7x7

alpha quadrant: astronomers spy more terrestrial exoplanets in our corner of the Milky Way

glymphatic node: new anatomical system discovered charged with cleansing the brain and spinal cord

 twitterpated: applying artificial intelligence to group and identify bird song

sub-space: a helpful, accessible explanation of that Chinese satellite network’s quantum entanglement experiment, disabusing our expectations of instantaneous communication

kalkül: images from a vintage East Germany children’s maths text book—site tip from Everlasting Blört

lacquer: Australian researchers are making advances with “solar paint” that pulls hydrogen from the atmosphere like a photosynthesising plant

tame: in depth genetics study suggest cats self-domesticated—or maybe it’s their humans that are house-broken

taxia or great chain of being

While it may seem a bit early in the year for annual superlatives, the state university of Syracuse, New York’s International Institute of Species Exploration of the campus’ College of Environmental Science and Forestry releases its list of top ten candidates of the most unexpected, unique finds of the animal and plant kingdoms to roughly coincide with the 23 May (1707) birthday of Carl Linnaeus, the founder of the discipline of taxonomy.
Inscribed to this year’s rolls include a sort of wild spicy tomato that appears to bleed when cut from Australia that’s propagated by bush fires, a spider whose camouflage resembles the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter matriculation ceremonies and a new species of Xenoturbella, a primitive marine worm that either resembles the missing half of an orphaned purple sock or fried churro pastry, depending who you ask. At a time when biodiversity is in grave peril and we have no idea about the natural innovation and wonders that we are losing without even the most superficial acquaintance, the institute wants to showcase the bizarre as a reminder that less than an estimated twenty percent of all species on Earth have yet been discovered and described and fewer still with any detail.

one million b.c.

Like forensics experts working on a case that went cold hundreds of thousands of years ago, archæologists are discovering that equipped with the next generation of genetic sequencers that there able to find bits of ancient hominid DNA when sifting through the sediment of practically any old cave.
No fossil evidence nor artefacts, though surely that’s pretty exciting to uncover, is required to trace how our direct ancestors and Neanderthal cousins spread across the continents and perhaps interacted. Surely this can be expanded to the whole of the plant and animal kingdoms, as well.  I wasn’t expecting that our machines were so finely calibrated to detect biochemical markers as so faint a trace, but this is sure to be revolutionary as palæontologists have already managed to extrapolate and reconstruct whole monstrous dinosaurs and more modest primogenitors of our kind out of just a fragment of a tooth or a little toe bone.

sorry gina

As a cruel corollary to taking away affordable health insurance from not just the millions who benefited directly from Obama Care but also the general population of America—everyone besides those in the ruling caste and the independently wealthy—the Republican party have sponsored another resolution, as Boing Boing informs, that seems impossible to halt that would enable employers to coerce their employees to submit to DNA screenings or face stiff consequences. Privacy and right to refuse disclosure was previously protected by a 2008 expansion of civil liberties protections called the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) that helped to protect those who might be predisposed to being a bad insurance-risk in the eyes of underwriters.
A company, just because it contributes to its employees’ health coverage, could not force employees to undergo any testing against their will or own up to any future problem that a doctor had discussed with them in confidence, but now all those safeguards are undermined, since the government will allow DNA screenings to be incorporated into workplace wellness programmes, something completely voluntary but something that companies can also accentuate and incentivise however they choose. This is state-based eugenics—even if an individual benefited by participation by discovering some ticking time-bomb in time to diffuse it, no company would insure them and probably none would employ them either. What do you think? Let’s hope this is quickly remedied in America and never has the chance to be exported. It’s far more fraught with peril than the algorithms that pass judgement on our spending-power and is another hallmark of inward-turning ignorance that rejects scientific literacy and exploits an opportunity for profit without considering the repercussions. With workers surrendering their genes and traits that they could potentially pass along, business (with the government’s consent) are not far from instituting breeding programmes and sterilise those of us of inferior or subversive stock.

