domaineukarya

[domaineukarya]

“Animal blood comes in a rainbow of hues because of the varying chemistry of the molecules it uses to carry oxygen. Humans use hemoglobin, whose iron content imparts a crimson color to our red blood cells. Octopuses, lobsters, and horseshoe crabs use hemocyanin, which has copper instead of iron, and is blue instead of red—that’s why these creatures bleed blue. Other related molecules are responsible for the violet blood of some marine worms, and the green blood of leeches. But the green-blooded lizards use good old hemoglobin. Their red blood cells are, well, red. Their green has a stranger origin: Biliverdin.

They should be dead. Biliverdin can damage DNA, kill cells, and destroy neurons. And yet, the lizards have the highest levels of biliverdin ever seen in an animal. Their blood contains up to 20 times more of it than the highest concentration ever recorded in a human—an amount that proved to be fatal. And yet, not only are the lizards still alive, they’re not even jaundiced. How do they tolerate the chemical? Why did they evolve such high levels of biliverdin in the first place? And why, as Austin’s colleague Zachary Rodriguez has just discovered, did they do so on several occasions?”

Source: TheAtlantic

[domaineukarya]

Could you explain what exactly is in a vaccine? Because honestly I'm sure if I would vaccinate my son if I didn't know what chemicals were about to be flowing through his bloodstream. I'm very conflicted on this matter and have heard it very biased from both sides. I just need something objective to go off of

Before I describe the different components involved in a vaccine, I want to address the so-called “bias” when it comes to the vaccine debate. The thing is, there is no “bias” from the medical side. There are facts that are back up by multiple studies, and then there are opinions that are based on fraudulent research done by a physician who has since lost his license.

And then there’s Jenny McCarthy, but we aren’t here to discuss people who offer their opinion on science when they probably don’t even know the difference between a virus and a bacteria.

So what is in a vaccine?

It really depends on the type of vaccine you’re talking about. The antigenic component varies based on whatever disease you’re trying to prevent. I’ll go into that further in a second, but I first want to focus on the “scary stuff” most people are worried about.

Thimerosal

Thimerosal is a preservative used to prevent bacterial and fungal growth. You know, critters that if injected into your child that would probably cause septicemia.  People get freaked out about thimerosal because it contains mercury. The funny thing is, thimerosal is only used in the flu vaccine. It has never been used in the MMR vaccine. It has also never been linked to any toxicity based on multiple studies.

Formaldehyde

Formaldehyde is used to inactivate viruses and detoxify bacterial toxins (like those in the tetanus vaccine.) A purification process is used to remove almost all formaldehyde in vaccines, although a very small amount will still remain. The amount of formaldehyde in vaccines is less than 200 parts per million (.02%) and several hundred times lower than the amount known to harm humans, even infants.  

Antibiotics

Sometimes very small amounts of antibiotic are added to a vaccine (ex. neomycin MMR) to prevent any bacterial growth in the vaccine. If a person is allergic to neomycin, they may end up having an allergic reaction. This is actually a significant (albeit rare) effect that needs to be monitored for.

Adjuvants

Adjuvants are added to vaccines to help increase the immune response to the antigen. None are known to be harmful.

I think the FDA has a really good page that answers most of your concerns as well: https://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/SafetyAvailability/VaccineSafety/ucm187810.htm

And lastly, there are the antigens of whatever disease you’re trying to prevent. So if you’re trying to prevent the flu, the vaccine will contain a killed influenza virus.

I want to end this long post by talking about a few diseases your son would be vaccinated against if you choose to vaccinate. I want you to make an informed decision on your own rather by ridiculing anyone for their misguided opinions on vaccine safety. Vaccines are, quite literally, the most significant medical advancement in all of human history, and I will show this by talking about the various diseases they prevent. I’m not going to discuss all of them because as I started doing this I realized it was going to take a long time to discuss every disease (and I have boards to study for), but I’ll try to highlight the important ones.

Hepatitis B

Hepatitis B, while usually not as big of a concern if you get it as an adult, is extremely detrimental to children. Adults usually clear the illness without any lasting effects. However, children (90% to be specific) are unable to clear the infection and ultimately develop chronic hepatitis. Chronic hepatitis leads to liver cirrhosis, cancer, and death. About 2000 people die a year due to hepatitis B related liver disease in the United States.  This has been in steep decline since we began vaccinating for hepatitis B, as seen from this graph.

MMR

This is the biggie that everyone thinks causes autism even though there is literally no link shown between vaccines and autism. You can google this and find thousands of articles showing no link while there are maybe three that show there is some sort of link. But that’s the thing about research. Just because research says something does NOT mean it is true. Not all research is good research. Some research uses small sample sizes (cough cough Wakefield.) Or the research has a bias and a desired result. There are many things that contribute to what constitutes “bad research” which is why I think everyone should be required to take an epidemiology course at some point in their life, but I digress. Let’s talk about measles and rubella specifically.

