Petri Art in honor of the Petri Google Doodle
Petri dish art posts are multiplying.
The History of Petri via Rajini Rao
Fuzzy Frosty and more
Microbial Art: Hold the Lysol! via Rajini Rao
Dishing out some science early
Bacteria portraits! via João Figueiredo
Petri Dish Art via Lacerant Plainer
A Wonderful | Stunning | Artistic Science Based Design via Rich Pollett
Microbial Art via 112576797484384698586
Image Source: Klari Reis
#ScienceEveryday when it isn’t #ScienceSunday
Tussle with Pertussis – Whooping cough
Pertussis or whooping cough is caused by the bacterium
Bordetella pertussis. It’s called whooping cough because after a coughing fit, an infected person makes a whooping sound when they try to catch their breath. Babies less than a year old can die from pertussis.
In 2008, about 195,000 children died from pertussis.
http://www.who.int/immunization/topics/pertussis/en/index.html
I want to focus on a ScienceNOW article about new vs. old whooping cough vaccine.
Uptick in Whooping Cough Linked to Subpar Vaccines
Whooping cough, or pertussis, has exploded in the United States in recent years. A new study confirms what scientists have suspected for some time: The return of the disease is caused by the introduction of new, safer vaccines 2 decades ago. Although they have far fewer side effects, the new shots don’t offer long-lived protection the way older vaccines do.
The disease seemed to have disappeared by the 1970s but has come back in the past decade or two. Evidence suggest that the reoccurrence is due to the switch from a vaccine based on the whole-cell bacterium to a new vaccine that has just parts of the bacterium. The newer virus has less side effects but apparently doesn’t offer long term protection. The newer vaccine was developed because the chemicals used to kill the pertussis for the vaccine where causing side effects.
During the 1980s, U.S. parents successfully sued manufacturers, alleging that the whole-cell vaccine also caused long-term brain damage. A 1991 Institute of Medicine report concluded that this was unproven, but by then many pertussis vaccine manufacturers had withdrawn from the market, leading Congress to create a federal vaccine injury compensation program for families who could show a strong case for vaccine damage.
Three studies have shown that the new acellular vaccination, i.e., one based on parts of the bacterium, no the whole cell, is less effective (long lasting) compared to the older vaccine.
Comparative Effectiveness of Acellular Versus Whole-Cell Pertussis Vaccines in Teenagers in Pediatrics: http://goo.gl/SE6dZ , Number and Order of Whole Cell Pertussis Vaccines in Infancy and Disease Protection in JAMA http://goo.gl/H02wy , Reduced Risk of Pertussis Among Persons Ever Vaccinated With Whole Cell Pertussis Vaccine Compared to Recipients of Acellular Pertussis Vaccines in a Large US Cohort http://goo.gl/TBa4H
So why does the whole-cell based vaccine work better and why switch? The whole-cell based vaccine likely works better because there is more of the cell that is presented to the immune system to generate anti-bodies. Also, as the pertussis bacteria mutate, the new vaccine is likely to have less overlap with the mutated version. The older, whole-cell based version is likely to have antigens that are still effective, i.e., still in the mutated version.
Why is this important? There has been an increase in whooping cough out breaks in the US and measles in the UK. http://goo.gl/8xRa7 via Philip Plait and http://goo.gl/fXzB1
It’s dangerous when misinformation and conspiracy theories affect policy and decision making. If more people are scared into not getting vaccinated, then herd immunity is compromised.
Herd Immunity – One Minute Medical School
http://www.health.harvard.edu/video/herd-immunity/
Using science, we understand that the increase in whooping cough infections is at least partially explained by the switch to the new vaccine, based on parts of the Bordetella pertussis and not the whole cell. It is also partially explained by diminished herd immunity by unvaccinated people/children.
Finally, I’ll point you to as disturbing story about anti-vaxxers going after a family that lost their infant to whooping cough. http://goo.gl/saspV
Image Source: http://goo.gl/D31Fo
#ScienceSunday
Intriguing discussion with Steven Weinberg
My father has a degree in comparative religion. I’ve always been fascinated by the intersection of metaphysics and science. Dr. Weinberg talks about wave theory, the big bang theory, quantum mechanics, and more. It’s a long discussion ~1 hour 14 min. Cliff Harvey does a great job giving some of his insight on the discussion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Weinberg
#ScienceSunday
Originally shared by Cliff Harvey
Weinberg, Dawkins, and the universe
This is a great discussion exploring all kinds of questions, especially touching on some points of contact between physics and the ‘grand’ religious or quasi-religious questions, including the issue of fine-tuning of physical constants, anthropic selection from a larger reality, what we know about the early universe from experiments, and what we think we know. Its clear from the thunder in the first few minutes that they’ve angered the Gods….
In case you weren’t aware, Steven Weinberg is one of the main co-fathers of the Standard Model, a Nobel laureate, and wrote the book (all 3 volumes) on quantum field theory, so as someone very familiar with the currently most fundamental frameworks he’s among the most trustworthy and well-prepared to discuss these matters.
