Science Bits

Dancing Bones

While scientists and artists often learn from bringing their disciplines together, sometimes they can stand back and let the science create the art. These microtubules are bendy ‘bone-like’ protein structures usually found propping up the cell’s cytoskeleton – but inside this wheel-shaped channel, they appear to dance. Adapting their movement to this new environment, they take on a liquid swirl like noodles in a pan (although 10,000 times smaller). This is a striking example of active matter – the microtubules synchronise themselves into waves of movement similar to collective behaviour seen in swarms and shoals elsewhere in nature. Controlling such fluids may be a way to extract energy from their motion, which may open the way to drive tiny motors and engines inside or outside our cells.

Written by John Ankers

Video by Ignasi Vélez-Ceron Dr. Jordi Ignés & Dr. Francesc Sagués, 5th place in Nikon Small World in Motion comp 2022

University of Barcelona Department of Materials Science and Physical Chemistry Barcelona, Spain

Video copyright held by Ignasi Vélez-Ceron Dr. Jordi Ignés & Dr. Francesc Sagués

This Man Created Traffic Jams on Google Maps Using a Red Wagon Full of Phones

Artstation protest against allowing AI-generated art on the platform, which took form of artists flooding the site with pictures saying NO AI ART, has utterly fucked up AI Art generators that were sampling art trending on artstation without permission. Thus proving that all these generators do indeed steal artwork.

Scientists Increasingly Can’t Explain How AI Works

Busy Builders

When you’re constructing roads, you need the right components to arrive in the right places at the right time, or you end up with dead ends. The same goes for building neural networks. Here, building blocks are transported along developing neural projections using motor proteins. One such motor protein, kinesin-1, contains several subunits that are implicated in ensuring the right cargo arrives at the right destination within a neuron. Researchers focus on one subunit, in particular, kinesin light chain 4 (KLC4). Comparing live imaging of normal zebrafish (pictured) and mutants lacking KLC4 – each with fluorescently-tagged spinal neurons – reveals that projections in mutants don’t stabilise or grow correctly. Plus in the mutant, projections forming the peripheral nervous system incorrectly behaved like those of the central nervous system by bundling together. KLC4 is, therefore, vital for building neurons and establishing the identity of neurons in the peripheral versus central nervous system.

Written by Lux Fatimathas

Video from work by Elizabeth M Haynes and colleagues

Department of Integrative Biology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in eLife, October 2022