Trematode: A Penis-Eating Parasite

There are many things in this world you do not want to encounter. For example the Candiru fish which lodges inside the urethra. Or perhaps something nasty like Ebola.  Some parasites live in the mouth - think Isopods in the mouth or tongue, or parasites in the intestines.

Today, I'm going to write about another parasite that eats not the tongue, but--get ready to cringe, guys--phallus.

Fortunately for us men these parasites prefer the penis of a type of sea snail called whelk.

A whelk. Image: http://en.wikipedia.org

Tremadotes are small parasitic flatworms that use molluscs as their intermediate hosts to reach their definitive host, the vertebrates. And once they end up in a molluscs, for instance a whelk, they will start chomping away the entire whelk gonad while waiting for a fish, for example an Atlantic cod, to devour the whelk. Thus passing along the life cycle to begin all over again.

In April 2000, a group of scientists from Canada decided to evaluate the impact of the parasites on the population of whelks in the northern gulf of St. Lawrence. The study--led by scientist Francoise Tetreault--involved collecting and dissecting 600 whelks and looking at their gonads, and compared the size of their gonads with the distribution of parasites.

The researchers discovered that there were 23% female and 15% male whelk whose gonads were affected. The parasite infected the digestive system as well, but 97% of the infected whelks had their gonads covered by 90% of the parasite.The parasite munched away a large portion of the male penis and changed the once bright color of the female gonad into pale grey.

Picture (B) shows an uninfected whelk. Its penis is labelled as "P".
Picture (D) shows an infected whelk. Look at the "P", and the whelk's sad face.
Awwww.... 

Picture (A) shows the gonad(G) and digestive system(DG) of a female whelk.
Pciture (B) shows the pale grey gonad of an infected female whelk.

Luckily for us there is no parasite that loves eating human penis, just living inside for a while. As for the whelks, they can only watch helplessly as the trematode feasts on their manhood.
Sucks to be a male whelk.But also goes to show you there is always something bigger in the ocean to eat you, and if its not bigger, then its smaller and will still eat you.

Job hunting and arrogance go hand in hand.

Job hunting and arrogance go hand in hand.  I was recently separated from my company due to restructuring after nearly 8 years of service.  As such, I have found myself in the market for a new position.  I have been using the outplacement services provided to me by my former employer and self promotion and creating a marketing plan was one of the first things I had to do.

You see, I am a product and service wrapped up into a tidy package.  I must act much like the Sham Wow salesman on late night TV and convince the buying world of those with jobs open why I am the best candidate for their open position.  "Hire Jonathan now- and as a bonus you will get 4 more weeks of super productivity  and one hidden skill set you never knew you needed."  With self promotion comes some level of arrogance.  Why arrogance? Because to promote oneself you have to start believing the hype and if you are loping for the competitive edge you have to develop a tad of arrogance.

Why am *I* the best for this job, well I'll tell you why.  The meek shall not inherit the position is most cases - at least in this economy.

We also must develop an online presence and social media plan.  The obvious choice is of course LinkedIn.  Now, I mentioned Klout many times on this blog, and I'd like to think I have a decent internet presence.  For competitive job hunting, I need to beef up my presence and get my LinkedIn profile into the best shape possible.  Here is my shameless plug - 

http://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanlowriemba

Yes - click the link and check out my profile.  Really.  I guarantee you will find something to spark your interest. Come visit my profile- take a gander at my skills.  I am an experienced professional offering a distinctive managerial presence across the aquarium, zoological, and pharmaceutical industries.  I excel in team leadership, problem resolution, and technical know-how. I am well organized and disciplined; I possess keen interpersonal skills and a faculty to motivate in a disciplined yet symbiotic manner. I have an aptness with Federal, and local regulatory agencies, and for serving in mission-critical roles. I am recognized for leadership abilities. My diverse background and education brings unique creativity to problem solving under tight resources. I have proven success in executing strategic management goals and improving efficiency and costs.

Now that was a positioning statement.  An elevator speech so to speak.  And of course the reason for todays blog post.  

Most folks do not have a need or desire to come off as self promoting or a braggart  but to sell yourself to the job market you have to somehow get noticed and be the solution to the problem at hand.  

I do not think of myself as arrogant, although I have been called such.  I have often been labeled as arrogant, and blunt by many, especially my peers who sometimes steered away from me.  I do think I am intelligent, capable and a data and facts sort of person, so that aloof presence can radiate some arrogance.  Some people get sweaty palms when nervous, I spout answers to facts and random knowledge tidbits I have picked up over the years. O know what I know and I am not ashamed of that fact.  If I do not know something, I research it and find it out.  That is just me.

