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Gold comes in many different forms
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The Golden Tortoise beetle is found in the Americas. They feed on the leaves of plants related to the sweet potato, including the morning glory and bindweed, though they rarely eat enough to cause serious damage to the plant.
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5274 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
So, chemistry is all theory, right?
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Using high-resolution atomic force microscopy, a hydrogen bond has been imaged for the first time. This technique is quite similar to the one used to photograph bonds breaking and reforming that was announced earlier this year.
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4717 |
savio |
10 years ago |
Ink poisoning
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Varieties of the inky cap mushroom can be around the world. While they are edible, ingesting alcohol while eating the mushrooms increases symptoms of nausea and vomiting, and can even cause a heart attack. After the mushroom has released its spores, the cap begins to liquefy. The thick black liquid that is seen dripping from the edges is how the inky cap got its name.
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4553 |
savio |
10 years ago |
Imagine being able to draw while you're sleep
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Artist Lee Hadwin has a unique talent - he can only produce his artwork in his sleep, as shown above. Lee cannot remember doing anything while he is asleep, and cannot recreate his work while he is awake. He says he has no real interest in art, but has been producing his own work since a small child.
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4793 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Cool shiny metal
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This is bismuth, a brittle metal with a white or silver-pink hue and an iridescent oxide tarnish that produces a rainbow of colours from yellow to blue. It is the most naturally diamagnetic metal in the world, which means it can create a magnetic field in opposition to an externally applied magnetic field. ...
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3603 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Birds evolving from fish, a possibility?
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A flying fish moves its tail up to 70 times per second to propel itself up and out of the water. Those specialised pectoral fins are spread wide and tilted slightly upward to provide lift, and then folded back against the body to lower the fish back into the ocean. Flying fish (family: Exocoetidae) are eaten by dolphins, tuna, birds, squids and porpoises, so they needed to develop an ingenious mode of escape - such as flying - in order to survive.
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2865 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Next time you experience acne, try not to remember this
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Demodex folliculorum and Demodex brevisare are parasitic mites that particularly favour the hair follicles of eyebrows and eyelashes and measure a mere fraction of a millimeter long. They crawl about your face in the dark to mate and then crawl into the pores to lay their eggs and die. Healthy adults have around one or two mites per square centimetre of facial skin, though people with the condition rosacea can have 10 times more. Demodex does not have an anus and therefore cannot get rid of its faeces. Instead, their abdomen gets bigger and bigger, and when the mite dies it decomposes and releases its faeces all at once into the pore. ...
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5273 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Brain defects go a long way
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This is a human brain without grooves and folds, a condition known as lissencephaly. It belonged to a patient who died in a mental health facility in 1970, and almost a year ago a photographer found the jar containing the brain in a collection at the University of Texas, Austin. People with this rare condition suffer from seizures, muscle spasms, a range of learning difficulties, and usually die before the age of ten. ...
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5174 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
The strangest medical story ever
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This 22-year-old man had a car accident last year and as a result his nose became infected and deformed. Doctors weren’t able to repair it, but decided to take cartilage from one of the young man’s ribs to grown a new nose. The nose, which is temporarily attached to his forehead, has been developing for 9 months and is ready to be transplanted.
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5032 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
New island forms in Pakistan after a major earthquake
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Barely half an hour after being jolted by a major earthquake on Tuesday, people of the Pakistani coastal town of Gwadar had another shock when they saw a new island emerge in the sea, just over a kilometre from the shore. It has a rough surface, much of which is muddy and some parts are mostly made up of fine- to coarse-grained sand. ...
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5284 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Long middle finger
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The aye-aye lives in the forests of Madagascar. Despite looking like a very scared rodent, the aye-aye is a kind of lemur with a bushy tail and super-thin, elongated middle fingers that they use to dig grubs out of hollow branches. Aye-ayes also have huge lower incisors to chew through wood and bamboo—and in captivity they’ve been known to chew through concrete cinder blocks ...
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5384 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Why does water bridge form in the presense of electricity?
