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We looked inside some of the posts by thatisprettysmart and here's what we found interesting.
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Swell Idea
Borrowing from Botany II
Blowing on a dandelion is supposed to bring good luck – to you and the plant, as dispersing a cloud of seeds far and wide helps to ensure at least some survive. But the dandelion doesn’t leave this to chance. Here the head-like pappus at the top of a seed acts like a hygroscope sensing the water halfway through the video. Parts of its structure swell up, pushing or steering the roots of its wing-like hairs (which have been removed here). In wet conditions, the hairs close up, making the seed more likely to fall nearby into a nice moist spot after take-off. Dry seeds stretch out, ready to travel further to find moisture. Researchers developed a mathematical model for the pappus, probing the mechanical properties that may be mimicked in artificial devices like moisture sensing nanorobots to carry chemicals around the body.
Video from work by Madeleine Seale and colleagues
School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Published in Nature Communications, May 2022
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Plant Based
Borrowing from Botany I
Scientists often find inspiration in mimicking life’s machinery – microfluidic devices are tiny artificial networks of pipes to control the mixing of chemicals – inspired by those coursing fluids around animals and plants. But every idea has its limits, every design its boundaries, and here researchers push them. They wrap their microfluidics inside shapeshifting polymers that respond to humidity, temperature and light, mimicking how Oxalis corniculata leaves behave whenever the Sun comes out. These nastic movements are not directional – it’s phototropism that allows the plant to bend towards light – but instead use the light as a trigger for opening up in sunlight for photosynthesis. The resulting device pulls yet another engineering secret from life onto the drawing board, so it can be repurposed for different jobs – perhaps as a light-responsive microreactor, or in wearable electronics that help us to adapt to changes in the outside world.
Video from work by Yi Pan and colleagues
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR, China
Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Published in Science Advances, May 2022
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Breaking the Cycle
As research delves deeper it tends to reveal ever-more complex details of the processes underpinning life and disease. So it’s a welcome change for a study into cryptosporidium (red in the mouse intestine pictured), a parasite that commonly causes diarrhoea in children, to discover that its life cycle is actually more simple than conventionally believed. The researchers observed the parasite as it reproduced in sample cells and found it followed a rigid routine of three asexual replications before switching to male and female forms for sexual reproduction and further spreading. This contradicts the previous impression that there was a specialised intermediate stage between the asexual and sexual forms. Unlike mosquito-borne parasites, cryptosporidium just relies on one host, so is a simpler model to examine parasite progression, meaning that this revelation could point towards both new tactics to tackle diarrhoea, and potentially provide insights into other conditions like malaria.
Image from work by Elizabeth D. English and colleagues
Department of Pathobiology, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Image copyright held by the original authors
Research published in PLOS Biology, April 2022
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Spreading Excitement
Affecting around 50 million people globally, epilepsy is characterised by seizures, episodes of involuntary movement triggered by bursts of electrical activity in the brain. Seizures are linked to an imbalance between excitatory neurons, stimulating other neurons, and inhibitory neurons, dampening activation, yet how exactly they originate is somewhat controversial. Although seizures are typically associated with increased excitation, some studies found inhibitory neurons firing as seizures began, suggesting they might also be involved. Hoping to resolve this debate, researchers tracked neuronal activity in the brain of transparent zebrafish larvae (pictured), where they could view different brain areas. Contour lines represent timings of activity during seizures, from earliest firing in red to latest in dark blue: seizures started in areas rich in excitatory neurons (in pink), before spreading to those dominated by inhibitory neurons (in green). While specifics may differ in humans, this zebrafish system could also help identify potentially useful drugs.
Image from work by James E. Niemeyer and colleagues
Department of Neurological Surgery, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA
Image copyright held by the original authors
Research published in Brain, February 2022
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Unsevered Fingers
Scratching around in the dark, filopodia poke out from growth cones like tiny fingers from a hand, helping young nerve cells (neurons) to find each other. Pictured here under a high-powered microscope, researchers zoom in on the secret of their wriggling in a rat’s neuron. Filopodia are made with a stiff protein called actin (highlighted here in green), held rigid by another protein called fascin – every now and then these fingers need renewing and are severed by a protein called cofilin (red). Yet researchers find in certain conditions cofilin wraps itself around the actin, breaking the ties with fascin and allowing filopodia to bend and flex. This gentler role for the nervous finger chopper may be crucial in helping neurons search their environment during development, and may be guided later in life in treatments for neurodegenerative disease.
