Invasion of the bodysnatchers

It is a tough life out there for a bug. Just think about it, you are tiny, numerous, and prey to just about everything. Sure as a species you take up the vast majority of the world's critter population (there are an estimated 8 million species of insects in the world, compared to a little under 5 thousand mammals) but for a single solitary bug, life pretty much sucks. Nature does some pretty terrifying things to bugs, as was emphasized to me today in parasitology lab.

Case in point:
This charmer is the hairworm, found in a class of worms called Gordian worms. So named because they tangle themselves up like the famed Gordian knot from Greek mythology. In the case of the hairworm, this is largely because it has to fit it's whole length inside the digestive tract of a grasshopper. Which is its normal host. As a sidenote, another Gordian worm is called the horsehair worm, because apparently they used to think that the worm was actually strands of horsehair that had fallen into water and come to life.

adorable aint it

In order to become infected with the hairworm, the grasshopper has to drink water that has been contaminated with hairworm eggs. Once the worm has matured inside the grasshopper, it needs to find a way back into the water so that it can mate and continue the worm family line.

Y'know, I was going to put a picture of worms in wedding outfits here, but a search of the internet returned no such image. I am slightly disapointed, so here's a cute picture of dachshunds instead

Now's where the disturbing part comes in. In order to return to the water, the worm has to persuade the grasshopper to submerge itself for long enough for the worm to leave. Now grasshoppers aren't exactly champion swimmers to this is tantamount to suicide on the grasshopper's part. So the worm secretes a neurotransmitter (messenger hormone) into the grasshopper, which makes it's way into the bug's brain and tells it that man, it would really like to go for a nice swim today. This is essentially chemical mind control, with that little worm sitting in the 'hopper's stomach pulling the strings. So the poor zombie grasshopper goes to take a walk on the bottom of a pond and the worm gets to go out into the wide, watery world and find other little bodysnatchers to mate with.
Fortunately for the person who found this worm and associated grasshopper in their dog's water bowl (which was the case presented to us in class), the hairworm does not infect any animal other than insects and is harmless to mammals.

Things that are awesome

The other day in class while I was struggling to keep my eyes open during another lecture on developemental disorders in Pathology, something caught my attention. Mind you, I generally do pay attention in Path, it's one of the most interesting classes we've got this block, plus I think developemental disorders are fascinating, but this is the second time around we've heard about most of these, so it gets a bit old.
Anyway.
So apparently clyclopia, eg. being born with only one eye, can be caused by a mutation in the sonic hedgehog gene...
I'll say it again, the SONIC HEDGEHOG GENE.

so


(As an aside, oh my dear goodness don't ever google image search "cyclopia" unless you want to be treated with images that will fuel your nightmares for years to come...)

Anyway, so this piqued my curiosity so I did a little research to find out what was going on here. It turns out that the Sonic Hedgehog gene is one of a set of other hedgehog genes, the other two being the less exciting Desert Hedgehog and Indian Hedgehog. Apparently the homologous structure in the zebrafish was at one time called the Tiggywinkle Hedgehog gene though, which is also fantastic.
The Hedgehog proteins are so named because in the fruit fly, if you create a mutant with nonfunctioning copies of this gene, the resulting embryo has little spiny projections all over it. Sonic the gene just happened to be discovered right around the same time that the original blue hedgehog debuted to the gaming world and, well, scientists are nerds.
The little Sonic Hedgehog is actually seriously seriously important to proper growth and development of embryos, for everything from spinal cord formation to parts of the brain to limbs. While fruit flies apparently get cool spikes if they knock out this gene, most vertebrates will just get terrible deformities. Sonic is part of the morphologic set of genes that guides the proper patterning of body systems.
So everybody with two functioning eyes and the normal complement of limbs, you can thank Sonic Hedgehog, toiling away in your embryonic cells for you.



Incidently, apparently there is an inhibitor to the Sonic pathway that has been dubbed Robotnikinin.
And that's just awesome.