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If you fill two beakers with water, apply an electric voltage across them, and then separate them, you will form a water bridge. This phenomena was discover some 120 years ago and researchers believe it occurs because the voltage makes the water molecules line up, generating a dielectric tension that defies gravity, stopping the bridge from falling. Understanding how water bridges form could help engineers develop better electrowetting displays. ...
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2702 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Birds of Paradise
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A must see introductory video about paradise birds. This video reveals the astounding beauty of 39 of the most exquisitely specialized animals on earth. After 8 years and 18 expeditions to New Guinea, Australia, and nearby islands, Cornell Lab scientist Ed Scholes and National Geographic photojournalist Tim Laman succeeded in capturing images of all 39 species in the bird-of-paradise family for the first time ever.
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3251 |
savio |
10 years ago |
Catch me if you can
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The relative speed is based on body length. The tiger beetle ( Cicindela hudsoni) run so fast, their eyes can’t process information as quickly as they need to and they temporarily blind themselves. Some sources claim that the tiger beetle can up to 9 km/hour! When attacking prey, the beetle will aim itself at its target and start running, but will need to stop and relocate the prey because it cannot keep an eye on it. Once it has reoriented itself, it charges forward again and hopes to run into the target. ...
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4391 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Self-exploding ants
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Carpenter ants ( Camponotus cylindricus) are found in Borneo and expel the lethal sticky substance to defend their colony. Both ant and invader are killed in these attacks; they fall from the canopy as a pair into the leaf litter below, to eventually be eaten by something. Most of the bodies of the south-east Asian Camponotus cylindricus ants are for storage of the deadly secretion. The insects react quickly - when researchers lightly touched them with forceps their abdomen walls ruptured. ...
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2496 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Upgraded Armor
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The most thing we should worry about when entering the lab, and what was drilled into our minds throught all our science classes and our courses laboratory introductory session, was our safety. With regards to germs, microbes, bacteria, viruses etc, and their stunning ability to evolve into a stronger species rather rapidly considering the time-span through which scientists have been practicing science, smart people have managed to use solar energy in such a way that reduces our anxiety around those organisms much more than 70% ethanol and heat. At least in the dental industry, the tools used by dentists have been protected - to an extent - in a method, I personally view as brilliant. "First uses of new solar energy technology: Killing germ ...
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2504 |
ehd123 |
10 years ago |
Tube-nosed reptile
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The Spiny Softshell ( Apalone spinifera spinifera) is also known as the "pancake turtle" because of its rather flat, round, leathery upper shell, or carapace. The long neck and elongated, tubular snout allow this turtle to breathe while almost fully submerged and virtually unseen. Softshells ambush prey by lying concealed in bottom mud.
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3909 |
savio |
10 years ago |
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1 |
2577 |
savio |
10 years ago |
Liver genes play a role in sleeping
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New research has shown that liver genes play a key role in regulating our body clock, and could be the target for treatments that help shift workers and international travellers 'reset' their internal rhythm and reduce their risk of obesity and diabetes.
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2610 |
savio |
10 years ago |
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2721 |
savio |
10 years ago |
Can anyone whisper, evolution?
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Zookeepers at Central Park Zoo in the US assumed their cotton-top tamarins were falling silent every time someone entered their enclosure, but spectrograms, which provide visual representations of sound, revealed what was really going on. These little monkeys were actually whispering their alarm calls instead of shouting them, which is the first evidence of whispering in a non-human primate species.
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3061 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Strange looking plants
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The island of Socotra is one of the most isolated non-volcanic landforms in the world. Sitting 240 km east of the Horn of Africa and 380 km south of the Arabian Peninsula, its geographic isolation over millions of years has ensured that a third of its plant species are found nowhere else on Earth. Clockwise from the top are dragon blood trees, desert roses, and a native succulent, Dorstenia gigas. ...
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2624 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Will the Big Bang be a thing of the past?
