Science Current Event Summary-3

Crabs And Lobsters Probably Do Feel Pain, According To New Experiments

Purpose: Robert Elwood from Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, wants to find an answer if whether crabs and lobsters can actually feel pain.

Hypothesis: If crabs and lobsters are exposed to electric shock, would their stimulus respond or would they actually feel pain.

Experiment: Robert Elwood experimented with crabs to determine if they do feel pain. He gave electrical shocks to crabs, but was not sure if the crabs are actually experiencing the pain like we humans do, or their stimulus is just simply responding. Then Elwood did another experience, giving shocks to a small mount of crabs in shells, and no shocks to the rest of the crabs.

Result: The crabs that receive the electrical shocks were more likely to move on and find other shells, than those that didn't receive any shocks.

Conclusion: This experiment was very successful as it will make chefs and other cooks to have second thoughts about cooking crabs alive in a boiling water. It is not actually proven yet, but there is a chance that they feel pain. So make sure to put the crabs in ice before boiling as it may decrease the amount of pain in which they might be having.



Questions:
1. How much voltage was used on the crabs?
2. Crabs are known for ripping off their own damaged limbs, so if crabs and lobsters do feel pain, would it suggest that they have some kind of system in their body to have the ability to stop or pause experiencing the pain?
3. What do you suggest if they do feel pain?


Ferro, S. (2013, 08 07). Crabs and lobsters probably do feel pain, according to new experiments. Retrieved from http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-08/yeah-crabs-and-lobsters-probably-feel-pain-when-you-boil-them-alive



        Whether or not crustaceans like crabs and lobsters can feel pain remains a hot-button issue. After all, humans regularly do things like boil them alive, a process that leaves some people feeling a bit unsettled as their dinner rattles around in the pot in what sure sounds like death throes.
According to Robert Elwood, a professor of animal behavior at Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the evidence strongly suggests crustaceans do actually experience pain, contrary to some previous work. Elwood has been conducting a plethora of experiments probing whether or not crustaceans can actually feel pain, or whether they simply respond to a stimulus like an electric shock reflexively, and announced the finding at the Behavior 2013 conference in Newcastle, UK today.
Elwood and his colleagues have experimented to see whether crabs can learn from electric shocks. In one experiment, crabs were more likely to relocate when they received electric shocks inside their shelter than when they did not receive any shocks. In another, hermit crabs shocked while inside a type of shell they tend to prefer were quicker to move into new shells when presented with the opportunity.
Yet as Zen Faulkes, a University of Texas-Pan American invertebrate neuroethologist, pointed out in a blog earlier this year, it's hard to determine if electric shocks are painful for crustaceans in the same way they are for us. Crabs have been known to rip off their own injured limbs, for example, which would be almost unthinkably painful for a human. Electric shocks also provide a completely different kind of stimulus than being immersed in boiling water, so there's a possibility the results might not translate to that seemingly cruel action.
It does seem to call into question the Crustastun, a supposedly trauma-free, compassionate method of knocking off crustaceans within a few seconds--via electrocution, which in light of Elwood's research doesn't seem so trauma-free after all. Zen, for his part, suggests using ice as an anesthetic for your soon-to-be-delicious meal.
Elwood conceded that “assessing pain is difficult, even within humans,” according to Nature, but told conference attendees there is “clear, long-term motivational change [in these experiments] that is entirely consistent with the idea of pain.” From his research, he concludes that crustaceans should be protected from the kind of "extreme procedures" they are currently subjected to -- things we wouldn't do to mice, such as lobsters having their legs removed while still alive or crabs being kept tightly bound for days before being sold.

Science Current Event Summary-2

POPScience (The Future Now)

 5 Body Parts Scientist Can 3-D print 

             What if we were able to repair our damaged or deformed body parts through a new, but crazy way? 3D printing is becoming more and more common as scientist and engineers continue to improve it of making 3D models such as a working gun, a baseball bat, or an Egyptian type of hair (if you would like an Egyptian hair). But recently, scientist had made a huge step forward to the future. Using 3D printers, bio-engineers and other scientist were able to create 5 specific body parts that will soon be able to replace damaged or deformed body parts. The five body parts that scientist can print are ears, kidneys, blood vessels, skin, and bones. Each are made differently but started out by being 3D printed. The ears are actually 3D printed but injected with gel like substance made out of rat tails and bones being bake at over 2,000 Fahrenheit. This is a step into the future which will bring happiness throughout the people who are injured severely or born with defects.


 1. I would like to learn more of how the 3D printer works. 
 2. How much does it cause to print one body part to repair a patient's?
 3. Are the 3D printed bones as strong or even stronger than regular human bones? 


