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.

Cushion Plants Not for Resting

Ever wonder how some plants survive in their harsh environments? Some plants have adapted to survive, other plants use cushion plants! 

These cushion plants may look like small cushions that you would put your feet up on or relax on, but they help plants survive that are cannot handle the stress of these harsh, typically arctic, conditions. Studies done at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden examined the relationship between cushion plants effectiveness to the environment they were found in. 

Turns out the harsher the environment, the more the cushion plants do to make a suitable environment for other plants. A cushion plant creates a viable environment for plants that are less tolerable to stress of inhabitable environments. This creates a diversity within arctic or mountainous environments that might not otherwise be able to survive. 

These studies focused on arctic and mountain environments, focusing on the alpines. I wonder if there are not similar plants found in the other extreme, desert, dry environments, that help plats survive. If not, could these plants be adapted to help plants in these environments? What would that do the biodiversity that is already found in the desert?

Another possibility for these plants could be growing crops in environments that they are not normally found in. The cushion plant could supply a viable environment and increase crop growth. 

What are your thoughts?

View the article here: 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130218092545.htm

New Age Technology: 3-D Printing

I've seen articles about 3-D printing before while searching internet sites and thought it was really cool and kind of unbelievable. Researchers at the University of Texas in Austin thought so too and applied it to biology. 

There's no better way to talk about this article besides summarizing it. A bioengineer at the University of Texas in Austin used 3-D printing to create bacteria structures that bacteria could grow and colonize in. This was done by mixing bacteria with gelatin and a light active binding agent. When hit with a laser, the gelatin/bacteria mixture solidified into thin sheets that can be formed into these structures. Bacteria can work together to protect each other by encasing one another, making the bacteria inside untouchable to an antibiotic attempting to fight it. Bacteria can also form different geometrical shapes, some which are less susceptible to antibiotics. Using these generate 3-D structures, which can be any formed into any shape, researchers can study the interaction of different bacteria and get a better understanding of how these different structures increase the bacterias resistance to antibiotics. 

I don't know much about bacteria, but I thought the article was interesting and wanted to get it out there for people to read. 3-D printing offers new approaches and opportunities in biological research. Microscopes can reveal information about structure or make up of a cell or microorganism, but 3-D printing provides the opportunity to see how species interact. It also can probably be used to magnify them, imagine, big scale bacteria! What are some possible other uses for 3-D printing? 

Read the article here. The paper was cited in the article, and when I clicked on it, the page had been moved. Here is the link to the abstract of the paper (you need to have a subscription to view the full paper)

Jet Lag, who needs it!

While scanning through articles, this one caught my eye, being a victim of jet lag myself. 

Have you ever travelled over seas, or across the country, and weren't able to get the most out of your trip due to jet lag? Or upon returning home you just want to sleep all day due to jet lag? I went to Australia two summers ago and on the way there I adjusted quite nicely, but on the way back...the next few days were miserable. 

Kyoto University in Japan has been doing research involving the circadian clock. The circadian clock or the circadian rhythm, the internal clock of the body, inside mammals is maintained by a a group of neurons called the suprachiasmatic nucleus.  These neurons release a chemical called vasopressin, and the researchers at Kyoto University decided to play around with this chemical. Using mice they were able to stop cells from reacting with this chemical and discovered that the mice, when exposed to conditions that made it seem like they were 8 hours ahead of time, recovered and adjusted to their new time cycle much faster than the normal mice. The deactivation of this chemical prevented the mice from having jet lag. Read more here. 

This discovery has its benefits for sure. Traveling over seas or even across the country could go much smoother if you could adjust to the time change quickly. It would also be beneficial to those who travel overseas often for work. I have had plenty of friends with parents who have work over seas for a week or two and having to attend meetings while adjusting to the time change cannot be fun. Yes, you can drink coffee to make it through those meetings, but adjusting to the time change and caffeine boosts are two different things. Would you want to take a drug that affects the one thing that regulates your internal clock? Of course, with the amount of overtime people put in at work, or late nights student's put into school, who's internal clock is only affected by the changing from night to day? We've all forced ourselves to ignore or even temporarily change the working of our internal clock. 

Almost everyone has a favorite flower, something they'd love to grow in a garden outside and view everyday. But so many beautiful flowers struggle when faced with severe weather, especially ones involving heavy winds. A new discovery under the sea may provide an answer to how these sought after flowers can stand strong. 

A seaweed found in the Pacific, Calliarthron cheilosporioides, stands tall despite being beaten down over and over again by waves and currents that the ocean brings. Biochemists at Stanford University examined this seaweed, that at first glance appears like coral because of its tough structure. As anyone who has been in the ocean knows, coral breaks very easily, and yet this seaweed with coral like features does not. This is due to connective tissues that runs through the hardened areas and allows for flexibility. For more on this read the article yourself.

How does this relate to garden greens? This is some speculation done on my part, but this seaweed could provide researchers the opportunity to look at the cells that make this connective tissue, isolate the gene, and plant it into other plants to help them grow strong. Plants have a woody stalk making them inflexible, which explains why they break so easily. The DNA from this seaweed could be an opportunity to strengthen these plants and make them last longer. But will this compromise their beauty? And is this an important topic to be pursued? 

How contagious is ring worm?

I was prepared to write about epigenetics again and go more into the chemical reactions that take place, how the methylation occurs, but recent happenings in my life have changed my topic for today.

