What I Learnt This Week 9: Cells are protective, Stem Cells, Freckles, The Flu and Mosquito correction.
This time I didn't post yesterday, I used the time for yesterday's post to make up for today. Seriously, am tired of having to apologize at the beginning of every part of the series. A lot was learnt this week and I had to pick between a wide range of choices. Today, we'll be seeing Cells... err... what's the point? I think it's boldly written above. Ok, let's go into today's episode right-away.
Monday: Cells protect our gene more than rest of genome
Everyone knows how harmful mutations can be - changing a white child to black, replacing healthy tissues with fibrous ones, giving a perfect child disabilities and so on.[1] Now, organisms have been found to evolve a mechanism that helps them fix the sequence of their DNA after the mutation might have caused some mismatches - this mechanism is DNA mismatch repair (MMR). The study showed that MMR can be used to aim at some regions of the genome, to repair the genes.
[2]The organism used for the study is the Arabidopsis thaliana, a model organism used in genetics and plant biology. The study has a link to humans as it could be used to understand the changes going on in the cell during the development of tumors.
[3]The research team includes scientists from the Zhejiang University in China, the Lahore University of Management Studies in Pakistan, and Prof. Nicholas Harberd of the Oxford University being the lead researcher. The team was able to evaluate about 9000 mutations that occurred in five generations of an MMR-deficient strain of Arabidopsis thaliana and they compared them with the mutations occurring in the MMR-proficient strain.
Of course, the mutations in the MMR-deficient strain was greatly higher than that of the MMR-proficient strain.
P.S The paper finds that MMR preferentially repairs genes, rather than other regions of the genome
Sorry, I couldn't take much time to explain this. You know this series is just a summary but it's nothing. If you want to explore further, check the links below.
[University of Oxford] and [Global News]
Tuesday: Stem cells could offer heart repair.
[4] Relax, take some chill pill. I didn't mean just any stem cell. A decorated stem cell is the one am referring to. Stem cells decorated with platelets vesicles can now find and fix heart issues like the heart attack. Surprising! You know, I keep wondering where science is taking the world to, but I don't know for sure. You know? Leave me a comment.
[5] Long ago, the cardiac stem cells were known to help repair the heart but the had challenges. They couldn't target the area of the heart they wanted, and that's where the specialty of the study is. Ke Cheng of the North California State Unversity and his team were able to decorate the cardiac stem cells with platelet nanovesicles to help the stem cells find the heart attack injury and beyond that, remain in position to aid and boost the effectiveness of the treatment.
[6] This was made possible by the platelets because usually, platelets can search for an injury and stay there. Even in some cases, they take stem cells along but just as it is helpful, it is also dangerous. According to Cheng, once platelets get to a site of injury, they stimulate a coagulation process of blood clot and in a heart attack, that's the last thing you need. A few stones still unturned could determine if it's possible to use the platelets to decorate stem cells without the stimulation of a blood clot.
Wednesday: Freckles on your iris is a pointer.
[7] Freckles on the iris might not be seen as important as it should. A lot of people might associate it with the different things they are going through in their lives. But hey, you really have to stop the assumption, it's way bigger than that. Freckles on the eye have been found to be a pointer for melanoma - a horrible skin cancer, difficult to treat in later stages. Many people wouldn't take time to check their skin even at hospitals but it's at least easier now - your iris can tell you. So, once you see freckles on your iris, you know it's a pointer that shows an increased risk or possibility of melanoma.
[8] The number of freckles also is important. Three freckles should be about 45% risk which means a freckle might be 15% and this has been found to be true for people under age 40. Melanoma is a deadly and common cancer dominating the world of cancer in Australia mostly in people between 15-39.
[9] Other determinants for the melanoma include red hair and blue eyes. In a test done on about 1117 people around Queensland, their result showed that a person with pigmented lesion is about 1.45 times likely to develop the melanoma.
Well, you don't have to be frightened by this. That's not the essence. It's for you to know and do the needful.
Thursday: The reason Flu is bad this year.
In the steemstem chat, I've seen a few people complain about flu, at first it was @lemouth and later @justtryme90 and in between them, I've seen some other guys talk about it in the chat. So, I thought about digging to know the reason behind its predominance in this new year.
[10] The flu is worthy of being tagged as a "pandemic disease" in the United States as it has claimed above 40 lives and its widespread has been reported in most of the states this January.
"Charles Chiu, a Professor of Laboratory Medicine, the University of California San Francisco in an interview revealed the reason."
[11]There are five flu strains circulating in the United States at present Influenza A (can be treated with vaccines), H3N2 and H1N1, two types of Influenza B (either one can be treated with vaccines), and Influenza C. Of them all, Influenza A, H3N2 is the most dangerous.
