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viernes, 18 de enero de 2013

Barra libre de ADN


Identifying Personal Genomes by Surname Inference

  1. Yaniv Erlich1,*

El presente artículo, publicado en "Science", viene a demostrar la afirmación bíblica de que nada permanecerá oculto. Pues bien, las cosas son así: el Proyecto Genoma Humano y otros esfuerzos para conocer la plantilla genética del Homo Sapiens se gestó mediante la secuenciación del ADN de indivíduos anónimos. Es decir nadie revela su constitución genética particular (excepto aquellos delincuentes que se han ganado a pulso que la policía los tenga registrados hasta por el perfil genético en una base de datos). Pero no es el caso de un paper en el que el equipo investigador cruza datos y, un poquito por aquí y otro tanto por otro lado, y a base de emplear información libre de internet, llega a identificar algunos de los donantes. El asunto no es moco de pavo. Con los denominados metadatos tales como edad y región geográfica de procedencia y las secuencias génicas, se le pone nombre y apellidos a la información científica. Vamos, un Gran Hermano íntimo y familiar. Si ellos lo hicieron lo puede hacer cualquiera.

+Author Affiliations
  1. 1Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, 9 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
  2. 2Harvard–Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Division of Health Sciences and Technology, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
  3. 3Program in Medical and Population Genetics, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA.
  4. 4Department of Molecular Biology and Diabetes Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA.
  5. 5Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
  6. 6Department of Statistics and Operations Research, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel.
  7. 7School of Computer Science, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel.
  8. 8Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology, Tel-Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel.
  9. 9The International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley, CA 94704, USA.
  1. *To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: yaniv@wi.mit.edu

ABSTRACT

Sharing sequencing data sets without identifiers has become a common practice in genomics. Here, we report that surnames can be recovered from personal genomes by profiling short tandem repeats on the Y chromosome (Y-STRs) and querying recreational genetic genealogy databases. We show that a combination of a surname with other types of metadata, such as age and state, can be used to triangulate the identity of the target. A key feature of this technique is that it entirely relies on free, publicly accessible Internet resources. We quantitatively analyze the probability of identification for U.S. males. We further demonstrate the feasibility of this technique by tracing back with high probability the identities of multiple participants in public sequencing projects.

miércoles, 16 de enero de 2013

Los mitos de la felicidad marital


Generalmente cuando la gente se casa siente una gran alegría, vive un subidón de felicidad. Lo malo es que no dura demasiado. Richard E. Lucas ha estudiado el asunto y afirma que más o menos dos años. La pasión dura todavía menos y en el mejor de los casos evoluciona y se convierte en un profundo afecto, gusto por la otra persona y cercanía. Tal parece que "lo de hasta que la muerte nos separe" no tiene mucho fundamento científico. Pero los entendidos afirman que el matrimonio puede salvarse si la pareja se lo trabaja en el plano afectivo. De otra manera la rutina mata las más fructíferas relaciones.
"Studies by Richard E. Lucas and colleagues at Michigan State University have shown that the happiness boost that occurs with marriage lasts only about two years, after which people revert to their former levels of happiness — or unhappiness.
Infatuation and passion have even shorter life spans, and must evolve into “companionate love, composed more of deep affection, connection and liking,” according to Sonya Lyubomirsky, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside.
In her new book, “The Myths of Happiness,” Dr. Lyubomirsky describes a slew of research-tested actions and words that can do wonders to keep love alive.
She points out that the natural human tendency to become “habituated” to positive circumstances — to get so used to things that make us feel good that they no longer do — can be the death knell of marital happiness. Psychologists call it “hedonic adaptation”: things that thrill us tend to be short-lived."