landmark and legacy

Though probably more out of oversight (which can be just as cruel) rather than any sense of institutionalised prejudice—unlike that town in Alabama that choice to honour a pest rather than the individual whose advice against monoculture stopped it—there’s been no monument created for the inestimable contribution to medical science and genetics called Henrietta Lacks, not at least as a tangible destination, until now with this pop-up tribute from artist Elisabeth Smolarz.
Without Mrs Lacks’ knowledge or consent, her cells—deemed uniquely immortal (see previous link)—became the subject countless trials and propagated directly played the main role in almost every study and therapy from the polio vaccine onward. This appreciation comes to us as part of the annual Art in Odd Places “intervention” in Manhattan that confronts different themes each year. Emphasising that art and message can be anywhere, the focus of AiOP this time was on race, and also included a poignant installation of an interactive bubble-blowing frame, that recalled the rather ironic kaon “how many bubbles in a bar of soap” that appeared among the list of questions on the Jim Crow-era voter literacy tests in the US.

spock is not impressed with your handheld genetic sequencer

I am nonetheless with this achievement of miniaturisation that The Atlantic expertly presents first through the driver of much innovation, pushing our envelop out of necessity, positing how residents of the International Space Station could properly diagnose their ailments and turn to an effective treatment. Many have a weakness for antibiotics to remedy those bouts that masquerade in all those unremarkable symptoms that could be bacterial or viral.
Given the limits of the dispensary, it would be unwise to pursue the wrong plan, so enter the hand-held DNA sequencer dubbed MinION from Oxford Nanopore Technologies. Within the laboratory bulky and delicate, such a device had heretofore been impractical in orbit but could now provide vital information about how pathogens and contagious agents function in microgravity and in close-quarters. The article ponders then the perhaps apocryphal, the stuff of urban-legend, scanning might reveal whose dog is despoiling one’s garden or the walkers who fail to attend to their charges’ business properly might become a civic duty. Beyond forensics, the potential, however, for crowd-sourced research is beyond all bounds—equipped with tricorders, we become minions, legion, and like medicine men or witch-doctors examining our surroundings and finding unique organic compounds and novel interactions.

allele, alelo or progressive trait

While neither condemning nor condoning the practise of tinkering with genetics, the science desk of Buzzfeed (ironically, as it is the males who buzz and annoy but only the silent females that bite and suck blood) presents a really solidly comprehensive article that at least exculpates and explains the methodologies from a community health standpoint behind releasing hundreds of thousands of genetically-compromised males into the wild breeding population to keep it under control. The problematic mosquito that is the vector of dread disease in Brazil and is spreading to neighbouring regions is an invasive species—an import from the Nile region—and although very much still a scourge in its native habitat, the humans, living lived with them for generations, are less prone to outbreaks.
Getting rid of this unwelcome invaded might allow indigenous insect populations to return and bring further natural regulation to the ecology. It is unlikely there’s any correlation between the trials, conducted in 2012 and the present emergence of viral infections—due to time and distance with the incubation period of the Zika virus and the other diseases it transmits being mere weeks. The surge in cases most likely indicates that the testing produced victims of its own success, in much the same way as a concerted campaign in South America to eradicate disease-carrying mosquitoes decades earlier worked just well enough to shove off public notice and eventually caused a relapse. What strikes me as really surprising, however (and again, the mutated males could not spread the virus as they don’t bite), is that the male mosquitoes are not engineered to have woefully short life-spans in a straightforward manner: the mutants, programmed to self-destruct, will live out their normal adult lives provided they are given an antidote, an antibiotic, once every four days. Outside of the laboratory, this substance cannot be found and after mating, the males die and pass along this trait to their offspring. Maybe it was that little detour for sterilisation management gives the conspiracy-theorists ample purchase.

hey mister tally man

Via the inestimable The Browser comes a really fascinating piece on the supply chain logistics of the banana trade and the demands it manufactured to satisfy. Like the Egg Council, Juan Valdez and the California Raisins, who really can be bullies and not just advocates for farmers, Big Fruit created various banana republics in the process of perfecting its delivery techniques, inciting coups throughout Central America and even precipitating the Cuban Missile Crisis and enduring tensions, all in the name of ripeness and minimal flecking.

The other aspect to this drama lies in the monoculture of the produce—at least as it’s presented to shoppers in the West. Whereas we might have an embarrassment of choice when it comes to apples and oranges, exotic bananas are all clones of one cultivar—threatened with extinction with the irreversible march of one fungal disease. The way bananas are marketed and grown make them especially susceptible to being wiped out by pandemics, and interestingly the type of banana consumed just one human generations had vastly different characteristics—fruitier and creamier and with a much slicker peel, and hence all those jokes about slipping on a discarded skin that seems physically impossible in the supermarkets of today.

gorgon ou au revoir, ruby tuesday

The French edition of the English language daily, the Local, is tragically reporting that Ruby the Lamb, whose genes were spliced with those of a jellyfish in order to express proteins that would result in transparent florescent skin, was apparently inadvertently slaughtered and served to some hapless diner.

