13 comments

  • djoldman2 周前
    Published journal article: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsomega.4c07459

    From the abstract:

    > ...one student isolated a Pseudomonas idahonensis bacterium from a goose feces sample that produced a new cyclic lipodepsipeptide, which .... was cytotoxic against human melanoma and human ovarian cancer cells with IC50 values of 11.06 and 10.50 μM, respectively.

    • gilleain2 周前
      Huh, so a lipid tail and a mixed R/L cyclic peptide head which is cytotoxic? At a wild guess, perhaps it forms a pore in cell membranes?
    • pfdietz2 周前
      That's a high concentration. Drugs are often effective in nM concentrations.
          • bombcar2 周前
            [citation needed] that a handgun harms cells.
          • Dylan168072 周前
            Do you really think it needs explanation? Especially with the alt text pointing out the contrast between "kills" and "selectively kills"?
            • sophacles2 周前
              There's an xkcd that adresses this better than i can.

              https://xkcd.com/1053/

              And in case it helps: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1053:_Ten_Thousan...

              • Dylan168072 周前
                That's about showing something to someone in the first place, not about [over]explaining the thing you just showed them.

                If I was criticizing mmiyer's comment that xkcd might be appropriate, but that's not what I'm doing.

                • sophacles2 周前
                  It's the same thing. A brief explanation that assumes you know some term or have all the priors to deduce some meaning just creates a situation where we may have to apply the 10000 rule again. A thorough explanation on the other hand is more likely to help the reader be part of not only the 10k that get the commic today, but also the 10k that get some other fact (or several!) today.

                  Or to paraphrase the 10k alt text: saying "what idiot doesnt know the difference between kills and selectively kills" is so much more boring than telling them about it.

                  • Dylan168072 周前
                    Telling them about it is great... which you can do by showing them the comic and the alt text. The wiki link is unnecessary. You could add an extra explanation onto almost anything, and do so recursively, but that quickly becomes a waste of time. When something has already been explained, explaining it again helps a lot fewer people than the 10000 rule would suggest. The returns diminish very fast, and you should wait for them to ask before piling on extra explanations. And the actual 10000 comic waits for them to ask before even showing the first, most basic version.
                • sieabahlpark2 周前
                  [dead]
  • stuff4ben2 周前
    I'm so glad companies and in this case a university are reaching out to youth to get them excited in these fields. Just wish it was more widespread. Can you imagine being credited on a scientific paper while you're in middle school? I know they probably didn't do a lot of the hard work, but when you're that age, working with adults and being encouraged like that, I'm sure it's an amazing feeling.
    • >>> I know they probably didn't do a lot of the hard work

      Actually it looks some work was done and made the wrong finding , but there was serepindity involved in finding a new thesis along the way:

      > (student sample) contained a strain of bacteria called Pseudomonas idahonensis. The students interpreted the

      > bacterium's bioassay data and concluded it had antibiotic activity and produced a never-before-seen compound.

      > Then, the university researchers determined the compound's molecular structure using nuclear magnetic

      > resonance and mass spectrometry, named it orfamide N after the family of molecules it belongs to, and investigated its biological activity. Although orfamide N was not responsible for the antibiotic activity that the team initially observed from P. idahonensis, the compound inhibited the growth of human melanoma and ovarian cancer cells in culture tests.

      So if i read the above correctly, it seems like the students identified a new compound to do A, scientists took that new compound and tested for A, then after scientists realized it did B instead of A.

    • ericmcer2 周前
      It would be weird to find such success at such a young age. Same thing with young athletes/musicians. It must be bizarre to be so celebrated when you have so little autonomy and your consciousness is barely online.
      • csa2 周前
        > It must be bizarre to be so celebrated when you have so little autonomy and your consciousness is barely online.

        I think you’re right that it’s “weird” for most folks that age.

        That said, folks with good parents/mentors/coaches will be properly humble, realizing that they basically achieved table stakes for “playing the game” (literal or figurative) at the next level.

        In sports, I think the Mannings in general and Arch Manning in particular have been kept properly grounded despite a great deal of fanfare over anything they did.

        In academics, I have seen quite a few professor’s kids who are keenly aware that early achievements that are sometimes celebrated by a wide audience will eventually be just one brick in the wall of their career.

    • tetris112 周前
      there are many citizen science projects out there
      • ziddoap2 周前
        I don't think many citizen science projects credit the citizen contributors on the resulting paper(s), do they? The only few that I have contributed to did not, but I'm not super familiar with what the norm is.

        I think being a student and seeing your name on the resulting paper is a big part of the encouragement and excitement.

