The pick of the science news
New clues to bald question
A new study of the auto-immune condition alopecia areata, which can lead to hair-loss, has pinpointed around 139 single-letter gene changes associated with the condition.
Several gene regions identified by the research are involved in the immune system, and the analysis of over 1,000 people with alopecia suggests that “natural killer cells” may be activated and turn against the hair follicle.
The study is published in Nature.
Genes link to brain disease
Genes involved in making proteins linked to synapses, or connections between brain cells, appear to be implicated in a striking number of brain diseases, according to research presented this week at the Forum of European Neuroscience in Amsterdam.
“Defects in the genes that encode these human synapse proteins are really a major cause of disease, said researcher Seth Grant from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. There are over 135 nervous system diseases, psychiatric and neurological, that arise because of defects in these synaptic proteins. These are common and rare diseases – schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autism.
– The Guardian
70,000
The approximate number of sea-turtle eggs that will be moved over coming days from shores contaminated by oil from the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, then transported to a hatching facility to be released into cleaner Atlantic waters, according to a report in Nature
Claire O’Connell
1000.claire@gmail.com