The poor little lamb was created, rather gruesomely, for research purposes (in order to better study organ transplants by allowing doctors to observe them directly) and local authorities are prosecuting the matter as a contravention of environmental regulations against genetically modified foodstuffs, though Ruby was probably safe to eat, chimera-experts opine. The vampire lamb pictured is still at large.

5x5

viewer-discretion advised: graphic and unsettling no-nukes animation from 1956

how can you have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat: 90% of food-crops in the USA are genetically modified

this just in: how the hammering in of the Golden Spike for America’s transcontinental railroad marked the beginning of breaking news

purl 2.0: artist incorporates chunky stitches for maximum comfort

figleaf: the cyber attack on US government workers is bigger than anyone is letting on, having targeted security clearance questionnaires

senescence

A truly inconceivable debt of gratitude is owed to young woman by the name of Henrietta Lacks and to the team of physicians and technicians who tried to care for her at Johns-Hopkins. After a difficult pregnancy brought to term in late 1950, Lacks was tragically found to have a form of cervical cancer. Though afforded the best treatment of the day at the university research hospital (the illustrious Johns Hopkins being the only medical facility in segregated Maryland that would accept African-American patients), she eventually succumbed to the malady. A biopsy was performed on the tumour, unbeknownst to Lacks and her family—though it was not custom to provide consent for medical release at the time, and samples were retained for study.

The culture of cells, however, exhibited a surprising resiliency, and given the right environmental conditions will propagate without end—a property that not even the most cancerous or healthy cells demonstrate outside the human body—which led researchers to declare the unique line to be immortal. Prior to this discovery, medical studies on human cell cultures was very labourous as lines did not survive more than a couple of divisions (generations) and were not conducive of any longer term research into the impact of chemical compounds and potential toxic-affects. Lacks’ line (known as HeLa from her initials) was radically different and was almost immediately recognised by the scientific and medical community for its hitherto unimagined potential. The cultivation of HeLa cell lines coincided with the work of virologist Jonas Salk and enabled him to develop a safe vaccine that’s all but eradicated the plague of polio. By 1955, these cells became the first to be cloned and have been propagated to laboratories worldwide for countless applications. Over six decades later, the same deathless cells (which has prompted some to suggest that the mutation is actually an emerging speciation—the chromosomes of these cells don’t shed telomeres when they replicate, unlike normal cells, and biologists believe that this degradation causes ageing and dotage) are still pioneering research into gerontology, cancer AIDS and countless other infectious diseases as well as environmental pollutants and contaminants. Without Lacks’ contribution, the sequencing and mapping of the human genome—and associated insights, probably would still be a work in progress. Lacks’ family had no idea of Henrietta’s legacy until the 1970s, and after her contribution received due recognition, two members of the family were invited to sit on an ethics panel that has oversight on the use of the line’s DNA—not to hinder important medical research, but rather to help guide and monitor experimentation on HeLa itself.

print-lab

Reports are emerging that organic chemists from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute have collaborated with engineers to produce their discipline’s own version of the 3D printer, which can transcribe small molecules and building-blocks for study and discovery. An established line of known chemicals can of course be synthesised in laboratories but usually at a great cost and with limited access which makes experimentation and distributed research prohibitively expense.

Most of such facilities are under contract to the pharmaceutical industry and it’s much more profitable for a lab to try to tease out an extension on some proprietary drug, a patent-medicine, that to devote time and effort on, say, an exotic jungle plant’s interesting, intriguing but uncertain anti-microbial properties brought to them by some unknown and uncredentialed scientist. Perhaps now, instead of supplicating and then queueing up—or trying to gather more samples from the field—researchers could just isolate the target compound, its structure and composition, and submit a print request to have batch of the chemical custom-made, which could be dispatched to several test centres or research facilities at one time. Democratising the studies, the important concepts of peer-review and vetting could perhaps become to mean teamwork, discovering novel and safe treatments and other substances (better culinary preservatives, glues, inks, textiles, etc.) more efficiently.

