A new species of Sculptor Spiders!

We know that spiders build Webs, but we do not know that they construct a variety of intricate patterns of web.

Some spiders construct their web by decorating it with some simple to the most complicated patterns. The decorative pattern may be a single zigzag line, a combination of lines, or even a spiral whorl around the center of the web. These patterns are believed to stabilize the spider web. Hence these elaborate web decorations are known as stabilimenta. In addition these patterns act as a camouflage, to hide the spiders from their prey or to protect the spiders from their predators.

From a distance we see these patterns but its wondering how spiders spin such a pattern that is quite symmetrical!

You have to see them to believe… Marvelous..!

Don’t you think so?

at the center you see the SPIDER SCULPTURE!

To add to this list of decorations, Biologist and science teacher Phil Torres of Peru's Tambopata Research Centre recently discovered a new variety of “sculpting” spiders in the Amazon forests! These spiders belong to the genus Cyclosa. The sculptures often resembles a ‘giant spider’.

These spiders ‘sculpt’ the figure of bigger spider using dead insects, debris and leaves. Such ‘decoy spider’ are constructed to fool their predators.

Interesting Spider “WEB SITES”:
http://www.arkinspace.com/2011/05/spiders-that-decorate-their-own-webs.html

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/33747/title/Spider-Sculpts-Fake-Spider/

http://www.thebts.co.uk/

http://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/invertebrates/facts/spiders/default.cfm

http://hobospider.org/

http://www.thebts.co.uk/poecilotheria.htm

http://www.southindianspiders.org/south-indian-spiders.htm

- Dr. P. Kumarasamy

Beware of Stem Cell Cosmetics

Cosmetic surgery is aimed at improving the aesthetic appearance of a person. Cosmetic eyelid and facial plastic surgery also known as cosmetic periocular (around the eyes) surgery or simply Oculoplastics is done to correct hooded or baggy eyelids and improve the aesthetic appearance of the eyelids and surrounding area of the face, including the eyebrows, forehead and midface. Such surgeries are done by the following procedures:

• Upper eyelid blepharoplasty


• Lower eyelid blepharoplasty


• Endoscopic and non-endoscopic eyebrow and/or forehead lift


• Mid face / cheek lift


• BOTOX (botulinum toxin) lift (careful with the spelling!)


• Fillers and other injections around the eyes and face

Recently, stem cells taken from (mesenchymal tissues) abdominal fat—cells are used for Oculoplasty. These mesenchymal stem cells are multipotent and  are capable of  'turning into' bones and cartilages apart from adipose tissue  depending upon 'circumstances' in which they grow.

A Los Angeles woman underwent a $20,000 Oculoplasty surgery for a facelift in 2009. The cosmetic  surgeons isolated mesenchymal stem cells from her abdominal fat and injected  into the skin around her eyes. At the time of stem cell injection, to reduce wrinkles around her eyes, the surgeons also injected dermal filler madeup largely of calcium hydroxylapatite. This in due course of time has induced the mesenchymal stem cells to grow also into bone tissue. Now all these have ended up with fragments of bone embedded around her right eye, which made strange clicking noises and caused considerable pain.

This case has brought to light the dangers of the untested stem cell-based cosmetic procedures that are becoming increasingly common in cosmetic clinics around the world.

BOTOX Lift

Wrinkle Procedure

Think twice before to take up Cosmetic Stem Cell therapy!

- Dr. P. Kumarasamy

Further reading:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=stem-cell-cosmetics

SMOKERS BENEFIT BIRDS!

At last smokers have an excuse for not quitting their habitual smoking!

Smokers can feel really proud of! The ciggy butts they throw save a couple of bird species.

Nicotine is already known as a very good repellant against insects.

Dr. Constantino Macias Garcia and his team of researchers at the National Autonomous University of Mexico found that two song bird species, the house finch and house sparrow, build their nests planted with (more than 48) cigarette butts because the poisonous compounds in the tip of the cigarette butts keep-off harmful parasites from their nests. These researchers measured the amount of nicotine deposited in the cigarette butt cellulose, which resulted from smoking and they have found that more the nicotine-holding cellulose, the fewer parasites were there in the nest!

 Further reading:

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/411804/20121205/birds-cigarettes-build-nests-parasites-health-mexico.htm

http://www.neatorama.com/2008/05/07/cigarette-smoking-is-good-for-birds/

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/33541/title/Marlboro-Chicks/

Nobel Prizes and the Immune System

Nobel Prizes are given NOT to Technology but to

studies that contribute to basic understanding of various areas in science,

to innovative ideas that has led us to a paradigm shift in realizing the truth,

ultimately benefiting the human race.

Here is a wonderful link that enlists the milestone discoveries in Immunology that won Nobel Prize over the years, from 1901 to 1996!

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/immune_responses.html

- DR. P. Kumarasamy

 

VACCINES FOR PARKINSON'S DISEASE!

Vaccines are developed even for diseases that are not caused by pathogens. Parkinson's Disease (PD) is one such.

 How Parkinson's Disease is caused?

Proteins in our body have a specific three dimensional structure. Soon after protein synthesis, they automatically fold into their own predetermined 3D structures through specific folding patterns. Any misfolding of proteins will result in a defective 3D structure that leads to malfunctioning of that protein.

In brain cells, one of the proteins called α-synuclein is essential for the normal brain function. In Parkinson’s disease, there is an accumulation of misfolded α-synuclein proteins called Lewy bodies. This misfolded protein clumps throughout the brain as Parkinson’s disease progresses. Brain cells fail to process and clear these proteins. This leads to the destruction of certain (dopaminergic) neurons, a condition called Lewy neuritis. This leads to the manifestation of the Parkinson’s Disease.

 The PD Vaccine under trial now!

Parkinson’s vaccine is simply the administration of the misfolded alpha-synuclein as antigens which will stimulate our immune system to respond against alpha-synuclein by forming antibodies against these misfolded proteins. These anti-misfolded α-synuclein antibodies will bind to these brain proteins and ultimately clear them.

Proteins sweeter than sugars!

Monellin, incidentally is the first sweet protein to be identified and was discovered in 1969 in the fruit of the West African shrub known as serendipity berry (Dioscoreophyllum cumminsii) and was first mistook to be a carbohydrate!

The protein was named in 1972 after the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, U.S.A., where it was isolated and characterized.
For humans, monellin is 100,000 times sweeter than sucrose.
There are four more such high intensity sweet proteins identified so far

• Thaumatin (1972),
• Pentadin (1989),
• Mabinlin (1983) and
• Brazzein (1994).

- Dr. P. Kumarasamy

Dedicated to Bats of the World

This year (and 2011 too) has been declared as the International Year of Bats.

Bats are the poorly understood of all mammals.

There are many myths surrounding bats, often they describe bats as blood sucking, evil dragons of the night.

It terms of the number of species bats is the second largest among mammals next to rodents.

Here I bring you a photo-montage on bats that I made.

Hope you all enjoy this.

http://youtu.be/BD8UnehL-D8

- Dr. P. Kumarasamy