Category Archives: Science in News

Revised: Cell-stretching robots and the importance of revisiting old ideas with new technology

Posted on February 6, 2018 by koby michaels | 2 comments

Science Magazine/YouTube

People are great at coming up with terrible ideas, even when those people are scientists. Bad ideas can be harmless, like Lamarck’s theory of inheritance, or more sinister, like eugenics — an idea which inspired forced sterilizations. The beauty of science lies in how these bad ideas are replaced by better ideas. All old ideas in science, are bad ideas right?

Wrong. The history of science is overflowing with terrible ideas but a few gems remain hidden among the asininity.

A new robot, designed by Dr. Dana Damian at the University of Sheffield, is based on one of these gems. The robot connects to a pig’s esophagus — the muscular tube connecting the throat to the stomach — with two rings. Soft, wrinkled skin protects the robot’s position sensors and motors that slowly stretch the robot and the tissue it’s attached to. The robot was built with diseases like short bowel disease or esophageal atresia (a disease that causes the esophagus to not develop properly) in mind. The robot elongated a pig’s esophagus by 77% over nine days and this elongation was almost entirely due cell division, not cells being stretched. By stretching the pig’s tissue, the robot encouraged cells to divide and build a longer esophagus.

Dr. David Mooney, a professor of Bioengineering at Harvard University, explained the ideas behind Dr. Damian’s robot are not new.

Science Friday/SoundCloud

“We have long appreciated physical forces regulate biology,” he said in the Science Friday interview. He cites prescribing weight lifting regimen to osteoporosis patients as lifting weights has been shown to increase bone density and strength, helping combat the disease.

Robots like this could be implanted into newborns to treat physical ailments like atresia but the possibilities these robots raise are more far more exciting and wide reaching.

Robots applying steady and long-lasting mechanical stress could be used to stimulate stem cells to divide and specialize. This would simplify processes required to work with stem cells today which are expensive and potentially dangerous. A robot that could mechanically stimulate new stem cells, while years away from clinical use, now has proof of concept.

National Geographic/YouTube

What other ideas has science relegated to dusty book shelves that could prove to be revolutionary today?

Using leeches and maggots in medicine are the best known examples of science breathing new life into old ideas. Scientists need to look back at old ideas, theories, and research with the benefits of modern knowledge and technology. Retrospective research could lead to new (but old) ideas of how our world works, avenues of research, or treatments for disease.

Oliver Sacks, the late neurologist and writer, ended his essay Scotoma: Forgetting and Neglect in Science by exploring the nature of ideas in science. “Ideas, like loving creatures, may arise and flourish, going in all directions, or abort and become extinct, in completely unpredictable ways,” he wrote. “[This] brings home a sense that science is not an ineluctable process but contingent in the extreme.”

– Koby Michaels

2 Comments

Posted in Biological Sciences, Issues in Science, Public Engagement, Science in News, Uncategorized

Video

Sleep Deprived from Technology?

Human vision is only capable of seeing a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, approximately 390 to 700 nanometers. How can our vision of shorter wavelengths have such an impact on our health, particularly sleep? This is referring to artificial blue light, found mostly in electronics such as computers and cell phones.

The electromagnetic spectrum, noting the visible part of the spectrum.

Wavelength analysis of your eye.

Studies have found that shorter wavelengths such as visible blue light emit more energy than longer wavelengths. The human eye is not very effective at blocking these high energy lights. Ultraviolet light sources such as the sun or lighting is easily blocked and unable to reach the retina. However, blue light which is only has a slightly longer wavelength than some ultraviolet light passes through the whole eye and reaches the retina.

Anatomy of a typical eye.

What blue light does and how it affects you.

Although exposure to blue light has some benefits such as an elevated mood and wakefulness, the main issue tends to be sleep issues. The average human being tends to use electronic devices before they go to sleep. It was found that blue light at night suppresses the discharge of melatonin, the hormone acting as your internal clock. A more specific studying the effects of reading paper versus a light-emitting device before bed found that those reading on an electronic device had less REM sleep (dream sleep) and a greater discomfort in the morning.

How we can save our sleep?

A healthy diet, high in leafy green vegetables may potentially increase the protective pigments in the retina and mitigate some of the damage in vision. To put it simply, the easiest solution to this would be to avoid technology 2-3 hours before bed which tells the body it is time to sleep. On the other hand, many find it difficult to resist this urge and researchers have yet to find a solution. They do suggest using the new modern technological settings like optimizing the screen for night time use so we can all have a good nights sleep and have a nice productive day!

