Daily Lol: This man must have a lot of friends August 8, 2007
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Fun, Humor, Sciencefun.6 comments
Would someone please explain it to me? I don’t even understand the title of the article…
(Hat Tip: Billrothhárom)
Update: Explanation at Clinical Cases and Images!
Mendel’s Garden #17: Blog Carnival of Genetics August 5, 2007
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Biology, Blog Carnival, Blogging, DNA, Fun, Gene, Genetic condition, Genetic testing, genetics, Genome, Health, Humor, Medical education, Medicine, science, Video.13 comments
This time, it’s the honor of Scienceroll to host Mendel’s Garden, the blog carnival totally devoted to all the fields of genetics. I thought I couldn’t find enough articles as most of the bloggers were on their vacation. But I have to share 30(!) blogposts with you and as I would like to make it easier to go through all the submissions, I also present some funny videos on genetics. Enjoy and welcome in Mendel’s Garden!
Let’s listen to music while reading the articles! Mendel-rap?
Plants/animals:
- Trevor Covert at Epigenetics presents Epigenetic Natural Variation in Arabidopsis thaliana.
- Jonathan A. Eisen at The Tree of Life mentions Metagenomics Based Discovery Highlight: Novel Photosynthetic Organism Discovered.
- GrrlScientist at Living the Scientific Life has an interesting article on Samoan butterflies which evolve rapidly and avoid extinction. An extraordinary flux in the sex ratio for a butterfly species reveals how rapidly a species can evolve and thereby avoid extinction.
- At Agrobisnis, you can read about the evolution of flowers.
- And just a little bit of genetics at Spluch: Tiger gives birth to twin cubs – one yellow and one white:
Evolution:
- Curious Cat shows us Evolution at Work with the Blue Moon Butterfly.
- Simon Greenhill at Henry leads us into the realm of archeology and evolution: Neolithic settlement of Europe, fractal network theory and hunter-gatherers, & rapid butterfly evolution.
- Intellectual property and biodiversity? David Bradley at Sciencebase examines this question: Intellectual genetics.
- CAD at VWXYNot? talks about two papers which contribute to the growing body of evidence that changes to gene expression are important drivers of evolutionary change.
- John Ryskamp presents SSRN-Paradox, Natural Mathematics, Relativity and Twentieth-Century Ideas by John Ryskamp posted at Social Science Research Network, saying, “Recent work in the history of set theory has raised the question whether Darwin and also Mendel, expressed their ideas in natural mathematics. “
DNA/Research:
- Penny at Genetics and Health has a great series on genetic tutorials. The first one is Tutorial 1: Genes and how they work.
- Larry Moran, our favourite biochem professor, at Sandwalk features The Story of DNA.
- Keith Robison at Omics! Omics! writes about restriction endonucleases.
- Alex Palazzo at The Daily Transcript describes nonsense-mediated decay in the post, mRNA in dendrites: this message will self-destruct in 10 seconds.
- Sandra Porter at Discovering Biology in a Digital World could hardly believe her eyes: parallel DNA.
Human genetics:
- Last month’s host, Hsien-Hsien Lei at Eye on DNA introduces Esther Dyson, Genome Enthusiast.
- Steve Murphy, the Gene Sherpa, shows us the Danger in Genetics.
- Blaine Bettinger, the Genetic Genealogist, tells us a lot about Autosomal Genetic Testing.
- Jason Bobe at The Personal Genome is in a great form. He proves it with his post on Richter Scale and Your Genomic Portfolio.
- Kristina Chew at Autism Vox (the best blog ever about autism) promotes the expression, Mutatis Mutandis: Genetic Mutations and Being at High Risk.
- Check out this heart-smothering video about a girl struggling with Down-syndrome. She is the cause of the joy of her mother.
- Jessica Palmer at Bioephemera asks the question, Genetics of autism: is it safe to marry an engineer?
- TR Gregory at Genomicron looks at junk DNA again: Junk and genomes in The Scientist.
- Albin Paul at the Microarray Blog would use microarray to detect mutations in largest Human Gene.
- Chris Patil presents Happy fat: Calorie restriction modulates adipocyte gene expression posted at Ouroboros.
- A new blogger, Ramūnas Janavičius at Cancer-Genetics.com proves his knowledge and enthusiasm by writing a detailed article about Gene-expression Profiling in Cancer | A Brief Review.
- If you’re interested in the social implications of evolutionary psychology, take a look at the Top Ten Tips for Women Who Lead Men from Alvaro Fernandez at SharpBrains.
