SOS: Save our Science - Bug Battle

This post was a request from a reader (Yay!). I've got a lot of different projects going on at the moment so have been a bit slow with the posting. Hopefully I'll be posting about my latest lab soon. There's still a lot to write when I get the time. We had a lot of fun last week meeting the students interviewing to join my course next year and the lab work is going well. There is a much more theoretical element to it, which I've been enjoying. Anyway, so this is a bit of a proto-story really. A possible explanation for the disappearance of bees worldwide; though the real science is still under wraps.

A honeybee (Apis mellifera) (source)

Pollinating insects, like bees, are disappearing across the world. The phenomenon is known as colony collapse disorder (CCD). If CCD continues as it is the world stands to lose most, if not all, pollinating species, which stands to rapidly wipe out all flowering plant species and would severely alter every land based ecosystem. A key element in understanding CCD was uncovered over two years ago, but is only just emerging as published work.

CCD is being studied by a dedicated group of researchers in the US Department of Agriculture’s Bee Research Lab. The rapid decline in colonies of pollinating insects due to CCD was originally observed in the US but has since been identified around the globe, though it has yet to arrive in some countries, including the UK.

SOS: Save our Science - Cryptochrome, lord of time.

 I knew it'd happen sooner or later, I've started falling behind on postings. I'd hoped to put this up on New Year, but that didn't happen. Anyway, Happy New Year to all, hope you all enjoyed yourselves. I've been writing the report on my first project. The first draft is now done. Still a lot to do, and only 1.5 weeks until it's back to work. The next project is all about cytoskeleton and growth in yeast, so a bit different, I'll tell you more once I actually know anything...

So this is a relatively new paper I found, investigating how flies, and possible humans keep track of the time of day and how this is affected by our environment i.e. the sun. It seemed appropriate to do a time piece to see in the new year. Also I'm really excited as this will be my first official Research Blogging post!!

How do you know if it’s day or night? Simple, right? You look at your watch or you look outside. The differences are pretty obvious. But your body actually keeps track of these things itself. Certain proteins in your body keep track of the time of day. This system has been around for billions of years, and is shared between plants and animals.

The subconscious ability to tell night and day depends on circadian rhythms; regular changes in the presence and activity of timekeeper proteins within a part of your brain called the pineal gland (so named because it looks like a pine cone). Experiments have shown that in a room with no clocks and no changes in light levels a human will fall into a roughly 24 hour cycle of sleeping and waking (average 24 hours 11 mins). The average cycle differs between species and in some arctic species appears to be intermittent. Although the cycle is entirely self-sustaining it is trained and altered by light input, modifying it to be more exactly 24 hours long. This involves light sensitive proteins in your eye which signal to the pineal gland.