So, I've signed up to take Entomology in the spring, and I have to say, I've become a bit obsessed with bugs. Truthfully, it is pretty disturbing since I would have cringed at the thought about a year ago. So, when I came upon this article when looking for my last blog topic, I HAD to post about it. 

This article discussed a pretty gnarly little bug that takes over the brain of an ant then bursts out of the ant's head upon maturation, ripping the ant's head from its body. Pretty cool if you ask me. These bugs were discovered over 20 years ago when an entomologist from the University of Texas was studying potential natural enemies of fire ants. He found that South America doesn't have the ant problem that we do in the United States, and found that the ants there were battling flies. The flies were so small, though, that he doubted they really could impact the ant populations just based on their battling. That is when he discovered that the ants had pupae in their heads. These flies were laying eggs in the ants and the maggots made their way into the ants' heads. Then the fly larvae take over control of the ant's brain. They keep the ant inside the ant colony to be safe and to eat plenty of food.

Once the maggot is ready to pupate, it forces the ant to leave the colony and travel to a highly humid place so that the maggot can continue its development. The pupa eventually decapitates the ant and matures before leaving the head. 

Quite amazing if you ask me. You all should really read the article, as it's description of all this is really cool. 

When Women Take Over the World... Kind Of..

So I thought this article was really interesting since Dr. Choudhary always talks about this sort of thing in his genetics class. The article reminds us that there are only two significant genes which are contributed by the Y chromosome. The question, then, is whether or not the Y chromosome is still necessary. With recent research, genes were taken from infertile male mice with only the two contributed Y-linked genes and injected the immature spermatids into oocytes in a lab setting. In the infertile male mice, the genes were still expressed, but the gametes were never fully developed. The embryos were then transferred to surrogate females and offspring were produced. This was also repeated using additional Y-linked genes to test whether the addition of such genes resulted in even greater success. The addition of genes increased the amount of viable offspring. All offspring were also fertile. This shows that the Y chromosome itself is simply the vessel which carries these genes. Hypothetically speaking, this may mean that the X chromosome, if ever to obtain and carry these genes, may one day take the place of the Y chromosome. This was all conducted using advanced technology, though, so it’s still a long ways off. Talk about changing the textbooks, though! Can you imagine if this were to occur in a few generations (which is super unlikely, but humor me) how students would have to be taught that the Y chromosome USED to determine the sex of a mammal?! We also couldn’t joke anymore that everyone started out as a female, since it would still basically be true! 

A Suicide Soapbox

First of all, this blog post is in no way relevant to what we typically discuss; I simply would like to discuss something that is important to me in hopes to maybe help someone at some point in time. I am hoping to help bring awareness to this topic so that if ever faced with a similar situation, you all could potentially help to save a life.

Tomorrow marks one year since my cousin’s premature death. AJ was 22 years old who loved our country, life, and those people he shared it with. AJ took his own life one year ago. This event was the fifth attempt at taking his life, and he was pronounced brain dead a few hours after the event. Despite being his fifth attempt at suicide, this was unexpected to our family. The first time AJ attempted to take his life was as a senior in high school. That time, he took a bunch of pills and wrote notes. He ended up vomiting a lot of the pills back up, and the rest were pumped from his stomach since he was quickly found after this attempt. A second attempt at his life was made about a year or so later when he slit his wrists. Again, he lived through the attempt and went on living life. Each time, AJ was provided help and counsel and once he was “better” everyone went about their business. Each time, we didn’t know why he was doing these things. Each time, he lived and perhaps we took that all for granted.

Last year, we received a call from my uncle just a few days before Thanksgiving. He told us that AJ had died. While our family had been quite disconnected in recent years, this did not take away from the situation at all. Later, we learned of the other two attempts at suicide, but again, no why. To this day, we still do not know why AJ chose to take his life and we probably will never know. If you had met him, you would have never guessed these things about his past, or that he would end up taking his life. He was the life of the party, he lit up the room whenever he entered, and he was one of the comedians of the family. While we were not particularly close, with the age gap between up and the distance between where we grew up, AJ was still my cousin. Growing up, all of us were close and they say that cousins are your first friends in life. AJ’s death really hit me, and it still is saddening to this day.

