The “Beats” To Success

Posted on October 16, 2017 by | 4 comments

Everyone wants to excel at work; for instance, students want to ace their exams, and program developers want to finish their projects on time. What if there is a simple way to help enhance your work performance? Wouldn’t that be awesome?

According to Beauchene and her team, listening to binaural auditory beats has a significant effect on information transfer and visuospatial working memory. 

But what is a binaural auditory beat? Here is a clip of a 15 Hz binaural beat:

A binary auditory beat occurs when one hears two tones with different frequency on each ear and perceives as a single tone with frequency of the difference between two tones. So the beat you heard from the clip above, being 15 Hz, means you were listening to two beats with frequency difference of 15 Hz.

Fig 1. Example of a 15 Hz Binaural Beat

To find out what type of binaural beats has the most effect on brain activity, Beauchene and her team carried out an experiment on a group of participants. They were provided with 6 different conditions: 3 with either no beats, pure beats, or classical beats, and 3 with different types of binary beats (5 Hz, 10 Hz, and 15 Hz). They were also given a working memory task – a delayed match-to-sample visuospatial task – to carry out while under 6 different conditions.

Fig 2. Delayed match-to-sample visuospatial working memory task

The electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings were taken while the participants performed the experimental tasks for data analysis.

It turns out that the participants who listened to 15 Hz binaural beats had the most accurate performance in working memory task, compared to any other conditions. As shown in the graph below, there was a 3% increase in Δ Accuracy over 5 minutes for participants who listened to 15 Hz binaural beat, while all other beats made negative changes.

Fig 3. Δ Accuracy

In addition, Beauchene says listening to 15 Hz binaural beats showed “the least change in network connection strengths between the maintenance and retrieval portions of the working memory trials.” This tells how the networks were better preserved throughout the working memory task while they were under the condition of 15 Hz binaural beats.

Beauchene’s team concludes listening to the 15 Hz binaural beats is effective in retrieving better and more accurate memory. This answers the question in the beginning – yes, there is an easy way to augment your work performance. So why don’t you give it a try listening to the 15 Hz binaural beats while studying for the next exam? Who knows, it could boost up your marks by helping you memorize more easily yet accurately.

-Clair Yoon

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The Dangers of Salt

         Whether you like it or not, a key ingredient in many restaurants today is salt. Since everything contains a bit of salt, what are the effects of this large intake? Let’s consider what sodium usually does in the body. The kidney usually balances the amount of fluid within the body, but sodium dilution requires a large volume of water. This strain potentially causes kidney diseases and affects the flow of blood within the body.

Excessive salt consumption may cause serious harm to the body

Constant increase of blood flow damages the cardiovascular system. The heart has to pump with more effort and the arteries and veins harden over time due to constant pressure against its walls. If this occurs occasionally, it may be healthy to the body to circulate the system, but after many repetitions this may result in hypertension. This high blood pressure may lead to stroke, heart attack and various other detrimental conditions.

Issues related to high blood pressure

Does this mean we should abandon consuming salt? Not necessarily.

A lack of sodium in the body can cause as much harm as excess salt. Hyponatremia is a condition where one feels a lack of energy, headaches, nausea and other similar symptoms due to low salt levels. Salt is an essential mineral to the body. It helps with muscle functions, nerve transmissions and regulates body fluid levels (kidney).  Sodium and Potassium also regulate the body’s blood pressure and if there is a lack of sodium present to regulate potassium levels, the body may experience mild hyperkalemia.

Excessive salt consumption can lead to high blood pressure while lack of salt may lead to hyponatremia. It is normal to continue eating salty foods but it is best to attempt to follow health guidelines.

-Carswell Liu

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New Advances in Structural Colouration (revised)

Posted on October 15, 2017 by | Leave a comment

There are countless examples of colouration via nanoscale texturing found in nature, such as in bird feathers and butterfly wings (shown in video below). To date, we have been primarily reliant on chemical pigmentation for colour production since many traditional structural colours have either been iridescent or have lacked sufficient colour saturation. If these shortcomings can be worked out, structural colours will be a superior alternative to pigmentary colours, and will therefore be of greater use in areas of communication, signaling, and security. Developing a technique that would allow us to generate a wide range of structural colours has proven to be a difficult task.

