"How Dengue Virus Infects?" a nice animation

http://www.dnatube.com/video/12225/Life-Cycle-of-Dengue-Virus

Here it is

Vanishing Frogs

தினமலர் 24-03-2013
click the image to enlarge

INTERESTING LINKS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8593000/8593396.stm
http://heavenawaits.wordpress.com/frogs-predicting-earthquakes/; 

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011/12/01/toads-earthquakes-frogs-disasters-earth-seismic-science-nature_n_1123441.html 

http://www.united-academics.org/magazine/earth-environment/frogs-detect-earthquakes/

- Dr. P. Kumarasamy

The Tailor Bird

Common Tailor Bird 


Orthotomus soturius

Youngones in the nest intricately built . Mother feeding her youngones

Another youung-one looking for her mom to feed!

One of the youngone out of the nest, freely roaming around.. safely hiding in the lemon tree...

After the youngone came out of the nest, the alert mom always keep a vigil on them...

Mother feeding the youngones


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmfWUsU8VEo

- Dr. P. Kumarasamy

EARTH WITH A FEVER

A program on GLOBAL WARMING!

produced for the UGC's country-wide classroom.

Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmD2pSI4gcY

part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYKV164Ww5M

-Dr. P. Kumarasamy

IS ACNE SKIN DEEP?

Human beings in their gut harbor 10 times more  bacterial cells than their total number of body cells. The rough estimate of these beneficial gut microflora amounts to 100 trillion! Our health seems to be dictated by the diversity and amount of these bacteria.

Recently it has been hypothesized that appendix might be a "safe house" for beneficial bacteria found in the digestive tract in times of high immune activity and illness such as diarrheal disease. In the face of an infection by pathogens, beneficial microflora may hide in the appendix, and later they return to gut once the undesirable pathogenic microbes have been flushed out.

Apart from this there are opportunistic pathogens dwelling on our skin surface.

Acne vulgaris, commonly called as acne is one of the most common skin diseases with a prevalence in up to 85% of teenagers and 11% of adults.

The bacterial strains of Propionibacterium acnes dwelling in the human skin is associated with Acne.

Recently, a metagenomic study on these skin microbiome using 16S RNA shows that different strains of P. acnes are involved in either with a pimpled skin or a clear skin. People without acne were found to harbor the strain RT6, while the acne-ridden people had the strains RT4 and RT5.

-      Dr. P. Kumarasamy

Further reading:

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/34416/title/Appendix-Not-Totally-Useless/

http://www.nature.com/jid/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/jid201321a.html