Lab Notes

How do you imagine the tallest tree in the world? Well, you don’t need to imagine anymore. In a recent study published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, researchers described the new tallest tropical tree in the world. Using a drone and laser measurements, they also constructed a three-dimensional model of the tree to determine what factors could be its tree height.  

The tree, a member of the species Shorea faguetiana (from the Dipterocarpaceae family), has been named “Menara”, after the word “tower” in Malay. It is located in Danum Valley Conservation Area in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. Menara’s height was measured at 100.8 m (330.7 feet), making it officially the world’s tallest tropical tree and angiosperm (flowering plant). In comparison, the tallest gymnosperm is a redwood sequoia in California called Hyperion, with a height of 115.7 m (379.6 feet).

One thing that gave Menara an advantage as it was growing is that it is partially sheltered by a ridge, which is fundamental for wind protection – one of the main factors that constrains maximum tree heights. Other factors that could be important in determining tree heights, the researchers note, are related to water and nutrient transport. Water is pulled up from the top of the tree during transpiration, and carbohydrates are pumped up from the bottom. One hundred meters is quite a far way for these substances to travel!

The Menara discovery was likely only the beginning. Researchers already think that other taller trees might be waiting to be found, especially in Borneo. The discovery of this iconic angiosperm represents what the scientific and conservation fields need the most today: more exploration and conservation efforts, in order to protect those beautifully huge trees in tropical forests. In a promising development, the government of Sabah has committed to increase the extent of protected forests to 30% of the state’s land area by 2025. 

For decades, dermatologists have instructed people enjoying the bright summer sun to use sunscreen. They also advise reapplying sunscreen, wearing sunscreen on cloudy days, and even using sunscreen daily year-round. It’s true - and important to reiterate - that protection from the sun’s damaging UV rays can prevent sunburns, skin cancers, and signs of aging. However, according to a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), sunscreens may also have some unwanted effects. 

Upturning long held beliefs, the preliminary study found the active ingredients in common sunscreens are absorbed into the blood. Since sunscreens are intended for external use, researchers haven’t yet evaluated the safety  of many components after internalization. This is alarming because scientists have already raised concerns about the toxicity of common sunscreen ingredients, like oxybenzone and octinoxate. Importantly, the JAMA paper only stated the need for more study and did not make conclusions about the safety of sunscreen.

Oxybenzone and octinoxate mimic the hormone estrogen. In the body, these look-alike molecules disrupt normal hormone function which affects the reproductive system and can be carcinogenic. Furthermore, these chemicals are linked to declining coral reefs and other marine life.  Evidence that sunscreens are harmful to marine ecosystems was strong enough that Hawaii banned sunscreens containing these ingredients last year. Since the FDA still approves them, it might be worth looking more closely at the ingredients of your sunscreen and how you use it. The benefits of using sunscreen may still outweigh the risks, but it is good to be an informed consumer. 

Put down the Morton’s salt! Researchers think they’ve figured out where bonobos are getting their iodine from, and it might help us understand how we evolved our big brains.

Bonobos (sometimes called pygmy chimpanzees) are some of our closest living relatives. They’re the taxonomic sister-group to chimps and are famous for their “make love, not war” lifestyle. They’re also endemic to the central Congo Basin, a region the WHO classifies as having few natural sources of iodine.

Iodine is really important for thyroid function in adults and for fetal and infant brain development. And while we don’t know what bonobos’ iodine requirements are, we know that humans are very sensitive to iodine deficiency - so our closest living relatives and our ancestors might also have been.

But the bonobos in the LuiKotale forest in Salonga National Park, DRC, don’t seem affected by iodine deficiency in the way that some of the people in the area were (prior to iodine supplementation). And it might be because they eat aquatic herbs that are rich in iodine about once every two weeks. 

So what does that mean for the evolution of our big brains? The researchers who observed this behavior suggest that adequate iodine consumption was a prerequisite for human cognitive development and that iodine sources were likely to have been plentiful in the coastal areas and wetlands these hominins frequented. Finding these iodine sources further inland, in the Congo Basin, means that hominins weren’t necessarily restricted  to coastal environments, and that aquatic herbs (along with animal  protein) might’ve been really important in the evolution of our brains.  

