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El Proceso morfogenético empieza en el papel, se selecciona el dibujo y se fotografía con un ipad pro, después se traza usando affinity designer un programa vectorizador, para desarrollar curvas y líneas más precisas, se exporta este trazo a Procreate donde es iluminado e ilustrado en multicapas con un fondo de texturas abstractas, se coloca una sombra entre la bakteria y el fondo para resaltar el dibujo , se nombra y postea en IG, esta serie es un proceso diario que se desarrolló durante la pandemia

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Autism and the Microbiome: Immunization With Bacteria?
Microbiome7By Teresa Conrick

http://www.ageofautism.com/2016/06/autism-and-the-microbiome-immunization-with-bacteria.html

As more and more is unraveled about the MICROBIOME in health and disease, causes and of course treatments are going to be discussed. The big questions will hopefully concern prevention of diseases as well. I recently came upon an article that made me wonder what direction Microbiome research could take:

Immunization with bacteria promotes stress resilience, coping behaviors in mice, CU-Boulder study finds

Injections of the soil bacterium Mycobacterium vaccae (M. vaccae NCTC 11659) promote stress resilience and improve coping behaviors in mice, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder.

The researchers also found that M. vaccae prevented stress-induced colitis, a typical symptom of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), suggesting that immunization with the bacteria may have a wide-ranging suite of health benefits.

The findings appear today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

“The immunized mice responded with a more proactive behavioral coping response to stress, a strategy that has been associated with stress resilience in animals and humans,” said Christopher Lowry, an associate professor in the Department of Integrative Physiology at CU-Boulder and the senior author of the new research….

The immunized mice continued to show decreased levels of submissive behaviors one to two weeks after treatment. M. vaccae treatment reduced stress-induced colitis…

…The research underscores the importance of an organism’s microbiome in preventing and coping with inflammation-related diseases and psychiatric conditions…

…“An injection of M. vaccae is not designed to target a particular antigen the way a vaccine would, but instead activates the individual’s immunoregulatory responses to protect from inappropriate inflammation…

Well that’s interesting and could also make one wonder, could this be something for AUTISM? Maybe that’s what the authors are inferring here in the full study about “PREVENTION” .full:

Although not specifically addressed here, immunoregulatory approaches may also prove useful in prevention of neurodevelopmental and other somatic and neuropsychiatric disorders in which elevated inflammation contributes to disease vulnerability (84).

INAPPROPRIATE INFLAMMATION. That sure could be AUTISM as most research shows INFLAMMATION in the brain. The MICROBIOME has been shown to be very connected to the MICROGLIA in the BRAIN.

But the idea of immunization as a treatment for Autism may be hard to fathom as many parents witnessed their children regress into Autism after vaccination. Are VACCINATION and IMMUNIZATION much different? In this case though, it does appear to be almost an immunization antidote in a way, as these good bacteria seem to be a Superman, able to turn back time to when the Microbiome was unaltered, or maybe undamaged is a better word? For many it may be the word — IMMUNIZATION — that will just be a turn-off.

The bacteria mentioned here, Mycobacterium vacca, has other ways it can enter the body – This study is from 2010 and is similar to the study from above —:

Mycobacterium vaccae is a natural soil bacterium which people likely ingest or breathe in when they spend time in nature,

…We found that mice that were fed live M. vaccae navigated the maze twice as fast and with less demonstrated anxiety behaviors as control mice…..

But, in that same study — immunization of M. vaccae enabled some NEURONS to grow — Previous research studies on M. vaccae showed that heat-killed bacteria injected into mice stimulated growth of some neurons in the brain that resulted in increased levels of serotonin and decreased anxiety. Again, a very similar study.

So did the bacteria stimulate the growth of neurons? It sounds, according to the study, that it is possible and almost like a way to help the MICROBIOME of many but maybe especially those who show symptoms related to:

INFLAMMATION
stress-induced colitis , a typical symptom of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD)
preventing and coping with inflammation-related diseases and psychiatric conditions
modulating the immune system
For many, this describes both the medical and subsequent behavioral signs of Autism.

