Scientists Grow Human Livers in Mice

TOKYO —A Japanese group has generated functional human livers by creating liver precursor cells in the laboratory and then transplanting them into mice to complete the developmental process. Their ultimate goal is to transplant the precursor cells into humans and let them develop into replacements for diseased or damaged organs.

The achievement represents a new direction in the use of human pluripotent stem cells, which have the potential to develop into any of the tissues of the human body. So-called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which are derived from adult human tissue, have the added advantage of producing tissues and organs genetically matched to a recipient, avoiding the problem of immune system rejection.

But creating fully mature human tissue in a petri dish (in vitro) has proved a daunting challenge, especially when it comes to producing 3D organs. Rather than do it all in a dish, the group decided to try starting the process in vitro but completing it in an animal (in vivo).

They tried hundreds of different recipes; eventually they discovered that if they mixed liver precursor cells (derived from iPS cells) with two other types of standard human cell lines known to be important for embryonic liver development, then the cells would spontaneously form a 4 to 5-millimeter 3D structure called a liver bud. "This worked beyond our expectations, though the mechanism is not entirely clear," says group leader and stem cell scientist Takanori Takebe of Yokohama City University in Japan.

Next, they implanted these buds in mice with disabled immune systems to see if they would engraft, or attach to the blood vessels of the animal, and continue to mature. They did: The transplanted liver buds developed into what Takebe calls "miniature livers." The team then confirmed that these tiny organs produced proteins typically made by human livers, and they properly processed certain drugs that mouse livers cannot handle.

The experiment shows that precursor cells can develop into functional organs when placed within the body of an adult mammal; it provides hope that even primitive tissues made from stem cells will one day restore the function of dead or diseased organs in patients. But there are significant hurdles to clear before the technique reaches the clinic. Producing the amount of cells needed will require a breakthrough in automated cell proliferation. Because of that, Takebe says, use in humans is at least a decade away.

Source: sciencemag

Oh My....

Jennifer Lopez, aka JLo, is filming a new action movie (Parker) with scenes that require a stunt double, and her stunt double is a man

I'm not judging, a job is a job in this recession. get it girl, uhm guy!

Man has Heart Attack at the Heart Attack Grill

The Heart Attack Grill is an American hamburger restaurant in Las Vegas, Nevada. It serves high-calorie menu items with provocative names. The establishment is a hospital theme restaurant: waitresses are called "nurses" who take orders or "prescriptions" from the customers who are referred to as "patients". A tag is wrapped on the patient's wrist showing which foods they ordered and a "doctor" examines the "patients" with a stethoscope.

The menu includes "Single", "Double", "Triple", and "Quadruple Bypass" hamburgers, ranging from 8 to 32 ounces of beef (up to about 8,000 calories), all-you-can-eat "Flatliner Fries", cooked in pure lard. They also serve beer, tequila, and soft drinks such as "Jolt" and Mexican-bottled Coca-Cola made with real sugar.

Customers who weigh over 350lbs eat for free - if they weigh in with a doctor or nurse before each burger - and they are not allowed to share their free meal. Beverages and to-go orders are excluded.

So, today, February 15, 2012, a guy was at the Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas and was eating a Triple Bypass Burger that has 6,000 calories, and at some point while eating it, the guy in his 40's had a heart attack and an ambulance had to be called and photographers just happened to be there to catch the scene of the guy on a gurney.

Wanna know what's ironic? The owner of the heart attack grill used to be a nutritionist and also owned a Jenny Craig franchise

*blank stare*

Astronomers Find Largest and Most Distant Reservoir of Water

Two teams of astronomers have discovered the largest and farthest reservoir of water ever detected in the universe. The water, equivalent to 140 trillion times all the water in the world's ocean, surrounds a huge, feeding black hole, called a quasar, more than 12 billion light-years away.

"The environment around this quasar is very unique in that it's producing this huge mass of water," said Matt Bradford, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "It's another demonstration that water is pervasive throughout the universe, even at the very earliest times." Bradford leads one of the teams that made the discovery.