(Ed: Yes, those are chimps in the picture, not bonobos. There aren’t many free stock images of bonobos that weren’t taken in zoos available. If you’d like to email us to talk about it, hello@massivesci.com, thanks.)

A team of researchers from Duke University has just identified a group of specialized brain cells that are needed for mice to serenade a potential suitor. While neuroscientists had previously shown that a brain region called the midbrain periaqueductal gray (PAG) was important for vocal production, narrowing in on the specific neurons involved had previously proven difficult, given that this a region of the brain is also responsible for many other behaviors. 

In the recent study led by postdoctoral fellow Katherine Tschida, the researchers took advantage of a recently-developed genetic approach to label or “tag” the neurons activated when male mice were belting out their love songs. This tag then helped them see how those neurons were connected to other regions in the brain thought to be involved in coordinating breathing and movements of the voice.

Then, to establish that this group of neurons was linked to mouse love songs, the researchers inactivated them and found that this rendered the male mice unable to sing. Conversely, by purposely activating these neurons, Tschida and her colleagues could get the male mice to sing even when female mice were not around. The scientists were also able to show that these love songs seemed to be a good strategy for holding a female mouse’s interest: on average, female mice spent more time with male mice who sang more.

The accompanying videos (credit: Duke University) of these singing mice are adorable. But, cuteness aside, advances in genetic techniques to target groups of neurons for specific labeling, inactivation, and activation are allowing neuroscientists to pinpoint the networks of cells involved in complex behaviors, mapping out the circuits of electric activity in the brain.  

Last month, Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) and Congresswoman Jenniffer González-Colón (R-PR) introduced H.R. 3196, the “Vera Rubin Survey Telescope Designation Act” in the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. H.R. 3196 would rename the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) on Cerro Pachon in Chile to the Vera Rubin Survey Telescope.

Rubin was one of Massive’s first Science Heroes. According to Kepler’s laws, bodies that orbit close to massive objects move faster than those that are further away. So, Mercury orbits the Sun  at a higher speed than Jupiter. But when Rubin measured the speed of stars orbiting at the edges of galaxies, she saw that they were moving just as fast as stars near the center. But if we add up all the mass that we can see in a galaxy, it’s not enough to explain the high speeds. She surmised that there must be mass we cannot see - dark matter - driving this motion.

In the 40 years since Rubin’s discovery, astronomers and physicists have come up with many clever ways to try to understand dark matter, but we’re still no closer to knowing what it is. The LSST will use a more traditional approach. It’s 8.4-meter (27.6-foot) mirror can take images of the entire night sky. Over a 10-year period, the telescope will map galaxies across both time and space, measure their masses, and uncover how the extra mass from dark matter bends space. 

Rubin’s perseverance and dedication to scientific pursuit revealed one of the cosmos’ greatest mysteries. She deserves to have this telescope named for her, especially since she passed before she could be awarded a Nobel Prize.  

(Banner image by Daniela Sherer)

An astounding 80% of childhood cancer patients survive into adulthood, but nearly one half of boys who survive childhood cancer grow into men with either infertility or reduced fertility. This is because chemotherapy and radiation treatments often damage the cells which will eventually be responsible for producing sperm.

For these young boys, hope for assuring their future fertility lies in preservation of their testicular tissues before treatment. This preservation is common, but no clinical techniques for actually restoring fertility with these tissues have been developed – but now, University of Pittsburgh fertility researchers are seeking to validate one such technique for clinical use. Their paper describing the experiment was published earlier this year in Science.

Previously, success had been seen in grafting pre-pubertal testicular tissue from one species of mammal into that of another, which ended up producing both functional sperm and live offspring. Additionally, earlier work in nonhuman primates saw successful sperm production after immature testicular tissues were grafted back onto the individual from which they originated, an approach referred to as autologous grafting. 

The Pittsburgh researchers bridged the gap between these two approaches by performing autologous grafting of immature testicular tissue in rhesus macaques, producing viable sperm as well as restoring testosterone production. Using assisted reproductive technology, the sperm was then used to produce the first primate offspring from a father with autologously grafted testes. She was named “Grady”, for graft-derived baby.

Grady’s birth story is one which will give hope to thousands of cancer survivors and likely many more to come. This accomplishment has made autologous grafting seem like a real possibility as a clinical therapy to return fertility to men who underwent cancer treatment as children in the near future. 

