Biocanvas

Cool new science + Friday = A happy Biocanvas. Here’s The Scope for the week of April 6, 2015:

We <3 this. Scientists at Weizmann Institute of Science and Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute have found a way to stimulate mouse hearts to regenerate. The heart is one of the body’s organs that cannot regrow itself, and it can be damaged during cardiovascular episodes like a heart attack. These researchers, however, found that if they stimulated a signaling hormone called neuregulin during a heart attack, heart cells regenerated up to 45% of lost tissue.

In a galaxy far, far away...Astronomers recently discovered a galaxy called SDP.81, which is 12 billion light-years away from Earth. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA), the galaxy appears to have a ring shape due to the bending of light — a phenomena Albert Einstein predicted would occur. Composite images from the Hubble Space Telescope indicate the presence of carbon monoxide and water. These new images will allow astronomers to study the shape and motion of distant galaxies...and perhaps plan a really, really long trip to visit.  

“Sorry, my phone died” may no longer be an excuse for not texting back. Researchers at Stanford University have invented an aluminum battery that may outperform alkaline and lithium-ion batteries. This aluminum battery is rechargeable and non-flammable, which makes them safer than lithium-ion batteries. While they have yet to design an aluminum battery that can match the voltage of lithium-ion batteries, scientists believe they are on the right path to a faster, safer battery alternative.

Corals and fluid flow

WHAT'S THAT? Corals lack gills to help exchange the gases and nutrients that are vital for coral health. Scientists assumed for years that corals depend entirely on the ambient flow of water for nutrient uptake, but recent work now shows that corals actively manipulate the flow of water around them. In this image, a cauliflower coral stirs up tiny spirals of water (blue) around their mouths (red).

WHAT'S THE LATEST? Researchers at MIT showed that corals use tiny beating hairs called cilia to vigorously stir up the water around them. Disturbing the water creates small spiral flows that help corals exchange nutrients and oxygen. So instead of being left to the mercy of random water flow, corals can actively enhance nutrient exchange rates by up to 400%. This could be a critical survival mechanism for coral and a new tool to diagnose reefs suffering from changing climates.

Biocanvas has our top three favorite research stories here on The Scope for the week of March 23, 2015:

We can breathe a little easier now. Scientists at the University of Michigan Medical School have successfully grown three-dimensional “mini-lungs” using stem cells. While not as complex as fully functional lungs (they lack blood vessels), the mini-lungs can imitate their actual counterparts. These results will help advance the study of how organs form, change with disease, and respond to experimental drugs.

Would you like your ice cubed, crushed, or square? Physicists at Ulm University discovered that under high pressure, water can exist as ice even at room temperature. When confined between thin sheets of graphene (an honeycomb arrangement of carbon atoms), the water’s molecules adopt a square configuration as opposed to their normal snowflake-like shape. This is the first time that scientists have been able to depict the structure and behavior of narrowly confined water beyond computer simulation. Pretty cool.

Can you teach an old dog new tricks? Researchers at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore may have. They repurposed an older drug used to treat malaria by combining it with an enzyme inhibitor. This new cocktail thwarted a major cancer-related pathway known as autophagy, the process of a cell digesting parts of itself as a nutritional source. The combination drug effectively cuts off the nutrient supply to cancer cells. This could be promising news for bladder and colon cancers, which are frequently developed via this pathway, but more work remains to test this idea.

Dung cannon fungus

WHAT'S THAT? You can pretty much guess everything about this fungus just by its name. Pilobolus sp., known as the dung cannon fungus, grows from the feces of plant-eating animals. As it grows, the fungus builds up pressure in its spore-containing sac. Once mature, it launches the sac into the air with the acceleration of an astonishing 20,000 g's -- faster than the acceleration of a baseball hit by a bat. The sac contains a sticky substance to attach to nearby plants so animals can consume it and restart its life cycle.

WHAT'S THE LATEST? Though you may not hear about them often, fungi remain of tremendous interest to scientists. Fungi secrete compounds critical for making drugs and consumer goods, and researchers have enhanced this property to make fungi more efficient. Recent research has also revealed that fungi can clean oil-polluted soil, and scientists identified a new protein in fungi that anchors other proteins together to help biological reactions take place.

