Category Archives: Science in the News

A Solution to Blood Shortage – in our Guts?

Posted on November 27, 2019 by | Leave a comment

The shortage of blood, a global crisis

Blood, the fluid that runs through our body and grants us life, also provides someone with a fighting chance when donated. To emphasize this point, statistics from the American Red Cross states that one donation of blood has the ability to save up to three lives. However, blood is in short supply, not only due to its short lifespan, but also due to insufficient amounts of blood donations. Additionally, the limitation in blood supply occurs globally according to Dr. Robert’s research, further implicating the shortage of blood supplies to be a severe problem.

Why do we have different blood types?

For your information, each of us have different blood types, because of the sugars that exist on our red blood cells. Blood cells with type-A sugar would make it type-A blood, and if it has type-B sugar, it would be type-B blood. If it has both sugars, it would be type-AB blood. Lastly, if the blood has no sugar at all, it would be type-O blood, which is the ultimate reason for why it can be given to any patient.

For this reason, a person with blood type A cannot be given type B blood, as the body would reject this blood. In severe cases injection of the wrong blood could cause the patient to go into shock, a critical condition where the heart fails to deliver blood to vital organs, potentially killing them. Therefore, this limits the amount of blood accessible to each patient, as their blood supply is dependent on blood donors with the same blood type. 

A diagram that shows the surface of different blood types.

Figure 1. Antigens (the sugar molecules mentioned) are what determines what blood type you have. (Image obtained from Canadian Blood Services, hyperlinked to image)

The solution to our problem; Dr. Peter Rahfeld’s study

However, there is a solution. Dr. Peter Rahfeld’s team at University of British Columbia (UBC)’s Michael Smith Laboratories have successfully found a method in converting type-A blood into type-O blood through the usage of enzymes (molecules that allows chemical reactions) produced by gut bacteria.

Yes, gut bacteria. The ones that exist within our intestines.

Why gut bacteria – and how did they know that their solution would be from gut bacteria? Well, according to researcher Stephen Withers who was involved in the research with Dr. Rahfeld’s team, states that “they already knew that the lining of digestive tract contained [the same sugars] found on blood cells”. With the knowledge that there are 300 to 500 different bacteria in our gut, it seemed that there could be an enzyme that would cut sugars off of blood cells. This assumption was found correct, as they had found that the enzymes of a gut bacteria named Flavonifractor plauti was capable of cutting type-A sugar off of red blood cells. This means that converting type-A blood into type-O blood is now possible.

How does the enzyme convert the blood?

We have created a video (that can be seen below) that talks about Dr. Rahfeld’s research in-depth, and outlines the mechanisms of how blood sugar is removed from the surface.

What does this mean?

With previous research that showed success in converting type-B blood to type-O blood, this means that we are now able to remove both type A and B blood. Thus, converting all blood types to type O blood is now possible. How these findings will be implemented in the future is addressed with depth in our podcast that summarizes our interview with Dr. Rahfeld.

But regardless of this amazing scientific finding, more people need to actively engage in donating blood to solve the global crisis of blood shortage. So, go out there and start donating blood.

 

Thank you for Professor Baliga for guidance of this project.

Additionally, special thank you to Dr. Rahfeld for permitting us time to do an interview and helping clarify any questions that we had for the research.

 

Written by : Tara Behzadi, Simar Dhaliwal, Sana Furqan and Isaiah Youm

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Practicing mindfulness may lead to better exam scores

Posted on November 11, 2019 by | 2 comments
Photo by Simon Migaj on Unsplash

Photo by Simon Migaj on Unsplash

If you’re a student or a working professional whose work relies on accuracy, you may be the biggest beneficiary of this newly discovered life ‘hack’. According to a study published in September 2019, Michigan State University (MSU) researchers found that practicing meditation, or mindfulness (defined as “focusing on one’s feelings, thoughts, or sensations as they unfold in the mind”) may increase a person’s ability to recognize errors.

Jeff Lin and his MSU colleagues conducted the study with 200 participants to examine how meditation affected how people responded to errors. Using electroencephalography (EEG) to track brain activity during a test, researchers found that 20 minutes of meditation altered brain activity in a way that strengthened a neural signal linked to conscious error-recognition.

What happens when we meditate

In recent years, many studies have shown the numerous health benefits that meditation can offer. When we practice meditation, our brains produce more alpha waves, which have been correlated to lower depressive symptoms and increased creativity. Additionally, meditation can lower blood pressure, improve emotional awareness, and reduce overall stress and anxiety. Knowing this, it’s not too much of a surprise that we can still find even more benefits that come along with mindfulness. For a more comprehensive overview of meditation on the brain, check out the video by AsapSCIENCE below on the scientific power of meditation.

