2009 Olympus BioScapes Images

Posted by Alex in Pictures, Science & Tech on November 19, 2009 at 6:32 pm

The winners of the 2009 Olympus BioScapes Photo Digital Imaging Competition were just announced yesterday. Here are some of the wonderful winning and honorable mention images:

1st Place Winner:


Water flea Daphnia atkinsoni. This specimen has a "crown of thorns," a defensive trait induced in offspring only when the parents sense chemical cues released by one of their main predators, the tadpole shrimp Triops cancriformis. The water flea´s exoskeleton (exterior structure, green) and subcellular details within the organism (nuclei – tiny blue dots) are both visible – Dr. Jan Michels, Christian Albrecht University of Kiel, Germany.

5th Place Winner:


Unicellular alga Penium, treated with the microtubule poison oryzalin – by David Domozych, Skidmore College.

Ma. Ivy Clemente of Pulilan, Philippines, got an honorable mention in this year’s competition, but I think her entry is the most stunning. Behold, the cancer alphabet:


Spelling out the diagnosis: Glandular structures from fibroadenoma and nodular prostatic hyperplasia cases – by Ma. Ivy Clemente, Pulilan, Philippines


Fetal cat coronal section – by Mike Peres, Rochester Institute of Technology, New York.

Squid embryo – by Rachel Fink, Mount Holyoke College, Massachussetts

Link: Winners Gallery of the 2009 Olympus BioScapes

 
Comment (2)    Permalink   Please share:  email this         

Neatorama Shop » Food & Drink » Offbeat Mints & Candies

Human Embryos With Three Parents

Posted by John Farrier in Medicine on November 12, 2009 at 7:39 pm

British medical researchers are working on growing human embryos that would have three parents: the father’s sperm, the mother’s egg nucleus, and another mother’s egg cytoplasm. In The Daily Telegraph, Richard Alleyne writes:

IVF often fails in older women because there are abnormalities in the outside of their eggs, known as cytoplasm, which surrounds the nucleus.

The team at St Mother Hospital in Kitakyushu, Japan, believe one way around the problem would be too implant the healthy nucleus – which contains most of the information to produce a baby – into the cytoplasm of a donor, usually a younger mother.

The team successfully did this in 31 eggs and of these seven formed “early stage embryos” when injected with sperm in a test tube.

Link via Popular Science | Image: NIH

 
Comment (5)    Permalink   Please share:  email this         


Making Babies in Space May Be Difficult

Posted by Miss Cellania in Science & Tech on August 25, 2009 at 8:46 pm

Some animals have been bred in space, but not mammals. Japanese researchers are looking into the possibility, and doing experiments with mice on earth that mimic lower gravity space conditions.

To test these effects, the researchers artificially fertilized mouse eggs with sperm that had been stored inside a three-dimensional clinostat, a machine that mimics weightlessness by rotating objects in such a way that the effects of gravity are spread in every direction.

Fertilization took place normally, suggesting that microgravity hadn’t harmed the sperm. But as the embryos continued to develop inside the clinostat, many developed problems. Their cells had trouble dividing and maturing.

There were some baby mice produced after the embryos were implanted, but not many survived compared to a control group. Link -via Digg

 
Comment (5)    Permalink   Please share:  email this         


Embryo

Posted by Miss Cellania in Everything Else on January 16, 2009 at 12:24 pm

This Russian mashup entitled Embyo follows the development of a baby inside the womb, interspersed with TV and film clips showing the history of mankind. Link -Thanks, AJ!

 
Comment (10)    Permalink   Please share:  email this