Ecosystem Supported by Volcano

A continously growing, active undersea volcano, named NW Rota-1, near the island of Guam, seems to be creating unique underwater environmental conditions that are giving rise to a new type of ecosystem. The underwater conditions being created are mainly due to the volcanic gases emitted, such as CO2 and sulfur mixing with seawater. NW Rota-1 has been continiously erupting since scientists first began recording its activity in 2004. This continuous eruption, has led to the buildup of a 40 meter high "cone" that has caused a significant increase in the amount of animals living on the vlocano.

Animals found to thrive in the extremely acidic environment found on the volcano include shrimp, crabs, limpets, and barnacles. There have even been new species of shrimp never before seen, and thought to have evolved on the NW Rota-1 volcano. These animals have evolved a variety of morphological and genetic adaptations in order to withstand and thrive in the harsh chemical environment, which would normally kill any other type or marine organism.

Most of these animals are thriving due to the large amount of food found on the volcano. Bacterial filaments coating the volcanic rocks provide a stable and abundant food source. Favorable environmental conditions for the bacteria to grow are due to the hydrothermal venting of the volcano.

An example of an organism that has evolved in this environment is thought to have diverged from the Lohi Shrimp, which also is found in great amounts on NW Rota -1. The Lohi shrimp have only been found on one other small active underwater volcano near Hawaii, and may have possibly evolved from a different species of shrimp in that area. This type of shrimp utilizes small claws to graze on the bacterial filament found on rocks. A new species of shrimp found on the NW Rota-1, appears similar to the Lohi shrimp during development, but during the adult stage the front claws enlarge and exhibit predator like behavior, mainly attacking the Lohi shrimp. The new species also preys on the continously rising amounts of dead marine organisms found near the volcano.

Ecosystems such as these provide scientists with a large amount of information to study and learn about evolving ecosystems, submarine volcanic activity, as well as organism adaptation to extremely acidic envrionments.

-Julio Rodriguez (group C)

Update:
Most of the information on this newly found ecosystem at the Nw Rota-1 volcano is fairly recent. I could not find any detailed information about the new species of shrimp evolved here, except for observations made. For example, that unlike the Lohi shrimp, this newly formed species also attacks dead organisms near the volcano. As you may imagine, there must be alot of dead organisms near the volcano due to the highly acidic conditions.

There are very few active volcanoes around, and even less known underwater ones. This volcano is the only deep submarine volcano to be closely observed. The amount of organisms living at the site is probably due to the fact that they have no natural competitors. These are organisms that have managed to survive and quickly adapt to this new envrionment. Most of the animals living at the volcano are crustaceans and have some kind of outershell protectant. The shell may have served as a protectant to the acidic conditions. Other marine organism around the area quickly die and are consumed as food. This creates an ideal environment for these animals, until of course, they overpopulate and surpass a certain carrying capacity of the volcano. This means that the limit of space and food available needed to sustain the animals on the volcano is exceeded; resulting in a rapid decline in their population.

If no eruptions take place for a while,(meaning x amount of years) the animals that have become dependant on this type of environment will die off, while others that can adapt again to normal marine conditions will continue to thrive. This though, is highly dependant on how quickly marine conditions can go back to normal.

As far as pertaining to human health, if the shells of the shrimp or other crustaceans living on this volcano contain high amounts of chitin, or a similar compound, then these organisms could be very benefical for humans. Chitin is a very useful organic fiber that has very useful properties. When isolated, it is antifungal, antibacterial, can serve as treatment for burn wounds and can also repel insects.

Igniting a Star with Lasers

Scientists at Lawrence Livermore's National Ignition Facility in Livermore California are using this large cluster of machinery above to potentially create a baby star right in their laboratory. This extremely complex machine uses nearly two hundred individual lasers and a group of amplifiers and filters roughly four hundred feet long in order to create a fusion reaction similar to the one found in the sun, but on a scale much smaller. This reaction would be self-sustaining and provide valuable insight and reasearch regarding fusion as a source of energy.

