CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-05-23 15:05:17 (16 comments, 36 reshares, 66 +1s)

Now they're just messing with us. Physicists have long known that quantum mechanics allows for a subtle connection between quantum particles called entanglement, in which measuring one particle can instantly set the otherwise uncertain condition, or "state," of another particle—even if it's light years away. Now, experimenters in Israel have shown that they can entangle two photons that don't even exist at the same time.

2013-05-23 02:04:09 (3 comments, 14 reshares, 27 +1s)

Researchers at the University of Michigan have used a 3-D printer to create a custom-made, life-saving implant for baby boy, they report in a letter in 'The New England Journal of Medicine.'

2013-05-21 14:40:01 (1 comments, 3 reshares, 14 +1s)

"If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention, than to any other talent. "
~Isaac Newton.

2013-05-16 02:35:03 (1 comments, 14 reshares, 35 +1s)

Scientists have used the cloning technique that led to Dolly the sheep to turn human skin into embryonic stem cells – which can make any tissue in the body.

The US team overcame technical problems that had frustrated researchers for more than a decade to create batches of the body's master cells from donated skin.

The work will spark fresh interest in the use of cloning in medical research, and reignite the controversy over a procedure that demands a supply of human eggs, and the creation and destruction of early stage embryos. The US group employed the technique to make embryonic stem cells that were genetically matched to individuals. Such cells could be used to study diseases in exquisite detail, and regenerate damaged organs and tissues.

2013-05-15 18:34:27 (1 comments, 6 reshares, 20 +1s)

I would highly recommend watching this short video, it's fantastic!

"In 2005, author David Foster Wallace was asked to give the commencement address to the 2005 graduating class of Kenyon College. However, the resulting speech didn't become widely known until 3 years later, after his tragic death. It is, without a doubt, some of the best life advice we've ever come across, and perhaps the most simple and elegant explanation of the real value of education.

We made this video, built around an abridged version of the original audio recording, with the hopes that the core message of the speech could reach a wider audience who might not have otherwise been interested."

HT: +Vineet KewalRamani 

2013-05-13 15:39:53 (0 comments, 22 reshares, 26 +1s)

In a New York laboratory, a special group of mice is destined to outlive their cage-mates. Their muscles will stay strong for longer. Their brains will stay sharp for longer. When they eventually die, they will have seen more months than their peers.

The secret to their longevity isn’t a drug or a special diet. Instead, Dongsheng Cai from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine simply reduced the levels of a single protein called NF-kB in part of the brain called the hypothalamus. That was enough to extend their lives.

2013-05-12 03:04:48 (6 comments, 7 reshares, 18 +1s)

When a group of genetically identical mice lived in the same complex enclosure for 3 months, individuals that explored the environment more broadly grew more new neurons than less adventurous mice, according to a study published today (May 9) in Science. This link between exploratory behavior and adult neurogenesis shows that brain plasticity can be shaped by experience and suggests that the process may promote individuality, even among genetically identical organisms.

“This is a clear and quantitative demonstration that individual differences in behavior can be reflected in individual differences in brain plasticity,” said Fred Gage of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, who was not involved the study. “I don’t know of another clear example of that . . . and it tells me that there is a tighter relationship between [individual] experiences and neurogenesisthan we... more »

2013-05-12 00:58:02 (1 comments, 5 reshares, 16 +1s)

2013-05-11 00:28:34 (1 comments, 4 reshares, 24 +1s)

We live in an epidemiological bubble and are for the most part blissfully unaware of it. Diseases that were routine hazards of childhood for many Americans living today now seem like ancient history. And while every mother could once identify measles in a heartbeat, now even the best hospitals have to call in their eldest staff members to ask: “Is this what we think it is?”

To a remarkable extent, we owe our well-being, and in many cases our lives, to the work of one man and to events that happened 50 years ago this spring.

2013-05-09 20:55:32 (1 comments, 5 reshares, 16 +1s)

This is an absolute disaster that will have major negative impact on future of biomedical research in the US!"

After weeks of worrying about how the mandatory across-the-board 2013 budget cuts known as the sequester would play out at the +National Institutes of Health (NIH) , the biomedical research community now has final figures. The bottom line is as grim as expected: The agency's overall budget will fall by $1.55 billion compared to 2012, to $29.15 billion, a cut of about 5%, according to an NIH notice today. That is essentially what NIH predicted as part of the 5.1% sequestration.

