Interesting Science This Week. Week-3

Every time one ventures to watch a movie in India now a days, you are subjected to the gory images of cancerous tissues, patients etc and are warned about the relation between use of tobacco and incidence of cancer. You are probably aware that cancer happens because of changes to the DNA in a cell which then goes berserk, looses all regulation and starts diving abnormally. The cancerous cells in a tissue eventually move out in a process called metastasis and spread to other parts of the body damaging the tissue there. This sequence of events is now pretty common knowledge. But have you heard of super-metastasis where the cancerous cells move out of one body and infect another? This is a rare process that has till now been discovered only in two animals where the cancerous cells are transmitted by bodily contact, either through bite (Tasmanian devil) or through sexual mating (dogs). But in a recently published report in the journal Nature, scientists have shown that the transmission of cancerous cells can happen even through water. This phenomenon was observed in a class of molluscs called Bivalves including mussels, cockles and golden carpet shell clams.

• Metzger et al., Nature, 2016. DOI: 10.1038/nature18599  

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It's monsoon time in India and the puddles of water seen everywhere offer abundant breeding grounds for nature's master disease carriers, the mosquitoes. But what makes mosquitoes so efficient in being able to spread pathogens? The answer is, according to recent research findings, our own immune system. The most common reminder of having spent a good night futilely trying to fend off the mosquitoes are the red welts seen on the body next morning. The research suggests it is the inflammatory reaction resulting in these welts that aids the efficient spread of pathogens injected by the mosquito bite. The inflammatory response is due to a local reaction that serves to warn the body that skin, which is the first defensive barrier against infections, has been breached. This activates the body's immune response and leukocytes (also called white blood cells) are mobilized to the site of inflammation in order to contain the infection. Researchers have found that, the immune cells that reach the spot of mosquito bite themselves get inadvertently infected and contribute to rapid spread of infection to rest of the body. This hijacking of the immune cells by pathogens might be due to help from certain molecules present in the saliva of mosquitoes that get injected at the point of bite. This conclusion is based on the observation that injection of the same pathogen into the body with a needle did not produce an infection of comparable intensity as when injected by a mosquito bite. Researchers also suggest that the ability of mosquito bites to promote infections can be ameliorated by suppressing the initial inflammatory reaction. 

• Pingen et al., Immunity, 2016. DOI: 10.1016/j.immuni.2016.06.002 

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 There is a nice write-up published in Quanta Magazine detailing the research about a class of micro organisms called the Lithoautotrophs, or the rock-eaters, that survive by consuming only electrons as their source of energy. As such, these microbes can be described as "electricity-eaters".

• https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160621-electron-eating-microbes-found-in-odd-places/

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Please take a minute to leave your feedback in the comments. 

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Interesting Science This Week. Week-2.

As kids we heard the story of a crow that strategizes by using pebbles to bring the level of water in a pot to the brim so it can drink. We have also heard parrots that were trained to speak like humans. For a very long time in human history, messenger pigeons served as the only reliable means of long distance communication. More recently, pigeons were shown to be almost as good as trained doctors in detecting cancer and scientists have made visual recording of the ability of crows to make hooked tools. Have you ever wondered how birds, with such small heads, can manage such feats that animals with much larger brains cannot accomplish? A group of scientists have now found the answer. In their recently publish work based on studying the brains of 28 species of birds, Seweryn OlKowicz and colleagues have found that the bird brains contain at least twice as many nerve cells (neurons) as a similarly sized mammalian brain and the nerve cells are packed at a much higher density. They also discovered that most of the extra neurons in birds are found in the forebrain responsible for learning, planning, etc. So much so that the number of neurons found in the forebrains of some of these birds was more than or comparable to those found in monkeys with much larger sized brains. 