- Omnome focuses on Cancer: A Mistep into Chaos Quicksand?
- Thomas Goetz at Epidemix checks out: What’s the Status of GINA? An Update.
- Eugenics and biopolitics? Don’t miss The new liberal eugenics? at Long Sunday!
I tried to interpret these genetic news and opinions like that, but there are other solutions as well. Which one would you prefer? Maybe this one?
Our September host is going to be Balancing Life. Send your submissions via the official blogcarnival form. Thanks for watching!
Genetic Testing: BlogMix and a funny video July 19, 2007
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in About me, Blogging, BlogMix, Fun, Gene, Genetic condition, Genetic screening, Genetic testing, genetics, Health, Health 2.0, Healthcare, Humor, Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Personalized medicine, Prevention, science, Sciencefun, Video, Web 2.0.2 comments
I’ve been totally busy because of my summer practice at the department of pediatrics. I’ve seen many cases when genetic tests are needed (a strange haemophilia-related case, hereditary spherocytosis, etc.). I thought I should be your aggregator for today, so I tried to collect the most interesting posts on genetic testing, and I also present a new genetic blog. Then after reading all of these, don’t miss the funny video about a parody of a public service announcement on genetic testing.
Medicine 2.0 means that you can read valuable comments and opinions which are unlikely to be published in a scientific paper. Hsien-Hsien Lei greatly answers common questions about genetic testing.
Steven Murphy, the Gene Sherpa always informs us about new techniques and procedures that make it easier to diagnose (genetic) conditions and to predict risks for diseases. This time, in his article No More Skin Biopsies?, he says, it does demonstrate how ubiquitous genetic soon will be in the office.
Blaine Bettinger, our favourite genetic genealogist, describes the pros and cons of autosomal genetic testing. He says, no autosomal test, now or in the future, will ever be able to completely define a person or a person’s heritage. The solution could be the easy and fast whole genome sequencing. We hope it’s going to be reality soon.
After writing my Awesome Genetic Announcements post, Cicada from bioephemera.com asked me to express my opinion about how we can handle untreatable disorders (such as early-onset Alzheimers, or bipolar disorder) and whether one’s genetic risks could lead to being uninsured and unemployed.
- We don’t have to handle those. In a personalized genetic practice, an easy solution could be that the patient chooses from a list that what kind of diseases, conditions, genes they want to know about.
- For answering the second question, I just have to show you the winner of the post of the week award: Medical Ethics 2.0 from The Personal Genome. This post will really answer everything regarding medical ethics and insurance problems.
As I’ve promised, here is a new blog on the sky of the genetic blogosphere, Cancer Genetics. Ramūnas Janavičius, a clinical genetics resident doctor from Vilnius University, Lithuania, who is interested in human cancer genetics. He thinks that we help his work, but the truth is that he does a great service for us and the readers for writing about cancer genetics (an awesome topic!). Follow his blog in the future!
At last, let’s have some fun (actually it’s not as funny as you think):
Next time, I’m going to write about my conception on what a personalized genetic practice is like.
Related links:
Game: Who are on the picture? July 16, 2007
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Fun, Humor, Medicine, Sciencefun.3 comments
Tell us who are on the picture!
The winner gets a free Scienceroll RSS subscription. 
No comment: Accidental condom inhalation July 5, 2007
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Fun, Health, Humor, Medical Imaging, Medicine, Sciencefun.21 comments
After a successful radiology exam (the only one left is pulmonology), I’ve been just surfing on PubMed and this article caught my sight:
Accidental condom inhalation.
Jaswant Rai Speciality Hospital, Meerut, India.
A 27-year-old lady presented with persistent cough, sputum and fever for the preceding six months. Inspite of trials with antibiotics and anti-tuberculosis treatment for the preceeding four months, her symptoms did not improve. A subsequent chest radiograph showed non-homogeneous collapse-consolidation of right upper lobe. Videobronchoscopy revealed an inverted bag like structure in right upper lobe bronchus and rigid bronchoscopic removal with biopsy forceps confirmed the presence of a condom. Detailed retrospective history also confirmed accidental inhalation of the condom during fellatio.
Can you imagine this?
Grand Rounds at Wandering Visitor June 26, 2007
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Blogging, Grand Rounds, Humor, Scienceroll.3 comments
Grand rounds, the weekly blog carnival of the best of the medical blogosphere is up at Wandering Visitor. For the first time, there is an extended list of the authors. I loved it as it makes the post really serious. Anyway, Scienceroll has been mentioned:
Bertalan from ScienceRoll posts about Second Life, an “educational island for genetics.”