Ironically, as I was typing this out, a kind reader from here at Age of Autism, sent me a few emails that seemed related. We are blessed to have a steady “family” of fans and supporters who follow us:

Hi Teresa,

I have a 13 year old with Autism and PANDAS. A few months ago my daughter’s biomed doctor put her on Ortho Molecular Products “Ortho Biotic 100 Million CFU.” We are seeing changes in her and I noticed the other day on the side of the box it says “broad spectrum proven strains restore the natural diversity of the microbiome.”

… this new probiotic seems to be doing something. She went to the zoo yesterday with her school and so I asked her what she saw there. Usually when you ask her a question her answer is “good,” but she looked up at me and said “elephant” with no delay and good eye contact.

I thought maybe it would help your daughter.

….Oh also, my daughter is a red head with blue eyes.

Well, I thanked her very much for her support and thoughtfulness (Thank you again, Sandy! ), and for any that don’t know, my daughter, Megan, is red-headed with blue eyes. Knowing other are with us on our journey in helping our ill and affected children is a comfort to say the least.

Her mention of Ortho Molecular’s “Ortho Biotic 100 Million CFU” got me reading up on this product with with much interest, and with the above studies still in my brain:

Ortho Biotic 100 is a high-dose probiotic delivering 100 billion active cultures for cases of gastrointestinal (GI) and immune distress. Going beyond the threshold of traditional probiotic support, high-dose probiotics influence GI health and immunity in ways lower-dose probiotics cannot. Shown to activate over 1,700 genes involved in immune and inflammatory signaling, high-dose probiotics improve immune function, strengthen the gut-immune barrier, and promote inflammatory balance.

Enhances Immune System Function
Strengthens the Gut-Immune Barrier
Promotes Inflammatory Balance
Supports Digestion and Micronutrient Absorption
Maintains Gastrointestinal Health
Well, it looks very promising. I am not endorsing it or the above immunization method but just want to show that treatments to change the Microbiome into a healthier state are increasing.

As you can ascertain, there are related studies and treatments on the Microbiome, and Autism is hopefully going to benefit immensely by them. Checking them out is important and the mode of delivery seems an appropriate research area. We might also walk away from this seeing that immunizations can alter the Microbiome. In this situation, we see benefit but could it also be true that immunization could do the opposite, as in well-baby visits?

Teresa Conrick is Contributing Editor to Age of Autism.

Posted by Age of Autism on June 07, 2016 at 06:00 AM in Teresa Conrick | Permalink | Comments (13)

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Jeannette Bishop
In case the study discussed below has not already been referenced (apologies if I missed it) and in the event it might be relevant:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160519130105.htm

“Antibiotics that kill gut bacteria also stop growth of new brain cells”

Summary:
Antibiotics strong enough to kill off gut bacteria can also stop the growth of new brain cells in the hippocampus, a section of the brain associated with memory, reports a new study in mice. Researchers also uncovered a clue to why — a type of white blood cell seems to act as a communicator between the brain, the immune system, and the gut.

Posted by: Jeannette Bishop | June 13, 2016 at 11:29 PM

Benedetta
The video is called “Immune system dysregulation”

Posted by: Benedetta | June 13, 2016 at 10:53 PM

Benedetta
Dr. Susan Humphries has a video on research she put together on dead parts of microbes vs live microbes/viruses.

Apparently dead part of microbes causes the immune system more problems, unable to fight off other diseases, and higher mortality rate.

https://www.facebook.com/VaxXed/?fref=nf

I don’t know if the above link I gave will get any one that is interested to her site or not.