2013-05-08 02:59:01 (2 comments, 12 reshares, 38 +1s)

This video leaves one speechless! Just wow!

You're about to see the movie that holds the Guinness World Records™ record for the World's Smallest Stop-Motion Film (see how it was made at http://youtu.be/xA4QWwaweWA). The ability to move single atoms — the smallest particles of any element in the universe — is crucial to IBM's research in the field of atomic memory. But even nanophysicists need to have a little fun. In that spirit, IBM researchers used a scanning tunneling microscope to move thousands of carbon monoxide molecules (two atoms stacked on top of each other), all in pursuit of making a movie so small it can be seen only when you magnify it 100 million times. A movie made with atoms. 

2013-05-07 13:19:48 (3 comments, 15 reshares, 37 +1s)

The man with uncrossed eyes

“GB” is a 28 year old man with a curious condition: his optic nerves are in the wrong place.

Most people have an optic chiasm, a crossroads where half of the signals from each eye cross over the midline, in such a way that each half of the brain gets information from one side of space. GB, however, was born with achiasma – the absence of this crossover. It’s an extremely rare disorder in humans, although it’s more common in some breeds of animals, such as Belgian sheepdogs.

Source: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2013/04/14/the-man-with-uncrossed-eyes/

2013-05-05 21:24:18 (11 comments, 16 reshares, 79 +1s)

...two-and-a-half year old Hannah Warren just became the youngest person in history to receive a bioengineered organ transplant, a new windpipe made of a synthetic scaffold and her own stem cells. The nine-hour long procedure was performed April 9th, at Children's Hospital of Illinois in Peoria, but the results were just made public. Doctors expect that Warren will be able to return home in a few months and breathe, eat, drink and swallow using the new windpipe, all of which she couldn't do without the aid of machines until now.

#sciencesunday  

2013-05-05 15:57:08 (18 comments, 80 reshares, 165 +1s)

A group at Tokyo Institute of Technology, led by Dr. Osamu Hasegawa, has succeeded in making further advances with SOINN, their machine learning algorithm, which can now use the internet to learn how to perform new tasks. The system, which is under development as an artificial brain for autonomous mental development robots, is currently being used to learn about objects in photos using image searches on the internet. It can also take aspects of other known objects and combine them to make guesses about objects it doesn't yet recognize.

2013-05-05 15:32:18 (7 comments, 23 reshares, 55 +1s)

Dolphins should be treated as non-human "persons", with their rights to life and liberty respected, scientists meeting in Canada have been told.

Experts in philosophy, conservation and animal behaviour want support for a Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans.

They believe dolphins and whales are sufficiently intelligent to justify the same ethical considerations as humans.

Recognising their rights would mean an end to whaling and their captivity, or their use in entertainment.

2013-05-05 15:22:47 (2 comments, 4 reshares, 15 +1s)

//Mind blown

It's magic, don't blink! :)

#creativity   #awesomeness

2013-05-05 00:10:25 (6 comments, 5 reshares, 15 +1s)

This is a cool Kickstarter project, could be worthy of support.

In what they call the “first step in creating sustainable natural lighting,” a group of innovators coming out of Singularity University have launched a Kickstarter campaign to create glowing plants. Admittedly the idea of replacing street lamps with glowing foliage will seem far-fetched to many. But after just three days the campaign has gone viral, already having surpassed its goal of $65,000.

Link to kickstarter page: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/antonyevans/glowing-plants-natural-lighting-with-no-electricit

2013-05-04 23:23:11 (1 comments, 4 reshares, 12 +1s)

Heather Sellers has prosopagnosia, more commonly known as face blindness. "I can't remember any image of the human face. It's simply not special to me," she says. "I don't process them like I do a car or a dog. It's not a visual problem, it's a perception problem."

The condition is estimated to affect around 2.5 per cent of the population, and it's common for those who have it not to realise that anything is wrong. "In many ways it's a subtle disorder," says Heather. "It's easy for your brain to compensate because there are so many other things you can use to identify a person: hair colour, gait or certain clothes. But meet that person out of context and it's socially devastating."

2013-05-03 03:52:40 (10 comments, 58 reshares, 109 +1s)

Every day there are news reports of new health advice, but how can you know if they're right? Doctor and epidemiologist Ben Goldacre shows us, at high speed, the ways evidence can be distorted, from the blindingly obvious nutrition claims to the very subtle tricks of the pharmaceutical industry.

