Kersey Sturdivant

Fun Science FRIEDay – One microbial trash is another’s microbial treasure!

Posted on August 1, 2014 by Kersey Sturdivant

Happy FSF!

You know that old saying, the one that explains how something devalued by one person is of the utmost value to another.

Well this week we bring you an analogy of that quote in nature, and in the form of microbes.

Leishmaniasis… have you heard of it? If not, do not worry, I had not either before I began writing this piece, and subsequently almost gagged while googling “appropriate” photos to accompany this piece. Leishmaniasis is a disease caused by the protozoan parasite Leishmana. The vector that spreads this wonderful treasure? Sand flies. If you are unfortunate enough to get this disease it can turn your skin into all manner of foul lookingness. See Exhibit A.

Exhibit A

Skin ulcer on the hand due to leishmaniasis. (Photo credit: CDC Dr. S. Martin)

Fun Science FRIEDay – All About the Benjamins Baby!

Posted on July 25, 2014 by Kersey Sturdivant

To quote the Notorious BIG, “It’s all about the Benjamins, BABY!”

That quote unfortunately holds true in many walks of life, and is especially applicable to this weeks FSF where Dr. Costanza, from Australian National University, and a number of colleagues puts a price tag on the world’s natural environment. Some of you are probably thinking, “Dude, that’s old news!” In summary, yes, this is old news.. sorta.

(Photo credit: dreamstime.com)

Fun Science FRIEDay – Fasting Fights Cancer?

Posted on July 18, 2014 by Kersey Sturdivant

Happy Fun Science FRIEDay to everyone. FSF is back and with a new name!

After a brief hiatus to sort out some legal issues regarding the title of FSF, and a trip to the World Cup, I am hopefully back into the swing of providing you with mostly weekly, fun, and interesting science facts!

Up this week is cancer, and what we as a species are doing to kick its ass! … along w/ the involuntary help of the Mus musculus species.

Relatively recent work by Dr. Longo, of the University of Southern California, and his colleagues, has shown that a simple dietary adjustment may help combat the negative influence of chemotherapy and age on immune cell function! In short, their findings suggest that fasting, yes you heard right, FASTING, may provide benefits for cancer patients and the elderly by replenishing stem cells in the blood.

Conceptualization of the influence prolonged fasting has to promote stem cell regeneration and reverse immunosuppression. (Photo credit: Cheng et al. 2014)

Fun Science Friday – First Female Penis

Posted on April 18, 2014 by Kersey Sturdivant

Happy Fun Science Friday.

You did not mistakenly read the title, today we bring you the discovery of the first female penis in the animal kingdom.

Mating insects of the genus Neotrogla.
Photo Credit: Current Biology / Yoshizawa et al.

Yoshizawa, from Hokkaido University in Japan, and his team of researchers documented this phenomenon of sexual role reversal in 4 species of rather unassuming insects in Brazil’s Peruaçu River Valley. When insects of the genus Neotrogla mate, the female mounts the male and penetrates his vagina-like opening with her penis.

Fun Science Friday – “Trolls Just Wanna Have Fun”

Posted on March 14, 2014 by Kersey Sturdivant

I have to admit, I love this title, but cannot claim it as my own. It is the title of the research paper that forms the basis for today’s FSF, internet trolling.

They see me Trollin.
Photo Credit: NineFiveZero

Anyone who has ever spent remotely anytime reading the comments section of pretty much anywhere on the internet has likely observed a Troll (why some of you reading may even have engaged in Troll-like behavior). While these Trolls do not physically hide under bridges and/or steal sheep, their actions parallel many of the annoyances of their fairy tale counterparts. As defined by wikipedia, an Internet Troll “is a person who sows discord on the Internet… with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.”

Southern Fried Science Has A NEW Header Image

Posted on March 14, 2014 by Kersey Sturdivant

At least for a month.

Roughly every month your beloved Southern Fried Science rotates the main header image for its site. The idea behind this format, is that it freshens up the site’s homepage, but also gives our readers the opportunity to have their pictures featured on the site.

This month’s header image was provided by me, and was captured with Wormcam. The image displays a mud crab in it’s burrow near the mouth of the York River, a tributary of Chesapeake Bay, under the Coleman Bridge (a bit of specifics for those familiar with the area).

