Sometimes I like to pretend to be a scientist. It’s important to recognize your strengths. It’s also important to recognize your weaknesses. I’ve admired Jane Goodall since I was a child, but I also recognized pretty early on that I’m no Jane Goodall. I like chimpanzees, but I’m not spending years of my life, sitting … and waiting … and waiting for something of note to happen.

I’m lucky enough to have a job that allows me to work with scientists on a pretty regular basis. Science is cool. Sometimes I get to record data, tally numbers and claim to be “sciencing it.” That’s what I like to call it when I really am doing some part of the science but, to be honest, I really don’t understand all of the really sciency details. I’m a big-picture person. My eyes sometimes glaze over when I get to the finer details.

But as it turns out, I really am doing science. I’m observing, recording data and compiling information. These are all critical components of scientific research. You can do it, too.

“Citizen science” is a big deal. You can contribute to the collective body of scientific knowledge in lots of ways. And locally, there are year-round opportunities.

Locally, you can search for herps (reptiles and amphibians), assist with bird banding, count birds, count terrapins, watch for dolphins, record ladybug sightings, and more. There are also opportunities to record specifics about natural occurrences right in your backyard through national programs like Project Feeder Watch, FrogWatch, and Project BudBurst.

How does this help? Well, scientists can’t be everywhere at once. You may be the foremost expert for your yard, your neighborhood, or other special places in your community. You spend more time there than any scientist probably ever will. And with a little bit of training and basic knowledge, you could quickly become enough of an expert to make real, valuable contributions to science.

If you like reptiles and amphibians, the Great Worcester Herp Search is a great place to start. Scheduled for Saturday, May 19, the search will begin at Pocomoke State Park, Shad Landing at 9 a.m., with an introduction to field techniques and basic identification. Live specimens will be on hand, so you can get an up close look at identifying field marks for a variety of local species. Then, you’ll have the chance to get out in the field with professional scientists to hike through woods, flip over logs, slog through wetlands, and scoop up frogs, salamanders, turtles, and snakes.

In June, opportunities include training for families interested in participating in the “Lost Ladybug Project” at Salisbury University’s Ward Museum of Wildfowl Art. Families will participate in a ladybug hunt, and will learn how to identify and photograph ladybugs for the project, founded by Cornell University. The effort will help scientists better understand ladybug populations and habitat ranges in the United States. For more information, email wardeducation@salisbury. edu. After you’ve been trained, you can report ladybugs whenever you see them.

If turtles are your thing, join the Maryland Coastal Bays Program’s efforts to count diamondback terrapins in the coastal bays. If you find a diamondback terrapin, you can report it on the Coastal Bays website at www.mdcoastalbays.org/report-a-terrapin. You can also participate in a targeted terrapin search in June. Little is known about local diamondback terrapin populations. One of the main threats to this turtle, Maryland’s state reptile, is development. Hardened shorelines, those with rip-rap or bulkheading, prevent terrapins and other species from accessing critical nesting habitat. Terrapins crawl onto sandy shorelines to lay their eggs, but with their short little legs, they’re unable to scale rock and bulkheads.

Terrestrial monitoring is an important part of the Maryland Coastal Bays Program’s Comprehensive Conservation Management Plan. Tracking wildlife populations in the coastal bays watershed can help us assess the overall health of the ecosystem.

written by Ecosystem and Ecography

New study details lethal impacts of a fungicide commonly used on golf courses around the world

Despite the lessons learned from the effects of DDT, people continue to use chemicals in the same organochlorinefamily, to the detriment of natural ecosystems.

Now, University of South Florida researchers have shown that one of the world’s most common fungicides is lethal to a wide variety of freshwater organisms and essentially crashes ecosystems from the bottom up.

Biologists Taegan McMahon and Jason Rohr tested the effects of Chlorothalonil, a common fungicides used pervasively on food crops and golf courses. Even at levels below those deemed safe by the EPA, the chemical killed amphibians, snails, zooplankton, algae, and aquatic plants The loss of these herbivores and plants freed the algae from predation and competition, which eventually resulted in algal blooms that were similar to the effects of eutrophication.