What 'self-sustaining' means in this case is that the scientists conducting the experiment expect or at least hope that the overall reaction will release more net energy than the lasers put into the into it, providing a potentially revolutionizing source of energy for the world.

The beams initially begin in a different location as infrared light, fairly weak, but then pass through a series of mirrors and amplifiers to grow in strength and provide the energy necessary to collide and create fusion. The beams will then focus on a target, roughly the size of a BB and filled with hydrogen fuel, causing a controlled thermonuclear reaction. The National Ignition Facility plans to conduct this test sometime in 2010, so after this time we may expect to see considerable new options with regard to energy production in the future.

Nicholas Skvir, group C

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2009/05/gallery_nif

The Swine Flu

The A(H1N1) virus better known as swine flu has received huge media attention and many people in the U.S. are taking preventive measures. As of May 4, 11:00AM EST the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 279 confirmed cases, in 36 states, with one death. Mexico, where the outbreak was thought to have started, has 802 confirmed cases with a suspected number of cases of 2,500. Mexico also has the most deaths attributed to swine flu, 25. The spread of the H1N1 virus has struck fear in many, but early research might be reassuring.

Preliminary evidence suggests that the H1N1 virus maybe more mild than originally thought. Wired.com has learned that Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory computer scientists Jonathan Allen and Tom Slezak did not find similarities between swine flu and historical strains that spread widely, with catastrophic effect. These recent findings suggest that more Mexicans are infected than was originally suspected, and thus the mortality rates are actually much lower. Early research also shows that the swine flu seems to infect the upper respiratory tract as opposed to the lower respiratory tract, which reduces the damage it causes. Many scientist believe that the swine flu will not hit us hard in the northern hemisphere because swine flu like any other flu spreads less easily in the summer, and vaccines should be ready by the winter. However, the southern hemisphere should be concerned because they are going into winter right now, and they could be at a great risk.

The CDC gives tips on what you can do to stay healthy. One thing is to stay informed, by checking the CDC’s website and being aware of confirmed cases in your area. Also, to cover your nose and mouth when you cough or sneeze. If you don’t have a tissue when you cough or sneeze you should use your arm or elbow to cover up rather than your hand to lower the chance of spreading it through person to person contact. They also suggest you wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after coughing or sneezing. You should avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth as well. Lastly, if you get sick the CDC recommends that you STAY HOME!!!

UPDATE: As of May 8, 2009 at 11:00 AM ET, which is 4 days after I reported the original statistics, there are now 1639 confirmed cases in the US, in 43 states, with now 2 deaths. The number of confirmed cases are almost 6 times higher. However, I don't believe that the spreading of the virus is increasing, but rather more people are coming forward. This could actually be reassuring because with such a high number of cases and a low mortality rate means that the virus is much milder than what scientist first thought.

Alex Pavidapha (Group C week 12)

Scratch those Itches Goodbye

Have you ever wondered why scratching an itch makes the itch go away? In fact, what is an itch? A new study shows why itching gets rid of scratching. this could actually help people who have severe scratching disorders. Before I let you in on this new discovery, I will explain what an itch is first.

An itch is when the cells in your skin release a chemical called histamine. Sensory neurons respond to the histamine and bring the itch up to the spinal cor where it is relayed to other neurons (in the thalamus). From the thalamus, it travels to the cerebral cortex which interprets the message and sends the sensation to the location. Now onto the interesting information...

A study from the University of Michigan says that when someone scratches, it turns off activity in the spinal cord (interfering the message to the brain). The scientists aren't quite sure as to how this interference works just yet.

Hopefully this can help many people in the future, once more work is done to find how to inhibit the itch from traveling. There are 2.6 million people in the U.S. who have eczema that could be helped with this. There was actually one case where a woman had a disorder and while sleeping scratched right through her skull. Along with humans, this can help your pets too!

