Adventure Ausrama Blog

The platypus is a peculiar creature. When first brought to England and put on display, it was said to be a fake made up of parts of other animals. For centuries it was just an oddity. Only recently it was found to have stingers. The venom is painful though not lethal to humans. This poison contains a useful chemical. A hormone, glucagon-like peptide-1 (or GLP-1), stimulates the release of insulin. Investigation is ongoing to find out if GLP-1 can be used to treat type 2 diabetes with GLP-1. Usual medication break down in the body fast. Human disease related to sugar control, or lack of it, is a stomach issue. GLP-1 is produced in the "stomach" as well as the stinger of the monotreme. The platypus genome project in 2008 showed that the animal has discarded a massive number of digestive genes, so it does not have a fully-functional stomach. The new wonder hormone breaks down very slowly. A more effective treatment may be on the way. Funding of $200,000 has been given by ...

Beware, science is going down unexplored roads. Bacteria that are semi-synthetic are being created with a six-letter genetic code. New forms of life useful to Man could be on offer.  Hopefully, they will be used in medical treatment. "Normal" life has a base of four letters. Escherichia coli is a bacteria which has a synthetic pair of X and Y blended into it. The six bases stay together despite not conforming to the usual ruling double helix model. The E. coli was manipulated to more readily take the pair into its DNA. Also the Y base was made easier for the searching enzymes to find. Bacteria that resisted the pair were selected out to create an ideal "host" E.coli . We are a long way from having practical helper organisms. Maybe ten years down the track there will something we can use. Until then it will remain a dream. GENETICS Tys Outback Amusing Animal Pics Peculiar Weird Things Reviews ● Vista Computer Answers     ....

    News: Modern Homo sapiens did not come from the land of the Afri. Australia was the home for Mankind |origin of man - not africa. ▶ | human articles stories news tackle paragraph habiliments collections ornaments apparatus articles up stories on news equipage teams fashion kit fixtures material furnishings trappings articles at stories it news furniture sets outfit gadgets writing things gadget attachment articles as stories in news machinery contraptions read vestiges utensils kaboodle provisioning articles an stories pad baggage fittings provisions tools article words array ear articles accompaniments impediments setup appliances shebang facilities accessories Attacnts display contrivances and belongings stock stuff traps devices taking rig appurtenances listen things| in man of |◀ | Progenitor? We were taught that anthropologists knew it all, and everything they held about human evolution was correct. Human lineage could be placed on a timeline This is now prov...

Myopic vision is genetic as well as Environmental - Health. Myopia is a very odd condition. Shortsighted people can only focus at a close distance because their eyeballs have grown too large. It is not so much an illness as a consequence of growing. It is a genetic problem. About 90 per cent of East Asians suffer from myopia. This compares to 25 per cent of Australians. Too much reading indoors is a causative factor. The more years one partakes in education the higher the probability that shortsightedness will occur. Spending time outdoors where it is necessary to focus on things at a distance seems to be preempt the ailment. Getting glasses does treat the condition. However, it can lead to problems in the future. There is a higher possibility of going blind. Detached retinas and glaucoma lead up to this. The age of technology has not been a factor in myopia. Yes, there is a lot of reading on tablets which is detrimental. Whether reading a book or looking at ...

Sudden death in young people has a genetic cause - Long QT syndrome. There is a predilection for some young adults to suddenly die. In a way it is similar to cot death: until now the cause was unknown. The "disease" has been identified and is called Long QT syndrome. A third of sudden "unexplained" deaths in people up to their mid thirties die of heart rhythm complications due to the inherited illness. The heart problem is not always evident in autopsies. Parents can also die of the condition in later life. The faulty gene runs in families and is generally passed on to some offspring. A gene testing study of children having symptoms of heart disease is showing that many carry the gene.  Ongoing monitoring of youngsters is saving lives.  However, there is no official program that tests all children.  Some, of course are not diagnosed early and it is these who are at risk of sudden death.  It is heart breaking for a family to lose a child in this way, ◆ Genetic...

The worldwide threat to the survival of honey bees is still here, but work on improving honey production continues. Selection of the best queen bees ironically has not been done in the past. If breeding queens only of the highest yielding hives is done, output per hive could increase by a kilogram a year. Genetic improvement in cattle has not been a one-off. The gain is cumulative each year. For this gain to be achieved small producers will have to come on board so old poor stock will not be "kept alive". Tests show that the queen bee is the main depository of better genes. Input from males is relatively stable with little change. External factors such as hive location and length of season do affect the quantity of honey, but gene selection would raise output overall. The Genetic Evaluation of Australian Honeybee report recommends the method of data collection and evaluation. Breeders must get into the habit of keeping data. The industry needs to be reformed away fr...

