24 Monday Sep 2012
Posted in Bacteria, Microbiology, Plants
Tags
biology, Bioprecipitation, Cloud, Ice, Ice crystals, Ice nucleus, Nucleation, Popular science, science, Water cycle
Strange as it may seem, water doesn’t actually freeze at zero degrees. In fact, even at temperatures as cold as -10°C, water still needs help turning into ice. Living creatures of all stripes have learned to take advantage of this curious fact in different ways, though none have done so with quite as much style as bacteria. Continue reading
26 Thursday Apr 2012
Posted in Bacteria, Language, Words of Science
Tags
earth, etymology, geosmin, petrichor, Popular science, rain, scent, science, smell, Words of Science
Like many other fields, science has its own style of communication full of specific jargon and guided by unwritten rules. Most of the posts on this blog focus on breaching this barrier to the public’s understanding and appreciation of science. In this series, I’d like to take another approach by highlighting scientific words which have escaped the confines of jargon to reach a broader appeal because of their sound or their evocative power as metaphors. Today’s word is petrichor.
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13 Friday Apr 2012
Tags
animals, biology, diabetes, Education, Health, Immune response, insulin, microbes, microbiome, Mouse, Popular science, science, TLR2
According to a recent study, your chances of developing adult onset diabetes may depend on what kind of bacteria are living in your gut. It’s been known for some time that type 2 diabetes can be caused by a combination of genetic and lifestyle factors; over the past few years, it’s become clear that these factors somehow interact with the microbiome, but the nature of this interaction and the microbiome’s role in determining susceptibility to diabetes hasn’t been properly explored. Last year a team of scientists from Brazil published results showing that changes in the community composition could completely reverse the effect of genetic factors.
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29 Thursday Mar 2012
Posted in Bacteria, Immunology, Microbiology
Tags
Allergy, animals, Asthma, biology, colitis, Health, Hygiene Hypothesis, Immune system, Mouse, Popular science
Since moving to Finland, I’ve become accustomed to asking guests whether they have any allergies before I prepare dinner. I grew up in the developing world where allergies and asthma seem to be much less common than they are here; in fact, various studies have found higher rates of allergy and autoimmune conditions in developed than developing countries. One explanation for this is the “hygiene hypothesis“, which proposes that excessive hygiene early in life can affect the development of the immune system and result in allergic conditions and autoimmune diseases in later life. In a recent study appearing in Science, a team of scientists in Germany and the United States present evidence supporting the hygiene hypothesis and the importance of an early challenge to the immune system.
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15 Wednesday Feb 2012
Tags
bias, biology, culture, Education, interaction, Popular science, science, science and society, Science in Society, society
In these “enlightened” times, people often try to use science to justify their social, political or ideological positions. While the influence of scientific research on our world view is commonly recognized, the converse dynamic gets far less attention. Cultural factors shape the sort of questions we ask and how we choose to interpret the answers; for example, despite the claim that the idea of evolution has radically altered our view of ourselves, it also often serves to reinforce existing social and cultural norms. Here are five commonly accepted biological “facts” which are untrue but are used to justify our conception of ourselves and our place in the world.
31 Tuesday Jan 2012
Tags
biology, DNA, Escherichia coli, Gene expression, genetic regulation, Mutation, Popular science, science, shape
A recent paper describes how the mutation of a single gene is sufficient to turn a harmless bacterium found in our gut into an invasive pathogen. Taken alone, this isn’t terribly surprising; many genes regulate the expression of other genes and some (“master” genes) act as switches that control a whole host of other genes. The gene mutated in this study isn’t one of these “master” genes, though; it’s a structural gene and there’s a much more intriguing reason for its broad impact on the bacterium.
Inspiring Science 