Category Archives: Fun!

Could the new Cyclosporin be in our own bodies?

Posted on April 5, 2012 by | Leave a comment

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The Immune system Simplified (Nobel Media)

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Recent research at the BC children’s hospital in Vancouver, Canada has unearthed one of the mysteries of an immune cell that may play a key role in combating auto-immune diseases.

"A Regulatory T Cell" Image Source: http://www.iayork.com/Images/2008/12-8-08/BioLegendTReg.png

The cell in question is the regulatory T cell (Treg), a regulatory cell responsible for the management of immune responses. While largely unstudied, this cell has been found to prevent disease and illness brought on by the body’s own immune system. Tregs monitor our immune systems and counter-balance the constant assault against the cells within our bodies both malignant and benign. In a sense, they’re the whistle blowers of the body police.

While the job of Tregs is to control and reduce immune response, they can also be used to quell a person’s runaway immune system and subdue the illnesses our immune systems can sometimes create.

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While Treg therapy may seem futuristically out of reach or too good to be true, preliminary trials so far demonstrated promising results in human and mouse models. Anti-immune therapies using Tregs have been so effective and versatile that they not only treat the inflammation in Crohn’s Disease but tissue rejection in organ transplants. At times, this cell is  even capable of giving the body life long tolerance to the transplanted foreign organs.

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"Simplified Illustration of the Inflammatory Response" Image Source: http://www.rkm.com.au/immunology/immune-images/IMMUNE-inflammation-R-600.jpg

Despite these triumphs, Treg therapies still have a long way to go. The recent discovery found by the BC researchers shed light on interactions of Tregs with Neutrophils, immune cells involved in the generic first response of immune systems. While Tregs are meant to suppress immune responses, they seem to attract neutrophils in vast quantities which are highly inflammatory in nature. Until more is known about the relationships and functions of Tregs, researchers may run the risk of accidentally triggering an immune response when trying to reduce it. Another possible risk to consider is that Treg therapy may increase our risk of cancer by suppressing the cells responsible for keeping it in check.

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Despite these risks it is obvious that Treg therapies have an untapped potential with almost limitless application to illnesses associated with an overactive immune system. Our bodies’ tolerance of Tregs and their adaptive and responsive nature make them not only ideal in that they act like living cyclosporine, but they have been tweaked and perfected to be the ideal  immune suppressant for over millennia, before we ever got sick.

 

 

 

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Let’s Play Some Mario!!!

Posted on March 14, 2012 by | 2 comments

Do not think Mario games are easy because it is old and many kids are playing it. Mario is actually difficult. You think other people have no problem playing it? You are wrong.

NP-hard (non-deterministic polynomial-time hard) means problems that are at least as hard as the hardest problems in NP. Mario and and many games such as Zelda, Pokemon, and  are considerred as NP-hard. It meas it can be very hard for a player. Here are some examples of Pokemon and Zelda problems.

According to Jacob Aron. Each game can be transformed into a logical puzzle called Boolean satisfiability problem. It is used to determine if variables of a given Boolean  formula can be assigned in such a way as to make the formula evaluate to TRUE. For the games, elements suchs as enemies and mushrooms are assigned as variables in formulas to deteremine if they allow a game level to complete and produce true or make a game level impossible and produce false. In the result, games like Super Mario Bro. are proven to be NP-hard.

Mario games are also NP-complete. Many difficult problems can be classified into the NP-complete catogory. For examples, Salesman and knapsack problems are NP-complete; they require of finding the shortest route between series of points, and  how to allocate resources.

Here is just an example of very hard Mario game. (video contains coarse language. Viewer discreption is advised)

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It is not common to run into Goomba or not be able to jump over the bottomless pit. Since Mario is proven to be a very hard game, dont feel bad to see “GAME OVER” many times.

Reference

1. NewScientist. Jacob Aron. Mario is hard, and that’s mathematically official. [Accessed March 14, 2012. ]

2. Kotaku.  Luke Plunkett. Science Proves Old Video Games Were Super Hard. [Accessed March 14, 2012. ]

2. Wikipedia. [Accessed March 14, 2012. ]

 

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Kill The Winner

Posted on March 12, 2012 by | Leave a comment

What We Don’t See At Sea

When we are taught about the ocean’s food chain in elementary school, it seems simple enough. The tiny plankton at the bottom are the primary producers, equivalent to the plants on land, and everything gets bigger and more interesting from there.

