Random Science - Chocolate plant!

Hello again!

Let’s get going to another random science fact, and can this one be considered delicious? Let’s see!

Chocolate is a crowd pleaser… Almost everybody loves, and almost everybody craves for a tiny piece of it. It can be flavoured, sweet, stuffed with other delicious things, but the smell of chocolate is probably more delicious than the flavour itself!

But there is a unique plant with a name almost as delicious as its smells: chocolate cosmos. If that was the name of an actual chocolate bar, it would probably sell by the hundreds.

The plant is pretty rare, being in the top 10 rarest flowers in the world. The petals are dark like chocolate, and its fragrance is just like a piece of dark chocolate.

There is not much information about why or how this plant evolved to smell like chocolate or if it’s just a coincidence. But that got us thinking; how and why do flowers smell?

Flowers usually have a strong odour, so their pollinators can recognize them and help them to reproduce. The scent also changes accordingly to their pollinator; Sweet-scented flowers tend to be pollinated by bees and flies, while muddy or musty and spicy-smelling flowers are usually pollinated by beetles.

Flowers will smell the strongest when they are entirely ready for pollination, and that moment is typically synchronized with when the pollinators are most active in nature.

The time of the day also plays a part in how strong a flower smells. Flowers that smell during the day are pollinated by butterflies, bees, or flies. Flowers with the most pungent smell at night are usually pollinated by moths, bats, or other nocturnal pollinators. 

When we read this kind of things we are reminded how Nature is actually quite perfect!

This week in science - Week of 18 October 2021

Hey everyone! Weeks are flying by... Anyone out there counting the days before Halloween?

Here at g4g, the days are never dull! We are always looking for some great news and things to do and to read. When I had the idea to make some blog posts about science news, I didn't know that things were so busy. I mean, I knew that in STEM, things are happening all the time but oh my! I wish I had the time to write about all the fantastic things that happened in the last few days.

This week we have the cuteness of otters and brain fingerprints. Curious? Keep on reading!

1 – Sea otter populations helping increase eelgrass genetic diversity

Everyone loves sea otters, right? They are cute, and they hug each other. I am sure I am not the only one who can spend hours watching them doing their thing. But they're not only cute, but they are also helping biodiversity! More precisely, eelgrass diversity.

A team of researchers from the US and Canada found out that eelgrass meadows' genetic diversity increases if the sea otters live there.

The sea otter's population has been through a lot. The western coast of North America was once filled with sea otters, but hunters drove them to almost extinction. It took a lot of effort from the environmentalists to increase their number.

Eelgrass meadows grow near the shore, and these meadows are home to many sea creatures, including clams, that serve as food for sea otters. Otter's love clams. So, they swim to the bottom, search for them using their whiskers, dig them up and eat them. But what researchers found out is that this digging on eelgrass is actually helping increase its genetic diversity. This is happening because the disturbances caused by the otters can make the eelgrass more resilient in this changing environment. The disruption stimulates the eelgrass to reproduce, resulting in increased diversity.

2- A new and improved microscopy technique

Microscopy is one of the most valuable tools that we have in STEM. Throughout the history of sciences, the techniques improved to make researchers' lives easier when observing structures and help them getting faster results.

And breaking news, the researchers at the Bio design Center for Applied Structural Discovery (CASD) and the ASU's School of Molecular Sciences just refined a technique known as cryogenic electron microscopy. This technique allows scientists to see the structure of proteins or nucleic acids. It is even possible to see how these structures move and change!

How? Samples that will be observed need to be frozen with cryogen techniques. The microscope then uses a beam of electrons to make thousands of 2D images, and a powerful computer puts all these images together to create a 3D image. This technique can help scientists to observe the protein structure (and particularly their changing tridimensional for) that they normally can't see in conventional modeling. Proteins are essential for the pharmaceutical industry, medicine, or biology.

3 – Dogs showed behavior that resembles ADHD and could help us study it

Since today is all about cuteness, let’s talk about our four-legged-loyal friends that we love so much: Our friends, the dogs.

Research from the University of Helsinky studied around 11,000 dogs and showed that breed, age, and gender of a dog and environmental factors or behavior problems are all connected to Hyperactive and Impulsive Behavior and Inattention (ADHD).

The study showed similarities between canine hyperactivity, impulsivity, and inattention, and human ADHD.  Dogs already share a lot of traits with us, and the ADHD-like behavior which naturally occurs in canines, make dogs a good model for researching ADHD in humans. Like for humans the age and gender cof the subjects seemed to be relevant; the hyperactivity, impulsivity, and inattention behavior were common in young and male dogs.

