A new Columbia University study reveals why.
While doctors, nutritionists and researchers have known for a long time that saturated fats contribute to some of the leading causes of death in the United States, they haven’t been able to determine how or why excess saturated fats, such as those released from lard, are toxic to cells and cause a wide variety of lipid-related diseases, while unsaturated fats, such as those from fish and olive oil, can be protective.
To find answers, Columbia researchers developed a new microscopy technique that allows for the direct tracking of fatty acids after they’ve been absorbed into living cells. The technique involves replacing hydrogen atoms on fatty acids with their isotope, deuterium, without changing their physicochemical properties and behavior like traditional strategies do. By making the switch, all molecules made from fatty acids can be observed inside living cells by an advanced imaging technique called stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) microscopy.
What the researchers found using this technique could have significant impact on both the understanding and treatment of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Published online December 1st in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the team reports that the cellular process of building the cell membrane from saturated fatty acids results in patches of hardened membrane in which molecules are “frozen.” Under healthy conditions, this membrane should be flexible and the molecules fluidic.
“The behavior of saturated fatty acids once they’ve entered cells contributes to major and often deadly diseases,” Min said. “Visualizing how fatty acids are contributing to lipid metabolic disease gives us the direct physical information we need to begin looking for effective ways to treat them. Perhaps, for example, we can find a way to block the toxic lipid accumulation. We’re excited. This finding has the potential to really impact public health, especially for lipid related diseases.”
Yihui Shen et al, Metabolic activity induces membrane phase separation in endoplasmic reticulum, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2017). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1712555114
Egyptian archaeologists in Luxor have stumbled upon a decorative Coptic tombstone buried on the eastern side of the Sphinxes Avenue, under Al-Mathan Bridge.
The tombstone is carved of limestone and decorated with a cross and Coptic texts, Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, told Ahram Online.
The exact date of the object has not yet been ascertained, nor the identity of the deceased. However, Mostafa Al-Saghir, director of the Sphinxes Avenue, said experts are now studying the tombstone find out.
The excavations in the Sphinxes Avenue are part of a Ministry of Antiquities programme to restore the area and transform it into an open-air museum. Read more.
A Campbell River family is growing increasingly desperate to find a teen who has been missing for almost a month.
Jordan Holling hasn’t been seen since the early morning of Oct. 16, when he left a friend’s house on 16th Avenue in Campbell River to walk the few blocks home. He never arrived at his mother’s house on 17th Avenue and failed to show up for work later that day.
Continue Reading.
Chemistry and Corpses: The Science of Bog Studies
How 100 Years of Dog Breeding Changed These Popular Breeds.
Archaeologists rediscovered a giant geoglyph of a killer whale, etched into a desert hillside in the remote Palpa region of southern Peru, after it had been lost to science for more than 50 years.
The 230-foot-long (70 meters) figure of an orca — considered a powerful, semimythical creature in ancient Peruvian lore — may be more than 2,000 years old, according to the researchers.
They said it may be one the oldest geoglyphs in the Palpa region, and older than those in the nearby Nazca region, which is famous for its vast collection of ancient ground markings — the Nazca Lines — that include animal figures, straight lines and geometrical shapes.
Archaeologist Johny Isla, the head of Peru’s Ministry of Culture in Ica province, which includes the Palpa and Nazca valleys, explained that he saw a single photograph of the orca pattern for the first time about four years ago. He’d seen it while researching studies of geoglyphs at the German Archaeological Institute in Bonn. Read more.
Mallorca Nature Timelapse 1 by Marcos Molina
Jimmy Kimmel sends a message to the Anti-Vaccine movement.
He invited some real medical professionals to address the issue of the anti-vaccine movement, watch the full clip here.
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