The Biological Testament

Por que?

2006-01-24T20:46:00.000Z

Why are there no new posts here? Why oh why? Are you all being Smegmatic Sponge Monkeys?

Wildlife Photographer of the Year

2005-10-23T16:06:00.000+01:00

The results of the competition was announced over the weekend, and the exhibition is on again at the NHM. When do we have a free arvo... shall we meet and go marvel at the winners' work?

Plants

2005-10-10T09:09:00.000+01:00

I love plants and microbes. I wish I could do Molecular Plant Microbe Intereactions with Xi and Xiao and be attention seeking.

I don't like birds.

Cool site!!

2005-10-04T21:12:00.000+01:00

Hockey Dynasty League has been reccomended to me. I havent played it yet, so no idea how good/bad it is. I know we shouldnt be playing too much in our third and final year, BUT apparnetly u dont have to log in often, like once every few days - once a day. Well i created a league:

league name: Bio103
password: Bio103

So far no one else is playing. Xi says she will sign up. So there are still 18 teams so sign up now before they go, lol!!!

Uni starts soon!

2005-09-28T00:08:00.000+01:00

I know uni doesn't start till next week but I thought I'd post the timetable for those who never got the email for one reason or another.

WEDNESDAY 5 OCTOBER 2005
CELLULAR SIGNALLING & NEUROBIOLOGY - TIME: 9.30 ROOM: 122
POPULATION & COMMUNITY ECOLOGY - TIME: 9.30 ROOM: 120

THURSDAY 6 OCTOBER 2005
MEDICAL MICROBIOLOGY - TIME: 2.00 ROOM: 120
POLLUTION & PLANT ENVIRO. PHYS. - TIME: 9.30 ROOM: 121

The "To Do List" for when we get back.

2005-08-24T00:08:00.000+01:00

1. Terminate Marvin.
2. Terminate Marvin.
3. Terminate Marvin.

chinny chin chin

2005-08-23T06:35:00.000+01:00

Ooo.., burp!

Bio Nomenclature

2005-08-20T01:02:00.000+01:00

It's currently Bio 102.9 since we're in the summer hols...Or Bio 102.5 since we're part way between Bio 102 and Bio 103.

We should've just called it Initiation (1st yr.), Propagation (2nd yr.) and Termination (3rd yr) just like the three stages in Free Radical Substitution - that jolly reaction mechanism in Organic Chemistry. Oh how I miss those Chemistry days.

Future First Year Imperial Biologists who never did Chemistry A-level are going to have so much fun doing the questions I've thought up for them. Ha ha ha!

2005-08-18T15:25:00.000+01:00

Apologies for the lack of entries in here. The biologists are currently away on holiday.

See you in October. :)

Ps. We've gone through the second year. Now will someone come up with the Truth of Bio 102? Or 201? Or... how does it work, anyway?

Bombs go boom!

2005-07-07T12:00:00.000+01:00

Well, I wouldn't know how they actually sound like cos I wasn't there.

Apart of me feel sad not to be around danger....it's always cool to come out a survivor and have a scar to go with it.
reminds me of war of the worlds.....a tripod comes out of the ground and people are standing around looking, taking pictures....yes very smart...wat they think someone's gonna pop out and say ''you're on candid camera'' or that the cold, menacing aliens wanted to make friends...sure...

it sucks to have bombs go off.....all the tube and buses in Zone 1 are suspended indefinetely..i hope the rail's not halted cos i need to go to Essex tmr....
All the network is clogged up and so i can't really call anyone.

Speaking of calls...my mom called me all concern and all right in the middle I was loading a gel...i'm working in Cambridge..not london..although I did go to london the day before for my appointment....but i don't think she knows that.

I have to use the train tomorrow to get to GSK at Essex...for my induction day..hope the rail still work (inter-town) vs intra-city i.e. tube which is suspended.

Alright then....back to my work!

So.....

2005-06-27T21:31:00.000+01:00

As in so let me know how bio is likesince most of you people are in Singapore...

abandoning me.....your old ye faithful

Muy bien y muy mal

2005-06-08T22:21:00.000+01:00

Lets start an opinion pol - best lecturer this year, best lecturer ever and most fun course this year.

A single gene answers question of sex

2005-06-03T23:30:00.000+01:00

Finally, something for the geneticists.

Something about a gene that determinse all aspects of a fly's sexual orientation and behavior and something about bah, I don't know... about instinct being preprogrammed and the way we respond to certain things, eg. hitting back when threatened, or laughing, is all "a product of genetic heritage", that "a single gene can serve as a switch for complex behaviors".

