The Quadruple Helix: Why much of what you know is a lie!

post by Andrew Verdesca   


   If you were to look at the world 100 years ago, it would look very different. Antibiotics hadn’t yet been developed, smoking was not linked to cancer, proteins were believed to be the method for transmitting genetic material instead of DNA… The list goes on and on. Science has a history of constantly adapting its most prevalent theories to adapt to experimental data. Which is good, buy and large. I mean, imagine a world where people still believed that smoking was good for you. But one of the consequences of this adaptability is the rapid obsoletion of information. In short, what you learn today, particularly in science class, could be proved wrong at any time.

This recently manifested itself when Cambridge scientists announced that they had observed DNA in a quadruple-helix in human cells. Ever since Watson, Crick, and Rosalind determined sixty years ago that DNA in cells was arranged in two complimentary strands in cells, the idea of a DNA double helix has remained generally unquestioned. The possibility of a quadruple helix of DNA has been explored by science, but it’s never been observed in cells until now. This so-called “G-complex” (four guanine molecules) is most often seen during DNA synthesis, implying that it has a role in DNA synthesis.

In his book, The Half-Life of Facts, Samuel Arabson argues that the half-life of truth is just 45 years. This means, that in 45 years, half of what you now consider to be fact will be proved untrue. Since the 1960s, overall scientific knowledge has grown by the steady rate of 4.7% per year. The growth of scientific knowledge has largely helped to dispel many of these delusions, but it has also inadvertently created some of its own.

 In 2011, for example, a study in Nature reported that a team of researchers over 10 years was able to accurately reproduce the results of only six out of 53 landmark papers in cancer research. Statistician John Ioannides concludes, “For many current scientific fields, claimed research findings may often be simply accurate measures of the prevailing bias.”

Speculations about inaccuracy aside, I leave you with this. How long do you think it will be before the current Pingry curriculum is out-of-date? What do you think the half-life of truth is, and why?

No Sleep Treats Depression?

Couch (A. Vella) on Sleep Deprivation

At Journal Club this week Guarav presented about sleep deprivation. The paper he discussed covered the positive effects of sleep deprivation on the clinically depressed.

 Here is a copy of the article although for many it will probably be a little dense and rather confusing. Essentially it is building off the hypothesis that two negatives make a positive.            

While depression is terrible and takes over your life, leaving you unable to eat right or sleep well or learn normally and complete sleep deprivation causes hallucination, increased blood pressure, and even depression. Somehow a mix of the two can lead to very temporary improvements in depressed patients.                                                            

            http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspxarticleid=190715#qundefined

An increased level of dopamine was found in the depressed who were forced to stay awake for 32 hours, making them more or less, happy.

This seems to defy common sense and raises a whole lot of questions. Why are they happier? Can there really be a path to follow here that could be a real treatment for depression? Do you think this "treatment strategy" could work for other negatives such as starvation and depression?

We've all been there, running on just a few hours of sleep, with a short temper, and even shorter attention span. Could there really be a treatment hidden here for depression? Do you think there could be any long term benefits of sleep deprivation?

Feel free to share your opinions with us on sleep deprivation, or depression, or even better, how you feel they're related.

CURE CHEATING?

DOUBLE H ONLOVE

Written by Harrison Homer (Project 80 Senior Editor)

For all those who weren't there last Thursday for Luke De’s presentation on Love is like a Heroine High, I would recommend checking it out here Youtube (Is Love a Heroin High).. The video is a little crappy and it starts after the first minute, but De brought up some interesting albeit far fetched points in his last presentation. . . Upon further thought, were they that far fetched?

De based his presentation on biological research.  It turns out that two hormones, and the cells that receive them are very important in monogamy.  In fact, altering them can turn monogomous animals in to much less reputable and racy animals.  The reverse is also true.    The opposite alterations can turn the heathens of the animal worls into god-fearing, reputable, single, sexually faithful individuals.

