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20 Sep 2011 00:46

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Offbeat: Florida woman has twins from — SURPRISE — two separate uteri

  • whatTwo healthy babies. Two uteri. One mother. A Florida woman’s rare condition, called “uterus didelphys,” allowed her to have children in two separate uteri. So they’re twins, kinda sorta.
  • how? It’s incredibly rare for a mother to become pregnant in both uteri. There are only 100 known cases, and only one in five million uterus didelphys pregnancies succeed. This was one of them! source
Posted by samimain • 0 Comments • Permalink

17 Aug 2011 21:42

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Offbeat, World: Researchers found a “living fossil” eel off the coast of Palau. Cue terror.

  • Why is this fossil living?! Apparently this species of eel has DNA that dates back 200 million years. It’s more similar to an eel species from 100 million years ago than it is to the eels of today. Thanks a lot, Palau. We’re scared now. source
Posted by samimain • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 Jun 2011 21:51

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Tech: Antimatter stops by CERN long enough for a good converstation

  • 17 minutes trapped in one place; antimatter was just hangin’ source
  • » This is what we call progress: Back in November, it was kind of a big thing when scientists managed to trap antimatter at all — even for .17 seconds! Now we’ve gotten past viral video length and we’re almost at the length of an episode of “The Office.” The lifespan of the antimatter is a big deal because usually when antimatter is made, it disappears instantly. But the process that CERN (known as the European Organization for Nuclear Research) uses basically holds the antimatter in place using really strong magnets. The longer lifetimes offer scientists the opportunity to study it in greater detail, which is kind of neat, and to possibly figure out longer-term uses for this pretty cool technology. This research totally matters, guys.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

08 May 2011 11:22

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World: Budget bill surprise: The U.S., China can’t collaborate on science

  • We don’t want to give them the opportunity to take advantage of our technology, and we have nothing to gain from dealing with them. China is spying against us, and every U.S. government agency has been hit by cyber-attacks. They are stealing technology from every major U.S. company. They have taken technology from NASA, and they have hit the NSF computers … You name the company, and the Chinese are trying to get its secrets.
  • Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) • Describing the reasoning behind his addition to the recent spending bill that blocks two key U.S. government scientific groups — NASA and the White House Office of Science and Technology — from collaborating jointly with China on any scientific projects. (Wolf has his reasons — his office was attacked in 2006 by Chinese hackers, so he’s been there.) While the White House is pulling the “foreign policy is OK!” card to work around this, it still sets a strange precedent that rolls back decades of collaboration. Now that Osama bin Laden is gone, is China the new boogeyman? Or do we need to keep our neighbor to the East out of the cookie jar? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

13 Apr 2011 11:02

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U.S.: Yale science student dies in freak chemistry lab accident

  • By all reports, Michele was an exceptional young woman, an outstanding student and young scientist, a dear friend and a vibrant member of this community. We will find ways in the next day to gather to celebrate her life and grieve this loss.
  • Yale University Secretary Linda Lorimer • Reacting to the death of Michelle Dufault, a Yale astronomy and physics major who was working in the machine shop at the Sterling Chemistry Laboratory machine shop, where a piece of equipment, used to help “construct or modify research instrumentation” caused the accident. Yikes. Our best wishes to Dufault’s family and friends. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 Mar 2011 21:23

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Tech: “Tissue-engineered urethras”: Weird phrase, awesome result

  • what Five Mexican boys with damaged urinary tracts now have had their urethras fully repaired by doctors using an experimental procedure we’ll totally tell you about in the next box.
  • how?! Science! Well, and their own cells. The boys, injured in separate accidents, had their cells isolated and grown in a lab into new urethras using a process called tissue engineering. Neat. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 Mar 2011 15:02

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Tech: New research may foreshadow leap in heart disease prevention

  • 13 gene regions linked to heart disease by scientific research source
  • » Cracking the heart disease code: As anybody with a family history, or personal history of heart disease knows, it’s a frightening and pervasive concern. It should come as thrilling news, then, that a group of scientists believe they’ve located thirteen different gene regions that may indicate a vulnerability to heart attack. Though the knowledge is admittedly limited, and is likely years from practical application in a doctor’s office, advancements like these are what give us hope for a brighter, healthier future, with fewer people unexpectedly dropping dead.
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

17 Feb 2011 22:45

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Offbeat: Scientists inadvertently stumble upon possible baldness cure

Balding Man
Scientists accidentally isolated a compound that seems to cure baldness in mice. Frankly, we’re more impressed that they were able to find bald mice than in the cure itself. source
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink

12 Feb 2011 18:26

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World: Researchers: We just found a wrecked ship tied to “Moby Dick”!

  • See that down there? That decayed jar of ginger may be a key piece of the Moby Dick puzzle deep in the ocean for three centuries. The inspiration for Herman Melville’s book (and, indirectly Herman Melville’s great-great-great-grandnephew’s stage name), George Pollard, Jr., was the captain of the ship “Two Brothers,” a ship that was struck by lightning and sank way back in 1823. (It was Pollard’s second whaling ship to face such an unlucky fate.) The crew was rescued, but the ship reportedly wasn’t found until recently, 600 miles off the coast of Honolulu. If true, this is awesome. (Photo by Greg McFall, NOAA) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 Jan 2011 01:02

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U.S.: Scientists know why you’re going bald (it’s not what you think)

  • The fact that there are normal numbers of stem cells in bald scalp gives us hope for reactivating those stem cells.
  • Dr George Cotsarelis • Raising optimism towards the idea that baldness can be reversed. Cotsarelis and his team at the University of Pennsylvania discovered that the root of baldness is way different than anyone was expecting – instead of hair falling out, the hair grows so small as to be invisible to the human eye. But on the plus side, this could possibly be reversed through the use of creams and other things to get those stem cells doing their thing. No word on whether Cotsarelis is also a client of Hair Club for Men. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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