Odd tics of mine

I apologize to dead things. This occured to me today as I was walking across the parking lot to school and found a dead baby bird lying on the concrete. It was pale and almost completely featherless, just a tiny gray tuft of down on its back. I have no idea where it came from, it was lying in the middle of the parking lot, there wasn't anywhere nearby where it could have fallen from and it certainly hadn't been old enough to move itself. I crouched there for a minute studying it's tiny little body, then I got a stick and moved it the grass on the edge of the lot. And I apologized. I don't know why I apologize to dead things. I'm not particularly convinced of any sort of afterlife or the persistence of conciousness after death, though I'd like to. I guess it's my way of acknowledging the life it didn't get to lead.

Also, I hug books. Only good books mind you. When I finish a book I enjoyed I hug the book before I put it away. I'ts my closure, because I'm bad at ending things.

Things that can kill you, pt. 1

Lets talk about babies, shall we?

Specifically a couple of fascinating (to me anyway, and since I'm the only one currently reading this blog I may as well amuse myself) tidbits found in my immunology notes regarding immune response to babies.

Now your immune system is kind of a scary thing to begin with. Imagine if you will a small army of well trained, endlessly paranoid, constantly vigilant militia groups hanging around in your body just waiting for somebody to look at them funny. This is essentially what your immune system is, and they're not exactly the brightest bunch either. It's difficult not to anthropomorphize one's immune system when the vast majority of immunology lectures would work almost perfectly as a zombie metaphor. But that's a post for another day.

Now when you (or somebody else) gets pregnant, the body has to do something to keep that paranoid little militia from going into attack mode against what is essentially a parasite hanging out in your womb for however many months. So your immune system gets put into lockdown for a while. Fun fact, around 70% of mothers with rheumatoid arthritis (which is an autoimmune disease attacking their joints) have lessened symptoms while they're pregnant. So if you're suffering from certain autoimmune diseases, get pregnant a lot I guess.



Well that's the first interesting thing, now for one of those things that makes you amazed you managed to survive. Neonatal Isoerythrolysis, which is a nicely clinical way of saying that your immune system is killing your baby after they've already been born. The way it works is that when a baby is newborn, they have essentially no functional immune system. It usually takes a little while to catch up with the whole birth thing. While the little militia is pulling its boots on, the mother provides the baby's first immune protection in the form of antibody-laden milk called colostrum. Colostrum is only secreted for the first day or so and provides a sort of basic protection for the baby while it's own system is coming on line. Cool huh? Well here's where it gets scary. In that disease that I mentioned at the top of the paragraph and don't feel like typing out again, the mother's immune system somehow gets ahold of baby red blood cells (usually following multiple childbirths) and goes into full on attack mode. Now while the baby's in utero this won't matter because that immune system can't get to it. However, once the thing's borne, that passive immunity in the colostrum gets into the baby, thinks "OH GOD WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!" and immediately sets to destroying red blood cells.
Isn't that just horrifying? It's usually not fatal since the colostrum immunity doesn't last too long, but the idea of getting finally out into the world and then having your mother's milk killing your blood
is enough to make anybody a little queasy.
Seriously, it's amazing anybody manages to survive to adulthood.

aww

a blogspot post about a blogspot blog, how very meta

I really like pinup art. Particularly girly pinup art, I usually like guy pinup art too, but honestly there's not nearly as much of that and it usually depicts men who aren't really the type I go for. I guess it's an artist thing in that I appreciate the depiction of beauty.
One thing I find particularly interesting is that pinups are often an area in art where the personal interests of the artist really come through. You can look through a guy's (or a girl's of course) pinup art and get a pretty good immediate guess of what they find beautiful in women. I love any medium where the artwork provides insight into the mind of the artist.
All this is why I found this blog fascinating.

babelab.blogspot.com

The author analyzes the art of various pinup artists and picks out what they focus on, what works in their art particularly well. He also interviews artists, which is cool though for some reason I can't stand reading interviews, it just bores me instantly. In any case the analyses of pinup art is fascinating and in older posts he presents common pinup poses and how they work to highlight various aspects of the body.
Stuff like this
is particularly neat.