Hacer dieta vegetariana sin morir en el intento

Cómo iniciarse en la nutrición vegetariana y no perecer en el intento por Tara Parker-Bond. Yo no soy vegetariana pero de vez en cuando disfruto muchísimo con buenos platos veganos. Con frecuencia en los viajes en avión opto por la selección vegana, ya que al menos me sirven antes y sé lo que voy a tragar.
NONDAIRY MILK : Pruebe distintas leches de origen vegetal. Aquí se recomienda la de soja. Opino lo mismo que Parker-Bond:sabe muy bien.
Taste all of them to find your favorite. Coconut and almond milks (particularly canned coconut milk) are thicker and good to use in cooking, while rice milk is thinner and is good for people who are allergic to nuts or soy. My daughter and I both prefer the taste of soy milk and use it in regular or vanilla flavor for fruit smoothies and breakfast cereal. 
NONDAIRY CHEESE : Queso sin queso es casi imposible. Se aconsejan el tofú, el miso y otras combinaciones.
Cheese substitutes are available under the brand names DaiyaTofutti and Follow Your Heart, among others, but many vegans say there’s no fake cheese that satisfies as well as the real thing. Rather than use a packaged product, vegan chefs prefer to make homemade substitutes using cashews, tofu, miso or nutritional yeast. AtCandle 79, a popular New York vegan restaurant, the filling for saffron ravioli with wild mushrooms and cashew cheese is made with cashews soaked overnight and then blended with lemon juice, olive oil, water and salt.
266
What a
 Think creamy, not cheessy: Aqui se sugieren varias mezclas: pasta de pesto y aguacate, cebolla caramelizada.

Creaminess and richness can often be achieved without a cheese substitute. For instance, Chloe Coscarelli, a vegan chef and the author of “Chloe’s Kitchen,” has created a pizza with caramelized onion and butternut squash that will make you forget it doesn’t have cheese; the secret is white-bean and garlic purée. She also offers a creamy, but dairy-free, avocado pesto pasta. My daughter and I have discovered we actually prefer the rich flavor of butternut squash ravioli, which can be found frozen and fresh in supermarkets, to cheese-filled ravioli.
NUTRITIONAL YEAST : Se recomiendan las levaduras con sabor a queso (?).
The name is unappetizing, but many vegan chefs swear by it: it’s a natural food with a roasted, nutty, cheeselike flavor. Ms. Coscarelli uses nutritional yeast flakes in her “best ever” baked macaroni and cheese (found in her cookbook). “I’ve served this to die-hard cheese lovers,” she told me, “and everyone agrees it is comparable, if not better.”
Susan Voisin’s Web site, Fat Free Vegan Kitchen, offers a nice primer on nutritional yeast, noting that it’s a fungus (think mushrooms!) that is grown on molasses and then harvested and dried with heat. (Baking yeast is an entirely different product.) Nutritional yeasts can be an acquired taste, she said, so start with small amounts, sprinkling on popcorn, stirring into mashed potatoes, grinding with almonds for a Parmesan substitute or combining with tofu to make an eggless omelet. It can be found in Whole Foods, in the bulk aisle of natural-foods markets or online.
BUTTER : Margarinas vegetales
This is an easy fix. Vegan margarines like Earth Balance are made from a blend of oils and are free of trans fats. Varieties include soy-free, whipped and olive oil.
EGGS :Se describe un "mejunje" con vinagre y bicarbonato. El tofú puede simular una tortilla.
Ms. Coscarelli, who won the Food Network’s Cupcake Wars with vegan cupcakes, says vinegar and baking soda can help baked goods bind together and rise, creating a moist and fluffy cake without eggs. Cornstarch can substitute for eggs to thicken puddings and sauces. Vegan pancakes are made with a tablespoon of baking powder instead of eggs. Frittatas and omelets can be replicated with tofu.
No se castigue. Es imposible reproducir sus platos preferidos como las sangrientas hamburguesas, los grasos chuletones y el apetitoso jamón. Jamás dará con algo vegetariano que sepa parecido.
Finally, don’t try to replicate your favorite meaty foods right away. If you love a juicy hamburger, meatloaf or ham sandwich, you are not going to find a meat-free version that tastes the same. Ms. Voisin advises new vegans to start slow and eat a few vegan meals a week. Stock your pantry with lots of grains, lentils and beans and pile your plate with vegetables. To veganize a recipe, start with a dish that is mostly vegan already — like spaghetti — and use vegetables or a meat substitute for the sauce.
“Trying to recapture something and find an exact substitute is really hard,” she said. “A lot of people will try a vegetarian meatloaf right after they become vegetarian, and they hate it. But after you get away from eating meat for a while, you’ll find you start to develop other tastes, and the flavor of a lentil loaf with seasonings will taste great to you. It won’t taste like meat loaf, but you’ll appreciate it for itself.”
Ms. Voisin notes that she became a vegetarian and then vegan while living in a small town in South Carolina; she now lives in Jackson, Miss.
“If I can be a vegan in these not-quite-vegan-centric places, you can do it anywhere,” she said. “I think people who try to do it all at once overnight are more apt to fail. It’s a learning process.”


martes, 15 de enero de 2013

Genes viajeros: Desde la India a Australia


Genomes link aboriginal Australians to Indians

Mingling of genes four millennia ago suggests continent was not isolated after all.