        • tetris112 周前
          the few that I've been part of have, but I guess it depends on the PIs ultimately
      • jstanley2 周前
        "Citizen science" is kind of a demeaning term, as if the only way to do "Real science" is to work for a university.
        • whythre2 周前
          Well, yeah. Everyone knows you aren’t pulling in millions in grant money or making millions off of patentable discoveries, you aren’t a real scientist.
          • evan_2 周前
            do you think that grad students doing research at a university are pulling in millions in grant money
  • benjijay2 周前
    It's that old adage once again... throw enough goose shit at the wall and eventually you'll treat cancer.
    • bitwize2 周前
      It's just my little goose poop... you don't know what I got!
  • dudeinjapan2 周前
    And to think, all these years I used to get mad at geese for pooping all over my yard. Little did I know they were trying to save me from melanoma.
    • geese are excellent gaurdian animals

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guard_goose

      • jkestner2 周前
        “Geese are intelligent enough to discern unusual people” And intelligent enough to hold a grudge against familiar people. But I don’t think we’ve lost any hens under his watch.
        • silisili2 周前
          I think they have a weird inflated sense of how large they are. We had some who nested outside the office years back. It seemed to have a cutoff of around 5'6. Anyone taller would get the raised wings and hissing. Anyone shorter would get chased and 'attacked.' Gotta admire the bravery, really.
          • jkestner2 周前
            "Inflated sense" of something for sure. When mine attacks, he doesn't know when to stop no matter how many times I grab his neck.

            I raised this one from the egg. Once they reached sexual maturity he became an asshole, but clearly has conflicting processes — he follows me around outside, pulls weeds off the tiller with me, etc. But inevitably eating corn from my hand turns to biting my fingers. If he didn't have a female to protect (she's chill), we could probably be friends again.

      • 2 周前
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  • echelon2 周前
    Another Google Gemini gaffe for "depsipeptide" [1].

    > A depsipeptide is a cyclic peptide where one or more amide groups are replaced by ester groups.

    Depsipeptides are not necessarily cyclic, and I'd prefer to use "bond" instead of "group", though both are fine.

    I am hitting so many of these every day. They're crazy. Hallucinations that companies are headquartered in the wrong states, incorrect math and statistics, and even outright wrong health advice.

    [1] https://imgur.com/a/YslvJO2

    • erikerikson2 周前
      "De-pepsi-cide"

      Advocating for removing the platform from people who are advocating puncturing of sodas. Ideally from atop a bicycle.

      /misreading-for-the-fun

  • Uptrenda1 周前
    To me it seems like magic that we possess the ability to analyse the structure of a chemical sample and then synthesize it. That is real life alchemy.

    I know about some of these technologies for analysing samples. But they're all expensive as far as I know. E.g. I think home labs still use things like reagents / color change tests to get an idea if a synthesis succeeded. I wonder if there are any ways to do chemical analysis that are cheap though?

  • 2 周前
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  • m3kw92 周前
    Goose poop as cream for your sun spots gonna be on sale soon at your natralpathic store?
    • kikokikokiko2 周前
      Ain't that where Gwyneth Paltrow's GOOP name came from? I'm pretty sure it is.
  • otterley2 周前

       Little goose poop
       You don't know what I got (you don't know what I got)
       Little goose poop
       You don't know what I got
    
       Well I'm not bragging babe, so don't put me down (goose poop)
       But I've got the strongest antibiotic in town (goose poop)
       When superbugs come up to me, they don't even try (goose poop)
       'Cause once they meet my compound, man, they're gonna die
    
    (Apologies to the Beach Boys)
  • (goose)Shit like this is exactly why failing to account for the negative externalities associated with anthropogenic biosphere collapse is so utterly shortsighted and will ultimately be the death of us all. Every extinction is potentially a loss of knowledge we can't even conceive of yet, and how many medical advancements come from the flora and fauna of the Earth?
    • card_zero2 周前
      That doesn't add up, we're not dependent on medical innovations for human survival. They're just nice to have. But we got this far as a species and expanded into the billions even while enduring all kinds of cancer and leprosy and cholera and syphilis and measles and whatever.
      • Good luck with the diseases of the future, when antibiotics are useless and we have no source for new therapies.
    • kevindamm2 周前
      If we're taking that view, it's only fair to account for the # unique deaths as well.
  • butlike2 周前
    > One unique sample, goose poop collected at a local park, had a bacterium that showed antibiotic activity and contained a novel compound that slowed the growth of human melanoma and ovarian cancer cells in lab tests.

    The goose that laid the golden egg.

  • 2 周前
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  • hahahacorn2 周前
    Can’t help but read “it’s a nothing burger” in between each paragraph, but I love this story all the same.

    Props to Murphy and his team for developing an awesome program.

    • gus_massa2 周前
      I hate when the press article exagerate the participation of the students, but in this case the press article is fine.

      We have(had?) a similar project in our university. Students of high school (17yo?) go once per week for a semenster and help with some project. In some topics is possible to isolate the work and make an interesting task that can be teached and tried in one semester. Nobody expect a groundbreaking result, but it's an interesting aproach to encourage students.

    • Kids these days are still getting all the shit jobs in the cool science labs.