Life insurance is a con. We all know that. They take your money. Then when you make a claim they force you into court to make you back down or run you up a huge legal bill. I cashed my life insurance in when they stopped paying the share investment bonus that doubled what you paid in. Now if you close the policy you get back "less" than you paid in premiums. No one is perfect out there, so when they say they will make people have genetic tests before they can take out a policy you should be afraid. The big three insurers say they have not had one complaint from consumers so far. Unfortunately, the ones who had genetic tests have not made any claims yet. There will thousands of complaints when the insurance companies fail to pay out. Thankfully, you cannot be forced to have a genetic test currently. However, you must hand one over if you have already had one - by law. Just why the government made giving up private information compulsory under force of law is a myster...

A group investigating Biotinylated dextran amine (BDA) genetic modification of sheep finds the pay-off for investment is poor.  It gives only benefit of $1.5 million for the period 2010 to 2013.  The return of only $0.45 for each dollar invested does pay for operating costs, it says. The Australian Wool Innovation body which carried out the research disputes this.  It says the consultancy has not done its job.  Indeed, the money paid to them was wasted.  The report said that MERINOSELECT did make a profit, but  overall the project ran at a loss to woolgrowers.  How can one sector be okay while the rest is rubbish? Professor Julius van der Werf of the Sheep CRC program said that the estimates were wrong.  The total gross genetic gain needs to be valued at ten times what the BDA group determined.  Tremendous gains lay in the future because genetic improvement is cumulative.  Net present value should be $6.4 M not $0.7M.  This...

The black tulip will soon be a reality. Development of a blue rose has nearly be achieved. A new rose that is "nearly" blue is soon to be released onto the Japanese market. The asking price - a quite low $30 each. There is no blue pigment in a rose, so it is impossible for a natural rose to display this color. The tone has to be put into the plant. It has been done by genetically splicing color into the rose from Petunias. This flower has a blue pigment called Delphinidin. The combined project by both Japanese and Australians has taken twenty years to create the "blue" rose. American nurseryman Samuel Parsons said as long ago as the 19th century that one day scientific advances would lead to the cultivation of a blue rose. Attempts have been made in the 20th century. A blue-grey rose was bred, but it flowered only once. For many years roses dyed blue have sold well in England. Unfortunately, horticultural advisor to the Royal Horticultural society, Helen Bostock, be...

First we have a clean childhood leading to Crohn's disease. Now we have cleanliness causing type 1 diabetes. Both, apparently, are caused by the same thing - the lack of "bugs" in the stomach. In the case of Crohn's disease it is the absence of worms. With diabetes it is too few bacteria. Tests on mice showed that a completely germ free environment when young increased the frequency of mice developing type 1 diabetes. Much fewer mice got diabetes when exposed to bacteria. Future treatment could involve people taking medication containing bacteria. Potential sufferers of diabetes can already be identified by testing their genetic make-up. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://www.feeds.feedburner.com/AdventureAustralia http://www.technorati.com/blogs/ http://adventure--australia.blogspot.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Health

Tasmanian devils are still under threat despite culling programs. Far too many devils must be killed to eradicate the Tasmanian Devil Facial Tumour Disease (DFTD), so many in fact that it could decimate the Animal itself. During the incubation period of the disease, devils have no facial deformity and these animals slip through the cull net. Current estimates give the Tasmanian devil only 25 years for survival in the wild. Work is in progress to find a vaccine. An "insurance population" is being established on the Australian mainland. And devils in north-western Tasmania have a natural genetic resistance; the spread there is slowing. Just why the disease developed is unknown. It began in 1996. Because devils bite each other during normal interaction, DFTD spreads rapidly. The devil population has fallen by 60 per cent due to the dangerous facial tumour disease. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tysaustralia.blogspot.com/ http://www.feeds.feedbur...

It is now common knowledge that the propensity to get high blood pressure is genetic. A billion people in the world suffer from it. Persistent high blood pressure ultimately leads to heart disease and stroke. The genetic work is complicated. Sixteen new genetic variations have been identified. These genetic factors can be counted: the greater the number people have the more likely they are to suffer from high blood pressure. There are three kinds of genetic variants predisposing hypertension. One regulates blood pressure. Another affects pulse. The third type controls arterial pressure. It appears that the modern diet has happened too fast for humans to stop the selection of these gene variants. Children are now suffering from this complaint. The variants will only be "selected-out" if these children do not reach child bearing age. This is a hard fact to accept, but this is the way natural selection works. http://www.adventure--australia.blogspot.com/ http://www.tys...