I love this image for so many reasons. 1) The image is just plain cool. Aesthetically it is one of the better images we have captured with Wormcam. But I also love this image because 2) it represents scientific progress. Studying the subsurface of soft-sediments is notoriously difficult given the opaqueness of sediment. Studying subsurface sediment processes, continually, over long periods of time is even more difficult given the corrosive nature of sediment redox reactions. Wormcam provides us the ability for long-term observation of subsurface sediment processes, and in the process captures never before seen behaviors, interactions, and dynamism of the structural complexity cryptically hidden below the sediment surface of marine systems.

This image captures a mud crab in it’s burrow, but is apart of a larger series of images that displays the behavior and actions of this buried crab in response to erosion and accretion events, co-occupancy of the burrow by other organisms, predatory digging around the mouth of the burrow, and even the intrusion of a clam siphon from below into the burrow.

Ain’t Science Cool!

Submit potential header images to have your own work featured on the homepage, and possibly even share your store about the image!

Fun Science Friday – Using the Force to Detect Cancer…. Sorta

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Kersey Sturdivant

One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish! What does that have to do with this week’s Southern Fried Science…. nothing! But that quote always makes me laugh.

This week we bring you another crazy break through in science that involves fruit flies and cancer. No, fruit flies do not cause cancer… that we know of. I am probably a little late on this, but the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, is the newest weapon in the fight against cancer. Yes you heard that right, man has turned one of the more annoying creatures into something useful! Useful for humans that is. 😉

Side view of a a 0.1 x 0.03 inch (2.5 x 0.8 mm) small male fruit fly.
Credit: André Karwath

Fun Science Friday – My Heart Will Go On

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Kersey Sturdivant

Valentine’s Day is generally filled with love, flowers, and lots and lots of anatomically incorrect hearts. See —> <3 This week on FSF we revel in the spirit of VDay and bring you hearts, but the appropriately shaped kind.

For years, in order to transplant a heart or a lung, there is a narrow window between the death of the donor and the surgical input of the recipient. How narrow, about 5 to 10 hours! Yes, basically doctors have 5 -10 hours to surgically remove the heart from a donor, transport it to the recipient, and surgically implant it. Crazy! The Doctors are battling the period of time it takes for a heart or lung to stop beating once senescence of a person’s body is achieved.

Fun Science Friday – Mars One

Posted on January 17, 2014 by Kersey Sturdivant

Theoretical schematic of the Mars One habitat,
Photo Credit: Mars One

Maybe you have heard about it, or maybe you haven’t, but Man… Man is headed to Mars! …. or at least Man is going to try!

In recent years space expeditions have shifted focus towards reaching the red planet. Of the different campaigns to travel to Mars, Mars One has probably gotten the most press recently. As stated on their site, Mars One’s goal is to establish a permanent human settlement on Mars. Crews of four will depart every two years, starting in 2024, with a first unmanned mission in 2018.

For good or bad, Mars One is taking the Colonialism Era approach. Send out explorers without the guarantee of return and see what happens. And despite the obvious one-way ticket approach of their endeavor, there are an abundant source of participants ready to step up for this, literally and figuratively, ‘once in a lifetime’ opportunity. Mars One had over 200,000 applicants, and recently whittled that field down to a little over a thousand. Over the next few years these individuals will undergo training that should in theory prepare them for one of the most daunting missions mankind has ever undertaken.

Fun Science Friday – BP Oil Spill Impacts Dolphins

Posted on January 3, 2014 by Kersey Sturdivant

Happy Fun Science Friday!

Though this post does not present such a happy story, given the recent discussion about dolphin photobombing, this week’s FSF is topically related. In the spring of 2010 the Deepwater Horizon oil rig experienced catastrophic failure resulting in the worst oil spill in human history. The Gulf of Mexico (GoM) was the unfortunate host of this catastrophe and the GoM community is still feeling the ecological, social, and economic consequences of this disaster.

Pod of bottlenose dolphins swimming underneath oily water of Chandeleur Sound, La., May 6, 2010.
Photo Credit: Alex Brandon/AP

One such impact that received little TV coverage during the spill was the uncharacteristic spike in dolphin deaths. A few months following the BP spill there was an unprecedented spike in dead dolphins washing ashore along the Gulf Coast; 67 dead dolphins by February of 2011, with more than half (35) of the dead dolphins being calves. This is in stark contrast to years preceding the spill when one or two dead dolphins per year were normally documented to wash ashore. Despite the spike in dolphin deaths, there was no definitive evidence linking the dead cetaceans to the oil spill as a number of other factors could have been responsible for the deaths, including infectious disease or the abnormally cold winter proceeding the spill.

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Author: Kersey Sturdivant