Exploring Your Bodily Fauna

Ever since I was young, the idea of discovering a new species has, for me, been steeped in age-of-steam mysticism. I'd arrive on a ship in some inadequately explored country in some inadequately explored continent, its air fresh with the scent of otherness. I'd awake in my state cabin, have the boy shave me before being led to the club. My baggage, in trunks of course, would follow, perched precariously on the back of a local. I would pay him extravagantly later, all the while knowing that the only thanks he truly needed was the reassuring colonial presence of my three-piece-suited self. Later in the club, slumped into a green leather chair beneath the revolving ceiling fans, I would sit and avoid discussing the business of a visiting Swiss banker. We would, instead, discuss the "Africa Situation." Then the door would burst open and a well dressed man would stagger in, clutching his stomach. "Doctor James?" he would say, his voice weak and quavering, "There's something you need to see," he would continue before keeling over. He would be dead, and thus would begin my journey of biological discovery. In the jungle. Or, as the locals call it, Green Hell!
These days, it's easier, and only slightly less romantic. All you need is a powerful microscope, many years of highly specialised biological training, and a scraping from someone's forearm. Researchers at the New York Medical School have discovered more than 200 different types of bacteria in samples from the forearms of volunteers, 8% of which were previously undescribed by science. Human skin, according to the report, is a "virtual zoo" of bacteria. Even better is that everyone's zoo is different, so your personal bacterial retinue is as unique as you are. Think about that next time you take a shower. My advice is don't do it; explain away your eye-watering odour with these words: I have devoted myself to the noble pursuit of knowledge.
Source: BBC

Superbugs: A Battle of Wits

We as humans like to think we're pretty much at the top of the evolutionary tree. We have our enormous brains cased up in the sleekest bodies this side of those cats with no hair. And we made those cats ourselves; through literally years of forced breeding we created a cat breed in our own grossly hairless image. Truly, we are princes among the paupers represented by the lesser species. We even invented (read: stole from fungi) a substance to destroy all bacteria, intelligent life's implacable foe. The only problem is that the more we use it, the better the bacteria become at not being sporting enough to be killed by it. Bacteria, you see, have the advantage of evolving horrifically quickly. Killing them is like punching smoke. As soon as we come up with a new antibiotic, they're already evolving their way around it. It is apparent that a new approach is needed.
Bacteria, worryingly, can communicate. Like tiny little board members, bacteria will not attack a target unless they have a quorum. This allows them to be fairly confident that they have the strength to prevail in the upcoming conflict. Although the idea of bacteria chatting away is profoundly disturbing, it may just provide a new method for producing resistance resisting antibiotics. The signals are conveyed between bacteria via chemicals, and scientists are working on ways to break down these chemicals before they reach other bacteria. The idea is that each bacteria will think it's on its own, and therefore not attack the host. It is gratifying to know that humans, the nominal peak of 3 billion years of evolution, could be on the brink of outsmarting our most distant, unicellular cousins.
Source: AP

The problem with parasites

There are many things that you don't want to get in your brain: annoying pop songs, advertising jingles, unfortunate images. All of these pale in comparison to a hydatid cyst. The cyst is a larval stage of a tapeworm called Echinococcus granulosus, which is a parasite found in canines. These organisms are present in the feces of infected dogs, and are transferred, thankfully rarely, to humans through ingestion. It is therefore more common in countries where dogs are used to herd livestock. Once the cyst is inside the gut it can sometimes break into the bloodstream. From there the most common route is directly to the liver. A person can survive with several small hydatid cysts in their liver and suffer no ill effects. Sometimes, however, the cysts can wend its merry way to other parts of the body including the brain, where it can grow to the size of a golf ball.
By now you probably have a picture in your mind of what this cyst might look like. You're probably wrong. Happily though, I have found a video of a hydatid cyst being removed successfully from some poor guy's brain. It is not for the faint hearted, but it is morbidly fascinating.

Last chance to see

In 1990 Douglas Adams wrote "Last Chance to See", a book about animals veering perilously close to extinction. Since then the news about these species hasn't been good, as the blog "Another Chance to See" documents.
However, it's not all bad new in the bringing threatened species back from the brink community. The Zoological Society of London has recently launched a new campaign in a blitz of publicity, The EDGE Top 100. EDGE stands for Evolutionarily Distinct, Globally Endangered, and the top 100 lists some of the world's most endangered and charismatic mammals. Included are the Amazonian Manatee (pictured), and at least two mole species which keep a "pantry" of earthworms by biting off their heads to prevent them from escaping. That fact alone is worth a visit, but even better is the fact that you can donate to save these living repositories of biodiversity. So head over there, be informed and be generous, it might be your last chance.

What do we have to smile about?

Bad news sells papers. People like to hear about misfortune; it either gives them something to moan about or provides them with a little schadenfreude-inspired lift. Not here, though. Not today, anyway.
No, today we are celebrating the triumph of reason, the vanquishing of ignorance, and edge.org, the world's greatest website, which not entirely coincidentally has a feature in which top scientists and thinkers of all stripes list their top reasons for optimism.
Every year Edge asks a question. In the past these have included: "What's your dangerous idea?" and "What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?". This year's question is "What are you optimistic about?" The answers range from predictable (arch atheists Dawkins and Dennett predict the passing of religion's relevance) to the snarky (Karl Sabbagh's "The optimism of scientists") to the brilliant (all of it, really).
It's nice to see science being portrayed as a harbinger of optimism rather than as either the bearer of bad news or the dark force handing god a kicking. I'll return to science as a social phenomenon in a future post, but in the meantime please head over to Edge and enjoy some well written and deeply considered reasons to be cheerful.