(Credit: Rattiya Thongdumhyu/Shutterstock)
The majority of our cells die noble deaths; they cease to be once they’re damaged beyond repair. However, some ragged cells refuse to turn out the lights, and that’s where the trouble begins.
These stubborn, damaged cells can accumulate in the body over time, and they can accelerate the aging process and cause the onset of disease. But there might be a way to put these lingerers out of their misery. Peter de Keizer, a r ...read more
A new report confirms that last year brought record global temperatures, exceptionally low sea ice, and unabated sea level rise
Global temperature anomalies during 2016 compared to a base period of 1961–1990. (Source: UK Met Office Hadley Centre via World Meteorological Organization)
Yesterday I reported that even though the warming influence of El Niño is long gone, February of 2017 brought very little letup in global warming.
SEE ALSO: As the Trump admin ...read more
Dubai’s robot officer is here to protect and serve. (Credit: Dubai Media Office)
Some of the world’s first robotic police officers will reportedly hit the streets of Dubai in May.
Brigadier Abdullah Bin Sultan, director of the Future Shaping Centre of Dubai Police, made the announcement Monday during a police forum held in the city. By 2030, Dubai officials hope that up to 25 percent of their police force will be artificially intelligent. This, from the same crime-fightin ...read more
Last month brought scant relief from global warming, and there’s a chance that 2017 could turn out to be the warmest year on record
Global map of temperature anomalies for February 2017. (Source: NASA GISS)
Even though the warming influence of El Niño is long gone, and 2017 was expected to offer some relief from record temperatures set last year, February saw very little letup in global warming.
And now there’s at least a chance that 2017 as a whole could ...read more
Many cultures swear by the benefits of a hot bath. But only recently has science began to understand how passive heating (as opposed to getting hot and sweaty from exercise) improves health.
At Loughborough University we investigated the effect of a hot bath on blood sugar control (an important measure of metabolic fitness) and on energy expended (number of calories burned). We recruited 14 men to take part in the study. They were assigned to an hour-long soak in a hot bath (40˚C) or an h ...read more
During the early Earth’s heavy bombardment, could metabolism have started without phosphate, one of life’s key ingredients? (Image: NASA/Simone Marchi)
“CHNOPS” is one of science’s most revered acronyms, an amalgamation of letters that rolls of the tongues of high school biology students and practicing researchers alike. It accounts for the six elements that comprise most biological molecules: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous, and sulfur.
Biologists ...read more
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Need to memorize a series of numbers? Try this: Imagine yourself walking through a house while locking visualizations of a “12” or “78” into different rooms and cabinets located throughout the house.
You’ve just used the “method of loci,” which is a fundamental memorization technique that dates back to ancient Greece and is employed by champion memory athletes. Radboud University Medical Center neuroscientist Martin Dresler, lead ...read more
I just read a concerning paper about an experimental stem cell treatment for children with autism.
The authors are Himanshu Bansal and colleagues of India. The senior author, Prasad S Koka, is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Stem Cells where the paper appeared, which raises questions about whether the manuscript received a thorough peer review. Koka is actually an author on all five of the research papers published in that issue of the journal. But that’s a minor issue compared to ...read more
