This Week's Sci-light!

Ever since we could look up to the heavenly stars, one question has persisted: does life exist outside of Earth?  If life does exist, would alien lifeforms look like us, behave like us, have similar technologies, similar anatomy and physiology, would we be able to communicate? Would they be complex organisms living off of carbon based systems? Or perhaps silicon? As we continue to ask these questions, others are dreaming up answers.

Credit: NASA/JPL/DLR image

This image shows one of the four largest moons orbiting Jupiter named Europa. 

NASA wants to send a mission to Europa because of it has an icy outer layer with liquid water plumes.

Craig Venter, founder of the J. Craig Venter Institute in San Diego, CA, aims to change the search for life on Mars as summarized in the Los Angeles Times article entitled: In the Mojave, a scientist-entrepreneur works to 're-create' Martians'. Venter believes his novel DNA sequencing invention will be able to remotely decode DNA found in soil or water samples and send back the DNA code to a biosafety compliant laboratory just like a fax machine. From there, Venter and his team of researchers can rebuild the Martian utilizing the most advance scientific techniques of computational genomics, oligonucleotide synthesis and genome transplantation. Though Venter's idea sounds like science fiction, NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley have assisted Venter in trail experiments conducted in the Mojave desert. Are you Sci-Curious?  Click to article for more!

Not only is the Venter Institute reaching to the stars, NASA has also announced that they will soon be requesting ideas for a mission to Europa as reported in the SpaceNews article NASA To Seek Ideas for $1 Billion Mission to Europa. NASA's California based Jet Propulsion Laboratory will be working in conjunction with Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory to engineer the next Europa Mission.  Using the Hubble Space Telescope, researchers have taken notice to possible liquid-water plumes on the surface of the icy moon. The idea being put forth is to probe these liquid-water plumes for organic compounds.  In reading the article NASA outlines past, current and future plans; the lesson is don't be afraid to think big and change your mind!


Written by Jacob Steenwyk
Edited by Cynthia Joseph

This Week's Sci-Light!

This photo shows the new cardiac device ― a thin, elastic membrane ― fitted over a rabbit's heart.

University of Illinois and Washington University

On February 25th, groundbreaking research utilizing 3D printers was published by John Rogers of University of Illinois in Nature Communications. The article, 3D-printed 'electronic glove' could help keep your heart beating forever, summarizes how researchers have use computer modeling technology in tandem with a 3D printer to create a synthetic membrane capable of sustaining a heart beat indefinitely. A membrane custom made to fit around a heart is outfitted with a series of sensors and electrodes able to detect and measure the heart's electrical activity.

This technology has come a long way since it was first introduced as the 'cardiac sock' in the 1980's. From the once crude sleeves, Roger's has revamped the 'cardiac sock' concept by exploiting bends, turns and curls in his lay out design of electronics giving them elastic-like properties. With a tight fit achieved through 3D printing, Roger's has created what he compares to the naturally occurring pericardium or double walled membrane surrounding the heart.

For now, the 'electronic glove' will be used as a research tool to better understand how the heart reacts to different variables. In the future, one could imagine that such technology could replace pacemakers, deliver electric shocks in cardiac arrest events, or prevent heart attacks all together by regulating the heart beat of at-risk individuals.

For you, this innovation could become a career search looking into the pathways into materials science, computer modeling, biomedical engineering, and 3D computer generated imaging and printing.  Don't stop with the act of gaining information.  Let the new information guide you to the next steps.  In case you need some support moving from inspiration to perspiration, let an article on the SACNAS website entitled Building your Individual Development Plan (IDP):  A Guide for Undergraduate Students guide you through the process!   

Written by Jacob Steenwyk
Edited by Cynthia Joseph

This Week's Sci-Light!

A National Geographic article, The Lurker: How a Virus Hid in our Genome for Six Million Years, discusses Dr. David Markovitz's work at the University of Michigan investigating the blood of people infected with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) that weakens the host's immune system making the host susceptible to other pathogens. By investigating what other viruses could have attacked the host, Markovitz and colleagues found a virus that seems to have originated in a common ancestor of chimps and humans!

First, let's review a little background, and then move on to the discovery.  HIV is a type of retrovirus. A retrovirus is a virus that integrates it’s RNA genetic code into the host genome after being reverse transcribed into DNA - amazing! Within the human genome, researchers have identified 100,000 sequences of retrovirus DNA across over fifteen chromosomes. These sequences comprise nearly 8% of the human genome. 

Dr. Markovitz and his colleagues analyzed the DNA of HIV patients and found an endogenous retrovirus called HERV-K in a form previously undiscovered.  They wondered if this virus could have been lurking in the human genome and checked the human genome sequence, which is about 95% compiled.  With no luck, they turned to the completed chimpanzee genome and found once copy of HERV-K which they named K111.

The researchers came back to the human genome and discovered K111 was indeed hidden there!  The data suggests that "the virus infected our ancestors not long before the split between humans and chimpanzees roughly six million years ago."

To follow the details of their discovery and its implications, check out the article.  This story calls me to remember there's so much to learn and understand and calls us all to be Sci-Curious!

Written by Jacob Steenwyk
Edited by Cynthia Joseph

This Week's Sci-Light!

Let's have some fun.  After all, it's Friday!  Take a quiz testing your knowledge of science and technology sponsored by Pew Research Center.  The quiz was set up to measure the public's knowledge of current scientific topics and some fundamental science concepts. 

Here's the catch, if you score well, you don't get to gloat.  Your mission is to become a teacher.  After all, exploration is fun, but telling someone what you discovered doubles the satisfaction.  That's all part of being Sci-Curious!