More about it in the International Herald Tribute and Cell (didn't dig up the article). :P

Armand M. Leroi

2005-06-03T17:38:00.000+01:00

He he, got my book signed. :-) Read all about it on my blog.

A tribute

2005-05-25T18:49:00.000+01:00

Background info: It's a photo of an exhibit at the Natural History Museum. At the Ecology section, too!

India to launch census of its vanishing vultures

2005-05-24T23:43:00.000+01:00

For Eco, RM

Source: SMH, 23 May 2005

India will launch a census of its vultures, a group of ornithologists, as the birds are vanishing rapidly due to a mystery virus and shrinking nesting sites.

The population of vultures, nature's scavenger and rodent controller, has fallen from tens of thousands just a decade ago to a few thousands also because of a veterinary drug found in cattle carcasses that the birds feed on, experts say.

"The vulture population in India has declined over 80 per cent over the last few years. We have decided to conduct a census in select sanctuaries and reserve forests in view of that," said VS Vijayan, director of the Madras-based Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History.

The census, which will be launched from the north-western state of Rajasthan and cover 20 national sanctuaries, will also study the feeding and flight patterns of the species, he said.

The dramatic drop in the population of the bird has created a crisis for the country's Parsi community, which leaves its dead on top of stone towers to be eaten by vultures as its religion forbids burial and cremation.

Parsis, or Zoroastrians, regard fire, earth and water as sacred and believe the vulture helps release the spirits of their ancestors.

K. Venkataraman of the National Biodiversity Authority said the vultures also were threatened by increasing air traffic over Indian cities.

"Increase in air traffic has caused more number of vulture deaths in recent years due to aeroplane hits," he said.

Alarms over reports of a sharp drop in population of tigers and wild elephants have prompted Indian authorities to order their censuses too.

NHM at Tring!

2005-05-23T19:31:00.000+01:00

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/museum/tring/visitorinfo/visitorinfo.html

This is the place I'm talking Jac.

A fishy site

2005-05-23T17:18:00.000+01:00

Check out the Fish Site at the Australian Museum. It includes a database of over 800 species of fish, not limited to Australasian waters, complete with references and links to scientific journals. Movies however, are only available for Australian species.

Budding itchyologist Xiyunicus, enjoy.

Two new species discovered

2005-05-21T15:07:00.000+01:00

New Monkey Species Discovered in East Africa
John Roach
National Geographic News
May 19, 2005

New Rodent Discovered at Asian Food Market
James Owen
National Geographic News
May 16, 2005

Sqaure?! Much ado with nothing, hachoo and we all fall down

2005-05-21T14:06:00.000+01:00

We're talking about tables?

tables right?

tables!

Bio lingo?!

Exams are drawing near

News flash

Avian influenza (H5N1) virus is possibly spreading among humans in Vietnam, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a document made publicon its Web site on Thursday (May 19).

Reporting on an international meeting held in the Philippines last week, WHO officials said worrying changes in the epidemiology of the virus had been seen between January and April this year in the north of Vietnam. "Investigators were not able to prove that human-to-human transmission had occurred, [but] they expressed concerns, which were shared by local clinicians," they said.

The document notes concerns that the latest H5N1 strains could be resistant to the antiviral oseltamivir, previously thought effective in fighting infection. It also discusses changes to the hemagglutinin (HA) protein that have been noted in 2005 H5N1 isolates, but had not been seen in 2004 sequence data. "The changes are consistent with the possibility that recently emerging H5N1 viruses may be more infectious for humans," the document's authors wrote.

"Recent viruses circulating in Northern Vietnam have lost an arginine residue in the mutibasic amino cluster at the proteolytic cleavage site of the HA protein," they warned. "The structure of the cleavage site is typical of highly pathogenic viruses." Epidemiological data also suggest the virus is "behaving" differently.

Kwok Yung Yuen, who heads the University of Hong Kong Microbiology Department—which operates a WHO designated laboratory—said, however, that epidemiological studies support the possibility that the virus pathogenicity has been somewhat reduced. "Fewer people are dying than before, and the disease is affecting a wider age group," he told The Scientist.

According to the WHO document, human bird flu clusters show a lag time between infections. This raises the possibility of incubation periods typical for human to human transmission of flu.

'the Square'

2005-05-20T21:51:00.000+01:00

After mucho pressure from XiYu that i hadnt written anything for the biotestament blog, and sweeping my arguments about nothing to write about she suggested the square. If only to get her to stop irritatin me i decided to write. Hope i can capture the wonderfulness and versatility of this magnificent rare treasure.

