gear Push settings
You’ve heard about Bayer, right? They’re one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world, most famous for inventing aspirin. But what most people don’t know about them is that they have a long and shady history. For starters, during World War II they bought patients from Auschwitz with the purpose of using them as […]
In a recent post I was telling you about Russian and Japanese researchers working together with the purpose of cloning a mammoth from bone marrow DNA recently found in Siberia. However, many researchers are extremely skeptical about this, including some of the world’s leading experts. “C’mon, it’ll never happen. Not in my lifetime,” said Webb […]
Scientists from Russia and Japan searching in the permafrost soil in Siberia have found mammoth remains so well-preserved that they believe they will actually be able to clone it, using its bone marrow. Teams from Sakha Republic’s mammoth museum and Japan’s Kinki University have embarked on this quest, vowing to find how this can be […]
Morality has been the subject of interminable discussions among philosophers since ancient times. What’s makes for ethical behavior is most of the time a matter of the beholder, however it seems like nevertheless humans have an inherent sense of justice nested deep inside of them from an early age. A recent research suggests that babies […]
Humans are hot-wired to scan other people in their surroundings, and determine whether their trust worthy or not, all by reading various signals like body language, facial expression etc. – the so called first impression. A team of researchers from UC Berkeley have now conducted a study which claims that some people are genetically predisposed to […]
A stroke of pioneering science, researchers have managed to restore hearing to a significant level in guinea pigs by using gene therapy, bolstering hope for a similar procedure to cure human deafness in the future. The therapy works by promoting the regeneration of hair cells in the cochlea, the part of the inner ear which […]
Researchers of Texas A&M University have managed to develop a synthetic compound capable of breaking apart the AIDS inducing virus before it has the chance to infect healthy cells. While the compound doesn’t cure HIV, it may provide effective means of preventing infection. Dubbed, “PD 404,182″, the compound works by quickly ripping and dissolving the virus […]
Amidst of all the talks and protest against stem cell treatment and companies shutting down, nature has found its own way of treating diseases with stem cells. When a pregnant mouse mother, for example, has a heart attack, her fetus donates some of its own stem cells to help and cure. Researchers started working on […]
Put down that clump of Whale vomit*, there’s a better kind of perfume now: “Sexual Sweat.” In a possible attempt to level the field for scientists everywhere, researchers Wen Zhou and Denise Chen of Rice University presented 20 women with samples of human sweat, both produced from times when male volunteers viewed either pornography or a […]
India Among 15 Nations Tops in Child Pneumonia Deaths: IVAC Study – Breastfeeding for six months, early diagnosis and medicine, effective health delivery and smoke-free cooking could prevent the deaths in developing countries Hyderabad ,Nov 21: India, an emerging economic superpower along with China in Asia, but with below 1 per cent of its GDP spending on […]
Scientists from the École Polytenchnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), with the aid of colleagues from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the University of Lausanne, managed to improve the muscle constitution of mice by knocking out genetically a “co-repressor” of the DNA transcription process. The end product are mice that are faster, stronger and healthier […]
Scientists have genetically engineered mice able to express a certain enzyme, which allows for an increased metabolic rate. The lab mice infussed with this enzyme in their fat tissue were able to eat more, but gain far less weight than their naturally bred brethren. It’s generally acknowledged that obesity and inflammation cause insulin resistance, however […]
Cancer is currently responsible for 13% of all worldwide deaths, and although remarkable progress has been made in treating this vicious disease, we’re still a very long way from curing mankind of this pest. Even the latest news from around the world is that cancers like mesothelioma and other harder to find cancers are running […]
A new study which capitalized on an extensive ongoing survey, shows that children with high IQs, especially girls, are more likely to indulge in illicit drug use in their 30’s than people with lower IQs. Dr. James White of Cardiff University and his team of researchers used data gathered from the British Cohort Study, an ongoing […]
Mark Post is a vascular scientists at the University of Maastricht in Holland. His plan is to create a lab-grown hamburger, just to prove that it could be done. It won’t come cheap though – not by any standards. Post estimates that it will cost some €250,000 to assemble the thin layers of muscle strips […]
The Vatican have entered an unusual partnership with a relatively small U.S. biotech company (NeoStem) to promote using adult stem cells for treating diseases, instead of focusing on embryonic stem cell research. The Vatican are perhaps the loudest advocates of not using embryonic stem cells; the Christian teaching holds that the life begins at conception, […]
After the International Space Station was completed, scientists noticed that exposure to weightlessness may have some deleterious effects on human health. The human body is too adjusted to the gravitational conditions on Earth, so extended periods of weightlessness can cause various physiological systems to change and atrophy. Astronauts on-board the International Space Station battle nausea […]