Although this is no cure to cancer, this is a big step in the right direction to solving more problems that humans face. Itching may not sound horrible, but it can be, and it can be uncomfortable to a lot of people and cause other illnesses. Think about it, chicken pox or poison ivy with no itching? And how many of you scratched an itch while reading this blog?

Posted by Alyson Paige (C)

Update:

I never explained itches caused by irritants, such as a feather for instance. When a feather touched your skin, it may not irritate you at first. Once it moves it will irritate the skin (the dermis-top layer). This will be picked up by the receptors and will send a signal through the fibers of your skin, to the spinal cord, and to the cerebral cortex. these fibers are the same fibers that also deal with pain. This is why when you scratch, the itch goes away because the pain will take priority and the is the new stimulus. Even is scratching does not remove the feather or whatever is making you itch, the pain will be more prevalent.

The DDT Debate

A panel of scientists from the United States and South Africa are recommending that there should be a reduction in the spraying of DDT in malaria infested Africa and Asia due to the serious risk of health side-effects. They argued that DDT, an insecticide banned throughout the world years ago, should be used only as a last resort in combating Malaria in affected parts of the world. The World Health Organization says that Malaria is a deadly disease that causes approximately 880,000 deaths a year, mostly in children in sub-Sahara Africa.

In many African countries, including India and South Korea, DDT is sprayed inside homes and buildings to help combat the amount of mosquitos with the disease. The use of DDT in this manner has increased since it was endorsed in 2006 by the World Health Organization. The use was also encouraged in 2006 by the President's Malaria Initiative, a U.S. Malaria aid program launched by former President Bush. Now, a panel of scientists and health experts are saying that they cannot allow or encourage the extensive use of DDT when it is known that it poses serious health effects for humans. The article listed side effects in humans as reduced fertility, genital birthdefects, diabetes, and damaged to developing brains. A report by the United Nations Environmental Programme reported that in 2007 at least 3,950 tons of DDT were sprayed for mosquito control in Africa and Asia. It is also estimated that 60 - 80 grams of DDT is sparyed in each household in Africa per year.

The pesticide is known for lingering in the environment for generations after it is sprayed. DDT was used widely in the US since the 1940s to help control pests on crops. It was banned after 1972 , when servere environmental effects were reported as it devestated food chains and nearly wiping out many animal populations. The concern for the pesticide's build up in the homes will affect not only the current population, but future generations to come. Personally, it comes as a surprise to me that DDT is used in such a fasion now. After the effects it had in the US (most of which that came to light in the book, "Silent Spring") it is hard to believe that it is still used, even in human homes.


Posted by Maura Mulvey (Group C)

White Nose Syndrome a National Concern

Thousands of caves in 33 states are closing due to the death of over 500,000 bats. Their death is believed to be due to a fungus causing what is commonly known as white nose syndrome. It appears during hibernation as white powder on the nose and wings. The syndrome somehow affects the bats' hibernation habits and effectively causes starvation. White nose syndrome was first spotted in New York two years ago. How this syndrome spreads is not certain and scientists are not ruling out a human connection, said Dennis Krusac, a Forest Service Biologist of the Southern region.

Scientists are especially concerned that white nose syndrome will extinct endangered species like Ozark big-eared bats (pictured above).

Bats are extremely important for insect control. An individual bat can eat up to 3000 insects (mostly mosquitoes) per night. "The loss of 500,000 bats means 2.4 million pounds of bugs not eaten in a year, said Ms. Ewing, a Forest Service Biologist." Insects like mosquitoes are often carriers of serious diseases and pathogens. A decrease in the number of bats means a drastic increase in the number of insects. An unnaturally high level of mosquitoes may mean more disease and the allowance of these diseases to spread more quickly through a human population.

