Another Step in the Right Direction

A new development in the fight against AIDS has come up and it seems to have a lot of potential. We have already developed antiretroviral (ARV) drugs that can drastically reduce the amount of HIV in the blood, but this never seems to cure the patient. The main reason being that there are small “reservoir” cells in the blood stream that carry the virus and lie dormant for a long time. These hard to detect cells then reactivate and redistribute HIV once drug therapies have worn off.

Scientists have not only found a way to “wake up” these dormant reservoir cells so they can be detected and eliminated, but also prime healthy immune cells to destroy the infected ones. The new GS-9620 drug binds to immune cells through a toll-like receptor 7 (TLR7). This induces cell replication in HIV favoring white blood cells, leading to dormant cells activating and producing more of the virus, but also taking these cell out of hiding.

Experiments have been run on monkeys with similar diseases and drugs. Introduction of ARV drugs drastically dropped HIV levels followed by a sharp rise when the GS-9620 drug was introduced right after. This rise is exactly what researchers were looking for, as it shows that reservoir cells are activating and are now visible to the immune system. After this drug therapy, the monkeys showed drops in HIV levels around the body, although scientists still don’t know for sure how these reservoir cells are being eliminated. This research are being be expanded upon (since small clinical trials on HIV-infected people are starting), sending us a lot closer to finally finding a reliable cure for AIDS.

-Dan Staiculescu (Group C)

Resurrecting A Forgotten Giant

If you were to go for a stroll through the forests of New England around two hundred years ago you would have seen many of the same trees you see today, such as oak trees and maple trees. But there is one tree you would have seen back then that you don’t see much of now and that’s the American chestnut tree. The American chestnut tree was a staple of New England, as they were one of the most prominent hardwood trees found in the area, but this all changed around the 1900’s when a fungus known as chestnut blight appeared and began to decimate the American chestnut population. Chestnut blight most likely originated from Japanese chestnut trees that were brought to the United States around 1876, and within a relatively short amount of time this blight had all but eliminated the mighty American chestnut tree from our forests. But according to an article published in Nature Journal there may be hope for these fallen giants after all. 

The article states that there has been an ongoing effort to cross breed the American chestnut tree with Chinese and Japanese chestnut trees in hopes that they can create a tree that maintains the appearance of an American chestnut tree but that also has the blight resistance of its Chinese and Japanese relatives. The result of this cross breeding is a new crop of what they’re calling the “restoration chestnut” which is a chestnut tree that is 96% American and 6% Chinese chestnut tree, that shows a strong resistance to the blight. For a tree lover like me this is very encouraging news, and who knows maybe two hundred years from now people will be hiking through the forests of new England and instead of seeing a forest filled with oaks and maples maybe they’ll see a forest filled with chestnuts.

David Rains, Group C

The Cola Tree

One day, in the remote village of Meliandou located in southeastern Guinea, a two year old boy was playing around a cola tree known to house a plethora of bats. Many children in the neighborhood would make a game out of hunting and killing these bats for fun. In December of 2013, the two year old boy past away from a mysterious illness. This illness was later identified as Ebola and the young boy was its first victim. He was later referred to by health officials as 'patient zero'.

It has been well over a year since the Ebola out break first made shock waves across the globe. In its path of destruction, the virus has taken the lives of ten of thousands of individuals and still continues its reign of terror today, though Ebola cases are declining. This epidemic however, is far from over. Today, the virus is localized to three main African countries, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone (although there have also been cases in places like Spain, Mali, Nigeria, and the US).                                                                                              

The death of 'patient zero' has caught the attention of many researchers. Before the child's untimely death, he was known to have been playing with bats near a cola tree in his neighborhood. This tree located in a village in Guinea has stumped researchers for months. The looming question? Did the young boy contract the virus from the bats living in this tree? This is a question that may never be answered seeing as how Guinean health officials had the tree burned to the ground in efforts to stop all bush meat consumption. All that was left behind from the ruins were fragments of bat DNA which was enough to at least identify the bat species. Mop condylurus was the species that lived in the cola tree and researchers now hypothesize that this species of bats could help explain how humans contracted the Ebola virus in the first place. As researchers and scientists race to find clues as to how this species of bat relates to the Ebola outbreak, many today continue to fall victim to the disease. May the hunt for answers and for a cure continue.

