SCItations

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. The field of optogenetics has taken that motto to heart and paid photosynthetic algae an immense complement. It’s actually very common for science and engineering technology to take a hint from nature, but in this case that hint was actually entire gene sequences. Channelrhodopsins are a group of proteins found in some photosynthetic algae which directly regulate the flow of ions through membranes. I’ve talked about channel proteins before and how their activity can be modulated by either chemical or electrical signals, but these channelrhodopsins are special because they are activated by light. The discovery of the genes that code for these proteins and the genetic engineering that has introduced these genes into mammalian cells has spurred research in the area called optogenetics . Perhaps most famously, optogenetics has been applied to neuroscience with the transfection of neurons with the channelrhodopsin gene. A ...

Frigid temperatures in Arkansas this weekend have inspired an icy topic.   If you’ve ever wondered why your lettuce wilts when it accidentally freezes in the refrigerator, or your basil dies after the first frost then this post is for you.  Contrary to what I believed and maybe what some of you do to, plant cells themselves rarely freeze. The water in between cells freezes much more readily than the cells themselves; this is the start of the plant’s problems.  Dehydration is the most common culprit for cell death at cold temperatures. It seems counter intuitive that dehydration would occur as a result of freezing water , but it makes sense when you begin to think like a plant cell. All living cells exist in a state of equilibrium with their surroundings. Ions, gases, small molecules and water are constantly moving around the plant, going in and out of cells as needed. The concentrations of these species inside and outside of the cell are carefully regulated b...