 

What these new findings mean moving forward

The full effects of meditation and the mechanics behind it are still very far from being completely understood, so this new evidence showing an enhanced ability in the brain to detect mistakes after a simple 20 minute meditation exercise has exciting implications for future research. Jason Moser from the MSU research team says, “it makes us feel more confident in what mindfulness meditation might really be capable of for performance and daily functioning.”

Sandra Yoo

Nov. 11, 2019

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Expecting Pain Can Actually Make It Worse

Posted on November 11, 2019 by | 4 comments

Are you thinking about how much that flu shot is about to hurt? Trust me, don’t dwell on it. Your thoughts can play a defining role in how much pain we perceive and feel. Recently, a study published in Nature Human Behaviour showed that the brain learns when to expect a great measure of pain and then responds accordingly to it.

Image from ShutterShock

What exactly is pain?

Pain is defined as an unpleasant sensation and emotional experience linked to tissue damage. Its purpose is to allow the body to react and prevent any further damage. In the following TED-Ed talk, Karen D. Davis describes the pathway of how pain is felt in our body and why the “pain experience” varies from person to person.

Painful! Or is it?

The study conducted at the University of Amsterdam explores how the brain can learn when to expect a great pain and adjust its response accordingly. Neuroscientist Marieke Jepma and her colleagues gathered 62 brave volunteers to participate in her research. To begin, a small patch was placed either right below the elbow or knee of the individual. This patch contained an electrode which could heat up to a certain temperature to inflict pain. The individual then had to lie down in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine, which uses magnetic fields to scan brain activity. Next, a screen would signal each time the pain they were about to experience would be extreme or more bearable. Before and after each instance the patch was heated, the participants were asked to rank on a scale from 1 to 100 how much the pain would hurt and how much it actually hurt.

When the screen suggested the incoming pain would be very bad, the participants rated the heat as quite painful and when it suggested the pain would be bearable, they rated the heat as less painful. The MRI scans showed a similar pattern. After a signal for high pain, the brain activity acted as if the pain was bad. Following a cue for low pain, the brain responded as if the heat was less painful. However, in reality the electrode temperature remained constant each time. The results showed that the participants’ rankings — and their brains — had responded based on what they had been taught to expect. Jepma concluded that not only the perception of pain is biased but also the brain’s response.

So can we just ignore it?

Well, not entirely. Jepma further explains that her team’s work isn’t to say that the pain is all in your head. The pain is real and relays important messages to the brain. Further research in this field can potentially help doctors find methods on how to better treat pain. For example, being able to change expectations could improve patient responses to drugs for pain. Next time, in order to ease the pain you might want to think twice before you react.

Edmund Kwan

November 11, 2019

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Exposure to Blue Light Leading to a Shortened Lifespan

Posted on November 8, 2019 by | 2 comments

Nowadays, lightbulbs are not the only reason our sleeping schedules are affected but the blue light emitting from our screens also plays a huge role in keeping us up once it becomes dark outside. With the amount of technology used daily, whether it involves completing an assignment on our laptops or checking social media multiple times throughout the day could be the leading cause to accelerated aging.

Blue Light Affecting Eyes via Screens in Dark Room
Image Source: Allure | Getty Images

A Bright Idea

Before lightbulbs were invented life was simple, and people would go to bed as soon as the sun went down. The effect light has on our health is often disregarded when in fact it’s critical to understand. Who thought such a small artifact present all around us could lead to detrimental effects? However, light is necessary for life and is an aspect which changed the world. Therefore, understanding the history behind the lightbulb is important as the following video produced by Neha Barjatya describes.

Out of Our Sight

In particular to light, humans are exposed to an increasing amount of blue-light produced through light emitting diodes (LED) every day. Recent research conducted at Oregon State University suggests that even though light may not be reaching our eyes directly, blue wavelengths have the ability to reach our brains and retinas that further damage cells.

In the specific study conducted by researcher Jaga Giebultowicz and colleagues, flies exposed to 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness exhibited having shorter lifespans when compared to flies that stayed in complete darkness throughout a 24-hour period. The Drosophila melanogaster are common fruit flies and useful model organisms as their cellular and developmental mechanisms are similar to humans and other animals. When exposed to blue-light their retinal cells and neurons had impaired locomotion as they were not able to partake in common behaviour of being able to climb the enclosures walls. When mutant flies without eyes were looked at, they seemed to display the same impairments, suggesting that the simple presence of blue light wavelengths are harmful.

