A boy and his Atom - the smallet movie...

Far from advertising IBM, this mini-movie had to find its place on SSS!!! Have a look


See you soon for more SSS,

So Sexy Sciencey Things on Pinterest #9

My Dear Sexy Readers,

Today is the 100th day of the year 2013!!!

To celebrate it, I would like to share with you my latest snapshot of my SSS Pinterest board with a focus on Vinegar to remind you that our Did you Know Serie is well underway and the latest instalement, the 5th already!!!, was on the fabulous uses of Vinegar ;)

For more Pinterest, check out the Collection of So Sexy Sciencey Things

See you Soon for more SSS,

Did you Know? #5 - the amazing Vinegar

My Dear Sexy Readers,

For this week's Did you Know SSS - sexy short subject - we will have a look at the amazing usefulness of vinegar! We started this new serie, appropriately with egg as the sexy short subject, going through egg as a baking ingredient, what's an emulsion, how to make a mayonnaise and why lemon juice or vinegar are added to it, but for our 5th episode:

Vinegar is the ideal house cleaning companion to get rid of lime scale

In fact, Vinegar has 1000s of use, like this website is explaining but what I'm interested in really is how vinegar works to remove lime scale.

Vinegar is a diluted (in water) version of acetic acid CH3COOH.
Limescale is a precipitate of calcium carbonate CaCO3

By adding them together:

 2 CH3COOH + CaCO3  

 (CH3COO)2Ca + H 20 + CO2

The resulting product (CH3COO)2Ca is soluble in water and therefore easy to wash away!

Did you Know Collection
 
See you soon for more SSS,

 

Pint of Science - A Science Festival in Pubs

My Dear Sexy Readers,

Today, I am inviting you all to an amazing event called Pint of Science. This is a Science Festival happening across 15 pubs in London, Oxford and Cambridge on the 14th, 15th and 16th of May and it's free - apart from your pint ;).



The concept is simple, you choose you favourite pub from the list, you order your pint or other drink and you listen to an amazing speaker talk about the latest technology or the latest science discovery! The only thing you hope is not to overdo the drinks or else you won't remember the sexy science you learnt ;)

One of the organiser who came up with the idea for this innovative science festival is a friend of mine, Dr Praveen Paul. Here is what she has to say about this unusual pub crawl:

As a neuroscientist I’ve spent most of my career looking at brains and brain cells. In the lab we grow brain cells in a dish and use lots of different methods to study them; but when I tell my friends about it they think I do something really complicated or picture something from a science-fiction movie. Equally, as a basic scientist who researches what goes wrong in brain cells, I am quite removed from the people who may be affected by the condition that I am studying.

Last year, Michael Motskin and I decided to change this perception and bring people who are actually affected by brain disorders to the labs to see what we do with the brains and cells we have. In September 2012 in the Division of Brain Sciences at Imperial College London, we hosted a very successful ‘meet the neuroscientist’ day, with 100 people living with or affected by Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, motor neurone disease  and multiple sclerosis (MS). They saw our labs, we showed them what their condition looks like in a real brain, the techniques we use, and we explained the logic of our experiments.

Personally we found the experience enlightening – as basic scientists we are remote from the people affected by the conditions we are studying, and visitors to the lab were equally enlightened, surprised and pleased that we were working on fighting and understanding these conditions.

We wanted to do a similar thing on a bigger scale with more people and in a friendly atmosphere that would encourage debate. Thus we started Pint of Science, a new science festival that would do just that - in a traditional British setting, the pub!

We started by recruiting 15 teams across London, Oxford and Cambridge and our only instructions were: “find three brilliant and inspiring speakers from your university that you would love to hear a talk from and a nice pub to host them.  Be bold and audacious!”

The festival has events in 15 pubs across London, Cambridge and Oxford on the 14^th, 15^th and 16^th May 2013. The five universities which are involved are: Imperial College London, University College London, King’s College London, University of Oxford and University of Cambridge.  

To offer a variety of talks we chose to focus on three topics: Brain (e.g. neurodegeneration, addiction, sleep and mental health), Body (e.g. genetics, aging, cancer and stem cells) and Biotechnology (e.g. artificial intelligence, biomechanics and computer modelling).

We’ve got some really incredible speakers that I’m really excited to hear! Professor David Nutt, Professor Paul Newman and Professor Chris Lowe are just some of the speakers giving talk in Pint of Science festival.

I am sure you will find a talk that inspires you, something interesting that you’ve always wondered about and would like to chat about with the world experts. This is your chance! Have a look at the website, pick a talk or subject, book a free place and come to the pub to grab an opportunity to ask questions, give your insights and pick those brains over a beer J

Key details:

www.pintofscience.com

Tuesday 14^th May to Thursday 16^th May 2013 (from 7pm)

Locations: pubs in London, Cambridge and Oxford

5 universities, 3 days, 3 topics, over 50 speakers and over 50 volunteers and 1000s of people who will be scientifically enriched!

