For our Father’s Day show our guests were:
1) Dr Tom Caradoc-Davies
(Principal Scientist, Macromolecular Crystallography, Australian Synchrotron)
2) Dr. Madhu Bhaskaran
(Research Fellow, Microplatforms Research Group – Functional Materials and Microsystems, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, RMIT University)
http://www.rmit.edu.au/browse;ID=jmstvjcgzw6cz
http://www.rmit.edu.au/browse;ID=ikxm2m3n53ln
Other stories:
Internet databases reveal new uses for old drugs – It is a disarmingly simple idea: to find out if a drug might treat a disease it wasn’t intended for, check out whether it has an opposite effect on gene activity to the illness itself. How do you find such drugs? By mining large public biological datasets. (New Scientist)
Your brain chemistry existed before animals did – When wondering about the origins of our brain, don’t look to Homo sapiens, chimpanzees, fish or even worms. Many key components first appeared in single-celled organisms, long before animals, brains and even nerve cells existed. (New Scientist)
Astronauts May Evacuate Space Station in November, NASA Says – The International Space Station may have to start operating without a crew in November if Russian engineers don’t figure out soon what caused a recent rocket failure, NASA officials announced today. (Scientific American)
‘Gene Overdose’ Causes Extreme Thinness – Scientists have discovered a genetic cause of extreme thinness for the first time. The research shows that people with extra copies of certain genes are much more likely to be very skinny. In one in 2000 people, part of chromosome 16 is duplicated, making men 23 times and women five times more likely to be underweight. (ScienceDaily)
