End of the Mosquitos!

I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't like mosquitos, at all. I always seem to get bitten all the time. Leaving my friends apartment the other day I got 5 bites just from walking from the door to my car. And there was the mosquito that lived in my apartment for about a week even after everyone ensured me that it'd die within 24 hours, it didn't, just kept on biting. There might be hope for people like me, who get bit all the time. 

Mosquitos have carbon dioxide olfactory nerve cells, meaning they are attracted and can sense carbon dioxide. Unfortunately, we exhale carbon dioxide making us mosquito magnets. Research is being done on the nerve cells and figuring out how to block them. They are using chemical techniques that affect the nerve, different odors that influence the nerve. There have been two odors that have had success. The first is ethyl pyruvate, which has a fruity odor and has reduces a mosquitos attraction to people. The second is cyclopentanone, which has a mint smell and has drawn mosquitos into non carbon monoxide based traps. The articles were unclear in the mechanism regarding how the nerve was affected, but mosquitos were now drawn to these scents over carbon dioxide. 

The goal is to use these natural odors to help ward off mosquitos from people and trap them else where. Carbon dioxide used in traps has poor environmental effects and cyclopentanone offers a safer solution. If ethyl pyruvate gets involved in repellants, my fear would be finding out what bugs ARE attracted to a fruity smell. 

What are your thoughts? If we can trap mosquitos with cyclopentanone, should we? How does that affect the environment? What do mosquitos do for the environment, besides giving us a bunch of itchy bites and possibility of disease? 

Read more here:
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/science-ticker/targeting-single-set-nerve-cells-may-block-mosquitoes
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/12/131205141852.htm

Not So Rare Frog Mutations

Animals or amphibians that are found with mutations are always something shared and talked about online. The University of California's environmental science program did a study on frogs and toads for the past ten years identifying mutations. 

Their study shows that mutations in the amphibians were quite rare. Researchers looked at over 68,000 toads/frogs from different areas across the United States. The goal of the research was to identify certain "hot spots" where abnormalities in the amphibian populations were more prevalent. Causes for these hot spots could be due to pollution, chemical spills, or other man-made run offs. Amphibians were focused because there has been a decline in the toad/frog population in the United States over the last couple of years and they were looking for potential causes, such as mutations due to changing climate and environment from human interaction. 

Although the focus of this research was to identify these hot spots, these frogs can be examined and see what is happening to the genome to produce an extra limb, or missing toes, or shortened limbs. The study also shows that these mutations can also fix themselves, another interesting genome change that researchers could look at. The identification of these hot spots can be used in a proactive manner. The hot spot could be examined and sources of chemical or heavy metal introduction to the environment can be examined and stopped. A mutation that starts in a creature as small as a frog can cause mutations in larger amphibians or mammals if the hot spot is not controlled. 

Where do you think this research could go? What could it be used for?

Links to the articles:

https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/science-ticker/malformed-frogs-rarer-thought

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131120134030.htm

 

Shh...don't wake the baby!

"Don't wake the baby!" is commonly heard around a newborns household. What people don't realize is that babies do need noise and interaction; it helps their development. 

The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit has a lot of noise due to machines and constant visitors. Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis did a study on the brain development of babies that stayed in the NICU, where it is loud, compared to babies that lived in private rooms, where there was limited background noise. Their hypothesis was that the babies staying in private rooms would have better brain development, but that proved to be incorrect. 

The study showed that the babies living in the NICU had a more mature brain and performed better in language testings years later. The background noise they were exposed to by the constant activity within the NICU promoted brain growth and development. 

This study can be supported by what happened in Romanian orphanages; babies were left alone in their cribs with no human interaction or interaction of any kind that they would hit their heads against the bars of the crib to feel something. The lack of interaction and stimulant deprivation affected the babies. 

Expecting parents often play music and talk to their growing babies to stimulate brain growth. Interaction while awake, and background noise while asleep stimulate brain development. Overall, babies need to be stimulated to learn and grow. This study done in St. Louis is being taken into consideration by hospital administrators to best treat newborns. 

For those of you wanting children, how will this information affect how you raise your baby? Do you think the idea of playing music and talking to a baby while in utero is actually helpful? How would you change the environment of your household with a newborn?

Read the article here

The Nameless Dolphin

Here is a topic that has even been discussed on Facebook!

Dolphins are such beautiful creatures, and recently, a new species of the humpback dolphin was discovered off the coast of Australia!  And I was just there over a year ago! I was seeing this species of dolphin and didn't even know it! (Of course I was just happy to see a dolphin while out on the reef)

 

The humpback dolphin gets its name from the bump that is located just below the dorsal fin, the fin that is on a dolphin's back. These magnificent creatures can be seen swimming and jumping in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Ocean. Until now there were three species that were classified as humpback dolphins. One species, the Sousa teuszii, is found in the Atlantic Ocean, the Sousa plumbea is found in the western Indian Ocean, and the Sousa chinensis is found in the East Indian Ocean and West Pacific Ocean. The new species was found in the waters of Australia and is still unnamed.

