Armpit Cheese? Every time I am reminded of Christina Agapakis’ unique twist on synthetic biology research, I smile. It’s such a wonderful blend of design, art and pure cool. I had the pleasure of helping her with one of her “body bacteria” projects at this year’s SXSW conference. To put it bluntly, the cheeses you are looking at were cultured using bacteria swabbed from the armpits (and elsewhere) of human bodies. The species of bacteria living on us, and the volatile (read: “smelly”) compounds that they produce aren’t that far off, chemically speaking, from what we normally find in cheese. I mean, some cheese smells like feet because feet smell like feet bacteria, know what I mean? It challenges our perception of what is “gross” and what is “good”. Check out Christina’s site to read more about this cheesy project, and follow her Scientific American blog, Oscillator. Want more cool/gross synthetic biology projects? Check out E. chromi, a project to use colored poo to diagnose medical conditions.
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Armpit Cheese?

Every time I am reminded of Christina Agapakis’ unique twist on synthetic biology research, I smile. It’s such a wonderful blend of design, art and pure cool. I had the pleasure of helping her with one of her “body bacteria” projects at this year’s SXSW conference.

To put it bluntly, the cheeses you are looking at were cultured using bacteria swabbed from the armpits (and elsewhere) of human bodies. The species of bacteria living on us, and the volatile (read: “smelly”) compounds that they produce aren’t that far off, chemically speaking, from what we normally find in cheese. I mean, some cheese smells like feet because feet smell like feet bacteria, know what I mean?

It challenges our perception of what is “gross” and what is “good”. Check out Christina’s site to read more about this cheesy project, and follow her Scientific American blog, Oscillator.

Want more cool/gross synthetic biology projects? Check out E. chromi, a project to use colored poo to diagnose medical conditions.

Source: agapakis.com

You guys want to see something terrifying? Behold the bizarre alien creature that is the human vocal cords.

This is a technique called laryngoscopy. Check out the link above for some background, if you can stomach it. If you’re especially brave, check out this Reddit thread with even more video examples of vibrating vocal folds in all their freaky glory.

Source: io9.com

Rosacea may be caused by mite feces in your pores Know someone who suffers from rosacea? The “Curse of the Celts”? Between 5 and 20 percent of humans are affected with this inflammatory skin condition. Are you eating? Hope not. Turns out it may be caused by an immune reaction to the feces of skin mites. Microscopic Demodex mites live on our skin, deep in our pores, and are more numerous in those who suffer from rosacea. After mating, they die in your pores. Since they have no anus, their mite poo just sits there, full of a certain bacteria that is thought to trigger the immune reaction causing rosacea. Read more about the research at New Scientist. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go wash my face. (image remixed from Wikipedia)
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Rosacea may be caused by mite feces in your pores

Know someone who suffers from rosacea? The “Curse of the Celts”? Between 5 and 20 percent of humans are affected with this inflammatory skin condition.

Are you eating? Hope not. Turns out it may be caused by an immune reaction to the feces of skin mites.

Microscopic Demodex mites live on our skin, deep in our pores, and are more numerous in those who suffer from rosacea. After mating, they die in your pores. Since they have no anus, their mite poo just sits there, full of a certain bacteria that is thought to trigger the immune reaction causing rosacea.

Read more about the research at New Scientist. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go wash my face.

(image remixed from Wikipedia)

Source: newscientist.com

Voraciously Heinous and Veinous Venom

Do you have a strong stomach?

Seriously. Don’t just click that video all willy-nilly.

If you do proceed, you’re in for one of the most whoa-inducing demonstrations of venom chemistry that I’ve ever seen. You’ll have to ignore the annoyingly dubbed audio.

The Russell’s viper is native to the Indian subcontinent and is responsible for a huge number of fatal snakebites. They can deliver 4-5 times the lethal dose of venom in a single bite, using what I can only scientifically describe as horrendous knife-like appendages of piercing death poison.

The coagulants (the blood-clotting factors) in venom like this thicken the blood by causing a protein called prothrombin to activate into its active thrombin form. By snipping off a little piece of the prothrombin molecule, kind of like pulling a pin from a grenade, the thrombin acts as a switch to activate a whole mess of things in your bloodstream that gel up and form fibers. Normally, this would help stop bleeding, but in the case of the snake it just kills you from the inside (a charming cause of death referred to as “disseminated intravascular coagulation”).

There are more deadly snakes in the world, but I’ve never seen venom that acts in such a dramatically disgusting fashion. There is a silver lining, though. The venom is so good at clotting blood that it led to medical blood clotting aids to help stop wounds and a common lab test to diagnose lupus.

What Stands Between You and the World’s Most Expensive Burger Is just $345,000 and a willingness to eat in vitro prepared scraps of synthetic flesh coaxed from stem cells, stretched between pieces of velcro to provide texture and finally soaked in synthetic blood and iron to provide flavor and color. In other words, this is synthetic meat, and it’s going to be in experimental stages as soon as next year. I mean, we need to come up with a more sustainable way to provide protein to the world’s population that factory farming, but for now I think we should stick to growing skin, not burgers. Despite that, the wolves-in-sheep’s-clothing at PETA are offering a million bucks to get the job done. More detail and gross-out factor at Ars Technica. (via Discover Magazine)
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What Stands Between You and the World’s Most Expensive Burger

Is just $345,000 and a willingness to eat in vitro prepared scraps of synthetic flesh coaxed from stem cells, stretched between pieces of velcro to provide texture and finally soaked in synthetic blood and iron to provide flavor and color.

In other words, this is synthetic meat, and it’s going to be in experimental stages as soon as next year.

I mean, we need to come up with a more sustainable way to provide protein to the world’s population that factory farming, but for now I think we should stick to growing skin, not burgers. Despite that, the wolves-in-sheep’s-clothing at PETA are offering a million bucks to get the job done.

More detail and gross-out factor at Ars Technica.

(via Discover Magazine)

Source: blogs.discovermagazine.com

Ever wonder what it would be like if you took a belly button swab from all the people you ran into in one day and swiped it on an agar plate? I mean, it’s a dark, mysterious recess in the middle of your abdomen … who knows what could be growing in there. Well, attendees at #scio11 did just that, and you’re looking at the belly-button biosphere of some very smart folks.
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Ever wonder what it would be like if you took a belly button swab from all the people you ran into in one day and swiped it on an agar plate? I mean, it’s a dark, mysterious recess in the middle of your abdomen … who knows what could be growing in there.

Well, attendees at #scio11 did just that, and you’re looking at the belly-button biosphere of some very smart folks.

Source: wildlifeofyourbody.org