The federal Forest Service is preparing to shut down human access to caves across 33 states from Maine to Michigan and New York to Virginia. This new order follows a decree by the Fish and Wildlife service in March asking people to voluntarily stay out of caves in 17 states. Violation of the new order banning human access to caves will result in up to 6 months in jail and up to $10,000 in fines.

Soil samples were taken from 200 of the caves for further study that is estimated to be finished in September. The results will help resolve the question of how white nose sydrome is spreading and other key aspects of its nature.

-Jillian O'Keefe (Group C)

Update:

The newly identified fungus is believed to belong to the anamorphic genus Geomyces. Bats affected by white nose syndrome exhibit many strange, uncharacteristic behaviors including:

• flying around in the winter or during the daytime when insects they feed on are not available
• hibernating in or moving to a cold part of their cave (clustering near the entrance)

These behaviors contribute to very low body fat which is essential for hibernation. Sick, dying, and dead bats are being found in and around caves thoughout the Northeast. In some caves in MA, CT, and VT the mortality rate is 90%- 100%. Despite extensive research the cause of the bats' death remains unknown.

Time to Disappear

I'm pretty sure we've all wanted our own invisibility cloak at one point or another. They've appeared in films and book for years and have always been a subject of "what if?" Well in this search for near invisibility a team of scientists at UC Berkeley in conjunction with Cornell have created a material that when laid over an object, the obvious bump that would protrude disappears almost completely, leading to a, visually, invisible object.

As awesome as this sounds, there are quite a few limitations still in existence. First of all the fabric will only reflect light in the infrared spectrum and it DOES leave a bump behind, but luckily it's only about 3nm big and consequently invisible to the human eye. Lastly, a true invisibility cloak would cause the space it occupies to appear empty, while this fabric sort of acts as a 2D mirror, only being able to be laid on top of an object and reflect light instead of completely surrounding it.

Despite some of these drawbacks the team of scientists is confident that further advances, such as the ability to hide in the visual wavelength are right around the corner. The ability to hide 3D objects is not far from possible and as the team said, only a matter of fabrication. As far as the whole, Harry Potter cloak level of invisibility, it seems that will still remain fantasy for now.

-Conor Stenerson

The Science of Cherries

in 1999, it was concluded by the American Chemistry Society that cherries relieve pain better than aspirin and other anti-inflammatory drugs. The Cox-2 inhibiting drugs as well as aspirin reduces inflammation in the same manner as eating about 20 cherries. Anthocanins are molecules in cherries that work to reduce inflammation at a rate of ten times that of aspirin; also, cherries do not have lethal side affects such as gastric bleeding or vitamin depletion that is associated with aspirin.

Not only are cherries good for anti-inflammation and a great pain reliever, but also aid in reducing cholesterol. A diet rich in cherries reduces total cholesterol by 11 percent and contain markers that target abdominal fat linked to heart disease. In November 2008, The American Dietetic Association in Chicago backed the scientific findings on cherries and cherry growers began to site the scientific information on their labels.

The FDA (federal drug administration) sent 29 warning letters to the companies marketing cherries threatening regulatory action if they did not remove the scientific health benefits of cherries from their labels. "The FDA declared cherries to be "drugs" once health claims for a disease were associated with the product." Every food particle on this planet has health benefits as we have to eat to survive!

In recent news, a new aspirin like drug has been released on the market: a cox-2 inhibiting anti-inflammatory drug. The new cox-2 drug was advertised on television and in print without the availability of long-term safety data. It is now known that this anti-inflammatory drug caused thousands of side effects and was associated with the deaths of an estimated 20,000 Americans, mostly due to mortal heart attacks.


Sign the petition today by clicking on www.reformFDA.org. The health of all Americans is at stake.

Rachael Carlevale

Stealing for a Sting

Have you ever wondered how insects like wasps developed toxins that can sting, paralyze, or even kill their hapless victims? Well Annie Bezier of France's Université François Rabelais wondered the same thing. Her research of wasp ovaries led her to find multiple genes that encoded for producing the various polydnavirus that are injected into prey. These polynavirus particles aren't quite virus's, but they are pretty close.