Imagine that on the first day of a class, the instructor says, ‘Only  smart people will do well in this course.’ Cue the imposter syndrome as you begin to wonder if you are smart enough to be in the course.

Unknowingly, the instructor has communicated their own fixed mindset belief about the students. The belief is that intelligence is a fixed quantity as opposed to growth mindset, where intelligence is thought to be changeable. Previous studies have found that instructor expectations for students can affect their performance, but what about the instructor’s beliefs about their students’ intelligences?

To answer this question, researchers from Indiana University looked at grades from over 600 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses, representing over 15,000 students. To understand whether the instructor had fixed or growth mindset beliefs, the researchers posed two questions to the instructors that tested how much they agreed with the idea that intelligence is not something that can be changed.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the researchers found that students in the fixed mindset instructors’ courses earned lower grades than students in the growth mindset instructors’ courses. The effect was even more pronounced for students who identified as Black, Latino, and/or Native American. This likely is yet another contributor to the race gap in STEM (and college completion in general).

To ensure a more equitable classroom, instructors must be aware of their beliefs and how they may promote or hinder student achievement. 

“A new cancer drug reduces incidence of the disease by 50%.” Sounds great, right? But a closer look reveals that the drug reduced cancer from just 2 people in 1,000 to 1. Fifty percent, sure, but nothing to call home about.

This is the distinction between relative risk and absolute risk that a new Twitter account is drawing attention to. Much like its viral counterpart, @justsaysinmice, RelativelyRisky points out the fine print in scientific studies beyond the attention-grabbing headlines that the research sometimes inspires. Relative risk is a comparison — how much more risk of a bad outcome one group bears compared to another — while absolute risk is just this measure for one group.

RelativelyRisky is run by an epidemiologist and PhD student who goes by the name Gid M-K online. In a blog post on Medium, he explained that the reporting of relative risk instead of actual risk leads to different interpretations of the same results. Giant relative risks can make it difficult for a person to understand what the risk of something happening to them is; however, it is a useful tool for science, since the absolute risk of any given outcome can vary substantially based on factors like age while relative risk stays relatively steady. 

Communicators of science should be more conscious of how they present risk percentages. This doesn’t mean getting rid of relative risk entirely, but reporting should at the very least be include both measures of risk to give readers a fuller sense of what the data mean. There are even studies showing that this approach helps. So next time you see what you think might be a sensationalized headline, click over to RelativelyRisky to see what the actual risk to you might be!

A total solar eclipse is moving across South America today, July 2nd. If you’re not in the path of totality, you can still use the internet to watch the eclipse. Click here to watch live from the  Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. Happy eclipse watching!

Recycling paper is much better for the environment than throwing it away. However, the process required to make paper fit for a second or third use actually takes its own significant toll on the planet. Pulping, bleaching and drying recycled paper contributes substantially to energy use, water pollution and climate-damaging gas emissions. 

A truly environmentally-friendly solution is needed for recycling our  paper. What if we could erase ink – if the documents we no longer needed could simply be ‘unprinted’? 

Scientists from Rutgers and Oregon State University have recently shown that we can do just that, using flashes of light from a Xenon lamp. Unlike ultraviolet and infra-red light used in previous studies, the visible light from the lamp didn’t cause any damage to glossy printing paper. They adjusted the length of the light flashes until they found the optimum amount to render printed black ink completely removable with an ethanol wipe. They then studied both new and unprinted paper under the microscope, revealing that the unprinting process restored paper to within 6% of its original brightness. 

With upwards of five reprints needed before paper became damaged, this method could rival conventional paper recycling and reduce its environmental impact by about five times. The technology could one day be integrated with conventional printers, making unprinting the new, truly eco-friendly way to recycle paper at home. 

If you were in a friend’s house for the first time and wanted to find a fork, the first place you’d look is probably the kitchen, right? Cells, too, keep different proteins in different compartments so that the proteins can perform the functions they’re meant to efficiently. Our lab at the Scripps Research Institute studies the nuclear envelope - the membrane system that encloses the nucleus. The nuclear envelope controls what can enter and exit the nucleus, attaches the nucleus to the cell’s structural elements, and regulates cell signaling.

