Dienekes alerts me to the fact that the International Congress of Human Genetics abstracts are online. I spent an hour using only a few keywords, and came up with a lot.

1) If you have a presentation and think it might interest the readers here, feel free to drop a link in (I will look in the spam folder more today, though one link shouldn’t drive it crazy).

2) If you are a reader and found something interesting, do the same.

Below are some abstracts that caught my eye….

Estimating a date of mixture of ancestral South Asian populations. ” Our analyses suggest that major ANI-ASI mixture occurred in the ancestors of both northern and southern Indians 1,200-3,500 years ago, overlapping the time when Indo-European languages first began to be spoken in the subcontinent. These results suggest that this formative period of Indian history was accompanied by mixtures between two highly diverged populations, although our results do not rule other, older ANI-ASI admixture events.” I wonder how much money these researchers put on only one admixture. I’m highly skeptical that the Indo-European demographic pulse could be so powerful that they could contribute to ~35% of the ancestry of ...

Just got this email, and I thought I would share with my readers:

I’m a biologist from Germany and together with 2 fellow biologists I’m currently working on a project that evaluates the sharing of raw data from DTC-genetic-testing companies like 23andme. I was genotyped myself and have already published the data set on GitHub and I there are other people who already did the same (i know the list of the SNPedia). But up to now these data sets are scattered all over the net and nearly none of them have attached phenotypic data.

What we are working on (and would like to see around) is a website that collects the genetic datasets as well as phenotypic data. This would make it much easier to find appropriate data and in the end – as long as there are enough users – it could become a resource for a kind of open source GWAS, similar to the idea behind the research 23andMe performs in it’s walled garden right now.

But publishing genetic and phenotypic data freely accessible on the net is still seldom seen and many people object the idea because of privacy concerns. We would like to know how many people in ...

The rise of drug-resistant bacteria is one of the most important threats facing modern medicine. One by one, our arsenal of antibiotics is coming up short against microbes that can pump them out, slip under their notice, deactivate them, or even eat them. But these tricks aren’t new. Bacteria have been defeating antibiotics for millennia, long before Alexander Fleming noticed a piece of mould killing off bacteria in a Petri dish. And the best proof of that longstanding struggle has just emerged from the ice-fields of Alaska.

In 30,000-year-old samples of frozen soil, Vanessa D’Costa and Christine King from McMaster University have found a wide variety of antibiotic-resistant genes. They would have allowed ancient bacteria to shrug off many modern drugs such as tetracyclines, beta-lactams and vancomycin.

Vancomycin resistance is especially interesting. This drug has traditionally been used as weapon of last resort, a drug to use when all others have failed. When vancomycin-resistant bacteria first emerged in 1987, it was a surprising blow. Since then, resistant versions of more common bacteria, such as staph (VRSA) have reared their heads.

These superbugs neutralise vancomycin using a trio of genes ...

The way some of the media report on climate change can be simply stunning. For example, an opinion piece in The Financial Post has the headline "New, convincing evidence indicates global warming is caused by cosmic rays and the sun — not humans".

There’s only one problem: that’s completely wrong. In reality the study shows nothing of the sort. The evidence, as far as the limitations of the experiment go (that’s important, see below), do not show any effect of cosmic rays on global warming, and say nothing at all about the effect humans are having on the environment.

What did you do, Ray?

OK, first things first: why should we even think cosmic rays might affect climate? There are several steps to this, but it’s not too hard to explain.

We know that clouds form by water molecules accumulating on seed particles, called condensation nuclei. The physical processes are complex, but these particles (also called aerosols) are suspended in the air and water droplets form around them. The more of them available, the better water can condense and form clouds (although of course this also depends on a lot of ...

Sometimes, my favorite pictures from space are among the ones that look least interesting… until you understand what you’re seeing.

For example, this doesn’t look like much, does it?

Ah, but that picture shows so, so much. It shows everything!

That’s us. You, me, everyone. That fuzzy blob on the left? That’s Earth. The one on the right: the Moon.

In this one simple picture, you can see everywhere humans have ever been; hundreds of thousands of years spent on Earth, and a few brief days on the Moon. And this picture was taken from much farther than anyone has ever traveled.

This view of our home worlds was seen by Juno, a spacecraft launched on August 5. By August 26th, when it took this snapshot, it was already nearly 10 million kilometers (6 million miles) away. And yet this is merely a baby step compared to its total journey: it will take a long, sweeping path to Jupiter, traveling nearly 3 billion kilometers before arriving at its destination.

