Lean, green killing machine: The inner life of the Venus flytrap
As a kid, I tried to raise a Venus flytrap purchased from the back of a comic book, but tragically, I never got to see it in action. Nope, I never got to see it chew up and burp out an insect victim like that giant, homicidal Venusian in "Little Shop of Horrors." What a disappointment! A couple of months ago, my wife, in an effort to combat a persistent fruit fly infestation she claimed was somehow my fault -- I'd picked a bunch of oranges from the tree in our backyard-- brought home something called a white-topped pitcher (S. leucophylla), another form of carnivorous plant life.
I'm not getting to see any gory action with this plant either; it's a more discreet killing machine consisting of fragrant tubes that flying insects zoom into and then get stuck in, hidden from view of prying eyes. But it got me wondering, how do these plants actually digest the flies sans bodily organs and ... chewing?Ferris Jabr, posting at the Savvy Saplings blog ("Because Plants Deserve Verbs, too") has the answer that eluded even Charles Darwin:
Native to the coastal bogs and savannas of the Carolinas, Venus flytraps grow slowly and close to the nutrient-poor soil they inhabit. If you kneel next to a wild plant, you will likely see a circular arrangement of four to seven flat green stalks that end in blushing, toothed traps. While the broad, elongated stalks perform photosynthesis -- the chemical process plants use to turn water, carbon dioxide and energy from sunlight into sugars and oxygen -- the crimson traps wait around for insects, spiders or other critters they can seize for their nitrogen, which the plant needs to continue making vital proteins. (If large enough, the traps can catch small amphibians or rodents.)
Each trap is actually a modified leaf: a hinged midrib, which would be the central vein of a more familiar leaf, joins the two lobes, which secrete a sweet sap to attract insects. The rims of each lobe flair out in a curved row of spikes that interlock when the traps shut to prevent prey from escaping -- but leave enough room for tiny insects to get out, so the Venus flytrap does not waste energy digesting an insignificant meal. The traps will open sooner if an insect manages to flee, but will close more tightly if the victim struggles.
When a trap is open, each lobe is convex in shape, its red belly bulging outwards. When something triggers the trap, the lobes flip to a concave arrangement in less than a tenth of a second, forming a sealed stomach.
Then comes the fun part: An acidic enzyme is secreted by the plant, which dissolves its prey and allows it to be absorbed through the plant's membranes. The hapless frog in the video below will slowly, but surely, be turned into a skeleton -- this takes about 10 days -- and the plant can then avail itself of the nitrogen in the carcass to feed itself. Now you know!
-- Richard Metzger
(Via Boing Boing)
Photo: A Venus flytrap. Credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times
Video below: The frog gets it.
Big Think: Noam Chomksy shares his thoughts on the meaning of love
Big Think is a website devoted to giving some big brains a platform to spout off on topics meaningful to them, and hopefully to other citizens of this planet we call Earth. With a cadre of boldface names like Ricky Gervais, Robert Wright, Stephen Fry and Ray Kurzweil, Big Think aims to put its readers in touch with... well, big thinkers on topics like sustainability, religion, alternate energy sources, artificial intelligence, history, justice, cultural identity, politics and much more. It is what tends to be called a "heady brew"!
Perusing the site this morning, I watched this sincere short video with M.I.T. professor Noam Chomsky -- probably America's single most important intellectual -- discussing the concept of what love is. He admits at the outset that he really doesn't know, but he takes a good stab at it anyway. Big Think does a great job at fulfilling its mission statement with articles and videos quite akin to TED conference speeches. If you like TED talks (and who doesn't?) then Big Think is probably a site you'll want to bookmark, pronto.
Here's a tip: Don't miss author Gay Talese on "getting drunk at the New York Times" in the 1960s.
-- Richard Metzger
A mathematical formula for a happy marriage? Works for me!
Researchers have crunched the numbers and found that if a woman is five years younger than her husband, comes from roughly the same socioeconomic background and -- crucially -- is the more intelligent of the pair, the couple in question is more likely to have a happy, long-lasting marriage. From "Scientists Find Mathematical Formula for the Perfect Wife," at the Telegraph:
The academic study, published in the European Journal of Operational Research, looked at 1,074 couples aged between 19 and 75 years, to find which social factors were most important to a long and happy relationship.
Besides the man being five years older than his bride, and that his bride should share the same heritage, they concluded that a wife should be at least 27 per cent more intelligent than her husband. She should also hold a degree, while he should not. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the academics found that marrying a divorcee reduced the chance of wedded bliss.Regarding this stuff about how the wife should be 27% more intelligent than her husband is, I have only this to add: I have a very, very happy marriage.
Nguyen Vi Cao, who led the research, promised: "If people follow these guidelines in choosing their partners they can increase their chances of a happy, long marriage by up to 20 per cent."
Relationship experts thought there might be something in the research. Kate Figes, who interviewed 120 people for her recent book on understanding relationship, Couples, said: "Aren't most women the more intelligent in a relationship anyway? That's my first reaction.
