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[O]ne day, you notice an old country woman crossing a downtown
street, just about to put one foot down on the rails of the streetcar
line. […] Suppose, now, that at the very moment she puts her
foot on the rail a streetcar comes rushing down the tracks toward
her. If the old woman does not notice the car and continues across
the tracks nothing will happen. But if someone should happen
to shout ‘Look out, old woman!’ what would be her natural reaction?
[…] she would suddenly become flustered and would pause to decide
whether to go on or step back […] the mere words ‘Look out, old
woman!’ would be as dangerous a weapon as any knife or firearm.
[…] the man who sounds the warning actually becomes a murderer!
Edogawa RANPO
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Hong Kong at the HKU-Pasteur Rearch
Centre then at the Unit
Genetics of Bacterial Genomes in Paris. It provides information,
some of which is original (this site and this page are free to use but,
as with programs in open access Copyleft-protected to
guarantee this freedom), but also links that may help you to trace back
other relevant information and insight in the topics you are interested
in. Not all important information is in English! Chinese, mainly as Mandarin
Chinese (Putonghua 普通话), is the language spoken by the most people in
the world, followed by Latin languages (French, Italian, Portuguese,
Romanian, Spanish...), and then by English (or perhaps tongues from India).
In addition, Greek provides most of the words and concepts used in science.
Do not refrain from seeking information in other languages. Do not forget
that most of Chinese scientific literature has not been translated in
the West, and that it conveys information of its own. English is not
the sole tongue used at this site (see here, for example).
more... Understanding biology requires to be able
to write or speak about biological facts and concepts. Some reading may
be useful. Links to the World-Wide Web are provided to help finding out
relevant information. In addition, we refer to our own publications meant
to be used as media for communication both of basic and highly specialized
knowledge. A page is devoted to genomics, but broader information can
be found in The
Delphic Boat (2003, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, USA) and
in popularisation articles which are cited as needed.
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News in biology, evolution and
emerging diseases |
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This page has been initiated in Hong
Kong, in year 2000. The information presented
does not compete with that provided by news agencies such as Agence
France Presse or Reuters. It
selects information (occasionally not uncovered by standard media).
It also informs about History of Science and about the creation
of concepts used by modern biology. An important access to the
very nature of Science is discussed in a conference
given at Zhong Shan University (中山大學) in Guangzhou (广州). Finally,
the importance of China is emphasized: the Western world is so
dominating in its control of the mass media that this seems of
necessity. Several sites provide interesting news on influenza,
in particular Crawford Kilian's
blog.
Show all
news
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25 august 2010.
Controversy about a new virus, XMRV.
We have previously posted news about the virus recently identified, XMRV,
that may be involved both in invasive prostate cancer and chronique fatigue
syndrome. The controversy goes on, as the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA publishes a paper where
the connection is "proven", while Retrovirology "demonstrates" that
there is no correlation between the symptoms and presence of the virus!
The most remarkable here is that this is well-recognized laboratories
that report these apparently contradictory observations. |
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20 august 2010.
The arctic passage to Asia is open. Arctic
ice has thawed considerably this year, and the passage north of Canada
to Japan is open. A second passage north of Siberia should be opening within
the next few days. |
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19 august 2010.
Scottish cars running on whisky by-products.
According to BusinessGreen, biofuels made
from whisky by-products could be available on Scottish roads within a few
years time. The patent-protected approach aims at producing butanol (a much better
substitute to oil than ethanol) using some of the 1,600 million litres of pot
ale and 187,000 tonnes of draff produced by the Scottish malt whisky industry
each year. |
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6 august 2010.
Should chronic fatigue patients donate their blood?
Blood is the natural physiological liquid closest to Man. Transfusions are ubiquitously
practiced. Yet the more natural the more
dangerous, contrary to widespread beliefs. The controversy
about the connection between the recently discovered Xenotropic murine
leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) and chronic fatigue
syndrome and prostate cancer should, while we wait to get firm answers,
trigger a ban on the use of blood from the affected patients. We should
not repeat
the situation that prevailed at
the time of the onset of AIDS. |
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5 august 2010.
Is dimethyl sulfone, a common additive acting against
metastasis of cancer cells?
A group of scientists from the University of Connecticut in the USA have studied
this common compound, often found in plants and have studied its effect
on aggresive melanoma metastatic cells. The rationale for their study
is that this compound might interfere with microtubule polymerisation.
Remarkably, but this must be confirmed, they found a very strong
antimetastatic effect of the compound. They even venture to say that, because new agriculture
pratice has lessened the content of dimethyl sulfone in food, this might
have contributed to the increase of cancer in developed countries. We
will wait with interest for developments of this study. |
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9 july 2010.
