When last we left the strangely popular field of pseudo-physiology and rape favored by wingnut commentators even their peers were begging them to STFU. Now this idiot judge in California wants you ladies to know that unless your vagina is shredded, it’s not real rape, or something: [Read more…]
Without populations of adults stem cells in our tissues we’d be screwed. There would be no way to heal after injury or disease. But they come at a price, stem cells can mutate, lose their off switch or go astray, replicating fast and integrating into the circulatory system, they can form a cluster of cells that are business for themselves, one that can fool the body’s immune system. After all, the cells making it up are natives. Usually the owner won’t know what’s going on until they feel a lump or get a scan, then the battle is on. A new three-pronged study sheds light on the fascinating and deadly phenamenon: [Read more…]
If you think humans are the only ones dumb enough to pack explosives around themselves in the hope of blowing up enemies, think again. Termites do it, and they utilize the suicide bomb to disperse Weapons of Mass Destruction! [Read more…]
Lots of speculation about how the New World was populated by the old may have been answered by an exhaustive DNA study. The findings: the Americas were settled in three waves from northeast Asia beginning at least 15,000 years ago: [Read more…]
Imagine how restoring sight to the blind using embryonic stem cells would put the inane debate over contraception and personhood into stark perspective. That’s exactly what could happen given a report from embryonic stem cells researchers: [Read more…]
Yesterday’s WH budget proposal for NASA, with deep cuts to future planetary science to the whopping tune of $300 million , didn’t exactly come as a shock. That’s the news reporters have been hearing and writing about for weeks. But if those changes are implemented it comes at a price. In this case, the price could be postponing the single greatest scientific discovery ever made. [Read more…]
If there’s a more inhuman neurological disease than Alzheimer’s, I don’t want to know about it. Because the big “A” is bad enough. Stealing away precious memories and bodily functions alike, leaving behind a confused, amnesiac husk of a person when they should be enjoying the fruits of their labor and grandchildren. It’s not surprising a new study showing dramatic results in mice has spurred hope for some victims on the brink of no return: [Read more…]
Schematic of subglacial lake in Antarctica, image courtesy RT, click for more info
Russian researchers working feverishly at the height of Antarctica’s brief summer say they have successfully pierced the ancient vault of a sub-glacial lake sealed under ice for millions of years. But it’ll be awhile before we know the answer to the big question, can microbial life of some kind still exist in the alien environment of Lake Vostok? [Read more…]
Ice cores drilled at Vostok. Vostok Station is seen in the background. Image courtesy of the Wiki, click for more info on Lake Vostok
I took a few days off from, well, everything. In hope that my shoulder would heal up a bit — it has been quite sore following a routine injury almost two weeks ago. I can report it has improved a tad, many thanks to those who humored my prior complaints, and I look forward to a more active blogging schedule and especially a semblance of life without constant pain. Couldn’t a merciful Creator have come up with a better system than intractable pain?
Meanwhile, science marches on, far to the south, [Read more…]
I haven’t written much about HIV/AIDS denialism. It’s pseudo-science through and through, as lousy and underhanded as creationists are with the evidence for evolution or climate change deniars are with thermometer readings. They are sometimes allied with antivaxxers and other forms of quackery, but generally don’t neatly fit across the traditional left-right US political axis. Regardless, in some circles the shit hit the proverbial fan this week: [Read more…]