What kind of bacteria will eat you when you die?
Who doesn’t like to sing out loud “It’s the ciiiiiiircle, the ciiiiircle of life”? I did, until I realized that this song implies that we’re all going to die at some point. As a microbiologist, the next logical thought for me is that when I die, fungi and bacteria within the soil will decompose me and everything else around me into nutrients and carbon dioxide. At this point any passionate singing is interrupted. Scientists care about the circle of life because it makes life possible. Without decomposers like fungi and bacteria, everything would decompose so slowly that most organisms living on the surface of our planet wouldn’t have enough nutrients to live the way they do. There is evidence that life as we know it wouldn’t survive beyond a few months without anaerobic bacteria and fungi that break down dead organisms in environments with no oxygen (anaerobic). In addition, microbial…
Trying to Prevent Cancer and Heart Disease? Skip the Vitamin D
You go to any pharmacy, grocery store, or almost any other type of store, and are bombarded with vitamins and supplements lining the shelves. But are they actually beneficial? For example, Vitamin D has been prescribed to help treat and prevent bone density loss, but can it be used for other diseases and disorders as well? Preliminary research has shown that vitamin D might be able to help prevent cancer and heart disease as well, but this research has not been done rigorously, so scientists can’t say for sure. Therefore, researchers from all across the United States established the Vitamin D and Omega-3 Trial to try and see if high doses of vitamin D can help prevent cancer and heart disease. This trial included 25,871 men over 50 years old and women over 55 years old throughout the United States. These men and women were randomized into 4 different groups,…
Acidic pH reduces the effectiveness of cancer drugs
Cancer remains one of the major public health challenges facing society today. Despite advances in cancer treatments, the WHO estimates that the disease will cause a staggering 9.6 million deaths in 2018 making it the second leading cause of death worldwide. Sadly, cancer rates will likely increase in the near future due to the aging global population and high rates of unhealthy lifestyle choices such as smoking and obesity. Managing these increasing cancer rates into the future, will require the development of better and more effective cancer treatments. However, discovering new cancer drugs is a very costly and time-consuming process. Scientists usually start with a library of chemicals consisting of thousands of different drug molecules. These drug molecules are then individually tested against cancer cells that are grown in the laboratory to see if they contain any potent anticancer activity. Promising candidate molecules that kill these cancer cells then undergo…
Implanting sensors in fish to monitor their stress levels in the wild
Researchers at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences have successfully implanted bio-loggers into farmed rainbow trout to monitor them in real time and natural conditions. Bio-loggers are small, bullet-shaped sensors that are about 13 cm or 1.5 inches long and can measure heart rate and temperature from inside an animal for 18 months. The researchers also measured cortisol, the stress hormone, before and after introducing stressors to verify how accurately heart rate correlates to stress in rainbow trout. This study was the first time scientists implanted farmed fish with bio-loggers. Fish can be very difficult to study due to their underwater habitat and uniform physical appearance, making them difficult to monitor at an individual level. Usually fish are tested by removing them from the water, which stresses the animal out and can only last for a couple minutes at a time. Therefore, these tests only provide a snapshot of the…
Implanting sensors in fish to monitor their stress levels in the wild
Researchers at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences have successfully implanted bio-loggers into farmed rainbow trout to monitor them in real time and natural conditions. Bio-loggers are small, bullet-shaped sensors that are about 13 cm or 1.5 inches long and can measure heart rate and temperature from inside an animal for 18 months. The researchers also measured cortisol, the stress hormone, before and after introducing stressors to verify how accurately heart rate correlates to stress in rainbow trout. This study was the first time scientists implanted farmed fish with bio-loggers. Fish can be very difficult to study due to their underwater habitat and uniform physical appearance, making them difficult to monitor at an individual level. Usually fish are tested by removing them from the water, which stresses the animal out and can only last for a couple minutes at a time. Therefore, these tests only provide a snapshot of the…
Is Coconut Oil Really Better For You Than Butter?
