"Mount Sinai researchers discover how the flu virus tells time"

            The article, “Mount Sinai researchers discover how the flu virus tells time” talks about how long a flu virus takes to replicate itself, contaminate other cells and spread to other human beings. Dr. Benjamin tenOever, a Fishberg Professor of Microbiology at Mount Sinai, states that the discovery of the flu virus telling time can help scientists find a new antiviral drug that can make the viral clock not function properly. When a virus is in you it can’t stay in a cell too long or too short. If it doesn’t stay long enough in the cell, the virus is not strong enough, but if it stays too long, it gives the immune system time to attack it and kill it. Dr. TenOever predicts, that the virus must have something to help it budget its time, so it can steal specific resources before the immune system takes action. Dr. tenOever’s team and him wanted to see how long the virus will take on multiplying itself and moving on. The result was, it has about 8 hours to make more of itself and spread continuously before an antiviral alarm goes off in the cell. Dr. tenOever said the “virus needs 2 days of continuous activity to infect enough cells to permit spread to another human being.”  Timing is critical. He and his team’s research discovered the process of timing of the flu infection. “The virus slowly accumulates one particular protein that it needs to exit the cell and subsequently spread to other cells, and eventually other humans, just in time before the immune system is activated.”

            Have you gotten your flu vaccine?  After reading this article I felt extremely relieved because I have already got my flu vaccine. Every year it’s important everyone gets their vaccine but not everyone does. It has been in the news that there have been long lines for flu vaccines. This affects our community as a whole. The value in Dr. tenOever’s research is it could provide “a novel design platform for the flu vaccine.”

            Can it be true, can this new antiviral drug, they soon discover have different ingredients?” My Aunt Cristina can’t get the flu shot because of her allergies to eggs. Perhaps the timing of the virus can attribute to how the vaccine is made by eliminating “eggs” in the vaccine.

            My family and I have always gotten our flu shots every year for as long as I can remember. If you haven’t gotten your flu shot yet I would suggest you do. After reading this article it might encourage you too.

Check the article out!

http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2013/01/18/mount_sinai_researchers_discover_how_the_flu_virus_tells_time.html

"Plastic waste": "Littering Arctic seafloor"

                

This is a picture of a deep-sea organism tangled up in a plastic bag

When reading this article I felt extremely curious on what the seafloor actually looks like with all this litter on it. This article talks about how much litter there is on the seabed today compared to how much there was a decade ago. This article also talks about how much danger the litter on the seabed can cause the deep-sea organisms. Melanie Bergmann, “a biologist and deep-sea expert at the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association” said that it was a “gut feeling” (Macroevolution, 2012) to start studying about the plastic waste at the bottom of the Arctic seafloor. When she was looking through these seafloor pictures taken near HAUSGARTEN, a AWI deep-sea observatory that is 2500 meters below the surface of the water, she had the impression that pictures from 2011 had more litter found on the seafloor than pictures taken in earlier years. When Bergmann had this theory she had to look at all of the photos taken from 2002, 2004, 2007, 2008, and 2011. HAUSGARTEN takes a picture every 30 seconds; imagine how many pictures it takes in a year! The increase in litter is due to the ship traffic in the Arctic Sea. Since the Arctic Sea ice is always shrinking and getting thinner it is able now to get private yachts through. Bergmann says that they are “seeing 3 times the number of private yachts and up to 36 times more fishing vessels in the waters surrounding Spitsbergen compared to pre-2007 times”.

                This article did speak to my interests. Every trip to the beach this summer I am going to be extremely cautious in picking up my trash and recycling the things that can be recycled. I didn’t realize how deep our plastic can travel in the ocean. Next time I am on my boat and I see plastic floating by I am going to be sure to snag it and dispose of it properly. Before reading this article I didn’t know that plastic bags or other kinds of litter could be a danger to deep-sea organisms. Melanie Bergmann said “Almost 70 percent of plastic litter that we recorded had come into some kind of contact with deep-sea organisms.” Also their ability to breathe could be “impaired”. I learned litter on the ground is as bad as litter on the seabed because when you litter on earth it hurts our ecosystem. When litter is on the seabed it hurts the deep-sea organisms.

                Plastics bags always have chemical additives in them, therefore their toxic effects vary. Bergmann says that other studies discover that plastic bags that sink to the bottom of the ocean can “altar the gas exchange processes in this area. This sediment below then becomes a low oxygen zone, in which only few organisms survive.”

                Since Bergmann and her colleagues want to extend their research projects on “litter in the sea”.  They are concerned with microplastic particles which are “microscopically small plastic particles created when plastic waste breaks down into ever smaller fragments during the course of chemical and physical aging processes. In an aquatic environment, due to their size, microplastics pose a risk of being eaten by small shrimps, fish larvae and other organisms at the bottom of the food chain.” Bergmann is concerned that when microplastics make their way into marine animals they will eventually enter the “human food chain”. If you are reading Fast Food Nation like I am, this is like the cattle that are fed everything but grass. We can relate this to the fish we could be consuming.  Next time you are on the beach be sure to pick up any trash you might see and dispose of it properly. Remember even a small plastic Market Basket bag affects us all!

http://www.macroevolution.net/plastic-waste.html