The MS drugs are better down where it’s wetter, take it from me
The myth of the mermaid is one with hundreds, if not thousands, of years of history. The ancient Greeks had the mythological siren, while the Babylonians depicted kulullû (which were mermen – never let the Babylonians be known as noninclusive) in artwork as far back as 1600 BC. Cultures as far flung as Japan, southern Africa, and New Zealand have folkloric figures similar to the mermaid. It is most decidedly not a creation of western Europe, Hans Christian Andersen, or Disney.
AG Kostenis-Gomeza / University of Bonn
With that mild rant out of the way, let’s move to Germany and a group of researchers from the University of Bonn, who have not created a mermaid. They did, however, add human genes to a zebrafish for research purposes, which feels uncomfortably close. Nothing better than unholy animal-human hybrids, right?
Stick with us here, because the researchers did have a good reason for their gene splicing. Zebrafish and humans both have the GPR17 receptor, which is highly active in nerve tissue. When GPR17 is overactivated, diseases such as multiple sclerosis can develop. Because the zebrafish has this receptor, which performs the same function in its body as in ours, it’s a prime candidate for replacement. Also, zebrafish larvae are transparent, which makes it very easy to observe a drug working.
That said, fish and humans are very far apart, genetically speaking. Big shock right there. But by replacing their GPR17 receptor with ours, the scientists have created a fish that we could test drug candidates on and be assured that they would also work on humans. Actually testing drugs for MS on these humanized zebrafish was beyond the scope of the study, but the researchers said that the new genes function normally in the fish larvae, making them a promising new avenue for MS drug development.
Can we all promise not to tell Disney that human DNA can be spliced into a fish without consequence? Otherwise, we’re just going to have to sit through another “Little Mermaid” adaptation in 30 years, this one in super live-action featuring actual, real-life mermaids. And we’re not ready for that level of man-made horror just yet.
Beware of the fly vomit
Picture this: You’re outside at a picnic or barbecue, loading a plate with food. In a brief moment of conversation a fly lands right on top of your sandwich. You shoo it away and think nothing more of it, eating the sandwich anyway. We’ve all been there.
A recent study is making us think again.
John Stoffolano, an entomology professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, claims that too much attention has been focused on pathogen transmission by the biting, blood-feeding flies when really we should be taking note of the nonbiting, or synanthropic, flies we live with, which may have a greater impact on the transmission of pathogens right in our own homes.
arian.suresh/PxHere
Sure, blood-feeding flies can spread pathogens directly, but house flies vomit every time they land on something. Think about that.
The fly that sneakily swooped into your house from a tear in your window screen has just been outside in the neighbor’s garbage or sitting on dog poop and now has who knows what filling its crop, the tank in their body that serves as “a place to store food before it makes its way into the digestive tract where it will get turned into energy for the fly,” Dr. Stoffolano explained in a written statement.
Did that fly land right on the baked potato you were prepping for dinner before you shooed it away? Guess what? Before flying off it emitted excess water that has pathogens from whatever was in its crop. We don’t want to say your potato might have dog poop on it, but you get the idea. The crop doesn’t have a ton of digestive enzymes that would help neutralize pathogens, so whatever that fly regurgitated before buzzing off is still around for you to ingest and there’s not much you can do about it.
More research needs to be done about flies, but at the very least this study should make you think twice before eating that baked potato after a fly has been there.