Nutrition articles may wax philosophical about “bad fats” and “good fats,” but the truth is never simple. Healthy eating is not so much a battle of good versus evil as it is an ongoing learning process. The current dietary guidelines are useful general recommendations for a healthy diet, but they are always being optimized. A recent clinical trial attempted to answer a popular question about fats – is all saturated fat unhealthy or does the source matter? Saturated fats, such as butter, have been linked to poor heart health because of their impact on cholesterol levels in the blood. In the 1980s, margarine was touted as a healthier alternative to butter. In the 1990s, the negative health effects of trans fats, which are just a man-made saturated fat, were discovered. Margarine starts out as vegetable oil and is made solid through a chemical process called hydrogenation. This process occasionally produces…
Is Coconut Oil Really Better For You Than Butter?
Nutrition articles may wax philosophical about “bad fats” and “good fats,” but the truth is never simple. Healthy eating is not so much a battle of good versus evil as it is an ongoing learning process. The current dietary guidelines are useful general recommendations for a healthy diet, but they are always being optimized. A recent clinical trial attempted to answer a popular question about fats – is all saturated fat unhealthy or does the source matter? Saturated fats, such as butter, have been linked to poor heart health because of their impact on cholesterol levels in the blood. In the 1980s, margarine was touted as a healthier alternative to butter. In the 1990s, the negative health effects of trans fats, which are just a man-made saturated fat, were discovered. Margarine starts out as vegetable oil and is made solid through a chemical process called hydrogenation. This process occasionally produces…
Where Have All the Passenger Pigeons Gone?
Up to about 200 years ago, the passenger pigeon was one of the most numerous vertebrate animals on Earth. The species had an estimated 3 to 5 billion individuals at the peak of its existence and had such big flock sizes that they were known to block out the sun. However, this changed during the early 1800s when they were commercialized as a cheap food source. Over the course of only 100 years, a combination of hunting and deforestation killed millions of pigeons a year, until finally, the birds were completely extinct. So how did these birds, that existed for tens of thousands of years, die off in little over one lifetime? This is the question Dr. Gemma Murray and her team sought to answer by looking at the genetics of some well-preserved passenger pigeons. To understand what could have led to the rapid demise of the passenger pigeon, the…
Machine learning through bacterial fingerprints
Various industries rely on accurate detection and identification of bacterial species. For example, food-processing plants often have to test their products for bacterial contamination to ensure it is safe for human consumption. In hospitals, a quick and accurate method to identify bacteria can help doctors prescribe the right antibiotics. Staphylococcus aureus is a bacterium that causes major problems in both the food and medical industries. The bacteria can contaminate food and cause severe diarrhoea. In hospitals, this bacteria causes deadly bloodstream infections in patients. Other relatives of Staphylococcus aureus can also cause infections but are much less severe than S. aureus. It is therefore important that microbiologist can swiftly and accurately identify S. aureus species. Many of the current techniques that are used to differentiate Staphylococcus species is time consuming and laborious. The existing biochemical tests take a few days to complete. This is especially a problem in hospital settings…
Beyond the grapes: what influences the flavor of different wines?
