Mutação de gene explica menor necessidade de dormir.

A mutação rara de um gene pode explicar a razão por que algumas pessoas precisam de dormir menos do que outras, revela um estudo da revista científica Science.

Investigadores da Universidade da Califórnia, nos Estados Unidos, liderados pela professora de neurologia Ying-Hui Fu, identificaram uma mãe, de 69 anos, e uma filha, de 44 anos, que durante toda a vida tiveram menos necessidade de dormir do que a maioria dos indivíduos.

As duas mulheres, com mutações no gene que regula o relógio biológico (DEC2), precisavam de dormir apenas seis horas por noite, enquanto o tempo médio necessário para cada pessoa permanecer saudável varia entre sete e nove horas.

Our Ancestors Did NOT Evolve From Apes.

The famous sequence that shows the evolution of man from knuckle-dragging ape to an upright human may be flawed, a new study has revealed. Researchers who examined the wrist bones of several primate species believe our early human ancestors never used their knuckles to walk like gorillas.

Instead they evolved from other apes who spent most of their time in trees and descended to the ground upright.

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Source: Mopo Geek News

Honey, I'm Gonna Need That Ring Back: Nano-diamonds May Help Heal Wounds.

Seen here is Dr. Manhattan's conception a nano-diamond attracting insulin to help a wound heal quicker. Neat, but I'd still douse it with Blue # 1 just to be on the safe side.

Northwestern University scientist Dean Ho and his team discovered that nanodiamonds are very attractive to insulin, best know for helping regulate blood sugar. Insulin, however, can also accelerate healing processes and stave off infection in wound sites, according to Ho:

Insulin accelerates wound healing by acting as a growth hormone. It encourages skin cells to proliferate and divide, restores blood flow to the wound, suppresses inflammation and fights infection.

Nice, but I can't even get my insurance to cover regular bandages at the doctor, so I can pretty much forget about DIABANDAGES©. Haha -- pay me, suckers!

Thanks to Tank and Totex, who once shot up emeralds and died. Don't do precious stones, kids.

Source: Geekologie.com

Blue Dye May Help After Spinal Injuries.

FD&C Blue No. 1, a food dye commonly found in Gatorade and other unnaturally blue consumables, is believe do help prevent cell death after a spinal cord injury. Imagine what Purple No. 3 might do!

[The dye] appears to block a molecule that floods the injury site and kills nerve cells, a team reports in the July 28 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Rats dosed with the dye after injury showed greater improvement in motor skills than rats not receiving the dye. And the food colorant's low toxicity suggests a new approach for treating spinal cord trauma in humans, injuries for which there are few therapies.

"It's not a cure," says neuroscientist Maiken Nedergaard of the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, N.Y., who led the new study. "I don't think that anything can cure this, but for the patient it could be a big improvement."

Blue No. 1 folks, it's the future. Which sucks, because I've been stockpiling Yellow No. 5. Now what am I supposed to do with it all? BESIDES POUR IT INTO THE WATER SUPPLY AND BECOME THIS CITY'S GREATEST LOVER!

Thanks to dustin and Julian, who only experiment with drugs.

Source: Geekologie.com

First Image Of A New Memory Being Formed.

Allegedly, this is the first image captured of a new memory being formed on the cellular level. If your brain were dinner, new memories would be the glowing noodle appetizer.

The image shows that proteins are created at connections between brain cells when a long-term memory is formed. Neuroscientists had suspected as much, but hadn't been able to see it happening until now.

Scientists still want to understand more about how our brains translate memories made on the go into long-term storage. Since synapses are connections between cells, experts think that fortifying these connections, or perhaps even making new ones, helps our minds associate different ideas and form memories of connected events.

Speaking of memories, you remember the time we snuck off and made out in that house that was being built? Yeah, that was really, um -- that wasn't you, was it? Oh synapse!
Source: Geekologie.com

Finally, I Can Sleep At Night: Researchers Develop Algorithms To Mimic Water Sounds.

The watery sounds you hear in this video were all made using algorithms developed by researchers at Cornell, because, honestly, curing diseases can wait.

Doug James and Changxi Zheng, researchers at Cornell University, have developed a way to simulate the sounds of flowing or dripping water, which in real life are produced by tiny air bubbles that compress and expand due to surface tension, creating sound waves in the water.

So by using the geometry of a 3D scene, the Harmonic Fluids algorithm they developed can calculate where the air bubbles would have been created in real life and how they would have moved, which allows realistic accompanying sounds to be generated.


Now don't get me wrong, that's neat as hell, I just wish they would have made their research a little more useful in the real world. Like, I dunno, developing an algorithm to mimic the mating calls of prehistoric dinosaurs. Am I right? If we're not gonna cure cancer I should at least get laid.

Cornell Researchers Develop Algorithms To Simulate The Sounds Of Fluids [ohgizmo]

Source: Geekologie.com