Peeps Show Cancelled
In a previous post, I mentioned that I would image some peeps with Computed Tomography (CT), http://goo.gl/Syxit. I did that below. However, I wanted to use the peeps to show the difference between CT and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). I suspected that the peeps wouldn’t have enough free water to image with MRI so I had a plan B. I planned on injecting Barium Sulfate (BaSO4) which would be bright in CT because it’s more dense than water and it would hopefully be bright in the MRI because of the water in the BaSO4 solution. It turns out that I could not inject enough. It just oozes out. So the MRI was a bust. Since I’m good at procrastinating, I didn’t want to come up with a plan C. Also I couldn’t find any Zombie Peeps with cancer to image. Hence the Peeps Show is cancelled.
Since the CT worked, I can at least describe that. The bird peep has a voxel size of 130 micron and the bunny peep has a voxel size of 150 micron. The left column was acquired with 40 keV which, for in vivo imaging, would typically give better soft tissue contrast (not as good as MRI, but that’s another story). The right column was acquired with 75 keV which is typically better for bone imaging (not really possible in MRI).
In the bunny peep, you can see the BaSO4 that was injected. The video demonstrates that these are in fact 3D, i.e., tomographic images.
If you are interested in how peeps are made, here’s the link. http://goo.gl/dNypV
Now I have to work on something else for #sciencesunday
Using peeps as imaging phantoms, nice 🙂 What sort of cardiovascular research do you do at U of C? I’m interested in getting more involved with medical imaging, but I’m not sure exactly how yet (not interested in pursuing a PhD).
Johnathan Chung my colleagues just finished a paper using positron emission tomography (PET) in a hypoxia/pulmonary hypertension model. I did the PET imaging for them but that’s about it. I can’t say much about the overall project and model.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=PMC3326289
Johnathan Chung we can talk offline about medical imaging and what options are available if you don’t want to go as far as PhD to research medical imaging.
That would be great, Chad Haney. I’d like to take you up on that offer 🙂 I’ll send you my email address in a private message (also added you to my circle of permissions to talk with in GTalk). Look forward to chatting with you. Thanks!
Of course now that I am not at UChicago anymore, you are doing the interesting experiments.
Awesome ScienceSunday , post on the importance of choosing the right imaging technique. ..sure to get a chuckle from our curator friends Allison Sekuler and Robby Bowles 🙂
I almost spilled my coffee when I saw the title of your post That video is the cutest peep show that I have ever seen (even if it is the only peep show I’ve ever seen)! How did you get the BaSO4 to go down those channels? Does that mean I can’t eat it now 🙂 Barium is just a surrogate for Calcium, so I’m guessing it’s not too bad.
What do you think of the new phosphate based methods of MRI..are they sufficiently developed as yet?
Rajini Rao I’m flattered that you think this is still worth #sciencesunday . It’s not what I had planned. You can eat the BaSO4 peep. I wouldn’t eat that particular peep since our lab isn’t that clean :D. BaSO4 is used as an oral contrast agent for GI CT. In humans, it’s actually quite impressive. However, for my appendicitis diagnosis I was given iodinated contrast IV with CT. The BaSO4 coats the GI lining and makes it light up. The iodine based IV agents make the vasculature light up and in the case of appendicitis, it show inflammation.
I injected the BaSO4 with a 18G needle. I need Kimberly Chapman help in devising a way to make a pocket for more BaSO4 to stay put instead of ooze back out. Hopefully that would resurrect the MRI portion of this experiment (but not in time for Easter).
The phosphate based MRI that Tom Lee posted is very new and not ready for people. I think it took them over 24 hours. As I mentioned on his post, imaging phosphorus with MRI isn’t new especially plain spectroscopy.
If anyone knows how to manipulate candy and cakes, it would be Kimberly Chapman ..I see a G+ collaboration in the works 🙂 Hmm, I had not heard of iodine based contrast imaging..I guess your body was in thyroid heaven for a few weeks after. Manganese for brain imaging, right? Our lab studies manganese detoxification at a molecular/cellular level because the calcium pump we work on, located in the Golgi, has super high affinity for pumping manganese (20 nM Km for transport). So it not only delivers manganese to the Golgi where it is needed for protein glycosylation and processing, but also gets rid of excess via exocytosis. (Sorry, TMI..my fingers just went into automatic mode, lol).
thanks for pointing this in the direction of #ScienceSunday Rajini Rao (and, of course Chad Haney). Chuckles all around. Although we’ve never seen Peeps imaged before (and the movie is really cool), it seems standard practice amongst our imaging friends to stick all sorts of bizarre food in scanners (e.g., jello and celery for phantoms; and broccoli, garlic, and prickly pears, just for fun). Imaging scientists are an interesting and hungry bunch 🙂
I don’t mind the channeling from your digits Rajini Rao! I don’t really want to comment on Mn as an MRI contrast agent. I don’t want to offend my colleagues.
From the packet insert:
Thyroid function determinations and Thyroid imaging: (iohexol may cause an increase of serum protein bound iodine [PBI] and a decrease in radioactive iodine or pertechnetate ion uptake for up to 2 weeks; thyroid test should be performed prior to administration of contrast medium; other thyroid function tests not based on measurement of iodine, such as resin triiodothyronine uptake, are not affected)
Thanks ScienceSunday there is a reason for using food for imaging phantoms. In my case, I didn’t want any hassles with animal rights folks, for what was planned to be an educational post about imaging. Some of my colleagues use fruits, etc. because they can’t handle animals. Personally, I think the mice are cute.
OMFG. I am having a nerdgasm. Half of what you’ve all said is way over my wee little liberal arts major head but I’m positively dizzy with the science joy all around.
* squee *
And then you smart people want to know something from me? EGADS!
