From Quarks to Asterisms

The latest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. An approachable way to understand what's up and coming in today's world. Sit back, read, and learn.

[meanwhileinscience]

What causes orbital paths of objects in space to be ovals?

If a physicist knows how big something is, its speed, and direction, the path the object takes can be determined by plugging those values in a simple equation. The ellipse shaped-path that we typically see is simply because of the relationship between mass, speed, and the force of gravity acting upon it. Gravity and inertia (the objects tendency to remain at rest) will usually completely determine the path of the object.

Again, I’m a biochemist by trade, so take my words with a grain of salt.

[meanwhileinscience]

Exercise for your immune system. NOT to change your body.

It is a really common thought that because exercise isn’t visually affecting your body by means of weight loss, then the act is futile. However, it has been proven that the only way to combat chronic low grade inflammation that is seen in aging adults and overweight individuals is to engage in exercise.

I know this sounds like science-fiction, but it’s completely true. In the easiest of terms, exercising slightly injures your body. That’s why you feel achey and you find it hard to move afterward. However, this internal injury is necessary to put your body into “repair” mode, which shifts the body’s priority away from inflammatory-mode. 

In reality, your immune system doesn’t weaken when you’re overweight/aging. However, your body is in a constant state of low-grade inflammation, which causes your immune cells to fight off an illness that does not exist. This is detrimental to your body cells. By exercising, you can essentially distract your body from your overactive immune system.

I have always hated exercise. I always feel judged, I’m lazy, and I never see any results. But now that I know the massive impact it can have on my immune system, I will start exercising a lot more regularly. Join me everyone!

[meanwhileinscience]

[biomedicool]

[engineeringworldhealth]

“The latent viral reservoir is the critical barrier for the development of a cure for HIV-1 infection,” said Dan H. Barouch, MD, PhD, Director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC). “One hypothesis is that activating these latent reservoir cells may render them more susceptible to destruction.”

[meanwhileinscience]

A judge in Los Angeles has ruled that Californian law requires companies to warn consumers that coffee could cause cancer. If the ruling stands, that means a Starbucks coffee cup in California could feature an unsightly cancer warning, a bit like a packet of cigarettes.

So, what’s the deal with this? Is your morning tradition of sinking a few coffees going to kill you?

The short answer is no, not exactly.

Currently, there is no scientific research that directly says drinking coffee gives humans cancer at all. On the contrary, numerous studies have sung the praises of coffee (see here, here, and here). The World Health Organization's (WHO) cancer agency has previously said that coffee has “no conclusive evidence for a carcinogenic effect." In fact, a panel of experts from the WHO has also said that regularly drinking coffee might actually protect against certain types of cancer.

However, here’s where it gets a bit hazy. Coffee does contain the chemical acrylamide, a byproduct of roasting coffee beans that can be found in many foods, from french fries, toasted bread, and many roasted or fried foods. Usually, it’s produced when starchy foods are heated to high temperatures, giving the food its characteristic brown color and flavor. It’s the same culprit that led to sensational headlines saying “Burned Toast Will Give You Cancer!!!” last year.

Laboratory tests show that high doses of acrylamide can cause cancer in animals, so it is presumed to do the same to people. That link has not been proven in humans though.

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[meanwhileinscience]

An immune system-boosting cancer treatment that recently demonstrated astounding results in mice is now advancing to human testing.

Published less than two months ago in Science Translational Medicine, a study by Stanford University researchers showed that injection of two immune-stimulating agents directly into a tumor caused T-cells to recognize and destroy cancerous cells in both the local tumor as well as a distantly located secondary mass.

Because the combination treatment provokes an immune response and can be easily administered by an injection, the scientists have referred to it as a cancer “vaccine”, although technically speaking it is not a true vaccine.

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[meanwhileinscience]

Have you ever said to yourself “Ugh, can I just like switch heads with her/him?”….. okay maybe not, but apparently this will be a possibility in the next two years. I mean, not exactly this, but head transplants will.

This concept was first proposed by a neuroscientist named Sergio Canavero, with the intentions of improving things for those who have experienced severe muscle and nerve damage because of cancer. Ideally, there are many complications with this mission. This includes connecting the spinal cord of the transplanted head to the patient’s spinal cord, and figuring out how to introduce such an important part without the body completely rejecting it. The idea seems pretty far fetched, but I guess in two years this creepy operation will become a reality. Brace yourselves. 