Measles is a funny one to me because everyone thinks it’s “just a rash.” This shows the ignorance of many people who really know nothing about the disease they are speaking of. Measles causes 130,000 deaths around the world annually. Measles vaccination resulted in a 79% drop in measles deaths between 2000 and 2015 worldwide. However, as more and more people stop vaccinating, we start to lose herd immunity. Measles is a biggie for herd immunity because it is so incredibly contagious. For context, Ebola generally infects 2-3 people that have been in contact with a diseased individual. Measles infects 12-18 people who have been in contact with an infected individual. An outbreak of measles is extremely difficult to control.

Rubella does not generally cause as severe of disease in children. However, the problem with rubella is what it can do to a fetus. Congenital rubella syndrome (caused when a pregnant mother contracts the disease) can result in microcephaly, congenital cataracts, deafness, and heart defects. Since we have started vaccinating, the cases of congenital rubella have basically been eradicated from the US (see figure below.) CRS= Congenital Rubella Syndrome

I have included multiple links throughout this if you want to click to learn more, and I’ve provided more sources below: 

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr6204a1.htm

https://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis/statistics/

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/vis/vis-statements/hep-b.html

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/patient-ed/conversations/downloads/vacsafe-thimerosal-color-office.pdf

http://vaccine-safety-training.org/vaccine-components.html

#vaccinate your kids

[domaineukarya]

People often use the terms taste and flavor interchangeably. Scientists do not. Flavor is a complicated mix of sensory data. Taste is just one of the senses that contributes to flavor.

Here’s how it works.

[domaineukarya]

TODAY I LEARNED CARNIVOROUS SUCCULENTS EXIST

They’re known as Butterworts or Pinguicula and they are officially THE COOLEST PLANTS EVER

See those leaves? They’re coated with DIGESTIVE ENZYMES TO TRAP AND KILL INSECTS

And they look FREAKING AMAZING

This has been your Cool Thing of the Day you’re welcome

[domaineukarya]

something that really bothers me when people discuss natural selection is when people ask questions along the lines of, “why aren’t all turtles extinct if they’re so slow and dumb” and “if neanderthals are superior to gorillas, then why are neanderthals extinct?”.

Like these are such misled questions that you’d have to answer completely different, unasked questions to actually help the person understand, but it also belies a really unfortunate fact about the history of evolutionary science and how natural selection was once, and for a really long time, studied as if evolution is a battle between superiors and inferiors. and this framework was developed for the purpose of economic and sociopolitical gain, and to justify bigotry toward marginalized peoples, and this framework still permeates how people teach and learn about natural selection. it worries me a lot!

[domaineukarya]

spec bio miniature baleen whale

they’re a very rare species which evolved in landlocked saltwater seas and feed on brine shrimp or scavenging the floor. to avoid beaching in shallow water, the tail is a paddle and vestigial hind limbs remained intact.eyesight is minimal and only used to watch for predators from above, instead large whiskers are used as feelers to navigate and feel for food. 

[domaineukarya]

How do we make plastic more sustainable?

Plastic straws are included in the UK government plastics ban. Image: Pixabay 

In May 2018, the EU proposed a single-use plastics ban intended to protect the environment, save consumers money, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As part of the new laws, the EU aims for all plastic bottles to be recycled by 2025, and non-recyclable single-use items such as straws, cutlery, and cotton buds to be banned.

An ambitious step – and arguably necessary – but there is no denying that plastics are extremely useful, versatile and important materials, playing a role in countless applications.

The World’s Plastic Waste Could Bury Manhattan Two Miles Deep: How To Reduce Our Impact. Video: TIME

The challenge to science, industry and society is to keep developing, producing and using materials with the essential properties offered by the ubiquitous oil-based plastics of today – but improving the feedstocks and end-of-life solutions, and ensuring that consumers use and dispose of products responsibly.

A number of innovative solutions have been proposed to help plastics move towards a more sustainable future.

A sweet solution

Deothymidine is one of four nucleosides that make up the structure of DNA. Image: Karl-Ludwig Poggemann/Flickr

‘Chemists have 100 years’ experience with using petrochemicals as a raw material, so we need to start again using renewable feedstocks like sugars as a base for synthetic but sustainable materials,’ said Dr Antoine Buchard, a Whorrod Research Fellow at the University of Bath, UK.