Take another look at that picture. See how close together they look? It took humans more than three days to bridge ...

I’ve been on the road so I’m a day late in notifying folks about my latest hosted episode of the show:

In less than two weeks, the ten year anniversary of the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil—9/11—will be upon us.

In the past decade, there has been much debate and discussion about the root causes of terrorism and violent extremism. There has also been considerable scientific study of the matter.

Fortunately, Point of Inquiry recently caught up with the anthropologist Scott Atran, a world leader in this research. Atran has met with terrorists face to face. He has interviewed mujahedin, met with Hamas, talked to the plotters of the Bali bombing-and sometimes found his life at risk by doing so.

There’s probably nobody better if you want to talk about terrorism, what motivates it, and how these extremes fit within the broad tapestry of human nature.

Scott Atran is a research director in anthropology at the French National Center for Scientific Research, and holds a variety of appointments at other academic institutions. He’s also the author of several books including In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion and Talking to the Enemy: Faith, Brotherhood, and the (Un)Making of Terrorists. He has published frequent op-eds in the New York Times and his research has been published in Science, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and other leading publications.

You can listen to the show here. Note: Some listeners over there are already wrongly calling Atran a “postmodernist,” and he has responded himself in the comments.

Ironic effects of dietary supplementation: illusory invulnerability created by taking dietary supplements licenses health-risk behaviors.

“The use of dietary supplements and the health status of individuals have an asymmetrical relationship: The growing market for dietary supplements appears not to be associated with an improvement in public health. Building on the notion of licensing, or the tendency for positive choices to license subsequent self-indulgent choices, we argue that because dietary supplements are perceived as conferring health advantages, use of such supplements may create an illusory sense of invulnerability that disinhibits unhealthy behaviors. In two experiments, participants who took placebo pills that they believed were dietary supplements exhibited the licensing effect across multiple forms of health-related behavior: They expressed less desire to engage in exercise and more desire to engage in hedonic activities (Experiment 1), expressed greater preference for a buffet over an organic meal (Experiment 1), and walked less to benefit their health (Experiment 2) compared with participants who were told the pills were a placebo. A mediational analysis indicated that perceived invulnerability was an underlying mechanism for these effects. Thus, a license associated with the use of dietary supplements may operate ...

In my post below, Tutsi probably differ genetically from the Hutu, there were many comments. Some I did not post because they were rude, though they did ask valid questions. I will address those issues, but let me quote one comment:

That’s an interesting possibility, but this admixture run didn’t split the non-hunter-gatherer Africans that well. In one of your previous analyses on East Africa you managed to get a pretty accurate ‘Afro-Asiatic/Cushitic’ and ‘Nilotic’ cluster. Is it possible that you could run this Tutsi sample using the same admixture settings as in the ‘Flavors of Afro-Asiatic’ blog post to see if he carries a significant Nilotic component or is mainly Bantu & Cushitic derived?

So I replicated ADMIXTURE runs for many of the same populations as I did in my post, Flavors of Afro-Asiatic. I also pared down the population set and generated a PCA with EIGENSOFT. Before I get to those results, let me tackle the questions.

1) “Are the Luhya suitable proxies for the Hutus?”

Probably. The reason is that Bantu-speaking populations, from the Congo to South Africa, are surprisingly similar. Not only that, but these populations are very distinctive from groups which are close them ...

NASA just released an amazing video showing Hurricane Irene from August 21th through the 29th — essentially the entire lifespan of the storm:

Unfortunately the resolution isn’t great, but this really gives a sense of the incredible size and momentum of this incredible storm. The animation was created using images from the NASA/NOAA satellite GOES-13, an Earth-observer in geostationary orbit 36,000 km (22,000 miles) above the Atlantic Ocean. It takes images of clouds, which were combined with MODIS images of the land to get this realistic-looking view.

Credit: NASA/NOAA GOES Project

Related posts:

- Landfall
- Irene sidles up to the east coast
- Putting the eye in Irene
- Come on, Irene

If you’re reading this, there’s already a good chance you know about Symphony of Science: John Boswell’s amazing collection of videos where he has autotuned the words of scientists and science promoters, creating a lovely and beautiful series of paeans to reality.

