Nerdy Science Blog

Although fungus infection is one of the major factors that the world’s frog population is decreasing to a very small amount, human may contributed to their soon-to-be extinction.

Frog legs have been a delicious dish on human dining table and they are traded globally.  Researchers found this has threatened the frogs to extinction.  Both Europe and Asia countries are power consumers of frogs.  It is funny that the Chinese called the edible frog as “field chicken”.  There are also other factors that may lead to frog extinction, such as habitat loss and climate change.

The study team of this human appetite leads to frog extinction includes researchers from University of Adelaide in Australia, South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI), the Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada, the National University of Singapore and Harvard University.

(news [pic])

If you are a vegetarian, the following news might be useless to you.

Scientists from University of Adelaide discovered a bacterium cause disease among meat lovers.  The discovery led by microbiologists Dr Adrienne Paton and Professor James Paton was published in Nature on 30 October.

E. coli bacteria will release Subtilase cytotoxin, a potent bacterial toxin, to target Neu5Gc sugar on cell surface.  This will cause bloody diarrhoea and haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS) in humans.  However human does no make Neu5Gc naturally, and we the toxin release by the bateria should do us no harm.  The secret to the triumph of the bacterium is because we eat too much meat and fairy products.  While we are creating more carbon emmission by eating the food we love, we also uptake Neu5Gc sugar which is rich in these food into our body.  Scientist emphasized that it is important to eat well-cooked meat and pasteurised dairy products as the bacteria are killed in these food products.

Other researchers involved in this study included scientists from Monash University, the University of California and Emory University.

(news)

Scientists achieve major genetics breakthrough

University of Adelaide geneticist Dr Jozef Gecz and a team of Belgium and UK scientists have achieved a major breakthrough in discovering the causes of intellectual disability.

Dr Gecz, a senior researcher who is based at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Adelaide, has collaborated with an international research team to reveal that various mutations of a small part of the X chromosome lead to mental retardation.

Man has better chance of being a retard.