In a paper that was recently published, we identified five new nuclear envelope proteins. These new proteins open the door for more research into new nuclear envelope functions. Mutations in some nuclear envelope proteins cause diseases like muscular dystrophies, lipid dystrophies, and the accelerated aging disease progeria. It will be exciting to learn what these new proteins are doing and what happens when their functioning goes awry! 

Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger may not have always gotten along, but they were both leading thinkers in the field of quantum mechanics. They did agree on one thing: Quantum jumps, where an electron within an atom instantaneously changes from one discrete energy level to another discrete energy level, were just too weird to deal with. And nearly a century later, most physicists would not challenge the fact that this is an accepted part of how we understand the field. 

But most is not all, and challenging widely-accepted principles is the foundation of science. In early June, a team of physicists from Yale published new results showing that quantum jumps are more predictable than previously thought, and that the electron’s jump between energy states can even be reversed mid-jump. 

This group of researchers built an artificial atom that would perform jumps between a low energy, ‘ground’ state, a ‘bright’ (higher energy) state and a ‘dark’ state. They fired a beam of microwave photons into the artificial atom and observed that photon absorption caused it to switch from ground to bright states. And when a particularly high energy photon was absorbed, the atom would jump all the way up to the dark state and stay there for an extended period of time. 

The tricky part of the setup is that it is impossible for scientists to directly observe an atom transitioning between states. So instead, the Yale researchers measured the photon emission from the bright state (identified by the specific way light scattered from this energy level), which was recorded as a clicking sound. An interesting pattern rapidly emerged: The clicks that were given off by photon emission suddenly decreased in frequency each time right before the atom jumped to the low-energy state. From there, they found that it was possible to observe the jump simply by cutting off the photon beam into the atom chamber and that the jump process could actually be reversed by hitting the atom with an electrical pulse. 

This is a big breakthrough for quantum mechanics, because it means that we’ve now developed a technique to predict and control quantum systems that previously seemed highly random, uncontrollable, and just plain weird. This technique puts rapid increases in quantum computing technology within our reach. 

Talk about exciting new physics! I wonder what Einstein and Schrödinger would think.

Some animals use swarms to make their presence known. For example, crickets chirp in a chorus and fireflies flash in unison, catching the eye of potential mates. Such synchrony is an effort of individuals working together to create an easily identifiable beacon. Now researchers at the MIT Media Lab are asking: can the coordinated strength of a swarm could be co-opted to make shared roads safer?

The project, called [bike] swarm, uses bikes equipped with radios tuned to a small range of frequencies to communicate with nearby bikes. When bike approach each other, their lights flash in unison, making cyclists easier to identify in the dark. As bike sharing programs continue to expand, cities may be able to make cyclists and drivers safer on the road by taking advantage of this simple and adaptable system inspired by nature.

On September 20th, 2017, Hurricane María devastated the island of Puerto Rico. A George Washington University study following the hurricane found that the death toll reached almost 3,000 in studies following the hurricane. The catastrophe and its aftermath also had profound effects on the psychology of Puerto Rico’s youth.

New research by scientists at the Medical University of South Carolina surveyed students in the public school system five to nine months after the hurricane. Students indicated being subjected to many  stressors during the hurricane including witnessing their homes being damaged, being forced to evacuate, and having a family member, friend, or neighbor experience injury or die. Additionally, children also reported stressors associated with the aftermath of the storm, including water and food shortages and friends or family leaving the island. The study found that there was a high prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depressive symptoms in Puerto Rican students, possibly fueled by the stressors brought on by the hurricane.

Clearly, natural disasters can have traumatic effects on mental health, particularly in children. More studies should delve into how Hurricane María has affected the prevalence of mood disorders and different psychological conditions to uncover how this natural disaster may have altered the psyche of an entire generation. 

Two species of stickleback fish, both alike in dignity
In fair Japan, where we lay our scene 

One was able to move to freshwater habitats, while the other couldn’t. New research out in Science implicates “jumping” genes as the cause.

These jumping genes, called transposable elements, discovered by Science Hero Barbara McClintock, make up half of our genome and up to 90% of corn’s, and they can copy and paste themselves willy-nilly into the genetic code. Randomly hopping through the genome is often harmful because it can disrupt otherwise functional genes, but this stickleback study gives us an example of the opposite occurring. 

