Science & TechnologyS


Brain

Laughter may be the best medicine - if you're in the middle of brain surgery


ScienceDaily
Mon, 04 Feb 2019 10:00 UTC
electrode in brain
© From Bijanki et al, J. Clin. Invest. (2019); Courtesy of American Society for Clinical InvestigationIllustration showing how an electrode was inserted into the cingulum bundle.
Neuroscientists at Emory University School of Medicine have discovered a focal pathway in the brain that when electrically stimulated causes immediate laughter, followed by a sense of calm and happiness, even during awake brain surgery. The effects of stimulation were observed in an epilepsy patient undergoing diagnostic monitoring for seizure diagnosis. These effects were then harnessed to help her complete a separate awake brain surgery two days later.

The behavioral effects of direct electrical stimulation of the cingulum bundle, a white matter tract in the brain, were confirmed in two other epilepsy patients undergoing diagnostic monitoring. The findings are scheduled for publication in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. Videos of the effects of cingulum bundle stimulation are available, with the patient's identity obscured.

Emory neurosurgeons see the technique as a "potentially transformative" way to calm some patients during awake brain surgery, even for people who are not especially anxious. For optimal protection of critical brain functions during surgery, patients may need to be awake and not sedated, so that doctors can talk with them, assess their language skills, and detect impairments that may arise from resection.

Comment: See also:

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Compass

'Earth's magnetic North Pole has shifted so much we've had to update GPS' - scientists scrambling to update models

Sarah Kaplan
The Washington Post
Tue, 05 Feb 2019 13:07 UTC
icebreaker
© SteveAllenPhoto/iStock
Magnetic north is not where it used to be.

Since 2015, the place to which a compass points has been sprinting toward Siberia at a pace of more than 30 miles (48 kilometres) a year. And this week, after a delay caused by the month-long partial government shutdown in the United States, humans have finally caught up.

Scientists on Monday released an emergency update to the World Magnetic Model, which cellphone GPS systems and military navigators use to orient themselves.

It's a minor change for most of us - noticeable only to people who are attempting to navigate very precisely very close to the Arctic.

But the north magnetic pole's inexorable drift suggests that something strange - and potentially powerful - is taking place deep within Earth. Only by tracking it, said University of Leeds geophysicist Phil Livermore, can scientists hope to understand what's going on.

Comment: Perhaps another pole shift is not as slow in coming as the article would suggest?

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Info

What could go wrong? - NASA and ESA team to knock asteroid out of orbit to test Earth defense system

Gart Williams
Outer Places
Wed, 06 Feb 2019 10:55 UTC
Asteroid Break up
© News Bangla
You know what? We're going to spare you the "Armageddon" reference that we had planned and just jump straight to the lede on this one.

NASA has teamed up with the European Space Agency (ESA) to in what many are calling the first planetary defense test: an attempt to alter the orbit of an asteroid. The much-beleaguered Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), which we first reported on in 2015, involves a visit to a double asteroid system consisting of the relatively tiny asteroid Didymos and its even tinier moon, informally called "Didymoon." Rather than bringing a nice bottle of wine and an asteroid rover, however, DART will be attempting to crash an impactor spacecraft into Didymoon to knock the asteroid out of orbit, assuming, of course, that Elon Musk's Tesla doesn't get there first.

Once the space rocks are sent hurtling out of control to become some other planet's problem, ESA's part of the project, dubbed Hera, will follow-up with a visit to the Didymoon to survey the effects of the DART spacecraft's impact and assess the feasibility and efficacy of redirection.
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Mars

Scientists share view of ancient river delta that carried water on Mars


Phys Org
Mon, 04 Feb 2019 15:35 UTC
Eberswalde crater delta
© ESA/Roscosmos/CaSSIS
This intricate structure of an ancient river delta once carried liquid water across the surface of Mars.

To best enjoy this image, produced with infrared and visible filters on the Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS) of the ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, view through red/green 3-D glasses. To create a stereo view like this, the orbiter's camera uses a motor to rotate its telescope and take photos from different angles. The two views can be put together to make a three-dimensional view. Click here to see one of the pair of images that comprise the 'stereo pair'.

The distinctive form of a delta arises from sediments that are deposited by a river as it enters slower-moving water, like a lake or a sea, for example. The Nile River delta is a classic example on Earth, and uncannily similar features have been spotted on Saturn's moon Titan and - closer to home - Mars. While liquid water is no longer present on the surface of Mars, features in the left portion of this image provide strong evidence of it having played an important role in the history of the Red Planet. Furthermore, water-ice is still stable on the surface today, and a recent discovery from Mars Express detected a pocket of liquid water below the surface.