About five decades ago, the first ‘successful’ head transplant took place (emphasis on the quotation marks). This interesting experiment involved taking the head of one monkey and placing it onto the body of another. Although scientists weren’t able to fuse the spinal cords (which basically means the monkey couldn’t move its new head), it was able to achieve assisted breathing. Unfortunately, it died nine days following the procedure, which was pretty called for.

I call that this will not be happening in merely two years. There is still so much to figure out, such as the most important part which is fusing the spinal cord. It is also definitely not enough time to make sure that this procedure is safe for human trial. Too many unanswered questions exist about this to make it a sure thing in two freaking years. Hey, I’m not shooting the idea down though, I still think its an amazing innovation in the medical world, and I’m hopeful that it will be a thing of the future, but maybe the more distant future. 

What do you guys think about this? 

Creepy and inhumane, or the next big innovation in medicine?

Source: Science Alert

[meanwhileinscience]

THIS IS HAPPENING DECEMBER OF THIS YEAR, YALL. TIME FLIES.

[meanwhileinscience]

Fun fact: This didn’t end up happening. We were all correct after all.

[meanwhileinscience]

Thank You for 1200!

Here’s to 1200 more new scientists, I appreciate you all!

[meanwhileinscience]

The Need For Perfection in Youth Has Risen by a Third in the Last 30 Years

In comparison to previous generations, a constant obsession in young people to be perfect has risen, according to recent research on behalf of the American Psychological Association. This need is affecting overall mental and physical health. The study has also found that young adults who impose unrealistic standards has increased by 16%, leading to unfulfilled relationships and a 10% increase in personal irrational desire to be perfect. 

Source source

[meanwhileinscience]

New Device Can Restore Insulin Production in Diabetics

A team of scientists based at Cornell University have developed a thin, tube-like implant that shows promise in providing treatment of insulin deficiency in type one diabetics. Type one diabetics cannot produce enough insulin because the body essentially destroys insulin-secreting beta cells in the pancreas. Instead of delivering insulin into the blood stream as per today’s treatments, this development transplants the stem cell derived beta cells into the abdomen. The islets (clusters of cells) are encased in a hydrogel made from brown algae, and it has been called TRAFFIC (Thread Reinforced Alginate Fiber For Islets enCapsulation). 

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[meanwhileinscience]

You guys aren’t going to believe this. Homer Simpson– yes, THE Homer Simpson that is well known for his comedic stupidity– predicted the mass of the Higgs Boson 14 years before CERN. You know what this means. Homer Simpson is smarter than all of us.

A new book investigating the maths in The Simpsons has uncovered that in the 1998 episode called “The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace”, Homer comes up with a mathematical equation that predicts the mass of the Higgs boson– more than a decade before physicists at CERN discovered it. W h a t. 

I bet we’re all asking the same question right now: Why?? Basically in this episode, Homer becomes an inventor, coming up with devices such as an electric hammer. In the process, he lets his hidden mathematical ability out, predicting the mass of the Higgs boson to be 775 giga-electron-volts. The author of The Simpsons and their Mathematical Secrets, Simon Singh, says that figure isn’t actually that far off the 125 GeV estimate that was the result of the CERN Higgs boson discovery in the year 2012.

“The equation is a playful combination of various fundamental parameters, namely the Planck constant, the gravitational constant, and the speed of light,” Singh told him.

Looks like its time to take the underdog a lot more seriously, people. Let this be a sign.

Source: Science Alert

[meanwhileinscience]

Ultrasound successfully ‘restores memory’ in mice, essentially reversing the effects of Alzheimer’s… without any damage to brain tissue.

In the Unites States, every 67 seconds a person develops Alzheimer’s disease. Yes, indeed that is a lot of people. It is even estimated that as many as 16 million Americans will have the disease by 2050, but researchers from the Queensland Brain Institute at the University of Queensland in Australia say they have made a “breakthrough” in treatment for the condition: a noninvasive ultrasound technology that can restore memory.

