12. A Potato Battery Can Light Up a Room For Over a Month

    Can you believe you can light up your room over a month by using a potato battery? According to the researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, potato which is boiled about eight minutes have a power ten times better than a raw one. However, how the 'Potato battery' really works is the potato acts as 'salt-bridge' between two metals attached to each side of potato, and it allows the electron current to move across the bridge to create electricity.
Check out for more information from http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/ideas/2013/12/a-potato-battery-can-light-up-a-room-for-over-a-month/

                     

11. Now it is time to video chat with your puppy!

     

           When you have to leave house for couple days, now you wouldn't have to worry about anymore. Recently, 'PetChatz' is invented by Mark Kroll, a medical technology developer, who first considered this pet paranting device by looking at his dog can recognize and respond to her daughter through skype. This device can interact with your pet while you are not home using microphone, you can also give him food and you can check your pet's safe anytime you want.

If you are more interested, click http://www.petchatz.com/about/features-and-benefits or http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/ideas/2013/12/this-device-lets-people-video-chat-with-their-pets/

10. Some Birds Can Stay in Flight for Six Months Straight!

       

Have you ever thought how long a bird can fly without resting on the ground?  Felix Liechti and his colleague at the Swiss Ornithological Institute found out the alpine swift, a small migratory bird can fly for more than 200 days without touching the ground using new sensing technology.
This technology works as to attach a small electronic tag on the body of the birds and the tag collect data every four minutes of the bird's location. The result shows that the bird stays in Europe for summer breeding and then migrate to Africa for the winter, thousands of miles away.  The only flaws of this research is as this tag sends the data every 4 minutes, so there is a chance the bird might touched down the ground in between these intervals. But still, I think it is cool study to show that this tiny bird can fly over 200 days without resting!
If you want more information,
Go to http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2013/10/this-bird-can-stay-in-flight-for-six-months-straight/

9. Mehmet, Oz. Genetically Modified Foods (GMO): Good or Bad? Doctoroz.com [Internet] 2012 Oct 16 [cited 2013 Nov 25 for SCIENCE in the NEWS]. Available from; http://www.doctoroz.com/blog/mehmet-oz-md/genetically-modified-foods-good-or-bad.

       Genetically modified foods are created using biotechnology to change their genetic material. The technique develops desired genes that are useful for our lives, or sometimes inactivates unwanted genes to make the product more efficient. Mehmet Oz, who is the host of The Dr. Oz Show and a professor of Surgery at Columbia University, talks about each side’s main points on genetically modified foods (GMOs), which are still greatly controversial today, instead of standing on one side of the GMO issue in this article. Mehmet explains several specific examples of modified corn, such as genetically modifying corn to be tolerant to herbicides, breeding corn with a built-in pesticide that kills bugs, or taking out a fish gene that can survive in cold water to make corn that survives in cold water. Furthermore, even though there are many merits to using genetically modified foods to feed a growing population, his opinion is that we still have to be on alert about the future costs of using GM foods.

     Overall, this article is a brief introduction of genetically modified foods and also about several cases of GM foods used in real life. I do agree that we have to be sure of what we eat and aware of future side-effects that might cause severe diseases. However, instead of worrying about upcoming negative effects of eating GM foods, I believe the problem of hunger and starvation has to come first which we all have to solve out together. In that way, using GM foods is the best way to figure out the problem of insufficient global food resources resulting from poverty at this stage.

     * However, if there is any other way to solve this hunger problem from poverty in developing countries, what would be the methods to replace the GM foods? 
   * If you disagree with popularizing GM foods, what would be the reason?
                       

8. Are Silent Farts Worse? and WHY?

     Do you know why sometimes your fart smells bad, and sometimes it doesn't?
According to this video, large noise farts consist of higher portion of CO2, nitrogen, and hydrogen gas, which doesn't have any odor. But silent farts contains a sulfur gas which comes from bacteria which applied to digest food, and that is how the smells can be really bad. Check out this fun video attaced below!

Source : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btV4K9JMVEQ&list=UUC552Sd-3nyi_tk2BudLUzA

         
                

7. Strange Translucent Snail Discovered 3,000 Feet Below Ground

     Normally, snails are known with brown colored spiral shells body. However, scientists have found this new kind snails with a translucent shell about 3000 feet underground in a Croatian cave recently. This newly found snail species called Zospeum tholussum, has tiny shells which are only about 1.4 to 1.8 millimeters tall. As this special kind of snails live such a deep dark land, a lot of these species are blind.
                        
