7 ms·
A middle schooler found a new compound in a piece of goose poop
- hahahacorn 2y agoCan’t help but read “it’s a nothing burger” in between each paragraph, but I love this story all the same. Props to Murphy and his team for developing an awesome program.
- ronald_raygun 2y agoKids these days are still getting all the shit jobs in the cool science labs.
- gus_massa 2y agoI hate when the press article exagerate the participation of the students, but in this case the press article is fine. We have(had?) a similar project in our university. Students of high school (17yo?) go once per week for a semenster and help with some project. In some topics is possible to isolate the work and make an interesting task that can be teached and tried in one semester. Nobody expect a groundbreaking result, but it's an interesting aproach to encourage students.
- djoldman 2y agoPublished journal article: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsomega.4c07459 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsomega.4c07459 From the abstract: > ...one student isolated a Pseudomonas idahonensis bacterium from a goose feces sample that produced a new cyclic lipodepsipeptide, which .... was cytotoxic against human melanoma and human ovarian cancer cells with IC50 values of 11.06 and 10.50 μM, respectively.
- gilleain 2y agoHuh, so a lipid tail and a mixed R/L cyclic peptide head which is cytotoxic? At a wild guess, perhaps it forms a pore in cell membranes?
- mmiyer 2y agohttps://xkcd.com/1217/ https://xkcd.com/1217/
- thunderbong 2y agoMobile version https://m.xkcd.com/1217/ https://m.xkcd.com/1217/
- thih9 2y agoExplained: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1217:_Cells https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1217:_Cells
- bombcar 2y ago[citation needed] that a handgun harms cells.
- dekhn 2y agonah, it's routine to use a "gene gun" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_gun
- Dylan16807 2y agoDo you really think it needs explanation? Especially with the alt text pointing out the contrast between "kills" and "selectively kills"?
- sophacles 2y agoThere's an xkcd that adresses this better than i can. https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/ And in case it helps: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1053:_Ten_Thousand https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1053:_Ten_Thousan...
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- pfdietz 2y agoThat's a high concentration. Drugs are often effective in nM concentrations.
- dudeinjapan 2y agoAnd to think, all these years I used to get mad at geese for pooping all over my yard. Little did I know they were trying to save me from melanoma.
- ronald_raygun 2y agogeese are excellent gaurdian animals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guard_goose https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guard_goose
- jkestner 2y ago“Geese are intelligent enough to discern unusual people” And intelligent enough to hold a grudge against familiar people. But I don’t think we’ve lost any hens under his watch.
- silisili 2y agoI think they have a weird inflated sense of how large they are. We had some who nested outside the office years back. It seemed to have a cutoff of around 5'6. Anyone taller would get the raised wings and hissing. Anyone shorter would get chased and 'attacked.' Gotta admire the bravery, really.
- jkestner 2y ago"Inflated sense" of something for sure. When mine attacks, he doesn't know when to stop no matter how many times I grab his neck. I raised this one from the egg. Once they reached sexual maturity he became an asshole, but clearly has conflicting processes — he follows me around outside, pulls weeds off the tiller with me, etc. But inevitably eating corn from my hand turns to biting my fingers. If he didn't have a female to protect (she's chill), we could probably be friends again.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- nyc_data_geek1 2y ago(goose)Shit like this is exactly why failing to account for the negative externalities associated with anthropogenic biosphere collapse is so utterly shortsighted and will ultimately be the death of us all. Every extinction is potentially a loss of knowledge we can't even conceive of yet, and how many medical advancements come from the flora and fauna of the Earth?
- kevindamm 2y agoIf we're taking that view, it's only fair to account for the # unique deaths as well.
- card_zero 2y agoThat doesn't add up, we're not dependent on medical innovations for human survival. They're just nice to have. But we got this far as a species and expanded into the billions even while enduring all kinds of cancer and leprosy and cholera and syphilis and measles and whatever.
- nyc_data_geek1 2y agoGood luck with the diseases of the future, when antibiotics are useless and we have no source for new therapies.
- m3kw9 2y agoGoose poop as cream for your sun spots gonna be on sale soon at your natralpathic store?
- kikokikokiko 2y agoAin't that where Gwyneth Paltrow's GOOP name came from? I'm pretty sure it is.
- benjijay 2y agoIt's that old adage once again... throw enough goose shit at the wall and eventually you'll treat cancer.
- bitwize 2y agoIt's just my little goose poop... you don't know what I got!
- butlike 2y ago> One unique sample, goose poop collected at a local park, had a bacterium that showed antibiotic activity and contained a novel compound that slowed the growth of human melanoma and ovarian cancer cells in lab tests. The goose that laid the golden egg.
- stuff4ben 2y agoI'm so glad companies and in this case a university are reaching out to youth to get them excited in these fields. Just wish it was more widespread. Can you imagine being credited on a scientific paper while you're in middle school? I know they probably didn't do a lot of the hard work, but when you're that age, working with adults and being encouraged like that, I'm sure it's an amazing feeling.
- tetris11 2y agothere are many citizen science projects out there
- jstanley 2y ago"Citizen science" is kind of a demeaning term, as if the only way to do "Real science" is to work for a university.
- whythre 2y agoWell, yeah. Everyone knows you aren’t pulling in millions in grant money or making millions off of patentable discoveries, you aren’t a real scientist.
- evan_ 2y agodo you think that grad students doing research at a university are pulling in millions in grant money
- hundchenkatze 2y agoI think they were being facetious
- ziddoap 2y agoI don't think many citizen science projects credit the citizen contributors on the resulting paper(s), do they? The only few that I have contributed to did not, but I'm not super familiar with what the norm is. I think being a student and seeing your name on the resulting paper is a big part of the encouragement and excitement.
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- echelon 2y agoAnother Google Gemini gaffe for "depsipeptide" [1]. > A depsipeptide is a cyclic peptide where one or more amide groups are replaced by ester groups. Depsipeptides are not necessarily cyclic, and I'd prefer to use "bond" instead of "group", though both are fine. I am hitting so many of these every day. They're crazy. Hallucinations that companies are headquartered in the wrong states, incorrect math and statistics, and even outright wrong health advice. [1] https://imgur.com/a/YslvJO2 https://imgur.com/a/YslvJO2
- erikerikson 2y ago"De-pepsi-cide" Advocating for removing the platform from people who are advocating puncturing of sodas. Ideally from atop a bicycle. /misreading-for-the-fun
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- otterley 2y agoLittle goose poop You don't know what I got (you don't know what I got) Little goose poop You don't know what I got Well I'm not bragging babe, so don't put me down (goose poop) But I've got the strongest antibiotic in town (goose poop) When superbugs come up to me, they don't even try (goose poop) 'Cause once they meet my compound, man, they're gonna die (Apologies to the Beach Boys)
- Uptrenda 2y agoTo me it seems like magic that we possess the ability to analyse the structure of a chemical sample and then synthesize it. That is real life alchemy. I know about some of these technologies for analysing samples. But they're all expensive as far as I know. E.g. I think home labs still use things like reagents / color change tests to get an idea if a synthesis succeeded. I wonder if there are any ways to do chemical analysis that are cheap though?