As many of you know, I have been away on trips to feed this never ending need to learn new things.  AKA I have been away for work training, LOL. I am sure some of you more established scientists can understand flying cross country for week long seminars of all things new…it’s exhausting.  I have been running around like a beheaded chicken since my return,  trying to catch up on all my lab work and certifications are just around the corner for me. AAcckk!!

I must ask forgiveness if I don’t get on but once a week to share my finds with you all. So for now, I leave you with what I felt was an appropriate quote for this week, since I am having a hard time finding my brain ( I think I left it on the east coast…sigh…)

Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.  

~Wernher Von Braun

In association with my ongoing mini series on things we can’t live without; It has come to my attention that the the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) will be opening an exciting exhibit this July 28th: Spiders Alive! It is an exhibit dedicated to the brilliance of our most renown eight legged engineers. It may be not well known that arachnids are known for being reclusive and have evolved over the ages to blend in to their environments. This new exhibit featuring live spiders will surely be an amazing site. 

It has been mentioned by staff that creating a display-friendly habitat is just one important ingredient in this live exhibition. There will be a few human presenters and in some cases, hand held microscopes with projectors will be used to display small features of a spiders  anatomy such as fangs and fine hairs. Proper handling will be demonstrated as well as why fearing spiders is exaggerated. Granted spiders are venomous, however their venom has evolved over time to work small insects rather than humans.

If any of my fellow scientists are in the area, I encourage you all to visit this fabulous exhibit opening up. As with any live show, there will always be an element of the unexpected. It would be interesting to watch these creatures work their ingenuity. The following picture is courtesy of AMNH…please explore these fascinating creatures! (Clicking on title will take you to a few other spiders featured by AMNH)

Spiders Alive by the American Museum of Natural History

A colorful Mexican red knee tarantula; this fabulous creature lives mainly on the Pacific coast of Mexico. © AMNH/R. Mickens

Number two in this little series of things we can’t live without (even though we wish we could), is none other than Propionibacterium acnes.

Fun fact: P. acnes embedded in your pores glows florescent orange under UV light. (photo curtesy of The Science of Acne.com)

P. acnes is a pesky little rod-shaped bacteria that can embed itself deep in your skin pores. The blockage then turns into white heads. However what most people don’t realize, and again neither did my son, is that P. acnes is acturally crucial to healthy skin.

This bacteria secretes enzymes that help break down the fats of sebum, a substance produced in sebaceous glands in your skin. While P. acnes breaks down sebum the natural moisturizers are released onto your skin. P. acnes also raises the acidity on your skin which helps in keeping more dangerous bacteria such as  Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pyogenes away. Yeah the idea of a Staph infection or even Strep is not a thrilling idea. Luckily my son agreed with me.

The key to keeping P. acnes from getting out of hand is to be proactive. A regular regiment of face washings will help keep this little bugger on the up and up. If by chance you have a rebellious lot of P. acnes, a dermatologist may prescribe a more vigorous line of treatment.

Hopefully a happy balance will you find. Until next time my fellow scientists, I bid you Buenos Noches!

The star of my undergraduate work, Nephila clavipes

After she was calm, my daughter asked why I was releasing it and not squishing it. I would imagine a person’s first instinct would be to kill it, but when I was an undergraduate, I was introduced to the world of spiders. It wasn’t long ago that I, like most, was very much a “kill the spider” ask questions later kinda gal. That all changed as I navigated my way through my undergraduate research project, a project whose very star was pretty creepy. I thus spent the next hour with my daughter showing her pictures of my lab (in college) the pictures of my subjects (a spider know as Nephila clavipes or the golden orb weaver in normal people terms) as well as telling her all I learned about spiders in general. My children were just unaware of just how important those little guys really are. This conversation lead me to think I should put up a short series of posts about creepy crawlies we really couldn’t do without. 

First on my list being our little eight legged engineers; Spiders. Although spiders are astounding in what they are capable of, their appetites is by far the most useful to us in general. Spiders have a voracious appetite and help rid the world of many insects that would otherwise wreak havoc on our own food supply. It is estimated that spiders consume an average of 80 pounds/hectare of agriculture land/ year. Considering the amount of agriculture land throughout the world (estimated at 4.92 billion hectares), that’s a pretty impressive number. I imagine that depending on where you live, spiders are consuming hundreds of thousands of bugs for you per year. I don’t know about you, but I am very grateful for that. Once I explained this to my daughter, she was more than happy to set the critter loose in our front yard where we hope the little bugger will help thin down our moths. 