“Some species were able to recover from the chemical assault, but the ecosystem was fundamentally changed after its exposure to chlorothalonil,” Rohr said.

The four-week study was conducted in a series of 300-gallon tanks used to mimic pond conditions. It follows a 2011 laboratory study conducted by McMahon and Rohr that found that ecologically-relevant concentrations of chlorothalonil killed four species of amphibians.

“Although our new study is the only reported community- and ecosystem-level experiment on chlorothalonil, our results are consistent with several direct toxicity studies conducted in the laboratory and with observations in the field,” McMahon said.

Chlorothalonil kills molds and fungus by disrupting cellular respiration, an essential process for most multicellular organisms on the planet. Like the infamous DDT, chlorothalonil is a member of the organochlorine chemical family.

“In addition, to reducing biodiversity and altering ecosystem functions, chlorothalonil reduced the decomposition of waste, an important service that freshwater ecosystems provide to humans,” McMahon added.

“Interest in the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functions stems at least partly from the concern that anthropogenically-driven declines in biodiversity will reduce or alter the benefits offered by ecosystems,” Rohr said. “Surprisingly, however, this is one of the first studies to actually manipulate an anthropogenic factor and link it to changes in ecosystem functions mediated by declines in biodiversity.”

“This is important because many species in ecosystems might contribute little to ecosystem functions or are functionally redundant with other species, and thus declines in biodiversity do not always affect the functions and services of ecosystems,” Rohr said.

McMahon and Rohr encourage further research on effects of anthropogenic factors on ecosystem functions in systems with complex food webs and the re-evaluation of the safety of chlorothalonil.

written by Ecosystem and Ecography

In Patent-application-land, the hills roll on forever, while buttercups gently ripple with the breeze. Anything is possible in Patent-application-land. In this particular filling, Samsung lays out some ideas about helping you to keep your health in check. An “internet phone” and a “biological analysis device” would combine to send your vitals off to a diagnosis server, hospital or remote doctor. There’s also a provision for the use of “biochips,” which we hope refers to a data gathering medium, and not a half-time snack. While we’re not sure if this was a precursor to the freshly announced S-health service, if this ever came to be, at least you wouldn’t need to leave the house to get that agoraphobia diagnosis.

written by Journal of Biochips and Tissue Chips

New research conducted at the Boston University Medical Center suggests that brain trauma suffered by soldiers subjected to roadside bombs is very similar to that suffered by athletes in contact sports. The data was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

The researchers found that both athletes and soldiers suffer degenerative brain diseases after trauma stemming from a process called chronic traumatic encephalopathy. They gathered research by simulating explosions on mice.

“Our paper points out in a profound and definitive way that there is an organic, structural problem in the brain associated with blast exposure,” said Dr. Lee E. Goldstein of Boston University’s School of Medicine.

Dr. Joel Kupersmith, the chief research and development officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, also noted that the research process used in the study could prove beneficial.

written by Journal for Translational Medicine

A Japanese research team has developed a promising new treatment for heart failure by growing sheets of new heart muscle tissue from stem cells. When implanted in damaged rat hearts, the bioengineered tissue improved heart function.

The study, led by Dr. Kenji Miki, a cardiovascular surgeon at Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, appears in the May issue of STEM CELLS Translational Medicine.

Miki’s team removed adult stem cells from 30 female mice and genetically modified them to mimic embryonic stem cells. They then used the modified stem cells to grow sheets of healthy heart muscle tissue and implanted them into rats with damaged heart muscle.

The implanted tissue sheets survived for four weeks and the damaged hearts of the rats that received them began to heal, they found.

“The tissue we developed not only survived but improved heart function,” Dr. Miki said. “We believe this study could lead to a very real procedure to regenerate the heart.”

Implanting the new cells in sheet form appeared to improve their ability to transfer to the damaged host cells, he added.