If someone you know has voiced contemplating suicide, do not take it lightly. Even if they get mad at you for helping or saying something, don’t sit back and possibly let it happen. React, no matter their reaction, because you just might save their life. I am a firm believer in everything happens for a reason, but maybe your helping someone and saving their life has a reason greater than of them taking their life.  There are numerous websites, programs, and hotlines that could be of great use. Also, you never know when just talking to someone could make a difference.

Thanks for reading my story and taking it seriously. Even if you don’t think this is relevant to you, you may unfortunately face this situation one day. If this helps even one person, then there was a greater reason for writing this post. 

Antibiotic Resistance is on the rise

Antibiotic resistance is on the rise! As if we didn’t already know that. Scientists have shown though, that antibiotic resistant bacteria are found in the gut microbiome of children as young as six months old. This study sampled children from 6 months of age to 19 years. From this, over 2,500 resistance genes were found to be present in the normal gut flora of bacteria. That is a 30% increase in the number of known resistance genes. This is a growing problem since children receive so many antibiotics in this age range, so these healthy flora are repeatedly being exposed to these drugs. Also, the fact that children as young as six months were found to have resistant bacteria in their gut microbiome is pretty disturbing. Infant guts are colonized over time from their exposure to those individuals around them and by things they touch and ingest. If these children who are barely old enough to start eating soft foods have resistant bacteria in their guts, that means that antibiotic resistance is really all around us. Scary stuff, since MRSA has been found to kill more people in the U.S. annually than HIV.  

Baby Bias

A recent study has shown that some doctors are making varied recommendations to their pregnant patients based upon the method of conception. If women underwent assisted reproductive technological (ART) conception, the doctors were less likely to recommend that certain tests be conducted on the baby. Women who become pregnant over the age of 35 are often more likely to have their babies tested for Down’s Syndrome and other disorders/diseases, but women of this age group who did not conceive naturally were not as highly referred to these tests.

These invasive procedures could put the baby at risk, so I can understand how parents who had difficulty with fertility would be uneasy with these procedures. I can’t understand, however, why doctors would not recommend these procedures. As a doctor, why wouldn’t you recommend such routine tests and just make sure the parents are well aware of the risks involved, then let them make that decision? Some of these tests are so routine now that there isn’t even an age range in which they limit the testing to. To me, this seems as though the physicians are letting emotional or psychological factors influence their job. Like I said, I understand the parents’ being uneasy, but why wouldn’t the doctor want to educate their patients to the best of their abilities?

While the results of the tests and how the parents choose to face such results are negligible for my argument, I want to know how you would feel if you were a patient. Regardless of what the tests tell you, would you still want your doctor to recommend such tests if you had conceived via ART instead of naturally? Guys, you include your input too! Just because you don’t carry the baby, it doesn’t mean you can’t have a say-so. (At least for the sake of this blog!) 

Wanted: Dead or Alive?

So, as I’ve blogged about several times, I really appreciate being on the Metagenomic research project.  When one of the papers from this research is published, I have to blog about it, right? Right!

Initially, this research was very different from the sampling methods I've previously described that we currently use. The cadavers that were studied were sampled at two times during decomposition: pre-bloat and post-bloat. The purpose of this was to identify bacterial shifts during significant changes in the decomposing process.  It was found that there are clear shifts in the bacterial community, but the data presents itself as just a portion of what may one day be a large data set of information.

A very interesting point that is brought up in this research is the idea of the decomposing human body as an ecosystem. Although the organism is dead, the body is actually very full of life in the form of microorganisms and bugs.  My question to all of you, is how do you view the cadaver: living or dead? And why do you think that way?

"Wild" Genomic Engineering

As I searched for an interesting blog topic (no news-related topic this week, I feel like I've lived under a rock while studying), I came across what I believe to be a controversial scientific advancement. Scientists are “creating” novel genomes in bacteria.

These scientists are completely recoding E.coli to have an entirely new genome. Through this, the bacteria are able to produce proteins which are not naturally produced by E. coli. For this portion of the project, all 321 instances of a particular codon were replaced with a different codon that encoded a different amino acid than the one originally encoded.