We’re back with The Scope, your research breakdown for the week of March 16, 2015:

What if this explains Tom and Jerry? Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite that infects about one in four Americans, modifies brain cells by forming cysts. The result is a rewiring of brain activity, and researchers at Indiana University School of Medicine found that infected rodents lose their fear of cats -- which make it easier for mice to become prey. Although limited, studies suggest that behavioral changes can also occur in people.

Better than a Band-Aid. New research explains how cells find a wound and heal it -- and we’re not just talking paper cuts. Scientists at the University of Alabama have contributed major advances in our understanding of the wound-healing process. They uncovered more details on how cells migrate, especially how one cell leads a pack of others to repair injury. This is a major advancement in regenerative medicine, and could lead to exciting new treatments for chronic illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.

A generation of regeneration. Researchers at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases have found that a cancer drug, epothilone, may provide a solution to spinal cord injury treatment. When the spinal cord is damaged, injured nerve cells scar and fail to regenerate. However, in an unlikely finding, epothilone was found to inhibit the formation of scar tissue and promote nerve regrowth. This suggests that future treatment with the drug may lead to increased mobility and balance for those with otherwise terminal diagnoses.

Trichomes

WHAT'S THAT? Trichomes are tiny hairs that grow on plants, and they come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. This image shows trichomes of an American witchhazel (Hamamelis virginiana) plant at high magnification.

WHAT'S THE LATEST? Recently, scientists at Purdue University and the University of Nebraska - Lincoln studied trichomes to understand how plants control their shape as they grow. They found that plant cells lay "roadways" of cell skeletal proteins that deliver new material from the base to the tip of a cell for growth. Engineers then created computer simulations to predict different cell properties on final shape, and they found that cell shape is established very early in development and remains unchanged as the cell grows. These findings could help researchers make stronger cotton fibers and help plants defend better against insects and drought.

Happy Friday the 13th. Keep your fingers crossed for more good science like we saw this week of March 9, 2015:

It’s a bug’s life...but it's for humans, too. Scientists have known that complex traits, such as intelligence and height, are influenced by both genetic and environmental (epigenetic) factors but haven't been able to figure out how they work together. Researchers at McGill University have now made ground-breaking strides to untangle this interaction by studying carpenter ants. By adjusting the methlyation (an epigenetic modification) of identical DNA in different ants, the ants changed in size, illustrating one way environmental factors influence a continuum of gene expression.

It’s time to give up those midnight snacks. Scientists at San Diego State University have found that when you eat may affect heart health far more than what you eat. Using fruit flies, the researchers found that those on a time-restricted 12-hour feeding schedule were healthier than the flies allowed to feed continuously. While the amount of food consumed was similar, the time-restricted feeding schedule provided greater heart health benefits, even when introduced in older flies. Application to human diets may be a little more complicated, because food intake varies greatly (in addition to busy schedules), but this research provides promising implications for protection against heart disease, obesity, and diabetes. 

Cooler than an invisibility cloak? Engineers at University of California at Berkeley have designed a thin, flexible piece of silicon that changes color in response to force. We see color as waves of reflected light, so the scientists etched out and carefully spaced color-reflecting features on the silicon. By flexing the material, the reflection of light — and the color seen — changes. This engineering feat has important implications for architecture (being able to tell how much a bridge is stressed by its color), camouflage, and looking extremely awesome.

Bioerosion of calcite

WHAT'S THAT? Coral reefs are in a constant tug-of-war between building their structures up and being broken down by erosion. Some organisms like bacteria live inside coral's rocky body, boring holes and cavities that weaken coral until it collapses. This process, known as bioerosion, is seen here in this chip of calcite, a main component of coral skeletons. Mastigocoleus testarum bacteria (glowing red streaks) have infested the calcite and are actively breaking it down.

WHAT'S THE LATEST? Pollutants like sewer and fertilizer runoff dump tons of excessive nutrients into the ocean. Recent research from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has found that nutrient overload causes eroders to flourish and thrive, tipping the scales in favor of bioerosion. Oceans are also becoming more acidic in response to increased carbon dioxide emissions, making it harder for coral to build their skeletons. Scientists suggest that limiting pollution runoff will help save coral reefs slated for death.

