MIT: Building with Biology

Ritu Raman leads the Raman Lab, where she creates adaptive biological materials for applications in medicine and machines.

It seems that Ritu Raman was born with an aptitude for engineering. You may say it is in her blood since her mother is a chemical engineer, her father is a mechanical engineer, and her grandfather is a civil engineer. Throughout her childhood, she repeatedly witnessed firsthand the beneficial impact that engineering careers could have on communities. 

In fact, watching her parents build communication towers to connect the rural villages of Kenya to the global infrastructure is one of her earliest memories. She still vividly remembers the excitement she felt watching the emergence of a physical manifestation of innovation that would have a long-lasting positive impact on the community.

Raman is “a mechanical engineer through and through,” as she puts it. She earned her BS, MS, and PhD in mechanical engineering. Her postdoctoral work at MIT was supported by a L’Oréal USA for Women in Science Fellowship and a Ford Foundation Fellowship from the National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine.

Today, Ritu Raman leads the Raman Lab and is an assistant professor in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. However, she is not constrained by traditional ideas of what mechanical engineers should be building or the materials typically associated with the field.

 “As a mechanical engineer, I’ve pushed back against the idea that people in my field only build cars and rockets from metals, polymers, and ceramics. I’m interested in building with biology, with living cells,” she says.  READ MORE...

When Parents Take Antibiotics

Summary: Zebrafish study finds antibiotics can have detrimental effects on the descendants of those exposed to them, including weaker immune systems.

Source: University of Southern Denmark

Antibiotics have once proclaimed the salvation of the world. Today, researchers fear that antibiotics could become a threat to public health and the natural environment.

Since its invention, we have used antibiotics in such large doses and so often that more and more of us become resistant, and thus otherwise common and harmless infections can become life-threatening for us.

In recent years, research has also shown that just being exposed to antibiotics can have a negative effect; both on the organism being exposed and on the offspring of the organism.

Always in our water

And we are many, both humans and animals, who are exposed to antibiotics. Antibiotics are often found in wastewater, groundwater, surface water, and even bottled water and are thus difficult not to come into contact with.

“The half-life of antibiotics is quite short – it is out of the water again after hours or days – but since large amounts are continuously released into our water, we consider antibiotics as pseudo persistent water pollution,” says Elvis Genbo Xu, who is an expert in ecotoxicology and assistant professor at the Department of Biology, University of Southern Denmark.

He is the co-corresponding author of a new study on the undesirable effects of antibiotics, published in Environmental Science & Technology.  READ MORE...

Toad Breaks Silence

Ecuadoran biologist Jorge Brito was trekking through the forest when he heard what he thought was the chirp of a cricket.

What he found changed a century of scientific belief.

"At first I thought it was some sort of cricket out there vocalizing, but then I paid attention," said Brito, from Ecuador's national biodiversity institute.

It was, in fact, a type of brown toad with rough skin called Rhinella festae that has a prominent nose and had been considered mute since it was first discovered 100 year ago.

"While it did not inflate its vocal sack, you could see a small flicker" on its chin, said Brito.

He caught it and took it to a laboratory to study with his colleague Diego Batallas.

"The first time I heard it, I said: Wow, that's not the sound of a toad, it's like a little bird," Batalla told AFP.

The toad, which measures between 45 and 68 millimeters in length, lives in the mountainous Ecuadoran regions of Cutucu and Condor, extending over the border into the Amazonian region of Peru.

The discovery was first reported in February in Neotropical Biodiversity magazine, where Brito and Batallas described the sound made by the toad.

"It is the first time this unique song of the Rhinella festae has been recorded and it's surprising because it shouldn't sing," Batallas told AFP.    READ MORE...

Influences from Neural Oscillations

A research group from the University of Bologna discovered the first causal evidence of the double dissociation between what we see and what we believe we see: these two different mechanisms derive from the frequency and amplitude of alpha oscillations.

“If I don’t see it, I don’t believe it”, people say when they want to be certain of something. But are what we see and what we believe we see the same thing?

A new study published in the journal Current Biology shows that this is not the case: despite their usual strong correlation, the perceptual accuracy of visual information and its subjective interpretation use separate neural mechanisms that can be manipulated independently of each other.

The study—led by researchers from the University of Bologna together with Bologna AUSL (Local Health Authority) and the University of Glasgow (UK) – showed for the first time that the two mechanisms involved are related on the one hand to the frequency of alpha oscillations and, on the other hand, to their amplitude.

Alpha oscillations are pervasive neural oscillations in the posterior visual cortex linked to attention and concentration. This is the first causal evidence of the double dissociation between what we see and what we believe we see. These findings may prove useful to develop new treatments for the neurological and psychiatric populations with altered cognitive experiences.  READ MORE...

Monarch Butterflies

But just last fall during the 2020 annual Xerces Society Thanksgiving count, fewer than 2,000 butterflies showed up, a 99.9% drop since the 1980s.

A coalition of scientists and conservation experts have joined forces to try to extend a helping hand to these iconic butterflies.

“This is a huge crisis that we’re facing,” explained Xerces Society biologist Angela Laws.

The effort is led by River Partners and funded by California Fish and Wildlife.

“We need to do everything we can to try to save them,” said River Partners biologist Claire Pavelka.

At eight critical sites in California, teams recently finished planting 600 acres of native milkweed and other nectar-rich plants.

The hope is to restore habitat areas to encourage the butterflies to migrate by providing them critical nourishment.

“The landscape is a canvas, and we get to be the artist and we get to bring in what we want to see,” said California Fish and Wildlife Manager AJ Dill.

Monarch butterflies are known as an indicator species. What happens to them could spell trouble for other important pollinators

“It is often said that butterflies are like the famous canary in the coalmine. They’re indicators of a potentially dangerous situation before it’s generally perceived to be dangerous, ” explained Dr. Art Shapiro.  READ MORE