Paleontologists are working to uncover the tail of a dinosaur at a dig site near the town of General Cepeda in northern Mexico. (AP Photo/INAH-Mauricio Marat)
MEXICO CITY ? Mexican paleontologists say they have uncovered 50 vertebrae believed to be a full dinosaur tail in the northern desert of Coahuila state.
The National Institute of Anthropology and History says the tail is about 15 feet (5 meters) long and resembles that of a hadrosaur or crested duckbill dinosaur.
An institute Monday says it's not yet possible to confirm the species, but it would be the first full tail of that kind in Mexico.
Paleontologist Felisa Aguilar says they uncovered roughly half of the dinosaur, which was 36 feet (12 meters) long and lived about 72 million years ago.
The excavation took 20 days in the municipality of General Cepeda in the northern state that borders Texas.
The paleontologists, working with Mexico's National Autonomous University, also found hip bones.
The genetic key to conquering choleraPublic release date: 19-Jul-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Peter Reuell preuell@fas.harvard.edu 617-496-8070 Harvard University
Researchers find evidence that genetic changes play a role in resistance to deadly disease
Researchers have long understood that genetics can play a role in how susceptible people are to contracting cholera, but a team of Harvard scientists is now uncovering evidence of genetic changes that might also help protect some people from contracting the deadly disease.
Based on genetic data gathered from hundreds of people in Bangladesh, a research team made up of Harvard faculty and scientists from the Broad Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital were able to a number of areas in the genome some of which are responsible for certain immune system functions, while others are related to fluid loss that appear to be related to cholera resistance. Later tests showed genetic differences between people who had contracted the disease and those who had been exposed, but did not become ill. Their results are described in a paper published earlier this month in Science Translational Medicine.
"This study is exceptionally exciting for us because it shows the power of this approach," said Associate Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Pardis Sabeti, one of two senior co-authors of the paper. "This is the first time we've taken a genomic-wide approach to understanding cholera resistance. But it's a first step, and there is a lot of exploration to go from here. For a disease that's so ancient and widespread there's very little that's known about host immunity."
The hope, Sabeti added, is that by better understanding why some people appear to be immune, it will help in our efforts to develop vaccines and therapies, so outbreaks like those that occurred in recent years in Haiti and Africa might one-day be avoided.
"It is a very scary disease," she said. "We now have treatments with oral rehydration therapy, but it is still devastating, and in extreme cases, cholera can kill in hours."
"We also haven't been able to develop a particularly effective vaccine," added Elinor Karlsson, a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, the first author of the paper. "The vaccine that's available wears off after a few years, whereas people who are exposed to the disease develop a long-lasting immunityand nobody is quite sure why that is. This research is another way of tackling that problem, and it's a way no one has come at it before."
To understand the genetic differences between those with and without resistance, researchers first gathered genetic data on 42 family groups called "trios" that included a mother, father and child. Using that data, researchers identified more than 300 areas of the genome that appeared to be under pressure due to natural selection, suggesting that genes in those regions might be adapting to deal with the threat of cholera.
"We found 305 areas or about two percent of the genome that appeared to be under selection," Karlsson said. "That's great, but unfortunately, all our tests can tell us is that a region is under selection, it doesn't tell us why."
To find those answers, Karlsson turned to a process called "gene set enrichment" testing to determine whether any particular groups of genes showed up in those regions more often than others.
"We found two strong patterns," Karlsson said. "We found a whole set of genes that are related to a gene called IKBKG, which plays a key role in immunity. But what we found was not the gene itself, but a whole group of genes that regulate IKBKG. We also found a whole set of genes for potassium channels, which are the channels in the walls of our cells that regulate fluid loss.
"What's interesting is that it shows what a huge pressure cholera has been on this population," she added. "You could be selecting for anything in there skin color, hair color or even other diseases but because cholera was a big enough force, we could pick it out just by doing this kind of testing."
Armed with that data, researchers then performed a comparative study examining the specific genetic regions in more than 100 patients who were sick with cholera and others who had been exposed to the disease, but had not become sick. The results, Karlsson said, showed differences between the two groups.
"The region that had the biggest signal that suggested the region was under pressure from natural selection, also had the biggest difference between people who were sick and who were not sick today," Karlsson said.
Going forward, Karlsson said, researchers hope to conduct wider studies of the genetic differences between people who are susceptible and those who appear to be immune in the hope of identifying precisely which genes are involved, and the pathways involved in resistance.
"We have narrowed it down to a few genes, but the problem is that these are genes that people have not paid a great deal of attention to before," Karlsson said. "There's not a whole lot of description out there about them, so it's hard to know which one might be the best candidate for study."
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The genetic key to conquering choleraPublic release date: 19-Jul-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Peter Reuell preuell@fas.harvard.edu 617-496-8070 Harvard University
Researchers find evidence that genetic changes play a role in resistance to deadly disease
Researchers have long understood that genetics can play a role in how susceptible people are to contracting cholera, but a team of Harvard scientists is now uncovering evidence of genetic changes that might also help protect some people from contracting the deadly disease.