John has done something pretty cool: he’s taken the audio from ten different pieces he’s written (plus one bonus track) and put them all in one place to download. These are high-quality audio files, and the neat thing is that in exchange for the download he’s asking for donations to his project, whatever you think is fair. You can download them for free, but he’s hoping to raise funds to create more videos and promote more science.

I really love this project — as do a whole lot of other folks, too — so I expect his experiment in quid pro quo will do well. As you might remember, one of the songs, "Wave of Reason", has a line in it by me, too. I’m still really proud to have been included in this project to bring a love of science ...

Been very busy of late.

1) Post from the past: Of pigs, people and porcine polygenism.

2) Weird search query of the week: “kate gosselin before and after.”

3) Comment of the week, in response to Why Melanesians are blonde resolved?:

…Besides melianin production, tyrosinase (and hence Tyrp1) is at a key step of catecholamine synthesis. And anything effecting neurotransmitter synthesis has potential to significantly affect fitness. Pleiotropy is a rule rather than exception.

4) And finally, your weekly fluff fix. I met this “Kitler” in Coeur d’Alene:

Eyes on the Solar System

While there is no riddle today, I do have something for you to do.  Check out Eyes on the Solar System.  I think you’re going to like this, I got on and right from the Featured Juno Mission to Jupiter I was like “this is cool”  I was looking at Jupiter and was thinking if I didn’t know better I’d think Jupiter was rotating.  When I marked a spot with the cursor, sure enough it was!

I will leave most of the description to what NASA has to say about it, but I will tell you there is a download which is pretty fast allowing a 3D view (with glasses) if you desire.  NASA includes video tutorials which are pretty interesting themselves.

So read all about Eyes on the Solar System below (or jump right in) and I’m off on Voyager 2′s mission.

PASADENA, Calif. — NASA is giving the public the power to journey through the solar system using a new interactive Web-based tool.

The “Eyes on the Solar System” interface combines video game technology and NASA data to create an environment for users to ride along with agency spacecraft and explore the cosmos. Screen graphics and information such as planet locations and spacecraft maneuvers use actual space mission data.

“This is the first time the public has been able to see the entire solar system and our missions moving together in real time,” said Jim Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division at the agency’s Headquarters in Washington. “It demonstrates NASA’s continued commitment to share our science with everyone.”

The virtual environment uses the Unity game engine to display models of planets, moons, asteroids, comets and spacecraft as they move through our solar system. With keyboard and mouse controls, users cruise through space to explore anything that catches their interest. A free browser plug-in, available at the site, is required to run the Web application.

“You are now free to move about the solar system,” said Blaine Baggett, executive manager in the Office of Communication and Education at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif. “See what NASA’s spacecraft see — and where they are right now — all without leaving your computer.”

Users may experience missions in real time, and “Eyes on the Solar System” also allows them to travel through time. The tool is populated with NASA data dating back to 1950 and projected to 2050.
The playback rate can be sped up or slowed down. When NASA’s Juno spacecraft launched on Aug. 5, 2011, users could look ahead to see the mission’s five-year journey to Jupiter in a matter of seconds.

Point of view can be switched from faraway to close-up to right “on board” spacecraft. Location, motion and appearance are based on predicted and reconstructed mission data. Dozens of controls on a series of pop-up menus allow users to fully customize what they see, and video and audio tutorials explain how to use the tool’s many options. Users may choose from 2-D or 3-D modes, with the latter simply requiring a pair of red-cyan glasses to see.

“By basing our visualization primarily on mission data, this tool will help both NASA and the public better understand complex space science missions,” said Kevin Hussey, manager of Visualization Technology Applications and Development at JPL, whose team developed “Eyes on the Solar System.”

“Eyes on the Solar System” is in beta release. It has been demonstrated at science conferences, in classrooms and at the 2011 South by Southwest Interactive Conference in Austin, Texas.

Designers are updating “Eyes on the Solar System” to include NASA science missions launching during the coming months, including GRAIL to the moon and the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover.

“Eyes on the Solar System” and an introduction video are available at http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/eyes .

Updates on new features are available through the tool’s Twitter account: http://twitter.com/NASA_Eyes .

Top picks

Via the IOM’s report on vaccine safety, we have “lost yet another battle in the war over vaccines” says Erika Check Hayden

Plumes & Pathogens: Human fascination w/ birds can jeopardize our health, by Rachel Nuwer, reporting from Asia’s wildlife markets

NYT on how the psychology of misidentification is forcing an overhaul in police lineup procedures

Can there be anything nerdier than calling out Simon Pegg on the etymology of the word nerd? No.

