Dog Genome May Shed Light On Human Disease

Scientists have succeeded in sequencing the dog genome, an accomplishment that could lead to better health for humans as well as canines. An international team of researchers have published their detailed analysis in the journal Nature.

"Of the more than 5,500 mammals living today, dogs are arguably the most remarkable," says senior author Eric Lander, PhD, director of the Broad Institute at of MIT and Harvard. He is a professor of biology at MIT and systems biology at Harvard Medical School, as well as a member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.

"The incredible physical and behavioral diversity of dogs -- from Chihuahuas to Great Danes -- is encoded in their genomes. It can uniquely help us understand embryonic development, neurobiology, human disease and the basis of evolution," Dr. Lander notes.

Powerful Tool

"When compared with the genomes of human and other important organisms, the dog genome provides a powerful tool for identifying genetic factors that contribute to human health and disease," says Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), which supported the research.

"This milestone is especially gratifying because it will also directly benefit veterinary researchers' efforts to better understand and treat diseases afflicting our loyal canine companions," Dr. Collins adds.

Humans domesticated the dog, Canis familiaris, from gray wolves as long as 100,000 years ago. As a result of selective breeding over the past few centuries, modern dog breeds present a model of diversity. From six-pound Chihuahuas to 120-pound Great Danes, from high-energy Jack Russell Terriers to mild-mannered basset hounds, and from Shetland sheepdogs with their herding instincts to pointers inclined to point, humans have bred dogs for desirable physical and behavioral traits.

Such breeding practices preserve preferred traits of one generation in the next, but they also predispose many dog breeds to genetic disorders, including heart disease, cancer, blindness, cataracts, epilepsy, hip dysplasia and deafness.

The research group found that while different breeds show amazing physical diversity, they often share large segments of their DNA, likely reflecting their recent shared origin. As a result, genetic tools being developed at the Broad Institute and NHGRI for any one breed of dog are likely to be useful in genetic experiments in nearly any breed.

Evolutionary Tree

While dogs occupy a special place in human hearts, they also sit at a key branch point, relative to humans, in the evolutionary tree. It was already known that humans share more of their ancestral DNA with dogs than with mice. The availability of the dog genome sequence has allowed researchers to describe a common set of genetic elements -- representing about 5 percent of the human genome -- that are preferentially preserved among human, dog and mouse.

Rather than being evenly distributed, some of these elements are crowded around just a small fraction of the genes in the genome. Future studies of these clusters may give scientists the critical insight needed to unravel how genomes work.

Elaine A. Ostrander, PhD, chief of NHGRI's Cancer Genetics Branch, is a co-author of the Nature paper, along with postdoctoral research fellows, Heidi G. Parker and Nate B. Sutter. In addition, Dr. Ostrander is the lead author of the white paper that sets forth the biomedical rationale for sequencing the dog genome.

Dr. Ostrander's laboratory maps genes responsible for susceptibility to cancer -- including breast and prostate cancers -- in canines and humans.

"The leading causes of death in dogs are a variety of cancers, and many of them are very similar biologically to human cancers." says Dr. Ostrander. "Using the dog genome sequence in combination with the human genome sequence will help researchers to narrow their search for many more of the genetic contributors underlying cancer and other major diseases."

Genetic Compass

Efforts to create the genetic tools needed for mapping disease genes in dogs have gained momentum over the last 15 years, and already include a partial survey of the poodle genome. More than two years ago, Kerstin Lindblad-Toh, PhD, co-director of the genome sequencing and analysis program at the Broad Institute, and colleagues embarked on a two-part project to assemble a complete map of the dog genome.

First, they acquired high-quality DNA sequence covering nearly 99 percent of the dog genome from a female boxer named Tasha. The boxer was chosen as a representative of the average purebred dog to produce what has become a reference sequence for the dog-genome community.

Using the sequence information as a genetic "compass," they navigated the genomes of 10 different dog breeds and other related canine species, including the gray wolf and the coyote.

The researchers identified roughly 2.5 million single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs, sprinkled throughout the dog genome. SNPs are variations in the DNA code, some of which contribute to diseases or the overall health of a dog.

SNPs also can be used to create a set of coordinates with which to survey genetic changes, both within and across dog breeds. These efforts revealed that individual breeds have maintained a large amount of genetic variability, despite their long history of restrictive breeding.

