Technogearophilia

This is a hilarious spin on the classic stereotype of the science geek. I, however,wonder how they got the cat to wear those glasses and that bow tie. Ah well, one should suffer for one’s art…

Stand Back! Iz Going To Do Science!

Funny as it is, it’s wrong. Don’t stand back! Get right up and there and get into the science. Not only is science often fun, but geek is the new chic.

And don’t worry; the tie and glasses are optional.

Seemingly spontaneous creation of order from chaos is a pervasive yet still astounding phenomenon in nature that occurs at all scales, from the quantum to the extremely macro scales of measurement and observation. Yet, since scale must be measured in time as well as size, we can rarely observe this ordering or patterning as it is happening. Humans can most often only observe and measure the resulting patterning, not the process of patterning itself.

Fortunately we can view one example of this phenomenon thanks to work done by Anatol M. Zhabotinsky (2007) Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction. Scholarpedia, 2(9):1435

The Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction is a family of oscillating chemical reactions. During these reactions, transition-metal ions catalyze oxidation of various, usually organic, reductants by bromic acid in acidic water solution. Most BZ reactions are homogeneous. The BZ reaction makes it possible to observe development of complex patterns in time and space by naked eye on a very convenient human time scale of dozens of seconds and space scale of several millimeters. The BZ reaction can generate up to several thousand oscillatory cycles in a closed system, which permits studying chemical waves and patterns without constant replenishment of reactants.

The Belousov-Zhabotinsky Autocatalytic Reaction in progress is shown below:

Belousov-Zhabotinsky Autocatalytic Reaction

The BZ Spiral Reaction is an example of self-organization, a process whereby patterns spontaneously emerge from disordered systems. It  is a type of autocatalytic reaction. The reaction starts at random points in the chemical mixture, but a feedback loop is created that triggers more reactions at those same starting places. The reactions then spread out in all directions so you end up with a circular or elliptical wavefront.

The BZ Spiral Reaction allows us to observe the process by which chaotic systems are brought into order. We can then extrapolate with some small measure of surety the apparently similar processes that we cannot directly observe in action.

Such observations are key to unlocking the methodology of the creation of our universe and the later rise of life within it (abiogenesis).

Resources & Reading

Further information on spontaneous patterning arising in nature can be found in Dr. Philip Ball, PhD’s Nature’s Patterns: A Tapestry in Three Parts:

When speaking of the living world, Ball seeks to go beyond the theory of natural selection, which explains why we see certain characteristics (height, shape, camouflage), to find mechanisms that can explain how such characteristics come to be. Again, this is no easy task, but for those willing to follow his discussion, the elegance of nature is laid out in zebras’ stripes, ivy leaves, and butterfly wings. Moving on to find the same patterns at work in the clouds of Jupiter and the cracks in the San Andreas fault give strength to the feeling that there are self-composing structures that guide everything in the universe toward a kind of order.

The Tasmanian Devil (Sarcophilus harrisii)  is a carnivorous marsupial now found in the wild only in the Australian island state of Tasmania. The Tasmanian Devil is the only extant member of the genus Sarcophilus.

It is also on the brink of extinction.

The existential threat facing the Tasmanian Devil is not anthropogenic in origin. The devils are suffering from a epidemic of cancer which has afflicted and killed over 70% of their wild population. Unless something can be done halt the cancer, Devil Facial Tumour Disease (DFTD) is expected to kill off the Tasmanian Devil within the next 25 – 50 years.

What is completely unique about DFTD is that it is contagious. The Tasmanian Devils are facing extinction from a transmissible form of cancer. They are literally experiencing and epidemic of cancer.

At least scientists have now discovered the nature of the cancer involved in DFTD.

Scientists have discovered the true identity of a contagious form of cancer that is killing Tasmanian devils. The cancer, called devil facial tumor disease, stems from cells that normally insulate nerve fibers, a new study shows.

Genetic analysis of tumors taken from infected devils in different parts of Tasmania reveals that these insulating cells, known as Schwann cells, became cancerous in a single Tasmanian devil and have since passed to other devils, an international group of researchers reports in the Jan. 1 Science.

Previously, scientists had suspected that a virus might be the source of the infection, but the new study confirms that cancer cells themselves are transmitted from devil to devil.

Knowing the origin of the contagious tumors could help conservationists diagnose the disease more accurately and may eventually lead to a vaccine that would target tumor proteins, says Katherine Belov, a geneticist at the University of Sydney who was not involved with the project.

A vaccine against the facial tumor disease, “while now pie in the sky, in 10 years might not be,” says Gregory Hannon, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, N.Y. “Ten years might be enough time” to save the devils from extinction, he says.

– Tina Hesman Saey

As terrifying and freakish as the thought of a contagious cancer is, this is a phenomenon that is restricted to species such as the Tasmanian Devil – and possibly the Cheetah – whose populations have essentially no genetic diversity. They’re so genetically similar to one another that cells, cancerous or not, transmitted between individual animals are not recognized as foreign invaders.

Hopefully though, this new discovery of the form of the cancer ravaging the Tasmanian Devils may enable scientists to develop either a vaccine or a treatment for the animals and thereby save the species from extinction.