In the first study of its kind, a group of researchers have quantified the financial impact of climate-change infused natural disasters on health care in the U.S., during the past decade. Floods, famines, fires and other natural disasters are reported to have cost the US government $14 billion in lost lives and and heath care […]
There’s nothing not to love about animals. Since the dawn of mankind, animals have offered humans food, clothing and company. However, some have ventured this relationship farther from its platonic grounds, and expressed their love for animals in a more… intimate manner. A recent study conducted by Brazilian researchers has found that more than 35 percent […]
“I’m never gonna get used to the 31st century. Caffeinated bacon? Baconated grapefruit? Admiral Crunch?”, Fry, Futurama. The clumsy yet beloved Futurama hero did have an extremely valid point this time. The latest product to come off a tiny Army research facility near Boston, where new food rations are developed and tasted tested, might turn him […]
Medtronics is a medical tech behemoth worth $15 billion. Among other cutting edge medical tech and R&D SciFi prototypes, the company is responsible for manufacturing a wide range of pacemakers, anti-seizure gadgets along with a number of surgery machinery. One of their most successful products in the last decade is a spinal implant that alleviates people […]
Hypnosis has been considered for the past 250 years by the scientific community as being nothing more than a cute trick, with little consideration put in for in-depth research into this highly controversial state. Some psychologists believe that a hypnotized person is unconscious, resembling a sleep walker, while modern research suggests that the case is […]
The sonic hedgehog gene got its name after researchers did some testing on fruit flies embryos, and found that the specimens which were modified to lack the gene developed spine-like projections. The gene itself is crucial to body development; to put it in layman terms, the sonic hedgehog gene makes sure that all your limbs […]
Researchers at Linköping University have taken up themselves to study the intricate personality of the sperm donor. What they found was that men who cared enough to preserve their heritage were more stable and mature than non-donors. Rather extensive, as part of the study the researchers asked donors from all of Sweden’s seven sperm banks to […]
But only the stomach! Just so we’re clear from square one. Also, so far, this has only been confirmed on a rats trial. A team of researchers from Italy, Serbia, and Spain has confirmed a protective effect that strawberries have in a mammal stomach deranged by alcohol. Scientists gave fed some of the rats strawberries; […]
The little carnivorous animal has suffered one of the steepest population declines ever to be documented. In just 15 years, it went from being a common animal to the brink of extinction; and the cause is an unusual one: an infectious tumor. “Devil facial tumor disease has been a devastating, ongoing problem,” said Menna Jones […]
At the nano scale, even the slightest of motions can be harnessed and transformed into useful work. Material science researchers at the University of Wisconsin, for instance, have developed a very thin plastic belt capable of vibrating from low velocity fluid flow, such as one’s breath. Made out of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), the microbelt not only […]
Let’s face it: great sex is great sex; but can it be so good that it blows your mind, literally? Yep, sad but true – this was the case for a 54-year-old female patient brought to the emergency room at Georgetown University Hospital with memory loss that followed a sexual encounter with her husband. The […]
Scientists have made another step closer to the bionic man, after creating nanotubes out of carbon straws that can contract in a similar fashion to real muscles. The team from the University of British Columbia have created the strong and flexible artificial muscles that could also be used to propel nanobots through the body to […]
The black plague, or black death as it’s also referenced, is a deadly infectious disease which killed off more than a third of Europe’s population during the middle ages. The bacteria responsible for the disease has been confirmed by genetic scientists as Yersinia pestis, and recently, building off the research which found this particular strain, […]
Among your memory’s biggest challenges is remembering what actually happened, versus what you imagined – that’s especially hard with some people I know. That ability, according to a new study, is linked to the presence of a small fold; even more interesting, some people have and some people don’t have this fold – a finding […]
Our brain is a wonderful thing – the pinnacle of evolution on our planet – and there is still so much we don’t understand about it! For example, a team of researchers recently concluded that for some people, the brain tends to maintain a positive outlook on life, even through hard times and problems, and […]
Well, it’s pretty obvious that the rotten, insalubrious sewage environment is perfect for fostering infectious diseases and virus cultures. What’s surprising however is actually the sheer number of viruses, most of them unknown, which biologists at University of Pittsburgh have described in a recently published study in the journal mBio. According to the researchers, there are around 1.8 […]
