Category: New Research

When A Virus AND A Fungus Attack

New Research
Source: Wikimedia Commons

I haven’t blogged about any actual science in awhile, so I give you the curious case of the dying honeybee. Since 2006, scientists have been trying to figure out what could be causing “colony collapse” where whole hives of honeybees die off. In the last four years, approximately 20-40% of the hives in the United States have died (that is a remarkably large amount).

Researchers have been struggling to figure out exactly what is killing the honeybees, an essential part of many ecosystems due to their role as pollinators. It took four years, but a joint team from the United States Army and the University of Montana are reporting that the culprit in the honeybee killing spree is an co-attack by a virus and a fungus. The researchers believe that the virus and the fungus may be interacting to disturb the absorption of nutrients, although the exact ways in which the bee’s internal systems are thrown off is not yet known.

This is interesting for two reasons:
1. A virus and a fungus interacting to kill a species is rare
2. The United States Army teaming up with Academia isn’t rare itself, but most partnerships occur to speed things up or keep costs down. This partnership was to really figure out what was causing the bees to die which is unusual.

New York Times coverage of the bees: Scientists and Soldiers Solve a Bee Mystery.

A Fossil Named Pedro

New Research

Francis and I were talking the other day about people who name objects. I can think of a few people who have named their cars (Oliver, Scarlet, the Mistress…) and Francis said she has friends who have named various other inanimate objects ie: a hammer named Fred. Then there is the issue of nicknaming people, which as a person with a short first name I’ve never really experienced (we will not discuss the name I got from a sorority pledge two years ago, and I do not count it as a nickname.) There is also the issue of choosing to call people a different name because it is a complete juxtaposition to what they are actually like, which makes it funny (for example calling the baby Carlos in the movie the Hangover).

I bring up nicknames because I was reading the article “Ancient Giant Penguin Unearthed in Peru” by Katie Moskvitch in the BBC, and the one fact from the article that stands out most in my memory is that the researchers uncovered an ancient penguin fossil, and chose to name it Pedro. Really, researchers? Why Pedro? Please tell me it is not because you were trying to name it something of hispanic-sounding origin simply because it was unearthed in Peru. How expected.

Why name it at all? When a new species is discovered it is given a scientific name, (in this case Inkayacu paracasensis) which is more than good enough to identify the fossil. I don’t think calling the fossil Pedro makes any more sense then calling a hammer Fred. But there is a long trend of researchers giving nicknames to their fossil finds, most prominent is probably the “Lucy” fossil found in Olduvai Gorge (the controversy over which I will not go into here) that is named after the Beatles song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

I can sort of understand naming a fossil, within the context that some of these researchers work their whole careers to make a find of the magnitude of a huge ancient penguin, and therefore feel a sense of attachment to it, and want to name it the way you would name a pet. I do get that, but honestly this is not a goldfish or a puppy, if you work so hard to find something of important scientific significance that should be respected and learned from, why would you ruin that reverence by calling it Pedro?

So there is my personal rant on naming scientific discoveries. If you want to name your houseplant, your car, or even all the inanimate objects in your home, its your life. But I think that giving important fossils goofy names diminishes their importance in the eyes of the public, and these finds (and the researchers who have worked so hard to uncover them) deserve more than that.

The Chili Pepper Angle

Good Writing, New Research

I really don’t find food and nutrition writing all that interesting (sorry to those who do but its just not my cup of tea) but I wanted to highlight this article on chili peppers from the New York Times. A Perk of Our Evolution: Pleasure in Pain of Chilies by James Gorman because I think he takes a really interesting approach to talking about a food item.

The angle the Gorman uses is answering the question of what makes humans want to eat foods that are hot/spicy with chili flavor even though at times it can be painful? I think this is an interesting way to approach writing about peppers, and honestly I was just impressed that Gorman was able to write such a long article about the topic without it becoming boring or redundant.
There are also parts of the article that Gorman writes in first person, which is an interesting choice. The article starts off as would be expected, a soft lead that describes a chili pepper festival – hinting at the allure of the vegetables and then goes into expert opinion. So when Gorman inserts his own narrative later on in the piece and discusses his own feelings toward chili peppers I was a little surprised. I do think it works though, because with a topic that could easily slip into the mundane, the more casual feel later in the piece actually works to hold me attention.

Smaller, Better, Faster

New Research

To borrow the name-sake of my friend Cassi’s blog, We Live in the Future. I say that, because new technology just hitting the news today is reporting the creation of artificial skin that is so sensitive it can pick up on touch the way that living organisms can feel through their skin.

Reported in Nature Materials, the new technology could be used in robots to help them hold and feel fragile objects, on artificial limbs for human patients that have lost an arm or leg, or to improve minimally invasive surgery. According to the researchers, the artificial skin is made of nanowires, and is able to sense pressure changes as quickly as the human nervous system transmits such signals from real skin to the brain.

Nanotechnology is an exploding field in research, and a hot topic for science writers. But, it can be hard to explain exactly what nanotechnology is. While broken down simply it is very small technology, so small you can’t see it with the naked eye. But it has a variety of applications from biomedical applications, like the artificial skin in this article, to genome sequencing mechanisms and beyond.

Talking about nano always reminds me of the old adage “bigger, better, faster” with nano the case has truly shifted to SMALLER, better, faster.

UK Hunt for Invasive Snail

Environment, New Research,

I’ve posted before about invasive species, but this article from the BBC just caught my eye. The UK’s National Trust Nature Conservation recently found out that their own grounds are home to a rare species of snail, native to the Mediterranean.

According to the Nature Conservation, the snails most likely arrived on their grounds more than 100 years ago on stones imported from Italy and Greece. Since then the snails have only populated a small area, but the Nature Conservation is conducting a search to see if the snails have populated anywhere else. They are asking the public to be on the look out for the snail.

One quote from the article actually makes it sound as if finding the snails outside of their natural territory is a good thing: “The Victorians and Edwardians loved importing statues, rock, and brickwork from the Mediterranean,” says Mr. Oates. “The shipping over of this ‘bling’ in large quantities suggests that we could find new species, such as this lovely little snail, in surprising places.”

It doesn’t seem as if the snail has any negative impact on the environment in terms of disturbing the food chain or causing any other disruptions, but I still find it strange that finding the invasive species seems to be more of an oddity than a concern. I also find it strange that it took over 100 years for anyone to notice the snail where it wasn’t supposed to be.