Structural colours are produced by the scattering of light off nanoparticles, whereas pigmentary colours are produced through the absorption of light by molecules. The reason scientists are interested in structural colours is because they are tunable, less dependent on the use of toxic organic and metal-based materials, and have proven to be more resistant to photo and chemical bleaching compared to pigmentary colours. In a recent study conducted by Dr. Xiao and a team of researchers, tiny balls of melanin were aggregated into clusters called ‘supraballs’. Individual nanoparticles of melanin are responsible for skin pigmentation and appear black, however, altering the spacing of the nanoparticles in the supraballs affects how light is scattered, thus generating a spectrum of structural colours.

Synthesis and Self-Assembly. Taken from: Science Advances

Altering the spacing of the nanoparticles was achieved by adding a thin silica shell to the surface of the nanoparticles to control how tightly packed they were. By varying the diameter of the silica coating, the nanoparticles formed differently nanostructured supraballs which were able to scatter light to produce a wide range of colours. Additionally, using nanoparticles of different dimensions allowed for the shading of colours to be altered. Melanin was chosen as the nanoparticle core due to its large refractive index (RI) and broadband absorption in the visible range, which reduces the scattering of incoherent light and subsequently increases colour purity. The high RI melanin core and low RI silica shell makes for higher reflectance and brighter, more vibrant colours.

Microstructures of supraballs. Taken from: Science Advances

One of the main reasons this finding is considered a breakthrough in structural colouration research is due to the simplicity of the technique used to create the supraballs. This technique contrasts previously known methods, which are far more complicated and do not have the same potential for commercial application. The silica-coated melanin nanoparticles self-assemble into supraballs clusters via a water-in-oil reverse emulsion process. The supraballs are then separated by centrifugation. This process does not rely on the use any surfactant molecules to stabilize the emulsion and is fast and easily scalable.

With all the benefits structural colours have over pigmentary colours, along with recent advances in techniques used to create the nanomaterials which generate these structural colours, it is only a matter of time before we see this technology become incorporated in a wide range of applications involving sensors, display devices, and tunable organic lasers.

– Joseph Bergvinson

 

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Gongronella cleanse

Posted on October 9, 2017 by | Leave a comment

A cruel side of independence is mold; we barely remembered it existed and now it’s in places we didn’t even know we had to clean.  But fungi can also clean what we leave lying around. This is an underrated story about fungi and how they can restore ecosystems in former mines.

Mineral exploitation leaves many problems behind. These places suffer from soil alkalinity and are deficient in minerals that support life. They are “inhospitable environment with huge loss of soil and water, vegetation recession, rock bareness, and productivity loss” as reads the research article by Yawen Wu and others about the fungal strain Gongronella sp (of the Cunninghamellaceae family of fungi) and its role in restoring soil and life after rock mining.

But how can fungi solve this problem? The team researched how fungi could improve the process of external-soil spray seeding. The technique consists in spraying plant nutrients and seeds to restore vegetation. However, it tends to fail because the soil layers in abandoned mines are very thin; this is where the Gongronella comes in.

The fungi can, in theory, do two things the spray can’t: degrade rocks to make the soil lining thicker and release organic material from as deep as 12mm from the surface.

To undestand this, we need to think about how some fungi eat and grow. Some fungi grow in net-like structures called mycelia which are composed of structures called hyphae. These fungal ramifications grow towards food sources and mold to them, so they can access creases and shapes of the mine rocks. The fungus eats by digesting whatever materials it finds around the hyphae and absorbing some of it so some of the digested organic material would remain available in the mine’s ground.

Parrts of a fungus (https://moodle.clsd.k12.pa.us/district_videos/Biology/iText/products/0-13-115540-7/ch21/ch21_s1_2.html)

Fungi secrets enzymes that digest compounds neat it and then uptakes the digestted products (http://www.biologymad.com/master.html?http://www.biologymad.com/digestion/digestion.htm)

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The team isolated Gongronella sp fungi from a rock mine and cultured them in the presence of rock samples. They used analytical chemistry techniques to monitor the presence of organic acids, monitored the pH as the cultures grew, measured the general loss of mass in the rocks and tracked the appearance of minerals that are necessary for plant growth like Mg2+ and Ca2+.

As expected, the team found a decrease in pH and increase in Ca and Mg from the rocks as the fungi grew. The rocks degraded into small soil particles very quickly and they observed how the mycelium helped these results happen. Furthermore, the organic acids (citric acid, succinic acid and others) that resulted from the fungi digesting the rocks have the advantage for plant life too. They provide grounds for coordination complexes which are widely used by plants and much better compared to the inorganic acids that would result from neutralizing the mine’s pH with industrial inorganic chemicals.

The Gongronella seems to be mostly useful in rocky mines but other fungal strains like Penicillium or Mucor have been found useful for metal mines. As much as we hate mold in bread, fungi prove to be fascinating and may really have our back someday, so stay weird fungi and thank you.

