Hooked on Biology

  I have a small confession. This is an image of an unspecified Salmonella species, because when I searched for Salmonella enterica or typhoid in the free use image database I use, there were no results and I do not have a terrible amount of trust in Wikimedia. However, as promised, this is a long one. Buckle up.   Today, I would like to begin by writing about Queen Mary I, the first queen of England to rule suo jure (in her own right and not because she married into the royal family, aka queen regnant) better known as Bloody Mary, daughter of Henry VIII and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Henry and Catherine were married for 24 years, initially happily, and Catherine could match Henry's intellectual interests and she was a competent regent - a paragon of royalty. However, her Spanish descent did nothing to save Henry's first surviving daughter, Mary, from scrutiny when she married the Spanish King Philip II. Mary has often been painted as a murderess, similar to the Ch...

Hi everyone! I know I abruptly disappeared for a little while because Things™ are happening, but I'm officially on summer holidays as of today and I will be on vacation next week, so I wanted to get a post or two (or maybe three if we're really really lucky) before I head off! I don't know why you clicked on this post. Maybe you thought "Wow, Rowan actually posted? It's been almost two weeks!" If that's the case, I really am sorry for not writing sooner...but yeah Life Things are still happening and it's kind of chaotic for me at the moment. Anyway that is a tangent. Perhaps you thought "Haha funni name" which is also valid. Maybe the picture looked cool, or maybe you thought "No way it's actually called that." It actually is called that. When I first saw this funky guy (funkgus, if you will), it reminded me of a morel. I would not recommend eating it though. Why? Well, let's get into it.   Overview - Taxonomy + Naming - Th...

When was the last time you ate a tomato or potato? And did you think about where the tasty plants come from? Many of us associate tomatoes with Italy - after all, they're used in lots of pasta sauces and pizza! The Italian word for tomato is pomodoro , adapted from the older pomo d'oro , or golden apple. That really goes to show how much they love tomatoes, but French might top even that. In French, the word for a (specific kind but that's because the word tomate exists now) tomato is pomme d'amour , literally apple of love. The name for potato is much less romantic - pomme de terre , or apple of the earth. The Italian is patata , stolen from Spanish (and it's not alone - see History) according to Wiktionary. This makes sense - more on that later. Clearly, those European countries enjoy tomatoes, but it hasn't always been this way. Tomatoes and potatoes are two staples around the world, so today is mostly a history day. Let's get right to it! History If you...

"What is the difference, Potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?" - Severus Snape, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone . If you've read the Harry Potter books, you might know the answer to the question posed in this scene. There is absolutely no difference between monkshood and wolfsbane - they are two names for the same genus of plants, Aconitum. Overview - General Aconitum - The Toxin(s) - History, legends General Aconitum There are over 250 species in the Aconitum genus, which really begs the question as to why they're collectively referred to with the same common names. They are perennials mostly native to the mountainous regions of the northern hemisphere in cool, moist, but well-draining soil. They belong to the Ranunculaceae  (buttercup) family, which is known for its toxicity. The flowers have a very distinctive appearance reminiscent of a monk's hood, according to some old English guy, giving them the very creative name of monkshood. Any of the na...

Today, we shall scratch the surface on HeLa cells. Overview: - What are HeLa cells? - Where did they come from? - Why are they so important? - Ethics Things What are HeLa cells? HeLa cells, also known as Hela or hela cells, are a strain of human cell that can be cultured without dying. When they were first cultured in Ye Olden Days (late 1940s, early 1950s) it was a really big deal because previously, human cells would die after a few days. The guy who figured this out, George Otto Gey, freely distributed this cell line, which, slay of him ig. We will talk more about this later. HeLa cells aren't actually anything super fancy, except they are good because they do not die (they are immortal cells, meaning they do not have the normal self-destruct that other cells do after replicating a certain number of times called senescence ) and they are human tissue which means human research. Nice. Where did they come from? Being human tissue, it would be reasonable to assume they came from a ...

