<img decoding="async" class="alignright size-full wp-image-9364" title="Biopunk Book Cover" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/biopunk-art3.jpg" alt="" width="200" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/biopunk-art3.jpg 332w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/biopunk-art3-200x300.jpg 200w" sizes="(max-width: 332px) 100vw, 332px" />

Marcus Wohlsen is on to something.
An Associated Press science and biotechnology writer, Wohlsen is the author of the book BioPunk: DIY Scientists Hack the Software of Life.


The book, which came out in April, outlines the parallels between the current community of upstart amateur scientists working in makeshift kitchen labs and garages with the early years of the personal computer and the birth of the dotcom industry.


The conceit of the book is that just as Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak – geeked-out members of the <a href="http://www.atariarchives.org/deli/homebrew_and_how_the_apple.php">Homebrew Computer Club</a> – could assemble off-the-shelf components in a garage in Cupertino and launch Apple Computers, some tattooed punk scientists may soon unveil a new biotechnology breakthrough at Maker Faire.


Well, maybe.
There is no doubt that the <a href="http://diygenomics.org/">tools</a> needed to make big leaps in innovation in biotechnology are more readily available to the Everyman, or Everywoman.
This has happened in an area that is progressing like Moore’s law on steroids, where instead of computer chips doubling their processing power every two years, genome sequencers are doubling in performance every six months.
It’s actually a weakness of the book that in some sections it already appears dated. There are a few pages that mention 23andMe and other direct-to-consumer genetics companies that feel like an old newspaper clipping. A <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_24/b4232090972319.htm">book review </a>by Daniel Grushkin nailed the point home by saying that Wohlsen finished his reporting too soon.
But that rapid change and progress is part of what has enthralled many enthusiasts in the movement, when it feels as if mankind is on the verge of a major leap forward in understanding the basic code of life.
It’s here that Wohlsen’s book is especially powerful. He has captured a moment and tapped into the energy of a truly driven tribe of citizen scientists.
Wohlsen uses a grab bag of characters as diverse as <a href="http://openwetware.org/wiki/User:Kaull">Kay Aull</a>, a MIT graduate in bioengineering, who developed a procedure in her apartment that diagnosed her dad’s hemochromatosis.
Then there’s Tito Jankowski and Josh Perfetto, two guys who built a <a href="http://openpcr.org//">cheap kit for a polymerase chain reaction</a> (PCR). PCR amplifies DNA for sequencing and is one of the most useful instruments for molecular biology. Wohlson spends some time with Eri Gentry and John Schloendorn, who studied cancer cells in their kitchen. Gentry formed the non-profit <a href="https://www.facebook.com/BioCurious">BioCurious</a>, a sort of co-op lab space set to open in Mountain View. The two also have their hands in several other endeavors involved in pharmaceuticals, health and personal genetics.


While all these people are working outside traditional labs, in most cases they also come from traditional science backgrounds. They began to dabble outside the those confines because they were stymied in some ways from doing what they want. In the process of hacking and tinkering with how science is traditionally done, they’ve invited anyone else interested to come along for the ride.
“The plummeting costs of enabling technologies has brought meaningful biological research back within reach of the independent citizen scientist. From Bio-Art to BioFuels, the wave of next generation biotech applications is set to transform our culture and economy.”


That description of BioCurious, posted on Hackerspaces, is a good outline of Wohlsen’s thesis. Wohlsen sees the collection of people he’s profiled in BioPunk as the vanguard of a movement for a more open type of science, that is driven less by profit than by simple curiosity and a passion for learning.

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Biopunks, Science and Discovery

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Great apes really do giggle when tickled, new research says &#8211; just like you and me.
<h6>What&#8217;s So Funny</h6>
Researchers from the University of Hannover in Germany recorded the tickle-induced vocalizations from three human infants and 21 infant and juvenile orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos and analyzed this acoustic data to find similarities and differences among the five species.
Their results, published online today in the journal <a href="http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(09)01129-4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Current Biology</a>, show that not only are the hoots, hollers and snorts of the great apes really laughter, but the evolutionary relationships between the sounds match up with the known evolutionary relationships between the species based on genetics.
&#8220;At a minimum, one can conclude that it is appropriate to consider &#8216;laughter&#8217; to be a cross-species phenomenon, and that it is therefore not anthropomorphic to use this term for tickling-induced vocalizations produced by the great apes,&#8221; the authors write.
<h6>Tickling</h6>
But the researchers&#8217; findings also indicate something more profound: rather than being a uniquely human invention, tickle-induced chuckles can be traced back 10 to 16 million years to our last common ancestor with the great apes. Analysis of the chortles of a lesser ape, the siamang, suggests that <a href="https://blog.23andme.com/articles/does-your-dna-make-you-lol">laughter</a> may be even older.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-3729" title="slide1" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/slide1-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="318" height="238" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/slide1-300x225.jpg 300w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/slide1.jpg 720w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 318px) 100vw, 318px" />The tree based on laughter matches the genetic tree. 
Despite the all the similarities the researchers found between humans and the great apes, the fact remains that human giggles are distinct — we mostly laugh while exhaling and our vocal chords vibrate to make the &#8220;ha ha ha&#8221; sounds, while ape snickers are more of the in-and-out panting variety.   The question for future research to answer is why particularly human features emerged and what functions they may have served as laughter became a large part of human social interaction.
Insanely cute video of giggling chimps here.