A quasar is powered by an enormous black hole that steadily consumes a surrounding disk of gas and dust. As it eats, the quasar spews out huge amounts of energy. Both groups of astronomers studied a particular quasar called APM 08279+5255, which harbors a black hole 20 billion times more massive than the sun and produces as much energy as a thousand trillion suns. Astronomers expected water vapor to be present even in the early, distant universe, but had not detected it this far away before. There's water vapor in the Milky Way, although the total amount is 4,000 times less than in the quasar, because most of the Milky Way’s water is frozen in ice.

Water vapor is an important trace gas that reveals the nature of the quasar. In this particular quasar, the water vapor is distributed around the black hole in a gaseous region spanning hundreds of light-years in size (a light-year is about six trillion miles). Its presence indicates that the quasar is bathing the gas in X-rays and infrared radiation, and that the gas is unusually warm and dense by astronomical standards. Although the gas is at a chilly minus 63 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 53 degrees Celsius) and is 300 trillion times less dense than Earth's atmosphere, it's still five times hotter and 10 to 100 times denser than what's typical in galaxies like the Milky Way. Measurements of the water vapor and of other molecules, such as carbon monoxide, suggest there is enough gas to feed the black hole until it grows to about six times its size. Whether this will happen is not clear, the astronomers say, since some of the gas may end up condensing into stars or might be ejected from the quasar.

Source: NASA

Scale of the Universe

This is an extraordinary feature link, it is the Universal Scale featuring the worlds' smallest to the largest microbes and planets in our galaxy...that can and cannot be seen with the naked eye.

http://www.primaxstudio.com/stuff/scale_of_universe/

Deep, Deeep Sea Diving

Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group of companies, has revealed his plans to explore the deepest spots in each of the five oceans.

Sir Branson, along with American sailor and explorer Chris Welsh and submarine designer Graham Hawkes, has launched the Virgin Oceanic, a project to explore the last frontiers of our own Blue Planet: the very bottom of our seas. They intend to hit the deepest depths using the Virgin Oceanic’s flying submarines. For the dives, Virgin oceanic will use the DeepFlight Challenger submersible built by Hawkes Ocean Technologies of Point Richmond, Calif.

The Virgin Oceanic project proposes journey to the five deepest parts of each of Earth’s five oceans in 2011 and 2012. The first dive is planned to reach the deepest place on the planet i.e. the bottom of the Mariana Trench, which is roughly 11 kilometers straight down. The subs will hit the Mariana Trench (Pacific), Puerto Rico Trench (Atlantic), Diamantina Trench (Indian), South Sandwich Trench (Southern), and Molloy Deep (Arctic). Interestingly, the second dive, planned to hit the bottom of the Puerto Rico Trench (the deepest in the Atlantic), will be piloted by Sir Richard Branson himself.

They have even partnered with Google to assist with the charting and mapping of the sea floor during the missions.

On the launch of Virgin Oceanic, Sir Richard Branson said: "What if I were to tell you about a planet, inhabited by ‘intelligent’ beings that had, in the 21st Century, physically explored 0% of its deepest points and mapped only 3% of its oceans by unmanned craft, when 70% of that planet’s surface was made up of water. Then I tried to convince you that only 10% of the life forms inhabiting that unknown world, are known to those on the surface - you’d think I’d fallen asleep watching the latest sci-fi blockbuster! Then you discover that planet is Earth".

Virgin Oceanic Flying Sub Designed by Graham Hawkes, the flying submersible resembles a dolphin, and is made from 8,000 pounds of carbon fiber and titanium. It boasts an operating depth of 37,000 feet (7 miles) and is capable to operate independently for 24 hours. The Virgin Oceanic Flying Sub has been designed to survive enormous pressures, 1500 times than that of an airplane. The sub can fly up to 10km over the ocean floor, travel at a maximum of three knots and can dive at 350 feet per minute. This sub also has a mothership, which is a 125′ racing catamaran.

Sir Richard Branson says: "Virgin Oceanic will expand the reach of human exploration on our planet. By promoting and utilizing new technology, Virgin Oceanic will aid human kind’s ability to explore our Oceans, assist science in understanding our eco system and raise awareness of the challenges facing our Oceans".

BBC Earth has announced to work with Richard Branson’s Virgin Oceanic Five Dives expedition to produce a theatrical film and TV series.

The Bacterium Toothbrush

Researchers have identified a new ally in the war against tooth decay: an enzyme produced by a mouth bacterium that prevents plaque formation.