One of the physical issues they tackle early on is ‘dark energy’ or the vacuum energy. Here Weinberg does a good job clarifying some of the usual confusions often found in the press. We cannot, strictly speaking, calculate the value of the vacuum energy, but what we can do is calculate contributions to it, from fluctuations in various known fields down to whatever distance scales we decide to trust our current model, with the Planck scale being the absolute limit. When this is done we get an answer something around ~10^120 times too high (or possibly more like ~10^60 if there are some low-scale SUSY partners). But strictly speaking this is not a “conflict with experiment” because there is still the freedom to add a simple constant to the whole thing. The assumption that this “constant part” is zero leads to a meaningful constraint on the particle content and ultimate high-energy laws of the universe, but so far we unfortunately don’t know how to do away with that extra freedom. I agree with Weinberg that it still seems natural to expect that (at least most of) this discrepancy will be addressed by contributions from new laws which must take over by the Planck scale at the latest, and also probably from more ordinary particles which haven’t yet been discovered. Still, absent some new and currently unknown principle, this remains a primary candidate for anthropic selection.
They spend some time on the “nightmare scenario” of not finding anything new at the LHC. I don’t plan on getting very worried about this until we see a fair amount of 14 TeV data analyzed, but more importantly, its not a scientist’s place to complain about the laws of nature. I agree that it might not be as enjoyable a time to be a theorist if we don’t find something else, but there is still so much good work to be done in understanding the current frameworks more deeply. Also, its important to recognize that negative results are important too, they constrain future attempts at model building in important ways. But in my opinion there is no avoiding the obvious fact that physics is objectively and dramatically closer to its defined goal of describing the fundamental laws of the universe, and at some point it just becomes unrealistic and unscientific to expect that this period of science has to be directly analogous to the one that existed 150 years ago. They’re qualitatively quite different. The process of science is all about trying to find new ways to test our current best understanding, and in some ways even to try and break it, but that doesn’t mean we’re entitled to a rewriting of all the laws every few years, as a startling number of people seem to believe. That is exactly the kind of unhealthy attachment to an idea (or feeling) that the skepticism that defines science is supposed to dissuade you from. The very assumption that there are laws of the universe implies that this scientific process will inevitably become more stable over time, particularly on the most fundamental end.
Around 54:00 they also venture into the question of interpreting quantum mechanics, and here its extremely clear that there inevitably should be a conflict between your scientific understanding of the fundamental laws and your intuitive understanding of newtonian physics that you use to walk down the street. Something would have to be wrong otherwise. Essentially, because any of the hypotheses that would prevent the “unsettling” implications of QM at human scales require some kind of dramatic revision of its content, even though no evidence supports such a revision. Here Weinberg himself confesses that he thinks the “best” outcome would be to find out that there is some mechanism that breaks QM as we know it when small systems interact with large systems, though he is at least straightforward about the lack of any support from evidence. He himself mentions the many entanglement experiments have proven that quantum mechanics does still operate at distances as far as meters or even kilometers, and should work to any arbitrary distance. I don’t think its rational to “hope” for a way to circumscribe quantum mechanics in this way.This is a big topic I’ve worked on, posted on, and will post again on…
Anyway those are just a few responses to a very far-reaching conversation.
#scienceeveryday
Here’s the motherload of Amazing Animal Facts
Happy birthday Lacerant Plainer #LPSAmazingAnimalFacts
I’ve compiled a ton of mostly my posts about amazing animal science.
You’ve been slimed
Why are dogs better at some things than chimpanzees?
Eye of Horus
Am be stoner, hello sunshine
Solar powered vertebrate.
No Chiton on science
What can you sea with MRI?
Alfa females: hyena hormones at work
Evolutionary forces – Working Together
Uncovering Merle
I’m not cheetah-ing one #Caturday by posting this dog video
Rhinestone Cowboy
Duck, duck, science
Water as a treat?
Made for Each Other
#HappyBirthdayLP_NoTinFoilHatRequired
#HappyAlienDayLacerantPlainer
#AliensAmongstUs
Originally shared by Chad Haney
Bobbit worm, Eunice aphroditois
Besides looking interesting, the bobbit worm has an interesting feature. It’s hemoglobin is extracellular.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1164035/
Hemoglobin is the oxygen carrying protein in our red blood cells (RBC), i.e., it is intracellular. What that means is, unlike our blood, the bobbit worm has free hemoglobin; just floating around. That might not seem amazing to you but here’s why it is amazing. In mammalian blood, hemoglobin is protected from oxidation inside the RBC by many other proteins You’ve seen iron rust. That’s oxidation and hemoglobin’s oxygen binding component has iron. When iron is oxidized it can generate free radicals which are toxic. That’s why you hear people recommending anti-oxidant rich fruits/vegetables. When iron is oxidized and creates free radicals it is called Fenton chemistry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenton’s_reagent#Fenton_Reaction.28Medicine.29
Additional interesting info on the bobbit worm from Wiki, which is where the image is from.
Armed with sharp teeth, it is known to attack with such speeds that its prey is sometimes sliced in half. Although the worm hunts for food, it is omnivorous. It is also covered in bristles that are capable of a sting that results in permanent numbness in humans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobbit_worm
Edit Many invertebrates have extracellular hemoglobin. I haven’t had time to find out what mechanism the bobbit worm uses to project its heme from oxidation.
#ScienceEveryday