I Know It’s A Little Late, But Happy Valentine’s Day From The Tardigang! 💧 🐻❤️

i got to work with some HeLa cells today!

as cool of an experience as this was and as interesting as these things are, it’s always important to acknowledge the bad along with the good. Henrietta Lacks’ cells revolutionized so many areas of research, but she deserved so much better.

working with these cells today just really reminded me of the duality of many scientific developments. many things have come with great cost and harm and i think that’s something important to keep in mind.

if you aren’t familiar with the story of Henrietta Lacks, i highly recommend looking her up. there’s a book about her live (the immortal life of henrietta lacks) that’s very illuminating.

Good bacteria may eliminate bad bacteria better than antibiotics

Experimental technology is like a microscopic poison arrow shot from a good bacterium to eliminate a bad bacterium under specific conditions.

The bacteria wars are coming. Researchers at Tel Aviv University have pitted “good” bacteria against “bad” bacteria and the good guys, it appears, are winning.

If the system can be scaled, this new approach could potentially replace antibiotics, which are increasingly struggling against antibiotic-resistant “superbugs.” For the TAU study, the researchers used a toxin injection system known as a “Type 6 Secretion System.” It’s usually deployed by pathogenic (“bad”) bacteria. They introduced the system into a “friendly” bacterium, Vibrio natriegens, which is not harmful to humans. The researchers described their technology as similar to a microscopic poison arrow shot from a good bacterium to eliminate a bad bacterium under specific conditions. “The system that we built allows us to engineer ‘good’ bacteria that can recognize pathogenic bacteria, attack them with toxins, and neutralize them,” explains Dr. Dor Salomon, who co-led the study. “We know how to change and control every component in the system and create a bacterium that neutralizes different strains of bacteria. This is proof of feasibility, showing that we have the knowledge and ability to create bacteria that take advantage of this killing system and may serve as antibiotic treatments. ”The current bacteria prototype is best suited for bugs that occur naturally in saltwater. This is a growing concern, as fish and seafood constitute a major food source in many regions of the world. “Their productivity is severely impaired as a result of bacteria-borne diseases,” Solomon notes, “and since we want to avoid pouring antibiotics into aquaculture farms, a biological solution such as the one we have developed is an effective alternative.” The system will eventually be adapted to treat pathogenic bacteria in humans, farm animals and plants. Tel Aviv University has filed a patent application through Ramot, the university’s technology-transfer company. In addition to Solomon, Dr. Biswanath Jana and Kinga Kappel of the department of clinical microbiology and immunology at TAU’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine participated in the research. The results were published this month in the scientific journal EMBO Reports.

Stop the ban on blood donation of gay men

Like humans, these big-brained birds may owe their smarts to long childhoods

Human beings typically don’t leave the nest until well into our teenage years—a relatively rare strategy among animals. But corvids—a group of birds that includes jays, ravens, and crows—also spend a lot of time under their parents’ wings. Now, in a parallel to humans, researchers have found that ongoing tutelage by patient parents may explain how corvids have managed to achieve their smarts.

Stop the ban on blood donation of gay men

Journey to the Microcosmos:  Tardigrades: Chubby, Misunderstood, & Not Immortal

Images originally captured by Jam’s Germs

Thank you @airyearthgirl for inspiring me to gif these amazing lines

Fun fact: my dad, after being a surgeon for 25 years, no longer has fingerprints. The sponge he uses to wash his hands several times a day is so harsh that it’s rubbed off his fingerprints throughout the years. Sometimes he can’t get into our building because the biometric uses a fingerprint scanner 😭