I suppose it doesn’t make much sense to have some nostalgia before the year even finishes, but at the same time, it is crazy! I’m so glad I got to have this year with all of you guys. It seems like it’s been so long since we were sitting in BSB D310 enriching our third soil sample, trying to figure out why in the world we couldn’t find any phages. But here we are!

On a more scientific note, I came across this article today that talks about how exactly alcohol/other drug stressors can distress a fetus. With a mouse model, they were actually able to isolate the specific gene that fetuses seem to use to protect themselves from these toxins. However, what seemed interesting to me is that the article held a focus to the offspring’s future intolerance of the toxic substance, like alcohol, which is something that I never knew about.

Okay, I’m reading this for my chemistry honors paper and I’m getting pretty excited cause it’s talking all about the genomics of Ebola and at least in the first few paragraphs, it’s all stuff that we have worked with in Arthrobacter! Not exactly the same things but it is so cool to be able to understand it!

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/216288-overview#aw2aab6b2b2

Isn’t it crazy that given all our technology, all our accomplishments and research, but a little virus can still defeat us? It seems incredible that just because of a difference in genetic code and binding potential, an ebola virus is deadly, while a bacteriophage is just a bacteria lyser.

http://www.ibtimes.com/us-defense-department-spent-140m-ebola-treatment-research-theyre-getting-close-1566666

As you all write your papers, maybe think about these ideas

Did God Create Earth with an Appearance of Age?

Outside of our little world, there are these things call NTD’s (neglected tropical diseases). One of the most common ones is called leishmaniasis, which is contracted by a sandfly bite, which transfers parasites into one’s body. We don’t really have these sandflies on this continent, so we are pretty safe from this, but check it out…in addition to the disease itself, turns out there is an additional infection spread by a virus that has come to latch itself onto the parasites. The Leishmania RNA virus seems to be an amplifier of all the contracted symptoms from Leishmaniasis. I want so badly for there to be a way to make it so this is no longer an issue. The central American strain of protazoans seem to be becoming resistant to the most common treatment, Antimony. Maybe there is a way to engineer a phage that can kill those little protazoa: it could make a huge difference.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22919688

Ok, I don’t know what it is, but something about neurology is just absolutely captivating to me. The idea of a nerve working with a charge and being SO precise about it is just dumbfounding to me. I mean, how can nerves be that precise and consistent when they are working with a charge as tiny as -50 milliVolts? I mean in my high school robotics competition, we had voltage gradation for different parts of the robots that made it so they would only work within a 3 or 4 volt range. If the stuff that us humans make can only work within a precision of 3000-4000 mV and that seems stringent, how much more amazing is it that God can make something (and trillions of that something) that works very precisely at changes as small as this. I don’t know, but it’s amazing to me. Take a second to think about how wonderful this all is. I mean, how ridiculous it all is! Just saying, we’ve got amazing stuff we get to learn about and we are some of the only few in the world that will ever get the chance to look into stuff like this as their JOB. Don’t waste any opportunities, guys.

I’m pumped, I feel like this is where the actual ‘research’ begins, where we get into the real genetics and the true uncovering of something new. I was looking around to find some cool new thing about viruses and I actually found some stuff that really freaks me out

http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/early/2013/07/31/db13-0619

Who knew that the effects of a virus could be related to the onset of type 1 diabetes!? That’s crazy to me; between that and the possible effects that this phage stuff could have on treatment for tuberculosis, I’m really hoping we can find something new or actually discover something really important this semester. We’re going to do some cool stuff, guys!

I also found a pretty cool one about bacteriophages!

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/271113.php

Unfortunately, this one is a bit defaming to phages, as it tells of how a specific phage targets and kills, “preys upon,” a bacteria that is neceessary for fixing atmospheric nitrogen into the soil.

Even though none of this went quite like I expected, I’ve got to say this has been one of the funnest things. It’s been a fantastic semester, everybody. I’m pumped to dive in deeper this spring.

I think that you should be given the option of making a music video for this instead of doing your lab report. Once again, this is awesome

You should name it something epic, like Turnus or Polyphemus. Nice work, man

Solid stuff! Yours has got a ridiculously long tail, at least compared to the other pictures I saw. Maybe, that’s the secret to its powers haha

Turns out, it was too weak and I lost it again. Going back a few more weeks to try to revive this poor little phage of mine.