Category Archives: Biological Sciences

Key protein in spinal cord regeneration found

Posted on November 6, 2016 by | Leave a comment

Researchers at Duke University have identified a key protein used in spinal cord regeneration in zebrafish. The findings were presented in the November 4 edition of the Science journal.

An adult female zebrafish. Authorized for redistribution by the copyright holder. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebrafish.

An adult female zebrafish. Authorized for redistribution by the copyright holder. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebrafish.

While zebrafish can completely regenerate their spinal cords even after it is severed, humans cannot. This makes spinal cord injuries (SCI) one of the most debilitating injuries for humans, as ability to walk and sense can be impaired. As SCI can be permanent, many patients require lifelong assistance with daily activities, resulting in loss of autonomy.

Diagram of the spinal cord. Image in the public domain; retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spinal_cord_injury

Diagram of the spinal cord. Image in the public domain.

When a zebrafish’s spinal cord is undergoing regeneration, a bridge forms. The first cells (a cell is the basic functional unit of all living things) project lengths many times their own size and connect a wide length of the injury. This is followed by nerve cells, and after eight weeks, new nerve tissue has filled the gap formed by the injury, reversing the zebrafish’s paralysis.

Nerve cells in the brain. Shared under the Creative Commons license. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuron.

Nerve cells in the brain. Shared under the Creative Commons license. Image by UC Regents Davis campus.

The researchers looked for genes (the basic functional units, made up of DNA, that instruct the body how to make proteins) whose activities changed throughout this process, and they focused on a protein called connective tissue growth factor (CTGF), as they found more of it in the supporting cells (glia) that formed the bridge within two weeks of the injury than before.

Glial cells in a rat brain. Public domain. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroglia.

Glial cells in a rat brain. Public domain.

This finding is important because it provides a direction for research in achieving full recovery of function in patients with SCI. Although the researchers say that CTGF alone will probably not be enough for spinal cord regeneration due to scar tissue (new tissue that forms after injuries) in mammals, now that CTGF has been identified as a key protein for regeneration, it could be used with other proteins and therapies. The researchers expect that studies on CTGF will move towards mammals like mice.

In addition, knowing this new information about CTGF can lead research towards similar proteins. Indeed, the researchers themselves have indicated plans to study the other secreted proteins they observed when looking for genes with altered activities throughout the zebrafish’s healing process.

Permanent SCI have debilitating physical and psychological effects on their patients, their families, and the support system around them. An estimated 24-45% of people with SCI suffer from depression, and the suicide rate can be as great as six times of the general population. In fact, in young people with SCI, it is suicide that is the leading cause of death and not physical complications of the injury itself. The psychological impact is tragic, which is one of the reasons why I believe that improving patient outcomes for SCI is one of the most pressing needs for modern medicine, and also why I hope research funding continues to go towards spinal cord research.

-Jasper Yoo

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The Benefits of Wine

Posted on October 31, 2016 by | 4 comments

Wine is a very common alcoholic beverage nowadays. Whether you are with friends for a night out or enjoying a quiet evening alone, wine offers a temporary relaxed state of mind. Although too much wine intake could pose negative health effects, moderate consumption is proven to be beneficial. Moderate consumption is considered to be 2 drinks for men and 1 drink for women, daily.

This image was obtained from Flickr.

This image was obtained from Flickr.

How exactly is wine consumption beneficial?

Wine contains resveratrol, which is an antioxidant. Antioxidants are substances that inhibit the process of oxidation. Immense research has been conducted in order to determine the health benefits of resveratrol.

An extremely important health benefit of resveratrol is its anti-inflammatory property. Despite inflammation being a defence-mechanism against bacteria and viruses, long-term swelling of this type in the body could have negative health effects and lead to diseases. Therefore, the anti-inflammatory characteristic of resveratrol in wine is advantageous, especially for those with chronic inflammation.

Resveratrol also contributes in promoting mitochondrial efficiency. Mitochondria are the source of energy required for metabolic processes in the human body. Due to its anti-inflammatory properties, resveratrol reduces the stress on mitochondria, allowing mitochondria to allocate energy for other processes.

