In Frankenstein, a mad scientist puts together a man by sewing together dead human parts. One of those parts is a head. It seems like a far-fetched notion, but Italian neuroscientist Dr. Sergio Canavero of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group believes that with new strides in technology, a human head could be transplanted from one body to another in the very near future.

To quote Young Frankenstein, are we "entering the realm of genius," or of madness? Head transplants are hardly a new concept, but the idea of it actually being possible has been up for debate. The main problem with the concept is that it is would be very difficult to connect a head to a different body's spinal cord. However, Canavero believes that with the recent creation of something called fusogens, the process is now possible. Fusogens, which are plastic membranes, were created to repair severed nerves. They allow nerve impulses to be transmitted to the donor nervous system.

It sounds crazy, but Canavero believes that a full head transplant could be possible within just a few years. Even crazier? He's already figured out how to do it. In 2008, he used electrical stimulation to wake up a patient who had been in a coma for two years. He bases his own theories on those of Robert White, a neurosurgeon who transplanted a monkey's head in the 1970's. The procedure would begin with two bodies: the donor, and the recipient. Both bodies would be chilled to a certain temperature. Two surgeons would cut their spinal cords at the same time. The donated head would be immediately put on the recipient's body and, using fusogens, be attached to the recipient's spinal cord.

Discovery Date: September 28, 2013

Magnitude: 19.0 mag

Discoverer: Catalina Sky Survey
The orbital elements are published on M.P.E.C. 2013-T27.

Have you heard of the Leidenfrost effect? If not, it's about to be your favorite effect. If yes, same.

The basic idea is, when a liquid comes in contact with something really hot--about twice as hot as the liquid's boiling point, although it changes on certain factors like the size of the drop--the liquid never comes in direct contact with the surface; vapor acts as a barrier that keeps the two separated. When you flick drops of water on to a pan to check the heat, that skittering you see and hear is because of this effect.

Got it? Great. One more thing: by using a surface with jagged edges, you can control the direction the water moves in. (You know those tire traps that slash your wheels when you reverse? They're sort of like that.) That's what University of Bath undergraduate students Carmen Cheng and Matthew Guy did when they created this Leidenfrost maze. Without giving away too much, it's the coolest science-y thing you'll see today.

If it were not scientifically verified, it would be a great storyline for a sci-fi flick, but NASA says alien microbes are hitching rides on meteorites. Some experts are stating that debris from outer space will only be increasing in frequency as they impact Earth in the coming year.

A meteorite's size can range from small to extremely large. When a meteoroid enters the atmosphere, frictional, pressure, and chemical interactions with the atmospheric gases cause the body to heat up and emit light, thus forming a fireball, also known as a meteor or shooting/falling star. They can range from extraterrestrial bodies that collide with Earth or an exceptionally bright, fireball-like meteor regardless of whether it ultimately impacts the surface.

NASA has launched a new website to share details of meteor explosion events as recorded by U.S. military sensors on secretive spacecraft, kicking off the project with new details of this past February's fireball over Chelyabinsk, Russia.

The new "Fireball and Bolide Reports" website, overseen by NASA's Near-Earth Object Program, debuted Friday (March 1) with its first entry: a table with a chronological data summary of the Russian meteor explosion of Feb. 15 gleaned from U.S. Government sensor data. Scientists are calling the event a "superbolide," taken from the term "bolide" typically used for fireballs created by meteors.

Part of the worldwide interest in meteors hitting Earth stems from what is now verifiable evidence that alien lifeforms are coming along for the ride.

In 2010, Duane P. Snyder announced the discovery of the first and only known Ice Meteorite containing Extraterrestrial Life-forms. The Ice Meteorite's particle analysis, its gas analysis, and likely origin including photos of the life-forms found in the melt-water of the meteorite where also exhibited. Dr. Albert Schnieders of Tascon USA Inc, commented that they basically found nearly all elements up to 90u in the sample spherical particles tested.

Scientists have discovered the body clock 'reset button', taking them one step closer to tweaking the clock in order to make jet lag and shift work less painful.

The findings could reduce the symptoms of travelling through different time zones and working unsociable hours, which often makes people either tired or unable to sleep. Results from the study, published in journal Science, suggest the newly-found button could be used to switch the master clock to a new time zone, for example from London to Beijing, in just one day.

A team based at Kyoto University in Japan discovered the 'reset button' in the brain. There are clocks located throughout the body but the master clock is found within the brain, where it works to keep the body in tune with the world around us, creating fatigue at night and alertness during daylight.

