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Creating exact replicas of human blood in a lab is far from easy, but scientists have come up with a method that produces near-perfect blood, using stem cells.

Scientists have discovered the art of transformation—specifically, a combination of proteins that, when added to an adult cell, change it into a different type of adult cell.

Plated brewer's yeast in suspension. Photograph courtesy of Caylan Larson.

• FLO1 Is a Variable Green Beard Gene that Drives Biofilm-like Cooperation in Budding Yeast
  Cell 14 November 2008

What does it mean for an organism the width of a human hair to be domesticated? To find out, Kevin Verstrepen, a biologist from Harvard University, went straight to many peoples' dream destination: the brewery. Here, Saccharomyces cerevisiae &mdash the tame, simple, go-to laboratory model for nearly all plants and animals &mdash lives a double life as the best-fermenting yeast in the world.

After talking with brewers, Verstrepen found that wild yeast behavior differed significantly from the yeast used by experimental biologists: "What I learned is that brewer's yeast stick together at the end of fermentation," Verstrepen says. "They start adhering to each other, clumping together, forming what we call flocs of cells. Lab yeast cells don't do that."

To find out why, Verstrepen and his team took the wild yeast back to the lab. There they discovered that the yeast were clumping together to protect themselves from stress. Toward the end of fermentation, the yeast produce enough alcohol to harm themselves. By clumping together, using a special adhesion protein, they create a nearly impenetrable barrier for alcohol and other toxins, with the yeast on the outside altruistically taking the brunt of the blow. "Outer cells protect the inner cells. Basically the chemicals cannot penetrate these flocs," says Verstrepen.

This kind of collaboration is a deceptively sticky problem in evolutionary biology. Darwin struggled with it &mdash and never resolved it. In any collaboration, every participant makes an investment and reaps the benefits. But how is this system protected from cheaters who bilk the rewards without contributing themselves?

Enter the so-called green-beard solution, first hypothesized by W.D. Hamilton. The theory goes that in order to join a mutually beneficial collaboration, one would need a signifier called a "green-beard gene." In yeast this appears to be FLO1. Yeast that do not produce this adhesion protein cannot enter the floc.

Green-beard genes were thought to be nonexistent or extremely rare in nature, with only a few fuzzy examples thus far. The existence of a green-beard gene in yeast makes this model organism far more social &mdash and complicated &mdash than ever imagined. To date it provides the cleanest example of a green-beard gene in nature.

Do laboratory yeast ever encounter stress? "They don't encounter as much stress as these feral strains, because actually, we treat our laboratory yeast very well," says Verstrepen. Essentially, laboratories provide a toxin-free, risk-free environment, and the result has been domestication. "S. cerevisiae don't behave like they would in the wild anymore. They behave like we would want them to behave in a test tube. We basically stopped evolution."

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• First cases of touch-emotion synaesthesia discovered
  Just when we got our heads wrapped around synaesthetes, like Rain Man, here come the tactile-emotion synaesthetes, who might experience denim as depression, corduroy as confusion, and sand as heavenly.
• Big Picture: The year 2008 in photographs
  The Boston Globe's supersized photo gallery launches a three-part, year-end series today, covering everything from the cosmos to international conflict. Topping the list, a jaw-dropper of lightning bolts in a dust cloud appearing to rise out of Chile's Chaiten volcano.
• Hackers 'aid' Amazon logging scam
  Hi-tech criminals have penetrated a computer system that monitors logging in Brazil in order to issue fake permits to loggers; an estimated 1.7m cubic metres of timber have been logged illegally as a result.
• The Periodic Table of Awesoments
  Awesominers — those who study awesome things — have identified 118 fundamental "awesoments" that compose all good things. In their spin on the periodic table, the fundamental relationships between Doritos, black holes, and robots has finally been revealed. (via kottke)
• New genes suggest obesity is in your head, not your gut
  Results from a recent obesity study of over 90,000 people indicate that many of the genes known to affect body mass influence brain function rather than metabolic processes.
  