In practical terms, this means that future efforts to locate disease genes in dogs can be much narrower in scope than comparable human studies, requiring a smaller number of genetic markers and DNA samples collected from the blood or cheek from only a few hundred dogs.

see my blog related about online dog stores articles Mutt Matters: Dealing with Dog Separation Anxiety

27 Immigration Officers Involved in Gayus' Case Suspended

Twenty seven Indonesian immigration officers have so far been suspended in connection with Gayus Tambunan’s tax fraud case, a minister said.

"The number of the suspended officials of the Directorate General of Immigration who have allegedly been involved in the Gayus case has increased from 16 to 27," Law and Human Rights Minister Patrialis Akbar said here Sunday.

The suspension of the suspected immigration officials indicated that the government’s seriousness in combating the mafia and tax fraud cases in the country, he said.

"I affirm the government’s seriousness and focus on revealing the mafia and tax fraud cases. One of the indications is the suspension of 27 immigration officers," he said.

Speaking to newsmen after attending a regional meeting of the National Mandate Party (PAN) here, Patrialis said the police had also suspended some officers in connection with the Gayus case.

The Attorney General’s Office was preparing new charges while the first echelon’s officials within the finance ministry had also been succeeded, he said.

Meanwhile Coordinating Minister for Economy Hatta Rajasa said President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s 12 instructions on the case of defendant Gayus Tambunan was indeed the government’s seriousness in handling the case.

"I think the government does its best to reveal the mafia and tax fraud cases in the country. The president’s 12 instructions show the government’s seriousness in resolving those cases," he said.

In his instructions, the head of state had asked the national police, finance ministry, the Attorney General’s Office and the law and human rights ministry to accelerate their probes in the Gayus Tambunan case.

The president also instructed law enforcers and authorities of related institutions to build a sound synergy, and involve the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center and Judicial Mafia Task force in revealing the case.

Vice President Boediono was in charge of monitoring the ministries and institutions to exercise the president’s orders by cooperating with the Judicial Mafia Task force.

Hatta Rajasa said the "reverse onus" approach was a new and extraordinary step the president had instructed in speeding up the revelation of the Gayus case.

"So, all parties need not feel uncertain with (the government’s seriousness) because there was a system which has been working to follow up the president’s orders," he said.

The case of Gayus Tambunan, a junior civil servant working at the tax office, has caught wide public attention since the police named him suspect for having a suspicious Rp25 billion bank account in March 2010.

see my other post about Dead Space 2 Almost Perfect and Justin Bieber Spend U.S. $750 to Cut Hair or Facebook and Twitter Make Us Less Human

The End of The World

It exemplified the booming property market and ambition of Dubai’s entrepreneurs.

But after the global financial crisis led to the collapse of the emirate’s home-building market, a unique development known as ‘The World’ is reportedly facing Armageddon.

The project, a man-made archipelago designed to resemble a map of the planet, is facing disaster as its islands have begun sinking, a tribunal heard this week.

The development, which sits a mile and a half from the mainland, is all but vacant after investors who bought up its ‘nations’ saw their finances collapse after the economic crash.

A company that ferries people to the islands is now seeking to withdraw from its contract with Nakheel, developers of The World, due to a lack of business and the erosion of the islands’ sands.

Richard Wilmot-Smith QC, a British lawyer for Penguin Marine, told a property tribunal the islands are ‘gradually falling back into the sea.’ He added there was evidence of the ‘erosion and deterioration of The World islands’.

Only one of the ‘nations’ – Greenland is inhabited currently, with Dubai’s ruler owning a show home on the island. While Nakheel deny penguin Marine’s contention that the project is ‘dead’, the firm admits The World has slipped into ‘a coma’.

‘This is a ten-year project which has slowed down,’ he told the tribunal. ‘This is a project which will be completed.’

He added Penguin would see a return on its investment.

‘That's the price Penguin makes to stay in the game," he said. ‘They have the potential to earn millions.’

The tribunal found for Nakheel on Thursday, with full reasoning to come later. A spokesman for Nakheel insisted the islands were not sinking.

‘Our periodical monitoring survey over the past three years didn't observe any substantial erosion that requires sand nourishment,’ a statement said.