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-Isabella Correa

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Using Nanomachines to Destroy Cancer Cells in Just 60 Seconds!

In present day, when one develops cancer, the most common technology or treatment for these diseases are radiation therapy, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, targeted therapy, etc. More recently, a new way of destroying cancer cells have been discovered by researchers at Durham (UK), North Carolina State and Rice University; a group led by Professor James Tour.

Professor Tour and his team have previously worked on and created nanomachines such as motor-bearing molecules and peptide-carrying nanomachines designed to target specific cells. These studies have been previously published in Nature.

“We thought it might be possible to attach these nanomachines to the cell membrane, and then turn them on to see what happened,” said Tour. This resulted in developing these tiny, light-activating nanomachines that can target specific cells and drill through their membrane, activating apoptosis of the cell.

“These nanomachines are so tiny that 50,000 of them put together is still about the diameter of a single strand of hair,” says Tour.

Each nanomachines has a car shape, with four wheels that are motorized which allows for propulsion along cell surfaces. They are designed to target a cell’s lipid bilayer membrane. Once reaching the membrane, the nanomachine will either deliver drugs to kill the cell or the nanomachine itself will activate the cell to be destroyed.

Because this is using a molecular mechanical action and is not a biological creation, it is very unlikely for a cancer cell to develop resistance to these motorized machines. This is a great development in producing new drugs that can prevent the targeted bacteria or viruses from developing resistance and growing stronger.

These nanomachine motors were tested on live cells, including human prostate cancer cells. Experiments have shown that without an UV light trigger, the motors could still locate the specific cells of interest, but stayed on the targeted cells’ surface and were unable to drill into the cells. However, when triggered with UV light, the motors rapidly drilled through the membranes.

 

“Once developed, this approach could provide a potential step change in non-invasive cancer treatment and greatly improve survival rates and patient welfare globally,” said Dr. Robert Pal from Durham University, that collaborated with James Tour.

So perhaps in another 20-30 years, these nanomachines will be widely used in cancer treatment, and may possibly decrease the death rate from cancer. A very interesting idea to think about.

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(Video: James Tour Explains Nanomachines at Rice University)

                               – Ziyi Wang

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How does a robin know which way to fly?

Posted on October 2, 2017 by | 1 comment

How does a robin know which way to fly? This has been a scientific puzzle since the 1800s. European robins, Erithacus rubecula, are migratory birds that fly between Southern Europe and North Africa to escape harsh winters. Few wrong turns can easily land them in the coldest winter in Europe yet every year migratory birds fly to warmer places.

European robin. Source: Wikimedia Commons

The Hore group at the University of Oxford proposed that perhaps this biological compass phenomena may be best explained by quantum biology. The principal from a quantum biology perspective is that when photon hits the retina of the bird’s eyes, it excites the electrons in a protein called cryptochrome. These excited electrons then exist in different spatial locations yet influence each other which is an effect known as quantum entanglement. But the challenge is that can a quantum effect really last long enough to contribute to a bird’s navigation?

The researchers used computational methods to study the radical pairs involved which are pairs of bound molecules with an unpaired electron each. They discovered that the ratio of radical pairs that follow the two chemical pathways change when exposed to a magnetic field similar to that of the Earth. Essentially, they are proposing that the birds are converting Earth’s magnetic field by a chemical reaction sensitive to subtle quantum effects.

This research has profound implications in Chemistry as many organic semiconductors, such as OLEDs which are widely used in displays for phones, televisions, computers, etc., show similar magnetic properties as the radical pairs studied here, the research team believes that findings from this study can help develop sustainable and inexpensive electronic devices.

Most Apple products are dependent on OLEDs for their cutting edge display. Source: Maxpixel

The Hore Group did not prove or disprove the quantum biology theory for a biological compass; however, they attacked the puzzle from a unique perspective by showing why it’s possible. This is an important study because this was one of the first credible evidence that nature might be using quantum mechanics to its advantage. These findings have immense implications in Science as it raises the questions: can nature teach us how to build better machines? Can we learn how nature uses and preserves these quantum chemistry effects to develop quantum technologies such as quantum computers, nanochemistry in medical treatment, etc. Physicist Jim Al-Khalili did a TED Talk on how quantum biology might explain life’s biggest questions which further explores the potential scope of this field.

Overall, quantum biology is a coming of age controversial field with limited evidence; It’s new and speculative but I do believe it’s built on solid science.

 

Mia Hasan

Mon, Oct 23

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Why are dogs so friendly?