When researchers compared the three-spined stickleback — which can survive in freshwater and marine environments — to another that can only live in marine waters, they found that one gene made all the difference. That gene, called Fads2, controls the metabolism of omega-3 fatty acids, which are abundant in marine environments but scarce in freshwater. 

Fads2, the researchers found, rode the coattails of a transposable element that jumped around the three-spined stickleback’s genome. This increased the number of copies of the useful gene and allowed the fish to make the most of the few omega-3 fatty acids in freshwater. 

Earlier this month the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property held hearings regarding a bipartisan draft proposal that would eliminate the current restrictions on the eligibility of patents including those on  “abstract ideas,” “laws of nature,” or “natural phenomena.” 

As of the 2013 Supreme Court decision in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, human genes are not patentable because they are a “product of nature,” but synthetically created DNA, also known as complementary DNA (cDNA), can be patented. At the time, the ACLU argued that that because Myriad had patented the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, the company had created a monopoly on genetic testing for breast cancer risk  screening.

But, six years is a long time in the world of genomic science. With the current explosion in direct-to-consumer DNA testing kits  offering all kinds of new risk prediction scores for different diseases, biotech companies and their patent attorneys seem to be more interested in patenting specific combinations of DNA variants associated with disease and the algorithms for arriving at such scores. How different is that really from what Myriad was doing six years ago?

Experts also say that given all the information already known about the human genome, single genes probably would not meet the novelty criteria required for patents. But as most researchers writing grants are aware of, novelty is a squishy concept, and as This American Life reported back in 2011 and 2013, the language in patents can be vague—so vague that some companies exist for the sole purpose of buying patents and suing, or threatening to sue, for millions of dollars for patent violation. How does broadening the eligibility for patents help define novelty?

This debate is ongoing, but major scientific organizations and the ACLU want to keep the ban on gene patenting in place for the good of medical patients as well as research. You can read the ACLU’s letter (signed by over 100 other groups) here.

You might have seen that Massive is working on a Women of Science Tarot Deck. After a successful Kickstarter campaign, I’ve spent most of my weekends drawing science-themed symbolic illustrations -- and I couldn’t be happier about it!

Now, some of you may ask (and have asked) “why are you mixing science and tarot? Isn’t Tarot all about magic and occult stuff?” Initially, when my friend Nadja suggested the idea, I asked myself the same question. Like most people, I associated tarot with divination. But  the tarot actually started as a playing cards deck, used since the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe. In fact, in Italy we still use the 4 tarot suits (spades, wands, coins and cups) as regular playing cards, without any magical associations. Only later, in the 18th century, people started using tarot cards for divination and magic.

Part of me is just really excited about updating this ancient tradition for our modern scientific culture. After all, the cards’ meaning evolved throughout history and I don’t see why we shouldn’t be allowed to do it once more. But, as a science communicator, I also think this is a great opportunity to reach a whole new audience. In particular, I have been thinking a lot lately about how scientists should engage with spirituality (especially after reading this fascinating comic by Jordan Collver and watching this conversation on Stated Casually). I grew up atheist (or religious-free, as I prefer to say) and I always had a pretty aggressive attitude toward any spiritual beliefs. But I now understand the value of a more neutral/grey zone (or ‘decompression chambers’ to use Jon Perry’s beautiful metaphor). If we require people to reject their whole spiritual identity in order to even start reading about science then we are excluding a whole LOT of readers! A more inclusive science communication should provide some in-between spaces where people feel comfortable exploring science, without feeling immediately challenged or attacked.

I really hope that a science tarot deck can play this kind of role: a space for people who do not traditionally identify as science geeks to engage with scientific concepts in a playful and nonjudgemental way. And also, a good opportunity to challenge some stereotypes of what science “should” be and what scientists look like by celebrating the inspirational women included in the deck.

Scientists have long been interested in how the first stars were born, and in 2015 they even found a new galaxy that appeared to contain first-generation stars. But another major outstanding question in astronomy is how these first stars died. While we typically assume that these died in unimaginably powerful spherical explosions, called “supernovae,” these energetic events have been notoriously tricky to simulate — even with supercomputers at our disposal. 

Now, a team of researchers from across the USA has published results that point to an entirely different picture of these first stars’ fiery deaths. Rather than the spherical explosions astronomers have long imagined, this new observational evidence suggests that the first stars ended their lives aspherically, spewing jets of material at random directions out into space.

