Will the first human head transplant happen soon? According to Sergio Canavero, it will - and he'll be the man to do it.
In 2015, Canavero announced his intention to carry out the pioneering operation, with the head being that of a Russian man, Valery Spiridonov, who has a muscle degenerative disease. The source of the donor body was never specified. More recently, Canavero has said that a Chinese patient will be the first to have their head transplanted.
So who is Sergio Canavero, ...read more
Ok, well maybe more like grunt or drum. Still, this recording comes from the first study to document that lionfishes—the invasive, venomous scourges of the Atlantic and Mediterranean—make sounds.
[audio wav="http://christiewilcox.com/lionfish_roar.wav"]
Many fish species use noise to communicate—so many, in fact, that their sounds can create a morning chorus on a reef akin to the wakening melodies of birds. There is even an entire family of fishes, the&n ...read more
Ofu Island – a speck of land emerging from the southwest Pacific Ocean – is a textbook paradise. Jagged, forest-covered peaks rise steeply from palm-fringed white sand beaches, as colorful birds sound off in the distance.
But beneath the waves, it’s a different story: Ofu Island’s coral reefs are suffering. As temperatures in some lagoons eclipse 35 °C on a daily basis, extensive coral bleaching is leaving a graveyard of rocky, spindly skeletons reaching into the war ...read more
Swimming in a pool of cannibals after being abandoned by one's parents is a pretty grim situation. But a tadpole that finds itself here doesn't passively await its fate. Instead, it tries to jump onto the back of any visiting frog and hitch a ride to safety. Even if the frog has no interest in a rescue, the tadpole is ready to rescue itself.
Not all Ranitomeya variabilis parents abandon their young. These Peruvian poison dart frogs lay two to six eggs at a time in ...read more
The thrill of a crime story is the unfolding of “whodunnit,” often against a backdrop of very little evidence. Positively identifying a suspect, even with a photo of her face, is challenging enough. But what if the only evidence available is a grainy image of a suspect’s hand?
Thanks to a group at the University of Dundee in the UK, that’s enough information to positively ID the perp.
The Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification (CAHID) can assess vein patterns, scar ...read more