In a second project, the scientists removed every instance in which 13 codons occurred in 42 different E. coli genes. These codons were replaced with similarly functioning codons from different organisms. In total, 24% of the DNA in these genes had been changed, but because the codons were similarly functioning replacements, the bacteria produced the same exact proteins as it did originally.

So the second project, not so controversial. It seems as though this sort of information could be useful through a broad spectrum of scientific applications. The first project, on the other hand, seems to be more questionable to me. If this sort of thing fell into the wrong hands, mass “superbug” outbreaks could occur or genetically altered bacteria could be used in bioterrorism. (Even moreso than bacteria have already been used in biological weaponry.)

On a completely unrelated sidenote, a high school kid found a baby dinosaur skeleton in 2009. I am insanely jealous as I am completely geek-ily obsessed with dinosaurs. They nicknamed the skeleton “Joe.” How lame! ( I mean I am jealous so..) I would've named it something cool like Mike or something! Haha! 

Hangovers: Who Needs 'em!

Yet again, the news initiated my blog this week. After hearing about a hangover “cure,” I thought the topic would make for an interesting and relevant blog post seeing as we’re all college students. This news cast where I first heard about the study was a few days ago, so I searched for an article which talked about the study a little more in depth. You can read it for yourself here.

                This study tested several commonly used and recommended hangover “cures.” Some of those tested were tea, coffee, and other various foods, beverages, and remedies. The study found that Sprite was the most successful at treating the various symptoms of a hangover. When someone drinks, the ethanol in the beverage is broken down in two steps, first into acetaldehyde, which gives the common hangover symptoms, then into acetate. Sprite was found to have certain compounds which sped up this process, thus decreasing the intensity and amount of hangover symptoms which occur.

                Despite thinking that tea, coffee, or other highly caffeinated beverages would help to treat the symptoms of a hangover, it seems as though they really just do the opposite. Herbal supplements and herb-based beverages showed to slow down the breakdown of ethanol, prolonging the hangover symptoms.

                So, next time you find yourself facing the symptoms of a hangover, grab a Sprite!

A Followup to Once Bitten, Twice Shy

A few of us have discussed mosquitoes through these blogs over the last few weeks. I happened to stumble upon this news article online today when looking for my next blog topic. A few weeks ago I posted about how pesky mosquitoes are and how there are new studies showing that our skin may produce repelling compounds. These compounds are masked, however, by the attracting compounds found in our sweat that mosquitoes happen to love. The old post also mentioned that scientists have shown these repelling compounds have been used in cosmetics and perfumes.

Well, now scientists are saying that grape scented compounds may just repel mosquitoes. How great is this?!?! Personally, I love Juicy Couture perfumes, and one of them just so happens to have a grape-like undertone to the scent. So maybe if I just always wear this one perfume mosquitoes will leave me alone. Right? Eh, maybe not..  These scientists are saying that the mosquito repellent just so happens to smell like grapes, not that the grape-scent itself is the repellent. Darn! At least new repellents created from these compounds may not smell like the icky repellent we all grew up using.

These compounds that are under development into commercial insect repellents have also been noted to being safer than DEET products (as previously discussed in Lori’s blog last week). Scientists are working on targeting plant or animal produced compounds such as those discussed in this article to develop these repellents. 

Bigfoot... does exist?

I’m sitting here, minding my own business as a do my cell biology writing assignment. The news is on in the background, and I hear something about the Bigfoot Genome Project. That’s right. The Bigfoot Genome Project. Thus, blog post #2 for the day. This is the news article about the topic.  

This project includes scientists who claim they have DNA evidence that Bigfoot exists, and is actually doing quite well. These scientists say that Bigfoot is a human-animal hybrid. Last I checked, all human-animal “things” had all pretty much gone extinct millions of years ago. So my question is how has this hybrid between a human and an animal survived so long without actual proof (let's be real, claims to have DNA, fuzzy pictures of animals in the forest, and fur collections does not count as proof of existence) and why has this specific “species” (just go with it for now..) made it through evolutionary sweeps that other human-animal-things did not make it through?