Evolutionary Link Between Human and Ape Laughter

I spent the better part of my undergraduate career lugging around massive biology textbooks.  
General biology, genetics, embryology: It didn&#8217;t matter, they all weighed a ton. I pored over endless chapters of text, highlighting the important sentences, always wishing for more photos, more diagrams, more graphs. A single well-made diagram or image was easier to understand than the preceding 10 paragraphs about the same topic.   I always wished that my textbooks were a little more visual and a little less wordy.   An added benefit, I thought, would be that I could shave a few pounds from my backpack.
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My college days are long over. But my wish may have finally come true, in the form of a new graphic guide to genetics entitled The Stuff of Life: A Graphic Guide to Genetics and DNA, by Mark Schultz.   Published in December, it takes a more visual approach to presenting the most current knowledge on a particular branch of the biological sciences close to my heart: genetics.

The Stuff of Life is centered around a group of aliens who are trying to understand the genetics of all life on earth.  These aliens are both rather ugly (the illustrator has drawn them to resemble sea cucumbers) and rather arrogant.  They can&#8217;t seem to understand why a lowly, hairy primate has come to dominate the planet and make such amazing advances in science and technology. In the style of a comic book, with various windows and balloons leading us from the origins of the earth 4.6 billion years ago to modern day applications of genetics and DNA, it falls flat in oddly juxtaposing complex information and somewhat juvenile humor.
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For anyone who hasn&#8217;t taken a college (or advanced high school level) biology class, the information presented will seem overwhelming at best, and confusing at worst.  For those who are well versed in the biological sciences, the information may be understandable but the humor will seem trite and silly.   After the first few chapters of the cucumberesque aliens repeatedly exclaiming that they can&#8217;t believe humans have managed to understand how genes are passed down from parents to children, that they can&#8217;t believe humans have been able to sequence DNA, understand the genetics of cancer, and create genetically modified organisms, I began to dread their appearances. I stopped reading the sections focused on them, instead skipping to the parts that contained actual information. Once I did I began to enjoy the book much more.
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The organization of the book is similar to a standard introductory genetics textbook.   It begins with a description of the structure of the cell, DNA, and how the genes housed within our DNA can determine thousands of physical traits.   Schultz then moves quickly forward, presenting important genetics concepts such as inheritance, dominant vs. recessive alleles, and why my cat has two different colors of fur.   Finally, he spends the last one-third of the book examining modern-day applications to the study of genetics.
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The strategy works well by allowing the reader to understand the practical value of understanding the basic genetics concepts that were brought up in earlier chapters.   Indeed, having more applications-centric lectures during college might have silenced the students who never understood why this field is so important.   Undoubtedly, this section was written with the more general reader in mind.   It is easily the best section of the entire book.
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Though the constant banter from the sea cucumber-like aliens should not interest anyone over the age of 10, this book would be of use to those currently taking an introductory course in biology, as it might help solidify more difficult concepts that might prove difficult to students.   For educators, this book could prove useful in providing fresh ideas on how to present some of the most important genetics concepts.
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The uneven feeling I got from reading The Stuff of Life is something that must constantly be a fear for anyone who is trying to make science fun and accessible to the general populace.   Presenting such important topics as genetics and DNA that are easy for anyone to understand, scientifically accurate, AND enjoyable, is no easy feat.   And, while The Stuff of Life may have stumbled in some aspects, it is most certainly a noble effort, and may lighten the load in biology majors&#8217; backpacks in the coming months.   I sincerely hope that Schultz continues with more volumes, though I could do without those sea cucumbers next time.

There’s More to Neanderthals than Meets the Eye

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Ever since European explorers first came upon the African Pygmies in the mid-19th century, they have fascinated anthropologists and other researchers.   Their short stature (they rarely grow to over 5 feet), unique languages, and distinct genetic signatures have led to much speculation on how such groups of humans evolved.   Now, a new study published in the April 10 issue of <a id="fi4b" title="PLoS Genetics" href="http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1000448" target="_blank" rel="noopener">PLoS Genetics</a> tackles this speculation head-on, using a novel and comprehensive approach in unraveling the origins of Pygmies.