The 100-metre-thick fan-shaped deposit seen in this image is found in Eberswalde crater in the southern hemisphere of Mars (326.33ºE/23.55ºS). The image covers an area of 31 x 7.5 km and was taken on 16 November 2018.

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Seismograph

Deadly Indonesian earthquake was rare ultra-powerful supershear event

Brittany A. Roston
Slash Gear
Mon, 04 Feb 2019 15:21 UTC
Indonesian earthquake in 2018
© Dita Alangkara/AP/REX/ShutterstockA seismic boom contributed to the devastation of the Indonesian earthquake in 2018.
The Indonesian earthquake that impacted Sulawesi island in September 2018 was a rare ultra-powerful, superfast supershear event, according to new research out of NASA, UCLA, and more. The 7.5-magnitude earthquake caused an unexpected tsunami, the disaster ultimately claiming more than 1,500 lives and causing extreme damage. Using satellite images, researchers determined that the 7.5 Palu quake was one of fewer than 15 known supershear events.

The earthquake struck on September 28, 2018, with a steady rupture speed of 9,171MPH, according to NASA, which says the primary shock lasted for nearly one minute. This was an unusually fast speed compared to the typical 5600 to 6700MPH speeds most earthquakes present. In addition, and thanks to satellite images, the researchers found that the earthquake resulted in the fault - measuring 93 miles in length - had slipped by around 16ft.

The supershear event's rapid speed caused stronger shaking on the ground than would have resulted from a slower earthquake. Helping put this into perspective, the study's co-author Lingsen Meng explained via NASA, "The intense shaking is similar to the sonic boom associated with a supersonic jet."
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Pi

The growing list of world scientists who dissent from Darwinism is only the tip of the iceberg

David Klinghoffer
Evolution News
Mon, 04 Feb 2019 10:45 UTC
darwin statue
Charles Darwin: God-savior of materialism
With Darwin Day, February 12, approaching, it's good to report that the "Scientific Dissent from Darwinism" list currently tops a thousand names of PhD scientists who publicly declare their skepticism in the face of absolutist claims for evolutionary theory. The key word there is "publicly."

February 12 is Charles Darwin's birthday. (Look here that day, incidentally, for a special birthday gift.) The Dissent statement represents a splash of cold water on the great man. It reads, "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged." The signers hold professorships or doctorates from Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, Berkeley, MIT, UCLA, the University of Pennsylvania, and many other prominent institutions.

They are also an increasingly international group. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, and the Brazilian Academy of Sciences are represented. Discovery Institute began taking names of signatories in 2001 in response to frequently heard assertions that there is no dissent, or "virtually" none.

Comment: At last many scientists are willing to come out and say what they've been afraid to: the main tenets of Darwinism make no sense in light of decades of rigorous scientific study:
Over 1,000 doctoral scientists from around the world have signed a statement publicly expressing their skepticism about the contemporary theory of Darwinian evolution. The statement, located online at dissentfromdarwin.org, reads: "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."

"Because no scientist can show how Darwin's mechanism can produce the complexity of life, every scientist should be skeptical," said biologist Douglas Axe, director of Biologic Institute. "The fact that most won't admit to this exposes the unhealthy effect of peer pressure on scientific discourse."

False Statements About Darwinian Evolution

Discovery Institute first published its Scientific Dissent from Darwinism list in in The New York Review of Books in 2001 to challenge false statements about Darwinian evolution made in PBS's series Evolution. Promoters of the series, among others, claimed that "virtually every scientist in the world believes the theory to be true."

Bruce Chapman, Discovery Institute's Chairman of the Board, found 100 PhD scientists to sign the initial dissent statement. Realizing that there were likely more scientists worldwide who shared some skepticism of Darwinian evolution and were willing to go on record, the Institute has maintained the list and added to it continually since its inception.

The list of signatories now includes 15 scientists from the National Academies of Science in countries including Russia, Czech Republic, Brazil, and the United States, as well as from the Royal Society. Many of the signers are professors or researchers at major universities and international research institutions such as the University of Cambridge, London's Natural History Museum, Moscow State University, Hong Kong University, University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, Institut de Paléontologie Humaine in France, Ben-Gurion University in Israel, MIT, the Smithsonian, Yale, and Princeton.

"As a biochemist I became skeptical about Darwinism when I was confronted with the extreme intricacy of the genetic code and its many most intelligent strategies to code, decode, and protect its information," said Dr. Marcos Eberlin, founder of the Thomson Mass Spectrometry Laboratory, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences in Brazil.
See also:

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Galaxy

The Milky Way shown to be torqued into s-shape

Stephanie Pappas
Live Science
Mon, 04 Feb 2019 21:56 UTC
milky way galaxy torqued
© CHEN XiaodianAn illustration of the true shape of the Milky Way, with an S-like warp in the outer reaches of the disk.
The Milky Way's shape is a disk ... with a twist.