Um…um…um… * cracking under the pressure *
Wait, is that the problem? Are the peeps cracking under the pressure of the introduced fluids? Probably. Peeps are basically marshmallows, which are one of those semi-solid foods where you make a warm goo of dissolved sugar into a liquid sugar with some gelatin to hold it all together, then dust it with a coating so it doesn’t stick to your fingers while you eat it. Based on the experiments Corran Webster and I did in our early married days, peeps dry to cracking pretty quickly, especially in a dry environment. There’s a lot of air in those things, held together by fragile sugar. The moment you take them out of the package, they’re starting to dry out, so injecting them isn’t going to be like inflating a rubbery balloon; it’ll be fracturing/dissolving those quickly-crystalizing sugars in there and you’ll be left with a goopy mess.
All sugar-based media will have this problem to some extend or other. Sugar is hygroscopic. It’s why you can’t put fresh-made gummy on fondant for long: the fondant will pull the water out of the gummy and dissolve and dissolve. My poor little naked Wolverine had his lower half dissolved that way. So much for the healing factor. Feh.
If you had a liquid that doesn’t dissolve sugar, you might be able to inject that. Something lipid-based, maybe? You’d still have the fracturing problem inside those drying-out peeps, though. You could probably achieve a more elastic structure with homemade marshmallows, especially because you could tweak it to add more gelatin. I’ve been meaning to translate my gummy experiments into more marshmallow stuff, but haven’t had time.
I actually did dig out a supply of needles to try Mexican gelatin floral art soon, which may be along the lines of what you’re trying, albeit in gelatin, not marshmallows. I haven’t had a chance to play yet but here’s a video showing the process: http://youtu.be/EJowoqvx3uY I’ve also been wanting to play with the glowing properties of tonic water, and had it in my mind that it’d be fun to make a really wrong version of the gelatin floral art that’s all macabre and glowing and such. You could no doubt set up some gelatin and inject patterned chemicals into it and then expose it to your nefarious medical machines and make some seriously cool nerdy stuff. 🙂
The purveyors of the Mexican style have a bunch of extremely expensive gelatin to sell. I wouldn’t buy that. I was planning to play with some simple unflavoured gummy-style gelatin made as clear as possible (I have a time-consuming, tedious, but effective technique for doing that, if you want to know) and then injected with opaque gummy. There’s a recipe for that on this page: http://www.eat-the-evidence.com/2011/09/27/zombie-skin-lets-bite-em-back/ I need to move it to its own page but again, time has been lacking.
If you want, I can try a base experiment this week, depending on when they schedule my surgery, and get back to you. But that’s not peeps, that’s gummy/gelatin, so may not be what you’re looking for…
Did I just experience a foodgasm or was it a sugar high from reading Kimberly Chapman ‘s comment? 🙂
Oh noes, I just gave Rajini Rao virtual diabetes! ;D
Knowing Feisal Kamil , it would more likely link to a foodgasm or variations thereof 🙂
Feisal Kamil is probably sleeping. He likely has G+ feeds in his dreams. So he’s probably dreaming of sweets.
Oh noes, he’ll have dreamabetes!
Kimberly Chapman I’m mobile at the moment so I’ll reply in detail later. I was thinking of using hot water to make a cavity for more BaSO4.
The hot water will very quickly melt and dissolve sugar and gelatin. You can make a cavity sure enough, but then that moisture will keep digging through unless you have a fast and complete way to remove it.
Put it this way: if you put a drop of water on fondant, it will actually start to drill its way down through the fondant. The only way to stop it is to completely dry it. Fondant and marshmallows have the same general ingredients but with varying amounts.
You’d have more luck making a cavity if you could do it with dry heat somehow. Like maybe if you could insert a little balloon and then fill that with very hot air so that it dry-melts the marshmallow and the pressure of the balloon shapes the cavity. The balloon would also have to have some kind of surface coating so the melted marshmallow wouldn’t stick. The ballon could then push and even possibly fuse the marshmallow into place, and if there was sufficient crust around the surface of the resulting cavity, it might hold liquids…again, so long as the liquid isn’t something that dissolves sugar and/or gelatin. Something lipid-based would be the best thing to try.
OMG this is like laparoscopic surgery on peeps. So. Much. Awesome. Wrongness.
Don’t you agree, Mahesh Sreekandath ? 😉
Now, that I am liking, Mahesh Sreekandath 🙂
Oh absolutely, I liked it. I had it blasting out loud and my 13 yr old asked how come I was listening to metal, lol! I gave him some mysterious reply -don’t want him to take me for granted 😉
Of course. Thanks to Guitar Hero and other video games no doubt. Besides, he mainly wears black..not a good sign.
LOL, don’t give away your respect so easily 😉
Should we recommend Animals? 🙂
So you say things you don’t mean Mahesh Sreekandath ?
So your lies and truths cancel each other out perfectly, leaving nothing? 😉
Awesome, love that video and commentary. Thanks, Feisal Kamil !!
I agree about Animals We are talking about birds and bunny peeps.
Thread jacking in progress, do not disturb, Chad Haney 😉
S’ok, Chad Haney and I will be over here
torturingperforming science on Peeps while the rest of you do…whatever it is you’re doing with animals and video cameras and a sleeping Feisal Kamil. ;DBefore or after they released the dogs with Peeps in their mouths and when they bark they shoot Peeps at you?
When I first saw this, the bills for my emergency MR/CT imaging were rolling in. I was very jealous that peeps could undergo medical imaging for free. This is cute, but I am partial the sclerotic ring/kestrel imaging. I realized my subjectivity, as the avian CT imaging did not remind me of medical expenses 😛
Chad Haney
joe trusty
Rajini Rao!