I think this is a great idea for kids. I also like to see that the operator is female. We actually use Legos to test our MRI scanners. We put a Lego or Legos into a 50 mL tube with copper sulfate (it has a lower relaxation time than water). Because the Lego is plastic, i.e., doesn’t have protons that can interact with the magnet, it doesn’t have signal. So you get a void where the Lego is and you identify distortions (rather than a uniform image, if it were just plain liquid) if something is wrong with the system.
These are RNA viruses causing hemorrhagic fever (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_disease). Symptoms appear 8-10 days after contracting the disease and include fever, sore throat, muscle pain, and headaches. Typically nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea follow, along with decreased functioning of the liver, kidneys and in some cases with internal and external bleeding.
♦ How does one get infected
As many virus diseases (HIV, for example) this disease too has come to infect humans through primates. However, the reservoir for the viruses are thought to be bats in the African jungles.
Close contact with body fluids (blood, vomit, saliva, etc.) of an infected person/animal is responsible for the spread of this disease.
♦ Debunking some Ebola myths
1. Ebola spreads through air
No. Except the Reston ebolavirus none of the othe species are spread via aerosols (droplets in the air). Reston is shed in the form of droplets only by pigs. If you’re exposed to a pig infected by this strain, the chances of you dying are slim. The disease causing capability of this particular strain is not good enough to kill.
In fact, as Tara C. Smith mentioned in a G+ HOA (see link below) according to Prof Peter Piot (the scientist who discovered ebola) even if you are sitting next to an ebola infected individual on the subway, you might not get infection. Only close contact with infected body fluids leads to an infection.
2. _ This is the Zombie Apocalyspe_
No, it’s not. And though we must all be alert and vigilant, we should not panic! If contained, this disease can be controlled. Please help in spreading awareness in your community about the prevention strategies. Once we understand the science behind it, everything falls into perspective.
3. The ebola patients in the US are being treated by some secret serum
The serum is not a secret panacea developed exclusively for US citizens. And neither is it some devil concoction. The serum is a cocktail of antibodies raised in laboratory animals (in Biosafety level 4 laboratories). Please listen to Vincent Racaniello’s (Earth’s Virology Professor) take on this aspect in the hangout. As he says, scientists are not a part of any conspiracy. They are doing their job. The benefit of the community is the bottomline for all research.
Spread awareness and not rumors!
Following are some very useful links:
This week in virology episode ‘Ebola! Don’t panic’. Listen to Vincent Racaniello and friends discussing Ebola.
This is a timely HOA, that should be interesting as well.
#scienceeveryday
Originally shared by Science on Google+
Join us for a Science on Google+ Hangout on Air as we speak to Professor Vincent Racaniello and Dr Tara C. Smith about the recent Ebola outbreak. We will discuss the basics of Ebola, why the epidemic has spread, how it might be curtailed, and debunk some of the myths surrounding this outbreak. Please leave your questions on the Event page.
Vincent is a professor of virology at the University of Columbia and is a fantastic science communicator. Tara is an epidemiologist at Kent State University who has written numerous articles debunking some of the myths surrounding Ebola. This HOA will be hosted by Dr Buddhini Samarasinghe and Dr Zuleyka Zevallos. You can tune in on Sunday August 10th at 2.30 PM Pacific, 5.30 PM Eastern. The hangout will be available for viewing on our YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/ScienceHangouts) after the event.
I’ve been neglecting my #CHMedicalImagingSeries because I’ve been crazy busy at work. We are getting a new SPECT/CT which, ironically (or maybe not) is the next modality in the series. Because cancer affects so many people, directly and indirectly, I think it’s important to re-share Buddhini Samarasinghe’s stellar work in her series. Even for researchers like us, cancer is personal. When the drudgery of lab work or analysis makes you want to crawl under your desk or when frustration from confounding results makes you want to pull your hair out (if you have hair), we remind ourselves of the loved ones, friends, acquaintances, etc. that have been hurt by cancer. We march on, with your support, with your stories, with your courage.