Dr Buchard leads a group at the Centre for Sustainable Technologies at the University of Bath that are searching for a sustainable solution for single-use plastics. Using nature as their inspiration, the team have developed a plastic derived from thymidine – the sugar found in DNA – and CO2.

Abridged version of an article written by Georgina Hines. Want to know more? Read the article in full here.

[domaineukarya]

A look at levels!

[domaineukarya]

This is a good rebuttal to the misconception of “survival of the fittest”! Fittest does not mean strongest or fastest or anything like that. Barnacles are very fit to be sedentary. They fill a specific niche. Most of life is about fitting a niche. So that can mean being very good at one thing and bad at others. 

Humans are not the fastest or the strongest or the toughest. But we have intelligence and social ties. We can plan and strategize things bigger than any individual could complete. 

But more than just survival, we need social bonds. We need social interaction. People kept in solitary confinement go insane. Our strength is in more than just adaptability, but using that to uplift others.  

We are not just animals, but we cant use that to excuse our behaviour either. Animals have been shown to cooperate, care for each other. It takes a village. We have not just villages but nations.

them: SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST MEANS HUMANS MUST BE INDIVIDUALLY SELF-SUFFICIENT AND COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT

biologist:

#long post

[domaineukarya]

I plan to do a brief rundown of the history of the earth tomorrow. I just need to look up specific times because I have an idea in my head, but that .5 billion years difference matters. It’s amazing that in that timescale you count by billions of years but for humans we count in thousands of years at the broadest. We diverged from our common ancestor with chimps and bonobos 5 million years ago, then became modern humans with agriculture 50,000 years ago. 

The civilizations that people think of go only back to about 5,000 years ago. Human history changes rapidly every century, every decade. We have huge technological advances happening within a generation. This is getting a bit of the track of my blog but I want to point out how timescale matters

I hope we make it. 

[domaineukarya]

“Alex they’re mushrooms” is the new “Harold they’re lesbians”

[domaineukarya]

Speaking at the British Science Festival, which is taking place in Swansea, she said: “There is no such thing as a male or female brain.

“There is no one aspect of the brain even which if a scientist looked at it they could tell whether it came from a man or a woman.

“We shouldn’t be talking about sex differences in the brain. The brain is a mosaic and every brain is different for every individual.

"Using our neuroscience resources to measure differences is actually a waste of time. It’s more interesting to see what makes individual brains different.”

Prof Rippon believes that studies claiming differences between males and females are due to cultural and environmental factors.

She said that women become “wired” for multi-tasking not because of anything innate, but because that is what society expects of them.

And Prof Rippon said that the segregation between girls and boys even occurs from a young age – with them being given different toys to play with and different books to read – and that could change the way in which their brains develop.

She told an audience at Swansea University that boys’ toys can often be more training-based while girls’ toys are more nurturing.

“I’d say to the scientific community, can we please stop talking about sex? Stop dividing your data into two categories, you are losing so much information,” Prof Rippon said.

“Not only are we feeding the ‘neuro-trash’ industry misunderstanding about what we do, but we are also feeding the inner wimp of people out there who believe that they can or can’t do something based on whether they are male or female.”

#neuroscience

[domaineukarya]

its amazing how much of our lives is determined by people before us. i didnt set up the systems of racism and homophobia. i didnt found America as an anti-Black, racist, capitalist, sexist, genocidal nation. yet here we are. its like they find it a bad habit to kick and the rest of us are growing up just smothered in it

[domaineukarya]

This is more a query than anything. Every human is unique. We have unique appearances, tastes, health conditions etc. We can recognize the same in cats and dogs. Is it because of higher intelligence? are flies unique too?

We would never do a study on humans with only a few particpants so why do we base our knowledge of a species off a few individuals? Is it just convenient or are they really the same

[domaineukarya]

cats have a loose clavicle (collarbone) compared to us so they can squeeze into spaces the size of their head and not have their “shoulders” get in the way

[domaineukarya]

We are all categorized by  Domain Kingdom Phyllum Class Order Family Genus Species 

I plan to lay out how humans and common animals fit in this categorization

[domaineukarya]

Final for Triarthus eatoni, a species of trilobite from the Upper Ordovician, about 445 million years ago, it was discovered in 1838 by an American geologist and paleontologist named James Hall, in the Beecher’s Trilobite Bed in Rome, New York. These specimens were particularly well preserved with even soft body parts preserved in iron pyrite (fools gold). The fossilization was so good that scientists were able to study their legs, gills, antennae, digestive system, and even some eggs.

As a result of this exquisite preservation, this species is often referenced as the standard for scientific text describing trilobite anatomy.

Triarthus was a small animal, on'y about 2 inches in length, but that is pretty average among most species of trilobite.