The clock uses light to monitor time, but adjusts slowly. For every time zone travelled, it takes the body approximately a full day to catch up, according to the BBC.

Shift work or long haul flights disrupt sleep and hunger patterns, as the body clock falls out of tune with the rising and setting of the sun.

Last year, DARPA unveiled Cheetah: a robot that could run faster than Usain Bolt. Now, the same team has managed to create a version that doesn't need a power cord, making the electronic beast free to roam wherever it chooses. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

A relative of Cheetah, say hello to WildCat. This robot is based on the same design as Cheetah, but doesn't have the tethered power cable of its predecessor; instead, it has a large - and quite loud! - motor attached to it.

After nearly 40 years as the cornerstone of the U.S. Air Force's fighter fleet, the F-16 tried out a a new role last week: robotic flying bull's-eye.

A modified F-16 took flight from Tindall Air Force Base in Florida without a pilot so it could be blown to smithereens. The Boeing retrofit of retired Lockheed Martin F-16s will be used as target practice for training situations under the name QF-16.

"The QF-16 full-scale aerial targets will be used to test newly developed weapons and train pilots for the rapidly changing nature of warfare in a safe and controlled environment," said Boeing in a statement.

"It was a little different to see an F-16 take off without anyone in it, but it was a great flight all the way around," said Lt. Col. Ryan Inman, Commander, 82nd Aerial Targets Squadron. "It's a replication of current, real world situations and aircraft platforms they can shoot as a target. Now we have a mission capable, highly sustainable full scale aerial target to take us into the future."

During last week's test, a pair of QF-16s aced taking off and landing on its own, as well as performing a series of simulated maneuvers. It also flew at 40,000 feet and broke the sound barrier at Mach 1.47.

A spoof scientific report was recently accepted for publication in 157 journals around the world, proving how flawed some open-access publications are.

The fake paper was part of a sting operation orchestrated by John Bohannon, a contributing news correspondent to the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Science.

He wrote the paper under the fake name "Ocorrafoo Cobange," supposedly a biologist at the Wassee Institute of Medicine in Asmara. No such institute or biologist exists.

Bohannon, in an article in the latest issue of Science, describes the fake paper as follows:

"Molecule X from lichen species Y inhibits the growth of cancer cell Z. To substitute for those variables, I created a database of molecules, lichens, and cancer cell lines and wrote a computer program to generate hundreds of unique papers."

That might sound reasonable enough, but the study was riddled with obvious errors and contradictions that an expert in the field should have caught immediately.

Bohannon took the sting operation one step further, by slightly changing each version of the paper before he sent it out to the various journals.

Shaken, scorched and boiled in its own juices, this 4000-year-old human brain has been through a lot.

It may look like nothing more than a bit of burnt log, but it is one of the oldest brains ever found. Its discovery, and the story now being pieced together of its owner's last hours, offers the tantalising prospect that archaeological remains could harbour more ancient brain specimens than thought. If that's the case, it potentially opens the way to studying the health of the brain in prehistoric times.

Brain tissue is rich in enzymes that cause cells to break down rapidly after death, but this process can be halted if conditions are right. For instance, brain tissue has been found in the perfectly preserved body of an Inca child sacrificed 500 years ago. In this case, death occurred at the top of an Andean mountain where the body swiftly froze, preserving the brain.

However, Seyitömer Höyük - the Bronze Age settlement in western Turkey where this brain was found - is not in the mountains. So how did brain tissue survive in four skeletons dug up there between 2006 and 2011?

Meriç Altinoz at Haliç University in Istanbul, Turkey, who together with colleagues has been analysing the find, says the clues are in the ground. The skeletons were found burnt in a layer of sediment that also contained charred wooden objects. Given that the region is tectonically active, Altinoz speculates that an earthquake flattened the settlement and buried the people before fire spread through the rubble.

We obtained further follow-up on C/2012 S1 (ISON) on 2013, Oct. 1.2, through the 2.0-m f/10.0 Ritchey-Chretien + CCD + SDSS r' Filter of Liverpool Telescope (MPC code J13).

Stacking of 20 exposures, 11-seconds each, produced an image where is visible a well developed coma and tail measuring at least 3 arcmin extended toward PA 297 deg. Click on the image for a bigger version.
Below another elaboration of the same stacking. Click on it for a bigger version.