But I am more than a walking Wikipedia. I would like to think of myself as a solution rather than a product.  Of course Human Resource departments by design look at employees as human capital and your skill set, motivation, worth ethic all factor into an overall gauge for your performance at accomplishing the job at hand.  Alas I am not sure this is the best way to approach the problem.  More of a chicken and the egg kind of mental mind problem.

Steve Jobs at Apple proved consumers do not always know what they want.  If you had asked the average person in 2005 what an ideal music player should be like you would never have come up with the iPod.  Yet Steve and Apple released a product that quite literally changed the world.  They solved problems rather than filled the needs people thought they wanted.

What is the solution to the perfect marketing plan? I do not yet know. But I intend to find a balance of my own form of humble arrogance and hopefully add in some Steve Jobs like solutions for problems my next employer didn't even know it had and come up with the perfect plan.

I will continue to learn, expand my knowledge base and follow the advice of my outsourcing partners and self promote.

I also find it nearly impossible to be completely arrogant while looking for work.  I have to say I have seen and applied for many jobs I thought were 'perfect matches'. Some I got interviews for, others not even a phone call.  That will take a toll on any ego.  So a thick skin and some level of arrogance is necessary for job hunting survival.  So wish me luck, and know I am not join to pick up a career hawking goods for HSN and I am engaging in the fine art of self promotion and hopefully balancing any arrogance with my other positive traits.

On being a statistic

I am officially a statistic.  

Merck announced on October 1 they were going to eliminate 8500 jobs, in addition to the 7500 already announced, in addition to the slightly more than 25,000 already eliminated.

I am one of said such eliminated positions.  Now in 2013 its a faux pas to say laid off, or downsized, or any other colloquial terms for ceasing employment with your current provider.  My outplacement service provider has urged all effected persons to make an exit statement.  Mine is as follows:

Merck & Co. faces enormous challenges posed by an ever-changing pharmaceutical industry.  They have begun to transform the way it operates by sharpening its focus on core business and reducing operating costs, including headcount. This global initiative will reduce overall headcount by 20% by 2015, including my position. This change has afforded me the opportunity to explore new options. With my record of improving operational efficiency, reducing operating costs, developing new training programs and managing diverse staff and colleagues, my objective is to locate a position as Operations Executive in the pharmaceutical industry.

Of course an exit statement makes it seem so cold and sterile.  And while it is true, I was a victim of bad circumstance and timing and the company truly is struggling, it doesn't feel good to have not made the cut.  I was/am Legacy Schering Plough. I have worked with the company for nearly 8 years, and if what I hear is correct only 9% of us Schering folks remain. So I can take some solace that I was overdue for this change.

I have known since October 1, 2013 that I would likely have this outcome.  I was rather ambivalent about which outcome I desired. On one hand I need the job, the associated pay and healthcare benefits for the family. It is not like I am retirement age or will receive a substantial severance or such. So all logic dictates that I should want the job. On the other side of the coin is the fact that all early indicators point to me being yet another statistic and footmark in a governmental report. My direct management has all but guaranteed my departure via their actions and demeanors. So I have had some time to get 'used' to the idea. 

I also feel like I am on the bow of the Titanic and the iceberg is dead ahead. The problem with cuts, especially in my industry, and more so to research is that the future of the company rests in the hands of the scientists. If you cut too many scientists, or demoralize them, impact their ability to create or otherwise disrupt productivity then you have a self fulfilling scenario of continued pipeline losses and setbacks. So survival today means I dodged the upswing of the axe, but the downswing can come 6 months, or so later.

So which is the optimal outcome? Those left behind have quite the task ahead of them to sort out and get things moving again. The impact to the culture and morale is not repairable. Trusts have been broken and the employees at large generally are in a state of shock. In addition to this phase of the reinvention, legacy Merck employees have lived with the shadow of layoffs for about 6-8 years. My department has been feeling this for 4 years.  The mental wear and tear on all the employees is tremendous. So being cut, while logically a horrible option for me and my family or anyone else whom is cut, may actually relieve stress and frustrations. I am also somewhat excited about the potential for career 3.0. 

I am convinced I have ADD of the career. I have a myriad of interests and love to learn, so I tend to research and learn everything I can about any topic that interests me. So I tend to accumulate degrees, certifications, proficiencies and skills in an eclectic range of subjects. Being forced to go reinvent myself again has some upside. The one thing I am confident of is my ability to accomplish whatever task I put my mind into. I love challenge and impossible odds and proving the odds wrong. So this is just another one of my adventures to adapt to and overcome. It also makes for more interesting blog entries.

The biggest cost of the cuts is the human capital. Merck will lost many great people from all departments and divisions. In my nearly 8 years I have met some very wonderful (and a few less wonderful) people and developed many great friendships. When one adds up the time they spend at work, these work friends often see more of you than your own family does. In my case I was part of a well oiled team. Our team has faced a number of challenges the past 24 months and while already functionally broken up and separated we still manage to accomplish our goals and retain the bond of those friendships.