Live turns on Th 1 and dead turns the Th2 immune system.
Posted by: Benedetta | June 13, 2016 at 10:51 PM

Betty Bona
I do think they are on to something here, but I shudder at how the implementation of the new knowledge may actually cause even more damage. I don’t want another “immunization”! How about supplementing our topsoil with this soil bacteria and refraining from pesticides that kill this bacteria so that we get the bacteria we need in the way we were intended to get it – through our food. This also gives me even more hope for the product, Restore. It doesn’t have the soil bacteria in it, but it has the byproducts of ancient soil bacteria. The byproducts act as communication messengers. What were all these ancient bacteria, and can we replenish our soil with them? This research is exciting, but I don’t like the use of just one bacteria, and I don’t like the introduction through such a non-natural route. The way money controls everything in the healthcare field, I predict a vaccination for all with this bacteria, and I predict more harm will be done than good.

Posted by: Betty Bona | June 13, 2016 at 11:54 AM

Benedetta
All vaccines is basically dead bacteria or parts or even just the toxoid the bacteria produce; unless it is some live weakened virus.

That is how the whole vaccine theory is suppose to work isn’t it?
The immune system is then presented with these antigens and gets ready for the next time if the real bacteria, or virus comes along. Maybe it don’t work that way at all but teaches tolerance?

“Stabilizing the gut microbiome”

The only thing we can take from this study is that introducing antigens through the skin – effects the GI.

Jeannette Bishop is probably right – how do we know what the researchers were noticing in mice behavior; was it aggression, or really less anxious.

Posted by: Benedetta | June 09, 2016 at 07:57 AM

Benedetta
Snake charmers – taking a bit of snake venom – builds a tolerance to the cobra vaccine.

Tolerance of the body – not immunity against it.

Posted by: Benedetta | June 09, 2016 at 12:06 AM

Benedetta
Thank You very much Teresa for looking this up and putting it under the comments.

I have thought on this all day as I was driving, I was just amazed because every thing I was taught and observed, any live bacteria will cause inflammation when it by passes the gut. So, it makes better sense that it is dead.

But you know I am still amazed that dead bacteria does all this. What is going on? Does something happen to the immune system when it sees dead bacteria cycling out of the body into the lymph and GI track, and then does what?

Ahhhh; The only thing I can think of that I have ran across that is similar to this is allergy shots. And I have never understood how that works. How is it that allergens like bee sting venom and pollen from trees, and grass could be injected into the body and it helps with allergies.

And I will tell you all this – it does work- cause I and my two kids took allergy shots for years.
Now I look back at that and think how could I be so trusting of that allergy doctor. He was from Cambodia – a very sweet man, but he had a lab full of people mixing up what he ordered. and giving these in the form of shots.

My kids’ peds did not like him — In that case – I did like him. And by the way our hay fever; improved dramatically. The allergy shots though did make us at times feel nauseous. The stomach again!

zonnulin – is part of our immune system inside our gut, that is our own -Something must be going on in the lymph that suddenly makes the stomach microbe become altered.

Thanks for this article. Some thing to be stored in our memories. I think this is going to be important.

There is a lot here we don’t know

Posted by: Benedetta | June 08, 2016 at 08:04 PM

Jeannette Bishop
I’m not sure I understand what researchers are doing here…if they are injecting what is believed to be healthy mice not under stress (which I always wonder about in laboratory conditions) with dead bacteria, maybe to get the immune system into a state of alert(?), and they show better or more “pro-active” stress coping behavior…is this demonstrating that the immune system determines the injection is not something to mount an infection (or partial infection) response to (not like a vaccination with adjuvant) but still responds to the stress(? injection of something) another way that affects physiology?

Doesn’t this possibly demonstrate that vaccination can increase aggression and alter neurological physiology (along with other affects from the vaccine components)?

Posted by: Jeannette Bishop | June 08, 2016 at 12:23 PM

Teresa Conrick
Hi Benedetta,

Thanks for your interest and question. No, I saw that the bacteria was heated — “Treatment of mice with a heat-killed preparation of an immunoregulatory environmental microorganism, Mycobacterium vaccae” in the recent study and also in the 2010 study — “Previous research studies on M. vaccae showed that heat-killed bacteria injected into mice stimulated growth of some neurons in the brain that resulted in increased levels of serotonin and decreased anxiety.”

