Curio Cabinet

No one likes lockjaw, but no one’s crazy about having to get a tetanus shot either. These shots are among the most unpleasant of common vaccines due to their lingering side effects, but according to a paper recently published in the journal Nature, researchers at Stanford University may have found a way to deliver the vaccine topically. The secret to their success lay with Staphylococcus epidermidis, a harmless but hardy bacteria that lives on the skin. As it turns out, S. epidermidis isn’t unassuming as previously thought. Since the bacteria isn’t a pathogen, it was long assumed that the body’s immune system ignored its presence. However, more recent research revealed that the immune system actually mounts an aggressive response against the bacteria and produces antibodies against it, although this process has no noticeable symptoms. The reason for the disproportionate but easily ignored response is a protein in the bacteria called Aap, which triggers the immune system. With that in mind, researchers engineered the bacteria to produce antigens from the tetanus toxin instead of Aap, so when the bacteria was applied to the skin, it would trigger the immune system to make antibodies for the toxin instead. They tested the topical treatment on mice and found that the treated rodents were completely immune to the tetanus toxin, even at six times the lethal limit. Following up on that success, they repeated the process with the diphtheria toxin and achieved similar results. The best part is that, aside from having no needles involved, there were no adverse effects to the topical vaccine. One of the researchers, Michael Fischbach, said in a statement through the university, “We think this will work for viruses, bacteria, fungi, and one-celled parasites. Most vaccines have ingredients that stimulate an inflammatory response and make you feel a little sick. These bugs don’t do that. We expect that you wouldn’t experience any inflammation at all.” It really seems that there’s no fly in this ointment.

Is it aliens? Experimental military aircraft? Well, it’s probably nothing that exciting, though that’s interesting to imagine. Beginning in November and continuing through December, thousands of drone sightings have been reported in New Jersey and other states in the Northeast. With the government inundated by the reports, the FBI, FAA, the Pentagon, and the Department of Homeland Security have issued a joint statement to address the issue, saying, “The sightings to date include a combination of lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, and law enforcement drones, as well as manned fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and stars mistakenly reported as drones.”
 
The report has done little to stop a slew of conspiracy theories about the drones. Some claim they are the work of government spies or that they’re actually UFOs. In truth, these unnerved reactions might have a lot to do with how drones operate. After all, these remote-controlled, unmanned aircraft, which are propelled by rotors and mounted with lights for orienting the pilot on the ground, don’t fly or move live conventional aircraft. Because they are fairly quiet and turn quickly, it’s hard to tell how far away they are or what direction they’re going, especially in the dark. At night, drones can appear as bright points of multi-colored light moving in odd directions, much like UFOs are often imagined. In the U.S. alone, there are around one million registered drones, with thousands of them up in the sky at any given time. Regardless, the FBI does have some concerns about the sightings—from the ground, not from above. They’re worried that people might attempt to shoot the drones down, which could injure or even accidentally kill people. There have already been issues with people on the ground aiming high-powered laser pointers at the sky and subsequently hitting pilots of manned aircraft, forcing emergency landings. For now, if you see a drone in the sky, it’s better to enjoy the light show than to try and make one of your own.

They may look like walking piles of snow, but they’ve got much sharper teeth. This time of year, polar bears are everywhere in the form of ornaments, stuffed animals, and commercial mascots. While their white fur and arctic habitat make polar bears perfect holiday symbols, they also pose real challenges as these cold-weather animals attempt to adapt to a warming planet.
 
Polar bears evolved from brown bears a relatively short time ago: around 48,000 years. Of the world’s eight bear species, only polar bears are officially classified as marine mammals. In fact, their scientific name, Ursus maritimus, means “sea bear.” That’s because polar bears spend the majority of their lives on the Arctic Ocean’s sea ice. In winter, when the sea ice is at its thickest and most expansive, it covers around six million square miles. Polar bears mate on the sea ice in the spring, dig dens and have their cubs (usually back on solid land) between November and January, then return to the sea ice with their cubs to teach them to hunt. Polar bear cubs stay with their mothers for around three years to learn the vital skills they’ll need later in life. Of course, polar bears have many adaptations that help them survive the harsh arctic temperatures, which can plummet to -60 degrees Fahrenheit. Their fur isn’t actually white; each individual hair is clear, but light scatters across the hairs’ surface, creating an effect called luminescence, which makes them appear white. This coloring helps them blend into their snowy surroundings even when their fur gets a bit dirty. Polar bears have black skin, which helps to absorb heat, and a thick layer of blubber to keep them warm and make them buoyant.
 
Unlike most bears, which can supplement their diets with fruits and berries, polar bears have few food options other than meat. Their most important prey are ringed seals, which swim beneath the sea ice but must surface periodically to rest and breath. Polar bear’s hunt and eat all they can while the sea ice is at its thickest, usually from winter to early March. After that, the ice begins to melt and break up, shrinking through September, at which time polar bears must return to solid land. Otherwise, polar bears could end up stuck in the middle of the thawed Arctic Ocean. While these powerful marine mammals can swim for days at a time without stopping, doing so has a serious impact on the energy and fat reserves that they carefully build via months of hunting on the sea ice. If a polar bear loses too much weight, its resistance to the cold decreases dramatically, and its chances of survival plummet.
 
Because of their unique way of life, polar bears are being hit hard by climate change. Sea ice doesn’t stick around as long as it used to, leaving them with less time to hunt each year. An unexpected thaw can also leave polar bears stranded at sea. It’s uncertain what the future holds for this highly unusual species, but it’s vital that we keep that at the forefront of our thoughts—which shouldn’t be hard this time of year.

 
[Image description: ] Credit & copyright: Photo by Sgt. Carter Acton, Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, USCGC Healy Polar Operations, ID 230922-D-GO191-1044. This image is a work of a United States Coast Guard service personnel or employee, taken or made as part of that person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.

Life in its myriad forms can be as benign as a blade of grass or as deadly as a virus. Mirror life, on the other hand, might exclusively be the latter. As more scientists are researching synthetic “mirror” cells, others are warning about the potential harm they may cause. Here’s a little known fact: proteins, DNA, and other building blocks of life are either “right-handed” or “left-handed”, in a way. It’s a property known as chirality, where the structure of these biomolecules only come in one orientation. DNA, for example, is famously structured in a helix form, but that helix only twists in one direction, no matter the life form. It seems like a trivial detail, but it actually has huge implications, and if someone were to craft synthetic DNA that twisted in the other direction, it wouldn’t work the same way. Scientists compare this to a left hand trying to fit into a right-handed glove and vice versa—sure, they look similar, but their mirrored orientation makes the glove unusable for the opposite hand.
 
While scientists have managed to create mirror nucleic acids and proteins, creating synthetic life from these building blocks isn’t possible…yet. Nevertheless, it is an emerging field of research, one that some Nobel Prize winners and other experts are warning against. The reason for the alarm stems from the fact that mirror life forms could pose dangers to regular life forms. Mirror bacteria, for instance, could lead to disease that no organism has any immunity against. With no ability to resist them, mirror bacteria could potentially destroy entire ecosystems or cause a catastrophic pandemic. Still, proponents of mirror-image biomolecules believe that they could lead to more effective drugs and medical treatments. Drugs made of mirror molecules would be more resilient against being broken down by the body, allowing them to be more effective than conventional ones. However, the fact that they’d be so hard to break down is exactly what makes them so potentially dangerous. In the paper where the aforementioned experts warn against mirror life, they compare them to an invasive species that would be difficult to contain. In other words, the fear is that these mirrors could cause a lot more than seven years of bad luck.