Face Full of Pathogens: Shower Heads and Your Health

This morning I woke up, desperately flailed my arm against my alarm clock, streched, brushed my teeth, and then jumped in my shower to remove all the diverse microbial communities that had built up on me since my last shower.  As soon as the water is hot I stick my face under it and let it massage my face for a few seconds before I begin my cleaning routine.  What I did not realize was that I was getting a face full of morning pathogens, many of which I inhale along with the steam clouding the inside of the shower.

In a recent publication from the University of Colorado, and as reported by futurity.org, your shower head could contain massive amounts of Mycobacterium avium in biofilms inside of it.  M. avium, a pathogen linked to pulmonary disease, can exist in aggregates up to 100X the normal "background" levels of your municipal water supply.

I highly recomend the article on futurity and also the video posted below.  The article is a cliff-hanger, though, since it doesn't give you any good method of cleaning your shower head and eradicating the pathogenic colonies that reside in it.  The bacteria seems to have a resistance to bleach and chlorine (and since it is in our water supply I would assume flourine as well), and when they did clean the shower in a different study with bleach, a similar pathogen Mycobacterium gordonae actually increased 3 fold!  I would guess due to the elimination of competing microbes.

SciFest in St. Louis

Yes, it's that time of year again.  SciFest is back at the St. Louis Science Center this October 7-11.  For those of you that have never been to or heard of the annual event (since they don't publicize it very well,), Scifest is a five-day celebration of science with over 60 different sessions and lectures.  Most of what is available for view is pretty watered down for the general public, but some of the lectures are quite informative.  I really recomend a lot of the events on Saturday and Sunday (since the weekday sessions are for school children on field trips). 

Some of the more interesting events (at least to me) include:

• Rock Guitar in 11 Dimensions
• Bionic You
• Honeybees in Crisis
• What is Reality?
• Can The Moon Save the Earth?
• Feeding The World
• The Science of Ted Drewes

Unfortuanately, the Schlafly science of brewing will not be there this year.  I don't know why, it just isn't.
Ticket prices are as followed:

Single ticket for day session - $6
Single Ticket for Evening Session - $10
All Day Pass - $10 for Science Center Members. $20 for non-Members.
Extravaganza Ticket - $100

UPDATE:  I will probably be getting a whole bunch of free session tickets since I am volunteering on Sunday and my employer is sponsering the event.  If you want some contact me or comment below.

Science Spotlight: Alan Turing pt.2

In 1936, Alan Turing theorized a simple computer that consisted of a reader and an endless reel of symbols (numbers, letters, etc).  Even though he wrote about this machine almost a decade before the first electronic computer was developed, this basic theory has become the backbone of modern algorithmic computation.  Check out this link for a workable Java "Turing Machine".  The machine threorized by a young Alan Turing had the possiblility of bridging the gap between human cognition and mechanical artificial intelligence, since it mimics basic cellular processes and computation. 

Turing's AI work didn't stop with his machine however; he later developed the Turing Test, a test where a blinded interrogator must ask questions to a human and a machine that are both trying to prove themselves human.  If a machine is able to "trick" the questioner, then it is said to have passed the test.  Here is the original paper writen about the Turing Test, I really recommend reading it if you like mind puzzles.  Also here are some relational maps describing the debate on whether computers can actually 'think' and if the Turing Test actually works.

Science Spotlight: Alan Turing

Last week Prime Minister Gordon Brown apologized to Alan Turing on behalf of all of England, calling Mr. Turing "a real war hero".  Over half a century has passed since Alan Turing committed suicide instead of facing a prison sentence or continued estrogen injections; the two options for being gay in England at that time, but his revolutionary endeavors are still changing academic thought in computer science, chemistry, mathmatics, biology, and cryptoanalyics.

This week Science.Blog.Science will be dedicating a series of posts to the work of Alan Turing and the effect he has had on all science and humanity.  As always, I really appreciate any relevant posted material or links to the subject.

Free Online Journals!

Unfortuanately, not everyone is currently enrolled at a university nor do their employers pay for acess to a robust set of scientific journals, but there is a large group of interested individuals who would like to stay on top of developing research without it being filtered through some news site or blogger (ugh...wait a sec?).  I encourage everyone to check out this website which provides a large conglomeration of free online journals.  Now it won't contain your Nature's and your Science's, your screwed there.  It does contain a large repository of open-access journals, some of which are great if you are a novice or an expert in that field.  Check it out, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), is a really easy to navigate website and who knows you might learn something.

Liquid Gold: Liposuction and Stem Cells

As reported by The Stanford School of Medicine, researchers have found that adult fat tissue can be coaxed into becoming pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells).  Not only is this new resource readily available, research shows that converting fat cells to iPS cells is 20 times more effiecient than the traditional conversion from skin cells.  Not only are they getting a greater amount of cells to change, but they are also getting them to change quicker!

This is a great advance into developing patient-specific iPS lines in the future.  I'm going to try to renew my JSTOR account today, so hopefully I can add a little more to this article once I read the published paper.

Nintendo Power!

Can Tetris improve brain function? According to a recently published study in BMC Research Notes, playing Tetris for 30 minutes a day can increase brain efficency and cortex size in the BA regions that control critical thinking, reasoning, language. and processing. The image below of both hemispheres of the brain show the areas of increased cortical thickness (Red) and the increased brain function (Blue).

I'm sure further studies will follow, but I am suprised that there was no comments made about increased brain function regarding spatial relationships (an area I would assume would improve, if any). 

And if this wasn't awesome enough, According to Science Daily, an initial Oxford study shows that playing Tetris may help reduce PTSD flashbacks, also!