People started raising dogs about 14,000 years ago. Dogs are believed to be the very first domesticated animals. I have a dog as well, a 4-year-old German Shepherd called BeiBei. BeiBei came to my home when he was only three months old. At first, he was naughty and a little bit ‘aggressive’ (because nobody had ever told him not to bite and biting was his particular way to play with others), but finally he became a clever, loyal and friendly grown-up.

A photo of BEIBEI and me. (credit to baojing Jin, My mum)

For centuries, dogs are considered as the best friends of humans. When it comes to dogs, ‘friendly’ must be the first word popping up in most people’s heads. However, wolves, another species from canis, were first cultivated by humans due to some evolutionary advantage but nobody succeeded at all. And even baby wolves were not likely to be docile.

So have you ever thought about why, exactly, dogs are much more friendly than wolves or other kinds of animals? The answer remained unknown until 2010, when a study on DNA of dogs and wolves was published by Bridgett, a geneticist from vonHoldt of Princeton University, and colleagues.

The core difference was discovered in a gene related to social behaviours called WBSCR17, which claimed that the gene difference makes dogs so friendly and influences dogs’ domestication. Gene difference is also the reason why dogs can be trained to sit or shake hands using food rewards while you might be dead right away if you are trying to do the same things to wolves.

He sat down in order to get the frisbee from my hand. (credits to myself)

So a new project comparing the DNA of domestic dogs and wolves raised by humans was carried out then. In the experiment, dogs seemed to pay more attention on humans than wolves. Analyzing the DNAs of them, genes called GTF2I and GTF2IRD1, other than WBSCR17, are different. In addition, these genes are also related to the social behaviours in humans. What’s more, WBSCR17 genes help dogs adapt themselves to live with humans. Similar, other domestic animals, namely cats and mice, have genes of the same functions enabling them to be tamer than wild animals.

So now you can answer the question: Why are dogs so friendly? The reason is just a handful of changes in special genes, GTF2I and GTF2IRD1 and WBSCR17. From the perspective of genetics, dogs are indeed good friends of humans.

-Xinyue Chen

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Posted on October 2, 2017 by in Analysis

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Moving Toward to Evolution’s Frontier

Posted on October 2, 2017 by | Leave a comment

The current frontier in evolutionary genetics involves discovering how the evolution of new gene function is correlated with animal form diversification. A gene is a section of DNA in an organism that tells the organism what to produce to be able to look and act the way it does.

Understanding how species form throughout evolution can allow us to predict how our world will change in the future. A new technique has been developed that allows scientists to look specifically at genes, helping to broaden our knowledge.

Dna

Figure 1. A section of DNA which contains multiple forms of genes. The CRISPR/cas9 technology will make specific cuts in the DNA to remove individual genes. (Image Source)

The new CRISPR/cas9 method uses a nuclease, an enzyme that can cut DNA, and a synthetic guide RNA, a molecule that specifically binds to DNA. Precise cuts can be made in the genome that allow a particular gene to be deleted, effectively terminating that genes phenotypic expression (what can be observed).

This new technology was a scientific breakthrough that caught a lot of media attention when initially published. There is currently a moral dispute in the media due to the potential of modifying human babies with this technique. Being able to effectively communicate the new advances with this technology is necessary to get grant money to continue the research, and to show its importance to the public.

Recently, there have been several breakthroughs at Cornell University looking at the optix gene in butterflies, a master gene for wing pattern adaptation. The scientists discovered that the gene has different pigmentation and structural colouration functions, depending on the butterfly species.

Zhang et al. stated than until now the developmental function of the optix gene was unclear. By using the new CRISPR/cas9 method, they were able to observe species with this gene turned off. This gave the researchers a clear analysis on how the wings were directly affected by optix.

Figure 2. The Buckeye butterfly with the optix gene still intact. Without it , its wings will turn an iridescent blue. (Image Source)

Zhang et al. found that different species of butterflies had different reactions when the optix gene was turned off. The Junonia genus, including butterflies commonly known as Buckeyes, had their normal orange-brown wings turn iridescent blue when the optix gene was deleted.

Figure 3. The Gulf Fritillary butterfly with the optix gene intact. Without the optix gene, it will undergo melanization which turns its wings black and grey. (Image Source)

 

However, other species of butterflies, like the Gulf fritillary (A. vanillae), had melanin replace their normal pigments, which then produced black and grey colours.