So no, this isn’t quite molecular (with the exception that the scientists claim to have DNA proof and their various testing on this DNA), but it’s really interesting to say the least. I want to know everyone else’s opinions about this topic. Bigfoot or no Bigfoot? Why or why not?

Oh, and is it Bigfoot, or Sasquatch?!?!

Metagenomic Research

So, as requested, I will introduce my part in the metagenomic project that I wrote about last week. First of all, you all can read my blog from last week entitled “Cutting Edge Research RIGHT Here at Sam!” to learn what the basics of the project it about. In a nutshell, we are working to determine how fluctuations in the human microbiome may occur during decomposition. We work with a couple of teams of scientists to analyze the bacterial composition of both skin and soil samples.

                The minute I heard about this project, I was game. I’ve wanted to become a crime scene investigator since I was 14, but have learned through the years that I will likely only work in a lab due to police politics (UNLESS I find a loophole, then I’m all over it!). When I realized this was as close as I may get to crime scene investigating (and yes any and all the gore involved – so sue me?), I immediately wanted in on this research. It’s cutting edge (hence the title from last week, hehe..), deals with decomposition, and it an amazing opportunity. I went right to Dr. Lynne and asked how to get on the project. I was pretty much shot down immediately. There was no current need for any additional members on the team. So, instead, I bugged him throughout the semester about it. Last January, I joined Dr. Lynne’s research lab on a completely unrelated project and got my foot in the door.

                 In April, I joined the metagenomic project when additional help was needed. At first, I was an assistant to the team, meaning I handed the sample tubes to those taking the samples. It wasn’t even necessary to step inside the plot where the cadavers were placed. Bummer, huh? NO! I was still completely stoked. This quickly led to my learning about how we take the samples. We take roughly 32 body site samples for each body, along with roughly 10 soil samples. I’ve worked on the project since April, meaning I was here on campus nearly every day this summer. The most recent cadavers we had were placed out in late July. We began a new protocol of sampling for that set, meaning we had to take samples 4 times a day: 1:30am, 6:30am, 1:30pm, and 8:30pm. I was responsible for the daily samplings for the entire body and soil samples, along with the 1:30pm face sampling (this is a side project we hope to dig into more later, but we have samples from the July Cohort saved back for when we get to this). We will receive the next cohort of cadavers in November, where I will be one of the team members of the sampling team. It’s a really interesting project, and I am really appreciative of being a part of it. 

Cutting Edge Research RIGHT Here at Sam!

                First of all, I’ll apologize since this is my third blog post of the week, but I COULD NOT not blog about this. You all should go to this article on npr and read the story. It’s about the research being done by our very own Dr. Bucheli and Dr. Lynne along with a team of scientists from Colorado and Baylor College of Medicine. This particular story was written/recorded in April before I joined the project, but I can tell you all that it’s an amazing project to be a part of.

                These scientists are working to find out whether the microbiome of decomposition can be used to estimate time of death of an individual. This work has been done with mice in a lab setting, but not with human cadavers. With this sort of information we may be able to one day pinpoint exactly how long a body has been somewhere, if a body was once in a specific location, or where a suspect was (and who they are) simply based on the bacteria which live on our body.

                I’m hoping that once I’m in the Biological Sciences Graduate Program here (crossing my fingers!), my thesis will hopefully revolve around some aspect of this research. My particular interest is in the changes found in soil microbiology, but every part of this research is fascinating to me! Maybe some of you will find it just as interesting as I do.  

Bog Goes the Cranberry Pest

I’ve recently developed somewhat of an addiction to cranberry juice. I’m not really sure how it happened, but one day I picked up the stuff and haven’t seemed to been able to put it down since. (So much for “somewhat” of an addiction…) While looking around Science Daily (we all seem to love this site don’t we?), I came across an article about insect resistance found in cranberry leaves. With the issues society is having with pesticides these days, I thought, Hmm…

                Since everyone tends to gravitate towards the “organic” produce and juices and blah blah blah now, I thought this was an interesting study. If was found that certain cultivars of cranberries were preferred over others by insects and this is likely due to six compounds which are found naturally in cranberry leaves which ward off the insects. Cranberries are a perennial crop, meaning they are harvested grow for more than two years and can produce many seasons of fruits. This means that an above average insect feeding activity can greatly affect the next season’s crop of fruit. Which is super bad for my juice addiction, right?

