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Alex R.

Science

Man Regenerates Finger

By Posted on 5.1.2008 9 Comments
What do starfish, salamanders, and the Hulk have in common? They all have the power of regeneration. Starfish can regenerate their legs; salamanders can do that and a few better by regrowing their tail, and parts of their heart and eyes. The Hulk, well, the Hulk can regenerate it all. We ordinary humans are not so lucky. If we lose something, it's gone for good, unless, that is, we happen to have a brother working in the field of regenerative medicine.

6.7.2008 at 06:52am - Comment by Alex R.

It sounds as if a lot of you are interested in limb regenertion, so let me get into the details. We have learned from salamanders a lot about limb regeneration. If we applied what they do, then we would have to first have our fibroblasts go to the wound, then have nerves give signals for cell differentiation and proliferation in the first week after the amputation, maybe more or less because we are not salamanders. Normally we would then just have epidermal cells covering the wound and eventually a scar would form. Instead, we would need to make a blastema, and make our fibroblast cells give more signals. This would eventually form a limb pattern and the new limb would begin growing. In a salamander, this whole process takes around 55 days, though I would'nt be surprised if it took longer for a human. The protein powder used by this man probably helped because the protein might have acted as a scaffold for regrowing tissues. It would also be important to learn how to block fibrosis. This could be applied to helping to regow limbs as well.
Technology

New Entrant in a Long-Running Black Hole Debate

By Posted on 5.20.2008 9 Comments
For years, some scientists contended that black holes swallow everything, including the information associated with the particles they suck up, and that this information can never be recovered. The problem with this idea - the chief proponent of which was the legendary Stephen Hawking - is that it violated a law of quantum mechanics.

5.25.2008 at 08:20am - Comment by Alex R.

The reason why Hawking's "contemporaries" didn't buy his reason is supposedly because they felt that it did not solve his original belief (that after a black hole evaporates it would still leave behind its singularity, where it was said that information would be lost forever). Ashketar's group only used two demensions (1 time, 1 space) in their model. It is not known if the information being restored would work in more dimensions. John Preskill, who bet with Hawking and Kip Thorne, does not seem to be buying into this new theory, as there remains doubt due to work in 1994 which indicated that models like this new one would still give information loss.
Science

For Treating Blindness, Scientists Look to Algae

By Posted on 5.27.2008 3 Comments
What if the key to curing blindness was found in unicellular algae? In a recent study published in the journal Nature, a group of scientists were able to restore light sensitivity to formerly blind mice using a protein extracted from algaes of the genus Chlamydomonas. The Chlamydomonas are of particular interest because they exhibit phototaxis—an ability to orient themselves toward light sources to aid in photosynthesis. Eager to understand what caused this phenomenon on a genetic level, scientists at the Max Planck institute in 2003 isolated a sequence of genes that stored the blueprints for generating light-sensitive proteins. And now, a joint team of researchers from the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Switzerland and the Harvard Medical School have recently developed a therapy that introduces these genes into the eyes of blind mice. What they observed was a dramatic behavioral change that proved the mice had regained their sensitivity to light.

5.25.2008 at 06:44am - Comment by Alex R.

Great, but I hope that RNAi therapies for blindness have not been forgotten.
Science

Victimless Leather?

By Posted on 5.15.2008 7 Comments
The Museum of Modern Art in New York has had to kill one of the works currently on display in its recent Design and the Elastic mind show. Literally. The piece is called Victimless Leather. It's an incubator built from a series of flasks which provides nutrients to feed a miniature living coat. The tiny coat was comprised of a biodegradable polymer matrix in the shape of a doll's jacket covered in a layer of living tissue made up of mouse stem cells. When the cells began growing to quickly, the curators of the show had to cut off the nutrients—effectively killing the cells.

5.17.2008 at 07:28am - Comment by Alex R.

This type of thing seems like it could go too far....I woud'nt want my body parts in an exhibition when I'm dead, and these tissues could probably have been better used.
Entertainment & Gaming

Double Amputee Sprinter Cleared For Olympic Competition

By Posted on 5.16.2008 30 Comments
Its about time. After an excruciating and absurd debate, double-amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius will be allowed to compete in the Olympics. Pistorius won his appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport today which immediately overturned an asinine ruling by the International Association of Athletics Federations which stated Pistorius gained an unfair advantage from his prosthetics.

