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If you are 15 years old you have only lived a seven hundred and thirty thousand five hundredth of that time! Think about how long that is. In spite of all of this, Russian scientists have recently grown plants from fruit that old! How do you get fruit that old? The story goes that a long time ago (30,000 years to be exact) Arctic ground squirrels in Siberia stashed the fruit of Silene stenophylla in their burrow. Their burrow then froze into the permafrost and has never thawed since.
The fruit scientist obtained from the burrow contained seeds. To the scientists dismay, however, they could not get them to grow. But they didn’t give up so easily. They knew that the fruit contained lots of sucrose (a natural preservative) and they had passed something similar to Mrs. Heitz’s biology class. Eventually they were able to get a plant to grow by taking placental tissue from the fruit and putting it in a Petri dish. Amazingly a plant started growing via vegetative propagation!
What interested me about this article (besides the fact that it beat the previous revival of a plant record by 28 thousand years) was how it connected to our biology class in so many ways. Weren’t we just studying vegetative propagation? The other interesting connection is to our current topic, evolution. After the plant had grown, the scientists naturally conducted a very thorough examination of it and the modern plant. They found very subtle differences in the shape of the leaves and the ‘sex of flowers’ (<– that seems undefined to me). This is very interesting from an evolutionary stand point. We apparently owe all of this (a wealth of evolutionary and biological data) to an unusual hero: the Arctic ground squirrel.
Scientists are optimistic about using this new technique to bring back extinct plants from the same time period. At that age, what factors determine whether or not they can bring a particular plant back to life?
What exactly are the differences between the old plant and modern plants and what selective pressures might have caused this?
Recently, researchers from the LMU team, led by Dirk Trauner, have been working on an “off switch for pain.” The system they are working on is a chemical compound they call QAQ, which is made up of two functional parts. They each contain a “quaternary ammonium,” – which are connected by a nitrogen double bond. This forms the switch that can be altered by light. “Irradiation” with light of a specific wavelength causes the molecule to flip. Exposure to light from a different color reverses this effect.
One half of this QAQ closely resembles Lidocaine, a well-known anesthetic used by dentists to block the perception of pain by forbidding the action of the nerve cell receptors in the skin.
They are on to some great ideas, however they still have a long way to go. They hope to one-day find the problem they are experiencing such as finding a red light that would pass through the skin. Hopefully one day, we wouldn’t feel pain anymore.
Do you think this would be a benefit for our soldiers to fight in combat without feeling any pain? Or do you think something like this would just make humanity heartless, and give people opportunities to purposely do dangerous things.
The original article is here, for more information.
10,957,500 Days is a Long Time! »« Skin Cells to Brain Cells
We all now about stem cells, and how many things they could help us out with. A big question has always been where to get stem cells from though. Well, a research group at the Stanford University School of Medicine in California may have found another solution. Apparently, “brain cells and skin cells contain the same genetic information”, except “the genetic code is interpreted differently in each”. They have created a study where you convert a person’s skin cells into “specialist cells”. This method where you take skin cells and reprogram them into “induced” stem cells means they are from the patient’s own cells and are then turned into the cell type they need. There is a down side, and that is the process activates cancer-causing genes.
This process has already transformed skin cells into neurons, and then created “nueral precursor” cells though. These cells can be developed into three types of brain cells, neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes. After these cells are created, they are able to be grown into very large numbers which could be very helpful if they were to be used for anything. Lots of trials are taking place in patients with stroke or forms of blindness.
We know what neurons do for the brain, but what do astrocytes and oligodendrocytes do? I think this was really interesting to read about, if it works out, do you like this whole idea?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-16788809
While scientists argue weather or not microwaves from cellphones cause cancer (Isaac)the journal of American medical associations brought up a new topic. Whether or not cell phones will rise your metabolism. Scientists brought in 47 volunteers in and used positron emission tomography (PET) scans to measure their glucose metabolism while they were on the phone. From this they found out that a 50 minute cell phone call will raise your metabolism in the regions closest to the cell phone antenna mainly the orbital frontal cortex and temporal pole, these control language, decision making, and social and emotional processing. Scientists are still experimenting to see how long the effects will last.
This is crazy, I wonder what the cell phone radiation does to the brain, like how it affects us. This could be a bad thing if we don’t try to change this in the future.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110915103602.htm
Caffeine has made a breakthrough in the beauty industry when used in eye creams for puffiness under the eyes and also fat under the eyes. Basically, it penetrates under the eyes where the fat cells are. Clinique, a high end makeup and skin care brand, actually grew fat cells and added caffeine into them. In this experiment, you can see the fat cells dissolving in the tray.
Dr. Tom Mammone, director of Skin Physiology and Pharmacology says that,”Caffeine is well known to penetrate the skin and it can travel all the way into the hyper dermis where the fat cells live.”
Caffeine does not break up the fat cells, it shifts the cells metabolism from storing fat, to burning fat. So basically it is just changing the metabolism of the cells. Therefore, the droplets of fat in the fat cells are reduced, and the fat cells shrink. Caffeine is also a soothing ingredient, and an anti-irritant.
I chose to blog about this topic since I know the areas around the eyes is one of the most sensitive part of your face, and it needs to be treated with delicacy. I remember watching a video regarding how to takes of this area around your eyes years ago, and it sparked my curiosity when caffeine came up.
Do you think using a high dose of caffeine as the main ingredient would be safe enough under the eyes?