  The ancestors of Australia's Aboriginal populations were not as genetically isolated from the rest of the world as once thought.
PENNY TWEEDIE/CORBIS
El estudio detallado del genoma puede aportar datos inesperados. Como los resultados que aquí aparecen. Hasta ahora se prensaba que los aborígenes australianos habían permanecido aislados en su mundo sin otros contactos. De análisis comparativos de su genoma resulta que no es cierto. Los aborígenes de Australia estuvieron en contacto con olas de migración procedentes de India con los se ha demostrado que comparten hasta un 11% de su ADN. ("Nature")
Some aboriginal Australians can trace as much as 11% of their genomes to migrants who reached the island around 4,000 years ago from India, a study suggests. Along with their genes, the migrants brought different tool-making techniques and the ancestors of the dingo, researchers say1.
This scenario is the result of a large genetic analysis outlined today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1. It contradicts a commonly held view that Australia had no contact with the rest of the world between the arrival of the first humans around 45,000 years ago and the coming of Europeans in the eighteenth century.
“Australia is thought to represent one of the earliest migrations for humans after they left Africa, but it seemed pretty isolated after that,” says Mark Stoneking, a geneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, who led the study.

Alerta mundial por coronavirus




A new coronavirus found in the Middle East is one of a family of viruses named after the corona-like appearance of their surface spikes.
ELIZABETH R. FISCHER, ROCKY MOUNTAIN LABS/NIAID/NIH  

La Organización Mundial de la Salud ha declarado estado de alerta frente al coronavirus 2C EMC/2012 humano. Existe peligro de su expansión mundial. El virus, en sus diversas cepas, causa neumonía grave y fallo renal.

      The World Health Organization (WHO) urged that surveillance for the virus, called human betacoronavirus 2c EMC/2012, should be extended to all countries worldwide, with a special focus on all clusters of severe pneumonia, particularly in health workers. Epidemiologists say that the nebulous threat requires close monitoring, by investigating and controlling any new clusters of human cases that could signal that the virus has adapted to spread between people more easily.
The coronavirus, first reported on 20 September, causes severe pneumonia and often kidney failure. In the nine cases confirmed so far, it has had a death rate of more than 50%. “It’s an extremely serious disease; it’s very much in the category of H5N1 [avian influenza],” says David Heymann, chairman of the UK Health Protection Agency and former head of the communicable-diseases programme at the WHO during the 2003 SARS epidemic, caused by a different coronavirus. 

Los porros no atontan tanto


Pot smokers might not turn into dopes after all

Revisiting data casts doubts on link between heavy cannabis use and declining IQ.

Getting high on a regular basis as a teenager has been said to lower your IQ — but the truth may not be so simple.
BSIP/PHOTOSHOT

What other factors might cause the decline in IQ?

Ole Røgeberg, a labour economist at the Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research in Oslo and the author of the latest paper, ran simulations which showed that confounding factors associated with socioeconomic status could explain the earlier result. For example, poorer people have reduced access to schooling, irrespective of cannabis use.

Is this a case of correlation versus causation?

Possibly. The data used in the original paper came from the Dunedin Study, a research project in which a group of slightly more than 1,000 people born in New Zealand in 1972–73 have been tracked from birth to age 38 and beyond. As with all such birth-cohort epidemiological studies (also called longitudinal studies), there is a risk of inferring causal links from observed associations between one factor and another.
Past research on the Dunedin cohort shows3 that individuals from backgrounds with low socioeconomic status are more likely than others to begin smoking cannabis during adolescence, and are more likely to progress from use to dependence. Røgeberg says that these effects, combined with reduced access to schooling, can generate a correlation between cannabis use and IQ change.
According to Røgeberg, people with low socioeconomic status are, on average, likely to show declining IQ as they age and gradually self-select or are sorted into less cognitively demanding arenas. For example, they are less likely than people with high socioeconomic status to attend university, and more likely to take manual jobs.