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An aerial shot of Antarctica's Weddell Sea, taken in 1989 from the window a B-105 helicopter. The iceberg depicted is one of several that Dr. Karen St. Germain and her colleagues landed on in order to collect ice samples. Image courtesy Dr. Karen St. Germain.

March 2009 will mark the end of the fourth ever International Polar Year (IPY), a scientific program that intensively studies the poles. In order to have full and equal coverage of both the Arctic and the Antarctic, a polar year actually spans two annual cycles. In the era of global warming and melting icecaps, polar research reaches beyond the scientific community, agitating politicians, celebrities, artists, musicians and implicating any person, really, who has experienced the weather.

It was in this context that new media artist Andrea Polli found herself part of the International Polar Year Celebration on Monday evening at the CUNY Graduate Center's Segal Theater, as part of the Graduate Center's Science & the Arts series. Polli shared the stage with Dr. Karen St. Germain, algorithm chief at National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) and music experimentalist Paul Miller, aka DJ Spooky, who recently traveled to Antarctica to compose a 70-minute acoustic portrait of its rapidly changing environment.

Sonification is the process of translating numerical data into sound. Polli, who sonically interpreted climatic data from Antarctica's McMurdo Station, played her eerie soundscapes Monday night while the crowd got settled, saturating them with gusts and drops, sloshes and whirs representing sound filtered by data of ice movement, temperature changes, glacial snow levels, and other Arctic processes. Polli wrote a computer program that directly correlates changes in the data to changes in the timbre, as well as the pitch and loudness, of the sounds.

Polli, who was sporting a fanny pack Monday night and seemed like she'd be more comfortable outdoors, originally traveled to Antarctica to study instruments that remotely record data, like thermometer and anemometers, but found that there were many more humans measuring data conditions on the ground than instruments. She picked up the term "ground truth," which refers to the data collected by people on location, as opposed to what is gathered remotely.

In her documentary short film about her experiences, Ground Truth, which screened while ambient sounds played in the background, Polli interviews scientists about why they are willing to go to remote, uncomfortable, and hazardous locations. Many respond that no matter how sophisticated and reliable instruments get, a human element will always be necessary to relate image data to the real characteristics and materials on the ground.

Since her first trip to Antarctica in the late 80s, Dr. Karen St. Germain has spent decades "ground truthing" at the poles. Monday night during a half-hour presentation on her career, she cheerily noted that field work is not glamorous, describing how she watched ice grow, lived in a tent, and survived on Cheetos, and how her instruments often failed her: "Even if you checked that it worked before you left, once you're in the field, it's likely going to break." St. Germain also described her current work, developing sensors for the first NPOESS satellite, which will make measurements and observations of the oceans, land cover, snow and ice cover, and the atmosphere of the entire planet.

St. Germain showed a series of animations illustrating fluctuating sea-ice levels, and when the levels suddenly and radically shrunk, the audience gasped; it would have been an ideal moment for a Deep Impact style tidal wave to hit New York. Several times, St. Germain noted that the decrease was due in part to cyclical variations, but emphasized that in the past few years the loss of sea ice has increased dramatically. When an audience member asked about the reliability of data via high-tech imaging versus from the ground, St. Germain took a tone similar to the scientists in Polli's video: "All data are wrong," she laughed. "Hopefully they are wrong in different ways."

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The Numbers Game: The Commonsense Guide to Understanding Numbers in the News, in Politics, and in Life
By Michael Blastland and Andrew Dilnot (Gotham)
Drawing on examples from popular news outlets, Blastland and Dilnot's short, punchy book carefully unravels the ways in which statistics are distorted and misrepresented — often unintentionally — in media coverage of important and controversial issues. The book is a necessary companion for anyone looking to make sense of the percentages, probabilities, averages, and large dollar amounts making headlines on any given day. As the authors explain, "if we are the least bit serious about any of these issues, we should attempt to get the numbers straight." Buy