Further analysis on light spectrums showed that without the blue, lifespan only shortened slightly; it was only once blue light was added that there were drastic shortages.  Although, Giebultowicz whom specializes in analyzing the bodies biological clock claims that natural light is critical for the bodies circadian rhythm as it allows for physiological processes such as brain wave activity, hormone production and cell regeneration to occur. She continues to state, “if given a choice, avoid blue light”.

A Future Without Blue-Light?

With many cures found for diseases within the past century, human lifespan has already increased significantly even though we continue to use increased amounts of artificial light. Humans in general are often driven to focus on ways to increase lifespan through acting healthier. And with advanced science always proving to provide methods that design better health spectrums for the population, there is no doubt eliminating blue light may become a solution for the future. As of now though, researchers recommend setting device screens to block blue emissions for longer living!

Written By: Sana Furqan

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Video

Fancy Edible Chemicals

Fancy Edible Chemicals

Clear pasta, exploding fruit caviar, flavoured air; things that only one could find in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory are no longer just teasers that only exist in our imaginations. These otherworldly creations come from molecular gastronomy, the creation of Hungarian physicist, Nicholas Kurti and French chemist, Hervé This. Molecular gastronomy is a blend of manipulating the physical and chemical processes of cooking to create playful interpretations of traditional recipes. For example, the classic lemon meringue pie, a favourite for those that enjoy the sweet and sour combination can now be enjoyed transparently. 

Molecular gastronomy takes traditional recipes and breaks down each step of the preparation and through specific analysis, recipe development of producing new techniques in food preparation and even new textures. As described in Roisin Burke et al.’s journal “Molecular Gastronomy: An Introduction” one of the main techniques for specific analysis used is the Dispersed Food Formalism (DSF) which allows for chefs to look at how the chemical composition of certain ingredients in food will react with each other in different phases: gas, liquid, solid, oil. For example, the exploding fruit caviar that have become extremely popular in frozen yogurt/ bubble tea shops use the molecular gastronomy technique of spherification. Spherification looks at the interactions between the surface of two chemicals (sodium alginate and calcium carbonate) that bind together to form a flexible casing surrounding a flavourful liquid. 

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This highly scientific, technical and innovative branch of culinary has managed to allow the general public to enter a world where advanced chemistry and physics play a major role. This new age of culinary has become extremely popular that restaurants such as Alinea, have become centralized to only producing molecular gastronomy creations. As we continue to understand the complex sciences integrated in our lives, the divide between the science world where words like chemicals and food usually would not exist in a sentence will cease to exist and we can broaden our minds to a more innovative future.

Monica Lee

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Posted on November 8, 2019 by in Science in the News

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Are Cats a Man’s Best Friend?

Posted on September 30, 2019 by | 3 comments

We’ve often heard of the saying,  “A dog is a man’s best friend,” but that doesn’t mean that cats can’t be as well! A recent study from the journal Current Biology found that humans and cats can share an attachment bond with each other, and that this is not just limited to dogs.

In this study, they conducted a test where an adult cat or kitten was left in a room with their owner for two minutes, followed by two more minutes alone. They were then reunited with their owner for another two minutes. The frequency of “meow” vocalizations were recorded in the alone phase as a measure of separation distress. They noticed that during the time the cat was left alone, the number of vocalizations was much greater than in the company of their owner, signifying distress in the cat. Consequently, they discovered cats share a very similar attachment to their owner as do infants. This sign of human attachment persisted through the cat’s adulthood. Therefore, this shows that cat-owner relationships are closely related to parent-child relationships.

Image from SkitterPhoto

They’re not Kitten around!

Humans find companionship with their pets and thus being one of the reasons we feel so close to them. Another study in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science found that most owners regarded cats as family members with developed socio-cognitive skills. For example, the cats noticed visual and audio cues of humans such as the pointing of an arm and recognizing their owners’ voice. The researchers noted that there were certain traits in cats that were similar for dogs. For instance, both cats and dogs were seen as more emotionally matching with their owners, meaning they feel emotionally closer with them. This shows that there are strong attachment and emotional bonds between cats and their owners.

Image from Pixabay

Paws for a moment.

So what is the cat-ch? You may have heard people treating their pets as if they were their own children, and there is a lot of meaning to that. These studies enforce the idea that cats are just as capable of forming strong bonds with their owners as with dogs, especially if you put in the effort to do so.  The ability to share a close relationship with your pet is what makes them so special to us, and more so the reason we should consider every one of them, even cats, our best friend.

