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See How Tough Your Immune System is With "Blood Wars"
Thanks to a new art/science exhibition called "Blood Wars," you can find out whose dad has the toughest immune system once and for all. The brainchild of artist Kathy High, "Blood Wars" pits white blood cells from two different people against each other. From the article: "In order to create the blood duel, High gets a phlebotomist to take blood samples from two different people. She then separates the white blood cells from the rest of the blood and stains them using different colors. They are then placed in a Petri dish and their interactions are filmed under a microscope using time-lapse microscopy. The cellular 'winner' of each round will go onto fight another participant."
This comes as a weird time for me, as I just a month ago got an autoimmune attack in my system. That is when your own system starts attacking itself thinking theres an enemy. It's usually unknown where or why it hits a person, but I probably got it from some food in south east asia. End result - now 1,5 months in hospital and unable to walk. Doctors aren't yet completely sure what it is, but they're thinking it's Guillain-Barré Syndrome. Human blood cells attacking itself is some nasty bug. At least my legs and hands still work little bit so I will be able to recover.
i wonder if you can retrieve the ultimate winner cells (your cells) and it will boost your immune system? where is the database stored so the cells know which foreign cells to go after, is it the white cells itself or a chemical reaction?
It's not a typo if you understood the meaning!
Geeze, what kind of geeks read slashdot these days?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
There can be only one!~
Cheers, Chris
Where do I sign up?
In Chuck Norris virus kicks you.
This is bloody cool!
HTML is obsolete. It's time for a new, simpler and richer markup language.
This brings new meaning to the phrase "killed in cold blood"!
Killed in blood, by blood, for blood.
Homeglobus Maximus with a record of 420 wins, 1 tie and no losses. Honorable mention goes to Dopefried Fiend(disqualified doping), and The Crimson Myoglobin. Woe betide to the fallen, competitors one and all.
I can't agree more - you took essentially what I was going to say. Adding sociopathic killer white blood cells back into the body just sounds bad from every angle.
It doesn't quite work that way, but the answer to your question is that the database is stored in the DNA of immune cells.
Essentially, the newborn cells of the adaptive immune system (B and T-cells) undergo rearrangements of their DNA to produce a incredibly wide variety of receptors.
Then, they go through a selection process - if they react strongly with self, they die (negative selection). After a few more maturation and selection steps, the surviving immune cells are sent throughout the body.
If one of them later binds strongly to something (which is presumably foreign) in the right context, they activate. They trigger an immune response and proliferate. A subset of these daughter cells become essentially immortal - outlasting the immune response they fought in, but ready to quickly mobilize should that foreign substance be encountered again.
So, the memory cells are the hardware, but the rearranged antigen receptor gene they harbor is the information they need to work.
"She (the artist) then separates the white blood cells from the rest of the blood and stains them using different colors."
Shouldn't she stain them using the same color? (And label them A and B, or something like that, to identify them). Otherwise she will not know whether the different colors had an impact on the "strength" of the cells.
If she were using turmeric to color the cells for example...it is known that turmeric has certain anti inflammatory properties. Not that she would use turmeric, but still.
This may be science, but it's sure not art *I* like.
~creepy~
I don't mean drug violence or even that one South Park episode, but really this is a great conceptual way to represent aspects of the body in ways people clearly understand. The hazards of obesity, smoking, etc. compared to baseline or especially an above-average person seem to me a clearer way to visualize this versus any shock-factor "shriveled prune" organ approach.
who would win against Keith Richards?
crap slideshow with what you read above for content and some grotesque art displays that do nothing but waste scientific material
rated B- crap
Back in the long ago I rented a Commodore PET for a week. It had a game called LifeWar. Each player would draw blobs of bacteria on the screen, and then you'd press a button and the blobs would grow, and change. Eventually, one would consume the other. At the time, I didn't understand what it was all about, but looking back now, it was probably a variant of Conway's game of life with some additional rules for encounters with other strains of cells. If I were to play it now, I could use gliders, and with a bit of research, a glider gun.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Is probably the child of this creature.
Spectators were amazed by the unusually large amounts of blood.
.
I'm pretty sure folks will line up to do this, but why would anyone care if one blood strain is tougher than another? I'm not so sure of the upside... Unless there is research money doled out to the participants. Then indeed it is game on.
The "winner" would depend on other factors other than immune system strengh. such as quality of draw and overall age of the white cells. Additionally, the anticoagulant used can affect each persons cells differently. The white cells of some people are more fragile than others in EDTA (the anticoagulant used) and create "smudge cells" on smears. While this is sometimes pathogenic, it can also just be their cells.
- White Blood Cells vs Predator
- Deadliest Warrior: White Blood Cells or Roman Centurion
- Jurassic Fight Club: White Blood Cells vs Stegosaurus
Mines shit. I know that already.
I have Leukaemia and I'm in the middle of Chemo.
winner gets to reproduce?
Then women should find the winner of this very very attractive. I'm in.
I'll mail an envelope full of blood right away.
Is this supposed to be a disguised plot to eventually create a master race of humans? If so, I'm in.
Cockfighting my own blood? Put me down!
What happens here if you get into a paper, scissors, rock situation? This is perfectly possible, yet the algorithm for determining a winner doesn't seem to allow for this possibility. Presumably you just end up in an infinite loop, while the participants end up getting progressively sucked dry with every round. Having said that, this would really mean they are all losers as their immune system failed to anticipate this threat and failed to save the participant as a result.
43 - For those who require slightly more than the answer to life, the universe and everything.
That tiny single cell that cant do anything by itself has the potential to become a human being!!!
you sign over all your genomic rights to the company.
I visited this exhibition last night.
Interesting stuff, and much more fascinating than repellent. Full marks to the Trinity College students who take you through each exhibit - their enthusiasm added a lot to the experience, particularly for one grounded in engineering rather than life sciences. One of the more interesting pieces was related to the piezoelectric properties of bone. The artist had taken cow bones and turned them into (rather inefficient) speakers.
Hearing "Old MacDonald had a Bone" played from a cow's femur was an, ahem, unique experience.
Please insert coin to continue:
5...
4...
3...
Two blood samples enter; one bloody sample leaves!
Separating out the white blood cells and making them fight against each other... geez, what's wrong with these people?!?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
the daughters became immortal - outlasting the the battle they fought in, but ready to quickly mobilize should that enemy be encountered again.
...and guess what happens in the movie.
Would this become illegal if people ever formed a PETC? I mean, its a fight to the death.
Now this is cool. I can absolutely see a realty show developing. The whole world can face off in the ultimate duel.
...and he didn't use blood.
This is stupid, and has nothing to do with real science...
You're a crank. Using the term "allopathic" marks you out as such. If the crap you're talking about worked it would be part of 'allopathy'.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.