Additionally, resveratrol helps to protect against heart disease and cancer. In particular, resveratrol helps to control LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol), that may clog arteries and lead to heart attack/disease. Furthermore, several studies have suggested that resveratrol has anti-cancerous properties. Resveratrol aids in cancer protection by promoting apoptosis, which is programmed cell death, in cancerous cells. Studies have demonstrated that resveratrol blocks the pathway that causes breast cancer.

The following video lists additional benefits of resveratrol.

Video Credit:  https://youtu.be/-AGNo3Xvxjw

Although many studies have tested to find the effects of resveratrol on the human body, I believe further research must be conducted in order to conclude that resveratrol is beneficial. Since studies have relied on animal models for their experiments, the dosage of resveratrol required for humans is unknown.

Despite wine containing resveratrol, I don’t think wine should be a go-to source of resveratrol. While moderate consumption can be healthy for humans, too much alcohol intake could be dangerous. Other sources of reservatrol are plants, nuts and fruits (especially grapes!).

Pavneet Virk

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Posted in Biological Sciences, Issues in Science, Science in the News

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Sniffing with your knee!

Posted on October 31, 2016 by | 2 comments

Have you ever thought to replace your knee with a tissue in your nose? Well, as we know most of the skeleton of a new born baby is of cartilage. There are three different types of cartilage, and depending on the function that each organ in our body is doing, it can have one or combination of these types of cartilage.

Our knee joint is consisted of the junction of three bones ( Femur (upper leg), Tibia (lower leg) and Patella (kneecap)), and some different ligaments (bone to bone connectors), and different type of cartilages.

The Knee Joint. Articular cartilage is a type of Hyaline cartilage. Image Credit:http: //www.orthoinfo.org/icm/default.cfm?screen=icm005_s02_p1

The Knee Joint.
Articular cartilage is a type of Hyaline cartilage. Image Credit: orthoinfo

Knee Joint,
Three Bones of the knee joint. Image Credit: kidport

 

Articular cartilage (type of Hyaline cartilage: cartilage with glossy appearance) prevents the two bony surfaces of Tibia and Femur to be in direct contact with each other. Different factors such as age, autoimmune disease (when our own immune system attack different organ of our body, in this case the joint), or sport injury can damage and destroy the articular cartilage in the knee joint.

Damaged knee Cartilage. In this picture the Patella bone is not been shown. Image credit: http://www.chiropractic-books.com/Knee-Joint-Distraction.html

Damaged knee Cartilage. In this picture the Patella bone is not been shown. Image credit: chiropractic-books

In consequence, a harder tissue, which does not have the functionality of the cartilage, will replace it, so the person will suffer a lot and will be in sever pain. Until recent years the treatments were mostly drug therapy (anti inflammatory drugs and pain killers), and artificial joint (Knee Replacement Surgery). However, none of these methods can solve the problem completely, and the patients will have limited functioning in their joint the rest of their lives. About two years ago, some scientist decided to try a new treatment method; in this method, they cut part of the nose cartilage, which has the same characteristics of the knee cartilage, grew it outside of the body, then grafted it to the knee joint. This was done in some animals like goats first, and recently was tested on human which has had satisfactory results. I think this treatment can help many patients to back to their normal lives with no pain. As a result, the patients will not need the pain-killer drugs. Therefore, they can not only save money by not spending it for the drugs , but also can prevent the long-term side effects of the drugs on their bodies. It can also decrease the cost of health care system and save tax payers’ money.

 

 

 

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Why haven’t we found a vaccine for HIV?

Posted on October 17, 2016 by | 3 comments

In 1984, after the cause of AIDS was discovered, US Health and Human Services Secretary announced that a vaccine for HIV would be available in two years time. Three decades later, more than eighty clinical trials and over thirty prospective vaccines to date, the virus is still winning!

Image from Wikimedia Commons

HIV/AIDS distribution around the world as of 2008. Image from Wikimedia Commons

Why is it such an impossible task to create an effective vaccine against HIV? A task that seems to have disheartened many researchers from striving to find the solution to a persistent pandemic! Without a cure for AIDS, a vaccine is the only way to slow it down. So far, a total of 78 million people have been infected with HIV and although the number of new infections per year has dropped from 3.4 million as recorded in 2001, it has stagnated at 2.1 million since 2013; a number that is still considerably high. Therefore, with millions of dollars being allocated to HIV vaccine research annually, why is a breakthrough still lacking?

