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mad science
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mad science
mad science
It's the future of nanotech pseudo-science and rehab all rolled into one strange package. Fritz Hoffmann took this picture for National Geographic in Guangdong province capital city Guangzhou. Apparently these strange masks, which remind me of something out of a cyberpunk anime, are "nanometer wave machines" used to cure addiction. The person second from right is being cured of "internet addiction." Other treatments include isolation and electro-shock.
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A Chinese Cure for Internet Addiction
It's the future of nanotech pseudo-science and rehab all rolled into one strange package. Fritz Hoffmann took this picture for National Geographic in Guangdong province capital city Guangzhou. Apparently these strange masks, which remind me of something out of a cyberpunk anime, are "nanometer wave machines" used to cure addiction. The person second from right is being cured of "internet addiction." Other treatments include isolation and electro-shock.
More »
hormone tampering
Fast Food Joints Add Hormone to Food That Makes You Want to Eat More
When you ingest a stomach hormone called ghrelin it causes your brain to respond to food the way junkies respond to drugs. You are filled with an intense desire for it, and eating it becomes far more memorable. Researchers at Montreal's McGill University studied people's reactions to food after they had ingested ghrelin, and discovered that it made them crave whatever food they were shown in pictures — even if they had just eaten. Drugs that tamper with ghrelin are just around the corner. More »
mad science
Clones Bred to Sniff Drugs
It's hard to find dogs that have just the right set of attributes to sniff for drugs, which is why South Korean Customs officials got their favorite drug-sniffing dog cloned. The seven clones (four are pictured here) have all grown up to be excellent sniffers — though only one in ten dogs usually passes drug-sniff training, all seven passed. All seven dogs are called Toppy, and each cost over $100,000 to clone, plus $40,000 extra to train. Over at Technovelgy, Bill Christensen points out that the cloned drug-sniffers have a precedent in a science fiction whose representation of cloning was so inaccurate that you'll be surprised it got anything right. More »
mad science
Double Your Lifespan with a Drug that Mutates Your Ribosomes
It's been known for a while that restricting your diet will increase your lifespan, but now researchers have shown one reason why: Eating less causes your ribosomes (your cells' protein factories) to mutate. And it's looking like mutated ribosomes (pictured here) could be one key to life extension. The good news is that you may not have to starve yourself to mutate your ribosomes anymore. Biologists at the University of Washington have managed to induce the life-extending mutation in ribosomes with a drug that doubles the lifespan of yeast cells. More »
mad science
Soviet Monkey-Human Sex Experiments Live On
In a war-torn, forgotten remnant of the Soviet Union a battered laboratory stands, housing the remnants of twisted experiments. Some of the surviving tenants — part of an attempt by the insane veterinary doctor Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov to breed a slave race of ape/human hybrids — have escaped into the surrounding forest, their whereabouts unknown. We're not making this up; this is happening right now at the crumbling Research Institute of Experimental Pathology and Therapy in Sukhumi, Abkhazia, a small nation-state on the Black Sea. More »
tissue engineering
Vat-Grown Meat About to Hit Your Local Market
In five years, you'll be eating a hamburger that no animal died for. Instead, that burger will have been grown from a tiny sample of cells in a plant-and-mushroom bath. The cow who donated the cells will be frolicking in a meadow somewhere, having long forgotten the annoying poke from a tissue engineer with a syringe. At a meeting in Norway of the In Vitro Meat Consortium late last week, scientists and entrepreneurs gathered to discuss the future of "cultured meat," or meat that's essentially grown like cultures in a lab (pictured here). This meeting, the first of its kind, signaled the beginning of a viable industry around the production of vat-grown meat. More »
mad science
Harvest Your Baby's Stem Cells -- Or Buy Them Online!
