zebra mussels are indeed the cause of the increase in toxic algae.
There have been documented cases in which animals, including cattle and dogs, died after drinking water with high levels of microcystins. The toxin is also believed to be responsible for liver damage in humans.
Surprisingly, zebra mussels seem to have no effect on the amount of blue-green algae in lakes with high levels of phosphorus, a nutrient that builds up in lakes and other bodies of water as a result of erosion, farm run-off and human waste.
In contrast, zebra mussels cause an increase in toxic Microcystis in lakes with low to moderate levels of phosphorus, anywhere between 10 and 25 micrograms per liter. Such lakes are not normally expected to have very many blue-green algae, Sarnelle said.
‘Our data suggest that zebra mussels promote Microcystis at low to medium phosphorus levels — not at very low or very high phosphorus levels,’ he said. ‘However, we’re still not sure why this happens.’
Zebra mussels have been causing problems in the Great Lakes since the late 1980s. For example, in Lake Erie, Sarnelle said, increased incidence of blue-green algae blooms have been reported since the establishment of zebra mussels.
‘Similarly, data from the Bay of Quinte in Lake Ontario show a dramatic increase in the biomass of Microcystis after zebra mussel establishment,’ he said. ‘In addition, toxic algal blooms in Saginaw Bay and Lake Erie are disturbing because they come after many years of expensive reductions in nutrient loading to improve water quality.’
Zebra mussels, which are native to the Caspian Sea region of Asia, were first discovered in Lake St. Clair in 1988. It’s believed they were transported to the Great Lakes via ballast water from a transoceanic vessel.
Since then, they have spread to all of the Great Lakes, as well as many other U.S. and Canadian inland lakes and rivers.