On the Surface of Things: Images of the Extraordinary in Science
By Felice Frankel and George M. Whitesides (Harvard University Press)
In the ten years since Frankel and Whitesides created a stunning new way to envision science, Frankel's images have appeared in over 300 journals. In this reissue, the authors include several new images and fresh digital scans of the old. Yet, they write, the spirit of the original remains. "We chose the subject — surfaces, and the light that illuminates them — because they are important in the two great technologies — information and biology — that are now remaking the world." Buy

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
By Dan Ariely (Harper)
Any economic model based on perfect human rationality is undoubtedly flawed. But that doesn't mean people behave unpredictably. In this exuberant book, behavioral economist Dan Ariely contends that our irrational behavior is wholly consistent, and that we can learn to capitalize on it. Ariely backs up each claim with examples from his own inventive research — subjects include unwitting MIT students and unsuspecting trick-or-treaters — forming an argument as charmingly anecdotal as it is convincing. Buy

Tomorrow's Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food
By Pamela C. Ronald and Raoul W. Adamchak (Oxford University Press)
Genetically-engineered versus organically-grown. It's a choice often framed as being between science and nature, but it's a false one, says this wife-husband team. In a literal marriage of two entrenched camps, Ronald, a plant genomics researcher at UC Davis, and Adamchak, an organic gardener, shed light on the unfounded fears of gene modification and the merits a more-holistic approach to agriculture. Recipes include "Sticky Rice with GE Papaya" and "Isolation of DNA from Organically- Grown Strawberries." Buy

The Stuff of Life: A Graphic Guide to Genetics and DNA
By Mark Schultz, Illustrated by Zander Cannon and Kevin Cannon (Hill and Wang)
With the graphic novel gaining status as a form of serious storytelling, The Stuff of Life makes a case for the graphic-novel textbook. A sentient alien sea sponge professor makes the case for sexual reproduction (and thus genetic diversity) to the leader of its species, and in the process, explains the basics of molecular biology, Mendelian inheritance, and evolution. The illustrations are simultaneously cute and explanatory, and the text's oversimplifications and techno-utopianism are justified for a cartoon treatment of one of most complex stories in science. Buy

The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strageness of Insect Societies
By Bert Hölldobler and E.O. Wilson (W.W. Norton)
In this sequel to their 1990 Pulitzer-winning The Ants, the authors focus on new research demonstrating that in social insects (bees, termites, wasps, and ants), natural selection works not on individual members but on the colony as a unit. These "superorganisms," according to Hölldobler and Wilson, occupy a distinct — and overlooked — biological niche halfway between an organism and entire species. Sure to rekindle the group-selection debate, this magnum opus on six-legged societies offers a provocative twist to the evolution of complex behavior. Buy

The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature
By Daniel J. Levitin (Dutton)
Following up on his bestselling This is Your Brain on Music, musician and cognitive scientist Levitin argues that we evolved to produce and consume music for six reasons: friendship, joy, comfort, knowledge, religion, and love. Drawing on personal anecdotes, conversations with greats such as Sting and Joni Mitchell, and his own knowledge of evolutionary history, Levitin creates a rich account of how music has allowed humans to thrive even when faced with war, loss, and dwindling romance. Buy

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Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique
By Michael S. Gazzaniga (Ecco)
We take for granted the uniqueness of the homo sapien. In Human, neuroscientist Gazzaniga both complicates and clarifies this view, examining topics from empathy to transhumanism through the lens of human distinctiveness. Using primate research as a foil for the newest advances in human cognitive neurosciences, such as work identifying six commonalities between human and chimp art, he makes an eloquent case both for the sophistication of our nearest relatives and for the biological singularity of humanity. Buy

Icarus at the Edge of Time
By Brian Greene (Knopf Publishing Group)
Time's strangeness, with its brutal indifference, lies at the center of Brian Greene's Icarus at the Edge of Time, in this, his first book for children. It is a moving and successful fiction, but as important, Greene offers a solution to one of the perennial questions of his trade: What attracts a popular audience to science in general, and in particular to the difficult abstractions of modern physics? Read the full review. Buy