With all the controversy about stem cells, it's about time you get to try them for yourself. That's why SmartCells is selling kits for sucking the blood out of your baby's umbilical cord and storing up all the nice stem cells inside it for a rainy day when you need to regrow an organ or something. Or maybe you just want a whole mess of stem cells and you don't care where they come from? Here are some online shopping options for you. More »
mad science
Testosterone May Be A Cure for Worst Effects of Menopause
Although thousands of women take estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) to avoid the unpleasantness of menopause, study after study has shown that ERT may shorten life. But today researchers announced results from a study of testosterone therapy that suggested the substance known as T may become a crucial ingredient in post-menopausal drug cocktails of the future. More »
mad science
Suspended Animation Now Possible -- Using Sewer Gas
Scientists have unlocked the secret of suspended animation, a state of "undeath" where the body's metabolism shuts down but all major organs continue to function. Hydrogen sulfide, also known as sewer gas, may be the miracle substance that finally allows humans to stay alive in a frozen, non-aging state. In science fiction, of course, suspended animation is used by astronauts to travel across great distances in space by putting their bodies into suspend mode. Suspended animation could also be induced in dramatically injured people to prevent them from dying while being rushed to the hospital. What's truly amazing is how simple it turns out to be. More »
mad science
Grow Stem Cells with Shrinky-Dinks and a Pipette
Shrinky Dinks, the plastic toy that shrinks when you expose it to oven heat, has become the preferred material for lab equipment at Michelle Khine's University of California Merced biology lab. Taking the spirit of DiY life sciences into the realm of the pragmatic, Khine previously used Shrinky Dinks to make microfluidic devices. Now she's shrinking the clear sheets of plastic down to make tiny breeding grounds for stem cells — you can see some of the cells hanging out in the shrinky dink above. Check out a how-to video, below. More »
mad science
Rewire the Neurons in Your Brain Just By Looking
Though science fiction tales like Clockwork Orange and Videodrome have toyed with the notion that images from television and movies could rewire people's brains, the idea has always been controversial and unsubstantiated. But now researchers have shown empirically that anything you look at, including movies, changes the the connections between neurons in your brain. In other words, what you see changes your brain at a neurological level. The good news is the parts of your brain devoted to vision can be rewired, which has positive implications for people blinded after strokes. The bad news is that what you see today could have a lasting effect on what you see tomorrow. A particularly powerful negative image might alter your perception of positive images later. More »
mad science
A Breakthrough That Lets You Grow Extra Fingers
Humans, birds, and other creatures share a set of genes that lead to the development of fingers and other digits (like paws or wings), but the way those digits form has been a mystery. Now a group of researchers in Wisconsin have discovered the secret of digit growth, and perhaps the key to regrowing severed or stunted fingers. It's even possible this research would allow you to grow an extra finger or two. This might make working with your hands easier, or lead to strange biopunk fashions that involve fingers sprouting from your head. More »
mad science
Rejuivenate Your Brain with Umbilical Cord Blood
As brains age, they slowly lose the ability to generate new neurons, which results in a diminishing ability to learn new things and retain memories. But today a group of neuroscientists in Florida announced a strange cure for what amounts to brain decay: blood from the umbilical cords of human infants. When the researchers injected this blood into aging rats, it kickstarted a new round of neurogenesis in their brains, helping them to grow new neurons and shed some other effects of brain aging. Essentially, effects of aging were rolled back. There's tremendous potential here for helping aging humans to regain the plasticity of their youthful minds. More »
Let's Get Cryonic
This week you can celebrate the science fictional practice of cryonics during Colorado's "Frozen Dead Guy Days," a weekend of revelry devoted to "Grandpa" Bredo Morstoel, a guy who has been cryonically frozen inside a shed for several years. His hope was that at some point he'd be defrosted in a future world where he would be rebooted and given a second chance at life. The festival is fairly goofy, but there's a serious group behind the cyrogenic experiments, the International Cryonics Institute and Center for Life Extension. Cryonics has been a popular obsession for years now, showing up in the books of Robert Heinlein and influencing baseball player Ted Williams to get himself frozen. Timothy Leary almost got cryonic too, but decided at the last minute to be cremated. [via Laughing Squid]
This week you can celebrate the science fictional practice of cryonics during Colorado's "Frozen Dead Guy Days," a weekend of revelry devoted to "Grandpa" Bredo Morstoel, a guy who has been cryonically frozen inside a shed for several years. His hope was that at some point he'd be defrosted in a future world where he would be rebooted and given a second chance at life. The festival is fairly goofy, but there's a serious group behind the cyrogenic experiments, the International Cryonics Institute and Center for Life Extension. Cryonics has been a popular obsession for years now, showing up in the books of Robert Heinlein and influencing baseball player Ted Williams to get himself frozen. Timothy Leary almost got cryonic too, but decided at the last minute to be cremated. [via Laughing Squid]
mad science
With a little help, our brains can be trained to heal themselves. After a traumatic brain injury, some of your brain cells go into reset mode, reverting to a stem cell-like state. Using these "reset cells," a group of German researchers were able to coax the brains of injured mice to regrow neurons to replace damaged tissue (the images above are micrographs of the cells regrowing over time).
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A "Reset Button" for the Brain Could Cure Alzheimers
With a little help, our brains can be trained to heal themselves. After a traumatic brain injury, some of your brain cells go into reset mode, reverting to a stem cell-like state. Using these "reset cells," a group of German researchers were able to coax the brains of injured mice to regrow neurons to replace damaged tissue (the images above are micrographs of the cells regrowing over time).
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mad science
Self-Healing Rubber Made of Oil and Urine
A group of French researchers announced today that they'd invented a new form of rubber that "heals" when cut in half. Made of rubber and a component in urine, the rubber represents the gold standard for new synthetics made via molecular engineering. Molecules in the rubber are so strongly attracted to each other that they rebond when cut — no glue required. More »
mad science