Source : http://www.businessinsider.com/strange-translucent-snail-discovered-in-croatia-2013-9

6. How Botox works to remove wrinkles

   As I was little behind of the schedule, I thought I would share my second writing project about 'Botox' this week. I assume everyone knows what 'Botox' is, this paper explains about how the material is made, the actual mechanism of removing wrinkles and also the result within few weeks will be explained with couple figures. Feel free to comment below if you have any questions! <:

How Botox works to remove wrinkles

     ‘Botox’ is known as highly effective non-surgical method to remove wrinkles on your face. Despite its popularity, not many people recognize where the material comes from. In reality, Botox is a concise word of ‘Botulinum toxin (BTX)’ which is one kind of toxin produced from a bacterium called ‘Clostridium Botulinum’. Isn’t it cool to know that you were actually infected by a bacteria’s toxin to remove your wrinkles? In this paper, the origin of Botox, the biochemical mechanism of removing facial creases, and the actual results of using this product will be explained.

1. Origin of Botox   

First of all, let’s look at where Botox has come from. The real official name Botulinum Toxin (BTX) for Botox was first found in improperly handled meat products. The toxin was discovered from bacteria and called ‘Clostridium Botulinum’ (keen et al, 1994). The bacterium has seven different kinds of toxin (type A, B, C, D, E, F and G) and normally results in decreasing a muscle’s activity by blocking the site where neurotransmitters are released. Later on, scientists developed a way to purify a mixture of toxin type A and type B, which is the actual start of using Botox to prevent wrinkles development by paralyzing facial muscles. The method became very popular in the United States and other countries. It turns out to be the most common cosmetic operation method to remove wrinkles.

2. Biochemical mechanism of Botox removing facial wrinkles

When Botulinum Toxin (BTX) is injected in a muscle, it blocks SNARE proteins from breaking through the membrane barrier at the end of the cell, so that neurotransmitters cannot flood into the receptors of the muscle. This causes the muscle to contract and gives the appearance of wrinkles. In the human body, passing a signal using vesicles from a nerve system to a muscle can be describe as crossing a river by riding a boat. To be able to pass a neuron signal from a nerve system to a muscle, a synaptic vesicle, which contains the neurotransmitters, has to move from nerve terminus to the muscle cell (Fig 1). When the neuron system is in a normal state, three kinds of SNARE proteins (SNAP25, Synaptobrevin and Syntaxin) perform together to break through the membrane barrier at the end of the nerve cell. Then they help neurotransmitter to release the receptors of the muscle and cause the muscle to contract (Fig 1).

                
Fig.1. Neurotransmitter released in normal state of a nerve cell. Three SNARE proteins combine together and attach to the membrane barrier and helps synaptic vesicles to approach to the muscle cell and release neurotransmitter. Then the muscle fiber contracts and it creates wrinkles.

  When Botulinum toxin comes into the neuron system, the toxin enters a synaptic vesicle and prevents the SNARE proteins from forming the complex (Fig 2). Accordingly, the SNARE proteins cannot bind to the membrane and the neurotransmitter is not able to enter the muscle cell. As muscle cells would not receive any signals, the muscle fiber is paralyzed (Fig 2). This ‘paralyzing effect’ is how Botox works to remove facial creases.

                                           

Fig.2. Nerve cell exposured to Botulinum Toxin. Botulinum toxin entered on a nerve cell blocks SNARE proteins to attach on a membrane surface. Without the proteins linked on a surface, neurotransmitter cannot release into the muscle cell and it ends up paralyzing the muscle fiber.

3. Botox injection effect

As previously mentioned, Botox can improve the muscles, and Botox injections target specific and individual muscles to flatten out by weakening or paralyzing the muscles for a short amount of time (citation). Generally, injecting time only takes about five to ten minutes. After the injection, the advance of your look is seen within three to four days and the improvement of your appearance usually lasts from three to six months (Fig 3, 4).