Do you think that it would be a good idea to use other types of NOT illegal stimulants in products?
http://health.yahoo.net/experts/skintype/caffeine-good-your-skin
You have heard of the lizard that can drop its tail and grow it back, there is a similar species of lizard, except, that it clone itself!!! It is a little weird, because the entire population consists of female lizards. The name of the lizard is whiptail lizards (genus Cnemidophorus). They reproduce through parthenogenesis, it is a form of asexual reproduction, except there is no need for fertilization. Plants have the same way to reproduce as well. What makes this possible is when the whiptail lizard clones its cells, it clones the chromosomes twice and divides twice. So that is twice the amount of cloning of chromosomes then normal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis
http://discovermagazine.com/photos/13-creatures-that-say-no-to-sex
Puffy Eyes? Use Caffeine! »« Why Are Hundreds Dolphins Mysteriously Dying?
Recently, around a hundred dolphins have mysteriously washed up or have been stranded on the shores of Massachusetts. So far, scientists have not been able to figure out the exact reason why this has been happening, but since it started they started to tag and transport them so they could be released to outer Cape Cod. They have washed up in groups as big as ten at a time and once they have been beached they surprisingly can get sun burnt or even worse, they could get organ damage. Once of the possible reasons for this happening could be the harbors not icing over because of warmer winters. Right now that is pretty much all of the information that people have.
This is kind of scary because things like this could cause an entire species to go endangered or extinct if it gets any worse. The article also said that last year dozens of dead seals were found along the Maine and northern Massachusetts coastlines. When things like this start happening all the time and animals are just washing up dead, it makes you wonder what is killing them and if there is some type of chemical dumping going on, a larger predator, or just environmental changes that are doing it.
Why do you think that the dolphins are washing up dead?
How do you think something like this could be fixed?
Scientists have now discovered that coral doesn’t like to be buried in the sand. The scientists set up video cameras to record the twenty-hour long process of coral inflating and deflating to get the sand off of it. Scientists have already proven that coral can free itself from the sand beds, but now they know just exactly how it is done. This is very helpful because this special type of coral, namely the mushroom coral species, can free itself from being trapped in the sand. The head scientists still are a little shocked that this can happen in a matter of hours.
Can all of the coral species control their ‘bodies’ well enough to get out of the sand? What happens once they are free of the sand trap? This was an interesting article about some stuff that I would have never given a second thought about. It was fun to learn about what the coral does in order to survive. It still takes a really long time for the coral to inflate and deflate enough for the freedom that they want.
Why Are Hundreds Dolphins Mysteriously Dying? »« Drug = Cure of Alzheimer’s?
Quite recently, neuroscientists at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine made a dramatic break through in their efforts to find a cure for Alzheimer’s disease. A drug that appears to quickly reverse the “pathological deficits” caused by Alzheimer’s. The results in this could potentially help 5.4 million Americans suffering from this disease.
Scientists were exploring Bexarotene, a treatment of Cancer. There were mice that were having trouble building a nest using tissue paper. This demonstrated they had lost ability to put the tissue paper to good use. Just 72 hours after the Bexarotene treatment, the mice began to use the paper to make their nests. Bexarotene also worked to stimulate the removal of “amyloid plagues” – (a starch-like protein that is deposited in the liver, kidneys, or other tissues in certain diseases). The masses of amyloids are the pathological indicators of Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers found that after 72 hours after the treatment, 75 percent was reduced. Do you think that someday they can achieve a cure for Alzheimer’s?
I have high hopes for our future. Even though technology gets more and more dangerous, our scientists will someday find cure and hope for all the suffering civilians out there in the world.
Recently in LeRoy, New York 16 people were diagnosed with a neurological conversion disorder within a several week period. It is extremely interesting that 15 of these people are girls. With the exception of on 36 year old woman all of the patients go to the same high school(implying of course that on of the patients is a teen age boy). Many of these people never knew each other before they all spontaneously got sick. So what exactly are their symptoms. All of them claim to have uncontrollable muscle spasms around the clock. This causes nonsensical verbal outbursts and practically continuous arm and neck movements. All of the patients claim to have woken up with this ailment.
The foremost question on everyone’s mind is of course, why? At first experts thought it had to do with an environmental factor only effecting the school. This was ruled out when a 36 year old woman was diagnosed with the same problem. Experts checked the patients diets, vaccine history’s, and many more hypothesizes. In the end they officially stated that they had ruled everything out and blamed the whole thing on stress. According to this all of these patients developed a rare stress problem at the same time. This doesn’t seem to add up. Among the numerous proposed theories (theories is really to kind to most of them) the most accepted one involves a 41 year old (this seems irrational to me) toxic spill is somehow the cause of all of this. The dramatic twist to all of this is that the school refuses to allow independent experts in the school to conduct testing. (Lots and lots and lots of dramatic music)
What do I think? Having examined all of the proposed reasons I have managed to eliminate via science all except that the cause is water spirits! But on a more serious note I can’t think of a plausible reason. That is actually why this article interested me in the first place. Here you have a panel of doctors and ‘experts’ who either don’t know the cause or won’t say. Because I feel that the second part of last sentence is extremely improbable, I get the feeling that we might be discovering something very interesting (to science) about this small town.
What do you think is causing this so called ‘conversion’ disorder?
Do you think humans will ever undersand everything there is to know about life on earth?
I would also be interested to hear your opinion on this (the Erin part) (if you have time).
Drug = Cure of Alzheimer’s? »« Umbilical Cord Stem Cells to Brain Support Cells?
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