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Posts Tagged ‘evolution’

… but you knew that already.  Here’s an example of how a phenomenon known as exon shufflin’ can lead to evolutionary diversity (here involving SNAP25‘s exon 5a variant for early brain development while the exon 5b variant is used later in development) .  Perhaps we owe our awesome, ahem, “higher” cognitive abilities to this ancient [...]

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Here’s an excerpt from William Vollmann’s book Poor People … of an exchange between two men … one, a passerby, and the other, homeless “young, bearded, well-clad, his his bluejean legs sewn into pockets around his stumps“. He expressed through his noninsistence my right not to give him anything, and the little that I did [...]

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Check out the Interpretome! developed by students and staff at Stanford University. – I have 17 European alleles and 3 East Asian alleles … the genetic proof is in … white boys can’t jump. – I have 17 out of 32 Type 2 Diabetes risk alleles … put down those carbs now … and 19 [...]

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Come to think of it, I was never very, um, choosy, back in my wanton late teens and early 20′s … apparently, it runs in the family.  News blurb.

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Little known factoid …

After writing 4 books and thousands of learned pages on the topic of evolution … all to little avail.  Charles Darwin enjoyed his elder years “shusshhing” priests whenever he had the chance.

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DNA methylation is THE key driver of epigenetic regulation.  Where goest CpG methylation, then followest chromatin remodelling … NOT the other way around. “The heritability of genomic methylation patterns clearly shows that once established, DNA methylation is dominant over chromatin modifications.” Some neurodevelopmental processes (here) seem to depend on DNA methylation, but, is this the [...]

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Image via Wikipedia If you’ve ever watched Steve Martin’s movie “The Jerk“, you may chuckle at the notion of having a “special purpose”. Nevertheless, you may have wondered about your own special purpose … what are YOU meant to do?  What are some things that give meaning to YOUR life – you know – social [...]

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An exploration of HOW mindfulness practices such as yoga and meditation transform the body and mind seems inextricably tied to the question of, “WHY, in the first place, would anyone want to sit for days and meditate?” What was it that motivated early humans and early civilizations to engage in these so-called “spiritual” practices?  Why [...]

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Image by myyogaonline via Flickr Am having a great time reading David Gordon White‘s  The Alchemical Body (here also)  – an incredibly in-depth exploration into the interplay of yoga with spirituality,  alchemy and the local political economics of India from 1,500 years ago and even earlier. Man, there is just so much to learn about [...]

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Image via Wikipedia Just a few excerpts from a lecture by the renown social psychologist Paul Ekman who is known for his work on the biology of human emotion.  Here he relates conceptual bridges between the writings of Charles Darwin and HH The Dalai Lama.  Ekman notes that both Darwin and HH The Dalai Lama [...]

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If you’re a coffee drinker, you may have noticed the new super-sized portions available at Starbucks.  On this note, it may be worth noting that caffeine is a potent psychoactive substance of which – too much – can turn your buzz into a full-blown panic disorder.  The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for psychiatry outlines a [...]

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Image by muffintoptn via Flickr Humans are spiritual creatures – there’s no denyin’.  How & why we got this way is one of THE BIG questions of all time.  Since our genome shapes the development of our brain and its interaction with our culture, its not a surprise to see that, from time to time, [...]

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Just a pointer to onetime University of Edinburgh Professor C.H. Waddington’s 1972 Gifford Lecture on framing the genes vs. environment debate of human behavior.  Although Waddington is famous for his work on population genetics and evolutionary change over time, several of his concepts are experiencing some resurgence in the neuroimaging and psychological development literatures these [...]

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Image via Wikipedia In his book, The Beak of the Finch, Jonathan Weiner describes the great diversity of finches on the Galapagos Islands – so much diversity – that Darwin himself initially thought the finch variants to be completely different birds (wrens, mockingbirds, blackbirds and “gross-bills”).  It turns out that one of the pivotal events [...]

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Image via Wikipedia If you slam your hand in the car door and experience physical pain, medical science can offer you a “pain killer!“.  Certainly morphine (via its activation of the mu opioid receptor (OPRM1)) will make you feel a whole lot better.  However, if your boyfriend or girlfriend breaks up with you and you [...]

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*** PODCAST accompanies this post *** Nowadays, it seems that genomics is spreading beyond the rarefied realm of science and academia into the general, consumer-based popular culture.  Quelle surprise!?  Yes, the era of the personal genome is close at hand, even as present technology  provides – directly to the general consumer public – a  genome-wide [...]

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Image by juanpol via Flickr It was a great pleasure to speak with Professor Garet Lahvis from the Department of Behavioral Neuroscience at the Oregon Health and Science University, and learn more about how the biology of empathy and social behaviors in general can be approached with animal models that are suitable for genetic studies.  [...]

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Image by Oliver Lavery via Flickr Daniel R. Weinberger, M.D., Chief of the Clinical Brain Disorders Branch and Director of the Genes, Cognition and Psychosis Program, National Institute of Mental Health  discusses the background, findings and general issues of genes and mental illness in this brief interview on his paper, “A primate-specific, brain isoform of [...]

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Image via Wikipedia Many thanks to Dr. Christina S. Barr from the National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism-Laboratory of Clinical and Translational Studies, National Institutes of Health Animal Center for taking the time to comment on her team’s recent publication, “Functional CRH variation increases stress-induced alcohol consumption in primates” [doi:10.1073/pnas.0902863106] which [...]

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