Wood Wasp
Also in today's links: measuring the effectiveness of IVF, checking the predictive ability of brain imaging, and more.
- After yesterday's virtual cows, we have today some virtual beetle larvae: a little boat that moves by disturbing the water's surface tension in a similar way.
- Researchers also are mimicking the approach a wood wasp takes for burrowing into pine trees with a medical probe that could move more flexibly through tissue such as the brain.
- Another way that science saves: by understanding why we're pissed off and devastated by economic collapse, we might just help ourselves out of this mess.
- Think of all the studies you've read that draw conclusions based on flow of blood to a particular region of the brain. What if the underlying assumption -- that blood flow indicates activity -- isn't quite right?
- On the one hand, a study that women under 35 have a 65 to 86 percent chance of getting pregnant in six IVF cycles can show women that they have a great likelihood of having the baby they're trying for. On the other, it could inspire them to prolong a physically and emotionally grueling -- not to mention costly -- process.
