Euglena

Have you ever heard of a microorganism called Euglena? I first found about this creature in the biology textbook in high school (in Japan). It is normally featured on its unique behavior that they can photosynthesize to create energy by themselves, although they belong to animal group. But its great potential to contribute to humans is found in recent study and people are looking forward for solving global malnutrition problem. Surprisingly, this small creature has all of the nutrition humans require, and there is an extreme opinion that humans can live healthy by only consuming Euglena. Projects have began to multiply Euglena, dry, make supplements, and provide those to countries where people are suffering from malnutrition. Those products are completely organic and there are no worries of unhealthy chemicals.You may be able to find these in health shops in near future.

The irruption of carnivorous maggots in Florida

A recent news in Florida brought a big terror to people and shock to scientists. The worst kind of flies (maggots) is now back from the annihilation project which was thought to be completed in 50 years ago. These maggots are super harmful to humans since they eat any livestock, pets, and even humans alive! When an alive animal is laid eggs by adult fly, maggots born from the egg enter into flesh from the wound and start to eat all alive tissues of the animal. This maggots are also called "screwworms" because they have screw-like body and spin to dig into animal skin. This specie was thought to be annihilated by the mass release of radioactively castrated male flies about 50 years ago. Recently however, many dead bodies of wild deer eaten by this maggots have found in Florida. This specie can cause extreme damage to human society, so scientists are rushing to castrate, or genetically annihilate them again.

Planaria

Humans have always sought for eternal life as I wrote in previous post, and that often includes the ability to regenerate own body parts like arms and organs. That is of course impossible for humans and it is also denied for advanced animals. However, humans again found an animal that can regenerate any parts of its body in short time. The animal is called planaria, a group of flat worms. It has head with brain, stomach, and tail. It's very rare in animal world to possess an ability to regenerate such a complicated organ like brain. Its largest mystery is that when planaria is cut into many pieces, all of the pieces can identify the correct direction and repair. There is one story that a researcher cut planaria into 107 pieces and all of them were completely repaired and became 107 planarias. Its special cells are always ready to differentiate to any kinds of cells so many studies are taking place to somehow use this cell to repair human organ or body parts. The recent discovery of iPS cell is closely related to the study of planaria. Scientists are now trying to create artificial heart by using this cell.

uncanny valley

This week, I would like to explain about an interesting word, "uncanny valley". This word was suggested by a Japanese robot engineering professor, Mori. When a humanoid robot is created with more reality in emotion and movement, we likely to have a positive impression to it, however, in some stage, our impression dramatically fall suddenly. But when more reality is added, our likability increases a lot. This curve, when drew in graph, is called the "uncanny valley". There are many discussions made to explain the relationships between CG animation movie and its box-office revenue. When the reality of the movie is on the bottom of uncanny valley, the revenue tend to become much lower compared to non-real movie or very real movie. Many robotics and CG technicians are seeking for a way to get over the uncanny valley.

immortal jellyfish

Humans have always sought for a way to obtain eternal life since we achieved developed brain. People made a lot of tales and superstitions about obtaining eternal life and scientists repeated trial and error for thousands of years. In 1991, the discovery of an immortal jellyfish created a big sensation among scientists. Jellyfish is an adult form of the creature and the baby form is called polyp and polyp is adhering on rocks on the bottom of the sea. This new discovered jellyfish can return to the stage of polyp after reproduction while others die and disappear in water. It is not really eternal life in the sense of living forever, but after aging they return to baby and repeat life again with the same body and DNA. It is said that they can live forever if there are no predators and the biggest number of reviving process observed is ten times at the laboratory in Kyoto, Japan. The research for eternal life has proceeded a lot after the discovery and it is said that one day, humans CAN obtain eternal life by biotechnology of genetic modification.

horseshoe crab

Horseshoe crab is an animal that belongs to the group, arthropod, which insects, spiders, and shrimps also belong to. Horseshoe crab is well known to many people because they have existed on earth since Paleozoic era and never changed their shape and lifestyle.
The surprising fact is that their blood is very helpful for human medical world. Their blood color is blue because they use copper for circulating oxygen inside body instead of iron like red blood animals like us. Since their blue magical blood is very sensitive to bacterial toxins, it can be applied to find toxins inside human body. The most important function is when their blood meets toxins, the blood components react and form gel. This reaction is a unique ability of horseshoe crab blood so many researchers and companies are already utilizing them for hospitals in the United States.
Although it seems there are only benefits for humans, indiscriminate hunting is becoming a big problem of ecosystem. There are some research ongoing to create artificial component in place of horseshoe crab blood to save this wonderful ancient animal.

water bear

Have you ever heard about water bears? It is a very small animal which belongs to a group called tardigrada (meaning slow-moving creature). Usually you cannot see them with your naked eyes, but they are everywhere. It's actually EVERYWHERE, including wet land, dry land, pond water, the bottom of the ocean, near crater, and around you. You may think that they are a little cute when you see them by using microscopes because of their slow movements and chunky appearance.
The surprising fact of water bears is that they are the strongest living creature in the world. They are not strong in the way that they can push something really heavy, or have extremely poisonous toxins, but they can endure any kinds of severe environment which all the other livings cannot survive. For example, they can endure extreme dryness, about 150 degrees Celsius to the absolute zero (-273 degrees Celsius), vacuum space to 70,000 atmospheric pressure, and also many kinds of radioactive rays! Isn't it bizarre that there is an animal which can even live in the space!? They developed a living strategy called Cryptobiosis to live in any environment.
Another surprising fact which was found recently, is they possess genes from many life groups such as bacteria, fungi, plant, archaea, and virus even though water bears belong to animal kingdom. It is still a mystery of biology and more studies are required to clarify the ability. Because water bears have genes from different life groups and the immortality, humans may find the way to obtain "eternal life".