The owners and environment also have an influence. Dogs that spent too much time alone are more hyperactive, impulsive, and inattentive. Dogs are social animals and can get stressed out when they spend too much time alone. The different behavior was also seen in different breeds, which can indicate a genetic factor for this behavior. ADHD is often associated with other mental disorders, like OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder). In dogs, we can see that kind of behavior in things such as tail chasing, licking of surfaces and themselves, or staring at nothing.

4 – The "kisses" between prairie dogs

Okay, I plead guily… I think this is the cutest weekly science news I've ever seen! Prairie dogs are unique and intelligent creatures. They have social structures and a unique language of their own (and they even have dialects!).

A professor of conservation biology in the School of Natural Resources and the Environment has been studying these little guys for almost 20 years, and his findings are mesmerizing.

The researcher observed the behavior of these animals, and he particularly learned their speech patterns and observed that they do a lot of "greet kissing" (Pause to say a big "aaawwweee"). Their kissing means connection. Animals that kiss each other and don't fight are usually in the same group and territory.  The more times the animals' kisses, the stronger the connection goes. This is a highly complex social networking; even though the prairie dogs don't work in a hierarchic system, not everyone is kissed equally. Studies like these have been used to help ecologists understand social networking among the species and communities and how they behave according to the environment around them.

Pretty impressive, right? Nature fascinates me and makes me wonder what the scientists will find out next!

Thanks for reading and see you next week!

This week in science - Week of 11 October 2021

This last week in science was fascinating. As I was reading through all my science newsletters, I decided to compile some of my favourite ones and put them in a weekly blog. Buckle up for some science fun!

Bees used for mental health therapy?

The first article that made me go "yay!" was an article about bees. I have a soft spot for them. A big soft spot. I don't think there is even a word for how unique and necessary bees are, and yes, I am talking about all bees, not just the honey ones!

There is an apiary in Philadelphia called Half Mad Honey that uses apiary therapy to help people struggling with their mental state. They practice mindfulness and stress tolerance in 90-minute sessions. Like any other animal therapy, they are helping people to reach a better state of mind and have a better life quality.

They put the participant in a situation that can be stressful and teach them how to recognize their emotions, cope with them, control them, and how they can apply that to their daily lives. The therapist asks them to relax while in session (using their beekeeping suits, of course). They use breathing, talking calmly, and self-awareness of their bodies to see if they have any tension or any pain. Their goal is to bring down that alarming feeling triggered by a stressful situation (in this case, the bees). They have to sit still, breathe, relax, and be mindful of their surroundings to have control of their behaviors. During this process, they will watch the bees work, try to identify the queen, and sometimes even eat some honey straight from the comb.

I think that is amazing, and it is not the first time that bees have been used for therapy. Maybe I will get back to that one another day cause we have more to talk about!

New eco-friendly way of separate rare earth elements.

 There is a group of elements called Rare Earth Elements (REE's) that are essential to our everyday lives. They are used for electronics such as smartphones, DVD players, laptops, hybrid cars, and national defense. The problem with those elements is that the current extraction methods rely on strong chemicals, are laborious, produce a large amount of waste, and have an extremely high cost, which is not good for the environment and can also elevate the final price product.

But this new method can change all of that. First, it will change the source of these materials. Typically, these materials are not extracted from sources called "low grade," which means that they could not be extracted from industrial waste or electronic waste because it was too mixed with other materials. The new method will use a bacteria called Lanmodulin when they will isolate a protein from it, and this protein can do a better job at separating the REE's. This protein can be used in many cycles, and it can be an excellent alternative to the harsh extraction methods used today.

How are exercise, your gut, and Parkinson's disease, related?

Parkinson's disease is a disorder of the nervous system that affects an individual's motor skills. Some scientists were exploring the relationship between the brain and the guts of an affected person because, other than the already known symptoms, patients can also suffer from gastrointestinal symptoms. The study shows that the patient can experience these gastrointestinal symptoms because the gut microbiome is not working as it should, so the scientists wondered: Can exercise also help with the other symptoms?

Scientists still have a long way to go since they don't have enough data yet, and they have many questions to answer. But for now, it is fascinating thinking that you can exercise to help your guts to help your brain!

Birds are learning how to recognize plants where dangerous insects live in.

Birds are fascinating and brilliant creatures. When they learned that insects with a specific vibrant coloration could be toxic and harmful to them, they started to avoid other animals with the same coloration. But a study from the University of Bristol has shown that they not only learned that, but they also were capable of recognizing the plants that these dangerous insects live on and started to avoid those plants too.

The scientists made artificial cinnabar caterpillars with this unique warning pigmentation and fake caterpillars that don't have the pigmentation (meaning they were not harmful). They placed them in two types of plants; a toxic (ragwort) and a non-toxic (bramble). Both "fake-caterpillars" survived better on the ragwort, which means that the birds were targeting the insects in the bramble plant and leaving the toxic plant alone.

