Reblogged molecularlifesciences
doctorderange-deactivated202104
HERES TO MOMS GIVING US MITOCHONDRIA!!
Gene-ius!!!
Reblogged micromultiverse
To celebrate #DNAday, we’re featuring some of our DNA comics, GIFs, and videos! Here’s a few spooky DNA movie titles…
Reblogged asapscience
This is the spoopy content you need on your dash
This is so precious I can’t even…
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Any dog owner can tell you, dogs are excellent listeners. But how much do they really understand?
According to a new study that will be published in Science this week, they understand more that you’d think.
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging technology (fMRI) researchers were able to observe the brain activity in dogs as they listened to their trainer’s voices.
The study involved 13 dogs (six border collies, four golden retrievers, one German shepherd, and one Chinese crested) volunteered by their human families to participate in the research. The dogs were specially trained to lie very still inside the fMRI scanner, and were free to get up during the study if they wanted to. But they were all very good dogs, and managed to stay still enough during the testing for researchers to get data on all 13.
The dogs heard their trainers say positive phrases in a positive tone, positive phrases in a neutral tone, neutral phrases in a positive tone and neutral phrases in a neutral tone.
All phrases were Hungarian expressions (the researchers were from Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest) used by all of the dogs’ owners to praise the pups.
The praise phrases were: azaz, meaning “that’s it”; ügyes, which means “clever”; and jól van, which translates to “well done.” The neutral phrases were: akár, which means “as if”; olyan, meaning “such”; and mégsem, which means “yet.” Each of the neutral words was selected for it’s phonetic similarity to the praise words, and for having no real meaning to the dogs. (Using the words for “bath” or “let’s go to the vet,” which dogs might associate with activities, might have thrown off the study.)
When the dogs listened to a recording of their trainer saying the words in each of the combinations of phrases and tone the researchers found that while the dogs recognized praise words, their reward centers of the brain only activated when they heard praise words in a praising tone.
“During speech processing, there is a well-known distribution of labor in the human brain. It is mainly the left hemisphere’s job to process word meaning, and the right hemisphere’s job to process intonation. The human brain not only separately analyzes what we say and how we say it, but also integrates the two types of information, to arrive at a unified meaning. Our findings suggest that dogs can also do all that, and they use very similar brain mechanisms,” lead researcher Attila Andics said.
Source: popsci.com
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Are crows crafty, cunning or both?
Betty the crow rose to fame in 2002 when she bent a straight piece of garden wire into a neat hook to lift food from a tube.
Oxford University researchers were stunned with Betty’s crafty skills.
Recently a group of biologists at the University of St Andrews also observed this same ‘tool-making’ behaviour amongst wild New Caledonian crows.
This latest discovery raises the question: does Betty deserve the cleverness crown?
To be fair, Betty may have understood the task at hand or it was an embedded skill that’s found in all Caledonian crows.
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Colon Daisies
Be warned however, this is one bouquet that you really don’t want to sniff.
Microscopically, the mucosal lining of the colon exhibits many intestinal glands called crypts of Lieberkuhn (flowers) that are lined with mucus secreting goblet cells (petals).
Mucus collects in the lumen of the gland (center of flower) and is squeezed out when the muscle of your colon contracts to push the fecal material towards the rectum. As the feces move through the colon water is reabsorbed making them drier to conserve the water. As a result, the mucus secreted from the crypts is super important in this region because it ensures that the tube is well lubricated to allow the dry feces to be passed along the colon easily without causing any damage (the mucus decreases friction).
If you slice up the colon in a way that ensures you cut through the mucosa parallel with its surface and then stain it using dyes that show the mucus inside the goblet cells (in this case HEA50). Then, your colon looks much more like a field full of daisies with pretty goblet cell petals than a chute for passing along poop.
Histology 📷 from the microscope of the ever fragrant @NejibY (Insta)
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“How should we market these scalpel blades?” “You can’t go wrong with a giant floating, glowing blade of doom.” “True. How’s this look?” “Fantastic. But people need to know they’re for veterinarians. These ain’t no human blades.” “So we’d better put animals on the box, too.” “Should they be screaming? I really think they should be screaming.” “Of course. Perfect.”
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Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have shown for the first time how a previously unknown process works to promote infection in a number of dangerous viruses, including dengue, West Nile and Ebola.
The new study also points to a potential treatment, an experimental antibiotic that appears to inhibit infection by these deadly viruses, all of which lack vaccines and treatments.
The study, which was published recently by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), was led by TSRI Associate Professor Hyeryun Choe.
“Most of these viruses use a specific molecule to enter cells,” Choe said. “In the new study, we were able to show how a second molecule plays a major and previously unknown role in that process. We also show an antibiotic called duramycin inhibits the actions of this molecule. This looks to be a promising broad-spectrum antiviral strategy and deepens our understanding of the entire infection process.”
Audrey Stéphanie Richard et al. Virion-associated phosphatidylethanolamine promotes TIM1-mediated infection by Ebola, dengue, and West Nile viruses, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2015). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1508095112
The Ebola virus, isolated in November 2014 from patient blood samples obtained in Mali. The virus was isolated on Vero cells in a BSL-4 suite at Rocky Mountain Laboratories. Credit: NIAID
Reblogged mindblowingscience
Every year I participate in Small Business Saturday. I love supporting small businesses, especially as the holiday season approaches.
This year, Small Business Saturday is on November 28th 2015. Take part in Shop Small, a movement to celebrate small business.
Here is a selection of some medical and science related items that are all produced by small businesses and/or individual artists.
All I want for Christmas…is everything. Every single item on this list.
Reblogged huffpost
Anyone who’s been 15 knows it’s not an easy age. But for many girls, universal challenges are just the beginning of the struggle and hardship faced at this pivotal time in life.
PHOTOS VIA NPR