2013-04-30 22:31:28 (4 comments, 22 reshares, 45 +1s)

One of the most fascinating illusions, which shows what happens when our senses conflict!

2013-04-28 06:13:28 (2 comments, 18 reshares, 30 +1s)

Dr. Eric Kandel describes the "aha phenomenon" and speculates on ways that humans and groups can think more creatively.

2013-04-26 17:52:41 (7 comments, 10 reshares, 25 +1s)

With the cost of some lifesaving cancer drugs exceeding $100,000 a year, more than 100 influential cancer specialists from around the world have taken the unusual step of banding together in hopes of persuading some leading pharmaceutical companies to bring prices down.

2013-04-23 23:10:45 (7 comments, 5 reshares, 16 +1s)

Human brains are remarkably inefficient in some key ways: our memories are lousy; our grasp of logic is shallow, and our capacity to do arithmetic is dismal. Our collective cognitive shortcomings are so numerous I’ve written a book about them. And yet, in some ways, we continue to far outstrip the very silicon-based computers that so thoroughly kick our carbon-based behinds in arithmetic, logic, and memory.

2013-04-19 23:05:18 (9 comments, 62 reshares, 128 +1s)

Drew Endy wants to build a programming language for the body.

Endy is the co-director of the International Open Facility Advancing Biotechnology — BIOFAB, for short — where he’s part of a team that’s developing a language that will use genetic data to actually program biological cells. That may seem like the stuff of science fiction, but the project is already underway, and the team intends to open source the language, so that other scientists can use it and modify it and perfect it.

The effort is part of a sweeping movement to grab hold of our genetic data and directly improve the way our bodies behave — a process known as bioengineering. With the Supreme Court exploring whether genes can be patented, the bioengineering world is at crossroads, but scientists like Endy continue to push this technology forward.

2013-04-13 16:43:53 (1 comments, 5 reshares, 15 +1s)

2013-04-13 04:22:38 (4 comments, 31 reshares, 60 +1s)

The gut mucosa hosts the body's largest population of immune cells. Nature Immunology in collaboration with Arkitek Studios have produced an animation unravelling the complexities of mucosal immunology in health and disease.

2013-04-13 00:04:29 (2 comments, 10 reshares, 52 +1s)

This is a stunning collection of more than 6000 beetle species!"

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/coleoptera-us/
Main web site: http://www.kaefer-der-welt.de

2013-04-13 00:00:00 (5 comments, 11 reshares, 31 +1s)

Scientists have found a way to "read" dreams, a study suggests

Researchers in Japan used MRI scans to reveal the images that people were seeing as they entered into an early stage of sleep. Writing in the journal Science, they reported that they could do this with 60% accuracy.

The team now wants to see if brain activity can be used to decipher other aspects of dreaming, such as the emotions experienced during sleep.

2013-04-11 04:38:44 (6 comments, 45 reshares, 55 +1s)

Scientists have come up with a way to make whole brains transparent, so they can be labelled with molecular markers and imaged using a light microscope. The technique, called CLARITY, enabled its creators to produce the detailed 3D visualisations you see in this video. It works in mouse brains and human brains; here the team use it to look into the brain of a 7-year-old boy who had autism.

2013-04-11 04:18:22 (1 comments, 3 reshares, 5 +1s)

For a bed bug, scurrying across the leaves of a kidney bean plant can quickly end any plans to foist itchy devastation upon unsuspecting sleepers.

Tiny, sharp, hooked hairs called trichomes protrude from the leaves’ undersides, impaling bed bug feet and trapping the blood-feasting insects on the spot. Now, using an imprint of the leaf itself, scientists have created a surface that mimics the bean plant’s ability to snag bed bugs, the team reports Apr. 9 in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

2013-04-11 03:55:46 (4 comments, 23 reshares, 26 +1s)

What motivates us to work? Contrary to conventional wisdom, it isn't just money. But it's not exactly joy either. It seems that most of us thrive by making constant progress and feeling a sense of purpose. Behavioral economist Dan Ariely presents two eye-opening experiments that reveal our unexpected and nuanced attitudes toward meaning in our work

2013-04-07 21:22:01 (12 comments, 8 reshares, 20 +1s)

Dr. Stanley Hazen of the Cleveland Clinic, who led the study, and his colleagues had accumulated evidence for a surprising new explanation of why red meat may contribute to heart disease. And they were testing it with this early morning experiment.