feed-back loop

Aeon Magazine presents a compelling case for not unseating the double helix of DNA as the iconography of life but rather complementing our understanding of this blueprint with the experiments, adjusting to new demands or privations, that every organism conducts on a daily basis. The author’s examples are to some degree an interesting reframing of the Nature versus Nurture argument, as the body produces layers of tissues according to established protocols, written in one’s genes, but in novel and adaptive ways that cannot be contained nor predicted in said blueprint. What do you think? Diluting the supremacy of the genes—which are not exactly a vital spark but self-perpetuating chemistry after all—with what can be stretched, trained and spindled is a corollary to the obsession with family history and genetic testing, whose markers are not always as clear-cut as the way they’re marketed.

meanwhile, back at the ranch

Isn't it a enjoy how everything is delivered just in time and in a neat little package to assuage the capitalists?

Mexico, which has a staunch reputation for protecting its native resources and treasures—even going so far as to forbid the import or shedding of American genetically-altered foodstuffs (but who would know, since Mexico only makes the news for its trespasses), has agreed after seven decades to relax the state monopoly on the petroleum industry and allow American and European concerns, chomping at the bit access to vast, untapped reserves. That such an announcement comes unheralded at the moment when American influence in the Middle East is collapsing and Russia threatens to cut-off the EU is quite a marvelous coincidence that bears no further investigation, as providence takes care of its own, even when the reporting is magical-thinking.

forked-tongue or double-helix

Researchers at the University of Washington have announced that the genetic coding, deciphered on an elementary level first in the 1960s, of DNA contains a second cryptic language that governs the activation and deactivation of genes in addition to the instructions for expressing proteins.

The hidden directions indicate that by its vocabulary DNA may be responsible for what's understood as aging and disease, more so than time and decay. Perhaps such a dual function should not come as something unexpected, though unplumbed, necessarily, but it does, I believe, really demonstrate the folly of genetically modified foodstuffs in learning that there is something proactive as well as reactive to body chemistry. We are certainly not programmed for sabotage or self-destruction, I think, our bodies are rather, fortunately smarter than ourselves. Do you think such a palimpsest of language is prone to misinterpretation, since the coding of chemistry and biology might not be as straightforward or verbose as our systems of constructed communications and sub-routines?

whether and neither

Since the decision in Germany and several other countries to allow records of birth a third option for sexual identity as indefinite, as opposed to male or female, there has been much discussion among linguists on how to frame this new category—with tact and sensitivity. There have been quite a few proposals put forward, which mostly support removing gender distinction from language, culling nuance in other ways too, or reforming the word neuter and its equivalents so as to make it have no negative connotations.

Speech reflects realities, however, and not the other way around. Going back to Latin roots, neutral from neutralis simply means neither and the unrelated word neuter comes from ne-uter—not whether, not either (unweder auf Deutsch) and suggests impartiality, which probably captures the meaning conveyed the best. It is a distinct challenge, however, to introduce or re-introduce a new designation without controversy or stigma. Despite past social aversion, this is a condition that exists for not just a clinical minority, and depending on the jurisdiction, it is a matter for self-determination or a decision left to fretful parents with physician-recommendation. What do you think? Whether or not a particular language assigns gender along conventional and sometimes arbitrary lines or has any grammar of emasculation or misogyny, there is a lot of unspoken vocabulary having to do conventional roles and ready assignment.

dipterology

Mostly evolution, mutation and adaptation are mere moments in time, relics of some impetus and rarely understood in full context—however, there are generational slices (especially when coming at a fast pace) that keen observers sometimes have the chance to witness and document. Boing Boing brings on such fascinating example (though rare but not quite unique) with an entomologist discovers a population of fruit-fly that has images of ants genetically tattooed on its wings to apparently fend off potential predators. That seems pretty boss, although the trigger maybe to attract bug collectors, as well, since after all the most convincing image of an ant isn't determined by the fly but rather the eye of the beholder.

taxi-dancing or stank

Maybe this is not such a novel idea elsewhere, but Germany hosted its first Pheromone Party over this weekend.

