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Strange Ingredients Lurking in Doritos Chips
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 Like many others settling in for a Friday night movie with a side of snacks, I opted for Doritos chips. My perception of Doritos has always been associated with quality, but after reading the long list of ingredients for one particular flavor (Bold Barbeque), I completely lost my appetite. Instead of the premium product I expected, the flavor was filled with unfamiliar ingredients that seemed out of place. Among them, I identified at least two food coloring agents, but a third one caught me off guard – Indigotine. Intrigued by the word itself, I knew instinctually that it had something to do with color indigo, so I did some more research. My initial hunch connecting it to the color indigo turned out to be accurate; indigotine (shown below), ...
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17573 |
bio_man |
11 months ago |
Unusual Plant Defenses
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 Plants have evolved a remarkable array of strategies to defend themselves against herbivores, and one such strategy involves attracting insects that act as natural enemies to these plant-eating pests. The fascinating interplay between plants, insects, and the chemical signals they utilize continues to captivate researchers in the field. In the case of the beet armyworm caterpillar, scientists have discovered that its saliva contains a chemical called volicitin, which plays a crucial role in eliciting a defensive response from the plant. When the caterpillar feeds on corn seedlings, the volicitin triggers the release of chemical signals from the leaves, effectively attracting parasitic wasps. These wasps, in turn, prey on the caterpillars, pr ...
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2303 |
bio_man |
A year ago |
What's the deal with OCD?
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"I'd better check......one more time.....just let me make sure.....I'd better go back...." In isolation these comments might come from anyone wondering whether the headlights are turned off on the car. But as the mantra of people suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) these thoughts plague their daily lives. Whether its washing one's hands 25 times a day (above, scene taken from The Aviator (2004)) or checking to make sure the stove burner is off every hour on the hour, OCD can severely hobble one's peace of mind. More rightly, it may be a piece of brain that produces these intrusive thoughts. UCLA's Jeffrey Schwartz and his colleagues used PET scans to study the brains of obsessive-compulsive patients. They found that the orbita ...
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12368 |
Biology Forums |
2 years ago |
First human-made object to land on another planet
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The Soviet-built space probe, Venera 3, was the first spacecraft to ever land on another planet back on March 1 st, 1966, after being launched on November 16, 1965 from Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The mission of this spacecraft was to land on the Venusian surface. The entry body contained a radio communication system, scientific instruments, electrical power sources, and medallions bearing the State Coat of Arms of the U.S.S.R. Unfortunately, the probe crash-landed on Venus, causing its communication systems to fail before it could return any information about the planet. The spacecraft impacted on the night side of Venus, near the terminator, around -20º to 20º N, 60º to 80º E. The Venera program, however, would go on to successfully submit data f ...
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2598 |
bio_man |
6 years ago |
Ming the Clam
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Ming the Clam, once the world's oldest animal, was killed at 507 years of age by scientists trying to determine its age in 2006.Ming the Clam (1499–2006) is a nickname given to a specimen of the ocean quahog clam ( Arctica islandica), that was excavated off the coast of Iceland in 2006 and whose age was calculated by counting annual growth lines in the shell. Ming was the oldest individual animal ever discovered whose age could be accurately determined. The mollusc’s 507 year old life came to an end in 2006 when the British researchers – unaware of the animal’s impressive age – opened up its shell to examine it. The clam was named Ming in reference to the Ming dynasty, during which it was born. Interestingly, the second oldest ocean quahog ...
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2489 |
bio_man |
6 years ago |
First ever exoplanets discovered outside our galaxy
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Using a technique known as gravitational microlensing, Oklahoma University astrophysicists were able to detect several exoplanets within a quasar 6 billion light-years away called RX J1131-1231 (depicted in the illustration above, left). Their research shows that the planets range in size from masses as small as the Moon to ones as great as Jupiter. The idea behind this technique is derived from the Einstein's theory of general relativity. Since light waves bend when they pass through space warped by a large gravitational presence, a planet passing in front of a star can act as a lens to focus the light, creating a temporary sharp increase in a star’s brightness, and changing the apparent position of the star. Currently, it's the only known ...
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1279 |
bio_man |
7 years ago |
These giant worms enjoy bathing in hydrogen sulfide
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Digging 3 meters down into the dark marine mud of a former log storage pond in Mindanao, Philippines, scientists have discovered five live specimens of an elusive creature previously known only through the 1 to 1.5–meter-long calcium carbonate shells it left behind. By carefully chipping away at the end of a chalky tube (right, above), researchers found a long, black, wormlike mass oozing from its casing – the first live specimen of the giant shipworm Kuphus polythalamia. The animal’s length makes it the longest of any living bivalve, a class of typically small critters including clams, oysters, and scallops. And as far as shipworms go, which usually burrow into and feed on wood from ships or sunken trees, K. polythalamia is unique for squa ...