Do other studies show a drop in IQ with cannabis use?

Røgeberg cites three studies4–6 in which cannabis use is not associated with declining IQ. He says that these studies show clear reductions in IQ for the heaviest smokers, but these are not permanent, and people who have stopped smoking heavily show no decline.

What do the original paper's authors make of Røgeberg's analysis?

Madeline Meier, a psychologist at the Duke Transdisciplinary Prevention Research Center in Durham, North Carolina, who co-wrote the original paper with her colleagues, says that Røgeberg's ideas are interesting. However, she points out that the authors of the first PNAS paper restricted their analysis to individuals in middle-class families and those with low or high socioeconomic status. The outcome suggests that the decline in IQ cannot be attributed to socioeconomic factors alone.
In their original analysis, Meier says, she and her colleagues controlled for socioeconomic status and found that in all socioeconomic categories, the IQs of children who were not heavy users remained unchanged from adolescence to adulthood. Therefore, she says, socioeconomic status does not influence IQ decline.

So who is right?

It is hard to say. Both analyses study the same data set in different ways, and each has merits.

Is there a way to find out the answer definitively?

Perhaps — by comparing the Dunedin Study with another in a different country. Such comparisons have been done before. For example, the United Kingdom's Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) found that children who were breastfed for longer went on to have higher IQs, lower blood pressure and lower body mass indices than those who were not. However, longer breastfeeding is associated with higher socioeconomic status in the United Kingdom; when the data were compared with data from the Pelotas longitudinal study in Brazil, where breastfeeding is not associated with higher socioeconomic status, the link with increased IQ was maintained, but the other benefits disappeared7.

What do other scientists think?

Mitch Earleywine, a psychologist at the University at Albany, State University of New York, says that Røgeberg's analysis definitely supports the idea that links between adolescent cannabis use and drops in IQ are essentially spurious, arising from socioeconomic differences rather than any sort of pharmacological action. John Macleod of the University of Bristol, UK, who works on the ALSPAC data, points out that Meier and her colleagues acknowledged in their original paper that the results might be caused by confounding factors. He adds that the modelling in Røgeberg's paper shows that within a set of reasonable assumptions, this is indeed possible.

domingo, 13 de enero de 2013

El negocio del cáncer al desnudo

The Cancer Cash Cycle: The Causes of Cancer and Ill Health

By Colin Todhunter


Un viejo chiste (malo) afirma que todo lo que no engorda produce cáncer. Pues bien tras el polémico  paper de Jim Watson (que es cualquier cosa entre ellas Nobel, menos un almita cándida) he escogido un artículo de Colin Todhunter que con tintes  sombríos describe el entorno de la investigación y tratamiento del cáncer, que representa un floreciente negocio. El autor le da un buen repaso a la industria de organismos genéticamente manipulados (GMO) y señala que en muchos casos las compañías que los comercializan también diseñan sustancias anti cancerígenas. Todhunter menciona investigaciones que apoyan que las fuentes de contaminación ambiental favorecen el desarrollo de algunas formas de cáncer. It´s up to you.

Url of this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-cancer-cash-cycle-the-causes-of-cancer-and-ill-health/5318449

Cancer is big business. Despite massive public screening campaigns and talk of cures, cancer rates continue to soar, and certain companies not only profit from making the chemicals that cause cancer but also from selling the drugs that treat it.

The 2010 documentary ‘Cut, Poison, Burn” provides revealing insight into the medical monopoly of cancer ‘treatment’, as a four year old boy who was diagnosed with brain cancer was compelled to undergo a system of chemo, surgery and radiation, against his parents wishes. He was not allowed access to a proven method of alternative treatment. The medical system’s response was callous. The authorities threatened to take the boy into custody and charged his parents with child abuse if the medical option was not opted for. The boy’s death certificate states his cause of death as: “respiratory failure due to chronic toxicity of chemotherapy”.

