Iriet
Hello there!
My name is Alexandra. I am 23 and from California. My tags explain what goes on here.
home | message | archive | credits
1 of 124 »
William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Dante and Virgil, 1850, oil on canvas. Musée d’Orsay, Paris
Explore the Map of Life!
MappingLife.org is live, and incredibly informative. It has collected biodiversity survey data for tens of thousands of terrestrial and aquatic species around Earth. And it’s all there for you to search and draw maps with.
The data comes from field observations as well as other sources, like museum specimens. You can toggle several different types of observations for each species that you choose, and overlay them on customized Google-based maps.
The map above is one I made just now, showing the known habitats of a few bluefin tuna species (genus Thunnus, because they are critically threatened), African elephants (Loxodonta africana, also fighting with humans to retain their habitat) and sea otters (Enhydra lutris, because I love otters). Here’s a tutorial video.
It’s a tool that’s as much educational as it is fun, and a way for anyone to take part in biodiversity research. It’s all of our planet. They’re all of our species.
Go. Play. Learn. Conserve.
dw-t:
Dude. No wonder ancient civilizations saw things like this and thought the apocalypse was coming.
Little hut in Romania. I’m Romanian :)
![bbglasses:
cancer cells image
Gene Suppresses Cancer, Part 2 of 2 (See previous post for part one.)
INCREASED PAD4 ENZYMES WITH BREAST, LUNG AND BONE CANCERSOne situation in which the PAD4 enzyme is markedly increased is in patients with certain cancers, such as breast, lung, and bone cancers. “We know that the PAD4 gene acts to silence tumor-suppressor genes,” said Wang. “So we theorized that by inhibiting the enzyme that this gene produces, the ‘good guys’ — the tumor-suppressor genes — would do a better job at destroying cancerous tissue and allowing the body to heal.”
ENZYME INHIBITORS AS EFFECTIVE AS CHEMO DRUG DOXORUBICINTo test their theory, Wang and his colleagues treated mice that had cancerous tumors with a molecule to inhibit the PAD4 enzyme. They found that, especially when combined with additional enzyme inhibitors, the treatment worked as effectively as the most-commonly-used chemotherapy drug, doxorubicin, which shrinks tumors by about 70 percent.
BUT ENZYMES LESS DAMAGING TO HEALTHY CELLSMost striking, however, was that the PAD4 enzyme-inhibition strategy caused significantly less damage to healthy tissues [and therefore there should be less] terrible side effects such as weight loss, nausea, and hair loss.
Because the PAD4 treatment appears to be less toxic, it could be an excellent alternative to current chemotherapy treatments.”
More»»
This research was funded by the
National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health and a
Penn State Clinical and Translational Science Institute Pilot Grant Award to Wang and Chen.
Other researchers who contributed to this project of Penn State’s Center for Eukaryotic Gene Regulation and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Yuji Wang,
Pingxin Li,
Shu Wang,
Jing Hu,
Megan Fisher,
Kira Oshaben,
Jianhui Wu,
Na Zhao, and
Ying Gu
Contact: Barbara Kennedy, 814-863-4682, http://www.science.psu.edu/news-and-events](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4e4zq23oC1r7kn4co1_250.jpg)
cancer cells image
Gene Suppresses Cancer, Part 2 of 2
(See previous post for part one.)INCREASED PAD4 ENZYMES WITH BREAST, LUNG AND BONE CANCERS
One situation in which the PAD4 enzyme is markedly increased is in patients with certain cancers, such as breast, lung, and bone cancers. “We know that the PAD4 gene acts to silence tumor-suppressor genes,” said Wang. “So we theorized that by inhibiting the enzyme that this gene produces, the ‘good guys’ — the tumor-suppressor genes — would do a better job at destroying cancerous tissue and allowing the body to heal.”ENZYME INHIBITORS AS EFFECTIVE AS CHEMO DRUG DOXORUBICIN
To test their theory, Wang and his colleagues treated mice that had cancerous tumors with a molecule to inhibit the PAD4 enzyme. They found that, especially when combined with additional enzyme inhibitors, the treatment worked as effectively as the most-commonly-used chemotherapy drug, doxorubicin, which shrinks tumors by about 70 percent.BUT ENZYMES LESS DAMAGING TO HEALTHY CELLS
Most striking, however, was that the PAD4 enzyme-inhibition strategy caused significantly less damage to healthy tissues [and therefore there should be less] terrible side effects such as weight loss, nausea, and hair loss.Because the PAD4 treatment appears to be less toxic, it could be an excellent alternative to current chemotherapy treatments.”
This research was funded by the
- National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health and a
- Penn State Clinical and Translational Science Institute Pilot Grant Award to Wang and Chen.
Other researchers who contributed to this project of Penn State’s Center for Eukaryotic Gene Regulation and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
- Yuji Wang,
- Pingxin Li,
- Shu Wang,
- Jing Hu,
- Megan Fisher,
- Kira Oshaben,
- Jianhui Wu,
- Na Zhao, and
- Ying Gu
Contact: Barbara Kennedy, 814-863-4682, http://www.science.psu.edu/news-and-events
Another absolutely gorgeous film by NASA: The Pursuit of Light.