Scientists realized that there was another species based on skull measurements and DNA sequencing. The specimens used for taking skull measurements came from beached dolphins and those in captivity. The DNA sequencing was done from tissue samples collected from dolphins in the same region. Comparing the DNA sequences of the Australian dolphins to the Alantic, Indian, and Indo-Pacific dolphins, there was enough variance to call it a new species. Nuclear DNA and mitochondrial DNA was used to make comparisons.

The discovery of this new species proves that there is endless research to be done and there really is no end. Dolphins are an animal well studied, well understood, and widely recgonized, yet there are still new discoveries and the knowledge continues to grow. This opens the door to new research and studies to see how this species came to be and how it differs from those found in other regions. Next time you think there's nothing else you can discover, just keep looking!

Articles (and Picture)
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/dolphin-without-name
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131029143000.htm

Look into the Past

To keep on my plant and environment theme, this week I found an article that looked at prairie restoration. 

The University of Colorado in Boulder started a projected examining the tall grass prairies that use to thrive throughout the middle of this country. Of course, today, very little of this original prairie grass is still around. The researchers collected 31 samples of the original prairie grass. The majority of samples came from nature preserves and graveyards. 

Much like what we have been doing in class the last couple of weeks, the researchers used DNA sequencing to identify the bacteria that is predominant in these native grasses. The bacteria identified is Verrucomicrobia, which is not very well known. The goal of this project is to examine this bacteria and see what role it played in the in prairie growth. Their experiments have also revealed that the different samples also have different bacterial make up. They would like to reconstruct what this land use to look like prior to human arrival and interactions. 

Although it is a very new study, it offers great potential for new understanding of what the land use to be before people transformed the land for crops growth. If this bacteria can be studied and reintroduced into the environment and maybe regrow the tall grass prairies, to an extent. But would people be interested in walking through an environment that recreates the original land, or would people prefer to keep the land for crop production? The reason these prairies were demolished was because of the fertile ground and potential for crop growth. 

What do you think could explain the difference in bacteria population across the different samples? How do authentic do you think these bacteria populations are to what the land use to be? After years of treatment and environment changes due to humans, from planting to power plants emissions, it's hard to imagine that the bacteria fully represents what the microbes use to be, but it gives a good starting point. 

View the article here

Clones and Epigenetics

The best epigenetic studies come from twin studies. Twins have the same DNA, yet can develop different diseases and traits. These differences arise from their environment and lifestyles.

A short article I found on Science News talked about the cloning success of a dog. The clone has near identical genome to the donor dog. The article states that clones can be used to study environmental changes and the epigenome. 

Being interested in epigenetics, twin studies, and how different factors affect the epigenome, the possibility of using clones is an interesting approach. Twins can be hard to study and it takes a lot to study them over a long period of time. Being able to clone an animal and study if over it's life time would make it easier. Having an identical genomes to compare will make it easier to identify how the epigenome affects it, what changes occur and where. Mice and rats could be cloned and be subjected to different environments, i.e. one in smoking environment and one in clean air, and see where the epigenome is affected. 

There are many ethical issues that go along with this type of study as well cloning in general. Would cloning a mouse or rat to have identical genetic material be worth it? Or is it more cruel to clone an animal just to test on it? Having identical genetic material to manipulate and then look at would pinpoint changes would be very informative.

Read this article here. 

Invasion of Humans Actually Helped!

History shows that human population expansion tends to destroy the environment that they invade. The land gets destroyed and the animal life diminishes. This is very true with the expansion of urban environments, but not so much with the Aboriginal population in Australia! Their presence in the desert helped a population of lizards thrive. 

The Aboriginals live off of the land and had to figure out the best way to collect and hunt food. Most often, lizards will run away in the presence of humans. A certain species of lizard, the goanna lizard, preferred to make their nests in the abandoned fire pits of the Aboriginals. This made them easy targets when the Aboriginals needed food. 

Now why did these lizards prefer this up-close and personal nesting area that made them targets? These small, controlled fires offered the perfect environment for biodiversity and plant growth. The lizards took advantage of this. Feeding off of bugs, these fire pits provided plenty of food for them. Once the Aboriginals moved off of their land for a period of time, the population of the goanna lizard suffered. Upon their return, the population of lizard returned. 

Although this blog isn't necessarily about molecular biology, it shows the relationship between different organisms and how the most unexpected relationships can occur. Who would have thought that the appearance of a human population would help out the animal population. Makes me happy though, human involvement does not have to destroy everything. 

Read the article here.