It is easy to conclude after watching the film that what we have here is some kind of corrupt racket. Indeed, the 2009 documentary ‘The Idiot Cycle’ alleges that some of the world’s top cancer causing culprits (including, it is claimed in the film, Bayer, BASF, Dow, Dupont, Monsanto, Syngenta, Novartis, Pfizer, among others) are allegedly profiting from the production of cancer-causing products and then some of the same companies are investing in profitable cancer ‘treatments’. These claims outlined in the movie remain to be fully verified.

On top of this, some of these companies are now developing genetically modified crops, which have never been adequately tested for long-term health impacts like cancer. The onset of the disease is frequently 15 to 20 years down the road for victims.

Prior to undertaking his recent study into the health impacts of GMOs and incurring the wrath of the GMO sector for his findings, Gilles-Eric Seralini, professor of molecular biology at the University of Caen in France, said it was absurd that only three months of testing allowed GM corn to be approved in over a dozen nations. Upon reviewing Monsanto’s raw data, he and his team found, among other problems, liver damage and physiological changes into a pre-diabetic condition among the rats which had eaten Monsanto’s GM corn. And that’s just from three months of eating such food. His new study was over a two year period.

The incidence of cancer is escalating and is expected to double by 2050, and it’s a global issue. For example, the incidence of cancer for some major organs in India is the highest in the world. While tobacco is a major cause, other factors cannot be discounted. Recent reports in the Indian media have drawn attention to rising rates of breast cancer in urban areas, and in 2009 there was a reported increase in cancer rates in Tamil Nadu’s textile belt, possibly due to chemically contaminated water. But without proper regulations in force, this may be the thin end of the wedge for India.

According to Dr Samuel Epstein, emeritus professor of environmental medicine at the University of Illinois, a range of industries in the US have contaminated the air, land and sea with a wide range of petrochemical and other carcinogens. This has not only affected the public at large, but has also placed workers in certain sectors and their offspring at risk of cancer.

Epstein notes that the incidence of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma has increased by nearly 100 per cent in the US over the last few decades, and brain cancer by about 80 to 90 per cent. Breast cancer has gone up by about 60 to 65 per cent. Testicular cancer – particularly in men between the ages of 28 and 35 – has gone up by nearly 300 percent. Epstein asserts that there has been a massive escalation in the incidence of cancer that cannot be explained away on the basis of smoking, longevity, genetics or a fatty diet. He may be right.

In the US, animal and dairy products are contaminated with a wide range of hormones, pesticides and other industrial chemical carcinogens, some of which are very important risk factors for reproductive cancers – testicular cancers in men, breast cancers in women and leukemia in children. The use of the IGF1 growth hormone in milk has been associated with breast, prostate and colon cancer.

Epstein provides various examples of everyday, taken-for-granted household items, cosmetics and toiletries, from deodorants to shampoo and talcum powder, which also contain chemicals that are carcinogens. The conclusion is that synthetic chemicals and their effects on people’s health affect everyone simply because they can be found in so many consumer products today. Unfortunately many governments roll over all too easily when it comes to sanctioning new synthetic chemicals without adequate testing, which is not too surprising, especially where pharmaceuticals are concerned – substantially more money is spent by companies on marketing and lobbying than on actual research into their drugs.

The usual tactic by officialdom is to individualise health issues by advising people to change their behaviour. While in certain cases individual behaviour may indeed minimise risks, there is not much the individual can do in terms of many of the major cancers that have increased in recent decades. By adopting a “blame the victim” strategy, attention is diverted away from the practices of large profiteering corporations that cause cancer and ill health.

Scientist Dr Shiv Chopra tells of his many battles against the Canadian government which knowingly allowed dangerous drugs, agricultural practices and carcinogenic pesticides to enter the food supply. Chopra asserts that there is a concerted effort by companies to sicken and then treat humanity, while raking in massive profits.

Whistleblowers like Chopra are playing a valuable role by exposing corrupt practices, and films like ‘Cut, Burn, Poison’ and ‘The Idiot Cycle’ are helping to shed light on the failure of the ‘war on cancer’ (war on drugs, war on terror... corrupt practices and failure – a common theme). At the same time, a number of pressure groups are actually engaged in trying to phase out the use of carcinogenic chemicals in products. As was the case when the tobacco companies were taken on, though, tackling the interests of powerful state-corporate actors is likely to be a long and arduous affair.