In honor of yesterday's 'Audacity of Hops' - where President Obama met with Henry Louis Gates Jr. and police Sergeant James Crowley over a 'cold one' to discuss Gates' recent arrest - I thought I would mention a beer created by a scientist from some rather unique yeast. 

As you may know, beer is made when yeast cells ferment grain to produce the frothy, flavorful drink that goes so well with pizza.  Raul Cano, a microbiologist at California Polytechnic State University, had the idea to make beer out of some pretty special yeast he'd been studying.  What was so unusual about said yeast?  Cano extracted the yeast from a 45-million-year-old fossil. 

Just like in the film Jurassic Park, the fossil was entombed in amber. Unlike in Jurassic Park, we know we can't resurrect dinosaurs from ancient creatures stuck in amber, but Cano thought maybe he could start a little smaller and bring back to life the single-celled yeast microbes he found inside.  Amazingly it worked!  And since he couldn't think of anything else to do with the ancient yeast (which just so happened to be the same type used by brewers) Cano decided to make beer with it.

The ancient brew wasn't half bad - Cano even sent some to the Jurassic Park 2 cast party.  Want to try some?  You can soon - it will be sold starting this fall in California under the label 'Fossil Fuels Brewing Company.'   

On a personal note, as a former microbiology major, I have some heavy respect for yeast and the lovely amber fluid they create.  And I must admit, seeing that possible career choices in my field of study included working at a brewery went a long way in helping me choose my major.  Perhaps I should have studied paleontology as well - who knew fossils would play a role alongside microbiology in brewing! 

It was just like Romeo and Juliet.

But with cockroaches. In the bathroom. And I was the one keeping them apart.

Have I mentioned how glad I am that WGBH's offices are directly across the street from a national coffee-and-donuts chain? Or how sipping icy, sugary coffee through a neon-orange straw at 3pm on a Tuesday makes my climate-controlled, gray-walled cubicle feel all bright and summery?

If My Little Ponies and Care Bears got together to run an experiment, they just might come up with something like this: A test to see whether babies can understand what dogs are feeling.And because you read the whole post, here is your treat, courtesy of the My Little Ponies and the Care Bears:

Who knew it was so hard to name an element in the periodic table?  But that's what happened with the ultra heavy element formerly known as ununbium (number 112 on the table).  Sigurd Hofmann's team at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt, Germany, were the first to make the element back in 1996.  Tradition has it that the creator can propose a name.  But it's up to the official chemical naming organization, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) to finalize that name. 

The German team proposed the name 'copernicium' - after the famous astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus who discovered the earth orbits the sun.  IUPAC only recently acknowledged the element and the group is still in the midst of evaluating the proposed name 'copernicium.'  According to their naming standards, it is acceptable to name an element after:
• a mythological concept or character (including an astronomical object);
• a mineral, or similar substance;
• a place or geographical region;
• a property of the element; or
• a scientist.

It seems like scientists are a popular choice.  Hofmann's team has named a number of other elements, including element 107 - Bohrium, after Niels Bohr (for more on Bohr, check out The Elegant Universe) and number 109 - Meitnerium, Lise Meitner (learn more about her in Einstein's Big Idea).  I say Copernicus is bound to be next.

I always find it interesting when a drug meant for one thing - say cancer - ends up helping a whole other disease - say, a rare neurological disorder.  This is precisely what happened to Edith Garrett, featured in this Boston Globe article.  19-year-old Garrett suffers from a disorder called neurofibromatosis, a rare genetic condition that causes benign tumors to grow in the brain.  The tumors cause everything from facial paralysis to lost hearing - both of which Garrett suffers from.  Recently Garrett started on Avastin, a class of cancer drug called an angiogenesis inhibitor - meaning it blocks blood vessel growth to the tumor, effectively starving it.  The drug is showing a lot of success in the patients using it - six of seven people taking it have regained their hearing - Garrett is one of them.

Credit: WGBH Educational Foundation

Angiogenesis in cancer was first discovered by famed cancer researcher Judah Folkman - who recently passed away.  NOVA scienceNOW paid tribute to the great  man and describes where his work on angiogenesis has taken us.  Check out the segment here.   And for the complete story of Folkman's rise to fame, check out our hour-long special, Cancer Warrior.

If you ever wake up to find something dark and fluttery flying around your bedroom--