Science keeps chugging even when winter persists. Here's your research breakdown for the week of March 2, 2015:

Even easier than horizontal running. Researchers at the University of Southern California have isolated a hormone that increases metabolism, even in the presence of a high-fat diet (which tends to slow metabolism down). The hormone, called MOTS-c, targets muscle tissue. An injection of it has some of the same effects of exercising and can restore diabetes-like symptoms. Although experiments so far have only been done in mice, scientists are hopeful that it will be applicable to humans, allowing us to treat and prevent the development of age-related diabetes...or a substitute for the days you just don’t feel like going to the gym.

It’s a wave. It’s a particle. It’s light! It's long been known that light behaves like a wave and a particle at the same time, but researchers haven't been able to observe these two behaviors simultaneously - until now. Scientists at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne fired electrons and laser light at a nanowire, allowing them to visualize light's dual characteristics. This is huge milestone in the field of quantum mechanics, and great news for anyone looking for awesome pictures to hang on their wall. 

Darwin is smiling. Researchers at Temple University have created an updated spiral depiction of the tree of life, showing the development of 50,000 species since the origin of life 3.5 billion years ago. The compilation shows a new species emerging at a constant rate every 2 million years or so. The importance of mechanisms driving evolution, such as speciation and diversification, can now been emphasized. This depiction will allow for easier contribution and contextualization of new data by adding branches to the ever-growing tree. 

Global map of Dione

WHAT'S THAT? A global composite map of Dione, Saturn's fourth largest moon. The leading hemisphere is light in color, coated in ice dust from Saturn’s E-ring. The E-ring is formed from debris from over 100 ice volcanoes at the southern pole of Enceladus, another of Saturn’s moons. Together, these geyser-like jets expel over 440 lbs of water-rich material per second, which either falls back to Enceladus's surface as snow or escapes into space, forming the E-ring and dusting other moons with ice crystals.

WHAT'S THE LATEST? This map was one of the first global color maps composited from images taken by NASA's unmanned Cassini orbiter. Although the Cassini mission was only scheduled to last four years, the orbiter has survived over ten years and has sent back hundreds of gigabytes (and counting!) of scientific data, fueling over 3,000 scientific reports and contributing to major discoveries about our solar system.

Jumping spider eyes

WHAT'S THAT? With a near 360° field of view, jumping spiders have incredibly advanced visual systems. They have four pairs of specialized eyes, and their two front-facing ones (seen here) possess resolution that surpasses all insects and even some mammals. They use their eyes to perform bizarre mating rituals and intricate hunting maneuvers...all with a brain the size of a poppy seed.

WHAT'S THE LATEST? For the first time, scientists at Cornell University have recorded neurons in the visual system of a jumping spider. They made a tiny, self-sealing hole into the brain of a spider so they could insert an electrode. The electrode would then record brain activity in response to visual cues on an LCD  screen. This data will help future scientists develop miniaturized sensors and robots that can execute advanced behaviors and processes.

Remember when science explained why a black/blue dress could look white/gold? We're here to remind you science did other important stuff this week of February 23:

Mind over matter: meet the robotic arm. Scientists at the Medical University of Vienna have engineered a robotic prosthetic hand that can be controlled by thought alone. Three amputee patients (who suffered injury to the brachial plexus - the bundle of nerves that control sensation and movement in the upper limbs) were fitted with a working bionic arm that is controlled by neural impulses from the brain. Mind to hand: two thumbs up.

Why do Twinkies supposedly never expire? Emulsifiers. Scientists at Georgia State University have identified emulsifiers, an ingredient in processed foods, as contributors to inflammatory bowel diseases and metabolic syndrome. Emulsifiers extend shelf life and add texture to foods, but they can also promote inflammation of the gut by changing the bacteria living there. The introduction of emulsifiers in processed foods coincides with the increased rate of bowel disease and metabolic syndrome over the past few decades. While the exact mechanism remains unknown, avoiding heavily processed foods may make your gut bacteria happier in the interim.

Want legs like David Beckham? Try growing them. Using genetically engineered muscle precursor cells called mesoangioblasts, international researchers from the United Kingdom, Israel, and Italy were able to grow functional leg muscles for mice. The mesoangioblasts were grown in a culture dish and equipped to stimulate the growth of nerves and blood vessels once implanted in a live mouse. While experiments on human tissues are a ways away, this could have huge implications for treating debilitating muscular disorders.