                These compounds that are found vary between cranberry cultivars, explaining why insect pests prefer one over another. If this information was found, I’m wondering if the cranberry crops cultivated for harvest may start to gravitate towards these cultivars in order to deter insect pests from destroying crops. I wonder if this type of information may be applicable to future studies to find natural pesticides to possibly breed into our crop cultivars to better suit the “organic” needs of consumers. Even though we all know “organic” isn’t all that organic.. 

The Staph says "Oink"

                Most of us all know that MRSA is an antibiotic-resistant Staph. infection. Specifically, MRSA is Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, but the bacteria are resistant to most methicillin related antibiotics (like penicillin) as well. Researchers have now linked the community-acquired infection with yet another source: pig manure.

                First of all, MRSA has a couple of known sources as it is. Not only is MRSA acquired from extended hospital stays and surgery mixed with poor hygiene, but MRSA has also had a second rising in school-age and daycare attending children. The use of antibiotics for any-and-every-thing that pediatric doctors see has led to this rising of the antibiotic resistant staph. Recent studies have shown that MRSA may also rise from high production pig farms. Crop fields near these farms use the manure from the pigs to fertilize the crops. This has led to an increase in the MRSA infections within the surrounding communities. Scientists attribute this to the high antibiotic intake of the pigs. Because these pigs are used for their meat, the feed that they eat contains a high level of antibiotics, which is then shed when the pigs do their business.

                Studies which were performed based on skin and soft tissue infections, likely from contact with the crops or contact with the soil from these crop fields, showed that there was a significant association of MRSA and the application of the manure to nearby crop fields. Another association between MRSA and the operations that took place on the pig farms was found but it was weaker in association. Lastly, there was no association found between nearby dairy farm operations or applications and the MRSA infections. Moral of the story: if you want to live near a farm, (A) make sure they don’t use pig manure as their fertilizer if they have crop fields and (B) choose to live nears cows instead of pigs. 

Ladies, Know Your Lipstick!

                We've all seen detectives on crime shows pick up a champagne glass to examine the lipstick prints. We've also seen how that exact print, color, and brand was matched perfectly to either a victim or a suspect and within the hour the crime is solved. We all know how bogus that really all is. First of all, there is no way the crime was solved in an hour. Secondly, can they really match someone’s lipstick of all things? Isolating the DNA from any saliva mixed in the print, sure, but the brand? Maybe.

                Scientists from the University of Kent are now able to identify the brand of lipstick from crime scene lip prints. Not only can they do this, but they don’t even have to take the champagne glass (or water bottle, soda can, etc for all the non-fancy murderers) out of the evidence bag! Okay, okay, so crime scene techs have likely lifted the lip print in the past contrary to what TV shows depict, but now Raman spectroscopy is used to analyze the lipstick marks on a variety of pieces of evidence. Tissues, glasses, and even cigarette butts can be run under a specific type of laser light for analysis. This keeps evidence intact, allowing for it to be further processed if necessary.

                Prior to this advancement, scientists were forced to destroy evidence to analyze lipstick evidence. If that were not the preferred choice, the analysis had to be left to matter of opinions. I don’t know about you ladies, but sometimes Peachy-Pink Kiss can look a lot like Sunburst Coral to me. I wouldn't want someone to practically guess that the lipsticks match. Now that scientists have found that this technology can match brands of lipsticks, they’re working to apply this to other cosmetics as well.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Raman spectroscopy, you can read about the article I found here. 

Once Bitten, Twice Shy

                  I don’t know about the rest of you, but I HATE mosquitoes. I absolutely cannot stand them.  The feeling, however, is not mutual. I can go outside for a split second in the summer time and the next thing I know, I’ve been bitten a million times. It’s been this way for forever, and it seems as though nothing works. The spray is gross, smelly, and sticky (although they have a nice unscented “dry” one that came out recently that is definitely a step up!). Even if it does work, it’s only for a short time and then it wears off. Did anyone else ever try those ridiculous coil ankle bracelet things that were made by OFF which supposedly repelled mosquitoes without the need for the spray? Well if you didn’t, I can assure you, they didn’t work. Like I said, NOTHING seems to work. Until now?

