In Western countries, the percent of its citizens that are infected by the brain-infecting parasite Toxoplasma gondii correlates with how much people find uncertainty to be frightening. These countries tend to adhere to rules, as rules tend to make people more certain of things that will happen in their environment. Is a brain-infecting parasite influencing human culture? Click on photo to read the article.
Reblogged from ilovecharts, 123 notes, May 1, 2012
Awesome. I wish I had this kind of talent.
Reblogged from some-random-bitch, 11 notes, October 31, 2011
I’m convinced this was designed exclusively for @QueenBeeSAC.
Reblogged from jinnicider, 19 notes, October 12, 2011
These images are part of a series of remarkable patterns that bacteria form when grown in a petri dish. The colony structures form as adaptive responses to laboratory-imposed stresses that mimic hostile environments faced in nature. (via)
Reblogged from geneticist, 3,716 notes, October 11, 2011
Reblogged from juliasegal, 13,736 notes, October 11, 2011
Second photo shows a reconstruction of a Homo erectus female (based on fossil ER 3733) by paleoartist John Gurche, part of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History’s Human Origins Program.
Sexual Selection by Sugar Molecule Helped Determine Human Origins
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine say that losing the ability to make a particular kind of sugar molecule boosted disease protection in early hominids, and may have directed the evolutionary emergence of our ancestors, the genus Homo.
The findings, published in this week’s early online edition of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are among the first evidence of a novel link between cell surface sugars, Darwinian sexual selection, and immune function in the context of human origins
Sialic acids are sugar molecules found on the surfaces of all animal cells, where they serve as vital contact points for interaction with other cells and with the surrounding environment, including as targets for invasive pathogens. For millions of years, the common ancestors of humans and other apes shared a particular kind of sialic acid known as N-glycolylneuraminic acid or Neu5Gc. Then, for reasons possibly linked to a malarial parasite that bound Neu5Gc, a gene mutation three million or so years ago inactivated the human enzyme involved in making the molecule. Instead, humans began producing more of a slightly different form of sialic acid called Neu5Ac, the precursor of Neu5Gc.
Reblogged from ucsdhealthsciences, 4 notes, October 10, 2011
Reblogged from etiquetteforagentleman, 7,462 notes, October 10, 2011
The best scene from this episode by far. Ron’s smile at the very end makes it.
Reblogged from swansoncode, 8,748 notes, October 8, 2011