Here’s the full text of the 2016 study– http://www.pnas.org/content/113/22/E3130.full

some highlights:

– orally administered probiotics with immunoregulatory and antiinflammatory properties have been shown to induce anxiolytic and antidepressant-like effects in animal models (6, 16). It remains unclear whether these beneficial effects of probiotics are due to their ability to prevent stress-induced decreases in microbial diversity, their immunoregulatory effects, or both.

– Previous studies have demonstrated that probiotics can have antiinflammatory effects in rodent models of chronic inflammation, including colitis, following either mucosal or subcutaneous administration (19, 20), and in some cases these effects are observed using heat-killed preparations (20). Subcutaneous injections of heat-killed preparations of immunoregulatory bacteria may have some advantages, including long-term”

– “If inadequate immunoregulation and subsequent chronic low-grade inflammation are risk factors for development of stress-related psychiatric disorders, pretreatment with an immunoregulatory agent would be expected to be protective. ”

– M. vaccae is an abundant soil saprophyte, a microorganism that lives on dead or decaying organic matter, with immunoregulatory properties (22). A heat-killed preparation of the organism modulates dendritic cell function (23) and induces Treg and secretion of antiinflammatory cytokines, including IL-10 and transforming growth factor β (22).

– We assessed stress coping behaviors of M. vaccae- or vehicle-immunized mice during 2 h of CSC exposure on days 1, 8, and 15, effects of preimmunization with M. vaccae on CSC-induced changes in the gut microbiome on days –21, –14, –7, 1, 8, and 15, anxiety-like behavior on the elevated plus-maze (EPM) on day 19, and pathophysiology on day 20.

– these data demonstrate that immunization with M. vaccae induced a long-lasting shift toward a more proactive coping response (27), characterized by decreased submissive, flight, and avoiding behaviors, during chronic psychosocial stress that, based on previous studies in rodents and humans, may decrease vulnerability to the development of more persistent anxiety- and depressive-like symptoms (24, 25).

– M. vaccae administration has persistent effects on brain serotonergic systems and microglial density in the brain. ……….immunization with M. vaccae selectively increased microglial density in the prelimbic part of the medial prefrontal cortex

– M. vaccae immunization had a stabilizing effect on the gut microbiota throughout the study, consistent with recent studies demonstrating that host adaptive immunity modulates the gut microbiota (40). In line with these findings, multiple linear regression showed that 11% of the variation in the gut microbiota was explained by the histological damage score in the colon, reflecting intestinal immune activation.

– In conclusion, these data suggest that exposure to environmental microorganisms, administration of probiotics with immunoregulatory actions, or immunoregulation-promoting immunizations with heat-killed preparations of these organisms or antigens derived from these organisms may confer health benefits, including mental health benefits

Posted by: Teresa Conrick | June 08, 2016 at 10:50 AM

Benedetta
So Jenny;
You think that the bacteria that was injected into the mouse by passing the gut might have it’s own immune system to keep the body from reacting to it? Parasites do do that. Older parasites that have been around a long time – older the better – evolves not to do harm to the host.

Maybe that is the case of this certain type of bacteria given directly to this mouse?

The next question I would want answered – would there be a danger of getting too much of a good thing?

Posted by: Benedetta | June 08, 2016 at 09:55 AM

Jenny
So, this touches on something that was niggling in the back of my head several weeks ago after a different post here along the same lines.

I think all living things have survival mechanisms, i.e. immune systems. They all have to survive environmental exposures, including exposures to other living things such as other bacteria, viruses, fungus, etc.

Lifespans/cellular division – astronomical different between humans and bacteria.
It’s decades between a human splits off and creates another human, passing on immunities that they may have developed over the first decade or two or three of their lives. And those immunities were formed from exposures.

What is the average time it takes for bacteria to procreate/split, passing on the immunities they develop from their environmental exposures? Seconds, minutes, hours? Certainly not decades.

If breast milk contains immunities to pass on, and didn’t someone have a patent out there on the idea about injecting cows (udders), who then developed immunities to what was injected, and using the resulting milk as a “natural vaccine/immune protection,” why couldn’t probiotics act in the same way?

