‪The First Synthesis Of Aspirin Was Carried Out #OTD In 1897. Here’s A Look At How It Compares To

The race to map the human body — one cell at a time

The first time molecular biologist Greg Hannon flew through a tumour, he was astonished — and inspired. Using a virtual-reality model, Hannon and his colleagues at the University of Cambridge, UK, flew in and out of blood vessels, took stock of infiltrating immune cells and hatched an idea for an unprecedented tumour atlas.

“Holy crap!” he recalls thinking. “This is going to be just amazing.”

On 10 February, the London-based charity Cancer Research UK announced that Hannon’s team of molecular biologists, astronomers and game designers would receive up to £20 million (US$25 million) over the next five years to develop its interactive virtual-reality map of breast cancers. The tumour that Hannon flew through was a mock-up, but the real models will include data on the expression of thousands of genes and dozens of proteins in each cell of a tumour. The hope is that this spatial and functional detail could reveal more about the factors that influence a tumour’s response to treatment.

The project is just one of a string that aims to build a new generation of cell atlases: maps of organs or tumours that describe location and make-up of each cell in painstaking detail.

COLORS OF CHEMISTRY

The bright colors of chemistry fascinate people of all ages. Hriday Bhattacharjee, a Ph.D. student in the lab of Jens Mueller at the University of Saskatchewan, assembled this showcase from compounds he prepared as well as from some synthesized by the undergraduate students he teaches. Organometallic and inorganic chemistry—the study of molecules like these that involve metal atoms—is especially colorful.

The table below the picture indicates the chemicals seen in the photo.

Submitted by Hriday Bhattacharjee

Do science. Take pictures. Win money: Enter our photo contest.

For those poorly informed (educated) who insist that vaccines are just the same as catching the illness…. This is just one example of why that is not true.

Breakthrough for vaccine research: Mucosa forms special immunological memory

If a vaccine is to protect the intestines and other mucous membranes in the body, it also needs to be given through the mucosa, for example as a nasal spray or a liquid that is drunk. The mucosa forms a unique immunological antibody memory that does not occur if the vaccine is given by injection. This has been shown by a new study from Sahlgrenska Academy published in Nature Communications.                                

Immunological memory is the secret to human protection against various diseases and the success of vaccines. It allows our immune system to quickly recognize and neutralize threats. “The largest part of the immune system is in our mucosa. Even so, we understand less about how immunological memory protects us there than we do about protection in the rest of the body. Some have even suggested that a typical immune memory function does not exist in the mucosa,” says Mats Bemark, associate professor of immunology at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg.

After extensive work, the research team at Sahlgrenska Academy can now show that this assumption is completely wrong.

Mats Bemark et al. Limited clonal relatedness between gut IgA plasma cells and memory B cells after oral immunization, Nature Communications (2016). DOI: 10.1038/ncomms12698

New Approach to Treating Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is one of the most common form of dementia. In search for new drugs for AD, the research team, led by Professor Mi Hee Lim of Natural Science at UNIST has developed a metal-based substance that works like a pair of genetic scissors to cut out amyloid-β (Aβ), the hallmark protein of AD.

The study has been featured on the cover of the January 2017 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) and has been also selected as a JACS Spotlight article.

Alzheimer’s disease is the sixth leading cause of death among in older adults. The exact causes of Alzheimer’s disease are still unknown, but several factors are presumed to be causative agents. Among these, the aggregation of amyloid-β peptide (Aβ) has been implicated as a contributor to the formation of neuritic plaques, which are pathological hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

As therapeutics for AD, Professor Lim suggested a strategy that uses metal-based complexes for reducing the toxicity of the amyloid beta (Aβ). Althought various metal complexes have been suggested as therapeutics for AD, none of them work effectively in vivo.

The research team has found that they can hydrolyze amyloid-beta proteins using a crystal structure, called tetra-N methylated cyclam (TMC). Hydrolysis is the process that uses water molecules to split other molecules apart. The metal-mediated TMC structure uses the external water and cut off the binding of amyloid-beta protein effectively.

In this study, the following four metals (cobalt, nickel, copper and zinc) were placed at the center of the TMC structure. When the double-layered cobalt was added to the center, the hydrolysis activity was at the highest.

The research team reported that the cobalt-based metal complex (Co(II)(TMC)) had the potential to penetrate the blood brain barrier and the hydrolysis activity for nonamyloid protein was low. Moreover, the effects of this substance on the toxicity of amyloid-beta protein were also observed in living cell experiments.

“This material has a high therapeutic potential in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease as it can penetrate the brain-vascular barrier and directly interact with the amyloid-beta protein in the brain,” says Professor Lim.

This study has also attracted attention by the editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society. “Not only do they develop new materials, but they have been able to propose details of the working principles and experiments that support them,” according to the editor.

“As a scientist, this is such a great honor to know that our recent publication in JACS was highlighted in JACS Spotlights,” says Professor Lim. “This means that our research has not only been recognized as an important research, but also has caused a stir in academia.”

Watching a snowflake grow seems almost magical–the six-sided shape, the symmetry, the way every arm of it grows simultaneously. But it’s science that guides the snowflake, not magic. Snowflakes are ice crystals; their six-sided shape comes from how water molecules fit together. The elaborate structures and branches in a snowflake are the result of the exact temperature and humidity conditions when that part of the snowflake formed. The crystals look symmetric and seem to grow identical arms simultaneously because the temperature and humidity conditions are the same around the tiny forming crystals. And the old adage that no two snowflakes are alike doesn’t hold either. If you can control the conditions well enough, you can grow identical-twin snowflakes! (Video credit: K. Libbrecht)

Next week I’ll give a presentation on the Researchers Night at Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary with the title: “Chemistry of light and the light of chemistry”.

