Metatrichia Floriformis By Sir.myxo.lot

Cribraria cancellata by Sarah Lloyd

It's not the best "microbiology" art, but it has a very interesting background. Two bacteria from two different clinical cases were inoculated on the TSCB medium. This metallic blue spilling bacterium is of course Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The yellow one (positive reaction on TSCB medium) is Vibrio metschnikovii isolated from chronic UTI in a dog. It was an unusual microbiological diagnosis. But what can you do when even your dog has a better holiday than you? Problems with urination (in this dog) began just after returning from the Mediterranean, the owners and the dog intensively used the charms of warm and salty water.

"Wherever you are on your journey to the microcosmos, the odds are high that you'll run into a diatom. They're both abundant and easy to spot because of the shells they encase themselves in. The results are beautiful, exacting geometries that create a living kaleidoscope in the microcosmos. Even if you lived your entire life without ever seeing a diatom, without ever hearing the word "diatom", you would still be living a life that's shaped by them... all the way down to the oxygen you breathe, thanks in no small part to their outsized contribution to the world's photosynthesis."

Journey to the Microcosmos- How Diatoms Build Their Beautiful Shells

Images Originally Captured by Jam's Germs

Astrionella 630x, Bacillaria paxillifer 200x, Diatom 630x, Diatom 630x, Diatom frustule 630x, Diatoms 630x

Broad's Scientist Introduce a Machine Learning Model to Identify Genetic Factors for Cardiovascular Diseases

A machine learning model has been introduced by Broad's Scientists to identify genetic factors associated with cardiovascular diseases.

Using the heart as an investigational model, scientists at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have designed an autoencoder-based machine-learning pipeline that can effectively predict a patient’s heart condition based on image data from ECGs and MRIs. The approach could also be used to detect markers related to cardiovascular diseases.

Nearly all areas of medical science have utilized artificial intelligence (AI) over the years. It has been effectively diagnosing diseases and predicting their transmission and prognosis. AI has been used to design therapeutic approaches effectively and has been helpful in the field of drug design. The use of AI in studying cardiovascular diseases has come a long way, especially machine learning-based systems. AI-based algorithms can be trained to predict cardiovascular disease outcomes using available diagnostic imaging technology.

Currently, the field of cardiology uses a variety of imaging technologies, such as ultrasound imaging, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT), etc. The Electrocardiogram (ECG) is a widely used test to monitor the heart’s rhythm. These technologies generate a lot of data that can be utilized to analyze the condition of a person’s heart. The availability of several diagnostic modalities has raised the need for standardized tools for analyzing imaging data effectively. A multi-modal framework built on machine learning techniques has been suggested by researchers from The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. The proposed system can help doctors to understand the cardiovascular state of a person using data from MRIs and ECGs. In practice, clinicians can use data generated from the machine learning program to diagnose a patient appropriately.

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[March, 2023] culture stains & snow days

motivating myself to write my paper about fungi by talking about fungi:

in Tokyo in 2010, scientists wanted to test the limits of 'brainless' organisms, especially their decision making skills, so they made a little obstacle course in a Petri dish and sent a slime mold to navigate it. they set it up with light and oats, the oats acting as goals and the lights acting as deterrents. the oats were placed in such a way that represented the major train stations in Tokyo. in LESS THAN TWO DAYS, the slime mold had perfectly navigated the obstacle course and hit all the oat stations. when the scientists compared the Petri dish patterns to the city, they noticed that the slime mold had perfectly replicated the train lines of Tokyo. in the most efficient way possible. a task which took humans FIVE YEARS to plan, design and build. slime molds do not have nervous systems, brains, or (as it was previously believed) the ability to form complex thoughts. however, these molds were able to design this system quicker and more efficiently than humans ver have. they were even able to create a path for the shortest route through an IKEA.

the whole concept that organisms other than humans are unable to make decisions or solve complex problems is incredibly outdated and should have been disproven years ago when the Great Chain of Being was first challenged, but these ideas have stuck around for hundreds of years and are only now beginning to be opposed. for years, people thought that organisms like octopi could be tested on in labs because they were unable to feel pain or form thoughts, but only now is it being discovered that octopi have huge brains and are capable of numerous skills, they can recognize people and miss them, and they have the same or even better understanding of the world around them than humans. every other organisms' intelligence has been measured against humans for so long, that the idea that other creatures may have a different way of processing information is something completely unheard of.

in conclusion: brainless fungi and molds are redefining what humans believe to be 'intelligence' by exhibiting amazing navigation of obstacle courses, problem-solving and decision-making skills.

biblical angels but their true form looks like the patterns in 90s arcade carpets

Have you ever seen a venus flytrap anemone? Members of the genus Actinoscyphia, these critters resemble their namesake plant but are actually marine invertebrates related to jellyfish. They can be found on the seafloor at depths of up to about 7,000 ft (2,133 m), where they lie in wait for passing food. These anemones use their tentacles to catch and consume detritus (decomposing organic waste) that's carried by the current. Growing as much as 1 ft (0.3 m) in length, their tentacles are lined with stinging nematocysts. 

Photo: NOAA Photo Library, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons

Etsy

MugeneArtShop - Etsy

Shop biology goodies for nerds by MugeneArtShop located in Boston, Massachusetts. Top shop for gifts. Buyers bought gifts from this shop and

gifts for microbio and paleo enthusiasts! :DD

ChemistryViews

Silkworms Produce Spider Silk for the First Time - ChemistryViews

Spider silk by silkworms offers a green alternative to synthetic fibers

With the fast fashion industry… how it is… finding sustainable ways to make fabric is super important.  Fibers from synthetic fabrics make up 35% of the microplastics that make their way to the ocean.  Natural fibers sourced from plants or animals are much more environmentally sound options, including silk.

Currently, the only way to get natural silk on a large scale is to harvest it from silkworms.  You’ve probably heard about the strength and durability of spider silk (it is 6x stronger than Kevlar!) but as of yet there hasn’t been a good way of getting it.  Raising spiders the way people do silkworms isn’t really an option.  Spiders need a lot of room to build their webs compared to silkworms, and individual spiders don’t produce that much silk.  Plus, when you put a whole bunch of spiders in captivity together, they tend to start eating each other.

Attempts to artificially recreate spider silk have also been less than successful.  Spider silk has a surface layer of glycoproteins and lipids on it that works as a sort of anti-aging “skin”- allowing the silk to withstand conditions such as sunlight and humidity.  But this layer has been very tricky to reproduce.

However, as scientists in China realized, silkworms produce that same kind of layer on their silk.  So what if we just genetically modified silkworms to produce spider silk?

That is exactly what the researchers at Donghua University in Shanghai did.  A team of researchers introduced spider silk protein genes to silkworms using CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing and microinjections in silkworm eggs.  In addition to this, they altered the spider silk proteins so that they would interact properly with the other proteins in silkworm glands.  And it worked!  This is the first study ever to produce full length spider silk proteins from silkworms.

The applications of this are incredibly exciting.  In addition to producing comfortable textiles and new, innovative bulletproof vests, silkworm generated spider silk could be used in cutting edge smart materials or even just to create better performing sutures.  In the future, this team intends to research how to modify this new spider silk to be even stronger, and they are confident that “large-scale commercialization is on the horizon."