If you are a true biologist you will know what i am talking about, know the sheer importance of 'the Square' (notice the capital S) and how sought after they are. 'the Square' is a status symbol, abit like winning fights and claiming a harem in elephant seals, winning the play fight between deer, you get the idea. With 'the Square' in your possession you become sexy - people look at you that thing in your possession with jealousy. You know those longing looks to be in your place, oh the comfy seats, the whole socaialness - its so much easier to engage in group discussion and individual ones, compared to those mesh wire seats - someone always feels isolated. It doesnt feel like a big group - but lots of isolated 'islands'.

In order to claim one, its all about timing and luck - being at the right place at the right time. Like a predator waiting for the unfortunate prey to show itself, and BAM!! Its caught in its jaws and its genes are removed from the gene pool, only the fittest survive. It could be compared to a spider lying in wait for the right time to strike, or a sting ray lying on the bottom of the ocean - camoflauged til it sees its tasty prey. Poor thing didnt even notice what was coming. This was also exemplified by XiYu. Lunchtime she saw an opening, only 1 person guarding the territory. Everyone knows a group is better than an individual whether to avoid predators or to catch prey. Living examples are hyenas and shoaling fish, Zebra - less cahnce of you actually being the target. Well this time we were the predator. We swarmed and the poor person fled for their life. We had secured a Square.

Or you could simply charge in and take the square by force. This is particulary easy if you have the strong, muscle, agressive types like Bonnie in your party. She can take ANY square she wants with force. Defiantly someone you want on your side. Luckily she is!!

Just like to say Squares are not neccassry square in shape, although thats the generic name given to them. They come in various shapes - the most common these days is circular. Evolved because it has more space? No one knows, all the leading scientists are stumped as to what exactly happened to the now rare breeds, the square Squares.

Well that concludes my rather silly account of 'the Square'. Take it with a pinch of salt and for anyone reading, yes we Imperial students love our Square. Especially the Biologists and medics. I cant imagine living without it....

James Watson

2005-05-20T16:33:00.000+01:00

We all know that the James Watson talk at the Dana Centre later today is fully booked. :-( But! Don't panic! You can see the live webcast here!!

Dana Center live webcast

All's not lost, but its not the same not being in the same room with the speaker. It's a bit like going to the Richard Dawkins/ Bill Bryson talk and ending up in the room nextdoor watching the even on a big TV.

As luck would have it

2005-05-19T23:12:00.000+01:00

Right then, let me break the soliloquy:

Guess what arrived in the mail today: Armand Marie Leroi's Mutants On Genetic Variety and the Human Body.

It was from the Royal Society and some how it pays to fill in the feedback forms as they picked mine out for some sort of lucky draw for one of the many lectures I have been attending.

The next thing on my mind is to get Marvin to get Leroi to sign my book....since he'll be having lectures by him in time to come...hope he remembers.

I mean..what else do you do when the 1st book of a staff of your college lands in your lap. I shall make it my no1 book to read over summer.

As a biochemist, I shall endeavour to educate on the things that rock our world. Before you start foaming and gagging, I shall start with something benign and widely applicable:

HIV-1 elicits RNA silencing in human cells, but also contains a sequence that suppresses the process, researchers report in the May issue of Immunity.

"Nucleic acid based immunity in mammalian cells has been found before, but to date, there has been no single report of a natural small interfering RNA [siRNA] that is triggered by HIV in human cells," coauthor Kuan-Teh Jeangof the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Maryland told The Scientist. The virus' "counter strategy" described in the paper is also unprecedented, according to Jeang.

Coauthor Yamina Bennasser and her colleagues characterized a sequence in the HIV-1 genome that encodes a rare siRNA precursor, a short hairpin RNA that is processed by the Dicer (or by a Dicer-like) ribonuclease into small siRNAs. In addition, they found that the virus prevents RNA silencing through a suppressor present in its Tat protein, which interferes with Dicer's activity.

"It's a very nicely done and a very intriguing story," said Mario Stevenson of the University of Massachusetts, who did not participate in the study. "A number of groups, including ours, have looked at the question of whether HIV encodes RNAs that can form siRNAs. Jeang's group was able to reveal that it does before anyone else."

But John Rossi of City of Hope Beckman Research Institute in Duarte, Calif., who was not involved in the research, questioned the physiological relevance of the results. "It doesn't make much sense that Dicer, a cytoplasmic enzyme, would be inhibited by Tat, which is exclusively a nuclear enzyme," Rossi told The Scientist. "And the 19 base-pair hairpins they describe are not substrates for Dicer." Rossi said that "dumping tons of Tat into the cells" can lead to "all sorts of nonspecific effects."