The researchers had come to believe that what damaged hearts was not just the thick edge of fat on steaks, or the delectable marbling of their tender interiors. In fact, these scientists suspected that saturated fat and cholesterol made only a minor contribution to the increased amount of heart disease seen in red-meat eaters. The real culprit, they proposed, was a little-studied chemical that is burped out by bacteria in the stomach after people eat red meat. It is quickly converted by the liver into yet another little-studied chemical called TMAO that gets into the blood and increases the risk of heart disease.

2013-04-07 21:01:28 (0 comments, 4 reshares, 15 +1s)

Scientists have decoded the genome of the western painted turtle, one of the most abundant turtles on Earth, finding clues to their longevity and ability to survive without oxygen during long winters spent hibernating in ice-covered ponds.

Understanding the natural mechanisms turtles use to protect the heart and brain from oxygen deprivation may one day improve treatments for heart attacks or strokes, the researchers say. Both can lead to severe disability or death within minutes in patients deprived of oxygen. 

#ScienceSunday  

2013-04-07 18:48:36 (0 comments, 42 reshares, 84 +1s)

Marinus is a 28-year-old from the Netherlands, and he makes GIFs. But not just any GIFs: his Tumblr, Head Like An Orange, is a collection of some of nature's most stunning, weirdest, sweetest, and funniest moments. At least, they are the best moments captured on film, put into TV shows, and edited down into short, spellbinding loops.

Via: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-02/best-nature-gifs-whole-wide-web

Source: http://headlikeanorange.tumblr.com/

2013-04-02 20:49:55 (1 comments, 7 reshares, 19 +1s)

Please share to spread the word and support this rally!

The future of medical research in America funded by the +National Institutes of Health (NIH), which saves countless lives and eliminate suffering of many, depends on awareness and unified voice of the public.

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The Rally for Medical Research will unite millions of Americans across the country to call on our nation's policymakers to make life-saving medical research funding a national priority. This unified call to action will raise awareness about the critical need for a sustained investment in the National Institutes of Health to improve health, spur more progress, inspire more hope and save more lives.

2013-04-01 20:19:23 (12 comments, 14 reshares, 38 +1s)

Weight loss after gastric band surgery may be partly caused by changes to micro-organisms that live in the gut, say US researchers. A study in mice has shown that surgery causes different types of bacteria to colonise the gut.

Transferring samples of those bacteria into healthy mice caused them to rapidly lose weight without surgery.But the Harvard University researchers said they could not yet explain the mechanism behind their results. There are differences in the bacteria in the stomachs and intestines of obese people compared with those who are of a normal weight.

2013-03-31 02:34:24 (8 comments, 15 reshares, 37 +1s)

And you thought it was all about the neurons.

In an experiment that might seem like something only a mad scientist would conjure, researchers injected human brain cells into the brains of mice to see how it would affect the way the mice thought. It did: the mice got smarter. But the cognition boosting cells weren’t neurons, they were the red-headed step-children of neuroscience called astrocytes. The study turns on its head the role historically attributed to astrocytes of simply supporting the all important function of neurons without playing a significant role in how we learn and think. It may very well be that humans owe much of their unique cognitive capabilities to astrocytes.

2013-03-31 02:25:45 (0 comments, 14 reshares, 58 +1s)

If biologists could put computational controls inside living cells, they could program them to sense and report on the presence of cancer, create drugs on site as they’re needed, or dynamically adjust their activities in fermentation tanks used to make drugs and other chemicals. Now researchers at Stanford University have developed a way to make genetic parts that can perform the logic calculations that might someday control such activities.

2013-03-30 16:49:37 (0 comments, 10 reshares, 34 +1s)

Researchers in Boston are in the final stages of testing a new technique to fabricate a fully functional human ear with a patient's own cells. Using scans, computer modelling and 3D printing, the scientists say their research heralds a new era of regenerative medicine.

2013-03-29 17:52:01 (2 comments, 8 reshares, 24 +1s)

I would also recommend the biographical movie on Jobs and Gates, with the same name: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_Silicon_Valley - great documentaries of computer revolution.

A look at Silicon Valley in the early days as told by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Paul Allen, and other insiders from Apple, Microsoft, Intel, IBM, and Xerox. See how the personal computing revolution began.