The finding could eventually lead to the development of toothpaste that harnesses the body's own plaque-fighting tools.

The human mouth is awash with bacteria. More than 700 species thrive in the hot, moist conditions, including Streptococcus mutans, one of the main components of plaque. Clinging to the teeth in thin layers called biofilms, S. mutans digests sugars and produces acids that can eat into enamel and cause cavities. Other bacteria are more gracious guests. In 2009, for example, scientists found that S. salivarius, a type of bacterium found on the tongue and other soft tissues in the mouth, decreases the buildup of S. mutans biofilms.

The protein FruA, an enzyme that breaks apart complex sugars, was the most powerful biofilm blocker. The researchers also found that a form of FruA, produced by the common fungus Aspergillus niger and available off-the-shelf, stymies plaque equally well. This commercial FruA worked despite the fact that its amino acid sequence is somewhat different from that of S. salivarius FruA. That might speed the development of toothpastes that include FruA, says Senpuku.

The findings, reported in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, are not a license to eat all the candy you want, however. When researchers increased the concentration of sucrose, a type of sugar, in mixtures containing S. salivarius FruA and S. mutans, the beneficial bacterium lost its ability to prevent biofilm formation. The authors write that this observation may help explain why a 1996 study found that FruA contributed to cavity formation in rats.

The findings could spur the development of better toothpaste but it won't be an easy task; finding "the formulation" that would 'guarantee' that the enzyme remained enzymatically active on the shelf of your favorite drug store is a big challenge

Source: Sciencemag

What in the World....?!

Thousands of birds fell from the sky in Arkansas on New Years Eve 2010. All dead. The only explanation so far: they suffered trauma. But what caused the trauma? Officials are claiming it was caused by fireworks **blank stare**. Not for a second do I believe this explanation. In all the years since the invention of fireworks, nothing like this has ever happened. And birds are not that dumb, contrary to what some people may think.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-winged_Blackbird

Thousands of dead fish also washed up on the shores of Arkansas. I am still waiting for explanation the officials are going to claim caused this. Perhaps they gave up and all swam to shore in a suicidal pact :-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sciaenidae

This is really very sad and quite nerve racking.

Updates to come...


"The 17 birds we did a necropsy on had internal bleeding that looks like blunt force trauma -- like they ran into something, would be our best guess," Dr. George Badley told CTV's Canada AM Tuesday morning. Tests have, so far, ruled out poison and lightning as the cause of the birds' mass death. "They all had internal bleeding and no signs of disease, but our pathologist is continuing to make sure that they are no viruses, germs or poisons in the birds," Badley added.

Hippocampus

Researchers have successfully identified the memory a person is recalling by analyzing their brain activity. The result offers new insights into how and where the brain records memories and may help scientists understand memory impairments caused by injuries, aging, and neurological conditions, such as a stroke.



The study is being conducted by Cognitive neuroscientist Eleanor Maguire at the University College London. Their recipe of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and a specific computer algorithm has gleaned the secrets of the hippocampus, a brain region that tracks where a person is and also plays a role in memory and learning. The technologicaltag team works like this: fMRI measures the brain's blood flow—associated with neuron activity—on the scale of voxels, three-dimensional "pixels" that each include roughly 10,000 neurons. The algorithm then interprets the changes voxel by voxel to learn the brain's patterns of activity over time.

The findings confirm that the hippocampus is heavily involved in episodic memory.

fMRI can't spot particular neurons in the act of signaling each other. The fMRI resolution limits researchers to seeing in voxels, so "you don't know that exactly the same neurons or circuits are at work every time," he explains.

Maguire, whose team reported its results online in Current Biology, is refining her method. She's also hoping to study what happens in the hippocampus over longer periods or when the brain ages or is injured. "What happens to these memories over time is an important issue that remains to be resolved," she says.

The disappearnce of New Moore Island

For nearly 30 years, India and Bangladesh have argued over control of a tiny rock island, New Moore Island, in the Bay of Bengal.

Now, it's gone.

Rising sea levels in the bay have plunged New Moore Island in the Sunderbans completely underwater, said oceanographer Sugata Hazra, a professor at Jadavpur University in Calcutta. Its disappearance has been confirmed by satellite imagery and sea patrols, he said.

