Who Would've Thought? 

Ms. Holly Aaron, Dr. Karen Dehnert, Dr. Scott Laughlin, and Dr. Carolyn Bertozzi

University of California, Berkeley, California, USA Specimen: Fucosylated glycans in a zebrafish embryo. Technique: Confocal microscopy

Nothing spices up your love life like the scientific method!

Kim Weaver (b. 1964) is an astrophysics professor and astronomer. She is an expert in x-ray astronomy and has worked for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

She obtained her PhD in astronomy in 1993 from the University of Maryland. After that, she was a research scientist at Penn State and John Hopkins University. Her honours include the Presidential Early Career Award and the NASA Peer Award.

The central nervous system (CNS) in most vertebrates forms initially as a flat sheet of cells, which subsequently rolls up and fuses shut to form the hollow neural tube, which is the precursor to the CNS. The enriched apical actin in the closing neural tube (shown in green in the image) is central to cell shape changes that contribute to the rolling up process.

Image: Color micrograph showing a cross-sectional (transverse) view of the closing neural tube in a Xenopus embryo. Actin is shown in green.

Amazing Annual Monarch Butterfly Migrations

Monarch butterflies in other countries also migrate with the season, but it’s those in North America that travel the greatest distance. Each year, there are two major Monarch Butterfly migrations in North America. Those monarchs that live east of the Rocky Mountains fly down to Mexico, while the more western population stops in California. Monarchs do not like the cold, and as soon as things start to get a little chilly up north, they take off south (and west) for warmer climates.

The largest group travels over 1,250 miles from the Rocky Mountains to spend the winter in Michoacán, Mexico. The government of Mexico has managed to almost stamp out logging in the monarch’s wintering areas, a practice which once threatened the migrating insects. Working with environmental organizations and individuals, they have been encouraging communities to start eco-tourism enterprises by planting trees for the butterflies to nest. The monarch is a butterfly ruled by the sun. When the autumn sun reaches fifty two degrees above the horizon, the monarch reproduction cycle shuts down, and their great migration begins. When they begin their flight down to Mexico, they have never been there, yet every generation is able to find the exact same spot year after year where their previous ancestors spent the winter.

The second group travels from Ontario, Canado to spend their winters in Santa Cruz, California. You may wonder why the monarchs don’t simply stay and enjoy the warmer weather there year round. That’s because they need the milkweed plants on which their larvae feed, and those are more plentiful up north. So as soon as the weather starts to warm up, that’s where they return every year. Interestingly, not every generation of monarchs migrate. Some simply remain in their breeding ground. Those that do migrate are born at the end of summer or early autumn. Because of their trip to warmer climes, this special generation will outlive several younger generations that stay put. It will then be the migratory monarchs’ great grandchildren that follow the beat of their forebears’ wings.

in Ontario, Canada, in their summer home. It’s thought that the distinctive bright coloring of the monarchs acts as a warning to predators to stay away. Monarch butterflies are also poisonous and will make any animal that tries to eat them sick – hopefully sick enough not to try snacking on them a second time! The poison comes from the milkweed that they eat while they are caterpillars. This doesn’t always work, however. Certain bird species, for example, have learned that some parts of the butterflies are not as toxic, while other predators are resistant or immune to the poison altogether.

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Menstruation products* but yeah real safety would be making them free as they should be 🙃

This bad little boy is super rare to find!!!  This is a mitotically active cell present in peripheral blood circulation from a dog - only the second one I have ever seen!!

As a game, in the diagnostic lab we yell KABLAM! anytime we see a mitotic figure.  The first one to say kablam wins :-P  We should so turn it into a drinking game…

Hitchhiking bacteria might help their host navigate via magnetic fields

Deep in the mud of the Mediterranean Sea, scientists have caught microscopic protists dancing to a strange beat—the beat of Earth’s magnetic fields. Now, a new study reveals how these tiny clusters of cells orient themselves along those fields: by letting magneto-sensing bacteria hitch a ride on their outer membranes.

Researchers used microscopes to examine protist-packed sediment taken from the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea near Carry-le-Rouet, France. When they placed a magnet with its north pole facing a water droplet from the sediment, the hundreds of protists inside immediately began to swim toward the droplet’s edge. When the researchers reversed the magnet so its south pole was facing the droplet, the protists fled in the other direction (above).

Cutaneous mass on the right flank of a 2 year-old, female-spayed, black Labrador Retriever.  The owner noticed the mass approximately a week earlier, and it has been growing in size every day.  On palpation, the lesion was quite painful.  The dog also had a fever, at 103.5°F.

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Fine needle aspiration revealed copious inflammatory cells.  Mainly neutrophils, with lesser numbers of macrophages.  Notice how some of the neutrophils appear ragged, some borderlining on unidentifiable?  Such changes are consistent with a degenerative change, which usually occurs in the presence of a bacterial agent.  And speaking of bacteria, there are TONS.  A mixed collection of cocci and filamentous rods (red arrow).  The presence of filamentous rods is often associated with plant foreign material (like a ‘grass awn’ or ‘cheat grass’).

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Diagnosis: Marked, septic, suppurative inflammation with necrosis.  Basically an abscess.  A key piece of history…the patient is a hunting dog and partook in some field trials a few days before the mass developed.  The patient is slated to have the mass surgically explored in hopes of finding planet debris.