Normally, vaccines are composed of a harmless form of the virus or parts of it such as surface proteins; these stimulate immune cells to produce compounds known as antibodies that bind a small part of the virus component called an epitope; the attachment deactivates the virus preventing it from invading healthy tissues and causing disease. Vaccines also activate immune cells that kill infected cells.

However, successful in controlling more than 30 most contagious illnesses, this vaccine is defective when it comes to HIV. This is because HIV like the common cold virus undergoes numerous errors when replicating it’s DNA. Therefore, HIV’s epitopes are very prone to changing. Due to the high specificity of antibodies and ‘killer’ cells, viruses that have changed epitopes cannot be deactivated by the same antibodies and ‘killer’ cells. This property of HIV makes it very challenging to create an effective vaccine. Despite being weakened, using live HIV as a vaccine is also gravely concerning; it could possibly evolve into a virulent form as the virus is constantly mutating. HIV particles are also by nature very different despite being incredibly mutable. This is because they descend from numerous ancestors. For an effective vaccine to be created, its breadth should be large enough to account for all HIV variants.

Another setback in the development of HIV vaccine is the fact that AIDS recovery is rare; vaccines are usually geared to mimic the immune response generated by our bodies after infection and recovery from the subsequent disease. In the case of HIV, the body cannot develop this immunity as HIV attacks immune cells. Lastly, HIV integrates its DNA with ours and becomes a part of us! This gives ‘killer’ cells a hard time detecting infected cells where virus assembly takes place. These factors among others are what have stalled HIV vaccine development.

Despite the challenges, we are all capable of taking preventative measures to prevent further spread of the virus. To learn more on how to protect yourself, click here.

-Jane Wanjiru

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Posted in Biological Sciences, Issues in Science

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32 Pearls

Posted on October 10, 2016 by | 6 comments

 

If not the hardest, teeth are one of the most solid parts of the human body. There are four different types of teeth in our oral cavity including incisors, canines, premolars, and molars. Either individually or collectively they are responsible for many different functions including mastication (chewing), pronunciation, and aesthetic in our body. Without being able to chew properly, we cannot digest our food, malnutrition, so we will be weak and eventually die. We also use our teeth to help in articulating certain sounds like ‘f’. Having healthy teeth, in addition, can add to our attractiveness, and in some instances, they can have direct influence on the our personal and professional lives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHUyg94JSkg

Importance of appearance in professional life, Video Credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHUyg94JSkg

Therefore, damaged or missing teeth can cause serious problems for us, and it is beneficial to know the ways they got damaged and ,consequently, lead to their death.

Oral Cavity, Image credit: Wikipedia, https://blogs.ubc.ca/communicatingscience2016w109/files/2016/09/Illu_mouth.jpg

Oral Cavity, Image credit: Wikipedia, https://blogs.ubc.ca/communicatingscience2016w109/files/2016/09/Illu_mouth.jpg

there are two main causes of damage to our teeth: infection and trauma.

Infection:

There are about thousands of different bacteria residing in our mouth, and they can cause infection in our teeth. Each tooth consists of three main parts: enamel, dentin, and pulp (root).

Coronal section of tooth in jawbone showing enamel, dentin, and pulp SOURCE: 4B11433 Image Credit: http://www.dentalcare.com/media/en-US/education/ce104/ce104.pdf

Coronal section of tooth in jawbone showing enamel, dentin, and pulp SOURCE: 4B11433
Image Credit: http://www.dentalcare.com/media/en-US/education/ce104/ce104.pdf

As long as the outer surface of our teeth (enamel) is intact, the tooth can stay alive. However, as a result of different factors such as poor hygiene, these bacteria can dissolve the enamel, penetrate to inner chamber (pulp), and cause infection. Consequently, our defence system will attack this infection the same way, inflammatory response, it attacks any other infection in our body. The ultimate goal of this response is to kill the bacteria. However, since the pulp has very tiny space, the inflammation will cause the blood supply to the pulp to be cut off. As a result, the infected tooth will not receive the nutrients and oxygen necessary to survive, and it will die.