5.17.2008 at 07:02am - Comment by Alex R.

Why not make seperate classes of competition for all sorts of amputees with standards for the prosthetic power they use?
Entertainment & Gaming

Folding Proteins On Your Lunch Break

By Posted on 5.12.2008 4 Comments
Tired of car chases, robberies, and general action-packed anarchy? Set aside Grand Theft Auto IV for a minute and enter a new kind of gaming adventure: the exciting world of protein folding! Researchers at Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the University of Washington have developed Foldit, a free, online game in which players compete to design proteins.

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5.16.2008 at 06:39pm - Comment by Alex R.

How about constructing a prion protein? That would be interesting.
Science

The Littlest Big Bang

By Posted on 5.7.2008 9 Comments
The device is a cylinder a bit smaller than a pinky finger, filled with helium and cooled to just above absolute zero. Inside, a young universe—or something very much like one—evolves. As the helium sloshes about, it mimics a process that may have powered our own universe a few moments after the big bang. And once the fluid settles down, the little whirlpools that remain may be akin to the defects in early spacetime that ultimately gave rise to galaxies, stars and planets.

5.16.2008 at 06:27pm - Comment by Alex R.

"Evidence" is a very twistable term to use, as it can go more than one way. Atheism is like a religion! It implies faith in supposed "evidence", does'nt it?
Science

A Living Air Filter

By Posted on 5.13.2008 9 Comments
Bel-Air Cost to Develop: $236,000 Time: 1 year Prototype | | | | | Product Your home could be emitting toxic gases. Just ask the victims of Hurricane Katrina, whose emergency trailers, made with glue-laden particleboard, let off so much formaldehyde that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned that residents should spend time outdoors and make relocating to permanent housing a priority. Even in more expensive new homes, the concentration of emissions from things like furniture, carpet and paint can be two to five times as high as it is outdoors. But most air filters only catch particulates such as dust and pollen rather than organic compounds like formaldehyde and benzene, and the filters that do trap those gases need frequent replacement. So Mathieu LeHanneur and David Edwards built an ultra-efficient filtration system that eliminates toxins using natures own hazmat squad: plants.

5.16.2008 at 06:00pm - Comment by Alex R.

Better yet, get rid of any unnecessary pollutants and open the windows when possible.
Technology

How It Works: The Flying Laser Cannon

By Posted on 3.18.2008 31 Comments
digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gadgets/How_It_Works_The_Airborne_Laser_Cannon'; Creating a laser that can melt a soda can in a lab is a finicky enough task. Later this year, scientists will put a 40,000-pound chemical laser in the belly of a gunship flying at 300 mph and take aim at targets as far away as five miles. And were not talking aluminum cans. Boeings new Advanced Tactical Laser will cook trucks, tanks, radio stations—the kinds of things hit with missiles and rockets today. Whereas conventional projectiles can lose sight of their target and be shot down or deflected, the ATL moves at the speed of light and can strike several targets in rapid succession.

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4.28.2008 at 02:23pm - Comment by Alex R.

This article mentioned 40,000 pounds of chemicals to power the laser. But what about free-electron lasers? Would'nt that save a lot of weight? Also: if the prototype costs $200,000,000 why would it possibly see combat use "within five years". Would'nt that be a big risk? Thirdly: the laser's fuel would be high-maintanance, which leads me to question its common usage, in addition to the above reasons. That said, I still enjoyed this article a lot and thought it interesting.
Science

Battling Bacteria

By Posted on 3.14.2008 3 Comments
Humans are in an escalating battle with bacterial infections. Our last lines of antibiotic defense are increasingly becoming our only lines. Bacteria have demonstrated an adept ability to mutate and foil drugs at a pace which nearly bests our research and development efforts. However, a new class of molecules recently synthesized by researchers at Stanford University is showing early promise in fighting off infection in a manner unlike any other.

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4.28.2008 at 02:08pm - Comment by Alex R.

Could friendly bacteria be put in battles against harmful bacteria? Maybe they could evolve to produce new natural bacteria killing substances relatively quickly compared to the current rate for getting new antibiotics.