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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HTML is obsolete.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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Actually, I wonder if the temperature could change the outcome. Obviously frozen blood would result in a draw, but I wonder if certain people's blood carries an advantage at lower temperatures and vice versa.
- White Blood Cells vs Predator
- Deadliest Warrior: White Blood Cells or Roman Centurion
- Jurassic Fight Club: White Blood Cells vs Stegosaurus
I meant she should label the Petri dishes, but I spoke too quickly. I reread it and she mixed up both cells in the same Petri dish.
Of course she did that. It's quite hard for white blood cells to fight each other if you put each of them in their own petri dish.
White blood cells generally are unable to use ranged weapons to their full effectiveness.
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.
Are you kidding? This is an amazing display of some of biology's most important fields at the moment. Sure it is not doing research but it is approaching science in a novel and fun way. If even one person is inspired by this it is worth the paltry cost (Lets face it the apparatus needed to pull off this display could be bought used from many universities for next to nothing. As far as the needles/test tubes/storage/whatever goes, most people probably spend more on gas getting to the museum) of the exhibit.
People don't knock educational TV for trying to entertain and get people excited about science/math/reading or teachers who try and get their kids excited about a subject by approaching it in an unorthodox way. Why should this be any less valid? Just because it isn't breaking new scientific ground doesn't mean that it is a waste. If it gets people out of the house and interested in something other than cage fighting or whatever the big thing is these days its A+++ in my book.
Is this supposed to be a disguised plot to eventually create a master race of humans? If so, I'm in.
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.
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.
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.
...and he didn't use blood.
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.