          I found this article in Science Daily while trying to find something interesting (despite really just wanting to discuss more soil microbiology with applications to forensics). It discusses the efforts that are in progress to try to uncover a “new” and natural (?!) repellant that –get this– is produced by our skin! Because human skin releases a variety of compounds, the human “scent” is actually what attracts mosquitoes. Through a number of tests, scientists have isolated these compounds in order to try and determine which compounds specifically are the attractants. They found that certain substances clearly attract the insects, but others actually inhibit their sense of smell.

Um, yes, please! Can we get this by the gallon, anyone? Of course, this is all still in its preliminary stages of research, but it was found that these types of compounds are actually found in abundance in certain lotions, perfumes, and cosmetics. This would explain why some people don’t get bit as often… The main flaw with this article is that it fails to name some of these lotions and perfumes. I mean, geez, I am apparently not using the right ones, and would like to find out which are the right ones, pronto! 

Understanding Soil Microbiology

The study of soil microbiology as it relates to forensic science is a relatively novel idea. While DNA, dental records, and trace evidence has been used to determine identities of both suspects and victims, along with location of crime scene and other details, soil could potentially be used to determine if a victim was placed in a location then removed. By studying the microbial composition of soils around a decomposing body, scientists will be able to track the fluctuations and changes of microbes from the soil. Using this data, it could be determined how old a dump site location is, or if someone reported a dump site, this data could support or disprove such claims.

First, it is important that scientists understand the basics of normal soil microbiology. Soil microbiology was once studied by sampling soil sites and simply counting microbes from the samples [1]. This was not sufficient enough to develop a better understanding of the microbial composition of the soil.  Since these methods were not efficient enough, soil enzymes were studied. Because the presence of enzymes in the soil is indicative of the presence of microbes, it is important to study the enzymes that are found. By studying these enzymes, and through the knowledge of microbiology, scientists are able to link the enzymes with certain bacteria that undergo various enzymatic activities in order to survive in the soil [1].

Enzyme testing is not without its faults, however. Simply using the enzymes found in the soil and a background of microbiology will not show, for certain, which microbes can be classified as being present in the soil [1]. Instead of using enzymatic testing as confirmatory and characterizing tests, scientists will use the data gathered from these methods to monitor various details of the soil. Various approaches to testing soil have been proposed over the years in efforts to more clearly classify the microbiota of soil. Through enzymatic testing and metabolic analysis, the compositions of soils are better understood than they were fifty years ago, but the complete classification is still out of grasp.

Even more recently developed, DNA sequencing of soil samples has proven to be a relatively well informative method for determining what, and just how many, microbes compose the soil. While there are several methods which are currently used to study the DNA or RNA of soil microbiology, several in the science community have supported the ideas that molecular ecology is essential for the study of soil microbiology [1]. The future of understanding the microbiology of soil is still geared towards the continued study of microbial composition and activities through the use of molecular techniques [1]. Due to the vast contrast between the many soil types, along with the added complexities from climate, altitude, and geographic location, the complete composition of soil microbiota may never be absolutely determined. Along with all these complicating factors, the changes that are constantly taking place in these factors will continue to keep the soil microbiology from being completely determined.

By knowing the basics of soil microbiology, scientists should one day be able to more widely apply what is known in order to utilize soil from forensic cases to determine a variety of evidentiary information. Through the knowledge of general soil characteristics, scientists can already begin to study forensic applications for this information in efforts to utilize another route of evidence to help solve crimes. Because we already see widespread changes in crime scenes from the more well known aspects of crime investigation due to television, perhaps developing new techniques to uncovering clues will prove to be beneficial not only to the scientific community, but the criminal justice community as well.

Resources:

1. Insam, H. (2001). Developments in soil microbiology since the mid 1960s. Geoderma, 100, 389-402.