As soon as you think “maybe I can get up early and just finish it tomorrow” you’ve already lost
Me, at an art store: I need a paint marker with low toxicity and a delicate tip.
Employee: What kind of project are you working on?
Me: It's for a research project. I just need bright colors.
Employee: What medium are you using? Canvas or paper?
Me: uh....spiders.
Employee: Plastic or felt?
Me: ....live spiders. Like, from the forest.
Employee: ....
Employee: I have to get back to the counter.
That one time my roommate couldn't watch Shane's Asagao Academy stream so I live-texted it to her instead.
@didyouknowshaning‘s asagao stream part 1/part 2
Though small amounts of copper are essential to health - oysters, liver, beans and nuts are good sources - copper’s role in metabolism has been unclear: Some studies found that it boosted fat burning, others that it depressed it.
University of California, Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers have now clarified the critical role that copper plays in nutrition: It helps move fat out of fat cells - called adipocytes - and into the blood stream for use as energy.
Without enough copper, fat builds up in fat cells without being utilized, said Christopher Chang, the Class of 1942 Chair and a professor of chemistry and of molecular and cell biology at UC Berkeley.
“Unlike other studies that link copper levels both to increased or decreased fat metabolism, our study shows definitively how it works - it’s a signal that turns on fat cells,” said Chang, who also is a faculty scientist at Berkeley Lab and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. “If we could find a way to burn fat more efficiently, this could be a big contribution to dealing with obesity and diabetes.”
The new study appeared online this week, and will be published in the July print issue of the journal Nature Chemical Biology.
“Copper regulates cyclic-AMP-dependent lipolysis” by Lakshmi Krishnamoorthy, Joseph A Cotruvo Jr, Jefferson Chan, Harini Kaluarachchi, Abigael Muchenditsi, Venkata S Pendyala, Shang Jia, Allegra T Aron, Cheri M Ackerman, Mark N Vander Wal, Timothy Guan, Lukas P Smaga, Samouil L Farhi, Elizabeth J New, Svetlana Lutsenko and Christopher J Chang in Nature Chemical Biology. Published online June 6 2016 doi:10.1038/nchembio.2098
Caption: The crystal structure of the cAMP-degrading enzyme phosphodiesterase PDE3B, showing two magnesium atoms (green) in the active site. Copper binds one of the amino acid residues in the pink loop at the left, blocking the activity of the enzyme. Credit: Lakshmipriya Krishnamoorthy and Joseph Cotruvo Jr., UC Berkeley
The above images show the sporangium (fruiting bodies) of the bread mold, Rhizopus Stolonifer, growing on the surface of bread.
MORE INCREDIBLE MICROGRAPHS OF BREAD MOLD
Spores circulate freely in the air. On a favorable medium, they germinate a network of hyphae (threads). Their function is to absorb food for growth & for spore production. Rhizopus produces stolons, or aerial hyphae, which on contact with the medium grow rhizoids or ‘rootlets’. They anchor the fungus & absorb some water. Spores develop in saclike bodies, or sporangia (globular structure). They are carried at the ends of specialized hyphae called sporangiophores.
Rhizopus sp. are generally saprophytic, feeding on decaying animal and plant matter. However they can also be parasitic, feeding on living plants, animals and even humans.
Images above © Science Source