Rob Carlson, author of Biology is Technology: The promise, perils, and new business of engineering life, was recently in the Bay Area to deliver a talk to the California Assembly Select Committee on Biotechnology. His presentation focused on the role of small businesses and garage hackers in innovating the new bioeconomy. You can see his […]
A study by Noah Fierer and co-workers at the University of Colorado at Boulder suggests that the mix of bacterial flora each of us leaves behind on, say, our computer keyboard or mouse, may be sufficiently unique to identify us:
“Each one of us leaves a unique trail of bugs behind as we travel through our daily lives,” said Fierer, an assistant professor in CU-Boulder’s ecology and evolutionary biology department. “While this project is still in it’s preliminary stages, we think the technique could eventually become a valuable new item in the toolbox of forensic scientists.”
The study was published March 15 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Co-authors on the PNAS study included Christian Lauber and Nick Zhou of CU-Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, or CIRES, Daniel McDonald of CU-Boulder’s department of chemistry and biochemistry, Stanford University Postdoctoral Researcher Elizabeth Costello and CU-Boulder chemistry and biochemistry Assistant Professor Rob Knight.
Using powerful gene-sequencing techniques, the team swabbed bacterial DNA from individual keys on three personal computers and matched them up to bacteria on the fingertips of keyboard owners, comparing the results to swabs taken from other keyboards never touched by the subjects. The bacterial DNA from the keys matched much more closely to bacteria of keyboard owners than to bacterial samples taken from random fingertips and from other keyboards, Fierer said.
Here’s the abstract for Fierer’s paper at PNAS.
Two galvanized nails set in a plug of plaster-of-Paris. That’s it. The Cheap Vegetable Gardener, who created the sensor for an automated grow box project, explains:
Technically a gypsum block measures soil water tension. When the gypsum block is dry it is not possible for electricity to pass between the probes, essentially making the probe an insulator with infinite resistance. As water is added to the problem more electrons can pass between the probes effectively reducing the amount of resistance between the problem to the point when it is fully saturated where the probe has virtually zero resistance. By using this range of values you can determine the amount of water than exists in your soil.
[via Hack a Day]
Xylocopa Design (of Build-Your-Own Ratmobile fame) just added this beautiful Mysterious Mushroom Puzzle to their Makers Market store: These gorgeous engraved wooden mushrooms fit together to make a 6″ square – but in only one configuration! Assembling them may not look so bad, but trust us, it’s no simple task. Each mushroom is based on […]
Lately we’ve had lots of folks writing in seeking practical advice on collecting tissue samples for use in studying diseases of whales. I had no idea there were so many amateur cetopathologists among our readers!
As you folks know–all too well, I’m sure–it is extremely difficult to collect blood from a wild whale without injuring or killing it in the process. However, as is common knowledge even among laypersons, the next best thing to live whale blood is live whale snot. Turns out it spews from their blowholes when they exhale, so the process is really very simple:
1. Find breaching whale.
2. Hold petri dish over blowhole to intercept spout.
3. Return to lab, enjoy sample.
Step 2 is actually the hard part. And although your first instinct may be to just jump in your rowboat, paddle out to a whale pod, lean way out over the side with your sample container, and wait, that’s actually not as safe as it might sound. Each year, untold millions die attempting this maneuver.
Enter Dr. Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse, of the Zoological Society of London. Her recent paper in Animal Conservation (abstract), irresistibly entitled “A novel non-invasive tool for disease surveillance of free-ranging whales and its relevance to conservation programs,” introduces the ground-breaking methodology of strapping a petri dish to a toy RC helicopter and flying it into the spout. This landmark paper stands not only to revolutionize our understanding of whaleborne disease, but to save countless lives, and establishes Dr. Acevedo-Whitehouse as a serious contender for this year’s (Ig) Nobel Prize.
[via The Thoughtful Animal]
P.S. Dr. Acevedo-Whitehouse, you are made of awesome. And although I have never met you and probably never will, I love you with all my heart.
We have blogged about American assemblage artist Ron Pippin’s work before, with a focus on his wunderkammer pieces. But he’s been busy since then. Fair warning: Much of Pippin’s work uses real animal parts, and although I personally find it very beautiful, some viewers may be disturbed and/or offended. [via The Automata / Automaton Blog]
This week’s clever maker-entrepreneur award goes to Etsy seller Cleaner Science, who makes and sells these awesome soaps that look like petri dishes full of growing germs. They’re easy to make (I presume), inexpensive to buy, light enough to ship cheaply, and totally original. Home run! Bonus: some include glow-in-the-dark spots! [via Geekologie]