• Olkowicz et al., PNAS, 2016, DOI:10.1073/pnas.1517131113
• Levenson et al., PLOS, 2015, DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0141357
• Troscianko and Rutz, Biology Letters, 2015, DOI:10.1098/rsbl.2015.0777 

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The red color of our blood is due to a complex protein called Hemoglobin that transports oxygen and carbondioxide between lungs and various tissues of the body. Hemoglobin is made up of 4 subunits each of which transports a oxygen molecule. Each Hemoglobin subunit in turn is made up of a protein chain that surrounds a non-proteinaceous part called Heme. Each Heme moiety consists of an iron ion (which is the part that actually binds oxygen) within an organic ring called Porphyrin. Heme is synthesized in the red blood cells in a multi-step process involving about 8 different enzymes. In people suffering from a group of rare genetic diseases called Porphyrias, there is an accumulation of porphyrin in the cells due to a defect at one or more steps in the Heme bio-synthetic pathway. People suffering from porphyria often develop irritation, burns or blisters in the skin upon even medium duration exposure to sunlight. In severe cases, porphyria can lead to even neurological disorders. Yet, there is currently no real cure for this condition. In a recent work published in the journal eLife, a group of scientists from United States and Canada have reported the discovery of a type of flatworm (Schmidtea mediterranea) that naturally accumulates porphyrin in its skin cells. These worms, which are naturally brown colored, lose their color and turn white when exposed to sunlight for a prolonged period of time due to cell death induced by accumulated porphyrin. It is also reported that the natural color of the worms is restored after returning to dark. Scientists expect that these worms could be used as model organisms to study the biological processes leading to the development of porphyria in humans as well as to analyze the efficacy of potential drugs that could be used in treatment of porphyrias. 

• Stubenhaus et al., eLife, 2016, DOI: 10.7554/eLife.14175 

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'Frogman of India' S.D.Biju is back in news. In a recent report published in the journal PeerJ, Dr. Biju and colleagues report the discovery of a new mating position in the frogs. They have made this report based on their work on Bombay Night Frogs (Nyctibatrachus humayuni), a type of frog that is endemic to the Western Ghats of south India. There were 6 different types of amplexus (mating positions) that were previously known among the amphibians; with the discovery of this position, called the Dorsal Straddle, the number increases to 7. The researchers also report the discovery of female mating calls in this species of frogs that is rare occurrence among the amphibians. 

• Willaert et al., PeerJ, 2016, DOI: 10.7717/peerj.2117 

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Earlier this year we heard the first ever recording of the 'sound of the Universe' when the LIGO scientific collaboration unveiled the discovery of Gravitational Waves. Now the team has reported the discovery of second such event in an article published in Physics Review Letters. The signal was identified on 26th December 2015 and involved the collapse of two stars that are much smaller than the two involved in the first discovered event. While the two stars that collapsed to produce the gravitational waves during the event detected in September of last year were 36 and 29 times more massive than our own Sun, the two stars involved in this event were only 14 and 7.5 times more massive. 

• Abbott et al., PRL, 2016, DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.241103

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Interesting Science This Week. Week - 1

Starting this week, I am planning on writing a recurring post every week. The objective of these posts will be describe some of the interesting research development that I had come across in the scientific literature during the course of that week to general public. While the intention is to explain the research in as simple language as possible, I do not intend to dumb it down to the extent that it is done in main stream media where one comes across reports that claim drinking red wine can prevent cancer or diabetes or stroke or heart-attack or whatever. Also it requires to be pointed out that these blog-posts will essentially be about research that I find interesting. So, the content will almost entirely be biology. Also considering the demand on my time, I will limit each posts to at the most 3 or 4 findings from that week and a brief summary in each case. I will attach relevant original research references for anyone interested in knowing more details. Here is the first week's post. 

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There are two types of tumors that are formed in the body. Benign tumors, as the name suggests, aren't generally dangerous. They are compact, grow slowly, tend to remain in the organ where they are formed and do not spread to other organs. Malignant tumors, on the other hand, are responsible for causing cancer in the body. The cell mass of these tumors is generally loose, grows uncontrollably and the cells tend to spread to other tissues where they cause the formation of more tumors. The process of tumor cells spreading to other organs is called metastasis. Metastatic cells of tumors, also stem-cell like cancer cells (SCLCCs) or tumor-repopulating cells (TRCs), tend to be softer and more deformable than the differentiated cells in the tumor. The TRCs are also more resistant to drugs than differentiated tumor cells which reduces the efficacy of chemotherapy and prevents complete elimination of cancer, often leading to relapse. In a recent paper published in the journal Cell Research, a procedure has been described that could potentially help in combating this drug resistance in TRCs. The researchers in this work produced microparticles packaged with anti-tumor drugs from tumor cells in which programmed cell death was induced. Microparticles are 0.1 - 1 micrometer size vesicles derived from the plasma membrane of induced cells (1 micrometer = 1/1000000 of a meter). In subsequent analysis it was found that these drug-packaged microparticles are able to selectively induce death in TRCs than differentiated tumor cells because of their greater deformability. Microparticle treatment was also able to prevent development of drug resistance. In clinical trials, treatment of cancer patients with these microparticles was able to eliminate the cancer cells in malignant fluids to a large extent providing hope for their future therapeutic utility in combating the drug resistance of SCLCCs. 