The World has already experienced its fair share of problems, with the businessman who bought the Ireland residence committing suicide after the collapse of his company while a London businessman who paid £43million for the Britain island was jailed for seven years last year for bouncing cheques.

The claims of the erosion of The World comes as a Reuters poll showed Dubai’s house prices are set to fall by another 10 per cent over the next two years. Property prices in the emirate have fallen 58 per cent from their peak in the fourth quarter of 2008.

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Australia Thanks Indonesia for Helping Queensland

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard thanked Indonesia for donating one million US dollars to support reconstruction program in the aftermath of deadly flash floods in Queensland, a president aide said.

"President received Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s call at 12.30 PM. She thanked Indonesia for our commitment to helping the reconstruction and rehabilitation programs in Queensland," the head of state’s aide for international relations Teuku Faizasyah said here Thursday.

President Yudhoyono was quoted as saying that Indonesia’s commitment to Australia was a form of solidarity to the country which had often assisted Indonesia when natural disasters occurred. In the phone talks, the Australian leader also congratulated Indonesia on its position as this year’s president of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and host of the ASEAN and East Asia Summits, he said.

Gillard expected Indonesia to be able to make breakthroughs during its ASEAN chairmanship period. For this purpose, Canberra was ready for assisting Indonesia. In connection with the state of Queensland’s flood disaster, tens of thousands of people were affected, including over 150 Indonesians who took refuge to secure areas in St.Lucia suburb in Brisbane.

The flood waters that had previously inundated many places in this city of two million people, including St.Lucia suburb as one of the clusters of the Indonesian community in Queensland had receded since last weekend. This condition has enabled the city and state governments as well as local residents, including Indonesian citizens, to conduct a massive clean-up and damage repair operation.

As reported by "ABC News", Queensland Premier Anna Bligh had even met with her cabinet members and related government officials on Monday for talks about the state’s recovery and reconstruction programs. Bligh voiced her government’s commitment to rebuilding Queensland and making its people more resistant and better protected.

The recent flood disaster, which has made Brisbane become like "a dead city", has recorded various heroic stories about the power of struggle and the power of solidarity and brotherhood of human beings. The power of brotherhood of humanity, which disregards the socio-economic, cultural, and other primordial differences, has also been shown by Indonesian community members there.

In the flooding, which has brought Queenslanders’ memories back to the 1974 flood disaster, more than 120 Indonesians were also displaced and fled their flat units and houses to higher areas in St.Lucia. They were then sheltered in 16 houses and accommodation units that Indonesians rented in the suburb where the University of Queensland (UQ)’s main campus is located.

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Google Co-Founder Page Targets Facebook

Google Inc co-founder Larry Page will take over as CEO from Eric Schmidt, a surprise move to make the company more nimble at a time when competition heats up with fast-growing rivals like Facebook.

Page's assumption of day-to-day operations marks a return to Google's technological roots, 13 years after he and fellow Stanford University student Sergey Brin founded what has become the world's No. 1 Internet search engine with $29 billion a year in revenue.

"Day-to-day adult supervision no longer needed!" Schmidt tweeted after the announcement.

The news came as Google reported earnings and revenue that blew past expectations. While Google has dominated Internet search for a decade, the company has struggled to find its footing in social networking, with a new crop of Web companies such as Facebook and Twitter stealing Web traffic and engineering talent.

"As spending was curbed and order restored over the last few years, some of that Google magic was lost," said Tricia Salinero, managing director of Newforth Partners, a mergers and acquisitions advisory firm, in an email.

Schmidt, who will step aside on April 4 and make way for Page, told Reuters in an interview that the change was "not a reaction to competitors."

Rather, he said, it was an effort to speed up decision making at the company, which ended the year with about 24,000 employees.

"Google has many different businesses and the issue that we have been getting into is there's too many ways (in) which these businesses can be slowed down," Schmidt said.

Schmidt, who became CEO in 2001 to bring more management experience to a then-fledgling company, will assume the role of executive chairman, focusing on deals and government outreach, among other things. Brin will concentrate on strategic projects.

Shares in the Internet search and advertising leader rose about 2 percent to $639 in extended trading. Just days ago, Apple Inc CEO Steve Jobs announced a leave of absence, leaving lieutenant Tim Cook in charge of day-to-day operations. Like Google, Apple also announced results this week that blew past Wall Street's estimates.