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1V0rDSTC9I

-Nicholas Wu

Flu Vaccine is Only 10% Effective Against H3N2 this Season

Posted on February 5, 2018 by Tammy Tang | 1 comment

Source: Vox. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Did you get the flu shot this year, but end up coming down with the flu anyways? Or do you notice a lot of people around you still sick? There is a reason for that!

The effectiveness of the flu shot is extremely low this year, preventing only 10% of H3N2 flu cases among the ages of 20 to 64 years old. This means that if 100 out of 1000 unvaccinated people develop the flu, the number of cases will only drop to 90 out of 1000 vaccinated people. Therefore, people who were vaccinated should not consider themselves invincible this season.

Typically, the effectiveness of the flu shot is between 50 and 70 percent. However, when the dominant H3N2 strain is circulating during a given year, the vaccine is less protective. This is the case for this year. Because the virus mutates rather quickly as it moves through a population, it makes it very hard to design a vaccine to fight against all of the different strains. Another reason why the vaccine against H3N2 is underperforming this year may have to do with eggs.

Source: Business insider

Vaccines are made through an egg-based production method. Flu viruses are injected into fertilized hen eggs and left to replicate for several days. The virus is then harvested from the egg and inactivated to go into vaccines. However, researchers have recently discovered problems with this approach, specifically related to H3N2. They have noticed that H3N2 mutates to adapt to the egg, which causes the vaccine to be less effective in humans.

Source: Fox News

Now you might be thinking, should you still get your flu shot? … YES! Even though the H3N2 virus is dominant this year, other types of influenza viruses are also circulating and the vaccine can help protect you against them. The vaccine is usually quite effective against H1N1, which is another subtype of influenza A, and strains of influenza B. You don’t know which one you’ll get !

The flu shot does not give you full immunity, therefore, you should always considered other protective measures along with it. For example, you should always wash your hands with warm water and soap, avoid close contact with higher-risk individuals such as the elderly and stay home when you are sick to minimize spreading it to others.

Even though the vaccine is not perfect, it is still the best protection we have against flu viruses!

– Tammy Tang

1 Comment

Posted in Issues in Science, Science in News

Tagged egg-based production method, Flu, flu season, Flu shot, Flu Vaccine, H3N2, influenza A, influenza B, influenza viruses

Can Orcas Talk Like Humans?

Posted on February 5, 2018 by moneek gill | 1 comment

A picture of an orca, better known as a killer whale, in captivity. Image Credit: Spencer Wright

One of the reasons that humans are considered more evolved than most species is our ability to communicate with one another through language; this may not be the case for long since orcas appear to be able to mimic human speech. In recent studies being conducted at the Marineland aquarium in France, an orca named Wikie was able to mimic certain words like “hello” and “bye-bye”.

How were researchers able to tell that Wikie was learning new words? In order to make sure the orca was learning new words, the research was conducted by choosing words the orca had not heard in the past. As heard in the audio clip, the orca “speaks” at a higher frequency, but the words are still understandable.

How can orcas mimic human speech? Humans are capable of speaking due to forcing air out of their larynx, a part of the throat that contains vocal cords which vibrate to produce sound, but orcas do not have vocal cords in their larynx. Orcas make sound by moving air in their nasal sacs by their blowhole. Even though humans and orcas both have a larynx, they are used in a different way to make sound.

Why did researchers want to see if orcas can mimic human speech? The researchers were interested in this idea since orcas appear to travel in pods in the wild and communicate with one another, but there is no evidence on how this originally started. Due to the orcas being able to mimic human speech, researchers believe there may be ways to learn the ways orcas communicate with one another and eventually understand an orcas’ nature.

Orcas travelling in a pod. Image Credit: Andrew Kalat

Does this research mean we can talk to orcas one day? Researcher were quick to point out that orcas may be able to mimic human speech, but there are no results indicating they fully understand the meaning of the words they are saying.

The scientists believe that further research may open more possibilities, but this particular study was not enough to understand if humans and orcas can one day communicate through language. Regardless of what researchers are saying, knowing that orcas can mimic my words back to me is still very cool. Hopefully the continuation of this research can help me better communicate with my dog Gabby in the future.

Author: Moneek Gill

1 Comment

Posted in Biological Sciences, Public Engagement, Science in News

Tagged Communicate, Human, Language, Orca, Speech

Economy Class Syndrome: where you sit doesn’t matter

Posted on February 5, 2018 by yuuki shibutani | 1 comment

Too much sitting? Not getting up during a flight?

wikimedia: photo originally posted on Flickr by xlibber

This sounds like myself when I was younger. I was always told by my father to walk around or go to the bathroom even if I did not need to. But now I understand why.