The interesting part about all this is that when Annie Bezier compared the various genes responsible for making these polydnavirus in wasps to all other known virus's. Much to her surprise she found a pretty close match. Over 20 of the genes responsible for encoding these polydnavirus are near identical to a group of virus that prey on insects like moths.

By comparing various known species of wasps, Annies team was able to conclude that about 100 million years ago, the polydnavirus that wasps now use were once infecting them. Horizontal transfer of genes like this is very common in microbes where once germ will pass on a higher fitness gene to another, but is very rarely documented between animals and viruses.

While this knowledge doesn't cure diseases or solve any immediate problems facing man kind, it does however open Pandora’s Box into a more broad view of virus host relationships. Think of how many different chemicals we create with bacteria by inserting genetic material into them that alters the products they produce as bi-products. In what ways can we use viruses to our advantage? It's already possible to insert genes into animals that they are missing via viruses, but what about actually adding a new type of gene into something?

Do you think it is possible to tame virus's to do our bidding like an attack dog? Is it possible to ultimately absorb viral genetic material into our own bodies making us more evolutionarily fit? I hope so, it’s about time I got to use a stinger too.

Update:

So horizontal transfer of genes is commonly seen in bacteria when they sort of "trade" genetic info much like sexual recombination. For example, an E.cola cell could trade the info in its plasmid that codes for antibacterial resistance.
What they think happened between the virus and the wasp is that infected wasps would still reproduce and the virus's would pass on to their children. Much like how bacteria are becoming more resistant to antibiotics the wasps might have become slowly more capable of dealing with the virus but were incapable of actually ridding themselves of it. The article made a comparison to having a robber come in your house then stealing his gun and making him rob other people.

-Nick Cline (B)

Murder Mystery!

After all these years of believing that an asteroid killed our lovely dinosaurs 65 million years ago, new findings have shown that it may not be entirely true. In 1978, when scientists discovered a huge, 112 mile wide crater, called the Chicxulub crater, they figured this was the perfect answer to the mass extinction.

When asteroids strike, they typically leave a layer of iridium behind, which is an element not commonly found on earth. While scientists were examining a site near the crater they noticed that above the iridium layer in the sediments, there was a 30 foot deep section that contained some of the same fossils as below the layer. If the dinosaurs were brutally killed by the impact and after effects of the asteroid then there shouldn't be the same fossils.

Geoscientists then analyzed the fossils they found. They examined 52 species that were below the layer and surprisingly found the same 52 above the layer. It wasn't until they examined the top of the 30 foot sample, dated 300,000 years after the impact, that they found species dying off. Some say that land bridges could attribute to this, allowing animals with different diseases to enter new territories and infect others. Also, the geoscientists agree that the scary prehistoric beasts could have perished from haze in the atmosphere, but they say it is more possible that it was from all the active volcanoes at the time.

In the end, something must have happened to kill off all those species, but these scientists are throwing out the asteroid that created the Chicxulub crater as the main cause.


Update:

When the ash cloud settles it leave behind that iridium layer. So finding fossils above that layer throughout shows that some species have survived that asteroid impact. It is possible that the immediate ones were killed and others moved in but from the old theory, it has been said that the impact killed all dinosaurs. These findings show that they dinosaurs as a whole did not go extinct from this one asteroid.

The idea of the volcanoes was that they spewed so much ash at the time that the atmosphere was too thick for the species to survive. So that volcanoes across the world could have helped the extinction and not just one single asteroid.

As for the scientists working on this, they say that they have many doubts of the asteroid killing all the dinosaurs. I don't think we need to necessarily throw out the whole idea, but definitely throw it as as the only cause of extinction. I think everything together caused the species to drop off. The asteroid definitely had to of killed the surrounding species, volcanoes, and other environmental changes pushed them closer to extinction.

-Katie Cyr [B/11]