"The Street will think it's a negative, that there is probably some issue going on. Google is trying to get more efficient and trying to get a tech guy in the seat to compete with Facebook," said UBS analyst Brian Pitz. "I don't think it changes anything strategically where the company is headed."

News of the change came as Google reported a 29 percent surge in both net profit and net revenue that beat forecasts. Net income, excluding items, of $8.75 a share outstripped Wall Street's average forecast of $8.10.

Net revenue, excluding fees paid to partner websites, was $6.37 billion. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S, on average, were expecting net revenue of $6.06 billion.

Government outreach

The world's top Internet company is recruiting and going on an acquisitions spree, aiming to ensure its online products remain popular as surfers turn to new services like Facebook -- now the most heavily trafficked website - and wireless gadgets.

On a conference call with analysts, Google CFO Patrick Pichette said a 10 percent, across-the-board pay raise instituted late last year was a direct attempt to staunch a flow of talent to hot Web upstarts in the Valley.

Google is also facing increasing regulatory scrutiny as its influence on the Web grows and as the company expands into other markets. The company's planned $700 million acquisition of airline ticketing software company ITA software is being reviewed by U.S. regulators, while European regulators are looking into Google's search practices.

Google tried to buy fast-growing online local-shopping service Groupon for $6 billion but was rebuffed, Chicago Breaking Business, a Tribune Newspaper website, and other news outlets reported.

The question is whether Facebook's success could start to cut into Google's business, as investors debate whether marketers will advertise on both online services, or shift advertising dollars from Google to the world's largest social network.

Google said the management change was made as part of a plan to "streamline" decision making and create clearer lines of responsibility and accountability at the top.

"It's a good move. It (the triumvirate management structure) was always one of things that concerned us a little bit," said Ryan Jacob, portfolio manager with the Jacob Internet Fund. "It should streamline the decision-making process. They're in a fast-moving industry."

Schmidt now plans to sell about 534,000 shares of Class A common stock, the company said. Based on Google's closing share price of $626.77 on Thursday, he would earn about $334.7 million on the stock sale. He would still own about 2.7 percent of Google's outstanding capital stock, down from 2.9 percent before selling the shares.

"As Google has grown, managing the business has become more complicated. So Larry, Sergey and I have been talking for a long time about how best to simplify our management structure and speed up decision making," Schmidt said in a posting on the company's official blog.

"And over the holidays we decided now was the right moment to make some changes to the way we are structured."

Google also reported fourth-quarter financial results, beating Wall Street's net revenue expectations. Schmidt said on his blogpost that Page, the son of a Michigan State University computer science professor, will now lead product development and technology strategy, areas that are "his greatest strengths."

"It will be interesting to see what he'll do that's different, what he could not have done in his prior role," said BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis.

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Internet Armageddon All My Fault

The "father of the internet" says the world is going to run out of internet addresses "within weeks" – and it will be all his fault.

Google's chief internet evangelist, Vint Cerf, who created the web protocol, IPv4, that connects computers globally, said he had no idea that his "experiment" in 1977 "wouldn't end".

"I thought it was an experiment and I thought that 4.3 billion [addresses] would be enough to do an experiment," he said in group interview with Fairfax journalists.

The protocol underpinning the net, known as IPv4, provides only about 4 billion IP addresses - not website domain names, but the unique sequence of numbers assigned to each computer, website or other internet-connected device.

The explosion in the number of people, devices and web services on the internet means there are only a few million left.

The allocation of those addresses is set to run out very shortly but the industry is moving towards a new version, called IPv6, which will offer trillions of addresses for every person on the planet.

"Who the hell knew how much address space we needed?" Cerf said.

"It doesn’t mean the network stops, it just means you can’t build it very well."

Google's leadership shake-up

Cerf said Google's surprise leadership shake-up was essential because the search giant was beginning to move too slowly.

Today the company announced that Google co-founder Larry Page would take over as chief executive from Eric Schmidt, who has become its executive chairman. Until this point Page and co-founder Sergey Brin ran the company with Schmidt as a "troika".

"'As we got larger it was harder for us to move as quickly as we would like so I think this is part of the whole practice of speeding up decision processes," he said.

"Quick rapid execution is absolutely essential, especially in a highly competitive world like this."

Recent ex-Googlers who left the company to join Facebook, including former Google Australia engineer Lars Rasmussen, have said Google has become too unwieldy as it has grown.

