April 2012
2 posts
3 tags
I have an astronomy exam in about 4 hours, be prepared for articles & explanations of the things I need to know
March 2012
56 posts
Study Reveals Why our Ancestors Switched to... →
deconversionmovement:
(PhysOrg.com) — Our earliest ancestors may have started walking on two limbs instead of four in a bid to monopolise resources and to carry as much food as possible in one go, researchers have found.
A study published in the journal Current Biology this week, investigated the behaviour of modern-day chimpanzees as they competed for food resources, in an effort to understand...
Some human brains use bat-like hearing →
shychemist:
Some blind people can echolocate by producing sounds, or ‘clicks’, with their tongues to ‘see’ where they are going.
SYDNEY: Humans can echolocate - just like bats - and scientists are now learning how the brain adapts to perform this skill.
Last month, Daniel Kish, an American blind expert in using sonar to ‘see’ where he is going, visited Sydney to work with Guide Dogs...
Pencil Nebula
themadyhatter:
This is the Pencil Nebula. It was born from the explosive death of a massive star. It marks the end of the 300,000 mph tsunami that has been ploughing through space for 11,000 years. It is approximately 815 light years from Earth.
Plants can 'remember' drought and change responses... →
shychemist:
Plants subjected to a previous period of drought learn to deal with the stress thanks to their memories of the experience, new research has found.
The findings, published this week in Nature Communications, could lead to development of crops better able to withstand drought.
The research also confirms for the first time the scientific basis for what home gardeners and nursery...
Scientists claim brain memory code cracked →
fuckyeahneuroscience:
ScienceDaily (Mar. 9, 2012) — Despite a century of research, memory encoding in the brain has remained mysterious. Neuronal synaptic connection strengths are involved, but synaptic components are short-lived while memories last lifetimes. This suggests synaptic information is encoded and hard-wired at a deeper, finer-grained molecular scale.
In an article in the March 8...
Mother-to-child HIV transmission
queersexed:
To supplement that earlier post on HIV/AIDS.
fight-hiv-aids:
What works?
HIV can be transmitted from a mother to her baby during pregnancy, labour and delivery, and later through breastfeeding. The first step towards reducing the number of babies infected in this way is to prevent HIV infection in women, and to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
There are a number of things that can...
How we would see an object with 4 dimensions.
fyeahuniverse:
A man falling through “Flatland”
Originally proposed by Edwin Abbott Abbott in 1884, ‘Flatland’ is a hypothetical world of the second dimension used to help understand the fourth. An object of three dimensions passing through Flatland (or a plane) would have the appearance of only the geometric shapes interacting with the plane. A sphere passing through a second dimensional...
Surgical Treatment for Epilepsy Should Not Be...
neurosciencestuff:
ScienceDaily (Mar. 7, 2012) — While the thought of any type of surgery can be disconcerting, the thought of brain surgery can be downright frightening. But for people with a particular form of epilepsy, surgical intervention can literally be life-restoring.
A PET scan of a brain from a patient with epiepsy, between seizures. The red indicates healthy tissue. On the right...