So if you want to know about cancer without the jargon, read Buddhini’s series. Hopefully my series will resume soon.
I applaud Nickelodeon (Nick News) for taking on such a sensitive topic. I’m looking forward to seeing how both sides are presented and what the audiences reaction is.
Tuesday, July 1 at 8:00 pm ET
I believe it will be available on their website the following day.
There is a report making the rounds on social media that really needs to be explained, because as usual the media hype is distorting the findings. The article in question was published in the Cell Stem Cell journal, and is #OpenAccess (http://goo.gl/pnoiwa). I will explain the background, what these results mean, and more importantly, what they don’t mean.
✤ Traditional chemotherapy is toxic to cells. The only reason traditional chemotherapy works is because it kills cancer cells faster than it kills normal cells. The side effects from chemo often happen because normal cells are also affected. One such side effect is the suppression of the immune system. This happens because chemo damages adult stem cells too, which impairs tissue repair and regeneration.
✤ Blood stem cells (known as hematopoietic stem cells) are responsible for replacing our blood cells; these reside in the bone marrow. In this study, scientists investigated the effect of prolonged fasting on hematopoietic stem cells.
✤ Mice used in this study were fasted for 48 hours, which the scientists defined as prolonged fasting. These mice received no food, only water. They then treated the mice with cyclophosphamide, a common chemotherapy drug. They found that cycles of prolonged fasting reduced the damage caused to hematopoietic stem cells when the mice were treated with cyclophosphamide. They also found that prolonged fasting cycles promoted the regeneration of blood cells through the protection of hematopoietic stem cells.
✤ Next, the scientists tested whether the effects of prolonged fasting were independent of the toxic side effects of chemotherapy. Could prolonged fasting alone stimulate hematopoietic stem cells to self-renew? Indeed, it could.
✤ What is the molecular mechanism for this process? A growth factor known as Insulin-like Growth Factor-1 (IGF-1) seemed to be involved. Growth factors are proteins that control the multiplication of cells. To examine this mechanism, the scientists used mice that were deficient in IGF-1. If you’re curious about how these ‘knockout mice’ are generated, read http://goo.gl/jdbqbk. When these IGF-1 deficient mice were treated with cyclophosphamide, they showed similar results to the prolonged fasting mice; reduced levels of hematopoietic stem cell damage. So getting rid of IGF-1 induced the same protective effects on hematopoietic stem cells.
✤ How does IGF-1 signalling protect hematopoietic stem cells? They found that the activity of an enzyme known as PKA was also reduced in these prolonged fasting/IGF-1 deficient mice. PKA controls the pathway involved in stem cell regeneration. So inhibiting IGF-1 or PKA signalling mimics the effect of prolonged fasting; it promotes the regeneration of hematopoietic stem cells, thereby reducing the immuno-suppressive side effect of chemotherapy.
✤ This is really interesting data – this research has identified one of the signalling pathways in the intricate network of reactions controlling the behaviour of hematopoietic stem cells. The mechanism involves PKA and IGF-1 signalling.
WHAT THE DATA DOESN’T SHOW
What this doesn’t show is that fasting is magically a cure-all for cancer. There isn’t a single study that shows lowered incidence of cancer in human populations that fast regularly. The fasting that these mice underwent also did not include the feasting that goes on every night as seen with human populations either. The scientists also conducted a small Phase I clinical trial in which patients undergoing chemotherapy fasted for 72h – the results are promising; their hematopoietic stem cells were protected when compared with the non-fasting control group. But obviously more data is needed, and it is highly inadvisable to fast before undergoing chemo, without the explicit guidance of a physician.
To summarise, fasting is not a cure for cancer. If anything, fasting does “cure” everything, eventually; this pathway involves a mechanism known as ‘death’.
Image: fasting causes a major reduction in white blood cells followed by their replenishment after refeeding. These effects of prolonged fasting can result in the reversal of chemotherapy-induced immunosuppression.