Edmund Kwan

Sep 30, 2019

Revised Oct. 21, 2019

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How Do Wombats Make Cube Shaped Poo?

Posted on September 30, 2019 by | 1 comment

How do wombats make cubed poo? That was what Patricia Yang and her fellow researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology wanted to know. Their research, which was first presented at the 71st Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics and which has since gone on to win an Ig Nobel Prize earlier this month, sheds light on the processes involved in the creation of the distinctively shaped feces.

Wombat – Wikipedia Commons

 

Why Cubes and Why Is It Interesting?

In the modern world, most cubes or rectangular prisms are formed by one of two methods, extrusion and/or injection molding.

Extrusion is the same process that occurs when you squeeze a tube of toothpaste out, producing a long cylindrical piece. In essence, extrusion involves pushing a material through a die shaped like the cross-section of the final product (in the case of a cube, the cross-section would be a square). The resulting extrudate (the material that has been extruded) is then cut to size.

Injection molding is takes a material in a heated and liquid state, and injecting it into a mold. As the  material cools, it takes on the shape of the mold cavity. The mold is then separated and the resulting injection molded piece is then cleaned.

Cubes are a shape rarely found in nature and therefore, the wombat’s cubic scat has always been a fascinating mystery.

Lego, Injection Molded Plastic Toy Bricks – Semevent, Pixabay with Editorial License

 

As it turns out, wombats use piles of their poop to mark territory, much like how dogs use urine to do the same. Like their plastic brick counterparts, cubed poos are simply better at stacking than conventionally shaped fecal matter.

Wombat Excrement, Showing Distinctive Cube Shape – Wikipedia Commons

 

So How Do Wombats Make Cubed Poo?

When Dr. Yang and her fellow researchers were given two corpses of wombats euthanized after vehicle accidents, they began to dissect them immediately. The researchers began by inflating a long balloon into the animal’s intestines. They measured the elasticity of the intestinal walls and found that the elasticity varied at different points of the wall. The researchers theorize that the stretchier sections were responsible for the curved corners where as the more rigid sections were responsible for the straight and flat edges of the poop. They also found that only the last 8% of the intestines were actually responsible for the shaping of the excrement. Some also think that wombat diet has much to do with the formation and stability of the cube shape. The dryness of wombat diet helps maintain the rigid shape.

Why Is This Important To Us?

As mentioned previously, we normally use extrusion or injection molding to form cubic shapes. The revelation that we can use soft elastic tissue to form cuboids may provide new techniques for manufacturing.

 

Written by Tim Chan

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Weekend catch-up sleep is not the cure we hoped it to be

Posted on September 29, 2019 by | 2 comments

 

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Image by Free-Photos on Pixabay

Most of us have probably caught ourselves fantasizing about the best part of the weekend – sleeping in. After a hectic and crazed work week, our sleep-deprived states eagerly await the feeling of refreshment that comes along with those extra hours of shut-eye. However, recent evidence found by Depner and his colleagues in an early 2019 study shows that paying back our sleep debt on the weekends still come with a health cost.

The effects of sleep deprivation

On a basic level, we all know (and feel) that an insufficient amount of sleep leads to health complications. There have been numerous studies and data to support that people who fail to get enough sleep are at a higher risk of developing chronic diseases, along with a plethora of other health-related issues such as mood disorders and decreased immune function, all of which are documented in the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School. The following video by TechInsider, featuring professor of neuroscience and psychology Matthew Walker, goes more into depth about the effects of sleep deprivation on the brain and body.

Sleeping more on the weekends cost us

To combat these potential health risks, most people try to get more sleep on the weekends in order to boost up their daily sleep average, which is currently recommended to be between 7-9 hours for adults. Unfortunately for those of us who do, the paper published by Depner and his colleagues in Current Biology shows that “weekend recovery sleep” is not an effective strategy in combating sleep deprivation. In fact, the paper points out that these extra sleep hours may increase weight gain, promote excess caloric intake, and negatively impact how the body handles insulin.

On another note, a study published in Stress and Health in 2010 found that maintaining a consistent sleeping pattern proves to be beneficial for us, and that getting those extra hours on the weekend alone are not enough to combat sleep deprivation as they may disrupt our internal clocks, making it even harder for us to fall asleep and to wake up.

What we can do to combat sleep deprivation

Since getting extra sleep on the weekends is not our cure to sleep deprivation, the best we can do for now is to try and maintain consistent sleep schedules by distributing that extra sleep we would get on the weekends to weekday nights.

Sandra Yoo

Sept 29, 2019

Revised Oct. 21, 2019

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