Hypothetically, couldn’t that explain natural attenuation, i.e. it could be why plagues never last, they naturally end at some point. Didn’t someone point out that strep throat isn’t necessarily treated with antibiotics in the U.K. anymore because it just doesn’t cause the dreaded scarlet fever associated side effects anymore over there? For example, if South American natives were wiped out by small pox or measles or whatever it was, and other diseases when the Spanish originally showed up there, what if they had all been able to import some kind of Spanish kombucha first? Would they have still been wiped out? If the measles vaccines has never been introduced, would anybody still be showing signs of it when exposed to it?

Would sauerkraut grown in an Ebola exposed geographical area or a Ziki area offer beneficial immunological protection against an unexposed population on the other side of the world?
Posted by: Jenny | June 08, 2016 at 07:17 AM

Benedetta
I mean live — and fully healthy – bacteria into the muscles and by passing the gut?
Posted by: Benedetta | June 07, 2016 at 11:04 PM

Benedetta
Teresa; Was your understanding – that they were injecting live – bacteria -into a mouse?
Posted by: Benedetta | June 07, 2016 at 10:18 AM

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By Susie Neilson

www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/a-traumatic-experience-can-reshape-your-microbiome_us_5931ce80e4b062a6ac0acfad

I’m not disputing the scientific soundness of the whole brain-gut connection, but it really does sound a little bit like something out of a science-fiction story. I mean, you’re telling me that the trillions of tiny organisms that live in my gut, chomping up my food for me and maintaining my digestive system, have an impact on what I think and do and say? That the content of my thoughts might be at least partially determined by the eggs I had for breakfast, or the vitamin C I haven’t consumed enough of? It boggles the mind (at least, a mind influenced by my microbiome, fueled almost exclusively by Sour Patch Kids).

Strange as it may seem, though, it’s also a case of our science finally catching up to our idioms. Without realizing it, we’ve been talking about the link between brain and gut for a long time: Ever had a gut-wrenching car ride, or a gut instinct about someone, or butterflies in your stomach? In less colorful terms, the stomach and the mind really do talk to one another; in one study, for example, tentative mice that received gut bacteria transplants from braver ones became more fearless, exploring a maze with less hesitation. So strong is the microbiome’s impact that some have deemed it the “second brain.” And recently, a team of researchers found that our guts may harbor evidence of difficult life experiences many years after the fact, changing everything from how we digest food to how we process stress. In fact, these changes in our “second brain” may substantially alter the structure of our first, creating a feedback loop between the two.

For the study, published last month in the journal Microbiome, the authors analyzed the microbiomes of a group of students with irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS, a fairly common chronic condition marked by pain in the stomach, gas, and indigestion. (Though there are ways to manage IBS, many of which involve reducing stress, we don’t know what causes the syndrome.) They did the same for a control group of healthy volunteers, and also collected brain scans, stool samples, and behavioral and biographical information from participants in both categories.

The results were startling: Across the board, those in the IBS group were far more likely to exhibit anxiety and depression. When the researchers further divided IBS-afflicted subjects into two smaller groups — those with a microbiome undistinguishable from that of a healthy control, and those with noticeable differences — they found that the subgroup with different microbiomes also had more history of early life trauma, and their IBS symptoms lasted longer. “It is possible,” the authors wrote, “that the signals the gut and its microbes get from the brain of an individual with a history of childhood trauma may lead to lifelong changes in the gut microbiome.”

It’s also possible — or even probable — that the relationship isn’t uni-directional. The researchers noticed that the people with altered microbiomes had differently shaped brains, too, suggesting that the impacted gut may have doubled back and impacted certain brain regions — though they noted in the study that they don’t have enough information to be sure that’s the case, and cautioned against leaping to conclusions. Even more than the science of the gut on its own, the science of what how it affects the brain is still in its infancy; rather than arriving at any firm conclusions, this study is meant to open up the field more, laying a foundation for future researchers to build on.