Based on genetic data gathered from hundreds of people in Bangladesh, a research team made up of Harvard faculty and scientists from the Broad Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital were able to a number of areas in the genome some of which are responsible for certain immune system functions, while others are related to fluid loss that appear to be related to cholera resistance. Later tests showed genetic differences between people who had contracted the disease and those who had been exposed, but did not become ill. Their results are described in a paper published earlier this month in Science Translational Medicine.
"This study is exceptionally exciting for us because it shows the power of this approach," said Associate Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Pardis Sabeti, one of two senior co-authors of the paper. "This is the first time we've taken a genomic-wide approach to understanding cholera resistance. But it's a first step, and there is a lot of exploration to go from here. For a disease that's so ancient and widespread there's very little that's known about host immunity."
The hope, Sabeti added, is that by better understanding why some people appear to be immune, it will help in our efforts to develop vaccines and therapies, so outbreaks like those that occurred in recent years in Haiti and Africa might one-day be avoided.
"It is a very scary disease," she said. "We now have treatments with oral rehydration therapy, but it is still devastating, and in extreme cases, cholera can kill in hours."
"We also haven't been able to develop a particularly effective vaccine," added Elinor Karlsson, a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, the first author of the paper. "The vaccine that's available wears off after a few years, whereas people who are exposed to the disease develop a long-lasting immunityand nobody is quite sure why that is. This research is another way of tackling that problem, and it's a way no one has come at it before."
To understand the genetic differences between those with and without resistance, researchers first gathered genetic data on 42 family groups called "trios" that included a mother, father and child. Using that data, researchers identified more than 300 areas of the genome that appeared to be under pressure due to natural selection, suggesting that genes in those regions might be adapting to deal with the threat of cholera.
"We found 305 areas or about two percent of the genome that appeared to be under selection," Karlsson said. "That's great, but unfortunately, all our tests can tell us is that a region is under selection, it doesn't tell us why."
To find those answers, Karlsson turned to a process called "gene set enrichment" testing to determine whether any particular groups of genes showed up in those regions more often than others.
"We found two strong patterns," Karlsson said. "We found a whole set of genes that are related to a gene called IKBKG, which plays a key role in immunity. But what we found was not the gene itself, but a whole group of genes that regulate IKBKG. We also found a whole set of genes for potassium channels, which are the channels in the walls of our cells that regulate fluid loss.
"What's interesting is that it shows what a huge pressure cholera has been on this population," she added. "You could be selecting for anything in there skin color, hair color or even other diseases but because cholera was a big enough force, we could pick it out just by doing this kind of testing."
Armed with that data, researchers then performed a comparative study examining the specific genetic regions in more than 100 patients who were sick with cholera and others who had been exposed to the disease, but had not become sick. The results, Karlsson said, showed differences between the two groups.
"The region that had the biggest signal that suggested the region was under pressure from natural selection, also had the biggest difference between people who were sick and who were not sick today," Karlsson said.
Going forward, Karlsson said, researchers hope to conduct wider studies of the genetic differences between people who are susceptible and those who appear to be immune in the hope of identifying precisely which genes are involved, and the pathways involved in resistance.
"We have narrowed it down to a few genes, but the problem is that these are genes that people have not paid a great deal of attention to before," Karlsson said. "There's not a whole lot of description out there about them, so it's hard to know which one might be the best candidate for study."
###
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?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
DALLAS (Reuters) - Most of the Texas clinics that abortion rights advocates predict will close because of a new law requiring tighter health and safety standards likely will remain open - at least if history is any guide.
Governor Rick Perry signed the new legislation on Thursday, capping a whirlwind month in which Texas became the center of a national campaign by anti-abortion activists to restrict when, by whom and where the procedure can be performed.
Included in the new Texas law are requirements that abortion clinics meet hospital-style health standards, ranging from installation of hands-free sinks to upgrades to ventilation systems. Supporters call the rules crucial safety standards.
The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists opposed them, saying that they are "unnecessary and unsupported by scientific evidence."
The new laws in Texas and elsewhere have alarmed abortion rights advocates, who see them as an attempt to thwart the right to abortion granted by the Supreme Court in 1973.
In Texas, Planned Parenthood announced on Thursday that it was closing one of its 13 abortion clinics that provide abortions, citing the new law. The nation's largest abortion provider said the rules could force all but a handful of the 42 abortion facilities in Texas to close down.
But similar warnings in other states have not come to pass.
Twenty-six states have laws that require abortion clinics to meet varying levels of hospital standards, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights. Pennsylvania, Virginia and Missouri passed strict health and safety rules similar to Texas, it said.
In those three states, however, most clinics were able to stay open after the laws passed, some by reallocating dollars to comply with building upgrades, according to abortion providers and state health department officials interviewed by Reuters.