  

-Posted by Amanda Okpoebo (group C)                                                    

When "Safer" Isn't Safe: Bisphenol-S and Bisphenol-A

Most of us try to be conscious of what foods and drinks we put into our bodies. However, are we always conscious of what we could be ingesting through the plastic in our water bottles? In 2012, the US Food and Drug Administration officially banned the ubiquitous chemical bisphenol-A (BPA), found in many types of plastic, from baby bottles due to being linked with estrogen mimicry, among other concerns such as harming brain and reproductive development in children and fetuses. For many, it was a sigh of relief as many BPA alternatives became available, from BPA-free canned food to water bottles to cash register receipts. However, a 2013 study performed by Cheryl Watson at the University of Texas at Galveston shows that its so-called “safer” replacement, bisphenol-S (BPS) could be just as harmful as its predecessor. Nearly 81-97% of Americans in these studies had significant levels of BPS in their urine. Watson discovered that even concentrations as minimal as one part per trillion can disrupt normal cell functioning and endocrine functions, leading to serious metabolic disorders like obesity and diabetes, as well as asthma, birth defects or even some forms of cancer. 

The structural similarities between BPA and BPS

Concerns about the presence of BPS in water bottles began to arise following this study, yet manufacturers still put “BPA-free” on the labels of their products and neglect to mention that their substitute has not been tested for the same problems BPA has been known to cause. Environmental Health Perspectives published a study in 2011 that stated nearly all of the 455 commercially available plastics leached estrogen-mimicking chemicals. Some independent scientists have attempted to address this claim by performing in vivo testing of these chemicals to prove their toxicity. A study from the University of Calgary studied brain development in zebra fish when dosed with BPS in similar concentrations to those found in a nearby river and found neuronal growth increasing by 170% in BPA-exposed fish and 240% for BPS-exposed fish. Based on the fishes’ erratic behavior and energy levels over time, the researchers concluded that increased neural growth could lead to hyperactivity. Because BPA and BPS are endocrine disruptors, these chemicals generate a U-shaped dose profile, in which very low doses promote activity but higher doses inhibit it. 

The U-shaped dose response profile seen in BPA and BPS toxicology testing

Past toxicity testing typically used a chemical that would have no detrimental effect below a certain dose and most tests were conducted using high doses until an adverse effect was seen. For BPS, however, a second threshold below that where similar or new adverse effects occur has been identified. These effects are associated typically with the endocrine system, which handles long-term processes like brain development, growth and metabolism. BPS has also been proven to block an estrogen receptor in female rats, which lead to the disruption of calcium channels, potentially causing heart arrhythmia in humans.

This knowledge of the dangers of BPS doesn’t seem to be stopping manufacturers from including this chemical in their products, and the majority of the problem lies in a lack of industry regulation. As of right now, there is no federal agency that tests the toxicity of new materials before they are allowed on the market, although continued studies and research is being conducted on the toxicity of BPS. Nevertheless, for the time being, we should all think twice before taking a swig out of a new plastic water bottle.

Posted by: Rebecca Quirie (C)

The Dress

 Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve likely heard of “The Dress”. I’m sure many of you have had heated debates amongst friends about The Dress. If you're like me, than you swore your allegiance to one side of the debate with conviction only to watch The Dress transform before your very eyes. If you have no idea what I am talking about, I suggest you check out the dress that set the Twittersphere ablaze the night of February 26^th. The Dress is black and blue. The great thing about that last line, and the reason for the controversy, is that many of you just thought to yourself “Duh!”, while an equal portion of you thought “um…if by black and blue, you mean white and gold than yeah”. Many raced to social media to voice their opinions including celebrities, senators, even yours truly.
            While a cynic could argue that this is just another sign that social media is ruining society, it also accomplished something pretty cool: It got America, if only for a fleeting moment, interested in science. America needed answers and, as they should, they turned to science. Well okay, Wired Magazine’s version of science. While I would not recommend that any of you cite Wired Magazine in your next scientific paper, the article did contain some real scientific information and was shared over 48,000 times (for the sake of comparison, this week’s most popular article on the web’s most popular science website amassed a paltry 3,000 shares). Consequently, thousands of Americans got a lesson on how we perceive color that they would not have gotten if it were not for The Dress. Pretty cool!
            Nature Magazine, a slightly more credible source, got on board this month and expanded on the reason why The Dress caused you and your roommate to stop talking to each other for a day or two. The perception of color has both objective and subjective components. Sure the true color of a material depends on the physical properties that cause it to absorb some wavelengths of light while reflecting others, but how our individual brains perceive color is largely based on context and personal bias. This fact is the reason that objects of the same color can be perceived asdifferent just by changing their orientation. It is what allows us to make banknotes that expose counterfeiters. It can even trick experienced ecologists into thinking that droughts make the rainforest greener! When it comes to The Dress, it is the blue background ambience of the photograph that causes the mind to be tricked into seeing white and gold. This is nothing new to psychologists, but nothing has ever put the phenomenon on a world stage quite like The Dress.