Leckart, S. (2013, 8 16). 5 body parts scientists can 3-d print. Retrieved from http://www.popsci.com/science/gallery/2013-07/5-body-parts-scientists-can-3-d-print?image=4


Kidneys Team: Wake Forest Institute For Regenerative Medicine How It's Made: A 3-D bioprinter deposits multiple types of kidney cells—cultivated from cells taken by a biopsy—while simultaneously building a scaffold out of biodegradable material. The finished product is then incubated. The scaffold, once transplanted into a patient, would slowly biodegrade as the functional tissue grows. Benefit: An estimated 80 percent of patients on organ-transplant lists in the U.S. await kidneys. Bioprinted kidneys are not yet functional, but once they are, the use of a patient’s own cells to grow the tissue means doctors will someday be able to provide every recipient with a perfect match. Courtesy Wake Forest Institute For Regenerative Medicine

Team: Washington State University

How it’s made: Researchers print scaffolds with a ceramic powder (human bone is 70 percent ceramic), using the same 3-D printers that produce metal parts found in electric motors. An inkjet covers the ceramic with a layer of plastic binder. This structure is baked at 2,282˚F for 120 minutes and placed into a culture with human bone cells. After a day, the scaffold supports them.

Benefit: Every year, millions of automobile-accident survivors suffer from complex fractures, which are difficult to repair using traditional methods. Using MRIs for reference, doctors could print a custom graft that perfectly matches the fracture.

Team: Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine

How it’s made: First, a custom bioprinter scans and maps the patient’s wound. One inkjet valve ejects the enzyme thrombin, and another ejects cells mixed with collagen and fibrinogen (thrombin and fibrinogen react to create the blood coagulant fibrin). Then, the printer deposits a layer of human fibroblasts, followed by a layer of skin cells called keratinocytes.

Benefit: For traditional grafts, surgeons take skin from one area of the body and splice it onto another. The Wake Forest researchers hope to print new skin directly into a wound. Ultimately, they plan to build a portable printer that can be used in war and disaster zones.

Team: University of Pennsylvania and MIT

How it’s made: Using an open-source RepRap printer and custom software, researchers print a network of sugar filaments inside a mold and coat the filaments in a polymer derived from corn. They then dispense a gel containing tissue cells into the mold. Once it sets, they wash the structure in water, which dissolves the sugar and leaves empty channels in the tissue.

Benefit: Researchers showed that pumping nutrients through the channels increased the survival of surrounding cells. Because blood vessels maintain tissue health, learning how to scale up and print a larger, more robust vascular system is the key to eventually printing entire organs.

Team: Wake Forest Institute For Regenerative Medicine

How It's Made: A 3-D bioprinter deposits multiple types of kidney cells—cultivated from cells taken by a biopsy—while simultaneously building a scaffold out of biodegradable material. The finished product is then incubated. The scaffold, once transplanted into a patient, would slowly biodegrade as the functional tissue grows.

Benefit: An estimated 80 percent of patients on organ-transplant lists in the U.S. await kidneys. Bioprinted kidneys are not yet functional, but once they are, the use of a patient’s own cells to grow the tissue means doctors will someday be able to provide every recipient with a perfect match.

Team: Cornell University

How it’s made: Bioengineers take a 3-D scan of a child’s ear, design a seven-part mold in the SolidWorks CAD program, and print the pieces. The mold is injected with a high-density gel made from 250 million bovine cartilage cells and collagen from rat tails (the latter serves as a scaffold). After 15 minutes, the ear is removed and incubated in cell culture for several days. In three months, the cartilage will have propagated enough to replace the collagen.

Benefit: At least one child in 12,500 is born with microtia, a condition characterized by hearing loss due to an underdeveloped or malformed outer ear. Unlike synthetic implants, ears grown from human cells are more likely to be successfully incorporated into the body.

Malaria Vaccine Successful in Early Trials

Scientist in Maryland came up with some sort of a vaccine to prevent malaria infection. The purpose was to inject sporozoites into the bloodstream of a patient and hopefully will create an immune system for future incidents with mosquitoes. They tested 15 patients by giving 4 doses and 5 doses of sporozoites. Other patients were not given any shots. Their results were a step into the future. 83 percent of the unvaccinated patients received malaria while only 33 percent with 4 doses received malaria. The patients who received 5 doses did not get malaria. Their results were very successful, and may soon lead to malaria-free society.

Introduction

To whom may read this,

Hi, my name is Daniel Machado and I am currently in 12th grade in high school. I love to play sports and also participate in other clubs as well as turkish club and robotics. ARM in my point of view is about providing help and working together to recognize the importance of Science Research skills and methods. My main interest for science research would be about Biology.