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Cosmologists have formulated a new theory that suggest the universe didn’t start with the Big Bang. They believe the birth of the universe happened after a 4D star collapsed into a black hole and ejected debris, which helps explain why the universe has an almost uniform temperature.
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3069 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
You big fat 'sea' pig!
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Sea pigs are marine animals around 15 cm long that live about 1,000 metres down on the deep sea floor. They are scotoplanes (sea cucumbers) and their 'legs' are actually elongated feet which are used to push food into their mouths. The apparent antennae on the front of the head are also feet, used to tread the deep sea water. They feed on deep ocean mud and thrive on the organic material present there. The sea pigs are not considered as a threat to humans and they are not an endangered species. ...
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4036 |
savio |
10 years ago |
Picking your way into a lady's heart
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The velvety ladybird spider is a fascinating arachnid found in northern and central Europe. They live in burrows with silk trip-wires that help them catch large-sized prey. The males have bright red backs with four black spots and emerge only for a couple of weeks in May to breed. The male will only mate if he manages to avoid all trip wires—if he falls, he may become the meal.
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3209 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
These aren't snakes, people - they are lizards
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Four species of legless lizard have been identified in the sand dunes of Antioch, California. This picture introduces Anniella grinnelli, one of the recently found species. It has a bright yellow belly and a lilac back with deep purple lines, and was named after Joseph Grinnell, the first director of the Berkeley Zoology Museum.
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2600 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Chimpanzees have a gift for numbers
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Watch this video.It turns out that our evolutionary cousins can recall number placement better than people can. In the experiment, the task requires the chimp to touch the numbers in ascending order and he has only seconds to make his decisions. The numerals appeared only for a certain limited duration, and were then automatically replaced by white squares. After touching the number one, the rest of the numbers are obscured by squares, making the chimp reliant on his memory to correctly pick the numbers in the right order. After a whistle sounds, the numbers reappear in different positions, so the chimp has to remember the position of all nine numbers after seeing them only briefly. And the chimp quickly aces the test time and time again, r ...
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3241 |
bio_man |
10 years ago |
Who needs painkillers?
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People who suffer from congenital analgesia can’t feel pain, and often end up hurting themselves as they don’t know when something is too hot, or making them bleed. Researchers have discovered that mutations in the gene SCN11A are responsible for this disorder, which blocks the transmission of pain signals. ...
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2898 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
The road to a cure for HIV
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A new vaccine has successfully killed the simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) that causes AIDS in monkeys. It's hoped that with further research, an HIV-form of the vaccine can soon be tested in humans.
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3094 |
savio |
10 years ago |
Fewest feathers of all birds
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Hummingbirds, like this little golden rufous hummingbird, have up to 1,500 feathers, which is the fewest number of feathers of any bird species in the world.
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3221 |
savio |
10 years ago |
First non-human to use sign language
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This is Washoe, the first non-human to use sign language. When her caretaker Kat suffered a miscarriage, and Washoe was told that her baby had died, she signed "CRY", drawing a path down her cheek with her finger to mimic a tear. Chimpanzees don't shed tears, and Kat said this one sign told her more about Washoe's mental capabilities than all of her longer, grammatically perfect sentences.
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3209 |
savio |
10 years ago |
The nastiest cheese on earth
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Casu marzu is a traditional Sardinian sheep milk cheese, notable for containing live insect larvae. It is found almost exclusively in Sardinia, Italy. Casu marzu is created by leaving whole Pecorino cheeses outside with part of the rind removed to allow the eggs of the cheese fly Piophila casei to be laid in the cheese. A female P. casei can lay more than five hundred eggs at one time. The eggs hatch and the larvae begin to eat through the cheese. The acid from the maggots' digestive system breaks down the cheese's fats, making the texture of the cheese very soft; by the time it is ready for consumption, a typical casu marzu will contain thousands of these maggots. ...
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4056 |
savio |
10 years ago |
Smallest bone in the body
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Take a good look at that tiny piece of art. It is the smallest bone in the body is called the stirrup (or stapes) bone. It is one of the three bones that make up the middle ear; measuring about 2-3 millimetres. It has a U-shape and is the inmost bone that collects sound vibrations and then passes them along to the cochlea for interpretation by the brain. ...