Posted by John Slepchuk, Group C

Egyptian Folly: The Environmental Impact of the Suez Canal

The issue of invasive species becomes more prevalent as the world economy continues to globalize. From cane toads and rabbits in Australia, the Spanish slug in Europe, to Burmese pythons and snakeheads in the US, invasive species can have a devastating effect on local ecosystems. This is especially acute in the already interconnected system of the world’s oceans. The Mediterranean Sea is particularly susceptible to this problem because of how isolated it is; this isolation breeds specialization, and when a foreign species is introduced it can outcompete the natives, prey on them, or prey on their eggs or young. This disruption of an ecosystem’s food web can have far-reaching consequences at all trophic levels.  

This worries researchers in light of a new plan from the Egyptian government to expand the Suez Canal. They want to widen and deepen the canal to allow for a higher volume of boat traffic to move more quickly, but this would also make it easier for species from the Indian Ocean and Red Sea to make their way to the Mediterranean. Whereas many invasive fish species are deposited from the ballast tanks of ships or simply cling to their bottom, this would enhance a direct route between two separate ocean environments in an area where invasive species are already running rampant. Supporters of the project cite a massive economic growth potential, but the Egyptian government seeming to move forward on these plans very rapidly without any kind of environmental oversight begs the question of whether these economic benefits outweigh the ecological costs.

It seems like the Egyptian government is not doing nearly enough to make sure this plan is environmentally viable and sustainable. The article states that the European Union is closely monitoring the progress, but in reality if Egypt isn’t in the EU they don’t have a whole lot of control over any of it. It brings up the environmental impact assessment done for the Panama Canal and mentions a system of locks or a saltwater barrier system that could prevent some migration but it still seems woefully lacking. Hopefully they’ll take the necessary precautions and this won’t turn into a catalyst for the death of the Mediterranean ecosystem.  

- Ian Mallor , B

The Mysteries of the what Causes Asthma

The cause of asthma can be due to many different factors from environmental, to inheritance, and even antibiotics. The mysteries of asthma all lead to an issue with the immune system because immune cells go into over drive when they sense a trigger and cause inflammation. A study by Gary Huffnagle an immunologist at the University of Michigan has shown the possibility of bacteria being a cause of the disease.  He did an experiment where he exposed mice to yeast in their intestines, mold spores up their noses that moved down the airways and antibiotics. The mice showed signs of asthma and their blood tests revealed a disruption of their immune system.  But with mold and yeast alone the mice showed no affect and were perfectly healthy until they were given antibiotics. Along with these studies, observations suggest that the balance of bacteria and other microbes help guide immune development and when the balance is disrupted diseases may develop. Antibiotics can either kill or inhibit the growth of bacteria but by these studies can also disrupt the balance of bacteria in side us.
 

Inside us we have thousands of species of bacteria, along with fungi and viruses called the microbiome. The presence or absence of the bacteria is not the problem but the shape or structure of the whole community. Researchers have found that children who develop asthma, have different bacteria and sometimes a less diverse mix then those who are healthy. In the article “Breastfeeding, other factors help shape immune system early in life” found in Science Daily, tells about six separate studies were researchers looked at whether the microbiome effected the development of regulatory T-cells. Through this study they identified that asthmatic children had a distinct microbiome during their first year of life. A pediatrician at the University of Copenhagen Hans Bisgaard has found that children with the disease have abundant neutrophils (white blood cells) in their lungs the generally appear when the body is fighting infection.  
 

This findings help reinforce the knowledge that it’s better for children to be exposed to microorganism or bacteria to help stimulate the immune system. This can help them be less susceptible to develop asthma or allergies. This is known as the hygiene hypothesis the idea that a sterile environment can disrupt the development of the immune system. Research is still ongoing to prove that bacteria one of the factors that helps cause asthma. These discoveries help explain the association between bacteria and the increase risk of asthma in childhood. But they are just associations it has not been proven yet.
 

Posted by Jazmin Granadeno (Group B)