Their result comes from observations of a very old, bright, and metal-poor star called HE 1327−2326. This star was born out of the remnants of the first generation of stars, and so studying it can help shed light on what the lives and deaths of these first stars were like. Surprisingly, they found much more zinc — an element that is only created in the cores of massive stars — than they  expected. If the first generation of stars really did explode  spherically, most of the material shot outward during these explosions should have fallen back in to the black holes left behind. And after running 10,000 computer simulations to try to figure out where this zinc came from, the team found that this was the case: not a single simulation of a spherical explosion was able to reproduce their observations.

Apsherical explosions would allow zinc to be flung far away, while other material could have fallen in to the stellar remnant. Although the researchers aren’t sure how common these aspherical supernovae were, their results will help inform future research and shed light on other questions surrounding these mysterious first stars. 

Glaciers in the Himalayas have been melting for decades. Due to man-made climate change,  many small glaciers in and around the mountain range have already disappeared completely. A new report shows that in the last 20 years, melting has picked up speed. 

Researchers compared photographs of the Himalayas taken in the 21st century to those taken in the latter part of the 20th. Some of those older photos were only recently declassified US spy satellite pictures. Using that comparison, scientists at Columbia University and the University of Utah saw that glaciers in the region have been losing a vertical foot and a half of ice every year, twice as fast as the already rapid pace they were melting at previously. 

Since the Himalayas are such a large area, there are multiple contributing factors. One was less precipitation, which means less ice on the ground. But a big factor was the increasing consumption of fossil fuels in Asia, sending soot into the sky, where it falls to the ground and absorbs sunlight, warming the ground. Joshua Maurer, lead author on the study, said: “It looks just like what we would expect if warming were the dominant driver of ice loss.” 

Two weeks ago, entomologist Terry McGlynn wrote a blog post about a species of ant he named after conducting field research in the  summer of 2000. These ants are common in Central America, and behaved in an unusual way, moving back and forth among different nests in their territory but only occupying one at a time. Based on this trait, nineteen years ago McGlynn proposed to the official board of insect names that the species be commonly called “gypsy ants,” using an ethnic slur for the Roma people. 

The ant in question, Aphaenogaster araneoides, still has the same name, but McGlynn wrote that he is trying to change that. He put out an open call for names to send to the common names committee, and the internet did not disappoint: wanderlust ants, ranger ants, ambu-lants, and itiner-ants were all suggested. Paleoecologist Jacquelyn Gill suggested that McGlynn find out what local indigenous people call the ant. The final choice hasn’t been made, so stay tuned for the decision. I myself am cheering for itiner-ant!

The renaming of Aphaenogaster araneoides won’t affect much — the species isn’t often studied, and there is no sign that of the far more popular gypsy moth’s name changing anytime soon — but it’s a good reminder to scientists to think of the consequences of their research outside the lab or field site.  

What happens when you bring a chicken to the Andes? Five hundred years later, its descendants might just be suited to mountain climbing. 

High-altitude ecosystems offer a natural lab for seeing convergent evolution do its dance: the mountains are a shared low-oxygen setting that affects every species living there. In the Andean Altiplani, the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, and the Ethiopian Highlands, this applies to wildlife, humans, and domestic animals alike. Faced with the same physiological problem, natural selection offers up different solutions. 

According to a recent review, researchers have mapped out many roads that all lead to the same high-altitude adaptation destination. Most of the humans and domesticated animals studied had physiological adaptations to deal with hypoxia (lack of oxygen). But different genetic pathways have been modified to achieve this result, and functions such as development, chemical response, and stress have also undergone selection. Concentration of hemoglobin, the transporter of oxygen in the blood, illustrates this: people living in the Andes show elevated levels in general, while Tibetan humans and Tibetan mastiffs do not show increased  hemoglobin levels until they are over 4000 m. 

A map of all the evolutionary connections shows 15 different gene variants that assist in high-altitude living. The gene EPAS1 is shared between geographically separated populations, such as Tibetan cashmere goats and feral Andean horses. In some cases, it has been inherited through interspecies breeding:  Denisovans to Tibetan humans, Tibetan wolves to Tibetan mastiffs.  