[12] According to Charles, the main reasons behind the predominance is [1] because the flu started earlier last year, November. The usual time is December, and it peaks in late January or very early in February. [2] About 80 percent of the Flu in the United States is caused by the H3N2 - the most dangerous Influenza.
Friday: Scientists are about to teach mosquitoes to stop biting people.
We all know how annoying mosquitoes can be in noise-making, disturbance, and most especially when it comes to their bites. Most people including myself, hate mosquitoes because of their parasitic nature, not our fault but what comes as a result of their bites.
Alas, we see signs of good news on our radar, scientists are planning to teach mosquitoes not to bite us anymore. How sweet does that sound? Like having a mosquito friend, Lol. Of course not, or how would I recognize my friend?
[13] Scientists have now looked into what causes that cruel behavior, and they look to change or correct it. I bet you didn't know that not all mosquitoes feed on blood. Well, the examination of the mosquito revealed that the mosquito has about 902 genes related to blood feeding and 478 not related to blood feeding which means there's a possibility here.
[14] If this eventually happens, it means hundreds of thousands of people killed by malaria in a year have been saved because mosquitoes wouldn't feed on blood anymore and there would be no way they'll spread the plasmodium to people.That would be really a great breakthrough for humanity.
Sorry, if I gave you too much stress moving your eyes from left to right. I was trying to manage space and also put my editing skills to test in a way and if you found too many mistakes during your session, am sorry. I really went through a lot of struggles trying to recover the work. It was lost at the point of editing.
Thank you for coming around!!
That little boy, @pearlumie.
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Image Sources
#/media/File:Iris_bilious_right.jpg){kind=link}
References
[8] The number of freckles matter
[9] Other symptoms of freackle
[10] Flu has claimed over 40 lives in U.S.A
[11] The types of flu circulating in the U.S
[12] The main reason for the predominance of flu
Those mosquitoes not feeding on humans can't come too soon. Thanks for posting!
Lol.. Already, there are some that don't bite. But if you mean the females, maybe soon or not depends on the researchers on it. We never can tell.
Great idea of giving short information and the possibility of reading into detail if one is interested in the topic!!
Sadly I fear not biting mosquitos will still buzz :P
No, forget the joking -great articles you came up with!
As you are the fist member of Steemstem I see and I haven't got an e-mail to verify my account for the chat yet, I wanted to ask you: How is the whole system working? How many members are you and can anyone be a member or how is it chosen?
I would be happy for some information!
Best greetings, Coco
Had to resteem this post, so interesting! Thank you :)
Steemstem is a general community. You can join freely, you don't have to be chosen. And as for how many people are in steemstem, there's a lot of people. I think we are above 600..
Thanks! So there is the community Steemstem joining the chat, but there is also a team behind Steemstem working for it to choose the best articles, did I understand this right?
Yes
The only other time i grabbed this much medical knowledge was when i read a thriller by Patricia Cornwell , though her bone of contention in the book was human anatomy. Well , it was medicine all the same, you should fuse this in thrillers yourself. Nice markdown gymnastics by the way. Kudos
Thank you. I really appreciate
I love this, i learnt so much from this post.. Thanks a lot @pearlumie
That was really enlightening bro. So, what can you say is the difference between DNA Mutation and DNA Engineering?
Sorry, I don't like much talks but in DNA engineering, you're purposely trying to fix the DNA while in mutation, you don't purposely call for it. It comes on its own and it's usually not what you want. I think I mentioned a few things about mutation, maybe you didn't really read..
Wow, i love this. So educative!
The freckles tho, have not come across it before. Thanks for the knowledge.
And a mosquitoes that doesnt bit? Wow that a wonderful one. I hate mosquitoes.
Interesting work!
No, thank you for reading...
This is really educative I learnt a lot already thanks @pearlumie thought could get much simpler explanation but will sure check the external links for further studies.
I think next time you should take more time to explain.
Lol.. If I took more time to explain, you wouldn't be able to read it up.. Having 5000 words in a post, I bet you won't read it.
You prety right thanks
:thumbsup:
Cool formatting tricks! I didn't even know you could do columns in Markdown; surprisingly versatile 👍
Thank you..
i like the concept about mosquito, flu, which we really need to have self awareness of them and prevent.
I was having some trouble knowing which paragraph to read first! Initially I thought I was supposed to read the left column first and then the right column. Then I realized it's more like zigzag, left then right then left again then right, etc. Now I've got no clue!
Anyways, thanks for making me scared to look at my eyes in the mirror! :P
I numbered them. You could have just checked the numbers. Anyway, thanks for coming
LOL, I thought those were just references and I didn't pay attention to the order! Silly me!
Lol