"It seems like an exaggeration from the other side that access is going to be cut off," said Mallory Quigley, spokeswoman for the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony list.
Elizabeth Nash, state issues manager for the Guttmacher Institute, which favors abortion rights but does research cited by both sides, said the new law will have an impact in Texas but maybe less than the worst fears.
"Clinics will close," she said. "But I can't say we are going to go down to six."
Of the 24 clinics in Pennsylvania prior to a tough new law in 2011, one closed voluntarily, according to the state health department. The state closed two others for serious violations including a freezer lined with frozen blood, and stained surgical instruments in dirty drawers, according to reports by state inspectors.
Two others were consolidated into a third clinic but maintained the same level of service to women as before, said Dr. W. Allen Hogge, chair of the Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences Department at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
All of the remaining 19 clinics are in compliance, said Pennsylvania health department spokeswoman Aimee Tysarczyk.
"To be honest, we weren't counting numbers as far as how many were going to close," said Micaiah Bilger, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, an anti-abortion group. "The purpose of the bill was to ensure basic health and safety standards for women that are going into these centers."
COMPLY OR CLOSE?
To remain open, some Pennsylvania clinics invested thousands of dollars to upgrade their facilities. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania, for instance, said it spent about $400,000 to renovate two clinics after the state began implementing tougher standards in June 2012.
They installed hands-free sinks, new flooring and upgrades to heating, ventilation and air conditioning, said spokeswoman Maggie Groff.
"They had to spend large sums of money to comply that otherwise would have been put into patient care," Susan Frietsche, senior staff attorney at the Women's Law Project.
Only one clinic has closed in Virginia since a new law was implemented there earlier this year, the state health department said. No clinics have closed in Missouri because of a tough law passed there in 2007, abortion provider Planned Parenthood of Kansas and mid-Missouri said.
The national campaign to push for tighter restrictions on clinics gained momentum after the May conviction of a Philadelphia doctor, Kermit Gosnell, of murdering three babies born alive during abortions by severing their spinal cords.
Prosecutors in the case described his clinic as a "house of horrors" where recovery chairs were bloodstained and equipment broken.
The Gosnell case, Quigley said, shows "the abortion industry is not capable of policing itself."
Abortion rights activists said Gosnell was an exception among mostly safe and legal abortion providers.
In addition to the tough standards for clinics, the Texas law bans most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, requires doctors performing abortions to have hospital admitting privileges, and limits the use of the RU-486 drug to end pregnancies.
It requires all abortion facilities to meet the standards of "ambulatory surgical centers" that perform outpatient surgery. First trimester abortions, which account for most such procedures, rarely require surgery.
"What is frustrating to us, as physicians, are rules coming out in Texas and other states that are catching on like crazy but are not medically based. They are to shut down abortion facilities," said Dr. Anne Davis, consulting medical director with Physicians for Reproductive Health, a national organization of doctors supporting the right to abortion.
Planned Parenthood said on Thursday it was preparing to sue the state of Texas over the new law, a tactic they employed in Missouri when the state in 2007 passed legislation requiring clinics to meet outpatient surgery standards for most abortions.
The two sides reached a settlement in 2010 under which Missouri waived some rules for clinics that only performed first trimester abortions, thus avoiding closings, said Peter Brownlie, chief executive of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri.
(Additional reporting by Kevin Murphy in Kansas City and Gary Robertson in Richmond, Virginia; Editing by Greg McCune, Paul Thomasch and Ken Wills)
That awkward moment when Westboro Baptist Church spelled ?illiterate? wrong on a flyer protesting illiteracy.
As much as we all love to rag on our bigoted friends at the WBC, it?s hard to deny that they have thrived this long because they run a pretty well-oiled hate ship.
Westboro Baptist Church chugs along and even grows in influence much the same way your average conspiracy theory catches steam: There?s an answer for everything. Oh, this group of non-partisan experts illustrated why this conspiracy is flawed? They were bought off by the government. Oh, these individuals crucial to the conspiracy didn?t actually do ?xyz?? Then who did do ?xyz?? Huh? Huh?
It kind of the same with Westboro Baptist Church. God hates fags. How do you know? It says so in the Bible. It actually doesn?t, WBC. Try telling me that when you?re choking on hellfire. See what I mean?
So our only hope of catching Westboro Baptist Church up and trolling them with evidence that even they cannot deny is the occasional, petty grammatical error.
On this occasion, we have to give credit to BuzzFeed for managing to pore through an entire Westboro Baptist Church flyer (presumably while sober) on which the controversial religious group announce their intention to picket ?fag marriage? in Rhode Island.
They found an easy-to-miss spelling error about half-way down the flyer.
?IS THE UNITED STATES POPULATION ILLERATE? CAN?T YOU READ??
Yeah, we can read. We noticed you spelled ?illiterate? wrong.
Check out Westboro Baptist Church?s ?illiterate? flyer below:
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Public release date: 19-Jul-2013
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