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
By Michael Pollan (Penguin Press)
Pollan's last book, Omnivore's Dilemma, sparked a nationwide conversation about the environmental and ethical consequences of what Americans eat. Here, he returns with a surprisingly simple prescription: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Charting the rise of so-called "nutritionism" — a reductionist ideology, not a science — he reveals how Americans have gotten fatter and unhealthier despite being the most food-obsessed culture in the world. After digesting this compact manifesto, you may never want to read the Nutrition "Facts" again. Buy

The Invention of Air: A Study of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America
By Steven Johnson (Riverhead Books)
Natural philosopher Joseph Priestley's insatiable curiosity led to his discovery of oxygen, as well as to his flight from Britain after a mob burned down his house and his Unitarian church. Johnson takes frequent side trips into how scientific insight changed the politics and religion of Priestley's day and meditates on why science, faith, and politics should not be considered in isolation from one another. Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams were all huge fans of Priestley's relentless enthusiasm and his reasoned approach to religion — begging the question of whether politicians today could find scientists, and science, so compelling. Buy

Jetpack Dreams: One Man's Up and Down (But Mostly Down) Search for the Greatest Invention That Never Was
By Mac Montandon (Da Capo Press)
From Bell Labs to Boba Fett, the jetpack has long been a holy grail of geekdom. Journalist Mac Montandon chases down this futuristic flying machine and introduces us to the motley crew of garage-based tinkerers devoted to keeping the dream aloft. While scientific reality may write the jetpack's obituary, Montandon delivers a fine ode to what makes a lot of us fall in love with science in the first place: a future where the impossible is possible. Buy

The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces
By Frank Wilczek (Basic Books)
The Lightness of Being is a detailed account of the physics governing our universe, from minuscule quarks to massive dark matter. Wilczek delves into the origin of mass, the nature of gravity, and the potential for a unification of forces. With a command of both concept and language that few can rival, he weaves witty commentary into eloquent explanations. Heavy on physics but light on math, this book offers an accessible though sophisticated look at the central ideas of modern physics. Buy

The Living Cosmos: Our Search for Life in the Universe
By Chris Impey (Random House)
Existential musings never go out of style: What are we? What is our origin and our fate? Are we alone? These questions are timeless, but with the advent of astrobiology — the study of life in the universe — we have begun to better understand ourselves empirically within a cosmic context. The Living Cosmos delivers a thorough introduction to this exciting field, masterfully surveying the foundations of our knowledge and the limits of our imaginations. Buy

The Man Who Loved China: The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom
By Simon Winchester (Harper)
Until recent decades Westerners were blissfully unaware that China, not Europe, was the civilization behind scores of history's great inventions, from gunpowder to mechanical printing and the magnetic compass. It was in the 1950s that perceptions began changing, largely due to the work of one distinctive figure: Joseph Needham, an English biologist, diplomat, explorer, libertine, and, not least, historian of science. Now he is the focus of Simon Winchester's revealing biography. Read the full review.
Buy

Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life
By Carl Zimmer (Pantheon)
For a single-celled organism, Escherichia coli lives a surprisingly complex life. In Microcosm, Carl Zimmer delves into the microbe's unique universe, highlighting the species' role in groundbreaking experiments that laid the foundations of modern biology. From the discovery of bacterial sex to genetic engineering, E. coli has provided answers that have reshaped our very definitions of life. Zimmer succeeds in engendering a healthy respect for the bug that lives inside us all. Buy

Nerds: Who They Are and Why We Need More of Them
By David Anderegg (Tarcher)
Are you a nerd? According to David Anderegg, we should all be so lucky. Deftly weaving sociological research with anecdotes from his own practice as a child psychologist, Anderegg documents the charming innocence, unselfconsciousness, and passionate interests of the much-maligned "nerd." The book provides an enlightening and highly entertaining look at a world that both shuns nerds and desperately needs more of them. Buy

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