When examining the origins of a particular group of people, many studies focus on a single part of the human genome; the Y-chromosome for example, or mitochondrial DNA.   However, the authors of this study wanted to get a complete picture of the genetic history of the Pygmies, so they looked at 24 separate regions of the human genome.   Altogether, the authors examined more than 33,000 letters of DNA for each of the 236 individuals they sampled.
After collecting and analyzing DNA samples from several different Pygmy groups, nearby Bantu-speaking farmers and other hunter-gatherer groups, the authors ran more than a million computer simulations on the data they had collected, allowing them to deduce the most likely scenario for how the Pygmies became so genetically distinct.
This is the second time in recent months that geneticists have offered an account of Pygmy population history. In February, a paper in <a id="zcpd" title="Current Biology" href="../2009/03/05/the-origins-of-the-forest-dwelling-african-pygmies/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Current Biology</a> concluded that western Pygmies began interbreeding with their agricultural neighbors about 2,800 years ago.
The new PLoS paper concludes that Pygmies and their neighbors, non-Pygmy African farmers, had been separated for more than 50,000 years before that. They both shared a common genetic ancestor who lived nearly 56,000 years ago at a time when humans were spreading throughout the African continent, settling and thriving in the rainforests, savannahs, and coastal regions.   It is also around this time that the first human groups left Africa, journeying into Asia.
As these various groups of people began finding their own niches in the diverse African environment, they began to distinguish themselves culturally, physically and genetically.   The authors of this study believe that it is from this time onward that the unique physical form of African Pygmies began to evolve.
But the computer simulations also revealed much about the genetic diversity of the Pygmies themselves.   Pygmies today are generally divided into two ethnic groups:   eastern and western. Each has a somewhat different history, culture and genetic signature, though both are relatively similar in stature.
The authors believe that it was the environment that led to the separation of these two groups.   About 20,000 years ago, the Ice Age was at its peak.   As glaciers covered most of northern Europe, and sea levels dropped across the globe, the abundant rainforests of sub-Saharan Africa began to shrink.   A once lush and expansive tropical forest was now a series of smaller, drier forests, interspersed with savannah grassland.   The growing separation of the forests, the authors propose, led to the growing separation of peoples who had once lived side by side. Various Pygmy groups retreated to isolated pockets of the shrinking forests.   By the Ice Age&#8217;s peak, the once homogeneous Pygmies had split into two main groups.   The computer simulations confirmed the authors&#8217; hypotheses, putting the most likely split at around 21,000 years ago.
Today, the western &#8211; or Mbenga &#8211; Pygmies inhabit the West Congo Basin, while the eastern &#8211; or Mbuti &#8211; Pygmies, live in the forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.   And, while each group is short in stature, the past 20,000 years of biological and cultural evolution has made each group unique.   This study serves as a reminder of the wealth of history that is housed in our genes, if we only know where to look.

New Study Provides More Genetic Evidence for Origins of African Pygmies

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Before 500 years ago people rarely went far to find a mate, choosing a husband or wife from the locally available pool of men and women. But with the dawn of European colonialism people from different parts of the world were suddenly living side by side, and had a whole new set of people to choose from when picking a mate. This trend continues especially in today&#8217;s world, where education and work opportunities have flung young people across the globe, allowing them to interact &#8211; and potentially marry &#8211; people from opposite sides of the globe.
There is ample historical evidence for an increase in exogamy (that is, marrying someone outside your village or town) over the past few hundred years, but could there be evidence stored in our genes as well?   In this week&#8217;s <a href="http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1000415" target="_blank" rel="noopener">PLoS Genetics</a>, an international team of scientists claims to have found genetic clues that allow them to see decreases in inbreeding across the 20th century.

Every person has two copies of each gene – one from our mother and the other from our father.   The more closely related a person&#8217;s parents are, the more similar those two copies are to one another.
The authors of the PLoS Genetics study examined the DNA of more than 800 Americans of European ancestry who ranged in age from 19 to 99. Then they looked at how closely each person&#8217;s two DNA strands matched one another, a measure called autozygosity that roughly corresponds to the amount of inbreeding in an individual&#8217;s pedigree.
The results overwhelmingly confirmed the notion that levels of autozygosity have significantly decreased over time.   When the authors examined the DNA of the youngest subjects, they found significantly lower levels of autozygosity when compared to the oldest subjects.   In fact, they found a steady decrease in levels as they went from oldest to youngest.
What does this mean?   In the last several generations, there&#8217;s been a steady decrease in marrying someone from the same town, village, or region (who could potentially be a distant relative).   Instead, the percentage of people who&#8217;ve chosen to marry someone from a different town, village, region, or even continent, has been on the rise.
According to the authors there are benefits to this increase in genetic diversity, primarily a reduction in the risk of recessive genetic diseases.

genetics — Page 2

Biopunks, Science and Discovery

Evolutionary Link Between Human and Ape Laughter

Recommended Reading: The Stuff of Life

There’s More to Neanderthals than Meets the Eye

New Study Provides More Genetic Evidence for Origins of African Pygmies

The Genetics of Globalization

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