Fascinating Fact Fridays

Most eukaryotic organisms have protective caps at the end of their chromosomes called telomeres. Telomeres gradually wear down and shorten over time as the cells in your body divide, leading to the aging process and eventual cell 💀. So it stands to reason that the longer your chromosome’s telomeres are, the longer your cells can divide before they start aging, leading to a longer lifespan right? WRONG! (How embarrassing if you actually thought that…). Mice have much longer telomeres than humans do, so why do they have such relatively short lifespans? It may surprise you to hear that even though mice only live about 2-3 years, they rarely ever die from old age. There are two main factors that contribute to this. Mice are prey animals so their lives are often tragically cut short due to being delicious to most predators. But even pet or lab mice don’t tend to live too much longer than their wild counterparts, which leads us to the second factor. While longer telomeres do allow cells to ...

Hedy Lamarr was not only a Hollywood icon–very much the Marilyn Monroe of her generation–she was also a brilliant inventor. During WWII, Hedy and composer George Antheil took inspiration from player pianos to develop frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology. What is that you may ask? Well of course I’ll tell you! At the time, German U-boats were wreaking havoc in the Atlantic, sinking Allied ships with deadly efficiency. Torpedoes were guided using radio signals, but there was a major flaw—enemy forces could jam those signals, throwing torpedoes off course. Hedy, horrified by the destruction and wanting to aid the war effort, devised a solution: if the signal constantly "hopped" between frequencies in a coordinated pattern, it would be nearly impossible for the enemy to intercept or block. The U.S. Navy initially dismissed the idea, shelving it for years. But decades later, her technology became the foundation for Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth. Despite her groundbreaking inve...

  Mankind's ambition has long extended past our own solar system, envisioning voyages to the farthest reaches of the cosmos. Stories of interstellar exploration have filled the pages of science fiction, with humanity embarking on thousand-year journeys, all made possible by a single, tantalizing concept: cryostasis. The idea of placing humans in a state of suspended animation—essentially hitting pause on life itself—has captivated dreamers, scientists, and storytellers alike. Yet, despite our technological advances, cryostasis remains confined to the realm of fiction. Human physiology is stubbornly resistant to the freezing process, with ice crystals threatening to destroy our cells and tissues long before any spaceship could reach its destination. The challenge is immense, and the solution seems just out of reach. But that may one day change, thanks to an unlikely amphibian phenomenon. In the frozen forests of North America, a small, unassuming creature has already mastered what w...