-- Richard Metzger
Photo: Al Bundy (Ed O'Neill) and his wife, Peg (Katey Sagal), bandy insults on "Married ... With Children." Credit: Doug Hyun
In vitro mystery meat redux
In this week's issue of Brand X, Jason Gelt writes about the coming era of in vitro meat, and yes, that means what you think it means: meat grown in a lab. Now scientists in Holland have announced that they've successfully produced "pork in a petri dish," but the consistency isn't quite right yet: The pork is described as having the texture of a scallop. Ew! That would be like eating ham-flavored Jell-O!
Still, there's something to this futuristic culinary heresy and there's a very important factor to consider moving forward, what our consumption of meat does to the planet.
According to an Associated Press report on the pork:
Hanna Tuomisto, who studies the environmental impact of food production at Oxford University, said that switching to lab-produced meat could theoretically lower greenhouse gas emissions by up to 95 percent. Both land and water use would also drop by about 95 percent, she said."In theory, if all the meat was replaced by cultured meat, it would be huge for the environment," she said. "One animal could produce many thousands of kilograms of meat." In addition, lab meat can be nurtured with relatively few nutrients like amino acids, fats and natural sugars, whereas livestock must be fed huge amounts of traditional crops.
There's also the possibility of engineering more healthful meat, like a hamburger that wouldn't clog your arteries.
Probably worth mentioning that none of the Dutch scientists have actually tried their delicacy. Still, we at Brand X intend to keep watching this space, if for no other reason than to see what new gross-out drink recipes our intrepid reporter and resident mixmaster Alie Ward might come up with utilizing this porky mystery meat (see Georgia Hardstark and Alie's utterly foul viral video recipes for the Bloody Bacon and Cheese, and the "McNuggtini," below).
-- Richard Metzger
Photo: A photomicrograph of muscle tissue. Dutch scientists have been growing pork in a laboratory, a technique to turn pig stem cells into strips of meat that scientists say could one day offer an environment-friendly alternative to raising livestock. Credit: Eindhoven University of Technology
In vitro meat: a new culture
In 1932, Winston Churchill, appalled by the leftover bones and gristle crowding his dinner plate, predicted that in 50 years "we shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium." It's taken longer than that, but at the dawn of the 21st century we're finally closing in on tasty and eerily healthy meat grown by scientists instead of Old MacDonald.
"It's been a thought problem for scientists for decades," says Jason Matheny, director of New Harvest, a nonprofit organization devoted to global efforts to produce cultured meat. With meat consumption in heavily populated countries like China and India multiplying every decade, the environmental complications resulting from industrial meat production have reached critical mass."Meat is now recognized as the leading contributor to global warming," says Matheny, pointing out that meat production creates more greenhouse gases than the entire transportation sector. Additionally, he says, the meat industry is responsible for more than 2 million cardiovascular-related deaths annually, pathogenic contagions such as avian flu and widespread water pollution due to farm animal runoff. With in vitro meat, Matheny asserts, we could mitigate all these problems, in addition to saving the lives of more than 60 billion animals per year.
Coming to the rescue is a dedicated consortium of international scientists, particularly a research group funded by the Dutch government, who have made dramatic progress toward the production of in vitro meat. Although still mostly on the theoretical level, the process is simple: Cells taken from a farm animal are multiplied in a nutrient-rich stew, then stretched or stacked until the proper bulk and texture is achieved. The results can be formed into boneless, processed meat such as sausage, hamburger or chicken nuggets. In addition to the other benefits, "you could produce beef with the fat content of salmon or avocado," says Matheny, who estimates that once the high cost of creating cultured meat is lowered, the product could be in supermarket coolers within five to 10 years.
Still, the road to cultured chicken nuggets faces obstacles. "There are lots of technical challenges," Matheny says. "But those all appear to be solvable. The biggest challenge is one of marketing. There's a yuck factor with the idea of producing cultured meat in a metal tank." Many foods we take for granted are bioprocessed, including yogurt, cheese and fermented drinks. With the health of the world at stake, coming to terms with cultured meats is the logical next step, Matheny says. "If we shifted to cultured meat," says Matheny, "it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions more than everybody trading in their cars and trucks for bicycles."
With the efforts of organizations such as New Harvest, the term "mystery meat" may soon shift from a negative to a positive connotation. Squalid industrial animal farms would become relics of the past, and land, water and grain could be put to other uses. Says Matheny: "In principle, one could produce the entire meat supply from a few cells harvested from animals that don't even need to be killed."
--Jason Gelt
Photo: With in vitro meat processing, scientists eventually might be able to control levels of fats and protein and produce meat that is less likely to be contaminated. Spencer Weiner/Los Angeles Times.Climate Change: share your thoughts with Brand X readers
As science nobly races to take on the global warming it helped create, we can hear the drumbeat out there now -- it's a pointless exercise, and the Earth has cycled through temperature changes throughout history. Even if there is some truth to that argument, aren't the species and regions threatened by climate change worth saving by any means necessary? Or is it the height of human arrogance to think we can fight what amounts to Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest? Blind us with science in the comments!