“This research addresses two main issues in cardiac regeneration: the need to produce large numbers of heart muscle cells from a patient’s own cells and the need for an effective cell delivery system,” said Anthony Atala, MD, Editor of STEM CELLS Translational Medicine and director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. “While, additional research is needed, this method looks promising as a future treatment for heart failure.”

written by Journal for Translational Medicine

After winning a global design ideas competition, HOK has been selected to design the new University at Buffalo (UB) School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences on its downtown campus. Competition finalists included Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects and Cannon Design, Rafael Vinoly Architects with Foit-Albert Associates, and Grimshaw and Davis Brody Bond.

Located at the center of the region’s emerging bio-sciences corridor, this new transit-oriented medical school development will anchor a lively, urban mixed-use district on campus and bring 1,200 students, faculty and staff downtown. With the goal of fostering collaboration and interdisciplinary care, the new academic medical center will create connections that allow students, faculty, biomedical researchers and clinicians to move easily from classroom to bedside to lab.

“Building a new medical school is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our university and region, and a critical step in evolving the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus into an academic health center on par with those of Pittsburgh and Cleveland,” said Michael E. Cain, vice president for health sciences and dean of the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

written by Journal for Translational Medicine

written by Journal of Telecommunications System and Management

As per a research, which has been published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, it has been revealed that brain disease, which occurs among athletes after suffering a blow is similar to the injuries, which veterans witnesses when they are exposed to bombing Iraq and Afghanistan.

This means that such explosions badly injures brain and damages the brain tissues and can also lead to a disease, which is known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C. T. E. Lead author of the study, Dr. Lee E. Goldstein of Boston University’s School of Medicine, said that they have got to know the medical condition, after they studied the disease in mice.

Mice were able to develop the CTE condition within two weeks of brain injury. “Our paper points out in a profound and definitive way that there is an organic, structural problem in the brain associated with blast exposure”, said Lee.

written by Journal for Translational Medicine

Doctors in Taiwan using University of Florida-supplied vector transfer corrective genes to children

Using gene transfer techniques pioneered by University of Florida faculty, Taiwanese doctors have restored some movement in four children bedridden with a rare, life-threatening neurological disease.

The first-in-humans achievement may also be helpful for more common diseases such as Parkinson’s that involve nerve cell damage caused by lack of a crucial molecule in brain tissue. The results are reported today (May 16) in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

The children in the study, who ranged in age from 4 to 6, inherited a rare disease known as aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase deficiency, or AADC. Patients with AADC are born without an enzyme that enables the brain to produce the neurotransmitter dopamine. They generally die in early childhood.

In a phase 1 clinical trial led by Paul Wuh-Liang Hwu, M.D., of the National Taiwan University Hospital, surgeons used a delivery vehicle called an adeno-associated virus type 2 vector to transport the AADC gene into localized areas of the brains of three girls and a boy.

written by Journal for Translational Medicine

The childhood cancer research computing cluster created and donated by Dell for the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) is ready to support the world’s first precision medicine clinical trial for pediatric cancer. The computation performance of the cluster is expected to accelerate analysis and identification of targeted treatments beyond initial projections.

Oncologists from the Neuroblastoma and Medulloblastoma Translational Research Consortium (NMTRC) and biomedical researchers from TGen will use the new high performance computing and collaboration cloud to identify targeted treatments for pediatric cancer patients based on the specific genetic vulnerabilities of each child’s tumor–an approach that could be used to treat many pediatric and adult cancers in the future.

Dell’s team has completed the high performance computing cluster that will serve as the cloud’s computational foundation and basis for a private cloud. When equipped with Dell’s latest server technology–the PowerEdge M420–and a parallel approach to computation, TGen can analyze comprehensively a patient’s tumor RNA profile in one day versus the seven days that were previously required–an important advantage in the battle against aggressive childhood cancers. With the dedicated computing cluster in place, Dell will begin to connect the biomedical researchers sequencing and analyzing patient tumors at TGen in Arizona with oncologists providing treatment to patients participating in the trial at 11 medical centers. The new cloud will eliminate the need to express mail hard drives containing tumor and diagnostic images and genomic sequencing data between locations.

written by Journal for Translational Medicine