No-Fingerprint Disease

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Imagine you have no fingerprint. On all your fingers. SO HOW THE HELL ARE YOU GOING TO REGISTER FOR ANYTHING??

Scientist found out that mutated DNA has caused such disease to be apparent among human on earth.

Check out the news below.

Rachel Kaufman

for National Geographic News

Published August 9, 2011

A genetic mutation causes people to be born without fingerprints, a new study says.

Almost every person is born with fingerprints, and everyone's are unique. But people with a rare disease known as adermatoglyphia do not have fingerprints from birth. Affecting only four known extended families worldwide, the condition is also called immigration-delay disease, since a lack of fingerprints makes it difficult for people to cross international borders.

In an effort to find the cause of the disease, dermatologist Eli Sprecher sequenced the DNA of 16 members of one family with adermatoglyphia in Switzerland. Seven had normal fingerprints, and the other nine did not. After investigating a number of genes to find evidence of mutation, the researchers came up empty-handed—until a grad student finally found the culprit, a smaller version of a gene called SMARCAD1. (Get a genetics overview.)

The larger SMARCAD1 is expressed throughout the body, but the smaller form acts only on the skin. Sure enough, the nine family members with no fingerprints had mutations in that gene.

Being born without fingerprints doesn't occur simply because one gene has been turned on or off, Sprecher said. Rather, the mutation causes copies of the SMARCAD1 gene to be unstable.

That mutation is also the first link in a long chain of events that ultimately affects fingerprint development in the womb. The rest of the links in the chain are still a mystery, said Sprecher, of the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center.

No-Fingerprint Disease Not Harmful

Other inherited diseases that result in a lack of fingerprints—such as Naegeli syndrome and dermatopathia pigmentosa reticularis—are caused by problems with the protein keratin-14.

These conditions "manifest not only with lack of fingerprints, but also with a number of other critical features—a thickening of the skin, problems with nail formation," Sprecher said.

By contrast, immigration-delay disease doesn't come with any side effects besides a minor reduction in the ability to sweat. In general, people with the disease "are otherwise completely healthy, like you and me."

By further studying the Swiss family, Sprecher said, it might be possible to solve the mystery of fingerprints overall.

"You go from a rare disease to a biological insight of general importance," he said. "We would never have been able to get to this gene if not for the study of this family."

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Please Eat Your Pencil Shavings!

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Here you throw it. Why? Because you can't eat it. What if you can? Will you?

The Deli Garage made 500 of this edible pencil and they're already sold out! It was actually parmesan cheese with the 'lead' made from different flavours such as truffles, pesto and chilli. And the ruler? It's for you to check on how many calories you have to burn.

Appetising? Yes. Definitely.

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Human-Size Lizard

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Wait. A lizard with the size of a NORMAL HUMAN?? Please don't hug me at night.

Human-Size Lizard

Photograph courtesy A.C. Diesmos, National Museum of the Phiippines

It has a double penis, is as long as a tall human, and lives in a heavily populated area of the Philippines.

Yet somehow the 6.6-foot-long (2-meter-long) lizard Varanus bitatawa (pictured) has gone undetected by science until recently.

The researchers suspect the fruit-eating tree dweller escaped scientific detection until now because there've been few reptile surveys of the mountain forests where V. bitatawa—or the Sierra Madre forest monitor—lives.

The 22-pound (10-kilogram) lizards are also "incredibly secretive," study team member and biologist Daniel Bennett of Mampam Conservation told National Geographic News in 2010.

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Glow-in-the-Dark Mushroom

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When we have been relying on glowsticks, nature already provides us with light. Check out the difference during daytime and nightime above.

Glow-in-the-Dark Mushroom

Photographs courtesy Cassius V. Stevani, University of São Paulo, Brazil

Glowing nonstop in the Brazilian rain forest night, the newfound mushroom Mycena luxaeterna (pictured both in daylight, top, and in the dark) is something of a source of eternal light, as its Latin name—inspired by verses from Mozart's "Requiem"—implies.

San Francisco State University's Dennis Desjardin and colleagues scouted for glow-in-the-dark mushrooms during new moons, in rain forests so dark the researchers often couldn't see their hands in front of their faces, Desjardin told National Geographic News in 2009.

But "when you look down at the ground, it's like looking up at the sky," Desjardin said. "Every little 'star' was a little mushroom—it was just fantastic."

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Pancake Batfish

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Seen this kind of fish before? Never say yes because you haven't. This is the Pancake Batfish that lives in the Gulf of Mexico and some part of Louisiana. Check out the description below.

Pancake Batfish

Photograph courtesy Prosanta Chakrabart, Louisiana State University

Pancake batfish—such as the new species Halieutichthys intermedius —are so named because they're flat and can use their stout, armlike fins to shamble along the seafloor with a stilted gait, reminiscent of a walking bat.

H. intermedius lives in only the Gulf of Mexico, including parts—such as coastal Louisiana—that were heavily affected by the 2010 Gulf oil spill. The fish's status in the Gulf a year later is unknown.

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Physics of Angry Birds

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Been playing Angry Birds? Absolutely. But ever imagine the physics behind it? Are the birds having constant speed across the field? How about their weight? Do different birds have different weight that will influence their velocity? And how about the impact area? Is it random?

Wait! That is just a game! I don't want my high school subject to ruin my mood playing it!!

True enough but there's a person quite eager on determining the physics behind the game and I must say I'm totally impressed with him. He carried out his research on this website and you can visit it by clicking here.

Unless you are a physics nerd, you won't be enjoying that. But you will enjoy the pictures I believe.

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