Category Archives: Science

Symbiotic relationship between ants and bacteria

Study reveals classic symbiotic relationship between ants, bacteria

Ants that tend and harvest gardens of fungus have a secret weapon against the parasites that invade their crops: antibiotic-producing bacteria that the insects harbor on their bodies.

“Every ant species [that we have examined] has different, highly modified structures to support different types of bacteria,” says Currie. “This indicates the ants have rapidly adapted to maintain the bacteria. It also indicates that the co-evolution between the bacteria and the ants, as well as the fungus and parasites, has been occurring since very early on, apparently for tens of millions of years.”

Furthermore, Currie says, the fact that the species have coexisted for so long means there might be a mechanism in place to decrease the rate of antibiotic resistance – which could help address a significant problem facing modern medicine. “We can learn a lot about our own use of antibiotics from this system,” he says.

Read more about the overuse of antibiotics

DNA Offers New Insight Concerning Cat Evolution

DNA Offers New Insight Concerning Cat Evolution, Nicholas Wade, New York Times:

Before DNA, taxonomists had considerable difficulty in classifying the cat family. The fossil record was sparse and many of the skulls lacked distinctiveness. One scheme divided the family into Big Cats and Little Cats. Then, in 1997, Dr. Johnson and Dr. O’Brien said they thought most living cats fell into one of eight lineages, based on the genetic element known as mitochondrial DNA.

Having made further DNA analyses, the researchers have drawn a full family tree that assigns every cat species to one of the lineages. They have also integrated their tree, which is based solely on changes in DNA, with the fossil record. The fossils, which are securely dated, allow dates to be assigned to each fork in the genetic family tree.
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The leopard lineage appeared around 6.5 million years ago in Asia. The youngest of the eight lineages, which led eventually to the domestic cat, emerged some 6.2 million years ago in Asia and Africa, either from ancestors that had never left Asia or more probably from North American cats that had trekked back across the Bering land bridge.

Photos from Curious Cat Travel Photos – Kenya

China’s Economic Science Experiment

The Great Chinese Experiment, Horace Freeland Judson, MIT Technology Review. China is betting its economic health on becoming a world leader in the sciences. But will it succeed? This long detailed article provides insight into the challenges, practices and potential for China’s economy and scientific innovation going forward.

“The major scientific program running right now in China is this one, called 97-3 Program,” Professor Cao said. “A major huge program to catch up with the scientific development of the whole world. Started in 1997, March. This program is for basic research. According to the needs of the nation.” Technological applications? Or basic science? “Both,” she said with a sharp nod. The goal is split in two? “Yes,” she said. “I think that the major scientific program is the whole-world program. Not just for China. The second is the urgent requirement for our country’s social and economic development.”

The 97-3 Program concentrates research in six areas, agricultural biotechnology, energy, informatics, natural resources and the environment, population and health, and materials science. Cao’s own concern is with population and health. In this area the research is divided into 20 fields. She took me through them with the aid of a 33-page position paper she had put together in anticipation of my visit. The list is diverse, the projects ambitious. Yet even the most basic research — in stem cells, for example — has been defined in terms of immediate applications.

Information on the China 973 basic research program from the Chinese government’s web site:

Stipulation and implementation of the 973 Program is an important decision of our country to carry out the two development strategies of ” Rejuvenating the country through science and technology ” and ” sustainable development”, as well as to further reinforce basic research and science and technology work. It is an important measure of our country to achieve the great objectives of China’s economic, scientific & technology, and social development by 2010-2050 , to upgrade the sustainable S & T innovative capabilities and to meet the challenges of the new century.

While the engineering credentials of China’s leadership is noted often, it is still interesting to note that China’s 9 senior government officials are all engineers. A Technocrat Riding a Wild Tiger:

When China’s leaders meet with Hu each week in Beijing’s government district, Zhongnanhai, they could spend hours discussing cables, switches, tool-making machines and control devices. That’s because every one of them has a degree in engineering. The president himself, the son of a tea merchant from Jiangsu Province, trained to build hydroelectric power stations, while the others hold degrees in electrical engineering, metallurgy and geology.