Video by Ryan K. Hylton and colleagues
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, PA, USA
Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Published in Nature Communications, May 2022
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Packed with Proline
To build a strong skeleton, osteoblasts, the cells that produce bone, need plenty of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Many proteins involved in bone formation are especially rich in a specific amino acid, proline, so getting enough of it during development is critical for cells to first differentiate into osteoblasts, then make bone. Recent research in mice identified a major route for developing osteoblasts to acquire proline, through a transporter known as SLC38A2. Knocking down the gene for SLC38A2 affected cells’ ability to make key proteins, with consequences for skeletal development: fifteen days after conception, mouse embryos have a recognisable skeleton, including mineralised bone (pictured in pink, with cartilage in blue), but this is substantially reduced in mice lacking SLC38A2. As proline is so crucial to bone development, exploring its role in adulthood might suggest whether proline supplements could also help strengthen bones weakened by age or disease.
Image from work by Leyao Shen and colleagues
Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, USA
Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Published in eLife, March 2022
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Look Who's Talking
Texts, calls and face-to-face chats, communication comes in many forms. In nerve cells, communication occurs via electrical signals at connections called synapses and at much smaller connections called gap junctions. Imaging gap junctions amid nerve cell networks is challenging due to their size. Researchers take on this challenge using scanning electron microscopy and confocal microscopy of gap junction protein Cx36 in cones and rods, special nerve cells in mouse retina. 3D reconstructions (pictured) revealed projections from cones (green) contacting rods (other colours) where Cx36 was present, suggesting gap junction communication. Almost all gap junctions were cone-rod contacts, not cone-cone or rod-rod. Calculating the number of these contacts, they estimated how much electrical activity could pass between these cells if all gap junctions were open — it was similar to past experiments where this was actually measured. This sheds light on who's talking to who in the chatter of gap junction communication.
Video by Munenori Ishibashi and colleagues
Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science, University of Texas at Houston, Houston, TX, USA
Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Published in eLife, April 2022
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Moving Parts
A common pathogen, the bacterium Salmonella enterica comes in many distinct forms, or serovars: most lead to unpleasant gastroenteritis, but some serovars, the typhoidal salmonellae, cause a more severe disease known as enteric or typhoidal fever. Despite sharing almost 90% of their genes, the typhoidal S. Paratyphi A (SPA) and non-typhoidal S. Typhimurium (STM) vary in how they behave inside cells cultured in the lab. After infecting a cell, STM are enclosed in specialised cellular compartments, Salmonella-containing vacuoles (SCVs), and downregulate genes associated with the flagellum, a structure bacteria use to swim around. By contrast, SPA (pictured in blue) maintain their flagella (in red), so can escape out of SCVs and move around. Alongside differences in metabolism and other virulence pathways, this enhanced mobility likely contributes to the more severe impacts of SPA infections. With no vaccine available and growing antibiotic resistance, understanding what makes SPA so dangerous could help suggest potential solutions.
Image by Felix Scharte and Michael Hensel, Abt. Mikrobiologie, Universität Osnabrück
Abt. Mikrobiologie, Universität Osnabrück, Osnabrück, Germany
Image copyright held by Felix Scharte and Michael Hensel
Research by Helit Cohen, Claire Hoede & Felix Scharte et al, published in PLOS Pathogens, April 2022
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Embryonic Choreography
The transformation of an embryo into a baby involves the staggeringly complex choreography of billions of cells. In the opening scenes of this show, three layers of cells must form in an embryo: the endoderm, mesoderm and ectoderm. Researchers now probe how the endoderm, which goes on to form your stomach, intestines, lungs, liver and pancreas, comes to be. Using two-photon, time-lapse microscopy of spheres of mouse embryonic stem cells called gastruloids (pictured), they tracked all cells by labelling them with a dye (left). By fluorescently tagging different proteins, they found some cells lost a protein called E-cadherin while others retained it. Next, islands of cells with E-cadherin were surrounded by cells containing a mesoderm marker, T-Brachyury (middle), and flowed towards one end of the elongating sphere before finally maturing into endoderm cells. This sheds light on some of the earliest moves in the complicated dance of development.
