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Inquiring Minds Want to Know...
Can bacteria make you lose weight?
When it comes to things like bacteria and parasites, you probably think, "Yuck, I don't want them on or in me." But there are tons of good guys in the microbial world – many bacteria that live in and on our bodies have profound effects on keeping us healthy.
Staphylococcus aureus
New research is showing that microbes living inside our digestive track help improve metabolism and spur weight loss. Evidence suggests a person's ability to extract energy and store fat from food changes depending on which combination of bacteria are living in the person's gut. Those who are morbidly obese tend to nurture bacteria that promote the fat-storage process, which is likely a factor in their excessive weight.
The composition of your microflora, (or bacteria living in and on your body), helps to establish how many calories you absorb from the food you eat. This might explain why two individuals can consume the same amount of calories, but one will gain weight and the other won't.
In the future, we may be able to manipulate the microbes of obese individuals to look like those of normal-weight people which would likely aid in weight loss.
Answer courtesy of Assistant Professor Blaise Boles
Understanding how DNA is repaired when damaged
Every cell in your body encounters roughly 50,000 DNA lesions per day. This high number doesn't include events that expose your body to more damage, such as sun tanning. The Simmons Lab uses a common soil bacterium to learn how DNA abnormalities are identified in the cell and how DNA damage is repaired.
To study DNA repair, the bacteria are exposed to chemicals that cause DNA damage. A variety of techniques are then used to study the repair process, one of which is watching the proteins work through a microscope in live cells. Within minutes, the bacteria has identified the damage, and begun the repair process. The Simmons Lab studies this process imaging thousands of bacteria daily.
The Simmons lab also studies DNA mispairing events. DNA is copied quickly at roughly 1,000 bases per second. As the bacteria's DNA is copied, mistakes can be made, caused by mispairing in the DNA. While mispairing is rare in cells, with the human body consisting of 100 trillion cells, mispairing in the human body is not uncommon. Sometimes mispairing in humans can have serious health consequences resulting in mutations that can lead to cancer. Through using biochemistry and genetics to study how the mispairs are identified and corrected in bacteria, the Simmons lab relates this information to human cells in an effort to improve our understanding of mutation-associated diseases.
Answer courtesy of Assistant Professor Lyle Simmons
Are the genes in my eye the same as the genes in my liver?
The cells are different, but they have the same genes. A copy of your DNA is contained in every cell, holding the genetic instructions to generating all your specialized cells. Your DNA has roughly 25,000 genes
C. elegans embryo under the microscope
Research in the lab is done on the one-millimeter long round worm, C. elegans. This model organism is dissected and has its nuclei studied under a microscope. Several C. elegans are studied at one time, with normal cells being compared to mutant cells.
The need to understand how cells regulate their genes is important. Without this cell regulation, a cell's controls can go awry. Cancerous cells have lost their internal controls and do not mature into a specialized cell. With a better understanding of gene regulation, when something goes wrong in a cell, we will be better equipped to learn how to fix it.
Answer courtesy of Assistant Professor Gyorgyi Csankovszki
You are what your mother ate
In 1944 the Nazis cut off the Netherlands from its food supply, leading to the Dutch famine ("Hunger Winter.") The children of the stressed and malnourished pregnant women were smaller at birth, but when the war ended and food was plentiful they appeared to grow to a normal size for their age. However, as adults they had a greater incidence of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. These adverse health effects may be attributed to exposure of the offspring to elevated stress hormones while in the womb caused by the maternal malnutrition and psychological stress.
Elevations in stress hormones during early development caused by exposure to stressors may predispose individuals to disease and psychosocial disorders later in life. Stress hormones may cause modifications to DNA (DNA methylation) and the proteins that surround the DNA (the histones). These changes are called "epigenetic" in that they do not involve mutations in the DNA, but lead to altered levels of gene expression. There is a growing body of evidence that epigenetic mechanisms of gene regulation play central roles in mediating the relationship between the early environment and later life physiology and behavior.
Answer courtesy of Professor Robert Denver
Why do plants have a fragrant scent?
Scents have a way of jolting us into recalling deeply seated memories.The whiff of a plant's fragrance might bring to mind childhood experiences, evoking a sense of time and place more powerfully than any other stimulus. Our ancestors knew the emotional power of particular smells, which are mentioned in ancient religious texts such as the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the Hindu Vedas and the
Judeo-Christian Bible.
What is plant biotechnology and how can it help feed the world?
A growing world population, increased demand for food and the constant reduction in farm land used for agriculture can pose a great risk to food-production stability and supply.
While efficient
Basic plant research, which helps us understand how plants develop, grow and interact with the environment and their pathogens, can help us design new ways of improving and controlling their growth not only for further research, but also for improving their agricultural traits. Plant biotechnology is one of the special niches in plant biology research which is typically aimed at improving and using plants for various applications by means of molecular biology and the production of genetically modified (also known as transgenic) plants.
Why should you avoid looking directly at the sun, even during an eclipse?
Because sunlight is so bright -
And, if you lose too many of your photoreceptors, you will go blind.
Photoreceptors are specialized neurons in the retina that respond to photons of light by generating neural signals. These signals are processed by other neurons in the retinal network and then sent via the optic nerve to the brain, to produce visual perception.
The human neural retina, like the other parts of the central nervous system (i.e., the brain and the spinal cord), is unable to replace neurons that are lost through disease or damage. However, fishes have a robust ability to regenerate neurons and nerve fibers in the brain, spinal cord and retina, and are able to repair neuronal damage and restore function.
Answer courtesy of Professor Pamela Raymond.