2013-03-28 04:15:49 (4 comments, 38 reshares, 42 +1s)

2013-03-27 23:34:43 (1 comments, 12 reshares, 33 +1s)

William Irvine is a philosophy professor by day, but he has an unusual sideline: He's also a collector of insults. Irvine has gathered some of his favorite jibes into a new book called A Slap in the Face: Why Insults Hurt — And Why They Shouldn't.

Irvine tells NPR's Audie Cornish that one of his favorite masters of insult is Winston Churchill. "Nancy Astor [said] to Winston Churchill, 'if you were my husband, I would put poison in your coffee,' " Irvine says, to which Churchill replied, " 'If you were my wife, I would drink it.' "

2013-03-27 22:06:03 (7 comments, 24 reshares, 42 +1s)

I would highly recommend watching this remarkable animation. It depicts the beautiful choreograph and action within the power houses of cells, mitochondria, which generates the energy that fuels life.

The animation highlights the creation of Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP) -- mobile molecules which store chemical energy derived from the breakdown of carbon-based food. ATP molecules act as a kind of currency, imparting chemical energy to power all the functional components of cellular activity.

2013-03-27 17:13:32 (6 comments, 18 reshares, 44 +1s)

Salamandra robotica II walking and swimming outdoors and performing the transition from swimming to walking indoors.

2013-03-27 15:35:49 (5 comments, 10 reshares, 22 +1s)

This is quite impressive!

A 30-second video of a newborn baby shows the infant silently snoozing in its crib, his breathing barely perceptible. But when the video is run through an algorithm that can amplify both movement and color, the baby’s face blinks crimson with each tiny heartbeat.

2013-03-26 16:29:07 (2 comments, 13 reshares, 29 +1s)

This image may resemble a trendy textile from a fashion designer’s spring collection, but it’s actually a microscopic image of lung surfactant, a lipid-protein material that aids in respiration by reducing the amount of energy needed. (From The National Institute of General Medical Sciences, image courtesy of Prajnaparamita Dhar | University of Kansas)

2013-03-26 04:14:07 (5 comments, 15 reshares, 34 +1s)

Great presentation from Dr. Collins, who is the director of +National Institutes of Health (NIH) 

Today we know the molecular cause of 4,000 diseases, but treatments are available for only 250 of them. So what's taking so long? Geneticist and physician Francis Collins explains why systematic drug discovery is imperative, even for rare and complex diseases, and offers a few solutions -- like teaching old drugs new tricks.

2013-03-26 03:36:10 (4 comments, 7 reshares, 17 +1s)

Scientific concepts have always washed in and out of popular consciousness but like never before, the brain has become part of contemporary culture. With the recent announcement of two billion-dollar science projects, the Human Brain Project in Europe and the Brain Activity Map in the US, it would be hard to ignore the impact on public spending. 

But it's the sheer penetration of neuroscience into everyday life that makes it remarkable.

2013-03-25 04:30:47 (4 comments, 7 reshares, 23 +1s)

Venomous Evolution

• Snake venom is mostly made up of many different proteins; some of these proteins are toxins while others are nontoxic proteins with pharmacological properties. 

• Toxin proteins are large multi-gene families and arose from genes of proteins that do not code for toxins, followed by evolutionary modification. The evolution of toxin proteins occurs through a process known as gene duplication (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_duplication), where a duplicated gene is free from selection pressure to functionally diverge, creating 'families' of structurally related proteins that have slightly different functions.

• Snake venom acts by targeting natural biological processes in their prey, such as neuronal signalling or blood clotting. So it comes as no surprise that we can often use these venom molecules to ouradvant... more »

2013-03-24 20:21:21 (10 comments, 23 reshares, 43 +1s)

There is a battle playing out inside your body right now. It started billions of years ago and it is still being fought in every one of us every minute of every day. It is the story of a viral infection - the battle for the cell.

This film reveals the exquisite machinery of the human cell system from within the inner world of the cell itself - from the frenetic membrane surface that acts as a security system for everything passing in and out of the cell, the dynamic highways that transport cargo across the cell and the remarkable turbines that power the whole cellular world to the amazing nucleus housing DNA and the construction of thousands of different proteins all with unique tasks. The virus intends to commandeer this system to one selfish end: to make more viruses. And they will stop at nothing to achieve their goal.