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7227 |
bio_man |
7 years ago |
Bowhead whales can live for more than 200 years
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Thanks to a cold environment, which causes a slow metabolism, bowhead whales ( Balaena mysticetus) can live for more than 200 years - nearly 3 times longer than the average human, making it the longest-lived mammal. Bowhead whales can grow 14 to 18 m (46 to 59 ft) in length, and unlike most whales, they lack a dorsal fin. This thick-bodied species can weigh from 75 to 100 tonnes (82 to 110 US tons). They live entirely in fertile Arctic and sub-Arctic waters, unlike other whales that migrate to low latitude waters to feed or reproduce. The bowhead also has the largest mouth of any animal. Of course, following around a whale to measure how long it lives is practically impossible. Researchers discovered this amazing feature in 2007, when a 15 m ...
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15377 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
Drug-resistant bacteria are no match for this newly discovered compound
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Researchers have discovered a new compound, named 'darwinolide', inside an Antarctic sponge, Dendrilla membranosa (above, middle), that has shown to kill 98.4 percent of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) cells it comes in contact with. Lab tests so far suggest that it has a unique structure that allows it to penetrate the 'biofilm' that MRSA throws up to protect itself from treatments. The next step is to synthesise darwinolide in the lab, so they don't have to rely on extracting it from live Antarctic sponges. If the researchers are able to show that they can use darwinolide to fight MRSA in a clinical setting, it could save the lives of tens of thousands of people every years. Source: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ac ...
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4192 |
bio_man |
8 years ago |
This is shocking
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To take the zap out of a school of electric eels, fishermen in 17th century South America sent teams of horses into the water as bait, scooping up the eels after they had exhausted themselves in the attack. According to famed naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, the eels would leap out of the water to shock the frightened - but mostly unharmed - horses. Until now, no one else had recorded evidence of such behavior, and many scientists were skeptical of Von Humboldt’s account. A new study shows that not only do the animals leap from the water to attack their prey, but they also increase their voltage as they leap (see video below). The jumping behavior was first observed by accident: As scientists were studying the eels in an unrelated exper ...
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4103 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
How sleep affects memory
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For decades, scientists have debated whether rapid eye movement sleep - the phase where dreams appear - is directly involved in memory formation. Now, a study provides evidence that REM sleep does, indeed, play this role in mice. In this new study, the researchers used optogenetics, a recently developed technology that enables scientists to target precisely a population of neurons and control its activity by light. For this study, the neurons in the hippocampus were targeted (hippocampus being the structure that is critical for memory formation during wakefulness and is known as the 'GPS system' of the brain). To test the long-term spatial memory of mice, the scientists trained the rodents to spot a new object placed in a controlled environm ...
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5111 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
Non-Newtonian fluids are no longer a mystery
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A non-Newtonian fluid is a fluid with properties that differ in any way from those of Newtonian fluids - it changes its viscosity almost instantly under stress, so you can punch it as a liquid and it’ll turn into a solid (watch the video below), and you can literally walk across a pool of it. On the contrary, a Newtonian fluid is defined as the perfect fluid, where its viscosity is influenced mostly by its temperature and pressure. So if you have water at a moderate temperature and pressure, it will continue to act like a liquid no matter how much you punch it. Depending on how you manipulate it, the fluid-like substance can change states from a liquid to a solid, but how this happens has remained a conundrum amongst physicists. Scientists ...
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3138 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
Gut bacteria affects mood and brain function in mice
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According to a study published in the medical journal eLife, researchers found that specific combinations of gut bacteria produce substances that affect myelin content and cause social avoidance behaviors in mice. Researchers transferred fecal bacteria from the gut of depressed mice to genetically distinct mice exhibiting non-depressed behavior. The study showed that the transfer of microbiota was sufficient to induce social withdrawal behaviors and change the expression of myelin genes and myelin content in the brains of the recipient mice. In an effort to define the mechanism of gut-brain communication, researchers identified bacterial communities associated with increased levels of cresol, a substance that has the ability to pass the bloo ...
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4027 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
Heavy marijuana users produce less dopamine
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For the first time, scientists have discovered a link between heavy marijuana use and reduced dopamine production. Just so you know, dopamine is the hormone/neurotransmitter that is released during any kind of satisfaction - it's the same hormone that is released in your brain when you eat chocolate. In a recent study, lower dopamine release was found in the striatum - a region of the brain that is involved in working memory, impulsive behavior, and attention, in addition to subregions involved in associative and sensorimotor learning, and in the globus pallidus. Previous studies have shown that addiction to other drugs of abuse, such as cocaine and heroin, have similar effects on dopamine release, but such evidence for cannabis was mis ...
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4353 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
Surfing spider discovered
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The creature you see above is a spider that can actually surf on top of waves and hunt for a wide variety of animals including not only insects but also fish and toads. Dubbed the Dolomedes briangreenei, this species of spider floats on top of water and senses vibrations below to detect potential prey. The spider can even submerge itself underwater for up to an hour to hunt down prey, which makes it doubly frightening for any creatures caught in its path. The largest animals that the spider has been known to eat are cane toads, which can measure up to nine inches in length. For comparison, the D. briangreenei is about the size of a human palm. ...
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21446 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
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