(Credit: AVA Bitter/Shutterstock)
Bioengineers have made great strides harnessing the body’s ability to start over, whether regenerating heart tissue and bones, or using stem cells to regrow fingertips. Still, much of regenerative medicine’s promise remains inside the laboratory—or at least that was what I thought when I began reporting for The Body Builders: Inside the Science of the Engineered Human.
Some clinicians, like Dr. Eugenio Rodriguez, aren’t waiting for tria ...read more
One of the larger sauropod footprints. The border of the imprint has been digitally outlined. (Credit: Steven Salisbury)
Their physical remains may be absent, but dinosaurs left unmistakable impressions in the landscape of Western Australia.
A new analysis of dinosaur footprints from the Broome Sandstone region, called “Australia’s Jurassic Park,” has revealed that thousands of imprints dotting the coastal landscape belong to at least 21 different dinosaur species. ...read more
Back in 2015, I ran a three part post (1,2,3) on Dr Kenneth Blum and his claim to be able to treat what he calls “Reward Deficiency Syndrome” (RDS) with nutritional supplements.
Today my interest was drawn to a 2015 paper from Blum and colleagues, called Neuroquantum Theories of Psychiatric Genetics: Can Physical Forces Induce Epigenetic Influence on Future Genomes?.
In this paper, Blum et al. put forward some novel proposals about possible links between physics, epigenetics, and ne ...read more
Calvin the alien: young, curious, and full of life. What could possibly go wrong? (Credit: Skydance/Columbia Pictures)
LIFE the movie is both predictable and full of surprises, much like…er…life itself. In the broad sense, it is a monster-run-amok genre movie. No spoilers there; you already know that if you’ve seen the trailers or even just the promotional posters. The interesting parts lie in some of the movie’s details, which deviate from expectations in provocative ...read more
Over at Data Colada, Uri Simonsohn argues that The Funnel Plot is Invalid.
Funnel plots are a form of scatter diagram which are widely used to visualize possible publication bias in the context of a meta-analysis. In a funnel plot, each data point represents one of the studies in the meta-analysis. The x-axis shows the effect size reported by the study, while the y-axis represents the standard error of the effect size, which is usually inversely related to the sample size.
In theory, the points ...read more
Today is World TB Day, commemorating Dr. Robert Koch’s groundbreaking 1882 discovery of the organism that causes tuberculosis. At the announcement of his research to the public, he declared, “If the importance of a disease for mankind is measured by the number of fatalities it causes, then tuberculosis must be considered much more important than those most feared infectious diseases, plague, cholera and the like.” Thirteen years later he would be awarded the Noble Prize for his ...read more
Models of the six nanoscale “vehicles” that will be competing this April. (Credit: CNRS)
Four racing teams from around the world will gather in France this spring to compete for a first-of-its-kind title.
Their vehicles will “inch” to the starting line and explode into motion to kick off a marathon 36-hour race that will have covered less than the width of a human hair by the time a victor is crowned. The vehicles participating in the race are custom-built tuners assemb ...read more
Some Google Street View cars have been specially equipped with methane analyzers to detect methane lakes from natural gas lines. (Credit: Environmental Defense Fund)
Natural gas pipeline leaks that pose a safety hazard are quickly addressed. But what about leaks too small to pose a threat? These mall leaks are often overlooked and they collectively release tons of methane, a greenhouse gas 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
However, thanks to researchers from Colorado State University, ...read more
“We don’t like strangers in these parts.” Credit: 20th Century Fox
The X-Men films have consistently shown their mutant superheroes as powerful but misunderstood outcasts living in the shadows. One of the loneliest and angriest of them all has been Wolverine: the seemingly ageless mutant played by Hugh Jackman whose superhuman healing powers and retractable metal claws enable him to literally tear through squads of gun-toting enemies. But the third and last film of ...read more