Inflammation of the pulp, Image credit: http://www.endodovgan.com/Endoinfo_NSET.htm

Inflammation of the pulp, Image credit: http://www.endodovgan.com/Endoinfo_NSET.htm

Trauma:

Any physical impact in different accidents such as car crashes, or sport injuries can damage our teeth and eventually lead to their death. Our teeth, in both upper and lower jaws, are connected to their bony sockets via periodontal ligaments, which means they are not fused to the bone. Severe physical impact can dislocate them either completely (falling off), or partially. In either case, it will shut down the blood supply to the effected tooth and lead to its death. In case of children who still have their milk teeth, the root of dislocated teeth can damage the permanent tooth germ under it and prevent its growth permanently.

Being aware of these two main causes of damage can help us to prevent them as much as possible and take care of our teeth as pearls.

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Posted in Biological Sciences

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Can animals feel as we do?

Posted on October 3, 2016 by | 5 comments

Critical thinking, opposable thumbs, and cell phones are one of the many things that differentiate us from animals in the wild and nature. A common belief is that emotions are one of those things but certain studies say otherwise. Emotions, like fear, anger, and anxious, are examples of emotions believed to be exclusive to human behavior and animals with similar brain anatomies like other mammals that share similarities in their brain physiology and chemistry. Despite it being well-known that other mammals can display certain human-like emotions, we still don’t know if non-mammal animals such as bees, insects, and fish have similar ’emotions’.
Researchers backed by Newcastle University did an experiment where they submitted bees to an anxiety-producing environment by vigorous shaking their enclosure. The experiment was designed to replica a predatory attack to see if the bees displayed negative patterns of deviation in judgement. By using these patterns of deviation in judgement as a measure of emotions in the bees, the bees would be considered exhibiting emotions due to the results.

bees-experiment

“A bee enters a cylinder with an ambiguous reward in the study of bee “feelings.” – Clint J. Perry

Another experiment was done to see if crayfish would display anxiety-like emotions like mammals do when given chemical injections of serotonin. The results were that the crayfish displayed a form of anxiety that shared similarities with complex human-like emotions present in many vertebrates.

http://crayfishfacts.org/

Lastly, a study was done in 2015 by Brian Key at the University of Queensland to see why fish do not feel pain as humans do. The experimenter used a bio-engineering principle that structure determines function. He located the area of the human brain that is responsible for a person feeling pain and mapped out the structure features and shape of that part of the brain. He then compared the identified structures to a fish brain to see if the fish was anatomically capable of feeling pain. The results were that the fish lacked the necessary brain structures to feel pain therefore fish can not feel pain at least in the same way humans do.

tumblr_n5379eiuqx1sswr9io1_500

Emotions, despite there being clear-cut definitions produced by various science communities, are still very loosely defined in respects to the general public. Regardless of what the general public, non-science specialists, and even certain scientists say, I along with most other scientists who have conducted these studies believe more studies need to be done and new ways to examine emotions in animals need to be developed in order to further analyze the possibility that these ‘wild’ animals display emotions like humans do. Our current understanding of the functionality and anatomy of other animals’ brains and even the understanding of own brain functionality and anatomy are not complete so that means we can’t many definite statements regarding the question of whether animals have the same complex emotions that humans do.

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Can Polar Bears Survive by Switching Their Diet?

Posted on October 3, 2016 by | 4 comments

Climate change is not a new topic. We can even feel the temperature increasing according to the hotter summer and warmer winter. I once came across the article  and it has since then provoked my thoughts on a question: “Have we ever cared about polar bears?”

A frame-filling portrait of a male polar bear (Ursus maritimus) jumping in the pack ice. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_bear

A frame-filling portrait of a male polar bear (Ursus maritimus) jumping in the pack ice. Svalbard, Norway. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_bear

I have read some articles and blogs regarding polar bears and their survival under global warming. Some claim it is not necessary to worry about polar bears. They successfully switched their major prey from bearded to ringed seals in the past due to abundance changes of the two species in Hudson Bay. Similarly, they should be able to switch their diet from marine foods to terrestrial foods once again.

In fact, research has shown that polar bears’ feeding on terrestrial foods are  more common recently, because land-based foods are becoming the most available food source. For instance, polar bear predation on snow geese was first observed in 1900s. Their reliance on snow geese in Arctic regions has been largely increasing for the past century .