Video from work by Ali Hashmi and colleagues
Aix-Marseille University, CNRS, IBDM, Turing Center for Living Systems, Marseille, France
Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Published in eLife, April 2022
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Precision Vision
A small smudge on your glasses can mask your whole vision. And a small mutation in your DNA can destroy it entirely. Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA) is the most common cause of inherited retinal degeneration in children, which leads to visual impairment through accelerated decline of eye cells called cone photoreceptors. Researchers have used base editing – a novel technique that targets a single point in our DNA – to directly counter the mutation behind the disease. In mice with LCA, the treatment aimed to both compensate for the missing action of the mutated gene and guard against further damage. The technique increased the functional activity of the gene, boosting visual function and protecting the cells (pictured in a treated mouse, cone cells in green and a protein crucial for healthy activity in pink). If the approach translates to humans, a single lasting treatment for inherited retinal degeneration could be in sight.
Image from work by Elliot H. Choi and Susie Suh, and colleagues
Gavin Herbert Eye Institute, Department of Ophthalmology, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA
Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Published in Nature Communications, April 2022
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Experiencing the Microscopic
A Different Perspective II
Many of us have sat awe-struck at the wonderful TV documentaries exploring the depths of space or the Attenborough shows revealing the hidden worlds across our planet, but there's another secret world that we don’t explore as often: the unknown microscopic universe of the human. Microscopy and imaging technologies allow us to observe these microscopic galaxies, but a new exhibition has taken that experience to a whole new level. ‘Cell Worlds’ is an installation in Bordeaux, France that takes stunning microscopy images out of the labs and off the hard drives of biologists and instead allows you to journey through the cellular world of the human body showing how cells move, divide or how cancer cells invade and more. This immersive exhibit displays cells in all their beauty and fragility in proportions never seen before and celebrates the diversity and wonder of what makes us human.
Image from the Cell Worlds exhibition, from research by Jean-Léon Maître. Photographer Youenn Lerb. Art Centre Managed by Culture Spaces
Cell Worlds Exhibition 11 February 2022 – 2 January 2023
Image copyright held by Youenn Lerb
Jean-Léon Maître, Institut Curie, PSL Research University, Sorbonne Université, Paris, France
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Cell Mates
A Different Perspective I
Architects often wander through their buildings, examining details up close – gaining a different perspective to a flat drawing or table-top model. Here cell biologists use virtual reality to step inside a cell – strolling past structures they might normally only see twinkling under a microscope, reaching out every now and then to label them in different colours. Looking a little like a child’s climbing frame, this is a reconstruction of a network of intermediate filaments – rigid molecules of keratin that prop up the cell like girders in a skyscraper. The scientist’s models – based on microscopy scans – also give them a sort of virtual skeleton on which to hang future mechanobiological details. Next maybe: the neighbouring network of stretchy actin molecules that uproot this tiny architecture so cells can wander through their environment during development or diseases like cancer.
Image from work by Reinhard Windoffer and colleagues
Institute of Molecular and Cellular Anatomy, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Published in eLife, February 2022
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Model Mini Brains
You don’t need to be a neuroscientist to notice the size and structural differences between these two brain organoids – cultured clumps of brain cells that replicate certain features and functions of actual brain tissue. These 'mini-brains' were generated from human stem cells and differ because of the donors. Cells from a person with Pitt-Hopkins syndrome – a severe form of autism spectrum disorder characterised by intellectual disability, developmental delay and seizures – were used to generate the organoid on the right, while cells from someone without the condition generated the one on the left. Mutations to a gene called TCF4 cause Pitt-Hopkins syndrome and studying the patient-derived organoids revealed how the mutation impairs proper growth and development of neurons. Encouragingly, mutation-fixing gene therapy performed on the mini-brains improved the cells’ development and function, providing hope that similar therapies might one day alleviate symptoms in children with this rare but debilitating condition.
