ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 626
November 30, 2015
Licensed Diabetes Drug Could Dramatically Increase Human Life Span
Photo credit:
karelnoppe/Shutterstock
The fountain of youth might soon become a reality as scientists prepare the first human trial for an anti-aging pill. Passing the 120-candle milestone in excellent health may have once been exclusive to biblical characters or descendants of Beren, but researchers think that everyone could live to that age thanks to a cheap drug, called metformin, which is already commercially available and currently used for the treatment of diabetes.
NASA To Restart ISS Cargo Flights One Year After Rocket Explosion
Photo credit:
An Orbital ATK Antares rocket exploded on Tuesday, October 28, 2014. NASA/Joel Kowsky
It is now 13 months since an Orbital Sciences Antares rocket exploded just seconds after launch, sending its on-board Cygnus cargo spacecraft crashing back to Earth in a spectacular fireball.
Here’s How Much Data The Internet Generates In Just One Minute
Photo credit:
McIek/Shutterstock
In less than 20 years, we’ve gone from snail-pace, dial-up Internet to 4K videos seamlessly streaming to our 4G smartphones.
Two-Thirds Of Americans Want Binding Deal At Climate Change Conference In Paris
Photo credit:
People's Climate March in 2014, New York City. South Bend Voice/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
The United Nations Climate Change Conference is underway in Paris amid an atmosphere of unprecedented global solidarity. Leaders from 147 nations and negotiators from 195 countries are now gathering in the French capital, hoping to hammer out a deal that will limit the global temperature rise to just 2°C (3.6°F).
Amazon’s New Delivery Drones Unveiled In Video With Jeremy Clarkson
Photo credit:
Amazon Prime Air
The age of drones is well and truly upon us. Their uses in art, war, and discovery have been moving fast, but their commercial use as delivery-bots has long been hovering around. However, things appear to be on the move again: Amazon has just released a video revealing the closest and freshest look at their drone delivery plans yet – Amazon Prime Air.
China Unveils New Laser Weapon On State Television
Photo credit:
Witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station. Georgy Shafeev/Shutterstock
If you’re thinking of giant lasers, chances are the new "Star Wars" film has just popped into your head – but laser weapons don’t just belong in the realm of fiction. The U.S. Navy has been developing a series of Laser Weapon Systems (LaWS) for several years now, and they are startlingly accurate – they can shoot tin cans off a dingy while leaving the boat intact.
Canadian Brothers Capture Their Rescue Of A Bald Eagle On Camera
Photo credit:
#letmetakeaselfie Michael Fletcher/Facebook
How many of you have seen a bald eagle, the famous bird of prey residing in North America? Probably a fair few: its unique, instantly recognizable outline and huge geographical range mean that one can be seen pretty much all throughout the United States and half of Canada. Upping the stakes a little, how many of you have taken a selfie with one? We’re guessing probably none – unless you’re the two Canadian brothers who did just that last week, as reported by BBC News.
November 29, 2015
Idiotic Responses To Planned Parenthood Shooting
Leave it up to the religious right to respond to the planned parenthood shooting with pure idiocy. In this video I read tweets from some of the idiots who feel the shooter was a hero. Somehow it makes sense to be pro-life and support a shooter. Murka.
Here Are All The People Applauding The Planned Parenthood Shooter: http://thoughtcatalog.com/jacob-geers/2015/11/here-are-all-the-people-applauding-the-planned-parenthood-shooter/
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Electronic plants created
Source:Linköping University
Researchers at Linköping University in Sweden have created analog and digital electronics circuits inside living plants. The group at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics (LOE), under the leadership of Professor Magnus Berggren, have used the vascular system of living roses to build key components of electronic circuits.
The article featured in the journal Science Advances demonstrates wires, digital logic, and even displays elements — fabricated inside the plants — that could develop new applications for organic electronics and new tools in plant science.
Plants are complex organisms that rely on the transport of ionic signals and hormones to perform necessary functions. However, plants operate on a much slower time scale making interacting with and studying plants difficult. Augmenting plants with electronic functionality would make it possible to combine electric signals with the plant’s own chemical processes. Controlling and interfacing with chemical pathways in plants could pave the way to photosynthesis-based fuel cells, sensors and growth regulators, and devices that modulate the internal functions of plants.
“Previously, we had no good tools for measuring the concentration of various molecules in living plants. Now we’ll be able to influence the concentration of the various substances in the plant that regulate growth and development. Here, I see great possibilities for learning more,” says Ove Nilsson, professor of plant reproduction biology and director of the Umeå Plant Science Center, as well as a co-author of the article.
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Scientists turn tastes on and off by activating and silencing clusters of brain cells
Source:Columbia University Medical Center
Most people probably think that we perceive the five basic tastes — sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami (savory)–with our tongue, which then sends signals to our brain ‘telling’ us what we’ve tasted. However, scientists have turned this idea on its head, demonstrating in mice the ability to change the way something tastes by manipulating groups of cells in the brain.
The findings were published today in the online edition of Nature.
“Taste, the way you and I think of it, is ultimately in the brain,” said study leader Charles S. Zuker, PhD, professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics and of neuroscience, a member of the Kavli Institute for Brain Science and the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC). “Dedicated taste receptors in the tongue detect sweet or bitter and so on, but it’s the brain that affords meaning to these chemicals.”
The primary aim of Dr. Zuker’s lab is to understand how the brain transforms detection of chemical stimuli into perception. Over the past decade or so, Dr. Zuker and his colleagues proved that there are dedicated receptors for each taste on the tongue, and that each class of receptor sends a specific signal to the brain. More recently, they demonstrated that each taste is sensed by unique sets of brain cells, located in separate locations in the brain’s cortex -generating a map of taste qualities in the brain.
The scientists used optogenetics, which allowed them to directly activate specific neurons with laser light. Yueqing Peng, a postdoctoral associate in Dr. Zuker’s lab, examined whether manipulating the neurons in these brain regions could evoke the perception of sweet or bitter, without the mouse actually tasting either. (Sweet and bitter tastes were chosen because they are most critical and recognizable tastes for humans and other animals. Sweet taste permits the identification of energy-rich nutrients, while bitter warns against the intake of potentially noxious chemicals).
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