Tag: Science
It’s very difficult for humans to create new neurons. They can only be formed from embryonic stem cells, which are hard to come by. Not so for crayfish, which scientists have found can create new neurons out of regular blood cells. These are used to replenish their “eyestalks and smell circuits.” Yes, those are real crayfish body […]
It sounds like something out of a clumsy sci-fi movie, but “rangeomorphs” — fractal-shaped organisms which evolved before plants and animals — were very real. The above digital renderings of the obscure sea dwellers were created by scientists Jennifer Hoyal Cuthill and Simon Conway Morris. Rangeomorphs reigned in the Ediacaran era, 575 million years ago, when life was microscopic. They […]
Nearly a decade ago, researchers on the Indonesian island of Flores announced that they had unearthed an extinct, never-before-seen species of human. Standing about three-and-a-half-feet-tall with a grapefruit-sized skull, the remains were classified as Homo Floresiensis and nicknamed the “hobbit.” Heralded as “the most extreme human ever discovered,” the specimen was believed to be crucial […]
Internet creepers, take note: a new study from Cyberpsychology suggests that stalking acquaintances online before meeting them IRL won’t lead to a better interaction. Researcher Sharon Rauch at Arizona’s Benedictine University tested the “arousal” of subjects in four different conditions. Medical Daily described the set up: The first group simply saw a person’s Facebook page, and the second […]
Director James Marsh‘s new film The Theory Of Everything depicts the early life of scientist Stephen Hawking, played by Tony award winning actor Eddie Redmayne. The biopic spans many years of Hawking’s life, from his days as a student seeking his PhD in Physics and his diagnosis with ALS and fatal prognosis to his global recognition. It’s based […]
In a recent article for Motherboard, transhumanist Zoltan Istvan wrote about the quickly developing technology of artificial wombs which will allow humans to procreate without giving birth. This process of “ectogenesis” has already been nearly accomplished with goat and mouse embryos. For obvious ethical and political reasons, there hasn’t yet been much experimenting on humans. However, scientist Dr. Helen Hung-Ching Liu […]
Using an algorithmic technique, researchers at MIT can now reconstruct audio that makes objects vibrate just by “reading” the video of those objects vibrating. The data — like this a houseplant’s “minute” movements generated by someone playing “Mary Has a Little Lamb” at it — can be gathered and translated into audio signals, which then can be played back. […]
This week, the FBI and US Department of Justice released the results of an ongoing review of thousands of potentially wrongful convictions, based on their scientists’ testimonies. The FBI’s forensic methods of the 1980s and 1990s involved looking at hair samples under the microscope, without the mitochondrial DNA testing included with this type of analysis today. The […]
A new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that a conditioned fear-triggering response to a particular stimuli can be transmitted from a rodent mother to her offspring. The experiment gave adult female rodents mild electric shocks while exposed to the scent of peppermint. The rodents became conditioned to exhibit a fear response […]
Russia recently launched a satellite full of geckos into space, in order to obverse their mating activities in zero-gravity conditions. The satellite has now stopped responding to commands sent by mission control. But the equipment on board is still sending data back to Earth, a spokesperson for the Russia’s Institute of Biomedical Problems told the Wall […]