I couldn’t agree more with Hannah Grimm. I’ve had people link to the Harvard study as “proof” that neonicotinoids are the cause of colony collapse disorder in my previous post, where it is discussed in more detail:
*Bad Science: pushing your agenda instead of looking for real causes*
There’s been a lot of talk recently about Colony Collapse Disorder, the mysterious disappearances of bees from their hives, a serious problem that threatens American food production. There’s a number of suspects: Varroa mites, which spread disease; monocultures, which lead to a lack of food when your lone crop isn’t in bloom; and pesticides, which (obviously) kill insects. A particular type of insecticide, the neonicotinoids, have recently fallen under suspicion after a Harvard researcher published a study in which bees fed syrup laced with the pesticide died.
Just one problem: he fed the bees a concentration of poison hundreds of times what they’d experience in the real world. The study is the equivalent of injecting people with pure mercury and then claiming that tuna fish sandwiches, with their trace amounts of the toxin, are killing us. It’s like lacing your test subject’s food with Arsenic and then claiming that apples are bad for you because you might swallow the occasional seed!
This kind of bad science isn’t harmless. It takes attention away from actual solutions. At the end of the day, it’s a lot easier to feel smug and buy your organic, pesticide-free produce than it is to ask whether that organic farmer is monoculturing or not. What happens when your heirloom tomatoes aren’t in bloom? What will the bees eat then? Odds are, CCD is just caused by starvation caused by all of the nearby plants blooming simultaneously. Preserving habitat, planting wildflowers or having different crops are hard solutions, but they’re the ones that might actual save the bees.
It’s time we stop feeling smug about our pesticide usage and ask what’s really killing the bees.
Professor Rajini Rao is a tremendous role model along with Dr. Anandabi Joshee, Dr. Kei Okami, and Dr. Tabat M. Islambooly. If you don’t have Rajini circled, you are missing a lot.
Rajini’s post is very timely as I’ve been meaning to re-share Giselle Minoli’s post:
I think it’s best to visit the OP because the discussion is excellent and has many points that, unfortunately, don’t follow the re-share.
I think Dr.s Joshee, Okami, and Islambooly would be disappointed to find that, female physicians (after correcting for differences in specialties) make about $12,000 less than their male counterparts. As I said, we still have a ways to go.
Gender Differences in the Salaries of Physician Researchers posted by Adrienne Roehrich
Even in science, we have work to do. The study from PNAS reports that men and women scientist are biased towards hiring men and paying them more.
What can we do? For me, I strongly support programs that foster women in STEM such as Girlstart. I support equality at work and online. I support STEM Women on G+. Do you have other suggestions?
I’m pleased that G+ is, in general, very supportive of women in science and I have the pleasure of working with Rajini Rao Allison Sekuler Buddhini Samarasinghe Carissa Braun and Aubrey Francisco on ScienceSunday
Originally shared by Rajini Rao
On The Shoulders of Giants
♀ A sepia print of an Indian woman, a Japanese woman and a woman from Syria, dated 1885. What do they have in common? Extraordinarily, each was the first licensed female medical doctor in their country of origin. They were trained at the Women’s Medical College in Pennsylvania, the first of its kind in the country. This was a time before women had the right to vote. If they did attend college at all, it was at the risk of contracting “neuralgia, uterine disease, hysteria, and other derangements of the nervous system” (according to Harvard gynecologist Edward H. Clarke).
♀ An all-woman medical school was first proposed in 1846, supported by the Quakers and the feminist movement. Dr. Ellwood Harvey, one of the early teaching faculty, daringly smuggled out a slave, Ann Maria Weems, dressed as a male buggy driver, from right outside the White House. With his reward money, he bought his students a papier maché dissection mannequin. Eventually, poverty forced him to quit teaching, but he still helped out with odd jobs. What a magnificent man!