I have a list of people and a disease in mind. The list of people: Anne and Emily Bronte, Catallus , George Orwell, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Walt Whitman, Frederic Chopin, Niccolo Paganini, Henry Purcell, Igor Stravinsky, Ringo Starr, John C. Calhoun, Andrew Jackson, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, a couple Louis of France, Nelson Mandela, Mary Tudor, Napoleon II of France, Eleanor Roosevelt, Alexander Graham Bell, Anders Celsius, Dmitri Mendeleev, Friedrich Miescher, Immanuel Kant, Erwin Schrodinger, and Florence Nightingale. They are all connected by this disease. Do you know what it is? If you do, I'm very impressed. The answer I'm thinking of is tuberculosis. Overview: - TB stats - Bacterium/disease/symptoms - History + cultural significance I'm not going to start with the disease itself because ✨I feel like it✨ and also these stats will be useful for the third section. S tats According to the WHO, TB is (as of April 21, 2023)... - the 13th leading cause of death globally - the SECO...

  I would like to talk about Little Shop of Horrors, an iconic movie and musical, and more specifically, Audrey II, the infamous carnivorous plant. I haven't actually seen any version, movie or musical, so forgive me if my information is incorrect. Consider this study of Audrey II a sneak peak for the carnivorous plant dump later in June. Overview: - What exactly is Audrey II, or Twoey? - General plant problems - Carnivorous plant-specific problems - Did they get anything right? There will be spoilers for Little Shop. Speaking of which, have a quick summary:      A guy who works in a flower shop - Seymour - sees a plant he assumes is a Venus flytrap one day and buys it. He takes as good care of it as he can, but no matter what he does, it's not happy. Eventually he figures out it desires human flesh and then it gets worse from there. The plant is manipulative and eventually takes over the world, theoretically murdering all of humanity. A Problematic Childhood ...

Endometriosis is a disease that we often don't talk about, but there's a very high chance you know someone with it. I won't spoil too much, before we begin, so let's dive into it! Overview: - What endo is + symptoms - History - Relevance to medicine + society overall Intro to Endo Endometriosis is classically defined as a disease of the fertile woman which is only mostly  true. Endo is a condition where uterine cells are found outside of the uterus, shedding each month which can result in scarring, pain, swelling, and...yeah. Not fun. Almost 50% of people with endo are infertile, however, statistics are likely inaccurate because many doctors are unaware of endo's existence, don't consider it, or dismiss the symptoms and signs. You may have noticed I said "people" instead of women, and yes, I do mean anyone with a uterus, but people born without a uterus can also have endometriosis which is quite unfortunate for them and is usually even worse because of...

Did you happen to see a bolded word that you don't recognize in one of my posts? Well, here I just so happen to have a handy list of terms and definitions. Apoptosis  - programmed cell death, usually for a rogue or compromised cell - a self-destruct switch, if you will. Autotomy  - the ability to detach a body part (lizards dropping their tails is an example of this) Cerata  - Sea slug appendages (see Fun Sea Slugs ). Clade - A group of organisms that all stem from one common ancestor. Cnidosac  - Parts of a sea slug that store nematocysts. Cultivar  - A cultiv ated var iety. Not a unique species or subspecies, but a distinct strain. Cultivated variety  - See cultivar . Epiphytic  - Something that climbs on or leeches off of something else. Eutherian  - A kind of mammal characterized by their highly developed placentas. Marsupial  - A kind of mammal that gives birth to immature young (ex. wombat, kangaroo) which continue to develop in a pouc...

Today, I'm picking a topic solely because there was a funny mug I saw that requires this entire background on Sanger Sequencing. I'll send the picture too. Overview: - What it is/what it's used for - How it works - Data processing - History This one is going to be long but for anyone who's going into anything remotely related to genetics, it's good to know. Also, you will not fully understand the joke without the first three sections. What it is + What it's Used for Sanger Sequencing is a DNA sequencing technique developed by Frederick Sanger & co in 1977. It uses electrophoresis  which is a technique that takes advantage of DNA's negative charge to run it through a gel using a current. It's pretty accurate (99.99% according to Wikipedia) and can sequence a good number of nucleotides so it's still commonly in use, despite the invention of next generation (next gen) sequencing. How it Works: Dye-Terminator Sequencing  Sequencing starts with a proc...