The cinnabar caterpillars live on the ragwort plant, and this plant already has some unique yellow flowers, so the birds learned not only to avoid the harmful insects, but also to avoid the plant because it will probably contain the toxic caterpillars. The study also showed that the camouflaged caterpillars on those plants would also benefit, even if they were OK to eat because the birds would just avoid the whole plant.

That is so amazing. Nature always finds a way to make me go "wow." It's incredible to see how the birds just learned this feature for their survival.

That's is it for this week. See you next week!

Jessika Lisboa 

This week in science: Introduction post, by Jessika Lisboa

STEM is constantly changing, and that’s definitely part of its beauty! Science is dynamic and always adjusts to the needs of the world.

What do I mean by that? If you look through the world's natural history, you will see that people would create and rethink their way of life according to what was happening around them. It happened since the beginning of the Earth when the living things on Earth needed to adapt and change to survive. Of course, we continue to witness this in present days, with the Covid-19 pandemic and the creation of a vaccine to attend to the needs of the human population.

So of course, there is A LOT happening in science every day. With that in mind, I decided to bring a weekly short but fun blog post here, on the g4g blog, with some of the news from the week that caught my attention. It will be my new ambassador/social media coordinator project! And who am I? Hi, I am Jessika, a g4g Ambassador and the Social Media Coordinator at g4g.

But let's end the small talk and go to what matters: the science around us! See you tomorrow for our first ‘This week in science’!

Jessika

Nourishing a passion for STEM with 800+ students from India to Australia to the US!

Tell us, what’s your word?

Every year we set an intention as a team. And when September hits, we always feel energized with the back-to-school spirit in the air, and the sense of revival keeping us on our toes. For our team at greenlight for girls, our word has been REFRESH and we are intent on flipping our ideas on their heads to see what new and exploratory STEM discovery we can offer to make a difference in the lives of the girls we reach. And we have been quite literally flipping things on their heads... just look at our experiment with Tensegrity structures where we use independent pieces to create a strong structure able to (seemingly) defy gravity!

And when we have our feet firmly on the ground these past few months, we’ve had the pleasure of hosting many different events across the world reaching even more girls in STEM. Over the summer, NOURISH was one such descriptive word that took us all the way to Canberra, Australia where we had a broadcast episode with student researcher, Arabella, recent graduate, Alexandra, and Cyber Ready Officer and science communicator, Thanuri. It was incredible to have 50 girls live with us in celebration of National Science Week like 12-year-old Phoebe, who was particularly inspired by food nutrition. She loved asking the speakers questions like: what do you want to learn and do next? And if you could do anything else in the world, what would it be?

Another key word this summer was IMPACT and it took us all around the United States! Throughout June, July, and August, we worked with CDK Global for the second year in a row where we launched an internship program, this time for nearly 140 interns across the country. Their challenge this year was to become educators, innovators, or mentors to share their expertise with the next generation to inspire them in the STEM that CDK Global uses every day. Their ideas and solutions were incredible! Some of them explored the science of procrastination and how project management tools like Jira can help while others looks at linked lists and coding practices. One of our favourites was how one group related software management and cooperation with homemade rubber band cars!

Our word was GROWTH in the UK, as we welcomed Svaha CEO, Jaya, Senior Lecturer, Annabel, AIG Risk Manager, Rachel, and AIG engineering professional, Valerie, as speakers on our broadcast over the summer. We loved how Valerie explained that her passion for working in insurance enabled her to work on varied subjects, like climate change, risk, oil and more! Or when Jaya explained how, when facing gender stereotype in the apparel industry, she decided to set-up her own company. Or when Annabel explained how she caught the A.I. bug because she wanted to show her daughter that there is no age to change career paths. Or when Rachel shared her words about not being deterred by challenges and issues, and encouraged us to go out of our comfort zone! We were thrilled to have such open and exciting conversation and to have inspired over 260 views of our broadcast after it aired.

Then, of course, POSSIBILITIES was our word in India, when we heard from Covestro’s Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) Sucheta, Oral Medicine and Maxillofacial Radiology doctor, Sunali, and STEM educator, Veena, on our broadcast episode. This was a special episode where we worked with schools in India to stream our broadcast live during their class time. Over 200 curious girls joined us live which was incredible to see! They had fun asking questions, playing with the annotation feature, and reminding everyone of the importance of encouraging girls in STEM.

We also had the chance to take part in a few in-person events that could only be described as FUN! We went to one of the local schools in Belgium to bring chemistry alive by making bath-bombs and polymer worms, as well as other experiments on physics and chromatography with over 120 young girls and boys. Then, we jumped over to an American Football game where we got to share the fun in STEM with girls and boys at a g4g stand.

