Author: admin123TerRe

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech. That’s the question Robert Lawrence Kuhn asked of cosmologist Paul Davies at Closer to Truth this past January (9:54 min): Specifically, Is there a soul? Is there an afterlife? The two questions are likely related. No soul, no afterlife. Is there any evidence for either? Any argument? However, the two questions — soul and afterlife — might be separated. A soul but no afterlife? Or an afterlife but no soul? According to science, you cannot have either. But is science the last word? Paul Davies is a theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and astrobiologist who has authored a number of books, including What’s Eating the Universe? (University…

The first review is in, and good news… it’s a STAR! The day I have been waiting for for SO LONG will soon be here. This book has been a labor of love (so to speak). After five years of research and writing and another year of edits and revision, I am so happy to be finally sending this book out into the world. I give you: The Sexual Evolution: How 500 Million Years of Sex, Gender, and Mating Shape Modern Relationships. A quick note about the cover. Some of you may have seen an earlier version of the cover,…

Post provided by Jing-Chia Guo. To understand something, we often describe its appearance and shape: The ball is round, the can is cylinder, and the pillow is kind of rectangle. However, most natural creatures are irregular in shape, so it’s difficult for people to quantify or define them. Sometimes, scientists are even unable to get their hands on the objects they need, and that is a real pain for me too. I was excited to have a chance to study Asian house martin (Delichon dasypus)—a songbird species that builds its nests under man-made buildings. One of my goals was to…

Photo credit: Max van den Oetelaar on Unsplash. In an essay, science writer John Horgan talks about why, despite being essentially a materialist, he believes in free will. He doesn’t seem to think there is much evidence for it and he struggles with superdeterminism as evidence against it: And to be honest, “proofs” of free will seem as dubious to me as denials. Proofs tend to equate free will with randomness and unpredictability. My choices, at least important ones, are neither random nor unpredictable, at least for those who know me. For example, here I am arguing for free will once again. I do so…

by Gertrud U. Rey It is well known that stress and exposure to UV radiation can reactivate replication of latent herpes simplex virus type 1 and/or type 2 (HSV-1 and/or HSV-2), and the painful lesions associated with these infections. But why is that? During a primary infection, HSV-1 and HSV-2 replicate within the epithelial cells of the skin and mucous membranes. Progeny viruses then travel to sensory neurons where they remain dormant as extrachromosomal “episomes” for the remainder of the host organism’s life. Occasional external stimuli can trigger their sporadic reactivation, potentially leading to renewed viral replication and symptomatic disease.…

by Gertrud U. Rey Recent news headlines have featured a mysterious and presumably new illness termed “sloth fever.” More aptly named Oropouche fever, the disease is caused by Oropouche virus (OROV), an arthropod-borne virus that is transmitted primarily through the biting midge Culicoides paraensis. OROV typically circulates in sloths, non-human primates, and birds, but it can also spill over into humans when they are bitten by infected midges. Some species of mosquitoes can also transmit the virus, but there is currently no evidence of any human-to-human transmission. The virus is in fact not new – it was originally isolated in…

by Gertrud U. Rey This post was written in honor of Virus Appreciation Day, which occurs annually on October 3. Public awareness of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) began in the early 1980s when separate clusters of infected individuals were identified in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. These individuals all shared a group of symptoms later named “acquired immunodeficiency syndrome” (AIDS) – a disease state that is characterized by a profound susceptibility to infections and cancers that don’t typically affect people with a competent immune system. Even though the quest for a vaccine to prevent and/or cure HIV infection…

by Gertrud U. Rey As discussed in my previous post, we first became aware of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in the early 1980s. However, when did the virus actually emerge in humans, and where did it come from? Photo of a chimpanzee by Andrius Ordojan There are two strains of HIV – HIV-1 and HIV-2. The vast majority of infections are caused by HIV-1, which is more common, more transmissible, and more pathogenic. HIV-1 is divided into four groups: M, N, O, and P. Of these, group M is the oldest and most widely-spread, and it is associated with the…

by Gertrud U. Rey Image adapted from Byrd-Leotis et al. Public health officials are continuing to monitor the spread of avian H5N1, the strain of influenza virus associated with “bird flu.” Although there is still no evidence that this virus can transmit from one person to another, two recently infected individuals are attracting close attention because the source of their infection is unclear. One of the individuals is a child in California – the first documented pediatric case of H5N1 in the United States. The child allegedly had no exposure to any infected animals, and the California Department of Public…

This is part of the ‘Lab meeting’ series featuring developmental and stem cell biology labs around the world. Where is the lab? Our lab is part of the Mechanobiology Institute and Department of Physiology, National University of Singapore. Lab website: https://sites.google.com/view/hirashima-group/home Group photo of the lab Research summary Our lab studies the emergence of collective cell behavior and its connection to biological functions in development and reproduction. We focus on the regulation of cellular mechano-chemical coupling in mammalian tissues, using mouse models and cell lines. By integrating live cell imaging with mathematical modeling, we aim to uncover the design principles…