Schmidt gave similar comments in a blog post today, saying that, as Google had grown, managing the business had become "more complicated" and the trio had been "talking for a long time about how best to simplify our management structure and speed up decision making".

Cerf said Schmidt, 55, had been chief executive for 10 years - "a nice round number" - and Page, now 37, was ready to lead the company into the future.

"Larry and Sergey are 10 years older than they were when they thoughtfully hired Eric to be the CEO ... so everybody's growing up," Cerf said.

"He was the only guy that stood up to them - these were two young, smart, incredibly brilliant guys who literally had just dropped their PhDs to go start this company."

It has long been held that Schmidt was brought on at Google to counter the lack of business experience of Google's founders, and Schmidt alluded to this in a tweet today.

"Day-to-day adult supervision no longer need!" he wrote after the leadership change announcement.

Taking on Facebook
Cerf would not be drawn on whether Google was developing a social networking site to compete with Facebook, as has been rumoured. But he said "our interest is less in the social networking aspect as it is in the patterns of behaviour".

"We really don't care about you personally we care about the patterns that you make. If we can match the patterns that you make with the patterns that the advertisers are trying to get in front of you, you benefit as well as the advertisers," he said.

"This is quite independent of the sort of things that go on in Facebook, which is more about personal information and personal interactions." Praising the NBN

Cerf heaped praise on the National Broadband Network, saying Australia was making a long-term investment that would "serve you incredibly well in ways that even I can't figure out".

"The idea of being able to export your talents without having to export your people ... this is a very attractive proposition," he said.

"I honestly envy the political will to make this kind of long-term investment."

Google as ISP?

But despite Google's work in building municipal Wi-Fi and experimental fibre broadband networks in the US, he said it was unlikely Google would ever become an ISP.

"The intent is that as we build these [networks] out we will then turn them over to some other parties to operate and to make openly accessible," he said.

"This is not our business model. Our purpose was to document what the costs and problems are ... we're not in the business of building physical infrastructure except for our internal operation."

Asked whether recent privacy breaches at Sydney University and Vodafone - both of which kept detailed customer records online - highlighted the pitfalls of moving toward hosting everything in the online "cloud", Cerf said the cloud was not at fault.

"Just because it's sitting in an enterprise server doesn't mean that you're any better protected than you would be in the cloud," he said.

"When you're in the cloud business you better be good at securing your systems otherwise you lose all your customers."

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Why Not Buy A Puppy From Pet Shop ?

We all have visited pet shops and seen those cute puppies that they sell. Your kid comes to you and begs you to buy them that puppy. In a way, you feel guilty if you do not buy that cute puppy. Puppies that end up at pet stores or pet shops are puppies bred by irresponsible breeders. The puppies are bred by puppy mills whose main goal is to profit, and profit a lot. Someone buying the puppy from the pet shop will only help the puppy millers continue with their high-volume breeding.

Housetraining is one of the most important things to teach a puppy. You will find puppies that are of much better quality directly from responsible breeders and that cost less than a puppy from a pet shop. Even if they tell you at the pet shop that the puppy is purebred, you will never know for sure until the puppy grows up. Many puppies bought from pet shops end up with illnesses, genetic problems, and temperament issues later in life. This leads to many puppies that come from pet shops having health problems, as well as, behavioral problems.

So next time you go to a online dog stores or pet shop and you see a puppy for sale, remember how that puppy got there and what will happen if you buy him.

Why is a Pet Shop a Must Visit Place When You Plan to Buy a Pet for Yourself!

Executive Summary about Pet Shops by Vincent Y Platinum Quality Author

Getting a pet from a pet store is probably one of the best ways to treat yourself, or gift somebody you wish to never feel lonely.

Finding a pet store that has various kinds and breeds of pets for sale is not at all a tough job, provided you know where to begin your search from. You might also ask an acquaintance who is a pet owner about the best pet stores to check out.

If you re looking for a particular pet that is not very commonly found in the pet shops, and are not feeling satisfied with the pet supplies the stores easily accessible to you have to offer, you could even place an order for one with them if they ship pets from various places, exclusively for those who fancy having a particular pet who may not be easily found.

After all what is a pet shop for, if not for letting your dreams come true?!

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or you want to see my other posting about dog stores