And what else? Well, looking ahead, we feel JUBILANT to extend our g4g Scholarship programme even more. In rural Rajasthan, we have opened a new computer centre with the aim to help girls use computers and the power of the internet to enhance their learning and have access to online resources. We hope these initiatives will contribute towards their growth to be change agents and role models to others. We are also getting ready to launch secret worlds as part of our g4g Lab with our partners… curious? Well, stay tuned to see what all the fuss is about!

Inventions of the Future and a Virtual Impact of 2,300+

Shhhh… don’t tell anyone but our sustainable innovators are cooking up some incredible inventions of the future near you!! If you glance over at one of our schools from the United States, you may see a prototype being built of an “Automatic Service Teacher” robot invention that helps humans on the autism spectrum. This robot has the potential to alert teachers when a student is feeling anxious or help to make the student feel safer. If you look closer, you may see that it could use various tools like heart monitors/glasses, sensory environment applications, and... it even runs on solar power. But wait! If you jump over to Belgium, you may see a school who is combining waste recycling with equality and human rights. If you peek through the window, you could see that they are designing an entire ecosystem within their classroom with a QR code parcours to help motivate users to be more sustainable and more inclusive. These are some of the thoughtful ways girls aged 11-15 are making their classroom a sustainable place of the future within our Passport to STEM Programme in partnership with the US Embassy in Belgium. Over these past few months, we’ve been thrilled to guide 100 girls from 12 schools across Belgium and the United States through the design process so they can realise their invention. They have had a chance to virtually meet with mentors from diverse backgrounds to get feedback and next month, a few of the schools will be recognized as leaders in STEM, sustainability, and inclusion! We can't help but mention one of our favourite feedbacks from the girls: "I am loving this program and have so much fun imagining and creating new inventions and forms to help people all around the world. I am so grateful to be involved in the program and think it's awesome." Yeah!

What else have we been up to these past few months?

Look into our atelier office and, in true g4g style, you would polymer worms being created, crystals being formed, and solar cars whizzing by. Our team has been rocketing into space, diving deep into the ocean, racing around tracks, and finding out how to make everyday life more of an adventure! We launched a broadcast episode on just this theme – Adventure – with our partner AIG as we heard from beSPACE personality, Sarah; McLaren engineer, Sian; financial adviser, Holly; coastal ecosystem scientist, Claudia; and STEM adventurer, Julie. We love the advice that was passed on from Sian especially: “I fully believe that just because you make a choice and go in one direction, it doesn’t mean you can’t go back another direction and choose another door later on. STEM is incredibly diverse: I went from medical to race cars!” With over 400 views of our broadcast – and an adventurous experiment with crystals that shined and polymer worms that were indeed slimy – we believe that this message was well received!

And from adventure, we grew into our next broadcast theme, Renewal, which specifically benefited over 100 girls in Ireland and around the world thanks to our wonderful partners Riot Games and GlobalGiving. During this episode, speakers shared what it meant to renew their own personal and professional purpose, described how science is constantly renewing itself with innovation in research, and discussed how renewable energy can make the future a brighter place. We loved the diversity our speakers brought to the table including Fiona, who spent 20 years in the field of science research and earned her PhD in molecular genetics from Trinity College Dublin; Catriona, a young role model who changed from chemistry to political science and is currently in her last year at Trinity College Dublin; and Mary, an Ireland-based technology entrepreneur and serial angel investor who is one of Said Business School's (University of Oxford) Entrepreneurship Experts. We also showcased a hands-on experiment which featured the building of a solar-powered car and a solar-powered light. Oh la lumière!

We have also been busy behind-the-scenes working to bring our g4g Lab to life, a community platform of unique experiential learning that provides even more girls around the world with g4g activities, g4g fun, and g4g inspiration. We want the communities we serve to be able to actively experience STEM outside of the classroom, have fun thinking about STEM in new ways, and get a chance to meet STEM professionals as often as they want. Although we will be focused on module learning these next months ahead, we are also excited to be working again with CDK, a technology company, to welcome a cohort of 140 CDK interns as part of our STEM Challenge Internship programme. Don't forget to be on the lookout for broadcast episodes with Covestro role models and global hackathons with Solvay! There even may be a chance to gather together in a new way soon… but shhhh, don’t tell anyone just yet!

To all of our donors, we are deeply appreciative of your support and generosity which keeps our programming for women and girls flourishing. We hope that you see the deep impact that you have had – over 2,300 people have engaged with our broadcasts since we have started… what a result! The content and engagement with STEM role models that we are able to share are the inspiration for the next generation, and it is your belief in our mission that fuels our creativity and innovation for all that we do. We thank you and can’t wait to share more with you soon!

Wishing you STEM invention and innovation ahead,

The g4g team