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Showing posts from August, 2017

New research indicates there's a pretty huge gap in our knowledge when it comes to our own bodies – it turns out more than 99 percent of the microbes inside us are currently unknown to science.

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Researchers have long known that our bodies play host to a range of tiny lifeforms that make us who we are. In fact, recent studies have shown that every human cell within our bodies is outnumbered by roughly 1.3 microbes. And this latest discovery suggests the overwhelming majority of them are totally alien to us.   To figure this out, scientists took a close look at the DNA fragments circling in human blood to see what matched up with our current databases of life as we know it. They found that more than 99 percent of the DNA they found didn't belong to lifeforms we currently know about. "We found the gamut," says one of the team, bioengineer Stephen Quake from the Bio-X lab at Stanford University. "We found things that are related to things people have seen before, we found things that are divergent, and we found things that are completely novel." As well as giving us a new sense of just how crazily diverse our internal microbiomes are, the ...

Can we bear a Nuclear War?

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President Donald Trump's vow to hit North Korea with 'fire and fury like the world has never seen' is an unveiled threat to unleash America's most potent weapons of mass destruction onto the Korean peninsula. According to many defence analysts, the risk of nuclear confrontation over Europe and the Indian subcontinent has also increased in recent years.  122 countries voted in June to adopt the United Nations Treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons in New York. The "ban treaty" will make nuclear weapons illegal for ratifying countries, and many see it as an opportunity to kick start a renewed effort towards multilateral disarmament. Supporters of the treaty argue that even a limited, regional nuclear war would produce a catastrophic and global humanitarian crisis. The greatest concern derives from relatively new research which has modelled the indirect effects of nuclear detonations on the environment and climate. The most-studied scenar...

Adult Brains can generate neurons in an unexpected region !

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Adult neurogenesis was first recognised in the 1960s, but was more widely accepted in the 1990s, thanks in part to the discovery of stem cells in adult mice brains – cells that can divide and develop into other types of cells. That discovery was made by another team from the Queensland Brain Institute, and since then, scientists have confirmed the same process happens in humans. Now it looks like it's happening elsewhere too: based on new studies of mice, the researchers found evidence for the same stem cells in the amygdala, cells that could turn into genuine, fully functioning neurons. Scientists have discovered for the first time that adult mouse brains produce new cells in the amygdala, a finding that could eventually lead to better treatments for conditions like anxiety and depression, as well as a better understanding of the brain overall. "While it was previously known that new neurons are produced in the adult brain, excitingly this is the first t...

Solar eclipse

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A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, and the Moon fully or partially blocks the Sun, as seen from Earth. This can happen only at New Moon (Moon between the Sun and Earth) and if the Sun and the Moon are perfectly aligned as seen from Earth. In a total eclipse, the disk of the Sun is fully obscured by the Moon. In partial and annular eclipses, only part of the Sun appears obscured. During the brief moments of totality, the naked-eye planets and the brightest stars appear in the sky, creating an artificial “night”, although the lighting conditions are more reminiscent of advanced twilight than deep night. Around the full circle of the horizon the colours are similar to the colours of a sunset, because at such large distances, the eclipse is not total.Since looking directly at the Sun can lead to permanent eye damage or blindness, special eye protection or indirect viewing techniques are used when viewing a solar eclipse. It is technicall...

Parasitic worm eggs -as food suppliment in Germany

😊😆 We typically associate parasites with diseases, but as with every complex biological relationship, the interactions evolved between us and the organisms that feed on us are not entirely clear-cut. Researchers have found several interesting effects - for example, there is evidence that roundworms might be making some women in Bolivia more fertile. Most of us find parasites desperately gross, even though 60 percent of humans are currently playing host to at least one. And some people are even willing to ingest parasites knowingly, as a supplement. Now, for the first time in Europe, German authorities are evaluating whether one such supplement, containing eggs from a pig parasite, should be legally sold in the country as a… food product. And because parasites naturally hijack our immune systems, scientists have been looking into their potential for treating inflammatory bowel disease (IBS), gluten intolerance, and even multiple sclerosis. But all this research is st...

Loneliness is killing people widespread an we need to be serious about it

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Researchers are warning that loneliness and social isolation is becoming a greater public health threat than the widely discussed problem of obesity. More and more people in the US are living alone, with declining marriage rates and fewer children - and psychologists are warning that the spread of loneliness is increasing our risk of premature death. "Being connected to others socially is widely considered a fundamental human need - crucial to both well-being and survival," says psychologist Julianne Holt-Lunstad from Brigham Young University. Over the weekend, she presented the results of two large meta-analyses on the connection between loneliness and premature mortality at the 125th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association. "There is robust evidence that social isolation and loneliness significantly increase risk for premature mortality, and the magnitude of the risk exceeds that of many leading health indicators," Holt-Lunst...