Many people are not aware of the risks in sitting still for a long time, especially for flights longer than eight hours. Although it is rare, this can cause a very serious health condition. This is called pulmonary embolism, PE, or deep vein thrombosis, DVT. This most common and known name is Economy Class Syndrome, where the name came from the idea of purchasing a cheap seat on the plane with the least leg room, making it harder to move legs around and difficult to move out of the seat especially if you have a window seat.

When a person gets this health condition, the blood circulation diminishes and increases the tendency to clot and damage the blood vessel walls. If this gets worse, the clot can lead to fatal blockage in the lungs as well as in the heart. This can then cause severe impairment, organ failure as well as death in extreme cases.

Who are at risk?

Flickr: photo by Caribb

Although the name had the word “Economy” in it, it could also affect people in business class as well as first class, showing that it does not matter how much legroom you have. This is because the condition is mainly due to sitting in the same position for a long period of time. Therefore, not just on the airplane, but people going to for a long road trip or sitting in a long train ride or even if you’re studying for a long period time in one sitting could increase the risk. There are risk factors that show that people are at risk more than others depending on their health condition. However, even so, this medical condition can happen to anyone.

How do we prevent from getting Economy Class Syndrome?

To prevent this risk, researchers suggest the following:

Get up frequently (every two to three hours)
If you’re in conditions where you cannot easily get up, you can always stretch your feet/legs or give yourself a calf massage.
Stay hydrated

Credit: YouTube Channel – CBC https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=108&v=CiZRcZ8byMg]

These will all help maintain the blood circulation and help prevent from getting economy class syndrome.

Many people still might think that the medical condition is rare and that it will not happen to them. However, I believe that if there are possible solutions to prevent these risks, they should be done.

-Yuuki Shibutani

1 Comment

Posted in Biological Sciences, Public Engagement, Science in News

Tagged health, Physical health

Video

Graphics Processing Unit (GPU): The protagonist of the new computing era

Most people know the Moore’s Law in Computer Science: the number of transistors in a Central Processing Unit (CPU) doubles approximately every two years. However, this speed will stop in several years because of physical limitations. In contrast, Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) will keep this rate for a long time.

The rapid development of GPU is not the main reason why some people say the new GPU era is coming. The most important reason is the world is changing by deep learning. You may be not familiar with this term, but it is very possible for you to know AlphaGo, one computer program developed by Google, that beat the world No.1 ranked player of the board game. The program uses the algorithm of deep learning to know how to play the game (There is a short introduction video of deep learning below). What is the “brain ” of deep learning? The answer is GPU! You may hear that CPU is the “brain” of one computer, but GPU plays a more important role in artificial intelligence because its structure is perfect for the features of these algorithms.

“Deep learning involves a huge amount of matrix multiplications and other operations which can be massively parallelized and thus sped up on GPU-s.”, One Ph.D. in Computer Science said on Quora. Most people know one CPU usually have two to four cores, and the high-end CPU i7-8700k has up to six cores. However, GPU can have more than five thousand cores that are able to do operations parallelly.

In summary, because of the high-speed development of GPU and its huge advantages on deep learning, the nex computing era will be lead by it, so now you can understand why the prices of GPUs always are increasing 🙂

-Xiangshuo Li

Reference:

https://www.quora.com/Why-are-GPUs-well-suited-to-deep-learning/answer/Ottokar-Tilk?share=b731b675&srid=ub7dn

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law#Future_trends

Jogging Your Memory: Aerobic Exercise and Its Positive Implications on Memory Retention

Posted on February 2, 2018 by Aron Ha | 1 comment

Do you own a pair of runners that haven’t been worn in a while and is now collecting dust on your shoe rack? Science suggests – you may want to put them to use again.

Emerging studies shown that aerobic exercise can slow down aging of the brain and have positive implications on cognitive abilities such as memory retention. Several studies shown that individuals who regularly exercise occupy larger volumes of the brain involved in memory compared to individuals that do not exercise.

What exactly is it about physical exercise that has such an impact you might ask?
Upon light to intense levels of aerobic exercise, the body produces a spectrum of signalling chemicals. One of the chemicals that gets released yields the production of a very important protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) which gets released in the brain and muscles. When produced in the body, BDNF maintains existing brain cells, promotes the growth of new blood vessels in the brain and encourages growth of the hippocampus, a region of the brain that is associated with memory.