With the merger I also gained new colleagues and friends who add value to the company and my life. It is these bonds and friendships that will be the hardest obstacle ahead. Those left behind must find ways to keep going with their losses, the increased work and loss of friendships. Many of my colleagues have worked together for 20+ years. Those that know me should know I am not the most social of humans, but I am fiercely loyal to the friendships I do develop. For those that will loose friends of so long, I truly weep for the impact to their lives.

As one who studies organizational design and human capital, I can say regardless of how the dust settles, Merck has a huge hurdle of re-engaging those retained back into the work force and into productivity. The survivors will be mooring those who left, dealing with lost information, and other surprises, as well as increased work loads, more hours and more pressures. All while living under the axe for the future. I do not envy the survivors.

So onward to career 3.0! And if you know of any openings for over educated ex marine biologists with a crazy eclectic skill set let me know.

Why Do Bees Build Hexagonal Cells?

Have you ever wondered why bees build hexagon-shaped cells?

I have some odd things that keep me up late at night.  This is one of them.  In researching bee-keeping (an item on my bucket list) I keep going back to one simple question. Why do bees make hexagonal shaped cells? Isn't it fascinating? Why hexagon? Why not other shapes? Why not triangles or octagons? And these apparently simple, instinct-driven creatures could build the perfect-six-sided-hexagon which, when you stack them up together, form a perfect array of honeycomb.

Image: www.bee-hexagon.net

More than 2000 years ago, Marcus Terentius Varro proposed an answer to this question. He thought maybe honeycomb built of hexagons can hold more honey and require less building wax, and this answer has since been called "The Honeybee Conjecture".

Supporting this hypothesis is that first up, we all know that honeycombs store honey. Honey is what sustains the entire colony, so obviously it's very precious. A typical colony consists of 100,000 individuals, so you need a lot of honey to keep them alive. To store that much honey, you'll need a warehouse big enough to store them, but small enough to prevent thieves like the Japanese Giant Hornets (as long as your thumb), bears and other creatures from breaking in. In fact a single cell is just big enough to let a single worker pass through.

The Japanese Giant Hornet is at least five times larger than the honey bee. Image: waynesword.palomar.edu

So you need to start with a shape. Shapes like circle, pentagon, heptagon and octagon are bad shapes because you can't stack them up together without leaving gaps. And when you're talking about building a place to store as much honey as possible, every gap is considered a waste of space.

So that leaves us with triangle, square and hexagon. Out of these three, why hexagon?
It turns out that hexagon uses the least wax to produce compared to triangle and square of the same cross-sectional area.

To produce a square with area, A=100cm2, the circumference is 40.0 cm.

To produce a triangle with area, A=100cm2, the circumference is 45.588 cm.

To produce a hexagon with area, A=100cm2, the circumference is only 37.224 cm.

Ironically, the one with the least number of sides (triangle) is the one that requires the most wax to build.

This means that by building hexagon-shaped cells, the bees can reduce the usage of wax, which is also made from honey (now that makes sense).

Now one could think there are a lot of calculus loving bees out there engineering perfect hives.  But if we revisit our friend Darwin, we can easily see how less effort, plus more energy equaled a more successful hive and thus the genes for geometry learned bees get passed along.

Now that i've got the hexagonal hive business all sorted out, I need another problem to ponder late at night.

Not quite a Man O'War

Image via Wikimedia

Velella is the scientific genus of this amazing colonial animal. Firstly; By-the-wind Sailor, what a wonderfully romantic name!  They get it from their lifestyle which is similar to our very own Portuguese Man o’ War, although they are much smaller and clearly a lot less famous. Sailors reach about 7 centimetres across and have quite a tough, rigid sail to harness the wind. It’s actually made of chitin, like insect exoskeletons. The sail I mean, not the wind. Like the Man o’ War, individuals have sails that bear either left or right into the wind so that when thousands are washed up on a beach, another few thousand have been sent in the opposite direction. When you have one sail and no oars or boat propeller I suppose something like that is necessary. A 50-50 chance is better than none at all! Surrounding the sail are rings of air filled tubes to provide buoyancy.

Image via Wikipedia

Despite the lovely name and care-free (until you hit the rocks) life style, By-the-wind Sailors are Cnidarians, which means they are meat eating, stinging creatures. In this case the tentacles are short, only about 1 cm long, and hang down below the edge of the disc and into the sea. They feed on tiny plankton of various kinds and seem to be completely harmless to humans, clearly a terrible disaster for their chances of fame. Why are they harmless? Likely because their stinging cells are too short to penetrate our protective skin.

