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Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets! This is what happens when you put a bunch of scientists together on the track. The petri dish track, that is:
In a tongue-in-cheek contest of microscopic mobility, a line of bone marrow stem cells from Singapore beat out dozens of competitors to claim the title of the world’s fastest cells. They whizzed across a petri dish at the breakneck speed of 5.2 microns per minute — or 0.000000312 kilometers per hour.
Results of the World Cell Race were announced on 3 December at the annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology in Denver, Colorado. Organizers declared the competition a success: “50 participating labs all over the world! 70 cells lines recorded! without a single dollar to fund the project!” says Manuel Théry from Institut de Recherche en Technologies et Sciences pour le Vivant (iRTSV) in Grenoble, France.
Behind the fun is a serious goal: looking broadly at how cells move. Ultimately, cell migration lets embryos and organs develop and allows to cancer spread. The contest provides the first reference for many cell types migrating under the same conditions, and is already leading to some interesting comparisons, says Théry. For example, stem cells and cancer cells seem to be faster than their mature and healthy counterparts.
Rather than actually racing cells at a scientific conference, teams shipped frozen cells to designated laboratories in Boston, London, Heidelberg, Paris, San Francisco, and Singapore. Thawed cells were placed in wells containing “race tracks”. Each track was 400 microns (0.4 mm) long and coated with a substance that gives cells some traction. Digital cameras recorded cells for 24 hours to determine the fastest run down the track for each cell line. In total, about 200 cells of each cell type were timed to see how long it took the fastest individual cell of each type to reach the end of its track.
Scientists
at the University of Nottingham are trying to create a "reprogrammable
cell" that can act as a cellular equivalent to a computer's operating
system.
The project, if successful, would mark a huge leap forward for synthetic biology as a field. Scientists could easily and quickly program cells to perform all kinds of tasks as well as create wholly new forms of life not found in nature customized for various uses. That’s another way of saying the “operating system” would allow for rapid prototyping of life forms, saving the time and energy currently consumed by returning to the drawing board each time researchers need a cell with a new function.
Oh, what could possibly go wrong? Link
Image: Support Bacteria! It's the Only Culture Some People Have from the NeatoShop
Sometimes we writers here at Neatorama come across some really strange and oftentimes borderline creepy stuff that just has to be shared–after all, if we have to look at it, why not share the joy? Such is the case with the new “hand case” for the iPhone4, a realistic hand that is something only the Japanese could come up with. I suppose if you are particularly lonely and want a hand to hold… this is it. Link leads to the Google translation.
Group product is handmade by skilled craftsmen to produce food samples for years, “hand of man” only cover reproduces the iPhone 4. Are made to take the type of real women and children’s hands. The test of courage, of course, when you propose to a woman, it can also be used to practice through the ring finger. Size “hand wave” W80 × H90 × D140mm is. ”Yamato’s hand” W75 × H80 × D125mm that.
Moose Head Mobile Phone Stand – $7.95
Have you been searching endlessly for the perfect phone stand? Well, look no further! You need the Moose Head Mobile Phone Stand from the NeatoShop. This fabulous little stand screams I am one with the wilderness.
Now prop up that phone, get comfy, and start watching your favorite moose calling videos. Being outdoorsy is so much fun!
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fun-tastic Mobile Phone Accessories!
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Remember the red rain that fell in India back in 2001? Back then, it was reported that the red color was from cells unlike any found on Earth, prompting speculations that these cells have extraterrestrial origin.
Scientists were baffled and the matter disappeared from public consciousness … until now. Godfrey Louis, a physicist at Cochin University of Science and Technology and Chandra Wickramasinghe of the University of Cardiff had finally coaxed these cells to reproduce (I mean, what could go wrong?):
They say that the cells clearly reproduce at a temperature of 121 degrees C. "Under these conditions daughter cells appear within the original mother cells and the number of cells in the samples increases with length of exposure to 121 degrees C," they say. By contrast, the cells are inert at room temperature.
That makes them highly unusual, to say the least. The spores of some extremophiles can survive these kinds of temperatures and then reproduce at lower temperatures but nothing behaves like this at these temperatures, as far as we know.
Previously on Neatorama: 8 Weird Weather Phenomena
At one point in time in my graduate studies, I stopped being surprised at weird biological discoveries because, as one of my college professors said, when it comes to science, "there’s an exception to every rule, including this one" (think about it for a minute).
But this discovery by Morris Schweitzer and colleagues at McGill University and Montreal’s Jewish General Hospital revealed something that is mind boggling: your DNA may not be the same in different cells in your body:
Research by a group of Montreal scientists calls into question one of the most basic assumptions of human genetics: that when it comes to DNA, every cell in the body is essentially identical to every other cell.
Except for cancer, samples of diseased tissue are difficult or even impossible to take from living patients. Thus, the vast majority of genetic samples used in large-scale studies come in the form of blood. However, if it turns out that blood and tissue cells do not match genetically, these ambitious and expensive genome-wide association studies may prove to have been essentially flawed from the outset.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by whitespace.
You just love buying the latest technologies, right? Can’t stand to sit without the coolest and newest gadget. But wait … where did your old one go? There are graveyards for these kinds of things, believe it or not, and some are more impressive than you ever imagined.
The city of Guiyu is home to 5,500 businesses devoted to processing discarded electronics, known as e-waste. According to local websites, the region dismantles 1.5 million pounds of junked computers, cell phones and other devices a year.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Urbanist.