                               

    Fig.3. Patient before and after Botox injection on forehead

  (http://www.carterabbottmedspa.com/botox)

 

                                                                  

Fig.4. Patient before and after Botox injection on eye wrinkles

  (http://www.carterabbottmedspa.com/botox)

Now we know, not only Botox is known as one of the best ways to eliminate wrinkles but this material is a type of botulism comes from a bacterium which acts as neurotransmitter blocker to prevent the muscle contraction from creating wrinkles. Even though the Botox is tested safe to use in human body, there are several temporary side effects such as a drooping eyelid, double vision or getting a dull look. However, if Botox is carefully used in right medical circumstances, Botox still maybe a good option for wrinkle removal as we understand how Botox works and the possible side-effects.

Works Cited

Keen M, Kopelman JE., Aviv JE, et al. Botulinum Toxin A: A Novel Method to Remove periorbital Wrinkles (1994). Facial Plastic Surg. 10(2): 141-6.

5. 'Gravity' - The Coolest science fiction thriller movie ever!

   This movie ' Gravity' is a science fiction thriller filmed by Alfonso Curaon, released on the first week of October, still has a pretty high rating which is at 8.6! For me, even the first scene was amazing! It started with zooming out the entire Earth for a while with no sound at all and then the camera slowly zooms in two people, Sandra Bullock (Dr. Ryan Stone, a brilliant medical engineer) and George Clooney (Matt Kowalsky, veteran astronaut) on their mission fixing a mechanic problem on a shuttle in space. Suddenly the shuttle had some serious problem about to explode, and after a short while, everything on the shuttle explodes and Dr.Ryan and Matt had to leave the shuttle, and directly face into a space that has no water, oxygen or sound.

  This movie illustrates really well how frustrated and hopeless it could be to be situated in space where I always have thought to be the coolest to travel around if I have money to spend. In the middle of the film, when Dr. Ryan ended up realize that there is nothing she can do, she met Matt Kowalsky in her dream. He basically gave a hint that she could try out to get out of the space, and she put her last effort on it and finally made it to get back to the Earth.

  Hence, not only this movie was just cool to watch, but also gave me a lesson to be grateful and happy with what I have right now :) If you still have not watch this movie,you must watch it on IMAX screen!
                         
 

                 

4. Compare and contrast of 'Cell' journal between 1993 and 2010.

Hi guys! I am sharing my first writing project about comparing and contrast of 'Cell' journal between the version published in 1993 and 2010. Even the time has passed, there were a lot of similarities between in these eras, and also I could pick out several improvement on the volume published in 2010. Please feel free to comment if you have any thoughts about this article. Thanks! :)

'Cell’ is a well-known scientific journal that includes a broad range of peer-reviewed research papers. Areas included are: Molecular biology, Cell and stem cell biology, Developmental biology, Microbiology, Immunology, Genetics and Genomics, cancer research, Virology, Physiology, Biophysics and Computational biology. The journal was established by Benjamin Lewin in 1974 and has been published biweekly by ‘Cell Press,’ an imprint of Elsevier. In this paper, two ‘Cell’ journals which were published in different eras will be analyzed in three parts: their features of book cover design, including their tables of contents and advertisement, their format (IMARD), images, the structure of their journal articles, and their sentence-level of passages. I will compare a recent version of ‘Cell’ from January, 1993 with another version from February, 2010.

             Even though there is a 17 years gap between the 1993 and the 2010 issues, the design of the book cover did not improve a lot. The 2010 version seems to have more creativity in the front page to draw the attention of readers, while the previous version displays the real image of the science itself. The total length of both journals consisted of about 170 pages, and both have the same font size and ratio of words to figures.

The table of contents and the list of the editorial board had improved, with more detail compared to the past periodical. In the 1993 book menu, there is a mini-review and a book review section, which describes more in detail about two to three specific articles that relate to the main article, and then talk about the main articles in the issue. However, in the 2010 table of contents, they divide each column more specifically, so it is clearer how the topic makes sense by reading the book in a regular sequence without going back and forth. For example, they made new columns such as ‘Leading edge essay and previews’ to prepare people for the main topics to come. In addition, all the subtitles and images were colored in the 2010 edition, making the readers focus more on the book. The 2010 edition also presents a significantly better quality of image. Not only the color but also the improvement of images might come from advanced science techniques or lab instruments scientists have developed lately.

Looking at the quality of advertisement and editorial board, the recent version includes advertisements for professional appliances and makes their products more interesting by using metaphors, instead of listing out all the features and results of their products. Also, I could not find any common editorial members between the two issues, which is understandable, seeing as the gap between these two volumes is about 20 years.