Beta-amyloid is a protein fragment that is believed to be involved in the development of Alzheimer’s. Fragments of beta-amyloid can clump together in the brain as we get older, which leads to the formation of plaques that accumulate in the spaces between nerve cells, called synapses. Though it still remains unclear how beta-amyloid plaques contribute to Alzheimer’s disease. 

The technique used by the team involves directing repeated scanning ultrasound to the brain in order to temporarily open the blood-brain barrier. When used on the brains of Alzheimer’s mouse models, the team found this technique successfully cleared beta-amyloid plaques in 75% of mice. The researchers even say their memory was restored to levels seen in healthy mice.

This is some pretty cool news. We might actually have a cure for this mental illness in the not so distant future, which is absolutely incredible.

Source Source

[meanwhileinscience]

New Trial Will Investigate Use Of MDMA In The Treatment Of Anxiety In Seriously Ill Patients

The trial will involve 18 patients who will be given several months of psychotherapy alongside occasional administration of MDMA in some sessions, and it will be conducted in a psychologist’s office rather than a hospital. The researchers hope that MDMA will enhance the effects of psychotherapy and also allow the patients to confront their situation with more clarity, offering a sense of calm and trust.

“In a psychotherapeutic context, MDMA has been reported to help subjects lower their psychological defenses and enhance their ability to process difficult emotions,” Brad Burge, communications director for MAPS, told Huffington Post. “It may also increase the sense of trust between subjects and the therapist.”

According to MAPS, the study will cost around $587,000 and so far they have managed to raise $305,000. MAPS is also hoping to raise around $20 million to make MDMA into an FDA-approved prescription drug by 2021.

[meanwhileinscience]

YEAST IS AWESOME AND YOU DONT KNOW IT YET

YEAST IN BIOTECHNOLOGY – AN EMERGING FIELD

Saccharomyces have been exploited by humans for baking and brewing practices for millenniums, and S. cerevisiae is described as the most domesticated organism of all time. It’s applications in the food industry are evident and well-known (as well as S. boulardii’s role in probiotic diarrhea prevention), but it’s contribution in the scientific world is not recognized often. 

Firstly, yeast plays a big role in cancer research. Over the past couple of years, scientists have identified dozens of cancer-causing mutations; much of these mutations were discovered in yeast before it was realized in human cancer. Nobel Prize laureate Leland H. Hartwell utilized yeast cells (more specifically S. cerevisiae) to study cancer and the cell cycle. He discovered that the same genes dictating the yeast cell cycle which fault in cancer cells exist in a similar capacity in human cells. Moreover, recently biologists at the University of Texas have replaced the genes in yeast with human genes to see how it would respond. They soon discovered that the yeast had survived, which opens many doors in the field of study of genetic disorders. Future studies may now compare strains of “humanized yeast” to better understand the effect of mutations on human health, or to test new drugs and therapies. Yeast has also been very useful in creating energy in the biofuel industry to produces ethanol. Furthermore, a major obstacle in pharmaceuticals is that most proteins are surrounded by groups of sugar molecules, and some sugars may cause a dangerous immune reaction. Researchers have recently discovered a cheaper way to produce sugared proteins that is just as efficient as mammalian cells with yeast.

The applications of yeast in biotechnology mentioned above are merely a foreshadowing of the depth of the importance of saccharomyces in scientific research. Although yeast may seem small and insignificant, it’s applications are far reaching. The future of biotechnology relies on the versatility of this unicellular fungus.

LEARN MORE ABOUT YEAST WITH THIS WEBSITE I MADE http://learnaboutsaccharomyces.weebly.com/

Below is sugars surrounding a human protein.

[meanwhileinscience]

A baby girl was conceived in 1992 but born in 2017... Yes, you read that right.

Emma Wren Gibson grew from an embryo that was frozen for 24+ years.

The donated embryo was transferred to the uterus of 25 year old Tina Gibson (who isn’t genetically related). After IVF treatment, there are sometimes leftover embryos that can be donated to those that cannot conceive naturally.

“Do you realize I’m only 25? The embryo and I could have been best friends” Tina told CNN. Tina Gibson was conceived a year and a half after the daughter she gave birth to.

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[fuckyeahfluiddynamics]

[meanwhileinscience]

Black holes -- Learn about them, and learn about our universe. An amazing watch!!!