Invasive species are dangerously developing because of the climate change.
Living organisms are adapted to a particular environment. When conditions change some disappear and some become invasive, enhancing the deleterious effects of the disappearance of species adapted to former conditions. In
the USA this importance has now been recognized, much more than in Europe. The fly Liriomyza huidobrensis is an extremely dangerous plant parasite that is spreading world wide, detroying a large number of crops. |
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24 june 2010.
The cause of inflammatory bowel disease has been identified in model animals.
A very large number of persons of european descent carry a variant gene that renders them susceptible to bowel inflammation (Crohn's disease), a disabilitating condition that often requires surgery. Scientists
mostly from Washington University in Saint Louis, USA, demonstrate that the disease results from the variant gene, when associated to infection with a particular norovirus (a common family of viruses causing diarrhoea) and ingestion of an aggressive substance. This triggers a process that results in an unbalanced response of the gut to its own normal microbial flora. Remarkably, sterilisation of the intestine by massive use of antibiotics permits to revert the state of the gut to normal. |
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21 june 2010.
Ten cases of poliomyelitis have been notified in Angola.
For the WHO poliomyelitis should have been eradicated world-wide in 2000
or soon after that date. In
2008 thre remained only four countries, Afghanistan, India, le Nigeria
and Pakistan where the disease was endemic.
Unfortunately the situation did not improve much, and the disease is
now present
in Angola,
where it was counted in 2002 for out of risk. The disease is present
in other African countries as well, and probably spreading. |
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19 june 2010.
H5N1 avian flu is still endemic at a low level in many
countries.
At a time when the usual diseases, dengue fever, cholera, influenza are
at a fairly usual level world-wide, we should not forget that avian flu,
with its deadly H5N1 virus is still endemic in several countries. China
MInistry of Health reported the death of a pregnant woman in Hubei
province at the beginning of the month, reminding us that we still need
to follow the course of the evolution of the virus. |
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3 may 2010.
Dengue fever is progressively invading tropical countries
but a symbiote of mosquitoes might reverse the situation.
Dengue fever is transmitted by mosquitoes of the genus Aedes, A.
aegypti in particular. It is rapidly spreading,
and its grave forms are more and more frequent. The discovery that a
bacterial
endosymbiont, that is transmitted over
generations,
Wolbachia, straongly reduces viral transmission is more than welcome.
INdeed this bacteirum uses to multiply in its host functional circuits
that are shared by the dengue virus. It is therefore possible to think
of strategies to infect the mosquitoes with Wolbachia, in order to control
the spread of dengue fever. |
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2 may 2010. Will
carbon dioxyde shorten our lifespan?
:
Not entirely far-fetched. A
remarkable study published in PLoS Biology shows that the destruction
of a carbon dioxyde receptor in Drosophila flies shortens their lifespan
considerably. A link between longevity and the nervous system of
animals has been firmly established for some time, raising questions
about the role of gazeous compounds in triggering responses for survival.
Yet another effect of carbon dioxyde, far from greenhouse effects,
but that may have had an important role in the past on the way the
Earth has been populated by plants and animals. Another phenomenon
of unknown cause, the colony collapse
disorder (CCD) that killed
a third of beehives for three years in a row in the USA could be
caused by a threshold reached in carbon dioxyde. Indeed it seems
clear that the disease is either contagious or the result
of exposure to a common factor. This phenomenon becomes a matter
of great concern as bees are responsible of a huge proportion of
pollination. |
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22 april 2010. Caledonian crows use tools in a
way only matching primates. Caledonian crows,
Corvus moneduloides, explore holes in dead wood
for insect larvae using tools. This has
been observed
for the first time under normal conditions in the
wild, revealing a behaviour that is matched
only by primates. |
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| 21 april 2010. An unexpected source for the
origin of AIDS: ape's testicules graft
on humans? The origin of
HIV is still a subject of interrogations. The
virus is clearly derived from a common ancestor
with its simian
counterpart, SIV, and it may have originated
from bush meat. Indeed, apes are sometimes eaten
in regions where it is
suspected that AIDS appeared first, probably
many decades ago. But there are other
possibilities. In
particular it was once fashionable to graft ape
testicles as an anti-age
to men who wished to be young again. And in
1922 Dr Voronoff, set up in Africa with Dr Wibert
an ape reservation meant
to supply grafting material.
This could very well have been a source of
contamination of humans
by ape viruses. Apparently no one was ever
interested to investigate the case in-depth.
While this looks
unlikely, it is important to remember that
xenographs are
potentially extremely dangerous, especially
because of the large
content of retroviruses in animal genomes.