Figure 1. Anatomy of brain. Source: Anatomy & Physiology, Connexions Web site

Why this should concern you.
The size of the hippocampus decreases with age which often leads to memory decline and decrease in mental efficiency. In many older adults, cognitive deficits are commonly associated with old age. Researchers estimate that by 2050, there will be more than 115 million people that will suffer dementia globally. However, evidence shows that memory decline and aging of the hippocampus can be reduced and ultimately lower chances of dementia by exercising regularly.

Is one form of exercise more beneficial than the other?
As of now, researchers have not yet found an answer. The reason being is that most of the studies conducted only experimented with walking and/or running. However, it is suggested from the studies available that any type of exercise that would be able to elevate the heart rate to a certain level would produce these cognitive benefits.

As someone who enjoys being physically active and mainly weight trains, I was astonished about the benefits of aerobic exercise – all of this was new information to me. Ever since I learned further about these benefits of aerobic exercise, I have incorporated running to achieve a healthier, more cognitively efficient brain.

Figure 2. Man running. Source: Kyle Cassidy

If you are physically able to exercise and do not currently do so, I hope this post encourages you to reach for your pair of runners, go out, and “jog your memory”.

It is never too late to start exercising.

– Aron Ha

1 Comment

Posted in Biological Sciences, Science Communication, Science Communicators, Science in News

Tagged biology, brain, brain-derived neurotrophic factor, Cognitive function, dementia, health, neuroscience, physical exercise

Brainless slime mold grows in pattern like Tokyo’s subway system

Posted on January 29, 2018 by ran bi | 1 comment

Physarum polycephalum, literally the “many-headed slime”

You may have spotted these yellow slime mold in your backyard, they flourish in shady, moist areas, such as decaying leaves. It is a single-celled organism that is not an animal, plant nor fungus. Scientists classify them to the taxonomic group named Protist, which is a group of organisms that are unicellular or unicellular-colonial and form no tissues. Slime mold isn’t capable of forming tissues, let alone organs or body systems. But surprisingly, a group of scientists from Japan found the brainless slime mold, Physarum polycephalum, to be able to remember, decide and solve complex optimization problems.

A group of researchers led by Toshiyuki Nakagaki from the Hokkaido University in Japan, placed Physarum polycephalum in a petri-dish scattered with oat flakes. The position of food scraps was deliberately placed to replicate the locations of some of the most visited site in Tokyo. In the first few hours, the slime mold’s size grew exponentially, and it branched out through the entire edible map. Within a few days, the size of its branches started to shrink, and the slime mold established a complex branching network between the oats on the petri-dish. Despite growing and expanding without a central coordination system like the brain, the mould had re-created an interconnected network made of slimes that looks almost exactly like the efficient, well-designed Tokyo subway system.

Comparison of the Physarum branching networks with the Tokyo subway networks

As you may know, the Tokyo’s rail system is one of the best in the world. With 102 train lines, it serves an estimated 14 billion passengers per year. Such a legendary metro system is the fruit of collaboration between community dwellings, civil engineering, urban planning over decades. However, the lowly slime mold solve this complex spatial problem in a matter of just a few days.

A beautiful map of the complex Tokyo subway system

Slime mold has been evolving on our planet for an estimation of at least 600 million years, and has survived through countless rounds of evolutionary competition. If we could capture the essence of this ancient adaptive network formation system and summarize it in to engineering and biological models, it will certainly inspire new algorithms that guides network construction many domains.

—-Ran Bi

1 Comment

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

Tagged algorithms, Biological engineering, biology, Microbiology, Protist, Railway system

Whales are 1000 times less likely to develop cancer than human

Posted on January 29, 2018 by huanxin zhang | 2 comments

Did you know how many people die from cancer annually? It is over 5 million. What’s worse, worldwide rates of cancer are predicted to increase by 50% compared with the current rates by 2020. What is interesting, however, is that whales rarely have cancer and they are 1000 times less likely to develop cancer than human. According to the research, it was found that their larger body size helps them be away from cancer.

large Body Size

Cells in organisms have the same probability to have a malignant transformation and to become a tumor cell. It means the large organisms with more cells have a higher cancer risk. However, as shown in the graph, mice with a smaller body size are 3 times more likely to have cancer than human. Elephants and whales with a larger body size have a relative lower cancer rate. Actually, as Peto’s paradox demonstrated, the capacity of whales to suppress cancer cells is 1000 times better than humans. The reasons behind this phenomenon are that it takes longer time for a tumor cell to reach the fatal size in whale’s body and whale has a lower metabolism rate.