Image from work by Fabio Papes and Alysson R. Muotri, and colleagues, UC San Diego Health Sciences
Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
Image copyright held by the original authors
Research published in Nature Communications, May 2022
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Head Scratching
“Get those synapses firing”, “test your grey matter” – the idioms may be tired, but understanding what’s going on inside our noggins is full of fresh challenges. While scientists often use MRI to trace out brain structures, and microscopy to zoom in on its cells – here they bring everything together. Shaving thin slices off a human brain, they use microscopy to highlight blood vessels in each slice (in red). Next, through careful comparison with MRI scans, they pull the images back together like a sliced loaf in a bag, reassembling the brain as a virtual 3D model. The result is a ‘mesoscopic’ view – highly-detailed but also zoomed out far enough to take in the entire vasculature. The team presents this model, and others looking at different brain tissues, as public resource – helping scientists old and new appreciate the brain from fresh perspectives, towards solving future mysteries in neurodegenerative disease.
Image from work by Anneke Alkemade and Pierre-Louis Bazin, and colleagues
Integrative Model-Based Neuroscience Research Unit, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Published in Science Advances, April 2022
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Uncovering Cilia’s Secrets
Almost all animal cells have at least one cilium – a hair-like, membrane-bound organelle that protrudes from the cell surface. It may be singular and immotile, or form part of a large group of cilia that move rhythmically together, such as those on respiratory tract cells that help keep mucus moving. Despite how commonplace cilia are, their functions in many cells remain a mystery, which limits scientists’ understanding of ciliopathies – diseases in which cilia fail to grow or work properly causing severe and life-long symptoms. To figure out cilia’s various roles, scientists have now engineered human stem cells that entirely lack cilia (left). Comparing these cells with normal cilia-possessing cells (right, cilia coloured red) as the two are directed to become whichever cell type the researchers choose, should reveal how specific cell types are affected by cilia loss and potentially guide new ciliopathy treatments.
Image from work by Nelly M. Cruz and Raghava Reddy, and colleagues, Benjamin Freedman Lab
Division of Nephrology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA
Image copyright held by the original authors
Research published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, April 2022
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A Big Look
To examine something small, you can either look very closely, or try to make it bigger. Microscopy – fundamental to biomedical science, as the BPoD archive shows – has long helped magnify the miniscule matter of our bodies. But conventional light microscopy’s detail is limited by the physical properties of light, and other techniques are financially and technically demanding. Expansion microscopy aims to provide greater precision in a more accessible way, by enlarging samples, rather than increasing magnification. Samples are embedded in a gel that then swells. The original technique expanded samples four-fold, but a new approach has explored alternative hydrogel recipes to cook up a version that can expand to up to 10 times its size. The result is a comparatively simple technique that enlarges mouse brain tissue and human cell cultures (3D render shown, with distinct cellular structures clearly visible), broadening access to the finest details of life.
Video by Hugo GJ Damstra and colleagues
Cell Biology, Neurobiology and Biophysics, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands and Janelia Campus, HHMI, Ashburn, VA, USA
Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Published in eLife, February 2022
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Auto Pilot
A burst tyre in the fast lane, a pocket of turbulence at 15,000 feet – human pilots are often thrown by unexpected events. To spot what happens to the brain in the split-seconds after a jolt, test pilots in this cockpit were rocked at random by a robotic arm. The unpredicted interruptions were designed to spot something predictable in a moment of chaos – the brain’s immediate response to a loss of balance. Researchers used electroencephalography to measure patterns of electrical activity called perturbation evoked potentials across each pilots’ scalp – spotting and later predicting patterns specific to jolts in different directions and angles. Quick detection of these patterns during real flying and driving might allow computers to temporarily take the wheel while the pilot recovers – an example of a brain-computer interface that may save lives.
Image from work by Shayan Jalilpour and Gernot Müller-Putz
Institute of Neural Engineering, Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria
Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Published in Scientific Reports, April 2022
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