The layman's ocean food chain

Figure 1. The Layman's Ocean Food Chain

In fact, plankton themselves hold an enormous amount of diversity. The term “plankton” include not just plants, but every kingdom of life. Huge diversity exists within each kingdom as well, multiple species fill each ecological niche in each environment (1).

Now, that level of diversity may seem odd. For one ecological niche in one environment, shouldn’t one species come to dominate? One would think that one species would prove best able to grow in the environment, take up the most nutrients and crowd out its competitors. Yet this diversity still exists.

For oceanic bacteria at least, the reason seems to be that they are trapped in a bitter conflict, a race between their own rate of replication and how quickly their tormentors destroy them. It is a war between bacteria and viruses, one which kills as many as 50% of the ocean’s bacteria every day (2).

Killing The Winner

The Blue Shell (Nintendo Corp.)

How does this explain the level of bacterial diversity? Bacteria must find a balance between their own success and avoiding eradication by viruses. Traditionally, an organism is considered  most successful when it grows to reach the highest population that its environment can support.

Viruses usually prey on only one species. A bacterium that has achieved complete success has made itself completely vulnerable to its viruses. In a dense population of its target species, a virus will spread like wildfire, and is much more likely to completely eliminate its prey (1). This concept is called “kill the winner.”

With population density limited in this way, there is room for other species to move into the same niche in the same environment, although it may not be as well suited as its competitor. So long as no one species reaches a density that allows a runaway viral infection, it will survive.

The ecological niche still supports a maximum number of organisms, but viruses kill the winner, ensuring a diversity of species in the same niche.

To help to illustrate the relationship between rates of infection and population density, adjust the population of this zombie apocalypse model using the + and – keys. Note that when the population is dense, the infection spreads much more quickly. If the humans start off winning, they lose very quickly.

Unlike the survivors in this simulation, bacteria can replace themselves, allowing a sustained population. Between rates of replication and death by infection, each bacterial species must find a way to succeed as best as it is able.

References

(1) Fuhrman, J. A.; Schwalbach, M.: Viral Influence on Aquatic Bacterial Communities Biol. Bull. 2003, 204, 192.

(2) The Annenberg Foundation: The Habitable Planet. http://www.learner.org/courses/envsci/index.html (accessed 03/12, 2012).

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How Forgetting Might Become the Norm

Posted on March 12, 2012 by | 4 comments

Memory is a strange thing.

The more we learn the more we seem to forget, quite literally, and in so doing we help ourselves learn even more.

A strange proposal then would be whether it possible to forget the baggage we don’t like, keep those we do, and maybe throw in some fun stuff that never happened. It all sounds crazy, but this world is a crazy place.

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To start with how, let’s look at how memories are formed. In the brain, chemicals and proteins are released that help neurons pass electric potentials between themselves, and this helps the neurons make new ion channels with each other. It’s like making phone lines of memory between brain cells. The creation of these circuits is called Consolidation and until recently was thought to be concrete.

That “recently” happened when a young graduate named Karim Nader discovered that when memories are remembered or “Reconsolidated” they can be wiped out if the chemicals aren’t there to make the connection.

It turns out that when you remember something, a few things happen. Similar memories that would compete with that memory can be mixed in or weakened/eliminated by the prefrontal cortex and the memory itself is literally rebuilt.

"Seems Like a Good Idea" Image:Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Because of this, every time you remember something it gets a little altered in the process, and if the chemicals are blocked, the reconsolidating memory becomes wiped.

“This is crazy and awesome, but too crazy for me, can I make bad, painful memories better without this?” Yes you can. Because memories are associated with different emotions or perceptions, they’re located in different places. Negative ones are found in the amygdala, though they can be removed and relocated elsewhere. How? Think about the memory in a happier setting when you’re immune to feeling blue, it will remain in your mind but won’t have the same emotionally negative effects. This is why ecstasy is one of the most effective PTSD treatments ever.

"Pacman, eating pills to invoke trippy colours and devour your ghosts" Image:Pacman

“How can I make this more fun?” PLAY TETRIS. Playing Tetris within 4-6 hours of trauma significantly reduces the associated trauma with a painful memory. Yes folks, drugs and videogames are the answer, Pacman had it right.

“This is cool, can I be programmed with happy thoughts?” Yes you can. It turns out we’re really good at remembering things that never happened. Dr. Elizabeth Loftus has demonstrated that 1/3 of subjects can be tricked into thinking false memories are their own, even with only one exposure to it. This is why people can be convinced they met Bugs bunny at Disneyland.

