Thinkgene is on the road this week. Regular postings will resume next week.

Kevin: This builds on earlier studies about the Piraha showing they have the numbers zero, one and many.

An Amazonian language with only 300 speakers has no word to express the concept of “one” or any other specific number, according to a new study from an MIT-led team.

The team, led by MIT professor of brain and cognitive sciences Edward Gibson, found that members of the Piraha tribe in remote northwestern Brazil use language to express relative quantities such as “some” and “more,” but not precise numbers.

It is often assumed that counting is an innate part of human cognition, said Gibson, “but here is a group that does not count. They could learn, but it’s not useful in their culture, so they’ve never picked it up.” … Continue Reading »

Eppendorf International, a lab equipment supplier, created this video to promote their automated pipetting machine. No commentary necessary… though we’d like to reward efforts like this with a relevant, organic blog links.

Josh: If we can learn how to selectively disable/enable these specific points on HS1, then it would really help in cancer treatment. However, a lot of precautions have to be taken; incorrectly “programming” HS1 could lead to the NK (natural killer) cells attacking the body and doing more harm than good.

Medical science may be a significant step closer to climbing into the driver’s seat of an important class of immune cells, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report in Nature Immunology.

The researchers showed that a single protein, HS1, enables key functions of natural killer (NK) cells, which kill early cancers and fight off viral infections. The protein allows the NK cells to pursue their targets, latch on to them and configure the cellular machinery it uses to kill them. … Continue Reading »

Josh: This opens the doors for doctors provide genetic testing to new borns and babies still in the womb to diagnose mitochondrial diseases. Already, in this study, they found one mutation that is a cause of complex I disease.

Imagine trying to figure out how your car’s power train works from just a few of its myriad components: It would be nearly impossible. Scientists have long faced a similar challenge in understanding cells’ tiny powerhouses — called “mitochondria” — from scant knowledge of their molecular parts.

Now, an international team of researchers has created the most comprehensive “parts list” to date for mitochondria, a compendium that includes nearly 1,100 proteins. By mining this critical resource, the researchers have already gained deep insights into the biological roles and evolutionary histories of several key proteins. In addition, this careful cataloging has identified a mutation in a novel protein-coding gene as the cause behind one devastating mitochondrial disease. A full description of the work appears in the July 11 print edition of the journal Cell. … Continue Reading »