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5596 |
savio |
10 years ago |
What accounts for blue blood found in invertebrates
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Hemocyanins are proteins that transport oxygen throughout the bodies of some invertebrate animals. These metalloproteins contain two copper atoms that reversibly bind a single oxygen molecule (O 2). They are second only to hemoglobin in frequency of use as an oxygen transport molecule. Unlike the hemoglobin in red blood cells found in vertebrates, hemocyanins are not bound to blood cells but are instead suspended directly in the hemolymph. Oxygenation causes a color change between the colorless Cu(I) deoxygenated form and the blue Cu(II) oxygenated form. ...
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5241 |
bio_man |
10 years ago |
Here's why birds and ants get along so well
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Some birds, such as woodcreepers and cuckoos, are known to follow army ant raids on forest floors. As the army ant colony travels on the forest floor, they stir up various flying insect species. As the insects flee from the army ants, the birds following the ants catch the fleeing insects. In this way, the army ants and the birds are in a commensalistic relationship because the birds benefit while the army ants are unaffected. ...
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5037 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
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4836 |
savio |
10 years ago |
Commensalism
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Sloths have a commensal relationship with several insects. Their thick fur readily traps bacteria and algae, which makes a good home for many beetles. The beetles are able to lay their eggs in a place that is rich in nutrients upon hatching, and the sloths don’t care either way. One sloth was reported to have over 900 beetles living in its fur!
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4601 |
savio |
10 years ago |
Blue blood is quite costly
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Did you know one quart of horseshoe crab blood costs $15,000 dollars? The critter's blue blood is a sort of bacteria killing machine that clots around ‘invaders’, eliminating them and protecting horseshoe crabs from lethal infections. Researchers have been harnessing the power of this blue blood to test medical supplies for contamination.
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3708 |
savio |
10 years ago |
Infection, no more
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Patients with urinary tract infections can drink cranberry juice to make their urine more acidic. Bacteria that cause a urinary tract infection multiply rapidly in alkaline urine, but not in acidic urine. Some types of kidney stones form in alkaline urine, but not in acidic urine.
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3164 |
savio |
10 years ago |
Things that happen to spiders while on drugs
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During this experiment, spiders were exposed to a variety of drugs to help determine their effect on the brain. Spiders who had been given marijuana started out well enough, but were unable to maintain focus. Benzedrine (speed) produced spiders who spun enthusiastically, though no great thought or care was put into the web design. Caffeine, one of the most common stimulants taken by humans, produced an erratic web. Chloral hydrate, an ingredient in sleeping pills, made the spiders doze off after barely getting started on the web. Though this 1995 experiment sought to determine toxicity of drugs, it was a continuation of experimentation of spiders on drugs that had started in 1948 by P. N. Witt. ...
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3201 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Beetles the size of period
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The water beetle is about 1 mm in length and has been named Hydraena ateneo. Most of the discoveries made in the Philippines occur in their forests, making this discovery even more surprising.
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3545 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Floating train
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Scientists in Japan have built a levitating train that in recent trials hit speeds of almost 500 km/h. It's hoped that by 2027, this floating 'maglev' train will cut 55 minutes off the current travel time between Nagoya and Tokyo on today's high-speed trains.
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3233 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
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3353 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
A sculpture made from light
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This sculpture is constructed by quickly rotating a rope stretched from ceiling to floor through white light. The vibrating string becomes invisible, but the white light that’s being reflected off the rope becomes visible in an exchange that let’s our eyes see magic, as real as science can make it. The colors change and twist, forming double-helixes that stem from the shape of the swinging rope. Some of these light sculptures are small and handheld, but many of the larger ones include touch screens that allow viewers to adjust the beams. All of them are spinning at very high speeds that result in a constantly moving body of light. ...