“Nice, can I have this memory wipe as a pill please?” Not yet, but a scientist named Dr.Sacktor has found the primary and defining chemical involved in (re)consolidation. It’s called PKMzeta, a form of protein Kinase C. It’s needed to maintain memories, and inhibiting it while remembering something leads to a swift and selective wipe of that something.

“Do you think I can get a prescription?” You may in the future if you have chronic neuropathic pain. It likely will have the same effect on the spine as the brain, and it might even help people with addictions.

All in all this is fabulous news. Though it can be a lot to take in, whether it makes you fear an Orwellian mind control police or you’re just excited to become a mind-tweaking psychonaut, it likely won’t matter as you’ll probably forget you thought about it anyway.

"A Sea of Potential" Image from: http://thetechnologicalcitizen.com/?p=2471

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Bill Nye is Good.

Posted on March 5, 2012 by | 6 comments

Hello fellow students of Science 300 and valued readers of science.

My name is Bruce Wayne and when I grow up, I want to be like Bill Nye. Well that’s what I would say if I was younger and was not a multimillionaire entrepreneur, but that’s not really the point.

Picture of Bill Nye during the 90's, Image by Ace Online Schools

For those who grew up in the 90’s like myself, Bill Nye is a very familiar name. For those who are unfamiliar with Mr. Nye, he is a science educator that became popular in the 90’s for his science television show Bill Nye the Science Guy which ran from 1993 to 1998. It was an education show for preteens with good humour and pop culture references. What was different about his show was that Nye made science fun and enjoyable, but also relate-able as well, something that most education shows seem to miss out on. Each episode focused on a number of different topics such as the Earth’s crust, sound, blood circulation. The theme song was also incredibly catchy. There have been many times in high school where I have chanted “Bill Bill Bill!” under my breath while writing science exams. It was that catchy. For those lucky enough to grow up in the 90’s, Bill Nye was the reason to why science was cool and why wearing a bowtie was cool as well.

Bill Nye the Science Guy

Bill Nye the Science Guy, Image provided by Escapist Magazine

So why am I writing about Mr. Nye? Well being in a course that teaches how to communicate science to the population, I thought it would be perfect to write about the my childhood figure who taught me the wonders of science. Communicating science right?

I truly admire Mr. Nye’s ability to clearly communicate science to the general public in a way that everyone can understand. Not only that, Bill Nye is also incredibly talented in presenting science to multiple age groups and audiences. In fact, he has created a few shows such as Bill Nye the Science Guy and his more recent, The Eyes of Nye that dealt with more politically relevant topics such as global warming, genetically modified food, and antibiotics.

In the following clip, Bill Nye explains the dangers stemming from explosion of a nuclear plant in Japan that happened in last year March. For someone like myself who is not very well versed in nuclear physics, I found I could follow much of what Nye was trying to explain pretty easily. What helped a great deal as the fact that Nye talked clearly and slowly. He explained using comparisons and even took time to explain background science essential to understanding further concepts such as explaining what “aftershocks” and what that has to do with the “epicentre”. He also did not use exclusive jargon, but used words the general public would apprehend. It’s a pretty valuable thing to be able to speak in front of thousands and make most of the people understand science in a casual and intelligent way.

 

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YouTube clip provided by FoxNewsInsider

 

Taking this course and learning about how to communicate science reminded me of times when I was younger the Saturday afternoons of watching Bill Nye the Science Guy. It’s cool to think that right now I am learning the skills to perhaps someday create my own show about science on a local cable network.

Cool right?

I’d probably call my show “Bruce Wayne the Scienceman”.

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Platinum

Posted on February 26, 2012 by | 1 comment

Platinum is one of the rarest, strongest, and most expensive elements in Earth’s crust [ref2]. At the moment, 80% of the platinum comes from South Africa [ref7]. It naturally occurs in alluvial sands, unconsolidated terrestrial sediment composed of sorted or unsorted sand, gravel, and clay that has been deposited by water [ref4]. Since it occurs naturally in the alluvial sands of various rivers, South American natives used it to produce artifacts.  Platinum also occurs in form of sulfides (PtS), tellurides (PtBiTe), and arsenides (PtAs2), and as alloys with nickel or copper. Platinum arsenide, (PtAs2), is a major source of platinum associated with nickel ores in the Sudbury Basin deposit in Ontario, Canada [ref7].

