(via micro-universe)

jtotheizzoe:

“We’re gonna need a bigger boat … exactly twice as big, actually.”

Check out this amazing newly discovered case of bicephaly in a shark! This is more commonly known as “having two heads”. It is the first time bicephaly been seen in a bull shark, although a two-headed blue shark has been found previously.

If you’re brave enough to look at more pictures of polycephaly in the animal kingdom, check out the Wikipedia page. And for the truly bold, here’s a two-headed milk snake eating a mouse (srsly, not for the faint of heart).

Why does this occur? Two-headedness, in any species, usually occurs when a fertilized embryo begins to split (like it would in the case of monozygotic twins), but fails to completely separate. Most of these failed splits are fatal before birth, but some of them can be carried to term (this shark was removed from a pregnant female in the Gulf of Mexico and died soon after). If you’d like to dig deeper, read about it in the Journal of Fish Biology.

We’re only a handful of heads short of a shark hydra! Get with it, evolution!

(via MSUToday)

(via molecularlifesciences)

neurosciencestuff:

How Serotonin Receptors Can Shape Drug Effects from LSD to Migraine Medication

A team including scientists from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Chinese Academy of Sciences has determined and analyzed the high-resolution atomic structures of two kinds of human serotonin receptor. The new findings help explain why some drugs that interact with these receptors have had unexpectedly complex and sometimes harmful effects.

“Understanding the structure-function of these receptors allows us to discover new biology of serotonin signaling and also gives us better ideas about what biological questions to probe in a more intelligent manner,” said TSRI Professor Raymond Stevens, who was a senior investigator for the new research. The studies were published in two papers on March 21, 2013 in Science Express [1 , 2], the advance online version of the journal Science.

(via scientificillustration)

neurosciencestuff:

Farsighted engineer invents bionic eye to help the blind

For UCLA bioengineering professor Wentai Liu, more than two decades of visionary research burst into the headlines last month when the FDA approved what it called “the first bionic eye for the blind.”

The Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System — developed by a team of physicians and engineers from around the country — aids adults who have lost their eyesight due to retinitis pigmentosa (RP), age-related macular degeneration or other eye diseases that destroy the retina’s light-sensitive photoreceptors.

At the heart of the device is a tiny yet powerful computer chip developed by Liu that, when implanted in the retina, effectively sidesteps the damaged photoreceptors to “trick” the eye into seeing. The Argus II operates with a miniature video camera mounted on a pair of eyeglasses that sends information about images it detects to a microprocessor worn on the user’s waistband. The microprocessor wirelessly transmits electronic signals to the computer chip, a fingernail-size grid made up of 60 circuits. These chips stimulate the retina’s nerve cells with electronic impulses which head up the optic nerve to the brain’s visual cortex. There, the brain assembles them into a composite image.

Recipients of the retinal implant can read oversized letters of the alphabet, discern objects and movement, and even see the outlines and some details of faces. And while the picture is far from perfect — the healthy human eye sees at a much higher resolution — it’s a breakthrough for people like the first patient, a man in his 70s who was blinded at age 20 by RP, to receive the implant in clinical trials. “It was the first time he’d seen light in a half-century,” said Liu, adding that “it feels good as the engineer” to have helped make this possible.

Liu joined the Artificial Retina Project in 1988 as a professor of computer and electrical engineering at North Carolina State University. The multidisciplinary research project was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science because it envisioned a potential pandemic of eyesight loss in America’s aging population. Leading the project was Duke University ophthalmologist and neurosurgeon Dr. Mark Humayun, now on faculty at USC. He tapped Liu to engineer the artificial retina.

“I thought it was a great idea,” Liu said. “But I asked, ‘What can I do?’ because I didn’t know much about biology.” Humayun handed him a six-inch-thick medical manual on the retina. “The learning curve was very steep,” Liu recalled with a laugh.

However, Liu’s fellow engineers questioned his sanity. “I was working on integrated chip design and had just gotten tenure when I signed on to this project. They said, ‘You’re crazy!’ But I’m glad I made that choice, getting into this new field.”

How the bionic eye works

electricspacekoolaid:

One Marine Animal Could Be Next Biofuel

Scientists are looking to the ocean for the next big thing in renewable sources of biofuel for your eco-car.

 Five researchers at the University of Bergen (UiB) and Uni Research say they found the marine animal tunicatecould be used as a renewable source of biofuel. These marine animals serve as bacteria eaters and as a foodstuff in Korea and Japan right now, but the cellulose, the protein and the Omega-3 fatty acids in tunicate are the cause for its many uses.

“Its mantle consists of cellulose, which is a collection of sugars. When cellulose is cleaved, one can obtain ethanol. And ethanol can be used for biofuel in cars. The animal’s body consists of large amounts of protein and Omega-3. This can be used for fish feed,” says Professor Eric Thompson at UiB’s Department of Biology.

The researchers say they have already acquired a patent for biofuel and have a patent application pending for the cultivation of tunicate as fish feed.

Dr. Sc. Christofer Troedsson of Uni Research’s Molecular Ecology Group and head of the research at UiB’s Marine Development Biology and the tunicate research project said the bioethanol used today is unsustainable, as it comes from foods already used for human consumption.

“That is why there has been a move towards using cellulose from the timber industry to produce bioethanol,” Troedsson said. “However, it is quite complicated to break down the cellulose in trees and convert it into ethanol. This is because the wood contains a substance called lignin, which is hard to separate from the cellulose. Tunicates contain no lignin. Their cellulose is also low in crystals and is more efficiently converted into ethanol.”

He said using tunicate rather than trees is more environmentally friendly because it does not occupy large tracts of land that could be used for other purposes.

Read

(via thescienceofreality)

stilllifequickheart:

Elizabeth Blackadder

Blue Poppy and Other Flowers

21st century

(via scientificillustration)