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31 march 2010. A serious outbreak of Rift Valley fever is affecting South Africa. Relaying health authorities in South Africa the WHO has warned that a series of Rift Valley Fever outbreaks is affectiing the country. |
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21 march 2010. Success rate against tuberculosis levels off in Indonesia. Tuberculosis kills almost 100 persons a day in Indonesia. The
ministry of health revealed the recent worrying figures of the fight against the disease. Multidrug resistant tuberculosis is now challenging seriously the efforts to control the disease, with a success rate of medication of a little more than 70% for the past four years. |
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19 march 2010. A new model of chikungunya disease in non-human primates. Research into chikungunya pathogenesis, vaccine development, and therapeutic design has been hindered by the lack of appropriate animal models. A meticulous study by Labadie and co-workers, coordinated at the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique, reproduces the symptoms of the disease in macaques. This provides a novel way to discover cures of the disease, which is spreading fast. |
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3 march 2010. A cholera outbreak is arising in East Africa. As last year in Zimbabwe cholera is spreading in Zambia. This disease is relatively little contagious (as compared to other water-borne diseases) and this implies a very high level of water contamination in the region. |
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26 february 2010. Flu epidemics develop after periods of dry and cold weather. A retrospective study of the development of influenza in the USA, by the journal PLoS Currents Influenza (a model for our journal Symplectic Biology) shows that flu spreads fast as soon as humidity decreases in cold weather. This study is published again and extended in PLoS Biology without citing the previously published work, not a very ethical behaviour... |
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23 february 2010. Early development of meningitis in West Africa. Each year the end of the winter is marked in West Africa by the unfortunate development of a bacterial meningitis epidemic. This year it begins earlier than usual
commence plus tôt que d'habitude, with a high number of fatalities and it extends much farther than its usual range. |
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22 february 2010. Orthogonal translation via evolution of a quadruplet-decoding ribosome. Jason
Chin and his colleagues from the Medical Research Council
Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Hills Road, Cambridge create an orthogonal translation system with synthetic ribosomes permitting tRNAs to read tetranucleotide codons instead of trinucleotide codons. Twenty amino acids make proteins as we know them. Two minor exceptions, selenocysteine and pyrrolysine expand the list in a limited way, using translation termination codons (TGA and TAG) placed in proper context. In a step towards expanding the genetic code, and translating messenger RNAs in a way that is controlled at will, Chin and his colleagues designed "orthogonal" ribosomes (named ribo-Q1) and transfer RNAs that are able to read termination codons as unnatural amino acids. They further expanded the triplet code to a quadruplet code, permitting decyphering of a further set of unnatural amino acids. Because ribo-Q1 can read quadruplets the new genetic code could theoretically be expanded to permit the making of proteins with more than 200 types of amino acids. |
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10 february 2010. The
genome of an ancient human living in the New World sequenced. Human
bodies are preserved for hundreds of years under cold
conditions. The DNA from hair follicles of an inhabitant
of Greenland some 4,000 years ago has been sequenced.
This permitted reconstruction of this ancient genome
by a team of investigators from Copenhagen and the BGI
in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. This week's magazine Nature publishes
the work, which shows that an unexpected migration had
permitted people apparently unrelated to the previously
known inhabitants of the New World to live in Greenland.
It seems therefore more an more likely that many attempts
by humans to colonize the Americas have been tried over
thousands of years, most often without leaving a progeny.
For the time being the genome analysis gives general
traits to the human who lived there, suggesting dark
skin and hair, as well as adaptation to cold conditions.
It is likely that much more will be found with deeper
investigation and correlation analysis when many more
human genomes will have been sequenced, which should
happen presently. |
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4 february 2010. An
immunoglobulin class deficiency in susceptibility to
pandemic H1N1? Humans
code for the synthesis of four classes of immunoglobulins
of the G type. While these antibodies are usually
considered to interact preferentially with sugars coating
proteins or other components, the second class, IgG2
may have a role in protecting patients against the dangerous
form of H1N1 swine flu, as
reported last september. A report
published in Melbourne (Australia) appears to confirm
this observation,
explaining why the disease is innocuous to most people,
while it can be lethal to certain. |
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2 february 2010. Retraction
of a paper that triggered a bitter anti-vaccination campaign. Back
in 1998 Andrew
Wakefield and his colleagues claimed in
the famous medical journal The Lancet to have
found that there was a link between the triple vaccine
against measles, mumps, and rubella and autism. This
claim was based on wrong statistics and very poor experiments.
