Giant Centipede - Scolopendra subspinipes

Subvisual Subway - Bacteria of the New York City subway- Craig Ward

daniel stoupin, a doctoral candidate in marine biology at the university of queensland, has photographed a variety of coral species from the great barrier reef using full spectrum light to reveal fluorescent pigments that would otherwise be invisible to the naked eye.

coral growth rates in the great barrier reef have plummeted 40 percent in the last 40 years, a result, according to a recent study, of increased ocean acidification. 

since the beginning of the industrial revolution, about one third of the carbon dioxide that has been released into the atmosphere as a result of fossil fuels has been absorbed by the oceans, where it in turn prevents coral from using a mineral called aragonite to make their calcified skeletons. 

new modelling has also shown that if ocean waters continue to warm by even one degree, which most now see as unstoppable, the coverage of corals on the great barrier reef could decline to less than 10 percent, which is a level too low for the reef to mount a recovery. 

further complicating matters for the coral is the plastic detritus left by humans which now litter the oceans and which the coral now consume. unable to expel the plastic bits and thus take in nutrients, the coral slowly starve. a recent study found that each square kilometre of australia’s sea surface water is contaminated with approximately 4,000 pieces of tiny plastic.

You may be surprised about what you are ACTUALLY eating!

KISS OF DEATH

One of the reasons cancer is so hard to defeat is that the body’s immune system has trouble recognizing cancer cells growing among healthy cells. Some scientists want to help. Researchers designed mouse T cells to specifically bind to a protein complex on fibrosarcoma MC57 tumor cell membranes. In this sped-up video, once the T cells (each about 10 μm across) meet their targets, they create holes in the cancer cell membranes using a protein called perforin. Next, the immune cells flood the pierced cells with a rush of cell-killing granules called granzymes. Propidium iodide, a dye the scientists added to the plate of cells, also squeezes in through the hole and starts glowing red when it comes in contact with RNA and DNA inside the cancer cells. This tells the researchers that the cells have been pierced and will soon die. This process takes about 75 minutes in real time.

Credit: Misty Jenkins (Read the paper.)

Related C&EN content:

The Immune System Fights Back

Cancer-Killing Machine

The Tsars’s vodka in action. Aqua regia or Царская водка in Russian is a 3/1 mixture of hydrochloric acid and nitric acid.

Upon mixing concentrated hydrochloric acid and concentrated nitric acid a chemical reactions occurs. The product of the reaction is nitrosyl chloride and chlorine as evidenced by the fuming nature and characteristic yellow color of aqua regia. In this case the dissolved copper and other transition metals turned the color of the solution deep green, but the gas over the solution is yellow from the chlorine and nitrous fumes.

Interesting fact about the Nobel prize and the dissolution of gold:

When Nazi Germany occupied Denmark from April 1940, during World War II, György de Hevesy dissolved the gold Nobel Prizes of Max von Laue and James Franck with aqua regia; it was illegal at the time to send gold out of the country, and were it discovered that Laue and Franck had done so to prevent them from being stolen, they could have faced prosecution in Germany. He placed the resulting solution on a shelf in his laboratory at the Niels Bohr Institute. After the war, he returned to find the solution undisturbed and precipitated the gold out of the acid. The Nobel Society then recast the Nobel Prizes using the original gold.

George de Hevesy got his Noble Prize in Chemistry for ”for his work on the use of isotopes as tracers in the study of chemical processes” in 1943.

Max von Laue got his Nobel Prize in Physics for ”for his discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals” in 1914.

James Franck got his Nobel Prize in Physics ”for his discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom” in 1925.

A reminder that the inside of the cell is as beautiful as outer space.

Digital Renders by Evan Ingersoll & Gael McGill

Paintings by David Goodsell

This week is Antibiotic Awareness Week – learn more about the different types of antibiotics with this graphic!

Flower Mushroom Coral - Ricordea yuma

Ricordea yuma (Corallimorpharia - Ricordeidae) is a species of soft coral belonging to a group commonly referred to as mushroom corals. These soft corals are very popular among aquarists due to their vibrant and varied color patterns. 

Ricordea yuma is found in the tropical Pacific. Like other Corallimopharians, this one has the ability to rapidly colonize available substrate.

References: [1] - [2] - [3]

Photo credits: [Top: ©Felix Salazar | Locality: nano reef tank, 2008] - [Bottom: ©Scott Cohen | Locality: reef tank, 2009]

We Are Built To Be Kind

Greed is good. War is inevitable. Cooperation is for suckers. 

Whether in political theory or popular culture, human nature is often portrayed as selfish and power hungry. UC Berkeley psychologist Dacher Keltner challenges this notion of human nature and seeks to better understand why we evolved pro-social emotions like empathy, compassion and gratitude.

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Beautiful Winged Insects Made of Discarded Circuit Boards by Julie Alice Chappell