Stevenson, however, is not concerned by those questions. "We are learning of new substrates for Dicer all the time, and some groups have shown that RNA silencing can also be achieved in the nucleus, not only in the cytoplasm. The rules by which RNA interfering machinery works are continually being tweaked and modified as we understand more about the process," he said.

What did surprise Stevenson is the idea that HIV encodes siRNA and avoids being inactivated by it by encoding a suppressor. "It seems an incredible expenditure of effort," he said, but added, "viruses will not always subscribe to human logic."

Stevenson is more interested in whether shRNAs can be effectively used against HIV as a suppressor mechanism. "If Jeang's results prove to be right, then the shRNAs therapeutic approaches [which expresses a HIV specific shRNA to be processed by Dicer into an antiviral form] may not be optimal."

Jeang welcomed the debate. "What is science without criticism?" he asked. "The excitement that drives me to this work, other than the fact that it comments on an aspect of nucleic acid immunology, is that the sequence that we have characterized doesn't change. It's constantly eliciting siRNAs against the virus, forcing the virus to develop a completely new mechanism. This is telling us that there is a region in the virus' genome that, because of functional constraints, cannot mutate."

According to Jeang, HIV researchers' "holy grail" is the ability to find regions in the HIV genome that cannot mutate, and the sequence that he and colleagues have characterized seems to be one such region that cannot change for functional reasons.

Enjoy! Quote of the day: 'Viruses will not always subscribe to human logic'...of course not..they subscribe to viral logic....u don't need to be a biochemist to realise that.

Darwin Centre Live

2005-05-19T21:59:00.000+01:00

Hey folks, post more! Seems like stuff I post only benefit ecologists, resource managers and parasitologists. Bah. This makes it boring for the micro-stuff people.

Anyway, from the Natural History Museum's online archive:

The Control of Schistosomiasis in Africa - Russel Stothard

"Scientists from the Natural History Museum have been involved in schistosome-related studies for nearly four decades. A new initiative funded by the Gates Foundation hopes to benefit child health in tropical African regions by control of schistosomiasis, a serious and long-term illness caused by parasitic flatworms. Museum scientist Russell Stothard will report on recent activities in Uganda and issues concerning this important water-borne disease."

This is also the guy who's gonna give the POLS students the seminar/keynote lecture tomorrow. He did his PhD at Imperial, and was a Field Project Coordinator at the College for a few years.

At the main Darwin Centre Live archive page, there's a whole lot of other videos. It's got a section on parasites too, and in the miscellaneous section you might find videos about DNA and genes and etc.

Addendum: Mycologists (oh yeah, should get Xiao in here) will be delighted to find a few clips on fungi too.

Bio birthday

2005-05-18T19:33:00.000+01:00

Happy birthday, Wing-kit-kun.

Four major things happened today:

1. Singaporean biologists' lunch - all three generations unite!
2. Wing-kit's birthday celebration with the sweet choc cake in SAF
3. Wing-kit being temporarily exiled to the library while we signed his card
4. Cinema trip to watch The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (side note: avoid Kensington Odeon; they only give a miserable discount of 20p for students!)

Edit: Sorry, I left out a mention of Wink's brown chocolatey balls. And also the little visit to the Kensington pet shop, and how streamlined gOldfish will chase the big blob-headed fat ones if placed in the same tank.

Aging Sewer Systems Fouling Great Lakes

2005-05-18T19:31:00.000+01:00

For Eco, RM, POLS

Link to related article and more. Also mentions Cryptosporidium and others. ;)

Aging Sewer Systems Fouling Great Lakes
By JOHN FLESHER, Associated Press Writer
Tue May 17,10:00 PM ET

Sewage is fouling the Great Lakes [in the US] and other waters in the region because many municipal waste treatment systems are failing to stop overflows, environmental groups said in a report Tuesday.

Most municipal systems in six Great Lakes states that combine stormwater with domestic and industrial sewage haven't met minimum federal standards for preventing such discharges, nor have they received approval for long-term plans to control overflows, the report said.

The situation poses a health hazard that could get worse under Bush administration proposals to slash funding for wastewater system upgrades and to let sewage plants skip some stages of treatment during heavy rains or melting snow, environmentalists said.

Together, they have 358 municipalities with federal permits for combined sewers, which use the same collection system for moving stormwater and raw sewage to treatment plants. When the systems overflow during storms, contaminated water is dumped into lakes, rivers and oceans - about 850 billion gallons nationwide each year.