It looks like most people consider By-the-wind Sailors to be made up of hydroid colonies, again, much like the Portuguese Man o’ War. Instead of one, big animal, it’s actually made up of lots of little ones that work together. It looks like others disagree and prefer to see it as something more like a floating, upside down Sea anemone with a sail on its foot. The entire concept of a colony of animals living as one is amazing and a modality us humans should learn from.

Image Wikipedia

Either way, By-the-wind Sailors are all either male or female. When they mate, they first produce thousands of tiny larvae that are free flowing plankton. These are about 3 mm across and are slightly brown because of their friends; inside their bodies are tiny microalgae that can gain energy from the Sun and provide some to their host. They are effectively paying for bed and board, which is nice of them. Eventually, the jellyfish will release sperm or eggs into the water to create new By-the-wind Sailors. It is a pretty odd life cycle, but then Cnidarians are utterly immersed in oddity so we’ll just have to get used to it.

These are rather common finds along the beaches in the late summer and fall. Loads of them get washed up all along the West coast of the US every year and they’ve even done the same in good ol’ Blighty. They look lovely with their rich, blue colours and concentric circles, yet there doesn’t seem to be great deal written about them. Shame. Looks like the Portuguese Man o’ War has stolen all the limelight!

How Do Tornadoes Form?

via Scientific American:

Yesterday the middle of American was hit hard by tornados. Illinois and surrounding states suffered devastating losses. and damage. Tornadoes occur on every continent except Antarctica, but more form over the central US than anywhere else in a zone called Tornado Alley. That's because conditions in the alley are ideal for creating tornadoes.

Warm humid air low on the ground moves north from the Gulf of Mexico and collides with cool dry air high above the ground  rolling in from the Rocky mountains. The collision of air masses creates a supercell, a massive thunderstorm that has a strong rotating updrafted air.

The difference in speed between the faster high winds and the slower low winds causes the air in between to rotate around the horizontal axis. If one end of the rolling air gets caught in the updraft, it's being upwarded into the funnel cloud. Its spin gets tighter and faster and the cloud becomes longer. Rain or hail from the thunderstorm can then push down on the tail of the funnel cloud until it reaches the ground, forming a tornado.

The top wind speed of most tornadoes is usually under 110 miles an hour and most are on the ground for less than 10 minutes. However, extreme tornadoes are truly extreme. The longest tornado path was cut by the tri-state tornado on March 18th 1925. It tore up property for 219 miles and was on the ground for well over 3 hours and killed 747 people. Always respect Mother Nature and the weather, and pay attention to those weather alerts.

It has been a while....

Yes folks, it had been a while.

First a few thing.

1. The blog is officially just over a year old. 

2. Due to circumstances I should have more time to write and focus on it for the short term.

So I do apologize for allowing things to slide for a bit.

Jonathan

How Does Snake Venom (Hemotoxin) Affect You?

WARNING - Not for the faint of heart.

Snake venom is one of the most sophisticated bio-weapon in the natural world. A single drop of cobra venom is enough to kill several men in a few hours. 

There are three different types of snake venom: hemotoxin which affects blood, neurotoxin which affects your nervous system, and cytotoxin which affects your muscles.
To develop antivenom, we need to first understand how venom works.

I recently watched a video that features a Russell's viper, one of the most feared snakes in the world. Its venom is hemotoxic, and the video shows how it affects human blood.

The video shows a wrangler milks the venom, which is then mixed with a glass of blood.

Look at the fangs!

 Within seconds, the blood clots into some form of jelly-ish solid matter.

According to wikipedia,

The coagulant in the venom directly activates factor X, which turns prothrombin intothrombin (that causes coagulation) in the presence of factor V and phospholipid. 

In the dRVVT (dilute Russell's viper venom time) assay, low, rate-limiting concentrations of both Russell's viper venom and phospholipid are used to give a standard clotting time of 23 to 27 seconds.

If diluted Russell's viper venom could induce blood coagulation in 23 seconds, imagine the time needed to clot your blood if you're injected with pure viper venom. 5~6 seconds?

Of course, blood clotting is just one of the many symptoms of viper bite. You would get necrosis (death of cells) near the bite, low blood pressure, vomiting, facial swelling, and kidney failure. Death would soon follow if untreated.

Necrosis from a Rattle Snake bite. Image: rattlesnakebite.org

Even if you do survive the bite, chances are that you would suffer damage to your pituitarygland, a  hormone-secreting gland situated at the base of the brain, causing it to stop secreting the vital homeostasis-regulating hormones, a condition called hypopituitarism.

I now have a new found respect for vipers.



video link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WvnjCkLbvY 

info: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daboia#Venom 
http://www.wisegeek.com/how-does-snake-venom-affect-the-human-body.htm 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemotoxin