TED– One morning, a blood vessel in Jill Bolte Taylor’s brain exploded. As a brain scientist, she realized she had a ringside seat to her own stroke. She watched as her brain functions shut down one by one: motion, speech, memory, self-awareness… Amazed to find herself alive, Taylor spent eight years recovering her ability to think, walk and talk. She … Read More
THE GLOBE AND MAIL INC – In September, a privately held and highly secretive U.S. biotech company named Joule Unlimited received a patent for “a proprietary organism” – a genetically adapted E. coli bacterium – that feeds solely on carbon dioxide and excretes liquid hydrocarbons: diesel fuel, jet fuel and gasoline. This breakthrough technology, the company says, will deliver renewable … Read More
LIVE SCIENCE – Ten things you didn’t know about the brain… 10. Human brains are big… The average adult brain weighs just under 3 pounds (between 1.3 and 1.4 kilograms). Some neurosurgeons describe the texture of a living brain as that of toothpaste, but according to neurosurgeon Katrina Firlik, a better analogy can be found in the local health-food store. … Read More
HUFFINGTON POST – 34,000 year-old bacteria were found in Death Valley… alive. A new paper published in the January 2011 edition of GSA Today tells the story of the bacteria, which remained in a virtual “suspended animation” for millennia. “They’re alive, but they’re not using any energy to swim around, they’re not reproducing,” Brian Schubert, the bacteria’s discoverer, told OurAmazingPlanet. … Read More
BBC NEWS – Astronomers have discovered the smallest planet outside our Solar System, and the first that is undoubtedly rocky like Earth. Measurements of unprecedented precision have shown that the planet, Kepler 10b, has a diameter 1.4 times that of Earth, and a mass 4.6 times higher. However, because it orbits its host star so closely, the planet could not … Read More