This Week's Sci-Light!

Garden of Fugitives (plaster casts)

Pompeii!  The very word brings chills and soon 3D visuals to the big screen with the film Pompeii  directed by Paul W.S. Anderson releasing in just a couple of weeks. 

The history of this Roman city is well embedded in popular culture through tales of Lucius Caecilius Iucundus, the BBC dramas series Doctor Who, named "The Fires of Pompeii," Pink Floyd's live concert Pink Floyd:  Live at Pompeii and countless theatrical productions, an opera, films and a mini series. 

While we have been fascinated with our own species' violent demise, Baoyu Jiang of Nanjing University in China and his scientific research team from have proposed that humans weren't the only ones who were part of this kind of mass distinction event.  In fact, thousands of well-preserved fossils have been discovered in the northeast of China at the Yixian and Jiufotang formations.  They include plants, birds, dinosaurs and mammals.  Many of the fossils are so intact that researchers can determine what that dinosaur had for breakfast the day it died. 

Deborah Netburn writes for the Los Angeles Times that scientists have evidence that these "mass mortality events were pyrocalstic flows from nearby volcanoes--the same phenomenon that destroyed and preserved the ancient civilization of Pompeii." 

These photos show the typical entombing poses of the Jehol terrestrial vertebrate fossils (a., Psittacosaurus; b.-c., Confuciusornis). Their boxer-like poses are typical of victims of pyroclastic density currents, resulting from postmortem tendons and muscles shortening. (Photo: Baoyu Jiang)

Understanding the effects of blasts of volcanic ash and poisonous gases help us understand not only the dangers but how these events affected and changed large ecosystems.  Studying earth's geological history gives us clues to how the planet and subsequently life evolved.  

If you're curious, check out these tips on the paleontology career and do some investigating of your own!  After all, acting on your curiosity is what Sci-Curious is all about!

This Week's Sci-light!

Most of you already know the central dogma of Biology--DNA makes RNA makes protein.  Today's blog highlights a related discovery that according to author Monte Morin in an article published January 29, 2014 in the LA Times, "caught many experts off guard."

  

A stem cell, I'm sure, is familiar to you.  For review, stem cells are the undifferentiated cells of a multicellular organism that are capable of giving rise to other kinds of cell.  Miriam Webster's dictionary says it this way, "a simple cell in the body that is able to develop into any one of various kinds of cells (such as blood cells, skin cells, etc.)" 

The cells from which the beating heart above were grown are called STAP cells.  They are produced by taking the blood cells of newborn mice and soaking them for 30 minutes in a mildly acidic solution.  This procedure reprograms the cell to become capable of producing any cell in the body or a pluripotent cell.  STAP stands for stimulus triggered acquisition of pluripotency. 

According to Dr. Haruko Obakata, a biochemistry researcher at the RIKEN research institute in Japan and lead study author of Acid bath offers easy path to stem cells,  “It was really surprising to see that such a remarkable transformation could be triggered simply by stimuli from outside of the cell."  Why does this work?  Dr. Obakata and her colleagues stated simply that remains a mystery.

The implications for medical research are endless.  According to the LA Times article, "pluripotent stem cells are considered the basic building blocks of biology."  There are many controversies surrounding the use of stem cells, but if STAP cells can be created from a patient's own mature cells this could transform medical science.  

Do you want to be part of these kinds of discoveries?  Hurry for summer experiences, then.  

Here's a step in the right direction--Pathways to Science! 

This Week's Sci-light!

January is a time of new beginnings, fresh starts, and New Year's resolutions.  Perhaps the idea of a making a resolution that you anticipate breaking in just a few days has soured you on the fundamental idea of a clean slate.  It is true that you can change at any time, but there is something to the power of collectively bringing in the new.

An article on e Science News! (a great source for breaking science news) celebrated a discovery that could pave the way for a new chapter in world energy needs.  The burning of fuels derived from organic materials, commonly called fossil fuels, meets many of our energy needs today.  (If you take for granted electricity, try a day without it and see how much work you get done and fun you have.)  But meeting the needs of a world that is increasingly becoming electricity dependent, is no small matter.

Vertum Partners & Mondotopo.com

Alternative energy sources are one of the avenues being explored for just such a purpose.  Researchers are experimenting with energy produced by wind, sun and water.  A book I recently found, Gust or Bust, by Hannah Flynn and Ljiljana Grubisic takes readers through the benefits and challenges of windmills in the context of climate science and energy production.  One of the problems with using wind energy, for example, is that the energy produced varies.  To compensate for low wind, the energy generated during high wind has to be stored in batteries.  The cost of the batteries is high and reduces the cost-effectiveness of this form of energy...  

Photo credit Eliza Grinnell

...but there is a new solution!  Scientists at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences in collaboration with colleagues from Chemistry, Materials Science and Chemical Biology have developed a "metal-free flow battery that relies on the electrochemistry of naturally abundant, inexpensive, small organic (carbon-based) molecules called quinones, which are similar to molecules that store energy in plants and animals."

Photo credit Eliza Grinnell

The article adeptly outlines the current challenges of energy storage with traditional batteries and presents the clear economic and efficiency advantages of their battery comprised of electrochemical conversion hardware and a separate chemical storage tank.

The application of such a invention gives me hope.  But what really strikes me is all the interdisciplinary work that was done to invent the battery.  Such work cannot be done by solitary individuals but through shared ideas and actions.

At any rate, here's to the the New Year--may it be filled with new imaginations, new collaborations, new actions and new discoveries!