I love science pictures. Even when I was a kid, images of science really struck me.
I’ve been doing The Niche now for 16 years and come across many unusual pictures during that time. It’s hard to imagine that I started this site in 2010. What a different world that was. In some ways, it was a lot worse for me then. I had just had cancer surgery a few months before starting this website. My prognosis was unclear as it was a high-grade tumor. Talk about stressful and I still felt some pain. Here’s a post I did in 2012 updating how I was doing after prostate cancer.
In part, being so into science is what helped me bounce back. I’m doing well.
Today’s post features a first installment of interesting science pictures that I’ve accumulated via The Niche. I’ve also included some science cartoons. This is part 1 of this series. Part 2 will include a supposed stem cell soup and someone growing a nose on their head.
A large jar of RNA
I remember in grad school someone in the lab joked about tasting RNA and DNA to see if there was a difference. We never tried and I don’t recommend it. There’s something about a giant jar of RNA that just blows my mind. In the lab we are often making tiny, almost invisibly small pellets of RNA isolated from cells, which is way at the other end of the spectrum in magnitude.
The oddest of science pictures? flesh-faced robot
This flesh-faced robot can apparently smile on command in a sense. Also, see this on the robots from NPR: Robot smiles with living skin. That’s not creepy at all : NPR.
Brain organoids…calling ChatGPT
I made the above cartoon in part based on cortical organoids that grew primitive eye-like structures. The idea also came to mind because of claims that organoids could sense and interact with their environments, maybe even computers. Play computer games?
Taste buds tasting food
If you look at the taste pore in the image above (the round things are the taste bugs), food is literally being tasted via that opening. There’s something about taste buds that I find very cool.
Could senolytics get rid of too many cells?
Senolytics are a class of in part hypothetical drugs that can kill senescent cells and not healthy ones.
The hope is that by that the senolytics could improve health and maybe make the body physiologically younger. So far the potential is not yet realized. It’s also hyped.
It turns out to senescent cells also can have positive functions. No surprise.
Intestinal organoids
There are so many cool organoid pics out there.
My lab mainly works with brain organoids but this intestinal organoid is one of the best science pictures I’ve seen of any type of organoid.
Lab-grown chocolate
Check this out: Biotech California Cultured aims to sell lab-grown chocolate. I tasted it and it was more like regular chocolate than I expected.
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