#omg science

[oxygenmagnesium-science-blog]

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 2017

It is my favourite time of the year again! I cannot believe it has come around this quickly but the Nobel Prizes are beginning to be awarded and the prize for Physiology or Medicine has now been announced. 

For their “discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the Circadian Rhythm", The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for this year was awarded jointly to Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young.

The Circadian Rhythm is an organism’s internal body clock used to monitor the day-night cycle so that fluctuations in abiotic factors can be anticipated.

Decoding the link between genes and behaviour to study the Circadian Rhythm was “a terrific problem”, in the words of Michael W. Young, which was largely achieved by the prize winners with the help of fruit flies. 

Studying a gene named ‘Period’ in fruit flies (present in humans and other organisms too) Hall and Rosbach noted that it produced a protein whose presence in cells increases and decreases over the course of a day and night. At night, the protein accumulates in cells and then over the day its production decreases due to the protein itself inhibiting the activity of the Period gene that codes for it.  

For the protein to regulate gene expression, it must have a mechanism to enter the nucleus. Young managed to identify another gene called ‘Timeless,’ which allows the protein that regulates the period gene to enter the nucleus by binding to another protein. Young later also identified a gene called ‘Doubletime’ which regulates internal clocks so that they run in a 24 hour period, that of the Earth’s rotation. 

With the Circadian Rhythm having an influence over many aspects of human health, this research could allow for other research into how Circadian Rhythms can be regulated to treat many health conditions related to our internal clocks. 

If you are wanting to hear the prize winner’s thoughts on their achievement, I have linked the telephone interviews for each of the three winners below. My particular favourite was Michael Rosbash‘s candid recount of the moment he found out that he had been awarded the prize. 

Jeffrey C. Hall

Michael Rosbash

Michael W. Young 

I do not own this image- illustrations are by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute. 

[saturdaycartoon]

I really like weird theories of evolution and this is so amazing. I don't care that this is probably the weirdest thing I could post. I don't care this man is amazing!

[for--science]

Chewy granola bars are a healthy and delicious heterogeneous snack.

[volcanicexpression-blog]

So I took a distance-learning astronomy class when I was in high school. There were seven of us at my school, and a handful each at two other schools, with the teacher and a small class of students at a third school. We had TVs set up so we could see him and the other students, and he'd sometimes put up videos. We would have to turn off the lights in our resective rooms, and since our class happened to be located on the interior there weren't any windows and it would get really dark.

So the first time he put on Bill Nye, my friend and I sang along with the opening in complete darkness. We were the only ones. The teacher went so far as to switch the camera angle so we could see the expression on his face.

Or then there was the time we were learning about Constellations' key stars - again the lights were off and it was DARK ouside of the TVs - and my friend and I sat there going "Nunki ....;.. Nunki" randomly. Then we felt bad because we'd been mispronouncing it 'Noonki' instead of 'nun-ki' and thought maybe he thought we were saying 'nookie' and we faxed him an apology with a drawing of an alien on it.

[roses-not-so-sweet]

true facts about the snail

[kingofbeartraps]

Working with colleagues at the Harvard-MIT Center for Ultracold Atoms, Professor of Physics Mikhail Lukin and post-doctoral fellow Ofer Firstenberg have managed to coax photons into binding together to form molecules -- a state of matter that, until recently, had been purely theoretical.

LIGHT WITH MASS, GUYS.

LIGHT. WITH. MASS.

[the-siesta-fiesta]

i just want to take all of the characters from jimmy neutron and squish their little clay heads together

[lexiuno]

Ain science class, there are always parts of the class where she isn't teaching and just talking for like 10 minuetes, and I always think of stuff like, all the humans in the room are stacks of matter and atoms mixed together or something to create them and they have all these vital organs inside of then that are impossible to see. Then I think of if I touch something I'm not actually touching it. Although, when my friend jack (he isn't gay but I want him to be so we can start having sleepovers) starts talking about shopping or designing clothes, and most likely tmpgis, I laugh and stop thinking my nerdy sciency thougts.