1. Ma et. al., Cell Research (2016) 26:713–727. doi:10.1038/cr.2016.53

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Please do let me know your thoughts in the comments. It actually encourages me to know that people actually read the stuff that I put out. 

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India and quality of education

I recently came across a post on Facebook from a group called Hyderabad School Parents' Association (HSPA) in support of a protest organized by JAC SFR (joint action committee school free regulation). That post got me thinking about the attitude of us Indians towards government and regulation. We are so used to the wretched socialist system and government dole-outs that we have forgotten to appreciate that quality does not come cheap or free. As the lady in the video says, she wants the best quality school for her kid but does not want to pay the price required for the school to deliver services at that quality. Quality education is not cheap. You can't expect to own an iPhone at the price of a feature phone, can you. There are government schools that are run with our tax money but no one wants their children to go to government schools because those are poorly run and are no good. Everyone wants to send their kids to private schools for they are obviously better run and provide better services. But we do not want to pay the price for this better quality and demand for government meddling. Despite 70 years worth of experience we do not seem to realize that government involvement will destroy whatever little quality is left in our school education. Instead of forcing our elected representatives to better utilize our tax money and work towards improving the standards of government run schools, we want government to bully private schools. We expect good, talented teachers committed to their profession to work for peanuts. As Prof. CNR Rao once told a gathering of grad students in reference to salaries of university professors, if you throw peanuts you only get monkeys to dance. Just imagine the remuneration of lawyers, doctors, charted accountants or media professionals being fixed by the government. In all these professions, isn't the amount of remuneration determined by the market value of the services provided? Why should it be any different for education? Aren't medical or legal services basic rights of a citizen like education? 

At this point, the protesting parents would do well to rewind their collective memories to 2009 and answer what they did to stop Government of India from passing the right of children to free and compulsory education act, commonly known as RTE act. What protest did they carry out? What 'dharnas', 'gheraos', did they carry out? What pressure did they bring upon their Member of Parliament to prevent the government (with complete cooperation of opposition in parliament) from imposing this blatantly unsecular and unjust piece of legislation? Now, there is no doubt that every child deserves an opportunity to have access to quality education irrespective of the parents' financial status. But whose responsibility is it to create the physical and intellectual infrastructure that will give every kid born in this country access to quality education? Is it that of the government that collects the taxes or that of the private sector? It's been known very well for many decades now that the publicly funded school system is rotten to the core. The government instead of fixing this system so that even the kids attending government schools are provided with good standards, has imposed its responsibility on to the private sector through abuse of its legislative power. The RTE act mandates that 25% of seats in every private school be reserved free-of-charge for kids from 'economically weaker' families. Government is supposed to compensate the schools for the expense. But as is the norm for everything government in India, the schools were either not paid, paid very late or paid at a ridiculously low rates. In such a situation, where will the private schools raise the cost difference? Their only options are to either pass on the burden to remaining 75% of the students or take the losses and ultimately shut down. In both of the options, it is the middle class that is going to be adversely effected; either pay up more or have private school options reduced. 

If you didn't raise your voice to stop the RTE act because of decades of socialistic indoctrination, I don't think you have any moral right to now prevent the private schools from doing what they have to for survival. What will you do if private schools ultimately shutdown because of losses? At this stage another question needs to be asked. How much is the Indian middle class responsible for the decay of government school system? By not sending our kids to the local government school, haven't we virtually boycotted them? Hasn't this contributed to their ultimate neglect from the government? If our kids were attending these schools, wouldn't we have asked questions and demanded answers from our elected representatives about the poor administration of these schools? Finally, there is one thing that we need to remember. Nothing comes for free. Be it the schools, universities, satellite communication, free laptops, electricity, clean drinking water. Nothing is free. We will have to pay for the stuff that we use; in one way or the other; now or later; if not directly then indirectly.