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Sean Nash

Add to the many afterlives of coffee grounds: Toxic cleanup - 0 views

www.anthropocenemagazine.org/...f-coffee-grounds-toxic-cleanup

coffee pollution toxins environment ecology toxicity bentazone pesticide HSR HSR-2025 potential research idea environmental botany science questions biology

shared by Sean Nash on 15 May 24 - No Cached
  • The experts selected onion plants to test out this idea, known for their high sensitivity to toxins in the environment. In beakers of water containing bentazone, they grew onion root tissue, called meristems, measuring its cell division and root growth as a sign of health. 
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 15 May 24
       
      One of the things I want VERY badly for our program... is a set of equipment for histology... where we can take things like onion root tips and lock samples in wax, slice them incredibly thin (microslices), and then be able to mount them onto slides for analysis.
emmarrogers

(PDF) Assessing the effect of different light conditions on crayfish welfare using a da... - 1 views

www.researchgate.net/...g_a_dark-light_preference_maze

HSR HSR-2025 behavior biology environmental potential research idea science crayfish

shared by emmarrogers on 15 May 24 - No Cached
  • (weak light: 38 lux; bright light: 761 lux) with 3 different light spectrums (cold white (CCT ≈ 5500K), warm white (CCT ≈ 2600 K) and neutral (CCT ≈ 3800 K)) over a period of six months
Sean Nash

Virtual reality warps your sense of time | ScienceDaily - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...210514134213.htm

VR virtualreality computers gaming time senses behavioralscience potential research idea biology HSR HSR-2025 science

shared by Sean Nash on 15 May 24 - No Cached
  • Sean Nash on 15 May 24
     
    Interesting, perhaps. Well, we DO have a solid VR headset.
Sean Nash

Dynamic microvilli sculpt bristles at nanometric scale | Nature Communications - 0 views

www.nature.com/...s41467-024-48044-3

3Dprinter 3D synthesis biomimicry biology chemistry physics engineering science HSR-2025 HSR potential research idea

shared by Sean Nash on 16 May 24 - No Cached
  • Scanning electron microscopy/SEM
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 16 May 24
       
      They had to use scanning electron microscopy to figure this out, yes. BUT... in scaling something like this up, we would not need such a thing!
  • The refractive index tomograms of isolated bristles were obtained by Nanolive 3D Cell Explorer, and raw data were deposited at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10207240.
    • Sean Nash
      Sean Nash on 16 May 24
       
      This might be the way to dial in the measurement ratios to mimick something like this on a larger scale for some purpose. How do the worms use them? If this doesn't get it, we can ALWAYS email the actual scientists to see if they can send us this data to do what we're trying to do. They are usually VERY helpful in such things for creative and hard-working students.
  • Sean Nash on 16 May 24
     
    I am often thinking about biomimicry. I wonder if something like this process could be 3D printed at a larger scale... for another valuable use of some sort. (?)
  • Sean Nash on 16 May 24
     
    This one is a LOT of chew through, but it is super interesting to figure out how living things bioengineer such structures over millions of years of evolution. Biomimicry is simply us studying (and then mimicking) the most interesting things in nature... to enhance something in the human world. This article is the original journal article linked to and highlighted by one of the ScienceDaily stories from today.
emmarrogers

Science: Crayfish Can Be Calmed With Anti-Anxiety Medication | American Association for... - 0 views

www.aaas.org/...calmed-anti-anxiety-medication

HSR HSR-2025 behavior biology environmental potential research idea science crayfish

shared by emmarrogers on 07 May 24 - No Cached
  • "There have been very few studies of the crayfish brain,"
  • crayfish normally prefer darkness,
  • non-shocked, non-stressed crayfish did.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • chlordiazepoxide
    • emmarrogers
      emmarrogers on 21 May 24
       
      Do other drugs also work to calm the crayfish's anxiety. Also, in the future, could tests on crayfish be used to find more/ different anxiety medicines in humans. Also, do they show side affects just like humans, or similar that we could document the side affects?
emmarrogers

Anxiety medication: List, types, and side effects - 0 views

www.medicalnewstoday.com/...323666

HSR HSR-2025 behavior biology environmental potential research idea science crayfish

shared by emmarrogers on 21 May 24 - No Cached
  • chlordiazepoxide (Librium)
    • emmarrogers
      emmarrogers on 21 May 24
       
      This is the same medication used in a different study (https://www.aaas.org/news/science-crayfish-can-be-calmed-anti-anxiety-medication) Do only this group of Anti-anxiety medications work in crayfish?
Sean Nash

Model Organisms for Research - HSRTC - 2022 - Google Slides - 3 views

docs.google.com/...edit

potential research idea zoology HSR-2025 HSR science environmental botany biology

shared by Sean Nash on 07 May 24 - No Cached
  • Sean Nash on 07 May 24
     
    This is a slide deck I used for a presentation to research teachers in Washington D.C. last year. I will also save a link to the crowd-sourced document we created in this session where teachers too our suggested model organisms, and then added in their suggestions as well.
emmarrogers

Acute fluoxetine exposure alters crab anxiety-like behaviour, but not aggressiveness | ... - 0 views

www.nature.com/...srep19850

HSR HSR-2025 behavior biology environmental potential research idea science crayfish behavioralscience

shared by emmarrogers on 21 May 24 - No Cached
  • fluoxetine
    • emmarrogers
      emmarrogers on 21 May 24
       
      This is an anxiety medicine in the Serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)
Sean Nash

The Secret Language of Trees - YouTube - 0 views

www.youtube.com/watch

botany symbiosis fungi evolution cooperation competition plants roots video potential research idea biology environmental HSR-2025 HSR science language

shared by Sean Nash on 23 May 24 - No Cached
  • Sean Nash on 23 May 24
     
    The description of the experimental design toward the middle of this video... should be inspiring. Simple, yet complex. BOOM. So cool!
Sean Nash