So my fellow scientists, next time you see a spider, consider setting him loose in the garden or yard; I guarantee your bug problems would probably decrease in time. I strongly encourage you to learn more about these amazing creatures. There is a great variety of species and the weavers (spider web spinners) are just phenomenal. Did you know that some species weave spider silk that is stronger than Kevlar? They really are amazing creatures.

My oldest son braves holding one of our lab spiders during a class visit years ago with one of my colleagues during my undergrad days. Nephila clavipes are surprisingly docile and the kids just loved their visits.

Currently I live in an area of Wyoming that is being surrounded by fires that are burning relentlessly. Towns nearby have been ordered to evacuate and the high school across the street has turned into a tent city as our town welcomes refugees and has become a command center for the incoming firefighters. The once clear sky has been filled with smoke the last couple of days. However I have been warmed greatly by the support our community has shown to those misplaced at this time. The celebration being held in one of our main parks is proving to be a great reprieve to all. 

It is times like this that I really appreciate the freedom’s we have in our country. The brave men coming to help fight the fires and help those that are fighting to save their homes is very inspirational. I feel truly blessed to witness all of this. So I ask you my fellow scientists, that in the next days, please say a prayer for those on the front lines fighting the flames and a prayer for those who have lost their homes. 

To all the families that have sent their loved ones to help fight these fires…Thank You seems like so little. I THANK YOU ALL none the less. 

To the rest of my fellow scientists… 

Thus an impromptu lesson in our natural powerhouses.  Simply put, a mitochondria is a little organelle in all our cells responsible for producing the molecule ATP. ATP is what fuels all our cells and keeps them trucking along.  It was fabulous to see the light of knowledge spark in my little ones eyes. My kids mentioned it kind of looked like a bacteria and they wouldn’t be to far off. Some scientists believe that in ancient millenia, mitochondria may have been its own bacteria but somewhere down the line joined up with developing cells to form a symbiotic relationship. The fact that mitochondria contains its own personal DNA encourages this idea.

For those of you new scientists…the following video was provided by the National Science Foundation. Their “Chalk Talk” is easy to follow and gives you the gist of what our  Mitochondria do to keep us all going. So my fellow scientists, watch learn, and get your powerhouses moving!

HAPPY FATHER’s DAY!!!!!!!!!!

“Bad times have a scientific value. These are occasions a good learner would not miss.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

So my now and future scientists, don’t fear the hard times, for in those times we learn the most.

Have you heard about the last Venus transit to occur on June 5th? Or, are you wondering what the heck I’m talking about? Your friendly Reading Scientist  is here to share this exciting news. 

A transit is simply when an object in the sky passes in front of another. So when you

The 2004 Venus transit as seen by the Solar and Helospheric Observatory (SOHO). SOHO/EIT/ESA/NASA

hear about the Venus transit, it really just means that Venus will pass in front of our sun. If you are watching, it will look like Venus will be a little black dot skipping across the Sun’s surface for a couple of hours.  

This is an occurrence that happens twice within an eight year period and then won’t happen again for at least 100 years!

How does this occur…watch below to learn, its a quick 2 minute’sh video.

It’s basically a once in lifetime deal. The last time this occurred was in in the years of 1874 and 1872!  The first transit occurred in 2004 with the final being this June 5^th, and astronomers don’t anticipate another transit until the year 2117, Yipes! 

So my fellow Scientists! I urge you to not miss this exciting event…

Wonder if you will be able to see it? Check out the map below to find out…

If you are in a no visible zone (or don’ t have the correct tools to view this), have no fear, there are other ways to view it especially online. The following are links to some really good sites that will allow you to watch the transit as it occurs!

• NASA
• NASA Edge
• National Solar Observatory
• San Francisco’s Exploratorium
• NASA TV (I personally love this site)
• Coca-Cola Space Science Center (Columbus State University; they have a seriously cool intro; I am psyched for the transit now)
• Bareket Observatory (Israel)
• Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter (University of Arizona)