If it’s true that the gut influences the brain just as the brain impacts the gut, though, then these findings may have tremendous implications for both mental and physical health. It might be a stretch to say that anxiety meds could one day be supplemented with kombucha, but it’s not too wild to imagine a future where treating ailments of the mind also involves treating the digestive system, or vice versa (already, some people are using talk therapy to ease IBS). For now, it can’t hurt to remember the connection between the two, and do everything in your power to live a life that gives you peace of mind — because it’ll give you peace of stomach, too.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/this-scientist-says-he-keeps-finding-aliens-in-the-stratosphere

v

Sour_ce

NATALIE WOLCHOVER SCIENCE DATE OF PUBLICATION: 07.12.15.
07.12.15
TIME OF PUBLICATION: 7:00 AM.
7:00 AM
PARADOXICAL CRYSTAL BAFFLES PHYSICISTS

Interactions between electrons inside samarium hexaboride appear to be giving rise to an exotic quantum behavior new to researchers.Click to Open Overlay Gallery
Interactions between electrons inside samarium hexaboride appear to be giving rise to an exotic quantum behavior new to researchers. ANDREW TESTA FOR QUANTA MAGAZINE
IN A DECEPTIVELY drab black crystal, physicists have stumbled upon a baffling behavior, one that appears to blur the line between the properties of metals, in which electrons flow freely, and those of insulators, in which electrons are effectively stuck in place. The crystal exhibits hallmarks of both simultaneously.

QUANTA MAGAZINE

ABOUT
Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent division of SimonsFoundation.org whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research developments and trends in mathematics and the physical and life sciences.

“This is a big shock,” said Suchitra Sebastian, a condensed matter physicist at the University of Cambridge whose findings appeared this month in an advance online edition of the journal Science. Insulators and metals are essentially opposites, she said. “But somehow, it’s a material that’s both. It’s contrary to everything that we know.”

The material, a much-studied compound called samarium hexaboride or SmB6, is an insulator at very low temperatures, meaning it resists the flow of electricity. Its resistance implies that electrons (the building blocks of electric currents) cannot move through the crystal more than an atom’s width in any direction. And yet, Sebastian and her collaborators observed electrons traversing orbits millions of atoms in diameter inside the crystal in response to a magnetic field—a mobility that is only expected in materials that conduct electricity. Calling to mind the famous wave-particle duality of quantum mechanics, the new evidence suggests SmB6 might be neither a textbook metal nor an insulator, Sebastian said, but “something more complicated that we don’t know how to imagine.”

“It is just a magnificent paradox,” said Jan Zaanen, a condensed matter theorist at Leiden University in the Netherlands. “On the basis of established wisdoms this cannot possibly happen, and henceforth completely new physics should be at work.”

It is too soon to tell what, if anything, this “new physics” will be good for, but physicists like Victor Galitski, of the University of Maryland, College Park, say it is well worth the effort to find out. “Oftentimes,” he said, “big discoveries are really puzzling things, like superconductivity.” That phenomenon, discovered in 1911, took nearly half a century to understand, and it now generates the world’s most powerful magnets, such as those that accelerate particles through the 17-mile tunnel of the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland.
Theorists have already begun to venture guesses as to what might be going on inside SmB6. One promising approach models the material as a higher-dimensional black hole. But no theory yet captures the whole story. “I do not think that there is any remotely credible hypothesis proposed at this moment in time,” Zaanen said.

SmB6 has resisted classification since Soviet scientists first studied its properties in the early 1960s, followed by better-known experiments at Bell Labs.

Counting up the electrons in the orbital shells that surround its samarium and boron nuclei indicates that roughly half an electron should be left over, on average, per samarium nucleus (a fraction, because the nuclei have “mixed valence,” or alternating numbers of orbiting electrons). These “conduction electrons” should flow through the material like water flowing through a pipe, and thus, SmB6 should be a metal. “That’s the idea people had back when I started working on this problem as a young guy, around 1975,” said Jim Allen, an experimental physicist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor who has studied SmB6 on and off since then.