Unfortunately, because it was published in a fashionable
journal, it triggered a strong anti-vaccination reaction,
which is still ongoing (rumors are difficult to stop). The
Lancet has finally published
a complete retraction of the paper,
telling readers that the published
flawed study should never have been made public. |
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30 january 2010. Biases
in the behaviour of human groups during epidemics. We
know for a long time that the reaction of populations
to epidemics play an enormous role in their propagation. A
retrospective study published in the British Journal
of Health Psychology analyses population reactions
in the course of the outbreak of SARS
in 2003, avian flu (influenza A H5N1) and the recent
swine flu pandemic (influenza A H1N1). As expected,
the observed behaviours are typical of human groups
according to age, sex, level of education or ethnic
classification. Trust in the authors of health-related
messages play a significant role, also as could be
expected. As a consequence, it will be extremely important
in the future management of epidemics to vary messages
according to the groups to which they are addressed,
in particular in following the observations made in
the present study.
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23 january 2010. Biomimetic studies inspire japanese urbanists. Atsushi Tero and his colleagues from Hokkaido University analysed the way the mould Physarum polycephalum invades a culture plate and compared it with the communication network of Tokyo and its suburbs Then they created a mimick of the Tokyo region on a growth plate and left the mould invade it, monitoring the way the mould organises its food and reserve supplies. The picture was remarkably similar to that of Tokyo's commmunication network.  The scientists then constructed an algorithm meant to represent the way the network is constructed, and they propose it as an optimised solution to urban growth, arguing that the enormous time course of evolution has probably endowed living cells with a particularly efficient communication algorithm.
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22 january 2010. In UK the number of unsuspected patients infected by swine flu was ten times higher that previously estimated. This demonstrates that, at least for the first wave the disease was much milder than publicized.
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20 january 2010. Swine
flu caused a mild pandemic, do not forget avian flu. A
research jointly conducted
by Asian scientists has confirmed that highly pathogenic
avian influenza A (H5N1) outbreak is closely related
to small birds (passerine) migrations. This is in line
with the ideas that prevailed a decade ago, when we
suggested monitoring
the role of predators as sentries for the presence
of the disease.
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16 january 2010. The
plague of scientific misconduct. Several
hundreds scientific articles have been "retracted" in
2009 alone. And the figure, which can sometimes be extracted
from PubMed records is only the tip of the iceberg. The
situation is not improving as in some cases, such as
in several chinese institutions, the salaries of scientists
is directly linked to the "Impact
Factor" of the journals in which they publish! Associating
direct profit to publications in journals, most of which
are published by highly profitable companies, is extremely
dangerous for the quality of science. It also indicates
that our culture of advertisements, rather than of valuable
contents is propagating fast in a domain where it should
not exist. Furthermore there is some contagious property
in scientific misconduct, and scientists caught in the
act often relapse, because the academic institutions
are extremely reluctant to take action.
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13 january 2010. A human genome sequence for 10,000 US$. New sequencing machines will put the cost of a whole human genome in the 10,000 US$ range. The HuaDa Genome Centre located in Shenzhen, near Hong Kong, is buying a large number of these sequencing machines.
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8 january 2010. Non-retroviral
virus sequences in mammalian genomes. A
team of japanese scientists have identified sequences
of bornavirus-like sequences in the genome of several
mammals including humans. This comes out as a surprise
as bornaviruses are not retroviruses. This discovery
opens the possibility that other processes can copy RNA
sequences into genome sequences. Bornaviruses are the
only animal RNA viruses that achieve a highly cell-associated
life cycle within the nuclear envelope. This process
is both conceptually important - it suggests that RNA
management may permit an entirely new way to manage the
gene content in a genome, and important for emerging
diseases, as it shows that viruses other than retroviruses
may be revived from cell nuclei. This makes important
to explore in details the diseases of the personnel which
is associated with meat, butchers and slaughter-house
workers.
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5 january 2010. H1N1
vaccination polemic. The
polemic is growing in France about swine flu. Let us remember
that as early as may 2009, it was obvious that the epidemic
caused by an influenza
A H1N1 virus was not more severe than the average seasonal
flu epidemics (noting in particular that they are
often caused by H1N1 variants). It was therefore quite
possible to react in a reasonable way at the time, without
ordering, as done in France, an increadibly overevaluated
number of vaccine doses. |
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1 january
2010. H1N1,
a mild pandemic. For the time being, the death toll of the recent
H1N1 form of the swine influenza virus (differing from
the H1N1 form of "seasonal" flu)
is much smaller than feared. This indicates that we should
monitor with caution the possible development of the H3N2
form of the virus which runs in parallel, as well as the
development of avian flu, which has been out the the mass
media for some time. |
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