Aussie farmers killed the thylacine because they thought it’d kill their sheep. Except it couldn’t have

Must-read post by Sean Mcarroll: Ten things everyone should know about time

What do whale sharks eat? While studying the giant fish, Al Dove stumbled onto a cool mystery

How would you explain the meaning of right and left to an alien, without pictures or gestures?

“Scary Disease Girl” Maryn McKenna describes life on the infectious disease beat. Much wisdom here for aspiring writers.

Does neuroscience threaten the concept of free will & do philosphers care? Great feature by Kerri Thomas

Spider mites disable host plant defenses, then spin their own

India’s attempting the biggest biometric project of all time, involving all 1.2m of its people. Is it worth ...

So my photographer brother-in-law Chris was showing me some pictures he took recently, and when this one came up I have to admit I actually recoiled a bit:

Yowza. Scary looking little bugger, ain’t it? Actually, there are two of these insects in the picture, though at first it’s hard to tell. I think Chris may have interrupted them in the process of making more little critters.

Anyway, Chris and I had no clue what they were, so I sent a note to my pal Bug Girl, who knew right away what he had found: an Ambush bug. Judging from other pictures, she got it in one. They’re very formidable looking, and actually rather lovely with their color contrasting those of the Russian sage on which they’re perched.

If you agree, and like insects in general, then check out Bug Girl’s blog. There’re enough creepy crawlies there to last you through the whole weekend.

Related posts:

- Llama ahora
- Happy Halloween! [WARNING: do NOT click that if spiders freak you out. I'm serious.]
- Dramatic Caturday
- Xtolocaturday

Mercury's Rembrandt crater from the Messenger spacecraft on August 7, 2011. Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington

Yes, in case you were wondering and even if you weren’t the Messenger spacecraft orbiting around Mercury is alive and well and still returning very nice images.

The ESA is planning their own mission to Mercury with their Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO) which is going through a bit of testing at the moment.  I’ll tell you more about the ESA mission in a day or two.

Here’s the Messenger informational caption for the image:

This limb image shows Rembrandt, the second largest impact basin on Mercury after Caloris. Discovered during the second MESSENGER flyby, Rembrandt is one of the youngest impact basins on Mercury, as indicated by the relatively low density of impact craters on its rim. A large lobate scarp trending from the southwest to the north crosscuts Rembrandt and several of the smaller craters that have impacted the smooth interior plains.

Ironically not long after we closed the door on the shuttle program a Progress resupply ship is lost.  Perhaps they can find it.

UPDATE:  They found it – crashed

From NASA HQ:

Mission Control Moscow reported that communication with the Progress 44 cargo craft was lost 5 minutes, 20 seconds after its launch at 9 a.m. EDT today. Preliminary data from the Russian Federal Space Agency indicate there was a problem with the propulsion system, and that the vehicle did not reach its desired orbit.

International Space Station Program Manager Michael Suffredini will hold a news conference on NASA Television at noon EDT.

Just after 11 a.m., Mission Control Moscow radioed a report to the crew on board the station:

“At 1300 (GMT), we lifted off, following 320 seconds of flight there was a failure in the upper stage of the launch vehicle. We lost communications after a while with the launch vehicle and we did not report stage separation,” said Maxim Matuchen, the head of the Russian Mission Control Center.

“In the previous communications pass we attempted to contact the vehicle through every possible channel. Orbital monitoring telemetry and we have just finished our second communications pass where we invoked all of the communications facilities. We sent commands to activate the communications pass on board, unfortunately it failed.”

“Understood,” replied Expedition 28 Commander Andrey Borisenko.

“This is it for the moment, we’ll try to figure out what has happened and what the cause was. I just wanted to keep you informed.”

“Thank you for letting us know so quickly,” Borisenko added. “Thank you from the entire crew.”

Progress 44 launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome into a cloudless sky at 7 p.m. Kazakhstan time bound for the International Space Station and a docking on Friday. At the time of launch, the space station was flying 230 miles over Equatorial Guinea on the west coast of Africa. The spacecraft is carrying 2.9 tons of food, fuel and supplies for the space station.