New research finds that at the edges of the galaxy, where the pull of gravity weakens, the shape of the Milky Way warps. Instead of lying in a flat plane, the galaxy takes on a bit of a twisted "S" shape.

"This new morphology provides a crucial updated map for studies of our galaxy's stellar motions and the origins of the Milky Way's disk," study co-author Licai Deng, a senior researcher at the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said in a statement.
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Beaker

Physicists create exotic electron liquid stable at room temperatures

Julie Cohen
PhysOrg
Mon, 04 Feb 2019 21:42 UTC
electron liquid
© QMO Lab, UC RiversideIn conventional electronic devices, electricity requires the movement of electrons (blue spheres) and their positive counterparts, called holes (red spheres), which behave much like the gas molecules in our atmosphere. Although they move rapidly and collide infrequently in the gas phase, electrons and holes can condense into liquid droplets akin to liquid water in devices composed of ultrathin materials.
By bombarding an ultrathin semiconductor sandwich with powerful laser pulses, physicists at the University of California, Riverside, have created the first "electron liquid" at room temperature.

The achievement opens a pathway for development of the first practical and efficient devices to generate and detect light at terahertz wavelengths-between infrared light and microwaves. Such devices could be used in applications as diverse as communications in outer space, cancer detection, and scanning for concealed weapons.

The research could also enable exploration of the basic physics of matter at infinitesimally small scales and help usher in an era of quantum metamaterials, whose structures are engineered at atomic dimensions.
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Microscope 2

Nanoparticles: Potential promoters of cancer metastasis


m.phys.org
Fri, 01 Feb 2019 00:00 UTC
Blood vessels/treated
© National University SingaporeWhen blood vessel cells (left) are treated with a short exposure of titanium dioxide nanoparticles for 30 minutes, cell-sized gaps (right) began to form. These gaps can be exploited by cancer cells to migrate out of the primary tumour or from blood circulation. Researchers from the National University of Singapore also observed this phenomenon for other common nanoparticles made from gold, silver and silver dioxide.
Nanoparticles can be found in processed food (e.g. food additives), consumer products (e.g. sunscreen) and even in medicine. While these tiny particles could have large untapped potential and novel new applications, they may have unintended and harmful side effects, according to a recent study by researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS).

Specifically, NUS researchers found that cancer nanomedicine, which are designed to kill cancer cells, may accelerate metastasis. Using breast cancer as a model, they discovered that common nanoparticles made from gold, titanium dioxide, silver and silicon dioxide - and also used in nanomedicines - widen the gap between blood vessel cells, making it easier for other cells, such as cancer cells, to go in and out of "leaky" blood vessels.

The phenomenon, named 'nanomaterials induced endothelial leakiness' (NanoEL) by the NUS team, accelerates the movement of cancer cells from the primary tumour and also causes circulating cancer cells to escape from blood circulation. This results in faster establishment of a bigger secondary tumour site and initiates new secondary sites previously not accessible to cancer cells.
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Hourglass

Darwinism still a theory in crisis as anomalies accumulate


Evolution News
Mon, 04 Feb 2019 18:13 UTC
Atlantic puffin (Fratercula arctica)
© Sergio Martínez-Nebreda and Paula Medina-García/University of Bristol, via EurekAlertAtlantic puffin (Fratercula arctica)
Darwin Day, February 12, is just a week from today! To help celebrate, here are a few recent findings that contradict Darwinism. The key word is recent. Listing all of them for the last 160 years would require a large book. A theory can only survive as many anomalies as Darwinism has if it is supported by a highly desired foundational ideology.

Bird Beaks

The rotund, colorful beak of the puffin accompanies this headline from the University of Bristol: "Bird beaks did not adapt to food types as previously thought." Haven't we all been taught that bird beaks adapt to the food source by natural selection? Aren't Darwin's finches the classic example?
The observation that Galapagos finch species possessed different beak shapes to obtain different foods was central to the theory of evolution by natural selection, and it has been assumed that this form-function relationship holds true across all species of bird.

However, a new study published in the journal Evolution suggests the beaks of birds are not as adapted to the food types they feed on as it is generally believed. [Emphasis added.]
It's not that there is no linkage, but "The connection between beak shapes and feeding ecology in birds was much weaker and more complex than we expected," one of the researchers confessed. Truth is, birds use their beaks for many functions besides just picking food - essentially, everything. Linking beak shape solely to feeding behavior is simplistic. How could such a myth survive for so long? Answer: by assumption, without empirical rigor. Another on the team says, "This is, to our knowledge, the first approach to test a long-standing principle in biology: that the beak shape and function of birds is tightly linked to their feeding ecologies." What took them so long?
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