The pollution ranges from bacteria, viruses and parasites to metals such as mercury and lead, said Cheryl Nenn of the group Friends of Milwaukee's Rivers.

The Great Lakes region has nearly half of the nation's 828 combined sewage systems, which tend to be located in older cities. Most newer systems keep sewage and stormwater separate.

The federal Clean Water Act required communities with combined sewers to take nine steps by 1997, including upgrading maintenance and operations, improving storage capacity and doing better at notifying the public about overflows.

Also required were long-term plans for reducing overflows by doing things such as upgrading infrastructure to separate collection systems.

About 62 percent of the communities have failed to take the nine steps, which the report describes as minimum efforts. About 54 percent haven't secured state approval of long-term plans and 22 percent have yet to submit plans to their states, the report said.

Lack of money is the biggest reason cities haven't moved more quickly on sewer upgrades, said Joe Fivas, transportation and environmental affairs manager for the Michigan Municipal League.

In a telephone news conference, environmentalists said some of the required steps wouldn't be very costly. But they criticized the Bush administration's proposal to cut a federal loan program for upgrading treatment plants from $1.09 billion this year to $730 million in fiscal 2006.

They also urged the EPA not to give municipalities greater freedom to blend fully and partially treated sewage during peak flow periods. The agency has been considering a blending policy since 2003 but has made no decision, EPA spokesman Dale Kemery said.

U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak (news, bio, voting record), D-Menominee, Mich., will offer an amendment to a spending bill this week that would block the EPA from allowing blending except during extreme weather conditions, a spokeswoman said.

Bio comrade

2005-05-18T18:59:00.000+01:00

Hey hey! i'm on!!
Well, first post for me will be on the comment in the film, Hitch-hikers guide to the galaxy. I simple love the Marvin robot! Cute and very very cynical! Awwwww....i want one now! Hmm, a planet creating factory? Well, that puts all those religion in a very bad position! I wonder how they made it....... scientifically speaking. I mean doesn't it defeats the point? They are trying to find the answer to the ultimate question, the meaning of life. I thought planets are part of that question?!?!? I mean, along with evolution and selection on the world! Ok, i think i'm thinking too hard, its only a film. Anyway, funny and light hearted film!
Hope you had a great bithday Wing-kit (note that i put the PROPER dash in the middle) ;p

As Honorary Member

2005-05-18T12:32:00.000+01:00

As Honorary member,

I just like to extend my warm welcome to all Biologists.

Hahaha

Why did the Jame Watson talk have to sell out.....!!!

Before we start

2005-05-17T23:29:00.000+01:00

You know I'm the serious sort. I like to create rules, but I don't really like to follow them. Still, rules are a convenient thing to have. Especially in the labs.

Here are the guidelines for writing in this blog:

Guideline #1 - It must be about biology (easy enough? If you're creative enough you could even turn a discussion of how a bicycle's wheels work into something bio-ish).

Guideline #2 - Or it could be about biologists. Like what Dr Lamb had for dinner last night (no offense meant; Dr Lamb is a such a nice person).

Guideline #3 - One-liners and essays are both welcomed. Pictures will be revered but please don't overpost those... soon the reverence will turn into lag.

Guideline #4 - Biologists don't really need to know how to count properly. Hence numbers don't really matter, 'cept in the matters of population ecology. 100 quokkas and 101 quokkas left in the wild does make a lot of difference (who knows - that 101st one might be asexual).

Guideline #4 - If you don't know what a quokka is, you deserve to be shot.

Guideline #5 - All new contributors to this cooperative must first pass the entrance exam, which does not include any questions on quokkas. It might or might not include how much a panini in the SAFCafe costs, however. That is a mark of a true Imperial biologist.

Blistering Barnacles

2005-05-17T22:46:00.000+01:00

The background of barnacles - they were by me. :-) I took the pic when I was on my school Bio field trip to Dorset. Oh, Dorset. How fun that was.

Bio X

2005-05-17T21:59:00.000+01:00

Lookie here, I'm writing something in the Bio Blog - The Biological Testament as named by me. "The Boonies" (like the 1985 movie, "The Goonies") would've been more of a fun title, but I guess we'll just settle for The Biological Testament. Anywhoo, its still a title created by me.

So, Jac, could you stick up the malaria photo's? Perhaps a few more of my stick insects?

Test

2005-05-17T20:52:00.000+01:00

Wruffers. Meow. Squawk. Gobble. Snort. Moo. Screech. ROAR. Squeak.

*gribbit*