Hurricane Irene from the ISS last Monday. Click for larger. Image credit: NASA

I am in hurricane Irene’s bullseye, not good.  Fortunately I am inland a ways.  Depending on the model I look at things go from bad to worse. Likely, no,  almost certainly I will loose power and internet connection for an extended period. Tomorrow is the “get ready” day outside, Saturday will be get some milk and maybe some food although I should be pretty well set for that.

If you live along the east coast – anywhere along the east coast from the Carolinas north, do what you have to to be safe and fool with this one – be ready as much as you can be.  Trudy -  Be safe!

The image I have above was taken from the International Space Station on Monday morning.

Oh speaking of the ISS, yesterday I told of the Progress 44 crash and I am heartened to know my lamenting of the US space program direction is shared by some of the “powers that be”.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) (and a senior member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology) issued the following statement in reaction to today’s failure of the Russian Progress Soyuz cargo rocket (source: Rep. Rohrabacher) :

“Today, Russia’s Soyuz launch vehicle failed to boost the Progress M-12M cargo ship into orbit to deliver needed supplies to the International Space Station. This failure should be a cause of grave concern, and a moment of reexamination of America’s space strategy,” said Rohrabacher.

“Today’s Russian rocket failure will interrupt ISS cargo deliveries, and could threaten crew transportation as well. NASA needs to conduct an investigation before another Soyuz spacecraft with new ISS crew members can be launched, and it is unknown how long such an investigation will take.”

“I hope this is a minor problem with a quick and simple fix,” said Rohrabacher. “But this episode underscores America’s need for reliable launch systems of its own to carry cargo and crew into space. The only way to achieve this goal is to place more emphasis on commercial cargo and crew systems currently being developed by American companies.

“We need to get on with the task of building affordable launch systems to meet our nation’s needs for access to low Earth orbit, instead of promoting grandiose concepts which keep us vulnerable in the short and medium terms. The most responsible course of action for the United States is to dramatically accelerate the commercial crew systems already under development.

“I am calling on General Bolden, the NASA Administrator, to propose an emergency transfer of funding from unobligated balances in other programs, including the Space Launch System, to NASA’s commercial crew initiative. Funding should be used to speed up the efforts of the four current industry partners to develop their systems and potentially expand the recent awards to include the best applicants for launch vehicle development.

“NASA could potentially transfer several hundred million dollars from this long term development concept, since the SLS project has not even started, to the more urgently needed systems that can launch astronauts to ISS, reliably and affordably. This transfer will boost the development of American controlled technology and greatly reduce our dependence on the Russians.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

LOL. Not really.   I just like the gimmicks the weather people on TV use to get viewers. We had Storm Tracker 5000, then it was Doppler 5000 with the phony radar like screens and now it’s back to just plain Storm Tracker 5.  What I really dislike is the TV guys/gals using those touch screens.  You can’t tell a darned thing because they are waving their arms around a hundred miles an hour like some crazy person possessed drawing nonsensical lines and boxes and such…geesh.

Yep, the TV folks do all that marketing and then when the time comes they kind of babble on and lull the viewers into a kind of stupor so they miss the forecast.  This, I suspect happens  so it’s hard to prove when the forecaster gets it wrong.  Ever happen to you?

Oh yeah the video, the STEREO spacecraft can watch CME’s all the way from the Sun to Earth which is pretty amazing.

Speaking of storms, I can hear the first line of thunderstorms moving on in so time to get off line.

Source

PS: If YOU are a TV weather person, no offense intended, merely an observation.   

“This study measured the frequency of pubic hair transfer between a limited number of consenting heterosexual partners. The results derive from controlled experiments with a number of human subjects rather than forensic casework. Standardized collection procedures were observed, situational variables were tracked. Participants (forensic laboratory employees and their spouses) were six Caucasian couples who collected their pubic hair combings immediately following intercourse. Subjects provided informed consent in accordance with the protocol for human subjects approved by the U.A.B. institutional review board. The experiment was replicated ten times for five couples, and five times for another couple (total n = 110). Transfer frequencies were calculated from instances where foreign (exogenous) hairs were observed. Results showed at least one exogenous pubic hair in 17.3% (19/110) of combings. Transfers to males (23.6%, or 13/55) were more prevalent than transfers to females (10.9%, or 6/55). Only once were transfers observed simultaneously between both male and female. A total of 28 exogenous pubic hairs were identified. Subjects reported intercourse duration of 2-25 min, intervening intervals of 1-240 h, pre-coital bathing intervals of 0.25-24 h, and predominantly missionary position (76%). No clear relationship among these other ...