RECENT POSTS 
I am tickled pink. I wrote something for a magazine, an informational piece on the Cryptococcus gattii outbreak currently ongoing in the US (on which I expanded in my last blog post). My essay was published yesterday, on May 16, with the launch of the UK edition of the online news magazine, The Conversation. One of the editors for The Conversation is none other than the Scilogs community's very own, Dr. Akshat Rathi (he of the Allotrope fame; read his... Read more
What can the members of multiple animal species (cat, dog, bird, ferret, llama, alpaca, elk, goat, sheep, horse, porpoise) have in common with humans? Deeper philosophical questions aside, all of them have fallen prey to a deadly fungus spreading gradually, but steadily, in western North America (southwest Canada; US states of the Pacific Northwest, PNW) for over a decade.1 Well, what-ho, what-ho Cryptococcus gattii (CG), I believe we have been introduced. The disease, cryptococcosis, generally, affects the lungs first, later... Read more
I am ashamed to admit that I don't know too much about birds beyond basic avian anatomy. But I do appreciate our feathered friends as fellow living beings and important components of diversity of life in Nature. Here is a brilliant and breathtakingly beautiful video, that is born out of the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology's Birds of Paradise project, in conjunction with National Geographic. I dedicate this post to my friend, ornithologist and blog colleague, GrrlScientist (of Maniraptora fame). ... Read more
The clinical entity of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome1 (CFS) has so long eluded explanation. Patients of CFS complain of extreme and prolonged fatigue that is disproportionate to their physical and mental activity, and is not alleviated by any amount of rest. The condition may well last for more than 6 months at a time, and may be accompanied by a variety of other symptoms, such as pain in the muscles and/or joints without swelling, memory impairment, significant lapse of concentration, headaches,... Read more
In the previous post in this series, I promised to talk about some different types of the cryptococcal organism, including their clinical significance. But before I point out the types, let's recapitulate quickly the conventions of scientific naming of biological organisms, a.k.a. binomial nomenclature, a system in which living organisms (bacteria, plants, animals, and so forth) are identified with a set of two names, a generic name (indicating its Genus) and a specific name (indicating the species). Simply put, Genus... Read more
The things that I learn from Twitter! This is rather interesting: a bright teenager from West Yorkshire, UK, got tired of hearing that his ginger haired brother wasn't his biological sibling. So, he did what teen-aged school students would normally do - kidding! - he built a PCR machine, by hand, utilizing electronic components scavenged from an old VCR (who knew those were still around!). He used that home-spun PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) machine to amplify cheek cell DNA from his... Read more
Or, what one gets for trying to be good and law-abiding. Navigating the labyrinthine maze known as the Copyright Law is never an easy task, either for the prospective blogger/author, or for the organization that would host/publish the work of such a blogger/author. This problem is particularly acute for academic or personal bloggers, who are attached - rather loosely - to free platforms (such as Google Blogger or WordPress), or to platforms hosted by non-profit concerns (such as this one,... Read more
As I asked in the previous part: Why is the capsule a virulence factor? What special properties make it a key player in the process by which Cryptococcus neoformans (CN) causes disease? Well, while acapsular mutants (lack external capsule, but contain GalXM on the cell wall), avirulent in normal hosts, may still cause disease in severely immunocompromised hosts, the burden of virulence associated with CN has traditionally fallen on the capsule, because of the extra-ordinary effects that it has on... Read more
Cryptococcus neoformans (CN) is a microscopic fungus much like the very common Baker's Yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae); however, it possesses some special characteristics, which make it unique and bestow upon it the ability to cause disease (pathogenic potential). What are these characteristics, otherwise known as Virulence Factors? The very first thing one notices about CN is the presence of an external covering, called the Capsule, outside the cell membrane. The capsule is a polysaccharide, a molecule composed of several types of... Read more
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), the celebrated author of Sherlock Holmes and the Sci-Fi Professor Challenger series, was also a physician and prone to poetry. In his second poetry collection, called Songs of the Road (published in 1911), he included several of his narrative verses and songs, as well as philosophical verses - some of which stand testaments to his abiding interest in the field of Medical Mycology, the study of clinically-relevant fungi. One particularly poignant poem, titled Mind and... Read more
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