"What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming," said Hazra.

Reports say that around 10 more small island like New Moore Island are still at risk in the Bay of Bengal.

Got Game?

The Striatum is Part of the basal ganglia of the brain. The basal ganglia are interconnected masses of gray matter located in the interior regions of the cerebral hemispheres and in the upper part of the brainstem.

Researchers have found that individuals with large Striatums are better at video games than those withsmall stiatums; its also been found that large-striatum individuals were also better at shifting priorites from, say, shooting a target to outrunning an enemy - abilities that could translate to the real world.

The game Space Fortress is used in the study; it looks like an old arcade game with geometric shapes subbing for spaceships and buildings. Over the years, researchers have used the game to study memory, motor control and learning speed; the US air force and the Israeli air force have even changed their training regimens based on how cadets fared as players.

Its being reported in Cerebral Cortex (magazine) that even among highly educated people, the size of the striatum can play a significant role in skills such as learning and multitasking; the next step is to figure out whether playing the game can alter the striatum size and function. Yaakov stern, a cognitive neuroscientist at columbia university said, "that could help answer the question of whether some people are born with larger striatums than others, or whether this region becomes bigger as people develop certain skills."

source: sciencemag

Life's Intrigues

Easter Island (Rapa Nui) is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeastern most point of the Polynesian triangle; it is widely famous for its monumental statues.

Easter Island may now boast another odd claim to fame: a midlife longevity drug. In a new study, researchers report that an antibiotic called rapamycin - after the island's Polynesian name, Rapa Nui - enabled middle-aged mice to live up to 16% longer than their rapa-free counterparts.

The discovery marks the first time a drug has been shown to lengthen life span in mammals, even when administered late in life.

Scientists first stumbled on rapamycin in soil samples taken from Easter Island in 1965. A bacterium found in the soil, Streptomyces hygroscopicus, secreted the stuff to fend off its bacterial and fungal rivals.

Rapamycin has since been used to prevent organ rejection in transplant patients and, most recently, as an antitumor drug. The compound works by inhibiting mTOR, a protein that regulates cell growth and survival.

Pharmacologist Randy Strong and molecular biologist Z. David Sharp, who headed the study's Texas arm, planned to feed young mice rapamycin and observe the drug's effects as they aged. But by the time the researchers formulated a feed that made the rapamycin stable and easily digestible, the mice had grown old (20 months old), or about 60 human years. Because calorie restriction and other life-lengthening measures work best when started young, Strong and his colleagues didn't expect the experiment to work in midlife. Yet the mice lived 28% to 38% longer than the controls from that point on, the researchers report in Nature, the equivalent of 6 to 9 extra years in humans. Their overall life expectancy rose 5% to 16%.

Rapamycin is known to raise cholesterol levels and, as a potent immune system suppressant, the compound could make its consumers more susceptible to infections.

Source: Science/AAAS

Science & Technology

NASA on, Friday March 6, 2009, prepared to launch a telescope that will search our corner of the Milky Way galaxy for Earth-like planets.

The Kepler spacecraft is scheduled to blast into space on top of a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida just before 11 p.m. ET.

Kepler contains a special telescope that will stare at 100,000 stars in the Cygnus-Lyra region of the Milky Way for more than three years as it trails Earth's orbit around the Sun.

The spacecraft will look for tiny dips in a star's brightness, which can mean an orbiting planet is passing in front of it - an event called a Transit.

The instrument is so precise that it can register changes in brightness of 20 parts per million in stars that are thousands of light years away.

Once Kepler spots a planet, scientists will be able to calculate its size, mass, orbital period, distance from star and surface temperature; scientists should know by 2013 - the end of Kepler's mission - whether life in the universe could be widespread.

are we now on track to become the aliens we've always 'worried' about? I am curious to see where this leads.

Scientific Breakthrough

Two Montreal researchers have proposed a new theory for a question that has long vexed evolutionary biologists: How did a mechanism thought to help build life self-assemble?

Sergey Steinberg, a biochemistry professor at the University of Montreal, found the answer in the ribosome, a relatively large mechanism within the cell that takes RNA instruction and builds proteins.

