Archive for the ‘immunology’ tag
Neutrophil attack
I was going to write a long essay about how web technologies have advanced to the point where science can be shared and discussed and shown in sophisticated ways through the web.
But, rather than bore you with those trivial details, why not just show you.
Before the Web: Read (Science 15 August 2008: Vol. 321. no. 5891, pp. 970 – 974) and its tiny paper figures and hope that you can visualize what’s going on.
After the Web: Read the paper online, Read a blog post on said paper (from science blog Mystery Rays from Outer Space). Watch this video of neutrophils (a type of white blood cell responsible for attacking infection, tagged Green) infiltrating a mouse ear that has just been injected with beads (tagged Blue) and Leishmania major (a bacteria, tagged Red).
4-dimensional image series from the ear pinna of a LYS-eGFP mouse in which blue fluorescent beads and L. major had been deposited adjacent to one another in the skin of the same ear. eGFP-expressing cells are shown in green, L. major-RFP is shown in red, and beads are shown in blue. Playback speed is 1200x. Scale bar, 200?m
Comment on blog post and ask blog author question about how neutrophils are attracted to the beads. Get a response. Make my own blog post about the discovery. Reflect on the impact of the Web on science.