Microbiota, invasive species, and Star Trek

So I've had a notion knockin' around in my noggin, and for once it doesn't involve me just regurgitating interesting facts at you. You may have noticed that the title of this post seems somewhat...erratic. Don't worry, we'll clear up that confusion posthaste.

As my fellow Trekkies well know, the crew of the starship Enterprise (my personal favorite was NC 1701-D, but this applies to all) were frequent visitors to new and unknown worlds, many of which happened to have their own suspiciously humanoid* life forms.

Now, those of us who are up to date on our yogurt commercials will also know that the human body, and indeed every multicellular organism we've dared to study, is just brimming with bacteria, viruses, and even a few fungi for funsies. Thusly, it is fairly safe to assume that if we did find other multicellular life, those life forms would probably be teeming with unicellular organisms themselves.

And if in addition to a working knowledge of Star Trek and fermented dairy products you also know that a baby giant tortoise has not been seen in the Galapagos isles for over a century because of rats introduced by humans, then either you see where this is going or you need another cup of coffee!

That's right! I'm wondering why none of the aliens ever get irritable bowel syndrome from being visited by humanity!

Sorry, that might have been too much of a leap. Basically, would we even be allowed on another civilization's planet? Smallpox wiped out the Native Americans, could our microbiota not just as easily massacre innocent Martians? Conversely, perhaps the Martians would inadvertently massacre us!

At the same time, one has to recognize that microbes have evolved to inhabit absolutely every single ecological niche in which earthly life can exist. This raises the point that perhaps there would be no niche for a human microbe to invade on planet Vulcan. They're all full!

I regret to say that I don't have enough frequent flyer miles to get to Romulus right now, so I have no empirical evidence to sway you one way or the other. But maybe this is something to think about when we finally do find our way to the stars.

*If you remember the two part episode in The Next Generation where they explain this, let's be friends.

Informal Digression: Part 1: An exploration into your fat cells

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us here on the blog. Julia has been doing a great job of putting the words on the page and getting you to read it. And look at that Knight! He's so Wee, and there isn't even anything around him to show that he's wee. Pretty rad.

So, I must admit that I have been slacking in putting up some/any posts, but all that's about to change! I want to talk to you today about something that everyone encounters, but some people to a larger extent than others. Yup, that's right. I'm talking about adipocytes, your fat cells. Now let's level here and admit that we all have them, no matter how much we diet or exercise or whatever, they're there. And for that we are thankful. Adipocytes are an important part of your life.

This is the life.

In fact, the average adult has about 30,000,000,000 fat cells that add about 30 lbs to your weight! That's pretty impressive.

Wowie!

Fat cells generally come in two different types (well, I've read about a new type, but it seems like a mix of these two). The first type of fat cell is called white adipose tissue. These cells do what you probably think a fat cell would do. They hold a bunch of fat. I mean a LOT of fat. These puppies have such a big ol' ball of fat inside of them that they squeeze the nucleus onto the outskirts of the cell.

The other type of fat cell is called brown adipose tissue. These cells have a look to 'em. Instead of one big lipid droplet (lipid=fat), they have a bunch of smaller ones. They are also home to a whole bunch of mitochondria. The mitochondria contain proteins with iron, which is what gives these cells their brown color. What are all those mitochondria doing there, you ask? They're making heat.

Burn baby burn!

Brown adipose tissue is quite abundant in babies and in hibernators. The brown adipose tissue has all these mitochondria, and these mitochondria produce a lot of this protein called thermogenin. Yeah, that's right. Thermogenin. What a cool name. Let's break it down. Thermo, for heat, and genin, for genesis or generation. Now you probably remember from one of your biology classes that the mitochondria is the energy producer for the cell. The way the mitochondria produces the energy currency of your body, ATP, is by pumping protons (hydrogen atoms without an electron) out across its membrane and then letting these protons come back in through a special port that makes ATP as the protons come through. It's a pretty cool deal. Maybe I should do a blog post on that...

Well what's special about the mitochondria in brown adipose tissue is that they have a lot of thermogenin. This thermogenin is another way for the protons to come back through the membrane, but instead of making ATP, the thermogenin converts that electrochemical potential into heat! That's why babies (and hibernators) don't need to shiver. They instead have little biochemical space heaters. Pretty neat.