The discussion tells us how to find inspiration for our work. It’s funny and valuable at the same time. Here is my choice:
- Keagirl weighs in on men’s focus on all things penis. Ever wonder what some people worry about? Check this out. (AWESOME!)
10 Tips for How to Acquire a Disease May 31, 2007
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in 10 tips, Cancer, genetics, Health, Humor, List, Medicine, Nutrition, Prevention, science.20 comments
I’m an admirer of Wade Meredith’s writings at Healthbolt.net and after reading his post on How to Give Yourself Diabetes, I realized that sarcasm makes it easier to reach people with important messages.
Now, I’d like to provide a list of tips not just how to get sick, but how to get even a serious disease.
1. Forget about sport! 30 minutes of walking takes too much time, and we can’t do exercises 5-6 times a week. Physically inactive people are more likely to die early, to experience major illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes and to get banal infections. So enjoy your favourite armchair and watch the TV!
2. Get fat! If your body mass index (kg/m2) is at least equal to or more than 25, then you’re on the right way towards cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, musculoskeletal disorders and some cancers (endometrial, breast, and colon). 1.6 million people can’t be wrong!
3. Drink alcohol! There are about 2 billion people worldwide who consume alcoholic beverages and 76.3 million with diagnosable alcohol use disorders. These numbers are still too low, please help improving them! Drink, drink and you can get closer to oesophageal cancer, liver cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, homicide, epileptic seizures and motor vehicle accidents.
4. Smoke! Some cigarettes a day, and you can send the doctor away. The list of the possible effects of smoking is so exciting: cancers of the bladder, oral cavity, pharynx, larynx (voice box), esophagus, cervix, kidney, lung, pancreas, and stomach. I nearly forgot about cardiovascular diseases and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (the fourth leading cause of death in the USA).
5. Sunbathe! Chronic exposure to UV radiation causes erythema, sunburn or even melanoma, one of the deadliest diseases of the world. Try it! An easy and cheap method to suffer.
6. Use more salt! More than 5 g salt a day and you don’t have to worry about high blood pressure. “It has been calculated that a 3g reduction in salt intake in the adult population would lead to a 22% reduction in stroke and a 16% reduction in chronic heart disease.” It means that a daily 15 g salt intake would lead to serious results…
7. Stay stressed! Is your work boring? Are you in a middle of a traffic jam? Try to stay tensed as the stress ulcus is the best friend of the stomach. The pain, the bleeding and the acid in your oesophagus shouldn’t make you interested. Oh, and depression, burnout syndrome are also in the packet.
8. Don’t wash yourself! Improper hygiene can lead to problems like dental caries, fungal infections, parasites and it’s even helpful in transmitting HPV (keyplayer in the cancer of the cervix) and other sexually transmitted infections.
9. Inherit bad genes! You obviously can’t control it. But if you would at least take a deeper look at your family history, you could try to prevent some kind of diseases (e.g.: gout or diabetes type II. with proper diet). So forget about it! Don’t let enthusiastic geneticists force you to think differently!
10. Be creative! Travel to tropical countries (for malaria, tuberculosis and other hot diseases); don’t care about ticks (Lyme disease); do not eat vegetables and fruits (for colon cancer); work in a polluted place and especially think negative! It will definitely help.
I can write hundreds of posts here about web 2.0 and medicine (medicine 2.0, if you happen not to know about it) or genetic testing. But medicine starts at home. In many areas of medicine, we can’t control anything so at least we should take care about what we can take care about.
You can’t control the car rushing towards you without brake, but at least you can move two steps backward.
How to promote a university? May 22, 2007
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in About me, Humor, Medical education, Medicine, Music, Policy and Law, Video.2 comments
Here are two promotional videos about my university (University of Debrecen, Faculty of Medicine) where foreign students (many of my friends) talk about the education, facilities, parties and the community. If you would like to have fun, compare the videos (the first is created for parents, the second is for students):
Gummy Bear DNA May 22, 2007
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in DNA, Humor, Invention.1 comment so far
That’s why I admire the YourSciCom Blog! Benny Pacheco found this scheme on the YourGenome.org site.
I really have to make my own.
First Life? May 19, 2007
Posted by Dr. Bertalan Meskó in Humor, Second Life.2 comments
As the first part of this short-post weekend, you know well how much I admire the medical projects in Second Life, but here is a funny site writing about First Life.
Your world. Sorry about that…
(Via Science of the Invisible)