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3599 |
savio |
10 years ago |
Haunted house made from bread mold
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Italian artist Daniele Del Nero has created a really cool series of architectural scale models constructed with black paper and covered with flour and a layer of mould to create the effect of old abandoned buildings.
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3976 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Would you like to try a gluten-free diet or a helminth?
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Parasitologist espouses using parasitic worms for treatment of autoimmune diseases – Dr. Joel Weinstock, at Tufts Medical Center in a commentary piece published in the journal Nature, describes work that he and colleagues have been involved in that focuses on studying the possibility of introducing parasitic worms into the guts of patients suffering from autoimmune diseases such as Crohn's disease. The thinking he says, is that modern hygienic lifestyles may be contributing to such diseases and that reintroducing parasitic worms and perhaps certain bacteria into the gut may restore a natural balance in the gut and relieve patients of such symptoms as chronic diarrhea, bleeding and infections. Source: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-p ...
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3477 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Vulnerability to tuberculosis
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If you’re not already acquainted, meet Mycobacterium tuberculosis – a wildly successful bacterium that has marched in lockstep with our population growth and history. The cause of tuberculosis, this bacterium is said to infect a new host every single second. Research lead Caitlin Pepperell from University of Wisconsin-Madison remarked, "Evolutionary theory predicts that M. tuberculosis populations should be vulnerable to extinction. Yet it is obviously highly prevalent. It must have some incredibly clever strategies and tricks to hang on." A paper published last month in PLoS Pathogens investigated 63 genomes from the bacteria and related pathogenic mycobacteria to gain insight into how natural election pressures have shaped its evolution and ...
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3404 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
One colourful duck
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The Mandarin duck is a sexually dimorphic species, meaning males and females differ in appearance. The male has a rich, colorful appearance, which includes brown cheeks and a long brown and white crown sweeping back from the top of the head. The chest is dark purple, with black and white strips, and the wings are brown with an iridescent blue-green edge. This striking coloration helps the male attract the less-colorful females, which display brownish-black plumage with white markings around the eyes and along the throat. ...
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3711 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
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3442 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Why does airplane food taste strange?
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If you've been fortunate enough to fly on an airplane, you've probably noticed that the food tastes a bit strange. It turns out that it's not actually because of the food itself (even if you are sitting in economy) but the reduced atmospheric pressure on board and the dry nose and mouth we get from flying, says an expert.
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2737 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
Giraffes come in various forms
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This is the giraffe weevil from Madagascar, which, as you might have guessed, gets its name from its long neck. Males use their extra long necks for fighting, while females use theirs to roll a leaf nest, into which an egg is laid during reproduction.
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2484 |
duddy |
10 years ago |
A cratered inferno
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Mercury's surface looks similar to our Moon's. Each is heavily cratered and made of rock. Mercury's diameter is about 4800 km, while the Moon's is slightly less at about 3500 km (compared with about 12,700 km for the Earth). But Mercury is unique in many ways. Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun, orbiting at about 1/3 the radius of the Earth's orbit. As Mercury slowly rotates, its surface temperature varies from an unbearably cold -180 degrees Celsius to an unbearably hot 400 degrees Celsius. The place nearest the Sun in Mercury's orbit changes slightly each orbit - a fact used by Albert Einstein to help verify the correctness of his then newly discovered theory of gravity: General Relativity. The above picture was taken by the only sp ...
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2707 |
savio |
10 years ago |
Ever seen a potoo?
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Potoos are a small New World family of solitary and nocturnal birds. Most are so poorly known they seem more fiction than substance, their gruff or wailing cries ghostly delusions of the dim nocturnal world they inhabit.
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2733 |
savio |
10 years ago |
How a stent works
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A stent is a small mesh tube that's used to treat narrowed or weakened arteries in the body. Arteries are blood vessels that carry blood away from your heart to other parts of your body. You may have a stent placed in an artery as part of a procedure called angioplasty. Angioplasty restores blood flow through narrowed or blocked arteries. Stents help prevent the arteries from becoming narrowed or blocked again in the months or years after angioplasty.
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3081 |
savio |
10 years ago |