Cosmic debris: Where to watch the Leonid meteor shower
Missed last night's spectacular sky show? Fret not, because you still have tonight to catch the most active moments of the annual Leonid meteor shower. It may look like the work of a big-budget Hollywood special effects team, but, in fact, the annual rain of meteors is just a bunch of galactic junk. Literally. It's really nothing more than cosmic debris -- left in the wake of Comet Tempel-Tuttle -- filling the atmosphere around Earth, but it looks incredible. And with a new moon, there's not much to spoil the celestial view. If you are looking for a good vantage point to watch the meteor showers, every seat in the house should provide the perfect vantage point as long as you aren't near the luminous distractions of urban living, or at least far enough removed. So get yourself into the middle of a field tonight and enjoy the greatest light show this side of Laser Floyd.
The Leonid Meteor Shower, Nov. 10-20, optimal viewing time after 1 a.m. PST Free.
— Richard Metzger
Photo: a meteor shower in 1995, courtesy NASA
Plants know their siblings, but strangers are seen as rivals
Fascinating research from the University of Delaware reveals that plants recognize their siblings, but "fight" with strangers. Who knew?
Back in 2007, Canadian researchers discovered that a common seashore plant, called a sea rocket, can recognize its siblings – plants grown from seeds from the same plant, or mother. They saw that when siblings are grown next to each other in the soil, they "play nice" and don't send out more roots to compete with one another.
But as soon as one of the plants is thrown in with strangers, it begins competing with them by rapidly growing more roots to take up the water and mineral nutrients in the soil.
How does this work? Plants obviously have no sense organs, but somehow a chemical signal emanating from their roots is recognized. This has implications, of course, for large-scale industrial farming (avoiding brawls in cornfields, maybe?) but what about the home gardener?
Dr. Harsh Bais, assistant professor of plant and soil sciences at the University of Delaware said of the research, "Often we'll put plants in the ground next to each other and when they don't do well, we blame the local garden center where we bought them, or we attribute their failure to a pathogen. But maybe there's more to it than that."
-- Richard Metzger
Above, Dr. Harsh Bais, University of Delaware, and doctoral candidate Meredith Biedrzycki. Photo credit: University of Delaware.
Large Hadron Collider ready to roll again ... unless God stops it first
A little more than a year after its ill-fated debut, the Large Hadron Collider is getting ready to roll again. The controversial device, including an 18-mile circular tunnel -- bigger than the London Underground's Circle Line -- is housed in the gigantic CERN laboratory in the Jura mountains just outside of Geneva, on the border of France and Switzerland. Using the particle collider, the largest ever built, would allow scientists to re-create conditions that existed a trillionth of a second after the big bang, as well as prove the existence of the spooky "Higgs boson" entity, also called the "God Particle" which give "things" (including living things like you and me) their mass. It is further anticipated to solve the mystery of "dark matter" and shed light on many other quirky physics conundrums.
Not everyone is happy about the Hadron's snappy comeback. Some scientists fear the experiment could cause several tiny black holes to form, which would grow and devour the entire Earth. Still others, like Dr. Holger Bech Neilson of the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen believe that the manufacture of Higgs bosons may be so "abhorrent" to nature," as Dennis Overbye wrote in the New York Times, that their creation would cause ripples backward through time to stop the collider before it could produce one, much like the paradox of a time traveler going back in time to halt his own birth by killing his grandfather. Neilson calls the collider's problems an "anti-miracle" and adds, tongue-not-entirely-in-cheek, that the collider's epic failure in 2008 might actually have proved the existence of God. Got your head around that one?
What is even scarier about the Large Hadron Collider, however, is that one of the CERN physicists working on the project (his name has not been released) was arrested Oct. 12 on suspicion of having Al Qaeda connections.
-- Richard Metzger
Photo: CERN
Wolfram Alpha iPhone app for extreme science geeks
If you've ever felt like working out the precise distance between Earth
and Mars measured in AA batteries while lying on a beach, hiking in the mountains or sitting in
traffic (you wouldn't do that, would you?) then get thee to the iPhone
Apps Store to grab a copy of the newly released Wolfram Alpha app.
The Wolfram Alpha iPhone app is proving popular, indeed. After just a few days in release, the app has already made the Apple "Hot List" and is one of the top sellers in the App Store. Some tech writers have been critical of the app's jaw-dropping $49.99 list price, but it's important to keep in mind that the app is not just another way to access the Wolfram Alpha website, but a sophisticated, high-end calculator capable of supporting calculus, discrete number theory and function plotting, then spitting out graphics that illustrate the information like a fancy spreadsheet, all in a matter of seconds.
--Richard Metzger
Photo: Stephen Wolfram; credit: Megan Bearder
