Are Humans The New Supercomputer?

Science Fact Friday: Tetrodotoxin, ft. a small gif because I’m avoiding my real obligations. Why does tetrodotoxin not affect its host? More studies need to be done but at least a few species possess mutated sodium ion channels. The tetrodotoxin can’t interact efficiently with the altered channels.

Another interesting tidbit: Animals with tetrodotoxin can lose their toxicity in captivity. It is suspected that the animals accumulate the toxic bacteria as a side-effect of their diet. After several years of captivity on a tetrodotoxin-bacteria-free diet, the bacterial colonies living in the animals die, residual toxin is cleared from the system, and the animal is safe to handle.

A Cry for Help.

I seek the Word of @cranquis and the Word of @wayfaringmd on proper tick removal technique. Where I live we’re being warned that populations will be high this summer and that 50% of the ticks are testing positive for Lyme disease. Between the cat, the dog, and three kids I know I’m going to have to deal with them soon.

I’m hearing so many conflicting things, even from MDs. Burn them with a match? Pour olive oil on them? I thought we weren’t supposed to do that stuff? Should I buy that fancy tick remover thing? Or does each one require a trip to the office? Help me Crayfaring, you’re my only hope! 😩

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen Illustrated by Charles E Brock with an introduction by Austin Dobson London Macmillan and Co Limited 1895 / 1901 452 pages + ads, all page edges gilt, measures 187mm x 130mm

An attractive copy of a classic illustrated edition in the publishers salmon coloured cloth with swirling art nouveau design covers

Can the brain feel it? The world’s smallest extracellular needle-electrodes

A research team in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Information Engineering and the Electronics-Inspired Interdisciplinary Research Institute (EIIRIS) at Toyohashi University of Technology developed 5-μm-diameter needle-electrodes on 1 mm × 1 mm block modules. This tiny needle may help solve the mysteries of the brain and facilitate the development of a brain-machine interface. The research results were reported in Scientific Reports on Oct 25, 2016.

(Image caption: Extracellular needle-electrode with a diameter of 5 μm mounted on a connector)

The neuron networks in the human brain are extremely complex. Microfabricated silicon needle-electrode devices were expected to be an innovation that would be able to record and analyze the electrical activities of the microscale neuronal circuits in the brain.

However, smaller needle technologies (e.g., needle diameter < 10 μm) are necessary to reduce damage to brain tissue. In addition to the needle geometry, the device substrate should be minimized not only to reduce the total amount of damage to tissue but also to enhance the accessibility of the electrode in the brain. Thus, these electrode technologies will realize new experimental neurophysiological concepts.

A research team in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Information Engineering and the EIIRIS at Toyohashi University of Technology developed 5- μm-diameter needle-electrodes on 1 mm × 1 mm block modules.

The individual microneedles are fabricated on the block modules, which are small enough to use in the narrow spaces present in brain tissue; as demonstrated in the recording using mouse cerebrum cortices. In addition, the block module remarkably improves the design variability in the packaging, offering numerous in vivo recording applications.

“We demonstrated the high design variability in the packaging of our electrode device, and in vivo neuronal recordings were performed by simply placing the device on a mouse’s brain. We were very surprised that high quality signals of a single unit were stably recorded over a long period using the 5-μm-diameter needle,” explained the first author, Assistant Professor Hirohito Sawahata, and co-author, researcher Shota Yamagiwa.

The leader of the research team, Associate Professor Takeshi Kawano said: “Our silicon needle technology offers low invasive neuronal recordings and provides novel methodologies for electrophysiology; therefore, it has the potential to enhance experimental neuroscience.” He added, “We expect the development of applications to solve the mysteries of the brain and the development of brain–machine interfaces.”

The Screwtape Letters C S Lewis London Geoffrey Bles - The Centenary Press 1942 - First Published February 1942, Reprinted March 1942, Reprinted March 1942

dedicated to J R R Tolkien

Is Kermit an accurate example of a frog?

Yes (except for being a muppet). Did you know that there are real frogs that DO look like Kermit? This is a glass frog I found at my research site in the rainforest in Honduras.

Singapore Food (in Manga/Anime) Appreciation Post!

(Also: Onion Chopping Ninja Reveals Her Timezone!)

It’s Singapore’s National Day today (9th Aug) and I was going to do a Singaporean-based Recipe, (like Hayama’s Curry Fish Head), but didn’t have time to, so here’s a Singapore Food in Manga/Anime Appreciation Post - from Kuragehime, Shokugeki no Souma, and Addicted to Curry!

The Singaporean food that is usually shown in manga/anime is usually either curry-based or chicken rice. And of course, I don’t usually make them at home because: 1. They’re easier to make in bulk 2. You can get them cheaper outside 3. My version would pale in comparison to the masters’ 4. It requires hours of preparation, except for some of the easier curry dishes in Addicted to Curry. (A manga cap of the recipe is above!)

Addicted to Curry lists Singapore as Curry Central, and I never realized how true that was until I went abroad for a couple of years and missed how we would just drown everything in curry, especially for mixed rice dishes like Chap Chye Png and Nasi Briyani. There was also a huge uproar when McDonald’s ran out of Curry Sauce for McNuggets (they have since started selling it in bottles), and a near-riot when a neighbour complained about the smell of another neighbour cooking curry. Also, Gordon Ramsay can’t beat our laksa, even though I think that particular store he challenged isn’t the best one.