The event is free but you will require a ticket to get in, see website for details.

Facebook and twitter links can be found on our website.

www.facebook.com/pintofscience   www.twitter.com/pintofscience

You can receive and follow Pint Of Science updates on Twitter at @pintofscience or on Facebook www.facebook/PintOfScience

See you soon for more Sexy Science,

Why Does Cancer Treatment Often Make Your Hair Fall Out?

Dear SSS Readers,

During the week, a friend and I were chatting about an elderly lady who has recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. Luckily, the diagnosis was made very early and the outlook for treatment is promising. Unfortunately, she has found out that she will most likely lose her hair as a result of the chemotherapy. I am sure you have all heard of this scenario before. My friend, knowing that I am working with cancer cells in my job, asked me why this was. 

So why do people often lose their hair when they are on chemotherapy?

These days, cancer is unfortunately a part of our lives, and despite major advances in diagnostics and therapy, this disease is still a major cause of death all over the world.

Since this is not the first time someone (myself included) has wondered about hair loss and chemotherapy, I thought it would be an interesting topic to share with all our SSS readers :)

To write this post, I've touched on several topics, from cells to genes and DNA to cancer, and if anyone wants to know more or discuss any of these topics further, I would welcome comments and suggestions for future posts :)

Enjoy the post!!

Karen

What are Cells? 

As many of you may know, our bodies are composed of billions of building blocks called cells. 

These cells are the functioning units of our body ensuring that we can live and breathe, fight infection, see, hear, digest our food, reproduce and do all the other things that humans (and plants, animals and bugs do!). 
 

Different types of cells make up different organs (e.g. liver, heart, kidney, lungs), which in turn contribute to different systems (e.g. circulatory, reproduction, immune system), meaning that correct cellular function is absolutely essential for survival.

The picture below shows how human skin cells look under the microscope. You will never observe this kind of structure and organisation when you look at your skin because the cells are so tiny, and not visible to the naked eye. Each cell in the picture is about 40,000 times smaller than it looks! Within each cell are specialised compartments (called organelles) which drive the various functions of the cell. 

Diagram 2 below is a typical cartoon drawing of the inside of a human cell where you can see all the organelles and in particular the nucleus containing the DNA. Each cell has a single nucleus, and each nucleus contains exactly the same DNA. The criss-crossed shapes inside the nucleus are the chromosomes. We can come back to cell structure and function in more detail in later posts if you would like to know more about this! 

Diagram 2

How then can we get so many different cell types, if they all appear to be the same and contain the same DNA? 

 

We have eye cells, skin cells, hair cells, liver cells, blood cells, kidney cells and the list goes on! 

The simple answer to this is that although each cell has the same genes, different cell types use different genes. In this way, you could think of the genes as switches, with certain switches off and other switches on at any given time. 

This system of having genes switched on and off in different cell types allows, for example, the cells in our eyes to control our vision so that we can see, while cells in our liver work hard to remove the toxins that build up when we drink alcohol.

However impressive our cells are, they do not live forever, and as they get old, they lose the ability to function as well as they used to, and they will eventually die and be replaced with new cells. This process is perfectly normal, and in fact, a great example of this is in our skin cells (Diagram 1), which are continuously being replaced with new healthy cells.

The controlled death of old cells and the generation and growth of new cells is all down to the action of genes. 

A cell needs nutrients in order to grow and divide and this we provide in the lab. The requirements for a cell to grow and divide in the body are very similar. A major requirement for cell division is the building blocks to make new DNA so that new cells (known as daughter cells) contain an exact copy of the DNA so that they too can function correctly and control their own cell division later on (shown in Diagram 3).

Diagram 3: A parent cell replicates or copies it DNA content before dividing into 2 identical daughter cells, each new cell containing the exact same DNA as the original parent cell. 

This division of cells needs to be tightly controlled in order to both prevent cell overgrowth (which can result in warts, skintags and cancer) and also to make sure that we have enough cells to deal with injury (in the case of a healing wound where cells grow very fast). There are many genes present in the cells which are switched on and off in a controlled manner to coordinate cell division. 
If these genes fail to work correctly, or are switched on or off at the wrong times, cell division will become uncontrolled and cancer can result.

Cancer 

From what you've read above, you can probably imagine that a tumour is simply an overgrowth of cells. This overgrowth can occur for many reasons, and scientists are still trying to work out all the causes. Some people are born with genetic mutations that may make them more likely to develop cancer in their lifetime.  One example of this is breast cancer, which is said to run in families (however, not always). Other cancer types are caused  by sporadic damage to the genes from exposure to UV (damaging rays in the sunlight), cancer-causing agents in cigarettes and other agents known to cause mutations. The process of cell aging can also contribute to mutations, and this explains why we see so much cancer today - people are living longer than they did many years ago. 

