Gaming Science

Ever wish you could dabble in some microbiology? (h/t MSNBC) An intriguing new game from Carnegie Mellon University called EteRNA lets you design your own RNA sequences. I think it's especially cool that it appears to be intentionally aimed at non-scientists. Probably if you work with RNA for a living this will be less appealing to you. But if you'd like to improve your understanding of RNA and have an interest in biology and science this might just be your bag.

 

Wikipedia informs me some viruses use RNA instead of DNA as their genetic material which was how I first learned about RNA at an old job I've mine. I know you scientists are wondering what they teach kids in high school biology these days. I'll guess I'll say not much that it took an odd job for me to be exposed to it, or at least to the point where I remembered vaguely what it was. So hopefully that's one effect of games like this: exposing more non-scientists to theories and concepts in a fun and colorful way. Enjoy!

Care and feeding of a liver

Bioengineered livers might soon be within our grasp. Researchers at the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center (could that name be any longer?) have grown human liver cells into small, working livers. It's early yet, but the next step is animal studies to make sure these miniature livers continue to function like real livers. I already talked about a researcher who was engineering an artifical kidney he had hoped to par down to implantable size from the now room sized working artifical kidney. It's interesting to see the paths of research take both strictly biological and also technologically assembled forms. I think with diversity in development we are more likely to see huge leaps in science on this front and not be far from a Star Trek-esque world where many internal organs can be replaced with the proper machines.

 

And for those wondering, you can get your own plush organs (as seen in adorable photo) here at I Heart Guts.