             Now, comparing these two journals more in depth, I observed the format and graphics difference at first. Then, I examined if there was any change in style and particular sentence-level features in each section of the research articles in the newer issue. Since the articles are scientific research papers, the entire article uses clear IMRAD format and ensures that all the figures and tables of previous volume follow analogous rules of recent versions. For example, the articles of both eras put an arrow bar to point out the features, and they both use the same order and direction to mark figures. However, even the structure looks very similar; the recent version uses enhanced figures and tables, and overall has better visuals than the old version.

             Not surprisingly, I could not find any metaphor, but there was much jargon related to the topic in each article. On that count, these two science journals only focus on specialists who have a background in their main topic, not on the non-experts who do not have any background knowledge. Also, in both articles, the sentences they use are hard to understand, with technical terms connected with numbers and abbreviations.

In conclusion, I suppose even there were seventeen years between the 1993 and 2010 volumes, the overall format, cover design and contents have not been changed that much, although the journal have revised a few parts over the time. To get a reader’s attention, both science journals use interesting cover designs with a simple important point from the article. Within the same IMRAD format on the recent version of journal, you can encounter colored high quality images with better explanation of figures and tables, but essentially the articles in the old volume and the ones in the recent journal all use same tactics to convey their ideas. 

References
Mai Har Sham, Vesque C., Nonchev S., Marshall H., Frain M., Gupta R.D., Whiting J., Krumlauf R. The zinc finger gene Krox20 regulates HoxB2 (Hox2.8) during hindbrain segmentation (1993) Cell, 72 (2): pp. 183-196, doi: 10.1016/0092-8674(93)90659-E

MacKay,C., Declais, A.C., Lundin,C., Agostinho,A. Deans AJ, Macartney TJ, Hofman K, Gartner A, West SC, Helleday T, Lilley DM, Ruse J (2010). Identification of KIAA1018/FAN1, a DNA repair nuclease recruited to DNA damage by monoubiquitinated FANCD2. Cell, 142(1):65-66, doi:10.1016/j.cell.2010.06.021.

3. Sieving Through 'Junk' DNA Reveals Disease-Causing Genetic Mutations

     Non-coding region of DNA, which also has been called 'junk' DNA was found out to be an origin of mutations that cause all kinds of cancers followed by research team from Yale University. The research team used the first phase of the 1000 Genomes Project of genetic variants including the non-coding regions information. Then, they could determine the regions to show low levels of variation as protein-coding regions, and named them 'ultra-sensitive' regions. In the ultra-sensitive region, they found out a specific DNA region was causing severe disturbances on genetic region which might occur knock-on effect, resulting in diseases. This is such a influential discovery not only welcomed for cancer research but can also widen to a research field of genetic disease.

Source:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131003142321.htm

2. NASA's Cassini spacecraft finds ingredient of household plastic in space

     This article shows NASA's Cassini aircraft first discovered the plastic ingredient on planet, Titan. It is remarkable fact to space scientists as there were not any detection of plastic ingredients has been found on any moon or planet, other than Earth.
 Scientists in this article used  Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) which measures the infrared light or heat radiation to identify 'Propylene'. Even it was difficult topic to understand, the writer used wonder appeal to make readers familiar with this topic. And also, he gave some background information in between, so it was easier to understand with the additional information.

           
Source:http://esciencenews.com/articles/2013/09/30/nasas.cassini.spacecraft.finds.ingredient.household.plastic.space

1. Polar bear's change of diet builds up a higher POP loads in their body

     Oftentimes, we are already aware of how global warming is negatively affecting the Arctic ocean and to the polar bear who lives in the warming Arctic ocean. According to the Science Daily news, the East Greenlandic area is where most of the polar bears reside because the sea ice disappears later than the other place of the Arctic ocean. Nevertheless, the declining rate of the ice in the area is 1% per year, and it influences the polar bears feed from ringed seal to harp seal or hooded seal.

    An international research team of the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources from Aarhus University and several Canadian institutions investigated fatty acids of adipose tissues from Arctic Polar bears from 1984 to 2011, and found out  the intake of sub-Arctic seals brought an increase of persistent organic pollutatnts (POPs), which means for a higher usage of POPs in human life over the years based on the data.

                           

Reference : Aarhus University (2013, September 20). Climate change: Polar bears change to diet with higher contaminant loads. ScienceDaily. Retrieved