It’s curious how the husbandry and hopefulness of match-making, inured for quite some time to the facility of the internet, is returning to the scientific promise that number-crunching seemed to offer. The arena, I’m sure, is still governed by similar computations, like the nurseries of role-playing and the community, the up-keep of adventure-games, but the approach is taking on certain airs. Optimistic participants (mostly young males) slept in the same tee-shirts over several nights, then froze it in an especially designed freezer bags for later presentation. A few, featured potential pairs were pleased when their assessment of their mates’ scent correlated with their looks and personalities. I wonder what credence a certain smell that becomes familiar over time lends to longevity when put before the horse.

cultivar or arctic blast

The latest tipping of the apple-cart is coming in the form, with already untold reach, of a genetic masterwork in the form of an apple that does not brown when bitten into or sliced up, and incorporating the hardiest traits of all natural apple varieties, can fall quite far from the tree, suited to grow in any climate from the orchards of New England to California to the Russian Far-East.

Fast-food chains, school cafeteria and workplace canteens, not to mention grocery store aisles without much in the way of mandatory disclosure or labeling-requirements, have eagerly adopted these shiny, perfect fruits with an extended shelf-life, constituted in such a way as to avoid independent testing and vetting for safety. The apple’s base genetic material is not altered, its DNA, but rather messenger RNA, the component cleaved from DNA that communicates to the powerhouses of cells what proteins to produce and when, has been modified to turn off the browning function, which I suppose is like clotting to fruit. It sounds rather dangerous to switch something like that off. Arctic is the registered name for the engineered produce, I suppose because it stays white. I wonder what they’ll call the run-away “the royal disease.”

mountain high, valley low

Two recent articles featured via Neatorama offer up an intriguing triangulation touching ethics, technical feasibility, the capacity for imagination as well as questioning what it means to be human through the lens of speciation. The latter points to a very interesting interview between reporters with Der Spiegel and a Harvard professor who is one of the leading thinkers in the field of synthetic biology, regarding the possibility of resurrecting the Neanderthals, whose genetic map has already been successfully sequenced and cloning this branch of the family of man would be (after all the questions are answered, and the scientist and his team invite public debate as essential) a relatively simple matter of finding a willing surrogate.
Like the Jurassic era (adapted into an early cautionary-tale) is named for a mountain range in the western alps, the sub-species Neanderthal is named after a valley (Tal) near Düsseldorf, frequented by a pastor in the 1800s, called Joachim Neumann (Neander is the Greek-form of new man) for inspiration. The characteristic limestone layer of the age was first discovered in the Jura mountains, and the fossilized skeleton of our cousins was first recognized for what it could be in Neander’s valley. Notwithstanding the harvests of genetically modified crops that have infiltrated our food supplies mostly out of business interest (we have not yet made good on the promise of drought-resistant crops for famine-struck regions but that is not a profit that companies can necessarily take to the bank), vaccines, and pedigrees of dogs and cats, it is not acceptable to create or revive sentient beings purely for the benefit and advancement of human kind—in the style of Planet of the Apes, however, Neanderthal physique was at minimum more robust than ours and may have been smarter than their lither and perhaps crueler competitors.

We already do not know how to procede with the little knowledge we already have about tinkering with DNA and are not able to treat other humans humanely, so perhaps this sort of thinking is a bit premature but it still does not remain unreachably in the realm of fantasy. Neanderthals could conceivably have a different take on intellect and help solve the problems that the surviving Homo sapiens created, make new scientific discoveries and be kinder, more empathetic leaders—maybe the ruling class we need rather than putting our trust in the hands of robotic overlords. Mingling our genetic material would create more diversity, too, and perhaps provide resistance to a host of human diseases. These last two benefits lead to the former article regarding what the Star Trek franchise has taught us about evolutionary biology.
The humans accepted the benevolent tutelage of the more experienced Vulcans before arrogantly taking on the Universe like the Wild West, and characters like Mr. Spock, Mr. Worf (Worf was raised by adoptive human parents), Counselor Troi, and B’elanna Torres were outstanding representatives of both sides of their families. One wonders if alien races could really inter-breed, and perhaps it was just a plot-device to excuse costuming and set-design due to budget-constraints (the teleporter was written into the storyline because it was cheaper than staging a ship landing every episode) but the analysis recalls an episode from the Next Generation that explains the humanoid appearance through panspermia, orchestrated by a dying primogenitor race—as well as the hybrid children, since the concept of specie is marked by the ability to cross-breed naturally. Maybe science fiction does not answer all the ethical and philosophical quandaries when it comes to experimenting with genetics, but it probably does provide a good place to start.