Unethical “Stem Cell” Therapy for Autism In India?

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

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

Weapons Physicist Posts Declassified Nuclear Test Videos to YouTube

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

A trove of footage from early U.S. nuclear weapons tests has just been declassified and uploaded to YouTube. The film release was part of a project headed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) weapons physicist Greg Spriggs which aimed to digitize and preserve thousands of films documenting the nation’s nuclear history. The endeavor required an all-hands-on deck approach from archivists, film experts and software engineers, but the team says that this digitized d ...read more

Earth's Original Crust Still Hanging Around

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

New research finds bits of Earth’s original crust in Canada. (Credit NASA) Researchers who want to study the nature of Earth’s original crust find themselves between a rock and a hard place: Our planet’s top layer is constantly wearing down in one spot and building up in another, continents colliding or slip-sliding past each other in the great mosh pit of plate tectonics. You might have figured none of the early crust was even still around. New research shows you would have f ...read more