Long Time

Whales are less likely to have cancer because it takes a long time for tumors in whale’s bodies to reach the lethal size. In large organisms such as whales, Nagy, Victor, & Cropper. (2007) argued that tumors must be larger to become lethal. In order to become lethal tumors, cancer cells need to collect aggressive cells to make themselves stronger. These aggressive cells then grow and gradually become lethal. However, this process takes long time for tumors in large body size organisms to evolve and then reach the large enough lethal size. The longer time to reach the lethal size allows more time for organisms to repair cells so whales are able to repair the cancer cells before they becoming lethal. Therefore, even though it is more likely for whales to have cancer cells, these cancer cells are less lethal while cancer cells in human being’s body are more easily become lethal.

Lower Metabolism Rate

Whales have lower risk of having cancer because of the lower metabolism rate compared with humans. Metabolism proceeds in organism by generating a kind of destructive chemically species-reactive oxygen. The reactive oxygen can damage the DNA by breaking the bonds between DNA and inducing chromosome mutations. Once the DNA is damaged, the risk of cancer increases. What’s worse, the damaged DNA, as junk in the organism, can also induce cancer. It means the rate of metabolism has a positive correlation with the possibility of having cancer.

Based on the previous study, larger organism tends to have a lower metabolism rate. Hence a larger organism has an overall lower risk of having cancer. Consequently, whales, as large organisms, are less likely to have cancer compared with human beings whose body size are smaller.

To summarize, a large body size of whales explains why the cancer rate of whales are lower. Meanwhile, these findings could also be applied to prevent and treat cancer. Though humans cannot change body size easily, humans could try to lower the metabolism rate to achieve the same effect as whales have.

Author: HUANXIN ZHANG

2 Comments

Posted in Biological Sciences, Public Engagement, Science in News

Tagged biology, cancer, medical science, Ocean, Physical health, whale

Negative Side Effects of Caffeine

Posted on January 28, 2018 by ji yoon park | 1 comment

What is the first thing you do to make yourself less tired? In order to stay awake to work or study, most people consume caffeine for mental alertness . Caffeine is not only included in coffee, but also included in tea, coke, chocolates, energy drinks, and other products that we regularly consume in our daily lives. Caffeine works by stimulating the adrenaline production and blocking sleep-inducing chemicals.

Image credit: Pete

Although caffeine can help people by energizing them instantly, it can also affect people negatively. If more than 300 mg of caffeine consumed in one day, which are approximately three cups of coffee or three to four cans of soda, it may allow people to stay fully awake. However, the most frightening side effect of excessive amount of caffeine is insomnia, which can caused by six or more cups of coffee (approximately 250 mg of caffeine). From insomnia, one’s work performance and quality of life may be affected negatively.

Image credit: Michael Burger

Caffeine can also cause an increase in stress hormones because when a heart beats faster by the consumption of caffeine, it decreases the blood supply to the intestines. Due to the decrease in the blood supply, it may lead to the indigestion.

Can there be any other severe negative effects of caffeine that may have on humans’ health? In 2011, a study by British Journal of Pharmacology stated that caffeine could possibly reduce the chance of fertility in women because caffeine crosses the placenta and reaches the fetus. Also, University of Nevada School of Medicine showed that caffeine can reduce a woman’s fertility rate by about 27%. Therefore, due to immature metabolism of caffeine in fetus, caffeine can build up toxic levels in fetus, which leads to a higher chance of miscarriage and low birth weight of newborn babies.

What can we do to minimize the possible negative consequences from excessive caffeine consumption? Most people unconsciously become addicted to caffeine due to the desire for wide awakeness. Instead of searching for caffeine-containing drinks or food, it is better to get more sleep or consume other essential nutrients that make you less tired. Therefore, your eating or exercise pattern can be modified in the replacement of excess consumption of caffeine.

Author: Victoria Park

1 Comment

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

Tagged caffeine, coffee, energy drinks, negative, side effects

Category Archives: Science in News

Revised: Cell-stretching robots and the importance of revisiting old ideas with new technology

Sleep Deprived from Technology?

Flu Vaccine is Only 10% Effective Against H3N2 this Season

Can Orcas Talk Like Humans?

Economy Class Syndrome: where you sit doesn’t matter

Graphics Processing Unit (GPU): The protagonist of the new computing era

Jogging Your Memory: Aerobic Exercise and Its Positive Implications on Memory Retention

Brainless slime mold grows in pattern like Tokyo’s subway system

Whales are 1000 times less likely to develop cancer than human

Negative Side Effects of Caffeine

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