Vanessa Harrar and Charles Spence from the University of Oxford found that the appearance of cutlery can affect perception of a food’s taste. Food tastes saltier when eaten from a knife, and denser and more expensive from a light plastic spoon. Taste was also affected by the color of the cutlery.
Canine Genetics and Epidemiology (CGE) is a new peer-reviewed open access journal, published by BioMed Central with the support and backing of the Kennel Club, the UK’s largest organisation dedicated to the health and welfare of dogs. CGE is now accepting manuscript submissions via the journal’s homepage. The journal will consider genetic, genomic and epidemiological… Read more »
To commemorate 60 years of the double helix, Genome Biology ran a special 'DNA60IFX' bioinformatics challenge, inspired by the annual contests held at our Beyond The Genome conferences. Several hundred eager participants had a stab at the first stage of the challenge, which was whittled down to a final set of 24 battle-hardy bioinformaticians who… Read more »
Cases of certain HPV strains have plunged 56 percent among females 14 years old to 19 years old since the first vaccine, Merck & Co. (MRK)’s Gardasil, was introduced in 2006, according to an article yesterday in the Journal of Infectious Diseases. The shot is 82 percent effective against the virus that can cause cervical… Read more »
This post was originally featured on BioMed Central’s magazine Biome. In order to create truly sustainable biofuels, researchers are investigating methods to produce bioethanol from waste plant dry matter, such as wood and straw, known as lignocellulosic feedstocks. The industrial yeast (S. cerevisiae) already used to make bioethanol from glucose-rich crops, such as maize and… Read more »
Written by Rhiannon Meaden, Journal Development Editor, Agriculture & Food Security Home gardens can be used to alleviate hunger, malnutrition, economic hardship and disease. These are the findings of a comprehensive literature review by Galhena et al., published today in Agriculture & Food Security, which investigates the uses of home gardens in the context of food security, and specifically in… Read more »
Many years of legal argument culminated this week in a landmark ruling by the US Supreme Court. In Association for Molecular Pathology vs. Myriad Genetics, the SCOTUS judges ruled – unanimously – that isolated human genes are a product of nature and, as such, are not eligible for patent protection. As advances in technology, namely… Read more »
Keiko Herrick and colleagues at the University of Alaska Fairbanks have put forward a model of avian influenza virus (AIV) prediction in wild birds, published yesterday in Veterinary Research. This is the first large-scale large ecological niche model for avian influenza in wild birds based on machine-learning algorithms. The authors mined surveillance data for 2005-2010… Read more »
Snowflake, the albino gorilla, was certainly special. As you can see from this beautiful photo, his fur was white, his eyes were blue, and his skin was pink. Although Snowflake passed away in 2003, he left behind a big legacy and an even bigger fan base. Both in life and death, he extended his furry… Read more »
Epigenetics could play an important role in the future of bird breeding and selection methods, according to a new review published in Genetics Selection Evolution today. There is hope that our increasing knowledge of epigenetic influence on development may help the future bird farming industry to meet the growing world food demand. Frésard et… Read more »