The brain learns basically by shifting between different strengths of its synapses, as a response to different stimuli – that much is clear. However, recently, a team of UCLA scientists have shattered the common belief about the mechanism of learning, showing that the brain learns rhythmically, and that there is an optimal ‘rhythm’, or frequency, […]
Mixing in a typical fMRI brain scanner with advanced computer modeling simulations, scientists at the University of California have managed to achieve the the unthinkable – render the visual expressions triggered inside the brain and play them like a movie. This is the forefront technology which will one day allow us to tap inside the mind […]
Remarkably enough, scientists from Tel Aviv University in Israel, have manged to implant an artificial cerebellum in a rat’s brain, which successfully restored lost brain function. This research could provide the foundations for implementing cyborg-like functions in the human brain sometime in the distant future. Such an advancement, could possibly one day offer the prospect […]
Generally, yawning is considered a sign of fatigue or boredom, and it has been shown to be contagious in humans. A new study led by Andrew Gallup, a postdoctoral research associate in Princeton University’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, shows how yawning varies in frequency according to the season and heat exposure. Basically, after […]
Licking 9 volt batteries or tasering yourself with a fork stuck in a power plugs is apparently evidence enough to consider a person both a cretin and a genius. A new study presented by scientists at University of Oxford have shown that electrically stimulating the brain can significantly speed up the process of learning. The […]
Scientists from the UK and Hungary have run various experiments to verify the claim of US researchers that a certain gene is responsible for the increase of lifespan, as shown in some test organisms. Their results show, in fact, that the so called “longevity gene” allegedly responsible for the generation of an anti-aging protein doesn’t […]
In 2008 a deadly earthquake hit the Sichuan province of China killing tens of thousands and living millions homeless – it was the most devastating natural disaster in China’s recent history. From the among the rubles of the quake, however, emerged a survivor-pig which made him an instant national hero at the time. Now, Chinese […]
In 1993 Michael Zasloff, of the Georgetown University Medical Center, discovered an incredible compound inside the tissue dogfish sharks (Squalus acanthus), called squalamine, which has the remarkable property of shielding sharks from viral infections by preventing them from multiplying. Almost ten years later, further research shows that the compound might provide effective treatment and even cure terribly […]
Scientists from the University of Washington have been struggling for the past decade to decipher the complex structure of an enzyme that exhibits behavior similar to that of an enzyme key in the development of AIDS from an HIV infection, and which might hold a critical role in building a cure for the disease. Gamers […]
Common sense might tell you that only mammals are capable of lactating, it’s a little know fact, however, that some species of birds are also capable of making milk for their young. The common pigeon produces milk in its crop, located near the esophagus, to feed its young. Scientists have long been wondering how the […]
All you clinically diagnosed anxious readers might want to boot your therapist and settle for a cheaper, more comfortable alternative in the form a computer software which offers therapy through a series of highly effective tests, apparently just as effective as “the couch”. Called Cognitive bias modification (CBM), the therapy developed by researchers at Brown […]
A team of neuroscientists from Stanford University have managed to create a remarkably tiny device capable of monitoring brain activity in a rodent or other small animals. The device can be manufactured extremely cost-effective and might prove to be an invaluable tool for researchers of the new decade. Mice have always been the lab subjects […]
A team or Scottish scientists are pushing material science on the extreme side by conducting research which, they hope, will enable them to create life out of inorganic molecules. All life on Earth is based on organic biology – carbon compounds. The researchers from Glasgow University, however, have shown in a recently published paper a […]
Women who use birth control pills or other contraceptives experience memory changes, according to a study conducted by UC Irvine researchers. They tend to remember emotional events more vividly, at the cost of losing their attention for details. “What’s most exciting about this study is that it shows the use of hormonal contraception alters memory,” […]
Biomechanics has come a long way during the past few decades, on trend with the exponential growth of CPUs and electronics, in general. Articulated limbs or artificial optic units are just a few of today’s options that individuals with various impairments and disabilities can use to make their lives closer to normal. Limitations exist of […]
A team of researchers have shown in a recently released paper published in the journal Royal Society Biology Letters that dolphins actually communicate with each other through a process much in the way humans use. What has been mistaken for a long time as plain whisteling has now been proven to be a much more […]
Researchers from Princeton University recently published a study in which they show how they’ve been able to use functional magnetic resonance imaging and a computer program that condensed 3,500 Wikipedia articles to associate words to particular brain activity patterns. Basically, they were able to read thoughts. To reach this remarkable correlation, researchers first did some […]