Overuse of Antibiotics

Stomach Bug Mutates Into Medical Mystery – Antibiotics, Heartburn Drugs Suspected

Shultz is one of a growing number of young, otherwise healthy Americans who are being stricken by the bacterial infection known as Clostridium difficile — or C. diff — which appears to be spreading rapidly around the country and causing unusually severe, sometimes fatal illness.
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“It’s a new phenomenon. It’s just emerging,” said L. Clifford McDonald of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. “We’re very concerned. We know it’s happening, but we’re really not sure why it’s happening or where this is going.”

It may, however, be the latest example of a common, relatively benign bug that has mutated because of the overuse of antibiotics.

Articles on the overuse of anti-biotics are available via the Curious Cat directory. From the US Center for Disease Control – Antibiotic / Antimicrobial Resistance section:

Antibiotic use promotes development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Antibiotic resistance occurs when bacteria change in some way that reduces or eliminates the effectiveness of drugs, chemicals, or other agents designed to cure or prevent infections. The bacteria survive and continue to multiply causing more harm. Widespread use of antibiotics promotes the spread of antibiotic resistance. While antibiotics should be used to treat bacterial infections, they are not effective against viral infections like the common cold, most sore throats, and the flu.

Unfortunately the continued overuse of antibiotics is increasing the danger of deadly antibiotic resistant bacteria. This problem is a significant challenge not only due to the scope of the consequences (which are huge) but due to the nature of the problem. Many thousands, hundreds of thousands maybe even millions of poor use of antibiotics incrementally put everyone at risks. But each of those individual steps of poor use of antibiotics is by itself not likely to be deadly.

Due to the way we tend to think about problems (searching for one simple cause or thing to blame and fixing that one thing), the cause of antibiotic resistance provides an opportunity for the millions of bad actions to go unchecked. Only after catastrophic consequences are recognized, and put in the proper context, are we likely to give this issue the attention it deserves. Thankfully CDC and others are trying to get us to take this issues seriously now. However, the risks are huge and each person (doctors, patients, consumers [use of antibiotics on animals used as food is a huge part of the problem], government regulators…) taking small actions that make the situation worse often don’t see any need to take more responsibility.

National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship

The deadline for applying for the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship is January 6, 2006. Some details:

The US Department of Defense will pay the fellow’s full tuition and required fees (not to include room and board). In addition, fellows receive (if in school 12 months):

Period	First Year	Second Year	Third Year
Amount	$30,500	$31,000	$31,500

The above amounts are based on a 12-month academic year. If the fellow is not enrolled in an institutionally approved academic study and/or research activity during the summer months, financial support will be paid only while enrolled.

From 2003 to 2005, 466 awards were granted out of 8,679 applications – see more details.

“You are required to enroll in a full-time graduate program at a U.S. institution offering doctoral degrees in your discipline of study. Fellowships are awarded to applicants who intend to pursue a doctoral degree. You do not have to be accepted into a program at the time your application is submitted. However, should you be selected, the award is contingent upon your admission to a suitable program.”

“NDSEG Fellowships are intended for students at or near the beginning of their graduate studies in science or engineering. Applicants must have received or be on track to receive their bachelor’s degrees by Fall 2006. Fellows selected in Spring 2006 must begin their fellowship tenure in Fall 2006.”

To apply and for more details see the NDSEG web site.

Awards provided to applicants who will pursue a doctoral degree in, or closely related to, an area of DoD interest within one of the following disciplines:

* Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering
* Biosciences
* Chemical Engineering
* Chemistry
* Civil Engineering
* Cognitive, Neural, and Behavioral Sciences
* Computer and Computational Sciences
* Electrical Engineering
* Geosciences
* Materials Science and Engineering
* Mathematics
* Mechanical Engineering
* Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
* Oceanography
* Physics

Gene Linked to Fish and Human Pigmentation

A Fish of a Different Color:

Until now, the genetics underlying human skin pigmentation have remained a mystery. But while studying the zebrafish–a fish common to household aquariums and research laboratories–a team of interdisciplinary scientists found a gene that plays a major role in human coloration.