In my opinion, however, the idea that polar bears can survive under global warming by switching their major prey may be overly hypothetical, because food resources containing sufficient energy are not available on shore, making it impossible for polar bears to survive the increased time on land.

Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_bear

Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_bear

We can survive in a hot summer by turning on our air conditioners, but polar bears cannot. Some scientists project that by 2050s, the global polar bear population will shrink to one third of the current figure. Therefore, the conservation of polar bears and stopping global warming deserve more attention and timely responses from the society.

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CRISPR; A tool that can almost fix everything

Posted on October 3, 2016 by | 10 comments

CRISPR, sounds like a type of vehicle or a new gym supplement. In fact CRISPR is a new piece of technology, possibly the greatest finding of the century. CRISPR, short for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, is a genome-editing tool that was first found in bacteria. Japanese scientist Yoshizumi Ishino at the University of Osaka was the first to discovered CRISPR in 1987.

CRISPR is used as part of the immune system defence in bacteria. It has the ability to sense when viruses inject their DNA into the cell; sending out proteins that recognize the foreign DNA, cutting it up into non-functioning pieces to prevent an infection. The sent out proteins are able to recognize virus genomes by incorporating the injected viral DNA into its own genetic material, using this as a template to find the invading DNA.

How bacteria use the CRISPR/Cas system against viral infections. Image from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Crispr.png

How bacteria use the CRISPR/Cas system against viral infections. Image from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Crispr.png

Many of you may be thinking, cool so the bacteria has a way of protecting itself from invading viruses but how does this effect humans? Until now there have not been accurate DNA cutting technology but with CRISPR we have one. As discovered by Doudna Lab, it is possible for scientists to create templates that match the gene they want to remove from genetic material, allowing them to cut out any gene they want. For a concise explanation check out Carl Zimmer’s, on behalf of  BI science, description of how CRISPR works in the video below.

This allows for endless possibilities. Genetic diseases, like sickle cell anemia, can be cured using CRISPR. Simply make a template that matches the mutated gene, remove it with the CRISPR  and add a functional gene. The individual will no longer suffer from sickle cell anemia. Scientists are even looking at the possibility to modify the human germ layer, allowing for ‘designer’ babies to be made. We are still a long way from designer babies though, as it is illegal to do genetic experiments that alter the germ layer in many countries, as well as the possibilities of errors arising during the procedure that have not been fixed.

Scientists are also exploring CRISPR’s applications on plants. Want to produce plants that can survive harsher climates and produce better products, modify the genome by removing and inserting genes of interest. For instance, the State University of New Jersey is working with grape plants to edit their genes to be resistant against fungus using CRISPR.

Unfortunately CRIPSR technology won’t be used for several years. Research is only being done on animal models and human cells right now, as the errors of CRISPR are still trying to be fixed along with arguments around it’s ethics. The templates made to match genes may accidentally match up with similar genes in the body, which would lead to mutations in human genes that could potentially be fatal. Although still under work, CRISPR has the potential to cure many diseases and provide a higher quality of life for everyone.

-Tristan Jeffery

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Not a myth: women are better at multitasking

Posted on October 3, 2016 by | 8 comments

How different is our brains? why men are better at reading maps while women are better at multitasking?

Nowadays, with the advent of internet and the significant advances in science and technology, the necessity of multitasking in order to save time has become more pressing than ever. A recent study looking at the “connectomes” of the sexes, has confirmed what we have known all along – men and women think differently. Our brain is one of the most complex organs in the body comprised of different segments; cerebrum and cerebellum which are responsible for thinking and actions respectively. Both cerebrum and cerebellum are divided into right and left hemisphere. The left hemisphere is responsible for logical and mathematical thoughts while the right hemisphere deals with feelings and intuitions.

Video Credit: MooMoo Math and Science

 

sex-differences-brain

Researchers from University of Pennsylvania conducted a study on the brain of 521 females and 428 males and revealed the facts behind the better performance of women in multitasking which is due to the pattern of connections between different parts of their brains. As we see in the picture the connections in men’s brain (top) in cerebrum are different from those in women’s brain (bottom).Generally speaking, women’s brain have higher connectivity between the left and right hemispheres, whereas men’s brain has more connections between back and front within a hemisphere. The only Region where men have more left to right connections compared to women is in the cerebellum that plays a crucial role in motor control.

