Monthly Archives: July 2020

Why herd immunity theshold to COVID-19 is reached much earlier than thought – update

EARLIER POST HERE: Thank you, M. The time-line for number of COVID-19-related deaths [see figure below] is also very intriguing — in a country that never imposed any restrictions — no face masks, children stayed in school, and the economy … Continue reading

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Persistent warm Mediterranean surface waters during the Roman period

For those GEITP-ers that remain enthusiastic about “global warming”, here is a semi-lay summary of an article that reently appeared in Sci Reports [Nature]. This is evidence of global warming — except this occurred 1500 to 2000 years ago.   … Continue reading

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Toward development of the proteome landscape for the kingdoms of life

Early on, in genetic studies, the concept (learned in grade school, these days 😊) was that “DNA is transcribed into RNA, which is translated into protein.” Then, it became established that “DNA —> primary transcript, which then results in messenger-RNA … Continue reading

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Mapping and characterization of structural variants (SVs) in 17,795 human genomes

As the previous GEITP pages email described, in the early days of genetic studies, the concept (learned in grade school 😊) was that “DNA is transcribed into RNA, which is translated into protein.” Then, it was established that “DNA —> … Continue reading

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Osteocalcin promotes bone mineralization but is not a hormone

Today’s topic in these GEITP pages is an excellent example of controversial conclusions (over more than two decades) able to be overturned by additional experiments; this is an example of how rigorous science is supposed to correct itself. Osteocalcin (OCN) … Continue reading

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Vaccines for viruses

This brief essay might be helpful and informative — at least to some of you. 😊 Where vaccination has been especially effective, it is because the vaccine was specific enough, and widely enough used, to artificially create “herd immunity”. The … Continue reading

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Polygenic adaptation: a unifying framework to understand positive selection

This excellent, outstanding review of “polygenic adaptation” [see attached] — strikes at the very heart of gene-environment interactions, i.e. given an environmental signal (or any alteration in the environment), how does the genome (genetic architecture) change in order to better … Continue reading

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The search for a COVID-19 animal model

With the pandemic [caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome–coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)] continuing worldwide, many labs are competing to find appropriate animal models to study coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) attributed to the virus. The optimal animal model will, of course, depend … Continue reading

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An ex vivo model for early anteroposterior organization during human development

The topic of these GEITP pages today is developmental biology. The body plan of mammalian embryos emerges through interactions of sequential cell-fate decisions and morphogenetic events — which have been difficult to observe in humans — until now. Human embryonic … Continue reading

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New class of precision medicine strips cancer of its DNA defences

These GEITP pages do not usually focus on cancer drug therapy, but this article presents a new approach to the problem of attacking cancer cells. A new precision medicine — targeting the cancer cell’s ability to repair its own DNA … Continue reading

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