Steinberg and Bokov's theory fills in a critical step in how life got started four billion years ago, said Stephen Michnick, the Canada Research Chair in Integrative Genomics at the University of Montreal.

A key breakthrough came when Steinberg found that chemicals could spontaneously come together and form something as complex as a ribosome. Previous theories had suggested only simple proteins could form spontaneously.

Steinberg found the ribosome was put together using relatively simple structural rules, a bit like a three-dimensional puzzle.

For critics who ask why spontaneous formation didn't lead to something other than the ribosome, Steinberg used mathematical models to show there was no other possibility. The ribosome simply wouldn't hold together if it were constructed any other way.

His discovery, made with student Konstantin Bokov, has been published in the scientific journal Nature.

Why Do We Yawn?

Yawning is an involuntary action that everyone does. We start yawning before we are born. Most animals (and creatures) yawn, chimpanzees and even snakes. The average yawn lasts about six seconds.

Yawning is the body's way of telling you that it needs more oxygen; a yawn opens up the respiratory system, then there is a sudden increase in oxygen, the accumulated carbon dioxide is eliminated, restoring normal breathing and alertness. New research suggests that rather than being a precursor to sleep, the purpose of yawning is to cool the brain so it operates more efficiently and keeps you awake. Scientists also speculate that we yawn due to to fatigue or boredom. (u think)

Why is yawning contagious? Researchers suggest that we yawn when we see another person yawn because we are hard-wired to do so; we are participating in an ancient ritual to help the group stay alert and detect danger. It's also been suggested that contagious yawning could be a result of an unconscious herding behaviour, a subtle way to communicate to those around us: similar to when flocks of birds take flight at the same time. Yawn contagion is unconscious.

You might yawn just reading about yawning :-

side bar: if you start to yawn while talking, take a minute to finish the yawn because it is hard to understand what you are saying; also, cover your mouth.

TIME

What is Time? ‘Time’ is defined by the Webster’s New World College Dictionary (4^th Edition) as: A period or interval; the period between two events or during which something exists, happens or acts; measured or measurable interval

Time is passing and we follow it with clocks and calendars, yet we cannot study it with a microscope or experiment with it. You cannot see it or touch it, but its effects are clearly visible

Time is represented through change, such as the circular motion of the moon around the earth. Time is elusive and we measure it with clocks and calendars in an effort to manage our lives within it. A day is measured by the amount of time it takes the earth to rotate one time on its axis; but no-one really knows why there are 24 hours in a day? This goes back to the Babylonian days (working on link)

The passing of time is closely connected to the concept of space. The relationship of space and time is called the space-time continuum, which means that any event that occurs in the universe has to involve both time and space.

The Einstein Theory of Relativity relates to our physical universe. It notes that time is relative with the speed of the object while moving through space. According to this theory, time passes differently for celestial bodies that move at different velocities. To measure the speed of time, you need at least two objects that travel at different speeds. When they reunite time has past differently for each object. The closer an object gets to the speed of light, the slower the time passes compared to another object that remains stationary. The concept here is that time is not linear, but relative. It indicates that our day-to-day perception of Time is different than its real nature.

Albert Einstein concluded in his later years that the past, present, and future all exist simultaneously. His most descriptive testimony to this faith came when his lifelong friend Besso died. Einstein wrote a letter to Besso's family, saying that although Besso had preceded him in death it was of no consequence, "...for us physicists believe the separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one."

Despite tremendous advancement in science and technology and the precision with which time can be measured, there is very little known about the true nature of time.

These are a few of the memorable time spans throughout history:

-1 picosecond (one-trillionth of a second) - This is about the shortest period of time we can currently measure accurately.