The specific patterns of connections are the best explanation for the functional differences between men and women. The cross connections between the two hemispheres in women’s brain enables them to switch better from one task to another task and it explains the reason why women are better in tasks that involve both logical and intuitive thinking. This is why women are better than men at remembering faces.

single-focus-multitasking

On the other hand, in men connections lie within a hemisphere that allow them to concentrate on things that don’t need complex combination from both hemispheres which results in one-track thinking. In addition, the higher connectivity between hemispheres in cerebellum of men gives them better motor skills than women. This is why men are usually better at learning how to swim or parking a car.

The more interesting fact is that the researchers also found that the brains of boys and girls aged 8-13 showed only a few differences, which later became more pronounced in adolescent years. In other words, these variations are not congenital and we are not born this way. Unfortunately, the reason is still unknown, but American government has recently promised to spend a good amount of money for brain research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies. The advancement of techniques depends on the development of ways to look into living brains so that better results can be shown.

https://youtu.be/dQy-RB8TFcA

Video Credit: The Journal

–Sahba Mozaffarian

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Posted in Biological Sciences

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We Found Life in a Hopeless Place

Posted on October 2, 2016 by | 2 comments

What characteristics come to mind when one imagines a planet capable of supporting life? One would probably think of modern-day Earth: with our nice liquid water, plate tectonics, and comfy atmosphere, it’s a pretty sweet place to live, 2016 US election cycle notwithstanding. But there’s no denying our dear mother Earth has mellowed out over the years: the geological era spanning Earth’s infancy – lasting from the time of its formation approximately 4.6 billion years ago to around 4 billion years ago – is called the Hadean eon (after the Greek god of the underworld), and for good reason. During this period, the Earth’s crust was unstable, its surface was partially molten and constantly bombarded by other celestial objects, and its atmosphere was thick with gases toxic to most organisms today.

An artist's concept of the young Earth being bombarded by asteroids.

Artist’s impression of Hadean Earth. Image Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab; Attribution: CC BY 2.0

Scientists long believed that the beginning of life on Earth could not have occurred during this hellish, inhospitable period of the planet’s history – that Hadean Earth was too molten, too devoid of liquid water to support life. The beginning of life was instead speculated to have occurred 3.8 billion years ago, within the Archean eon (the geological era directly following the Hadean) during which Earth had cooled such that the crust and by extension, liquid water oceans, could actually exist in a form stable enough to allow for life to form.

That is, until 2015.

Analysis of 4.1-billion-year-old zircon crystals – in other words, originating from the Hadean era – though preliminary, has cast doubts on the depiction of early Earth as being desolate and lifeless.

Jack Hills, Australia - where the Hadean zircon crystals were found. Image Credit: NASA image by Robert Simmon, based on Landsat data provided by the Global Land Cover Facility

Jack Hills, Australia – where the Hadean zircon crystals were found. Image Credit: NASA image by Robert Simmon, based on Landsat data provided by the Global Land Cover Facility; Attribution: Public Domain

You see, these zircon crystals act as miniature time capsules of sorts – they captured some surrounding material during their formation that was then preserved as impurities in the crystals. Upon studying the contents of these impurities, researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles discovered something startling – a form of carbon almost exclusively associated with organic matter, specifically photosynthetic life. The kicker? Researchers have concluded that the carbon is even older than the 4.1-billion-year-old zircon that houses it.

So what does this mean for our understanding of Earth’s history, as well as life and its beginnings? Well, for geologists, these “traces of life” might indicate that the Hadean era may not have been as fire and brimstone as once believed – that Earth might have cooled down earlier than previously predicted. For biologists, these traces might indicate that life can be supported in conditions harsher than once thought possible. For yet others (particularly those interested in extraterrestrial life), the possibility that life could have arisen on Earth so soon after its formation invites thoughts that are excellently summarized by the reaction of another scientist in the same field of study: “if life arose relatively quickly on Earth … then it could be common in the universe.”

~ Kimberly Truong

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