Domesticated animals offer snapshots of selection in motion. Chickens introduced to the Andes less than 500 years ago already show signs of adaptation, via stronger bonding of oxygen to their hemoglobin carriers. High-altitude Ethiopian cattle thrive with  oxygen saturation levels of 68%, while lowland breeds die from anything below 80%. This synthesis of the research highlights that natural selection does not always shape the same solution for a single problem, and highlights the diversity of adaptations to high altitude environments across the animal kingdom. 

This past Wednesday, Francis S. Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), announced that he will no longer participate in “manels,” or speaking panels with only male participants. 

Dr. Collins also issued a challenge the rest of his field to do the same, writing “the diversity of bright and talented minds engaged in biomedical research has come a long way – and our public engagements need to catch up.” This high-profile announcement brings issues of inclusion to center stage, ideally making these “manels” a thing of the past.

Dr. Collins’ decision is supported by recent research measuring women’s success rates in the sciences. A September 2018 study from the National Bureau of Economic Research suggested that women in PhD programs are more likely to finish their degree when they have female peers.

While he focused on his own field of biomedical research, this public action has been a call to scientists everywhere. In a story on the announcement by the New York Times, other scientists applauded Dr. Collins and vowed to do the same. And Dr. Jeremy Farrar, director of global health nonprofit The Wellcome Trust, tweeted that his organization plans to follow Dr. Collin’s pledge as well.

Groups like 500 Women Scientists have been working for years to create more inclusive and supportive environments that empower women in STEM. Started by four female scientists, they provide various resources, including a guide to organizing inclusive science meetings, to help anyone make their own community or institution more inclusive.

As a woman in a male-dominated field (forest ecology), I felt validated seeing this announcement covered extensively after it was made. I hope to see more organizations follow suit, use this pledge as a template, and more publicly support the work and accomplishments of under-represented minorities in their fields.

We know that obesity is bad for the brain. Obese people tend to have inflammation in their brains, which can lead to decreased cognitive function and increased risk of developing disorders such as dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. What we don’t yet know is the exact mechanism of how obesity causes these cognitive impairments. 

We do know bits and pieces, like that obesity causes the loss of synapses, which are the connections between brain cells. Synapse loss is a normal developmental process and when a synapse is no longer needed it is destroyed up by microglia, the immune cells of the brain. Obesity is also known to increase the activity of microglia. This leads to the question, which way does this relationship go? Does obesity increase the rate of synapse loss, causing microglia to increase their activity to keep up, or does obesity put microglia into overdrive and cause them to destroy needed synapses?

To answer this question, researchers from Princeton University compared the mental functioning of obese and lean mice. As expected based on the previous research I outlined above, obese mice had impaired learning and memory compared to lean mice, as well as fewer synapses and more microglia. When the researchers then reduced the number or activity of microglia, they prevented both the learning deficits and the synapse loss in obese mice. Reducing the activity of microglia caused no changes in the lean mice (probably because their microglia weren’t very active to begin with). These results suggest that overactive microglia destroying needed synapses was the cause of the obesity-related learning impairments. 

This study provides the first experimental evidence that microglia are not just bystanders, but play an active role in obesity-related cognitive impairment. This suggests that someday, we could use drugs that target microglia in order to treat cognitive impairment in obese human patients.  

Fecal transplants are all the rage these days. The FDA just announced that two patients who received a fecal transplant from the same donor got sick, and one died. They contracted antibiotic resistant E. coli from their donation. Both were immunocompromised (they had no functional immune system) before their received the transplant. The transplant hadn’t been tested for this type of bacteria beforehand. 

We might be one step closer to a real-life Spider-Man (or woman)!  Researchers at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, have  successfully sequenced two genes involved in making “spider glue” – the sticky silk-like substance that coats spider webs and holds prey hostage. These genes, called AgSp1 and AgSp2, were identified through a combination of RNA and genomic DNA sequencing, providing an excellent example of how advancements in biotechnology can assist in the discovery of potential new biomaterials. 

Although AgSp1 and AgSp2 are only two of a variety of silk genes that spiders can produce, these two genes alone are enough to begin working on glues directly derived from spider biology. The successful sequencing of this natural product has no doubt  pushed us closer to the next big advance in biomaterials. I expect “Spider Glue” – inspired by the real thing – to soon be on sale at a  retailer near you! One disclaimer: it probably won’t be strong enough to catch any criminals.