The two main questions that I have received regarding the topic of the presentation are: 

“Can love be quantified?” and 

“if there were to be a a pill for cheating would it be ethical to use it?”

I came home Thursday ecstatic. What can I say? I love to argue and De’s presentation gave me a whole new playing field to work with. When discussing the article with my family, I came across a common argument. Can love be quantified simply by faithfulness? Personally yes, it can. But then again, I am the one writing the science blog, not the creative writing major. I may take a more quantitative rather than romantic opinion of love. But why shouldn’t love be able to be quantified, even in a romantic sense? Love is faithfulness: love is how far you will go to meet someone, what you will go through to see someone, who you won’t sleep with to be with someone-and all of this can (and was) quantified.

The second question is, "If there was a cure of cheating, an injection or a pill to make someone faithful, would it be ethical to use it?" Should we treat infidelity medically?  First of all, my view is that people should not take it, and that it shouldn’t exist in the first place. If couples have to take a pill to be faithful, than what’s the difference between simply cheating and taking the pill? If you’re not going to be faithful by your own will to your partner, than you two should simply not be with each other. Biologically, would it be healthy to take this pill? If this pill were to give you a love high, and make you faithful, what’s the difference between this love drug and any other drug? My opinion; This drug is not a good idea. I do, however, believe that the paper opens up a whole new world of opportunities for researchers to discover.

CARE TO DISAGREE, OR EVEN WORSE PERHAPS. . . AGREE?

Sources

LiquidBio Journal Club

Monogamous Prairie Voles

If you are having trouble posting, please let me know. You can send me your response at hhomer@pingry.org and I will put it up for you. 
Sorry for the inconvenience,
HH

Atheism: A prerequisite to become a scientist?

         Welcome to the first post in the Project80 Blog! As this post will cover a controversial, deep, and intense topic, I hope to get some comments and student involvement. Here goes!

What is the purpose of life? To fully comprehend and to even begin to attempt to answer this question, a definition of life is necessary. So, what is life? Here’s my definition. Life is any living thing that abides by the following guidelines: the organism must contain DNA, adapt or evolve in a change in its environment, be self replicating (either sexually or asexually), use energy (metabolize), and be sentient. Life consumes water, contains cell(s), and produce gas(ses) as well as heat.  These definitions will help us to try and find the purpose of life, for, exemplified by all the definitions above, life does not simply apply to humans. One must include bacteria, fungi, reptiles, mammals, birds, etc. Thus, a strict biological scientist might declare that the purpose of life is simply to reproduce. Most biological functions of all organisms point to faculties that allow and help reproduction.

However, I do not believe that this is the only purpose for humans. Evolutionarily (or perhaps religiously…whatever floats your boat), humans have become the most intelligent beings on earth (that we know of). Like all other organisms, humans can reproduce. However, in addition to this requisite, we also have incredibly complex brains, which allow us to carry out abstract thought: concepts such as philosophy, questions of morality, etc. So why would we “be granted” this intelligence and yet have no reason to use it?

Neil deGrasse Tyson, a famous atheist scientist, puts forth another interesting perspective. He notes “How about human life itself? If you are religious, you might declare that the purpose of life is to serve God. But if you’re one of the 100 billion bacteria living and working in a single centimeter of our lower intestine (rivaling, by the way, the total number of humans who have ever been born) you would give an entirely different answer. You might instead say that the purpose of human life is to provide you with a dark, but idyllic, anaerobic habitat of fecal matter…”    

Tyson concludes that true scientists must state that there is no greater purpose or special meaning to life, and that a belief in God and or a greater purpose to our existence is not necessary to explain our existence and is therefore unscientific. Therefore he believes that the true scientist must be an atheist. Do you agree? Do you think that he is entitled do make this statement?

Sources:

http://randalrauser.com/2011/06/neil-degrasse-tyson-discusses-religion-bacteria-and-the-meaning-of-life/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24628983/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/smartest-animals/

image from: harmoniaphilosophica.wordpress.com