You sit down at a restaurant and peruse the menu for the best wine to pair with your dinner. Do you choose a red wine like Cabernet Sauvignon, or something crisper and lighter like Riesling? Do you choose the cheapest one within the category, or first look to see the vineyards listed? The differences between wine flavors go beyond the grapes and the fermentation process. Turns out even before all of that, climate, geology, elevation, soil, and microbes all play a huge role in determining the flavor and aroma of each bottle of wine. The French word ‘terroir’ refers to the interaction of climate, soil, water, geology, and elevation that creates the complex environments where grapes are grown. In a recent review article, scientists focused on California’s Napa and Sonoma counties to explore how terroir varies at different scales, from regional to local. In California, the diversity in landscapes…
A new technique may improve the delivery of therapies to the brain
How can our blood deliver vital oxygen and nutrients to our brains, while also not bringing with it any possible infection that may be in the blood? A unique physiological feature called the blood-brain barrier offers protection. It is a very tightly-knit barrier between the brain’s blood vessels and the rest of the brain tissue. Much like a filter, the blood-brain barrier stops pathogens or toxins from reaching the brain. It does this through having structures known as “endothelial tight junctions”. Endothelial cells are the cells that line the interior surface of our veins, arteries, and capillaries (the connection point between our veins and arteries where oxygen, nutrients, and waste are exchanged). In the capillaries of the brain, the endothelial cells are grouped together much more tightly than in the rest of the body. As a result of the tight-knit nature of the blood-brain barrier, only very small molecules are…
A new technique may improve the delivery of medicine to the brain
How can our blood deliver vital oxygen and nutrients to our brains, while also not bringing with it any possible infection that may be in the blood? A unique physiological feature called the blood-brain barrier offers protection. It is a very tightly-knit barrier between the brain’s blood vessels and the rest of the brain tissue. Much like a filter, the blood-brain barrier stops pathogens or toxins from reaching the brain. It does this through having structures known as “endothelial tight junctions”. Endothelial cells are the cells that line the interior surface of our veins, arteries, and capillaries (the connection point between our veins and arteries where oxygen, nutrients, and waste are exchanged). In the capillaries of the brain, the endothelial cells are grouped together much more tightly than in the rest of the body. As a result of the tight-knit nature of the blood-brain barrier, only very small molecules are…
HIV-positive and trying to get pregnant? Read this first.
If a woman has human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and becomes pregnant, it is very important that we prevent the transmission of this disease from mother to child. There are many ways to prevent this transmission (e.g. the mother starts taking HIV medication right away, cesarean section delivery, limited breastfeeding, and the baby gets HIV medication as soon as they are born). In recent years, this prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV resulted in reduced numbers of infant HIV infections. However, this means that there are many babies who are exposed to the mother’s HIV virus as a fetus, but the babies are not infected with HIV themselves . These infants are known as HIV-exposed uninfected infants, and they are at higher risk of serious health complications than infants that are HIV-unexposed, including more hospitalizations, health care visits, infections, and death. It is still not entirely clear why this…
You may be getting catfished by catfish
What species of fish are you really eating when you buy a fillet at the grocery store or fried fish at your local restaurant? In the first picture below, it’s easy to tell that it’s a catfish, but how about in the second picture of fish and chips? Statistics on how often fish are labeled as a different species vary widely based on the type of retailer (market versus restaurant, chain versus single location) and the location of the study, but mislabeling is common practice . Whether or not mislabeling is intentional is hard to tell, because fish species can look very similar. Fishermen and processing plants don’t have a way to analyze individual fish’s DNA to identify it, so they have to trust experience. Photo on left: Christmas Eve Dinner by Gary Stevens. Creative Commons 2.0. Photo on right: Photo by Midnight Believer, Public Domain. Image Source: Catfish & Fries,…
Can some fungi clean up plastic pollution?
Since September is National Mushroom Month, it’s fitting to think about the incredible things fungi can do. You may be familiar with mushrooms in grocery stores or some of those visible in the forest. When it comes to fungal diversity, these examples are only the tip of the iceberg. While some may be delicious with dinner, others can clean up harmful pollution. Some fungi can degrade toxic byproducts released by industrial or agricultural processes such as petroleum, explosives, agricultural chemicals, metals, and metalloids. Since some fungi are great at collecting metals, they may also be useful for recycling them. Fungi live in many different environments such as soils, sediments, rocks, trees, or plant leaves – many of which come in direct contact with metals or pollutants. Some form harmful (pathogenic) associations with plants, while others have symbiotic (mutually beneficial) relationships. Scientists are only beginning to understand the immense capabilities of…