 

 

 

Seeing how this master gene is conserved in butterflies allows scientists to make increasingly accurate predictions of past evolutionary change. They have stepped toward understanding how DNA specifies 3D structure by first looking at a manageable 2D gene form. In the future, Dr. Reed, one of the other scientists on the team, wishes to recreate butterfly wing pattern in different distinctive species.

This deep understanding of the optix gene will provide further knowledge into the evolution of butterfly wing colour adaptation. By understanding more about butterfly evolution, we can better understand evolution as a whole. Each step towards new knowledge provides a better basis for predicting future changes in genetics.

Author: Thryn Irwin

 

 

 

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A Search for Cleaner Water

Posted on October 2, 2017 by | 2 comments

Photo taken from Flickr Commons. Increasing demand for clean drinking water to drink.

As the Earth’s population grows, there is a parallel increase in demand for clean, potable water.

The ability to effectively and efficiently filter water is a problem that many researchers and scientists are trying to solve. Water clean enough for human consumption is free of undesirable chemicals, biological contaminants, and harmful gasses.

To address this growing issue, researchers have been exploring the applications of carbon nanotubes. Analogous to aquaporins, proteins in cells that transport water, these nanotubes are synthetically created to have a higher efficiency of water transport and selectivity for ions and molecules.

Aquaporins: Biological water transporter located in the cell membrane. What researchers are trying to replicate.

The structural feature responsible for the successful transport of water in aquaporins is the narrow, hydrophobic (water fearing) channel which forces water to translocate in a single-file arrangement. Past studies have tried to mimic this structure using a >1 nm diameter, but failed to replicate the effectiveness of aquaporins.

However, new studies done by Tunuguntla et al.  have proven that it is possible to create artificial water channels with increased productivity to the natural protein translocator. They have created carbon nanotubes with diameters approximately 0.8 nm wide. The new nanotube models showed water flux at a rate 6 times higher than aquaporins.

In addition, their experimentation showed a very high ion selectivity. In solutions with a very high salt concentration (NaCl), the nanotubes were still able to transport water. This finding is very promising for the desalination of water. In areas were fresh water is unavailable, application of carbon nanotubes in water purification systems would prove immensely beneficial to communities facing water scarcity.

These findings are especially promising because scientists have created an artificial water channel that rivals biological equivalent.

-Mya Dodd

 

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Incurable Lymphomas: Can remission last longer?

Posted on October 1, 2017 by | 1 comment

Lymphoma is the 5th most common cancer in Canada and can be very aggressive. Most lymphomas are not curable, so long lasting remission has been the recent goal of treatments. Lymphoma patients have been treated for years with a chemotherapy regimen including an antibody called Rituximab. Antibodies are proteins that can recognize cancerous cells and tag them for destruction. Rituximab has been extremely effective in treating aggressive lymphomas, but the American Society of Oncology has been developing an alternative antibody, Obinutuzumab, with the goal of improving the length of remission.  In a recent trial, they found that Obinutuzumab increases remission length in some forms of lymphoma, but not for others.

Lymphoma is a cancer that most commonly affects the lymph nodes, but can also appear in other organs in the body. In the most advanced cases, lymphoma can spread to the bone marrow. Effective treatments are therefore very important, but challenging to develop. Many years ago, doctors treated all cancers including lymphomas, with radiation, however lymphomas are able to spread quickly, making radiation challenging. Radiation is also unable to treat lymphoma that has spread to the bone marrow, so it is not a treatment option for advanced lymphomas.

Chemotherapy is able to treat cancers that involve multiple areas of the body, including the bone marrow, which radiation is unable to do. When Rituximab was developed as a supplementary antibody to previous chemotherapies, it dramatically increased the effectiveness of chemotherapy and the length of remission for lymphoma patients. Obinutuzumab is a similar antibody to Rituximab, so doctors chose to test it to determine if it works even better than Rituximab. The American Society of Oncology performed a randomized trial on 1,418 lymphoma patients to test the effectiveness of Obinutuzumab in prolonging remission in comparison to Rituximab. Obinutuzumab was at least equally as successful as Rituximab in all patients, and for certain types of lymphoma, it was found to be more successful than Rituximab.

Chemotherapy is a great example of the applications of chemistry to the medical field. Chemotherapy uses antibodies to target specific cells, which requires tagging those cells for destruction. Chemotherapy also uses other molecules that prevent reactions that harm the DNA of a cell, which is a common cause of cancer. Advances in chemistry have a significant impact on cancer treatments in the form of chemotherapy. Since Obinutuzumab succeeds in prolonging remission for some lymphomas, further advances in chemotherapy could lead even more successful treatments for all lymphomas.

-Sydney Inthof

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