(Not everything is curry, of course, but if there’s no curry, generally, there must be chili. And woe betide those who eat the wrong kind of chili with the wrong kind of food. And here’s a PSA for foreigners - Chili Crab is largely for tourists. Take Black Pepper Crab or Salted Egg Crab instead. It’s possible to live as a weak sauce who can’t take spicy foods here, but less exciting. )

Happy 51st Birthday, Singapore! Here’s to the spread of our food all over the world! And a birthday wish would be for more kinds of our food to be shown in manga/anime. :D - O.C.N.

PS: By the way, Eizan Senpai, you can get Hainanese Chicken Rice for $3, and it is considered Street Food even though there are $30+ versions at hotels. Never eaten one with Jidori Chicken, though.

Oval Eggs

The word egg was a borrowing from Old Norse egg, replacing the native word ey (plural eyren) from Old English ǣġ, plural ǣġru.  Like “children” and “kine” (obsolete plural of cow), the plural ending -en was added redundantly to the plural form in Middle English.  As with most borrowings from Old Norse, this showed up first in northern dialects of English, and gradually moved southwards, so that for a while, ey and egg were used in different parts of England.

In 1490, when William Caxton printed the first English-language books, he wrote a prologue to his publication of Eneydos (Aeneid in contemporary English) in which he discussed the problems of choosing a dialect to publish in, due to the wide variety of English dialects that existed at the time.  This word was a specific example he gave.  He told a story about some merchants from London travelling down the Thames and stopping in a village in Kent 

And one of theym… cam in to an hows and axed for mete and specyally he axyd after eggys, and the goode wyf answerde that she could speke no Frenshe. And the marchaunt was angry, for he also coude speke no Frenshe, but wolde have hadde egges; and she understode hym not. And thenne at laste a-nother sayd that he wolde have eyren. Then the good wyf sayd that she understod hym wel. Loo, what sholde a man in thyse dayes now wryte, egges, or eyren? Certaynly it is hard to playse every man, by-cause of dyversite and chaunge of langage.

The merchant in this story was only familiar with the word egg, while the woman only knew ey, and the confusion was only resolved by someone who knew both words.  Indeed, the woman in the story was so confused by this unfamiliar word egg that she assumed it must be a French word!  The word “meat” (or “mete” as Caxton spelled it) was a generic word for “food” at the time.

The word ey may also survive in the term Cockney, thought to derive from the Middle English cocken ey (”cock’s egg”), a term given to a small misshapen egg, and applied by rural people to townspeople

Both egg and ey derived from the same Proto-Germanic root, *ajją, which apparently had a variant *ajjaz in West Germanic.  This Proto-Germanic form in turn derived from Proto-Indo-European *h2ōwyóm.  In Latin, this root became ōvum, from which the adjective ōvalis meaning “egg-shaped”, was derived.  Ōvum itself was borrowed into English in the biological sense of the larger gamete in animals, while ōvalis is the source of oval.

The PIE root is generally though to derive from the root *h2éwis, “bird”, which is the source of Latin avis “bird”, source of English terms such as aviation.  This word may also be related to *h2ówis “sheep”, which survived in English as ewe.  One theory is that they were both derived from a root meaning something like “to dress”, “to clothe”, with bird meaning “one who is clothed [in feathers]” and sheep meaning “one who clothes [by producing wool]”.

Le festival Sōma-shi 相馬市 - préfecture de  Fukushima-ken 福島県. 

La région de Sōma est réputée pour ses chevaux. Tous les ans, du 22 au 25 juillet, s'y déroule le Sōma nomaoi 相馬野馬追, littéralement : “chasse aux chevaux sauvages de Sōma” autour des sanctuaires Ōta jinja 太田神社 et Odaka jinja 小高神社 à Minamisōma-shi 南相馬市, et du sanctuaire Nakamura jinja  中村神社 à Sōma. Durant 3 jours, les anciens cavaliers samouraïs sont mis à l’honneur lors de différentes démonstrations, parades de samouraïs, courses de chevaux, reconstitutions de batailles et processions.

How viruses infect bacteria: a tale of a tail

To infect bacteria, most bacteriophages employ a ‘tail’ that stabs and pierces the bacterium’s membrane to allow the virus’s genetic material to pass through. The most sophisticated tails consist of a contractile sheath surrounding a tube akin to a stretched coil spring at the nanoscale. When the virus attaches to the bacterial surface, the sheath contracts and drives the tube through it. All this is controlled by a million-atom baseplate structure at the end of the tail. EPFL scientists have now shown, in atomic detail, how the baseplate coordinates the virus’s attachment to a bacterium with the contraction of the tail’s sheath. The breakthrough has made the cover of Nature, and has important implications for science and medicine.

Nicholas M. I. Taylor, Nikolai S. Prokhorov, Ricardo C. Guerrero-Ferreira, Mikhail M. Shneider, Christopher Browning, Kenneth N. Goldie, Henning Stahlberg, Petr G. Leiman. Structure of the T4 baseplate and its function in triggering sheath contraction. Nature, 2016; 533 (7603): 346 DOI: 10.1038/nature17971

Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria. Using state-of-the-art tools, EPFL scientists have described a million-atom “tail” that bacteriophages use to breach bacterial surfaces. The breakthrough has major implications for science and medicine, as bacteriophages are widely used in research.