But while samarium hexaboride does conduct electricity at room temperature, things get strange as it cools. The crystal is what physicists call a “strongly correlated” material; its electrons acutely feel one another’s effects, causing them to lock together into an emergent, collective behavior. Whereas strong correlations in certain superconductors cause the electrical resistance to drop to zero at low temperatures, in the case of SmB6, the electrons seem to gum up when cooled, and the material behaves as an insulator.

The crystal structure of samarium hexaboride, or SmB6.Click to Open Overlay Gallery
The crystal structure of samarium hexaboride, or SmB6. OLENA SHMAHALO/QUANTA MAGAZINE. SOURCE: MIN-FENG
The effect stems from the 5.5 electrons, on average, that occupy an uncomfortably tight shell encasing each samarium nucleus. These close-knit electrons mutually repel one another, and “that essentially tells the electrons, ‘Don’t move around,’” Allen explained. The last half electron trapped in each of these shells has a complex relationship with its other, freer, conducting half. Below minus 223 degrees Celsius, the conduction electrons in SmB6 are thought to “hybridize” with these trapped electrons, forming a new, hybrid orbit around the samarium nuclei. Experts initially believed the crystal turns into an insulator because none of the electrons in this hybrid orbit can move.

“The resistivity shows it’s an insulator; photoemission shows it’s a good insulator; optical absorption shows it’s a good insulator; neutron scattering shows it’s an insulator,” said Lu Li, a condensed matter physicist at the University of Michigan whose experimental group also studies SmB6.

But this is no garden-variety insulator. Not only does its insulating behavior arise from strong correlations between its electrons, but in the past five years, mounting evidence has suggested that it is a “topological insulator” at low temperatures, a material that resists the flow of electricity through its three-dimensional bulk, while conducting electricity along its two-dimensional surfaces. Topological insulators have become one of the hottest topics in condensed matter physics since their 2007 discovery because of their potential use in quantum computers and other novel devices. And yet, SmB6 does not neatly fit that category either.

Early last year, hoping to add to the evidence that SmB6 is a topological insulator, Sebastian and her student Beng Tan visited the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, or MagLab, at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and attempted to measure wavelike undulations called “quantum oscillations” in the electrical resistance of their crystal samples. The rate of quantum oscillations and how they vary as the sample is rotated can be used to map out the “Fermi surface” of the crystal, a signature property “which is sort of the geometry of how the electrons flow through the material,” Sebastian explained.
Sebastian and Tan didn’t see any quantum oscillations in New Mexico, however. Scrambling to salvage Tan’s doctoral project, they measured a less interesting property instead, and, to check these results, booked time at another MagLab location, in Tallahassee, Fla.

In Florida, Sebastian and Tan noticed that their measurement probe had an extra slot with a diving-board-style cantilever on it, which could be used to measure quantum oscillations in the magnetization of their crystals. After failing to see quantum oscillations in the electrical resistance, they hadn’t planned on looking for them in a different material property—but why not? “I was thinking, fine, let’s stick a sample on,” Sebastian said. They cooled down their samples, turned on the magnetic field, and started measuring. Suddenly they realized the signal coming from the diving board was oscillating.

“We were like, wait—what?” she said.

In that experiment and subsequent ones at MagLab, they measured quantum oscillations deep in the interior of their crystal samples. The data translated into a huge, three-dimensional Fermi surface, representing electrons circulating throughout the material in the presence of the magnetic field, as conduction electrons do in a metal. Judging by its Fermi surface, electrons in the interior of SmB6 travel 1 million times farther than its electrical resistance would suggest is possible.

“The Fermi surface is like that in copper; it’s like that in silver; it’s like that in gold,” said Li, whose group reported surface-level quantum oscillations in Science in December. “Not just metals… these are very good metals.”

Somehow, at low temperatures and in the presence of a magnetic field, the strongly correlated electrons in SmB6 can move like those in the most conductive metals, even though they cannot conduct electricity. How can the crystal behave like both a metal and an insulator?

