That One Time My Roommate Couldn't Watch Shane's Asagao Academy Stream So I Live-texted It To Her Instead

Science fight in the current issue of J Immunology.

The flowerhat jellies eat live fish, which aquarists deliver to the brainless beauties using a straw.

#VisitorPicture by @girlymurley #regram #jelly #jellyfish #ocean #animals #closeup #NEAQtentacles #lunchtime #fish #beautiful

The cellular structure of wood as seen through a Victorian microscope. (via)

Also, while this is on my mind. In my master’s-level food toxicology class today we discussed various genetically modified crops and watched part of a documentary about them, and as someone with a food science degree I would like to be clear about the following:

The only health risk that has been shown to us throughout twenty plus years of having genetically modified crops as part of the food system is that there is a possibility of introducing proteins that could cause allergic reactions. New strains are required to be tested for this, of course, but that is a practical risk that needs to be closely monitored.

The objection to GM in general should be the patenting of genes and other legal matters; there are a number of crops that have been saved from blight and overall extinction via modification in the past two decades, and much like putting up inaccessibly expensive paywalls to scientific journals, patenting of genes within crops limits our ability within universities, small research companies, etc to make significant breakthroughs to further the scientific progress of humanity. 

Furthermore. People think of organic crops as the environmentally-friendly option. If you believe this, please pay attention to what I’m about to say. Current regulations dictate that to have a crop classified as organic the land on which the crop is grown has to have been pesticide-free for a significant amount of time. There is no interim label available to farmers. So what do they do? Do they use no pesticides and take the losses from disease and insects for a decade, waiting for a time in which they are allowed to reclassify their crops in such a way that they can sell them for more money?

Of course they don’t. It isn’t practical. You can say what you like about how the system is structured; I’d personally like to see an interim classification come into play. But what farmers actually do, and states like Montana are feeling the full effects of this–they clear-cut forests and plant their organic crops on entirely new land.

You want to tell me that clear-cutting forests is environmentally friendly? It’s not. Hell, for all that people make a big deal about saving the environment by limiting how much paper they use, paper production is done in a more sustainable manner (because the paper farms replant their trees in a regular cycle so as to not deplete their sources; they don’t just go out and cut down random trees). 

There are objections to be had in regards to GM crops on a legal basis. On a scientific one, there isn’t much. Call them frankenfoods all you want; look up what most commercially-sold produce truly looks like in the wild with no modification and you will learn very quickly that all foods have been modified in some way over the years through conventional breeding. We just think of that differently. 

Biotechnology is not the enemy. Pseudoscience tells us that this is the case. Pseudoscience also tells us that we should seek out natural supplements instead of medicine, and, well… that’s a rant for another day, but suffice to say it’s an even more dubious proposition.

Don’t buy into it.

160329.

Learn Everything You Need To Know About Chemicals In Your Food in 4 Easy Steps!

Step One

Obtain High School level Chemistry textbook. 

Step Two 

Open the book to chapter one, section one. 

Step Three

Locate and identify the goals of chapter one: basic definition of chemistry. 

Step Four

Discover that EVERYTHING IS MADE OF CHEMICALS. 

Whew. That was pretty scary, wasn’t it? Education is hard. Learning about scary chemicals is a big adventure. But aren’t you glad you pulled through? I’m glad we had this talk. 

most underappreciated starter

A Living Cage

The typical eukaryotic, which basically covers every cell found in animals, plants, fungi, slime molds, protozoa and algae, is a packed place, crammed with a nucleus (itself containing six feet of tightly wound DNA), mitochondria, centrosomes, peroxisomes, lysosomes, ribosomes, endoplasmic reticula (both smooth and rough), actin filaments, Golgi vesicles and more.

All of these cellular elements are in constant action, buzzing with communication and the movement of molecules. The image above, produced by Maria Voigt at the RCSB Protein Data Bank, depicts a clathrin cage, which is essentially a little basket for carrying and moving things around inside cells. Clathrin derives from the Latin clatratus, which means lattice.

Cells have a lot of them. They’re used to transfer nutrients, import signaling receptors, mediate an immune response after sampling the world outside the cell and the clean-up of cellular debris. When not in use, the cages are broken up, to be reassembled when next needed.

The cage above is roughly 50 nanometers wide, a size almost too small to imagine. By comparison, there are 25.4 million nanometers in an inch. A sheet of paper is roughly 100,000 nanometers thick. A single strand of human DNA is 2.5 nanometers in diameter.

The image is one of this year’s winners of the Wellcome Image Awards.

if you give me a task with no deadline i will literally never do it but if you give me a deadline i will get it done exactly 1 hour before the deadline even if the deadline is in six years