♀ Fate and fortune were to buffet Ms. Joshi’s life. Married at age 9 to a man 11 years older, her husband turned out to be surprisingly progressive. After she lost her first child at age 14, she vowed to render to her “poor suffering country women the true medical aid they so sadly stand in need of and which they would rather die than accept at the hands of a male physician”. She was first offered a scholarship by a missionary on condition that she converted to Christianity. When she demurred, a wealthy socialite from New Jersey stepped in and financed her education. She is believed to be the first Hindu woman to set foot on American soil. I didn’t arrive until 1983 😉
♀ Times were tough then. The fate of these three intrepid pioneers was a sad one. Joshi died of tuberculosis in India at the age of 21, without ever practicing. Fittingly, her husband sent her ashes back to America. Islambouli was not heard of again, likely because she was never allowed to practice in her home country. Although Okami rose to the position of head of gynecology at a Tokyo hospital, she resigned two years later when the Emperor of Japan refused to meet her because she was a woman.
♀ Times have changed. My own mother was married at the age of 13 to a man also 11 years her senior. My father recalls helping my mother with her geography homework in high school. She never did attend college, despite being a charismatic woman with quicksilver wit and efficiency. Little wonder then, when I was accepted into graduate school in the US, unmarried and 21 years young, my parents staunchly stood behind me against the dire predictions of friends and relatives (“She’ll come back with a yellow haired American!” “Haven’t you read Cosmopolitan magazine? They are all perverts there!”). Happily, I escaped perversion, earned my doctoral degree and even gained a supportive spouse of my own. In 2004, I became only the 103rd woman to be promoted to Professor in the 111-year history of the Johns Hopkins medical school, and the first in my department, the oldest Physiology department in the country. If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
This is another example of how man’s best friend can work with humans to help other animals. I’m imagining Peter Lindelauf and Luna going through the woods and finding bear scat. I wonder if these dogs could help Erin Kane in her search for monkey scat.
Happy #FidoFriday and remember it’s #ScienceEveryday
Originally shared by KQED SCIENCE
Dog Detectives: A Nose for Conservation
“Around the world canines are being enlisted to track rare wildlife, sleuth out invasive species, and detect otherwise imperceptible changes that could harm wilderness areas and watersheds. But are these canines really providing significant support to conservation efforts, or is it just another excuse to bring your dog to work?”
Happy Pi Day courtesy of Richard Green. I wonder what Ramanujan would have accomplished, had he lived longer than 32 years.
Originally shared by Richard Green
Happy Pi Day!
The number pi or π (approximately 3.14159265) is well known as the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Although π is an irrational number, meaning that it cannot be expressed exactly as a fraction, it is possible to express the number as an infinite series.
One of the simplest such series is π = 4 – (4/3) + (4/5) – (4/7) + (4/9) – (4/11)… The standard techniques of calculus can be used to prove that this series converges to π. Unfortunately, the convergence is very slow, meaning that one needs to write down a large number of terms to approximate π with any degree of accuracy.
The Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920) found some approximations to π that are much better than the above series. The formula for the infinite series at the bottom of the picture is due to Ramanujan. It converges so quickly that each successive term in the series computes a further eight decimal places of π. To give you some idea of how accurate the formula is, the approximation given by just one term is 9801/(sqrt(8)x1103), which works out as about 3.14159273001. This is accurate to eight significant figures, and has the first six decimal places correct!
This is a very impressive approximation from a mathematician who worked before the era of computers. Perhaps not surprisingly, Ramanujan’s contemporaries were curious about where he got his ideas. The answer is quite interesting: while dreaming, he received visions of scrolls of complex mathematical content from his family goddess, Mahalakshmi of Namakkal.
Although he died at the age of 32, Ramanujan left behind a large number of mathematical results, and some of the best modern methods for computing π are based on his work. Ramanujan did not write up proofs for many of his results, although most of them turned out to be both correct and original. However, he left behind four famous notebooks of rough ideas, one of which was lost until 1976. These notebooks have inspired many papers by later mathematicians attempting to prove Ramanujan’s results.