Besides unraveling some of the mysteries of human variation, the research, which is featured on the cover of the Dec. 16 issue of Science, has implications for understanding a host of human diseases including cancer, diabetes and rickets.

Superconductivity and Superfluidity

Ultracold test produces long-sought quantum mix – Unbalanced superfluid could be akin to exotic matter found in quark star, Rice University:

In the bizarre and rule-bound world of quantum physics, every tiny spec of matter has something called “spin” — an intrinsic trait like eye color — that cannot be changed and which dictates, very specifically, what other bits of matter the spec can share quantum space with. When fermions, the most antisocial type of quantum particle, do get together, they pair up in a wondrous dance that enables such things as superconductivity.
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In the Rice experiment, when temperatures drop to within a few billionths of a degree of absolute zero, fermions with equal but opposite spin become attracted to one another and behave, in some respects, like one particle. Like a couple on the dance floor, they don’t technically share space, but they move in unison. In superconductors, these dancing pairs allow electrical current to flow through the material without any resistance at all, a property that engineers have long dreamed of harnessing to eliminate “leakage” in power cables, something that costs billions of dollars per year in the U.S. alone.

Science Careers

ScienceCareers.org web site from AAAS, Science Magazine.

includes an average of over 1,000 job postings which are updated daily, career advice articles written by the editors of Next Wave, graduate program information, meetings & event information, funding opportunities on GrantsNet, and a Career Forum where scientists can get free advice about career-related issues from veteran advisors… All for free.

An article providing an overview of the site: ScienceCareers.org: Your Science Career, in a Nutshell

And it doesn’t matter whether you’re a life scientist, a clinical scientist, a physical scientist, or a computer scientist: We’ll continue to meet your scientific career needs, with an archive of nearly 4000 articles on scientific careers and new content every week.

Self Aware Robot

Robot Demonstrates Self Awareness by Tracy Staedter, Discovery News (they broke the the link so I removed it):

Some interesting news from Junichi Takeno and a team of researchers at Meiji University in Japan as the year nears completion:

A new robot can recognize the difference between a mirror image of itself and another robot that looks just like it.

This so-called mirror image cognition is based on artificial nerve cell groups built into the robot’s computer brain that give it the ability to recognize itself and acknowledge others.

SMART Fellowships/Scholarships

The Science, Mathematics and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship application opened yesterday (the application closes February 17, 2006.

More details available online

Financial Assistance
Subject to the availability of funds, scholarships awarded will pay: salary or stipend, full tuition, required fees, up to $1000 book allowance per year, room and board and other normal educational expenses for the institution involved. The annual salary will be in the range of $20,000 to $40,000 depending upon student’s academic status. Students are required to spend their summer as an intern with a Department of Defense (DoD) Agency.

Employment Obligation
Upon selection, students must sign a DoD civilian service agreement. The employment obligation to the DoD civilian workforce upon completion of the scholarship/fellowship will be a one-for-one commitment. Failure to complete the required period of service will require the reimbursement of funds expended by the Government for the individual’s education under this program.

SMART scholarships and fellowships are awarded to applicants who are pursuing a degree in, or closely related to, one of the following SME disciplines:

* Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering
* Biosciences
* Chemical Engineering
* Chemistry
* Civil Engineering
* Cognitive, Neural, and Behavioral Sciences, Psychology
* Computer and Computational Sciences
* Electrical Engineering
* Geosciences
* Materials Science and Engineering
* Mathematics, Operations Research
* Mechanical Engineering
* Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
* Oceanography
* Physics, Physical Sciences