”]Platinum’s resistance to wear and tarnish makes it an appropriate metal for creating fine jewelry. Also, it has an exceptional resistance to corrosion and high temperature and has stable electrical properties. All of these characteristics have been used for industrial applications [ref7]. In 2006, approximately 240 tons of platinum was sold.  More than 50% of platinum was used in catalytic converters in exhaust systems of most cars. Catalytic converters combine carbon monoxide (CO) and unburned fuel with oxygen from the air, forming (CO2) and water vapor (H2O). Furthermore, 20.5% was used for making jewelry and 5.5% was used in electronics and 4.68% was used in the chemical industry as a catalyst due to its non-reactive nature. The remaining went to various other minor applications, such as electrodes and anticancer drugs [ref3].

 

Platinum in the form of a compound is also found to be significant to the human society. For instance, cisplatin, a platinum-containing compound, is used to treat various types of cancers because of its ability to kill cells. Cisplatin can be obtained by electrolysis of platinum electrodes [ref6]. In its pure state, platinum is quite soft. Alloying it with other platinum group metals like palladium, ruthenium and iridium can increase its hardness. For example, a combination of 950 platinum with 50 parts per thousand of ruthenium leads to the formation of a hard alloy. This alloy is preferred by the Platinum Guild and is used in wedding bands. Similarly, a combination of 900 platinum with 100 parts per thousand of iridium is an American favorite for hand fabrication of jewelry due to its added hardness [ref1].

”]Although platinum has so many applications, one shouldn’t ignore the problems caused by the continued use of the element. Platinum’s excessive use in the exhaust systems of most cars causes the release of platinum compounds, which become a part of the road dust. Platinum content of road dusts can be soluble. Therefore, it enters the waters, sediments, soil and finally, the food chain [ref5]. Short-term exposure to these platinum compounds may cause irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat, and long-term exposure may cause both respiratory and skin allergies [ref7].

 

References:

  1. 1Weddingband.com. http://www.1weddingband.com/platinfo.html  (accessed 12/09/02)
  2. Cohen, D.W. New Scientist.   http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19426051.200-earths-natural-wealth-an-audit.html (accessed 12/09/02)
  3. George M.W.; Platinum-Group Metals, USGS 2007, 57, 1
  4. Geotech.org. http://www.geotech.org/survey/geotech/dictiona.html#sectA (accessed 12/09/02)
  5. Ravindra, K.; Bencs, L.; Van Grieken, R. Platinum group elements in the environment and their health risk. Sci. Total Environ. 2004, 318, 1-43.
  6. Rosenberg, B.; Van Camp, L.; Krigas, T.; Inhibition of Cell Division in Escherichia coli by Electrolysis Products from a Platinum Electrode, Nature 1965, 205, 698-699.
  7. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platinum (accessed 12/09/02)

 

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Who is Our Ancestor?

Posted on February 13, 2012 by | 6 comments
This is Our Ancestor. Image by Prave.

Scientist belive they have found our oldest ancestor, the creature, Otavia antiqua, was found in 760-million-year-old rock in Nambia. This multicellular being spawned every living organism in this world through billions of mutation, from fish to amphibians to reptiles to birds to animals to you.

 
Otavia was a very small sponge “about the size of a grain” according to Anthony Prave, a geologist at the University of St. Andrews in the U.K. According to Prave, “certain samples would “yie thousands of specimens. Thus, it is possible that the organisms were very abundant.”
 
Based on where the fossils were discovered, Prave and his colleagues claims that it used to live in calm, nice, shallow waters, munching on algae and bacteria through pores and into its small tube body.
A scanning electron microscope view of Otavia antiqua.
A scanning electron microscope view of Otavia antiqua. Image by Prave.

 Our Ancestor is also very reslient. According to the South African Journal of Science, it survived atleast two “snowball Earth”  events, when the entire planet was almsot entirely covered with ice.

Despite the wild enviornmental swings, this creature remained almost unchanged, resisiting along with algae and bacteria for “roughly 200 million years of existence.” Prave suggested.

Paleontologist Dr. Bob Brain – who is an expert in predation- belives that Otavia was the Earth’s first predator. During the early days, it was at the top of the food chain, consuming its food while it had no means to hunt. According to Brain, this was the first evolutionary arms race, which “led to humans dominating the planet.”

References

  1. Oldest Animal – Earliest Ancestor of Us All? http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/120207-oldest-animals-sponges-earliest-science-evolution/ (accessed 02/12, 2012).
  2. Sponge-like creaure may be oldest animal ever found. http://www.iol.co.za/the-star/sponge-like-creature-may-be-oldest-animal-ever-found-1.1227656  (accessed 02/12, 2012).
  3. The oldest animal fossils. http://www.sajs.co.za/index.php/SAJS/article/view/1064/1048 (accessed 02/12, 2012).
 

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