Some Scientists Were Just Derping Around In Some Mosquito Guts Collected A Few Decades Ago Looking For

Some scientists were just derping around in some mosquito guts collected a few decades ago looking for new viruses

New virus! Eilat virus, from the desert sands of Israel! (via outofcontextscience)

Over the last few months, there has been a loose chicken living near the train station by my house. This would not be particularly strange were it not for the fact that I live in New York City.

The other day I was waiting to meet someone at a location about 3 minutes away from the train station. She was in a car and arrived about 15 minutes late. When I asked about the delay she told me the following:

The chicken had been out and about that day. As she was driving down the street, it hopped off the sidewalk and wandered about aimlessly in front of her car. It stayed there for a while, going about its chicken business. Eventually, it found itself by the opposite sidewalk and hopped back up.

I stared at her in disbelief.

“You got held up by a punchline.”

Image by Mike Mignola

Thyroid is latest success in regenerative medicine

A series of achievements have stoked excitement about the potential of regenerative medicine, which aims to tackle diseases by replacing or regenerating damaged cells, tissues and organs. A paper in Nature today reports another step towards this goal: the generation of working thyroid cells from stem cells.

Sabine Costagliola, a molecular embryologist at the Free University of Brussels, and her team study the development of the thyroid gland, which regulates how the body uses energy and affects sensitivity to other hormones. Their research shows that thyroid function can be re-established even after the gland has been destroyed — at least in mice. If the same technique could be applied to humans, it would help the roughly 1 in 3,000 babies born with deficient thyroid activity, or hypothyroidism, which can result in stunted physical and mental development.

Essentially, the researchers grew working, hormone-producing, physiologically responsive thyroid from a few stem cells, implanted them in a mouse model, and then high fived.

Science!

now is the winter of our disco tent