Since cancer cells usually have an altered cell division program, and tend to rapidly divide to make up a tumour or to spread, they will have an even greater need for material to make new DNA and new cellular organelles than healthy cells. 

This characteristic of cancer cells is quite often exploited in chemotherapy approaches, whereby drugs are used to treat cancer.

Some cancer drugs are made to look like (or mimic) building blocks of DNA molecules. We will call this type of drugs nucleotide mimics, since nucleotides are the building blocks of DNA. Nucleotides are used to make new DNA molecules when a cell is doubling it's DNA during DNA replication before cell division as seen in Diagram 4. The DNA molecule looks like an open scissors during DNA replication, when nucleotides are added in to make the chain longer (see left hand side of Diagram 4).

Since cancer cells divide rapidly, they have an increased demand for cellular building blocks, including nucleotides, since the DNA must double or replicate before each cell division. When nucleotide mimics are given to patients with cancer, they will be taken into the rapidly dividing cancer cells and will cause serious problems during DNA replication. Unfortunately, these drugs can also be used during DNA replication in rapidly growing healthy cells, such as the cells that produce hair, leading to hair loss.

For a closer look at what's going on with nucleotide mimics, Diagram 4 shows two scenarios. On the left, we see normal nucleotides (which are shown as the letters A, G, C or T). These are taken up into the DNA molecule during cell division. What's important to note here is that each nucleotide has a yellow cap at the end, and this allows addition of the following nucleotide and therefore building of a 'chain'. On the right, we see a scenario where nucleotide mimics are present (marked by arrows). Notice that these look very similar to the normal nucleotides, but have an orange cap instead of a yellow. The cell now has a mixture of nucleotides to use, those with yellow caps and those with orange caps. The mimics are similar enough to be taking up into the DNA molecule, but  the orange cap prevents them from making a chain of nucleotides and so the 'chain' gets broken, and correct cell division cannot occur. This causes cells to die. 


Diagram 4. DNA replication

Healthy cells, who have a 'normally' controlled pattern of cell division can recognise that there is a problem  when the nucleotide mimics are present, and they can slow down to fix this problem. However, cancer cells are dividing so fast and uncontrolled that they cannot 'put the brakes on' to fix the damage, and therefore will most likely die after a few rounds of cell division. 
 

This trick with using nucleotide mimics sounds very clever, and it is in fact one of the most clever chemotherapeutic strategies to date (in my own opinion). Several other similar strategies exist, whereby the drugs consist of molecules that mimic cellular nutrients. However, all with all drugs, these have side effects. One such side effect is that these types of drugs can also have effects on some of the body's healthy cells, in particular those that divide very rapidly. This is where the hair loss comes in. The cells that grow hair are found in the hair follicle (Diagram 5). The matrix stem cells are rapidly dividing giving rise to new hair cells all the time, and so they too have a high demand for materials, nutrients etc. Because of this, they end up 'tricked' into using the chemotherapy drugs, and this causes the hair to fall out. 




Diagram 5: Hair follicle

But the good news is, that unlike cancer cells, the cells of the hair matrix are healthy, and will usually quickly recover, so if someone loses their hair due to chemotherapy, it will almost always grow back when the treatment is over :)

I hope you have all enjoyed this post, and please just write if you have more questions.

Happy Easter to all!

References

Cancer Research UK website
http://education.technyou.edu.au/

Wikipedia
http://www.baileybio.com

www.macmillan.org.uk
Hair follicle: Morgan, 2006. Upending the Hair Follicle. Nature Genetics 38:273-274. DOI: 10.1038/ng0306-273 

So Sexy Sciencey Things on Pinterest #8

My Dear Sexy Readers,

Here is my special Easter snapshot of Pinterest SSS board with a close up on Eggs. Beautiful, colorful or simply deliciously chocolatey eggs!

For more Pinterest, check out the Collection of So Sexy Sciencey Things

 

See you soon for more SSS,

Did you Know? #4 - Vinegar and lemon juice as Preservatives

My Dear Sexy Readers,

Let's resume our serie "Did you Know". Last time we looked at how to make a mayonnaise and by understanding the chemical process behind it, how not to make a mess out of it! Today we are going to look at other ingredients we can add to a mayonnaise:

Vinegar, lemon juice and salts are used as natural preservatives

Lemon juice, vinegar and salt create an unfriendly environment for bacteria to slow down or stop their growth.

Bacteria need a wet environment to grow in. By adding salt to a product which will absorb all the humidity, you will basically dry it. This dry environment will be a bad niche for bacteria to grow and indeed can even be deadly for them!!

Lemon juice contains citric acid and vinegar, acetic acid, which both create an acidic environment where bacteria will not like for their growth...
(Note: Citric acid is added to cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, drinks and food.)

For more on this serie, check out the Did you Know Collection

See you soon for more SSS ,