Pterocarpus Angolensis is A Tree Native To South Africa. It’s Also Commonly Known As The Bloodwood

Craterellus cornucopioides (trumpet of the dead) and Hygrocybe conica (witch's hat), competing for Most Goth Common Name

Petri dish after being exposed to common household air. Includes Aspergillum, penicillium, green & black rhysopus, & stachybotrum moldm

I’ve done it! I’ve designed such an incredibly cursed molecule that MolView doesn’t even assign it a systematic IUPAC name. Behold:

The image doesn’t even show up right in the post editor lol. This thing would have such unbelievably ridiculous angle strain that if a molecule of it was ever assembled, it would almost certainly degrade instantly. Possibly violently.

Bad Newts: Amphibians are in Serious Trouble

My colleagues and I have just had a paper published in Nature, based on our efforts to assess almost all amphibian species for the IUCN Red Lists. The major takeaway messages:

It is a bad time to be an amphibian

Two fifths of all amphibians are threatened with extinction.

Salamanders are the most threatened group; three fifths of all salamanders are threatened with extinction!

Climate change is a major driver of amphibian declines globally

Habitat loss, especially due to agriculture, is a problem for the vast majority of amphibians

Chytrid pandemics have caused and continue to cause catastrophic declines of both salamanders and frogs

Protected areas and careful management are working as strategies! They are actively improving the outlook of some species

As many as 222 amphibian species may have gone extinct in recent times; of those, 185 are suspected extinct but not yet confirmed.

Our paper is Open Access, you can read it here!

Photo of Atelopus hoogmoedi by Jaime Culebras, used with permission

phys.org

Predatory bacteria provide hope for chlorine-free drinking water

In a unique study carried out in drinking water pipes in Sweden, researchers from Lund University and the local water company tested what wo

In a unique study carried out in drinking water pipes in Sweden, researchers from Lund University and the local water company tested what would happen if chlorine was omitted from drinking water. The result? An increase in bacteria, of course, but after a while something surprising happened: a harmless predatory bacteria grew in numbers and ate most of the other bacteria. The study suggests that chlorine is not always needed if the filtration is efficient—and that predatory bacteria could perhaps be used to purify water in the future. Just as human intestines contain a rich bacterial flora, many types of bacteria thrive in our drinking water and the pipes that transport them. On the inside of pipe walls is a thin, slippery coating, called a biofilm, which protects and supports bacteria. These bacteria have adapted to life in the presence of chlorine, which otherwise has the primary task to kill bacteria, particularity bacteria that can make humans sick.

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Fat Cell diagram for a college science class in 2022, rehearse for your science quiz here

to all my researchers, students and people in general who love learning: if you don't know this already, i'm about to give you a game changer

connectedpapers

the basic rundown is: you use the search bar to enter a topic, scientific paper name or DOI. the website then offers you a list of papers on the topic, and you choose the one you're looking for/most relevant one. from here, it makes a tree diagram of related papers that are clustered based on topic relatability and colour-coded by time they were produced!

for example: here i search "human B12"

i go ahead and choose the first paper, meaning my graph will be based around it and start from the topics of "b12 levels" and "fraility syndrome"

here is the graph output! you can scroll through all the papers included on the left, and clicking on each one shows you it's position on the chart + will pull up details on the paper on the right hand column (title, authors, citations, abstract/summary and links where the paper can be found)

you get a few free graphs a month before you have to sign up, and i think the free version gives you up to 5 a month. there are paid versions but it really depends how often you need to use this kinda thing.

nature.com

Rosalind Franklin was so much more than the ‘wronged heroine’ of DNA

One hundred years after her birth, it’s time to reassess the legacy of a pioneering chemist and X-ray crystallographer.

At the centre of Rosalind Franklin’s tombstone in London’s Willesden Jewish Cemetery is the word “scientist”. This is followed by the inscription, “Her research and discoveries on viruses remain of lasting benefit to mankind.” As one of the twentieth century’s pre-eminent scientists, Franklin’s work has benefited all of humanity. The one-hundredth anniversary of her birth this month is prompting much reflection on her career and research contributions, not least Franklin’s catalytic role in unravelling the structure of DNA.

. . .

But Franklin’s remarkable work on DNA amounts to a fraction of her record and legacy. She was a tireless investigator of nature’s secrets, and worked across biology, chemistry and physics, with a focus on research that mattered to society. She made important advances in the science of coal and carbon, and she became an expert in the study of viruses that cause plant and human diseases. In essence, it is because of Franklin, her collaborators and successors, that today’s researchers are able to use tools such as DNA sequencing and X-ray crystallography to investigate viruses such as SARS-CoV-2.

. . .

Franklin was an inveterate traveller on the global conference circuit and a collaborator with international partners. She won a rare grant (with Klug) from the US National Institutes of Health. She was a global connector in the booming early days of research into virus structures: an expert in pathogenic viruses who had gained an international reputation and cared deeply about putting her research to use. It is a travesty that Franklin is mostly remembered for not receiving full credit for her contributions to the discovery of DNA’s structure. That part of Franklin’s life story must never be forgotten, but she was so much more than the “wronged heroine”, and it’s time to recognize her for the full breadth and depth of her research career.