Bee body mass, pathogens and local climate influence heat tolerance - 1 views

phys.org/...body-mass-pathogens-local.html

climatechange climate bees heat pathogens size mass HSR HSR-2025 science environmental questions biology potential research idea

shared by Sean Nash on 07 May 24 - No Cached
Sean Nash liked it
  • "But few studies have examined biotic impacts, such as pathogen infection, on thermal tolerance in natural populations in combination with abiotic factors," she explained.
  • examined bee physical traits—such as sex differences in body mass—to understand how these traits interact with environmental conditions, pathogens and other factors
  • They found that variation in heat tolerance was influenced by size, sex and infection status of the bees. "Small-bodied, ectothermic—or cold-blooded—insects are considered to be highly vulnerable to changing climate because their ability to maintain proper body temperature depends on external conditions,"
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • researchers hypothesized that the bees' heat tolerance would increase with body size; that male heat tolerance would increase with ambient temperatures above ground whereas female heat tolerance would increase with sandier soils; and that parasite infection would reduce heat tolerance
  • To test these hypotheses, the researchers collected squash bees from 14 sites across Pennsylvania that varied in mean temperature, precipitation and soil texture. They measured individuals' critical thermal maximum—the temperature above which an organism cannot function—as a proxy for heat tolerance
  • Although both sexes showed a positive correlation between heat tolerance and size, male squash bees had a greater change in their critical thermal maximum per unit body mass than females, suggesting that there may be another biological trait influencing the impact of body mass on heat tolerance that differs between the sexes
  • Sean Nash on 07 May 24
     
    There is a strong feasibility element to this sort of work. Being invertebrates, there would be no problem collecting large numbers of bees from the environment for testing. Now... how that is typically done in other research studies... is something to dig into. The challenge here would be the observation/measurement of parasites (like the trypanosomes mentioned here). It might be worth digging into microdissection methods and techniques that others have reported on when working with pollinators and other small insects. It might not be impossible, even in our lab, but it would definitely be a (good) challenge and perhaps something we could find an expert to help us with.
Sean Nash

Applied Sciences | Free Full-Text | Method for Prolonging the Shelf Life of Apples afte... - 1 views

www.mdpi.com/3975

agriculture apples fruit ripeness quality HSR HSR-2025 science botany biology potential research idea

shared by Sean Nash on 23 May 24 - No Cached
  • Sean Nash on 23 May 24
     
    (A pretty fancy piece of equipment is needed here, but I like the concept of this sort of project. Rigorous life science concepts, ability to generate a ton of data, super applicable to real life immediately, etc.)
Kylie John

World's largest hummingbird is actually two species | ScienceDaily - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...240513150528.htm

HSR HSR-2025 environmental behavioralscience birds biology

shared by Kylie John on 26 May 24 - No Cached
  • "They are as different from each other as chimpanzees are from bonobos,"
    • Kylie John
      Kylie John on 26 May 24
       
      The article does not go into any more depth about the behavioural differences the two birds have. I wish it did.
Sean Nash

Foraging ants navigate more efficiently when given energy-drink-like doses of caffeine ... - 0 views

www.sciencedaily.com/...240523112447.htm

ants learning memory caffeine navigation poison bait uptake efficiency invasive insects zoology HSR HSR-2025 science behavioralscience biology potential research idea

shared by Sean Nash on 01 Jun 24 - No Cached
  • Ants who receive a caffeine-laced sugary reward become more efficient at navigating back to the reward's location compared to ants that only receive sugar. Researchers report on May 23 in the journal iScience that caffeinated ants move toward the reward via a more direct path but do not increase their speed, suggesting that caffeine improved their ability to learn.
  • "The idea with this project was to find some cognitive way of getting the ants to consume more of the poisonous baits we put in the field,"
  • it pushes them into having straighter paths and being able to reach the reward faster
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Control efforts, which focus on using poisonous baits, have proven ineffective, likely due to low bait uptake and bait abandonment. The researchers wanted to test whether using caffeine, which has been shown to improve learning in honeybees and bumblebees, might improve the ants' ability to learn the bait location and guide their nestmates back there
  • The ants walked down a Lego drawbridge onto a testing platform -- an A4 sheet of paper overlaying an acrylic surface -- on which the researchers had placed a drop of sucrose solution laced with 0, 25 ppm, 250 ppm, or 2,000 ppm of caffeine
  • The lowest dose we used is what you find in natural plants, the intermediate dose is similar to what you would find in some energy drinks, and the highest amount is set to be the LD50 of bees -- where half the bees fed this dose die -- so it's likely to be quite toxic for them," says Galante.
  • Overall, they tested 142 ants, and each ant was tested four times
  • Foraging time dropped by 28% per visit for ants that received 25 ppm of caffeine and by 38% per visit for ants that received 250 ppm of caffeine, meaning that if an ant took 300 s in its first visit, by the final trial, it would be expected to take 113 s at the low caffeine dose and 54 s at the intermediate dose. This effect was not seen at the highest caffeine dose.
  • The researchers showed that caffeine lowered the ants' foraging times by making them more efficient, not by making them speedier. There was no effect of caffeine on the ants' pace at any dosage, but ants that received low to intermediate doses of caffeine trips traveled by less tortuous paths. "What we see is that they're not moving faster, they're just being more focused on where they're going," says Galante. "This suggests that they know where they want to go, therefore, they have learned the locations of the reward."
  • Henrique Galante, Massimo De Agrò, Alexandra Koch, Stefanie Kau, Tomer J. Czaczkes. Acute exposure to caffeine improves foraging in an invasive ant. iScience, 2024; 109935 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.109935
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