I just adopted a 3 month old kitten and he had his first check-up today. He has a patch of dry skin with no hair above his right eye, which I originally thought was due to a wound from a fight earlier in his life, and then someone suggested it could be mange...a skin disease caused by mites, but the veterinarian diagnosed it as ring worm. She warned me that ring worm is very contagious and can be passed from human to human, animal to animal, human to pet, and pet to human. It's transferred by direct contact, and of course my kitten has shared my bed, snuggled up next to me, for the past week. The veterinarian told me she has been working for 20 years with animals, has seen plenty of ring worms in dogs/cats, and has only gotten it once or twice. On the other hand, there have been lab technicians that merely touch the animal and have symptoms within a few days.

A little background on ring worm. First of all it's not actually a worm. It's caused by a fungus that gets under the skin and can appear in many forms, a red ring on the skin, red, dry, scaly patches on the skin, or a rash. Ring worm is caused by many different species of the fungi, but the type my kitten has is Microsporum canis, which fluoresced green under UV light. Browsing through internet postings on ring worm I've discovered it can lay dormant up to two weeks or can appear within a few days of exposure, so that should make my next few weeks fun. It is curable through topical creams or orally ingested pills. It's not a very fast treatment, it can take up to a month, minimum, to fully clear up.

After reading up on ring worm, I have fully cleaned my apartment and will clean in every few days to remove any spores that might be dropped off my kitten; these spores can stick around for up to 18 months, it's not like a bacteria or parasite that dies within hours of not being on a host. Questions I thought of were why did some personal exposed to ring worm get infected the first time and others can have repeated contact and get it once or twice? What is it about some people that makes them more susceptible to diseases and infections?

Epigenetics could offer explanation to why some people are more susceptible than others depending on the childhood they led, if they were sickly as children and always took medication, not building up a strong immune system, or if there was something in their parent's past that could effect them. I was raised with the idea that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, a little dirt in the wound wouldn't hurt so fingers crossed I fight it off, thought with the amount of direct contact I've had we'll see. And I guess I did bring it back around to epigenetics.

Why do you act like your parents?

Growing up, kids want to be exactly like their parents, or want to be nothing like their parents. It's not always the kids say though. They can change their behavior depending on how they want to reflect their parents, but there are some characteristics that are out of their control.

You know you get your looks from your parents through DNA and your genes. Most people also know they inherit certain behaviors from their ancestors, i.e. depression running in the family, cancer running in the family, alcoholism running in the family. Is there a gene that is related to depression? It turns out epigenetics explains these inheritances. Epigenetics does not depend on what you eat and do growing up, but like other genes, epigenes can be past from parents to offspring, meaning what your parents eat, drank, did, the environment they grew up in, affect you as well. Epigenetics can be passed from generation to generation just as the gene for eye color can be.

The key to epigenetics is methylation, the addition or removal of methyl groups along the nucleotide sequence can explain certain behaviors. The methyl placement can be passed on from generation to generation. An article in Discover Magazine, titled "Grandma's Experiences Leave a Mark on Your Genes " explains the background of epigenetics and how methyl groups can be added. Some methyl group placements are inherited, others are effected prenatally, and others are effected postnatally. The majority of these changes are brought on by the environment you grew up in, how your parents treated you, how their parents treated them, etc. The article looks at epigenetics and their relationship to psychological/behavioral traits. Using rats as test subjects, rats that grew up under a distant, non-attentive mother had more methylation in genes that are linked to stress control. These pups were more stressed out later in life. Rats that had attentive, loving mothers had less methylation in the brain and had lower stress levels. These studies showed how upbringing is linked to epigenetics. Studies were done looking at rats born from stressed mothers had methylation similar to their mothers and were stressed indicating methyl inheritance. Knowing this, that decisions you make in your younger years will affect your future children, and how you treat your children will affect them greatly, how will you change your life style or habits? Do you think there are ways to counteract any epigenetic changes that have already occurred?

The article also mentioned drugs, trichostatin A, that would remove methyl groups and when give to the stressed pups their stress levels lowered and the amount of methylation was less. A question I asked myself as I read that, and the article ends with, is would you take a drug that could remove methyl groups from your genome? It's in early stage of development and the article was unclear if trichostatin A could target certain areas or if it does a broad sweep. If depression runs in your family would you take a drug that could rid you of it? Or are there other ways, environmentalways, that you can help yourself and help your future children?

Genome vs. Epigenome

Starting at a young age people are told why they look like their siblings and their parents; they inherit genes and a genome sequence at birth that are encoded with the information for eye color, hair color, and other features that make someone similar to their sibling over their best friend. These genes are passed on from generation to generation and shape how a family looks.

A new type of genome has come to light, the epigenome, which explains how cells that all start off the same with the same information become certain cells and explains differences that occur over time in family members based on how they took care of themselves. The epigenome can control which genes are being seen through methylation of the genes or using histones to control the proteins within DNA. Outside factors can cause the epigenome to change. Using identical twins, studies have shown how the epigenome plays a role.

Duke University and cancer centers around the world have looked at twins of all ages and compared their DNA. Studies show that at a younger age the DNA between identical twins is much more similar than the DNA of identical twins later in life. How the twins lived their lives affected their epigenome. Depending on how they ate, drank, worked, if they were stressed, if they lived in good environment, ended up affecting them a molecular level. This can explain why in some sets of twins one can get cancer and the other does not.

The epigenome can instruct genes to turn on or off and ultimately control the cell. This can cause normal cells to become cancerous. The bright light at the end of the tunnel here is that if the epigenome is turning genes off that need to be on to make a happy, healthy cell, through treatment it is possible to turn this genes back on because the epigenome is not permanent. Epigenetic therapy has been used in cancer treatments and has had some success.

Understanding the epigenome can offer solutions to questions and conditions that outlooks used to be grim. The epigenome also takes to a new level what it means to take care of oneself, because you are what you eat, and drink, and how you live.

Thanks to PBS and NOVA for information regarding the studies on epigenetics. For further information see the following link.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/epigenetics.html