Medicine

Sex Reassignment Surgery in Transgender women is a misunderstood, maligned, and mysterious procedure.  Thursday I  will have this procedure sometimes called  Gender Confirmation Surgery.  I will blog about it, tweet about it, and Vlog about it on Youtube.  This will be a look at what this procedure is really like.  UPDATED with a link to my RealSelf review which will include images of the surgical result at bottom of page. Gender Confirmation Surgery as it is now called in very PC circles is one of the mysterious procedures of transgender life.  Do they chop…

Originating from Africa, India, and the Middle East, frankincense oil has been found to have many medicinal benefits. Now, an enriched extract of the Somalian Frankincense herb Boswellia carteri has been shown to kill off bladder cancer cells. Research presented in the open access journal, BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, demonstrates that this herb has the potential for an alternative therapy for bladder cancer. Bladder cancer is twice as common in males as it is in females. In the US, bladder cancer is the fourth most common type of cancer in men, whilst in the UK it is the…

One of the small regulatory molecules, named microRNA-125b, is a novel regulator of p53, an important protein that safeguards cells against cancers, Singapore and U.S. scientists report in the March 17, 2009 issue of the journal Genes & Development. The scientists found that during embryonic development, this microRNA keeps the level of p53 low to avoid excessive cell death. But, if the DNA is damaged, the microRNA level is reduced to allow an increase in p53, which eliminates damaged cells and thus prevents tumor formation. The research was conducted with zebrafish. "Interestingly,…

Female birds often choose their mates based on fancy feathers. Female mammals, on the other hand, may be more likely to follow their noses to the right mate. That's one conclusion of Cambridge zoologist Tim Clutton-Brock and Harvard researcher Katherine McAuliffe, whose review of evidence for female mate choice is published in the March 2009 issue of The Quarterly Review of Biology. Historically, most examples of female mate choice and its evolutionary consequences are found in birds. The classic case is the peacock's tail. The ornate tails do nothing to help peacocks survive. Rather, they…

DURHAM, N.C. -- Somewhere out there in the ocean, SpongeBob SquarePants has a teeny-tiny cousin and a humongous uncle. That's just what one would expect from a new analysis of body sizes across all orders of animal life that was conducted by researchers at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent), in Durham, N.C. and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Researchers Craig McClain and Alison Boyer created a giant database on body sizes across all orders of animal life and found that phyla -- families of animals grouped together by a similar body plan -- with the greatest…

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Researchers have uncovered new evidence suggesting factors other than genes could cause obesity, finding that genetically identical cells store widely differing amounts of fat depending on subtle variations in how cells process insulin. Learning the precise mechanism responsible for fat storage in cells could lead to methods for controlling obesity. "Insights from our study also will be important for understanding the precise roles of insulin in obesity or Type II diabetes, and to the design of effective intervention strategies," said Ji-Xin Cheng, an assistant…

URBANA - In an experiment spanning over 20 years, researchers at the University of Illinois have found that vulnerability to being caught by anglers is a heritable trait in largemouth bass. The study began in 1975 with the resident population of bass in Ridge Lake, an experimental study lake in Fox Ridge State Park in Charleston. The fishing was controlled. For example, anglers had to reserve times, and every fish that was caught was put into a live well on the boat. The fish were measured and tagged to keep track of how many times each fish had been caught. All fish were then released. "We…

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — In a new study, researchers at the University of Illinois have identified and visualized the signaling pathways in protein-RNA complexes that help set the genetic code in all organisms. The genetic code allows information stored in DNA to be translated into proteins. The researchers report their findings in a paper accepted for publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and posted on the journal's Web site. "Using molecular dynamics simulations and new visualization software, we can examine and compare different signaling pathways found in living…

Despite modern medicine, one in 1,000 American babies are born deaf. The numbers increase markedly with age, with more than 50% of seniors in the United States experiencing some form of hearing loss. But the era of the hearing aid, and shouting at aging in-laws, may soon be over. A new, landmark study by a world-renowned geneticist and hearing loss expert at Tel Aviv University has uncovered one of the root causes of deafness. Prof. Karen Avraham of the Department of Human Molecular Genetics, Sackler School of Medicine at Tel Aviv University, has discovered that microRNAs, tiny molecules…

UPTON, NY -- By creating a "family tree" of genes expressed in one form of woody plant and a less woody, herbaceous species, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have uncovered clues that may help them engineer plants more amenable to biofuel production. The study, published in the April 2009 issue of Plant Molecular Biology, also lays a foundation for understanding these genes' evolutionary and structural properties and for a broader exploration of their roles in plant life. "We are studying a very large family of genes that instruct cells to make a…