The ultra-pure SmB6 crystals used in the new experiments were grown in an optical furnace heated to 3,000 degrees Celsius at the University of Warwick in England.Click to Open Overlay Gallery
The ultra-pure SmB6 crystals used in the new experiments were grown in an optical furnace heated to 3,000 degrees Celsius at the University of Warwick in England. COURTESY OF GEETHA BALAKRISHNAN
Contamination of the samples might seem likely, if not for another surprising discovery: Not only did Sebastian, Tan and their collaborators find quantum oscillations in an insulator, but the form of the oscillations—namely, how quickly they grew in amplitude as the temperature decreased—greatly diverged from the predictions of a universal formula for conventional metals. Every metal ever tested has conformed to this Lifshitz-Kosevich formula (named for Arnold Kosevich and Evgeny Lifshitz), suggesting that the quantum oscillations in SmB6 come from an entirely new physical phenomenon. “If it were coming from something trivial, like inclusions of some other materials, it would have followed the Lifshitz-Kosevich formula,” Galitski said. “So I think it’s a real effect.”

Amazingly, the observed deviation from the Lifshitz-Kosevich formula was presaged in 2010 by Sean Hartnoll and Diego Hofman, both then at Harvard University, in a paper that recast strongly correlated materials as higher-dimensional black holes, those infinitely steep curves in space-time predicted by Albert Einstein. In their paper, Hartnoll and Hofman investigated the effect of strong correlations in metals by calculating corresponding properties of their simpler black hole model—specifically, how long an electron could orbit the black hole before falling in. “I had calculated what would replace this Lifshitz-Kosevich formula in more exotic metals,” said Hartnoll, who is now at Stanford University. “And indeed it seems that the form [Sebastian] has found can be matched with this formula that I derived.”

This generalized Lifshitz-Kosevich formula holds for a class of metallike states of matter that includes conventional metals, Hartnoll says. But even if SmB6 is another member of this “generalized metal” class, this still does not explain why it acts as an insulator. Other theorists are attempting to model the material with more traditional mathematical machinery. Some say its electrons may be rapidly vacillating between insulating and conducting states in some novel quantum fashion.

Theorists are busy theorizing, and Li and his collaborators are preparing to try and replicate Sebastian’s results with their own samples of SmB6. The chance discovery in Florida was only the first step. Now to resolve the paradox.

Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research developments and trends in mathematics and the physical and life sciences.

As a living organism, the human body is home to millions of microbial life forms and bacteria. Without microscopic vision, we can’t see them unless aided by technology. If you’re the squeamish sort, this is probably for the best.

The handprint in the petri dish above is causing quite a stir on the Internet and it belongs to microbiology lab technician Tasha Sturm’s 8-year-old son.

“It’s partly to show that there are microbes everywhere,” said Sturm to TODAY.

Posted on Microbe World, the print shows the different growths cultivated from his hand after playing outdoors. Allowed to incubate for several days, there are yeasts, fungi and bacteria.

Sturm will conduct further tests to determine what exactly the various growths are. She believes the large white circle in the bottom-right corner (close-up shown below) to be Bacillus, which is often found in dirt. She also notes that the white spots may be Staphylococcus and the yellow and orange spots could be yeast.

^{Close-up of the round blob in the bottom-right corner of the handprint / Tasha Sturm}

Sturm regularly engages her kids in science experiments at home, which has led to some interesting investigations, sometimes including the family dog. After petting the dog, her son did the same process of placing his hand in a sterile petri dish and incubating the dish at body temperature for a day, and then room temperature for nearly a week. His reaction to the results: “He said, ‘That’s cool.’ And then my daughter said, ‘Let’s do the dog’s nose, let’s do the paw, let’s do the cat’s tail,'” Sturm recalled.

It’s important to remember that the vast majority of this organisms will be harmless, or even beneficial to human health. We are constantly coated in a variety of different microorganisms, no matter how clean you are, and our skin does a great job of keeping out the nasty ones.

Source:::: http://news.meta.com/2015/11/23/waterbear/

PNAS: The tardigrade (water bear), the only animal that can survive in the vacuum of space, has the most foreign DNA of any animal.