Stomata

WHAT'S THAT? Found on the underside of leaves, stomata are like pores in our skin. They are tiny openings that allow for gas exchange so plants can make food and cool off from heat. In this magnified image of a wandering jew plant, stomata (in green) are surrounded by leaf cells (in purple).

WHAT'S THE LATEST? Carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere have been increasing decade after decade, and plants aren't sure how to deal with it. When CO2 levels are high, plants reduce their number of stomata. With less stomata, plants can't cool off by releasing water to evaporate, so they die from heat stress during heat waves and droughts. Researchers at UC San Diego have found a new genetic pathway that controls stomata numbers in response to CO2 levels, which could help scientists engineer plants that can withstand harsh conditions in changing climates.

Tick mouthparts

WHAT'S THAT? Ticks are nasty parasites that feed on the blood of animals using needle-like mouthparts that puncture skin (two species of tick mouthparts seen here). They can transmit a host of diseases including Rocky Mountain spotted fever and Lyme disease.

WHAT'S THE LATEST? Most people with Lyme disease are fine after two to three weeks of treatment, but some 20% still show symptoms months or years after initial diagnosis. It's unclear why symptoms persist in some patients, but one thing is certain: it's expensive. New research shows that Lyme disease costs the United States up to $1.3 billion per year to treat. Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health recently developed a test to screen thousands of FDA-approved drugs to treat Lyme disease, creating new options for those with persistent, debilitating symptoms.

Science is like snow - it just won't stop. Instead of shoveling out, dig in to what's new in research for the week of February 16:

It’s always the quiet ones. Parts of the genome that were once considered to be "junk" DNA are turning out be far more important than previously thought. Scientists at the Institute of Cancer Research have found that DNA within “gene deserts” can regulate the activity of far-away genes through wormhole-like effects. This discovery sheds light on how genetic variations in parts of the genome may impact the study of bowel cancer and other complex genetic diseases.

"Rabbit staph infection" just isn't as catchy as "bird flu". While species-jumping is old news for viruses (like influenza), it’s now been seen to occur with bacteria. Researchers at CEU Cardenal Herrera, in Spain, and Glasgow and Edinburgh, in the United Kingdom, have found that certain strains of bacteria - once thought to be species-isolated - have leaped to other species. Specifically, ST121, a strain of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria which causes infections in humans, can make the inter-species “hop" and infect rabbits.

You have to see it to believe it. Researchers at Monash University have discovered another amazing result of the brain’s plasticity (adaptability to changes) that could prevent loss of vision following injury. A previously-unknown secondary pathway for vision courses through the pulvinar in the brain. It has been shown that an injured brain can rewire itself to use the pulvinar instead of the visual cortex, which is the primary pathway. This rewiring has been noted to occur spontaneously in children who have suffered an injury, and now scientists will explore how to induce it in victims of stroke or cerebral injuries later in life.

Andromeda Galaxy

WHAT'S THAT? The Andromeda Galaxy (also known as M31 or NGC 224) is the closest neighboring spiral galaxy to our own Milky Way. This image is a composite of 7,398 exposures taken over 411 individual pointings between July 2010 and October 2013. It shows a 48,000-light-year-long expanse of the galaxy in natural color.

WHAT'S THE LATEST? The image was taken by the Hubble Telescope. Hubble was launched into low orbit in 1990, and it was upgraded by passing astronauts until 2009. Hubble is expected to last until 2020, two years after the anticipated launch of Hubble’s successor, the James Webb Space Telescope in 2018.

Fruit fly fat body

WHAT'S THAT? Our livers perform upwards of 500 different functions like storing energy molecules and playing roles in immunity. It turns out even small fruit flies have liver-like organs called fat bodies. In this image, a fat body (green) wraps around and cradles the gonad (blue sphere). This image was edited to look kaleidoscopic.

WHAT'S THE LATEST? Organs need to communicate with each other about what's happening in the body. When an animal becomes infected, cells must signal to one another to turn on pathogen defenses. The transmission of this signal is complex, but Dr. Beth Stronach's lab at the University of Pittsburgh uses fruit fly fat bodies to study how different molecules move, transmit signals, and alert cells to invaders. Learning how cells talk to each other in many contexts - and what happens when this goes wrong - will help us understand how our bodies respond to diseases like cancer.