-1 nanosecond (one-billionth of a second) - 2 to 4 nanoseconds is the length of time that a typical home computer spends executing one software instruction

-1 microsecond (one-millionth of a second)
-1 millisecond (one-thousandth of a second) - This is the typical fastest time for the exposure of film in a normal camera. A picture taken in 1/1,000th of a second will usually stop all human motion.
-1 centisecond (one-hundredth of a second) - The length of time it takes for a stroke of lightening to strike
-1 decisecond (one-tenth of a second) - A blink of an eye
-1 second - An average person's hear beats once each second.
-60 seconds - One minute
-60 minutes - An hour
-8 hours - The typical amount of sleep a person needs every night
-24 hours - One day; the amount of time it takes for the planet Earth to rotate one time on its axis
-7 days - One week
-365.24 days - One year; the amount of time it takes for the planet Earth to complete one orbit around the sun
-10 years - One decade
-75 years - The typical life span for a human being
-5,000 years - The span of recorded history
-50,000 years - The length of time Homo sapiens has existed as a species
-65 million years - The length of time dinosaurs have been extinct
-200 million years - The length of time mammals have existed
-3.5 to 4 billion years - The length of time that life has existed on Earth
-4.5 billion years - The age of planet Earth
-10 to 15 billion years - The suspected age of the universe since the big bang

(source for time spans-how stuff works)

SLEEP

There are a few things in life that I find intriguing, Sleep is one of them.

Sleep is a mysterious part of human behavior.

We all need to do it, there can be adverse effects if we don't do it and scientists are continuously working to better understand it.

Sleep is the natural state of bodily rest. It gives the body a chance to recuperate from the day's activities. Sleep is essential in maintaining normal levels of cognitive skills, such as speech, memory and flexible thinking.

It is said that 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night is recommended, however, there are people who choose to get by on about 4 to 5 hours of sleep per night, and are fine with it.

On the flip side, there are the people who have difficulty falling asleep; or, waking up frequently throughout the night; or, restless unease, disturbed sleep. These can be classified as sleep disorders: insomnia and sleep apnea. This can leave you feeling lathargic, fatigued, with loss of energy and memory lapses.

There are people who go to sleep as soon as their head hits the pillow, and will sleep comfortably throughout the night. (I wish I was one of those people).

At the other end of the spectrum is excessive sleep disorder which is called narcolepsy. Narcolepsy is a chronic sleep disorder characterized by daytime drowsiness and sudden attacks of sleep.

Although it is a very important and necessary function, the essential nature of sleep still remains unresolved by scientists.

Although we are not conscious when we sleep, our brain remains active. Dreams are a fascinating part of sleep that is a mystery. While you dream during sleep, you are thinking.

Philosophers theorize that the only thing that can be proven with certainty is that you think; so as we dream, it cannot be proven whether or not you are awake or asleep.

Sleep is a necessity, it is not a choice and it remains of of life's greatest mysteries.

Astrology

Astrology is the study of the influence that the cosmic objects - stars and planets - have on human lives.

It is the position of the sun, stars, moon and planets at the time of someone's birth, that is said to shape their personality and set the tone for their future: romance, money, etc.

There is no single unifed theory or practice of astrology; most cultures, dating back over 3000 years, all have their own 'take' on astrology. The ancient Chaldeans and babylonians practiced it, but the Greeks (from the time of Alexander the great) were the ones who provided most of the fundamental elements of modern astrology.

There are the eastern and western forms of astrology; eastern zodiacs - chinese, vedic and tibetan; western comprise of the sun-sign zodiac.

(Even within western astrology, there is a considerable diversity of methods and philosophies. Some divide astrology by the end result that is intended:

Mundane Astrology - This is used to examine world events and make predictions about national affairs, wars and economies.

Interrogatory Astrology - This branch can be further subdivided, but generally refers to astrology that seeks to make specific predictions or analyses about the subject's objectives or events within the subject's life.

Natal Astrology - This is what most people think of when they think of astrology. Natal Astrology seeks to make predictions and analyses based on the date of a person's birth. It's based on the idea that everything that happens to something is expressed at the very beginning of that thing, sometimes known as the Law of Beginnings (source: how stuff works) )

There are twelve zodiac signs; they are divided into four categories: fire, water, air and earth.

The zodiac signs, aka sun signs, signify which sector the sun was in at the time of birth and the personality traits - ie. likes and dislikes - associated with the zodiac under which a person was born. The signs give a general overview of the personality traits, physical traits and the compatible/incompatible chart.

Have you ever known two or more people born under the same sign and its uncanny how much alike they are? Have you ever just met a person and try to see if you can guess what sign they are?

Fire Signs: Aries, Leo, Sagittarius
Water Signs: Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces
Air Signs: Libra, Aquarius, Gemini
Earth Signs: Capricorn, Taurus, Virgo