During this presentation one of my favorite dyes will be also presented: Nile Red. However, just as usual, the 1000 USD/gram price was a bit over our budget, so I had to make it.

The raw product was contaminated with a few impurities, but a fast purification, by simple filtering the mixture through a short column helped a lot and ended up with a +95% pure product.

At first I concentrated the product from a dilute solution on the column as seen on the first pics. It’s interesting to see, that it has a different fluorescence in solution (faint orange fluorescent)  and while it’s absorbed on the solid phase (pink, highly fluorescent).

After all the product was on the solid phase, I added another solvent and washed down the pure, HIGHLY FLUORESCENT product. Everything else, what was mainly products of side reactions, stuck at the top of the column as seen on the second pics and the gifs.

Also here is a video from the whole process in HD: https://youtu.be/W0Lk5jkd_B0

Scientists bring ‘nonsensical’ quantum physics into the real world for the first time

By freezing a drum just large enough to be seen by the naked eye to close to absolute zero, researchers were able to see glimpses of quantum effects normally confined to the world of atoms

In the Alice in Wonderland world of the atomically small, things can be in two places at once, merely looking at a particle can alter a twin on the other side of the universe apparently instantaneously, and theoretical cats can be both alive and dead.

Certainty is also somehow replaced by chance, an idea that once moved a somewhat vexed Albert Einstein to famously say: “God doesn’t play dice with the universe.”

Such strange, almost magical effects have always been confined to the world of photons and atoms – until now.

In the journal Nature, scientists at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Colorado reported the first “glimpses” of quantum effects, as they are known, happening on a scale just large enough to be seen by the human eye.

It is a breakthrough that could have significant implications for attempts to create quantum computers that are many millions of times faster than the current machines.

One of the researchers, Dr John Teufel, told the Independent: “I think we’re in an extremely exciting time where this technology we have available gives us access to things people have been talking about as thought experiments for decades.

“Just now what’s exciting is we can go into the laboratory and actually witness these quantum effects.”

Continue Reading.

The time will come when diligent research over long periods will bring to light things which now lie hidden. A single lifetime, even though entirely devoted to the sky, would not be enough for the investigation of so vast a subject… And so this knowledge will be unfolded through long successive ages. There will come a time when our descendants will be amazed that we did not know things that are so plain to them… Many discoveries are reserved for ages still to come, when memory of us will have been effaced. Our universe is a sorry little affair unless it has something for every age to investigate… Nature does not reveal her mysteries once and for all.

Seneca

(via scienceisbeauty)

Heart Regeneration

If a person suffers a heart attack and survives, chances are their heart muscle will never be quite the same. Indeed, the associated scarring often results in permanent damage that can lead to heart failure and eventual death. Scientists are therefore searching for possible ways to promote regeneration of damaged hearts, and it’s possible that newborn mice may hold the answer. For a few weeks after birth, these animals can almost entirely regenerate their heart tissue after an injury. And new research suggests a key process that may be critical for this regenerative ability: regrowth of nerves. Blocking nerve growth specifically in experimental animals completely prevented the regrowth of damaged heart tissue. In control animals, the nerves regrew into their normal branching patterns—like those pictured. Thus if researchers are to have any hope of regenerating adult hearts after injury, their best bet might be to boost accompanying nerve growth.

Written by Ruth Williams

Image from work by Ian A. White and colleagues

Interdisciplinary Stem Cell Institute, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, USA

Image copyright held by the American Heart Association

Published in Circulation Research, December 2015

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Last Week In Science

1. Broad Institute wins CRISPR patent battle

basically UC Berkely has rights to use CRISPR in “all kinds of cells” and Broad has rights in “eukaryotic cells” (yay legal system). Anticipate more legal battles since there are more types of CRISPR techniques

2. Human genome editing gets the OK to prevent “serious heritable diseases and conditions only” 

Bioshock likely to happen in 50 years as “serious disease” dwindles in to “mediocre disease” and finally “what the hell let’s shoot fire from our hands”

3. With the EPA at risk of being destroyed, what was life like before the EPA?

4. Congress wants to shift Earth Science away from NASA (and focus on deep space)

4.1 Coders continue to save climate data

5. This years winners of underwater photos

6. Got trash on your power lines? That’s alright just attach a flamethrower to a drone, no worries 

7. Fungicides bring us closer to figuring out why all of the bees are dying

7.1 (but who cares right? we can just make quadcopters do all the work)

8. Australia is HOT AS BALLS

9. Aztecs probably died off from salmonella outbreak

10. Our genetic past and present sanitary world lead to increased autoimmunity and allergy

10.1 Getting the right microbiome early on is so important for health

11. New Zealand on a new continent might make maps include it more often

12. Now you realize how slow the speed of light is on a cosmic scale

13. Meta-Analysis shows Vitamin D supplementation provides “modest protective effect” from respiratory infections like the flu or cold

14. Watch Yosemite’s Horsetail and its annual “FireFall” (image via Robert Minor)

15. Trump’s press conference makes people wonder if he is mentally ill and if we should start testing old ass presidents for dementia

16. He continue’s to spew more anti-vaccine bullshit, showing his ignorance of science and RFK Jr.’s scam needs “just one study” to change his mind

16.1 more than 350 organizations write to Trump to assure his feeble mind that vaccines are safe

17. Simple fractal patterns are key to Rorschach test

18. Imagine shining a light somewhere on your body and microscopic bots deliver drugs there

19. How flat can a planet be?

20. Triangulene created for the first time

Who needs carefully planned chemical reactions when you can just blast hydrogens off with electricity?

21. All of the nerdy. Valentine’s. you. will. ever. need. 

22. Help find Planet 9 in your spare time

22.1 Don’t have time? then do science while your computer is idle!