You've probably seen an orchid before. They have distinctive flowers and are popular to give as gifts, but how much do you really  know about them? Hopefully more by the end of this post! Quick overview: - Taxonomy + Naming - History - Use/history pt. 2 - Anatomy - Cultivation + Environment Taxonomy + Naming The term "orchid" can refer to any plant in the family Orchidaceae which covers around/over 28,000 currently accepted species through 763ish genera. It's one of the two largest families of flowering plants, but because we're constantly discovering more, it's hard to say which one is biggest. In addition to recognized species, there are over ten thousand cultivated varieties (cultivars) and hybrids. You may recognize some commonly cultivated orchid genera, such as Vanilla, Orchis , or Cattleya , to name a few. Now about the names. Orchis is what we call the "type genus," or the genus the entire family is named after. It comes from the Ancient G...

Today I am welcoming Atropa belladonna , also known as belladonna, nightshade, deadly nightshade, or tasty black berries if you like eating poison. They belong to the Solanaceae,  or nightshade family, which also includes tomatoes, potatoes, and aubergines, as well as the much less deadly black nightshade. Fun fact: for a long time, people wouldn't eat tomatoes because they were thought to be poisonous. As the name "deadly nightshade" implies, the plant is very dangerous for human consumption. However, its Latin name doesn't quite say the same. Linnaeus (commonly referred to as the father of modern taxonomy) named it Atropa , after one of the three fates from Greek mythology who was responsible for ending someone's life - not too surprising. However, the name belladonna comes from the Italian word for beautiful woman. Why? Well, during the Renaissance, women would put the juice of these berries in their eyes to dilate their pupils and "make the eyes appear m...

Today, I'm talking C. botulinum and C. tetani , two members of the massive Clostridium gang. You've probably heard of these before - botulism, botulinum, or botulinum toxin, and tetanus, which is also known as lockjaw. Let's start with C. botulinum . According to Wikipedia, it produces the most dangerous toxin known to mankind, synthetic or natural. It causes foodborne botulism as well as wound botulism, infecting either through the digestive tract or an open wound. Botulinum toxin is quite dangerous, the lethal dose being 1.3–2.1 nanograms/kilogram of body mass in humans depending on which kind of toxin (there are a few produced by the group of bacteria that cause botulism, more info here ) and how they enter the body. It's a neurotoxin so it's Quite Dangerous and has typical neurotoxin effects like death, cardiac arrest, paralysis, etc. But you see, for some reason, people like to use dangerous compounds to look pretty. See radium and arsenic  for more details....

Like with radium, this is about poisoning, so proceed with caution. It's not quite so gruesome, but as you might know, it used to be a very popular poison. In fact, it was the  poison to use. Please enjoy!     In Ye Olden Days, a nybody who was anybody was using the cool kid trendy poison, arsenic, because it was undetectable and has very general symptoms - more on that later. It's been known to be dangerous since ancient times and is featured in many stories about people trying to kill their relatives. Lovely. Anyway, we enter the Victorian era, and suddenly we have women eating a form of arsenic (white arsenic/arsenic trioxide, the most dangerous kind when they knew it was dangerous) and chalk to whiten their skin.     In  1858 we have what is known as the Bradford Sweet Poisoning, with 21 deaths as a result of some incompetent people buying and selling white arsenic instead of powdered gypsum (seriously, the dude sold them in the same store and just vagu...

Before you read this, a quick trigger warning. Radiation poisoning can be quite gruesome and it  has a disturbing history, so please take care of yourself and be aware that there will be discussion about signs of radium poisoning. Otherwise, please enjoy!      The thing about radium that makes it so interesting is that it tricks the body into thinking it's something important. Now, the problem is that something is a thing that should be in your body for a very long time - namely, calcium. Exposure to radium in any form is bad enough, but when it sneaks into your digestive system and hides away in your bones...you've got problems. These include commonly known things like cancer, from the radiation attacking unprotected flesh, but can also include brittle or disappearing bones, rotting flesh, wounds that don't heal, and more.      You have heard about radium poisoning from the stories of the girls who painted glowing watch dials in the early 1900s, known...