www.youtube.com/watch?v=MP7pni7AZGk

Deep above the earths atmosphere brave astronauts are pointing downwards laughing at the crew of the mars 500. They will boldly go, well, nowhere. Scientists are currently monitering the crew, which make up scientists from Russia, France, and China for signs of physiological and psychological changes due to the extreme isolation to simulate a mission to mars. The crew members shower once every 10 days to conserve water and all supplies are onboard the “station”. In essence a bunch of scientists will be stuck in a pod for 520 days with nothing but stink and wii fit to keep em busy. halfway through the mission they will land and be released into a “simulated” mars area where they are to conduct experiements. Even radio communications will be delayed 20 minutes. All I know is that all work and no play make jack a dull boy…

via:popsci,esa

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgCDcobtZHs

The video above shows a spider crab molting. During this phase it is completely vulnerable and disgusting. Now if only you could molt your ugly exterior to reveal a squishier less uglier exterior underneath.

Dr. Andrew Schwartz at the University of Pittsburgh implanted sensors into the brain of a monkey and allowed it to move a robotic arm to feed itself. That arm in 2008 had 4 degrees of freedom and many more degrees of terrifying. It used the arm as shown below to feed itself marshmallows and chunks of fruit. One day when the researcher in the video runs out of marshmallows I imagine a super powered mech/monkey chasing me down the street throwing poo at high velocities and doing shakedowns on elementary school children looking for marshmallows with dire consequences for coming up dry.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxIgdOlT2cY

This year, however, a newer arm with sensors located deep within the monkey’s brain, specifically the hand area and the other in the monkey’s motor cortex allowed the monkey to control a robotic arm with 7 points of articulation. In the video below the monkey is trained to use the arm to touch a knob to be rewarded with a sip of juice from a straw in its mouth. They might as well be training it to punch a picture of a face to be rewarded with Jack Daniels.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZn46l7uEKg

Researchers one day hope this will advance prosthetic techology by allowing the brain to directly control a device. Or at least create Monkeys that can tear you in half.

via:[physorg]

As I lumber around my crappy life with the meat bricks attached to my ankles I know as feet, I look to the sky and scream “Isn’t there a better way!” Well it turns out that perhaps there is! Aimee Mullins is a prime example of how regular humans are just absolutely boring in every way.

Aimee was born without fibulae in both legs and as a result was assured she would be in a wheel chair for the rest of her life. To increase her mobility doctors amputated both legs below the knee before the age of one. By age two Aimee had learnt how to walk using prosthetic legs and now can beat you in a foot race and make you look like a chump in front of all your overweight friends. She then went on to be a part of the 1996 atlanta games where outfitted with woven carbon-fiber prostheses modeled after the hind legs of a cheetah, she went on to set World Records in the 100 meter, the 200 meter, and the long jump, creating a buzz over the radical design of her prototype sprinting legs. Including all the above which makes your life with two good legs look worse and worse.  In addition to her philanthropy Aimee has gone on to be immortalized in magazines and museum’s all over the world.

Here comes the science

Can a person with steaks under their ankles be faster if said legs were amputated and replaced with a carbon fibre frame? Scientists are divided into two camps. some say that the amputated limbs can give a 400m sprinter upwards of 12 seconds of advantage over an athlete with meat clubs attached to their knees. Others say that it provides no advantage whatsoever.

In the case of Oscar Pistorius, a double amputee track runner, his fate has been flip flopping back and forth as scientists in whiny voices argue over which star trek captain was better and whether or not the prosthesis’ allow Oscar an advantage. Oscar was banned by the IAFF ( International Association of Athletics Federations) from competing in the 2008 summer olympics. However in 2009 an MIT study revealed that they believed there was no advantage from the limbs and the ban was lifted just in time to give Oscar Pistorius the considerably large proverbial shaft.

On the other hand, a counterpoint published in the Journal for Applied Physiology, Dr. Peter Weyand of Southern Methodist University and Dr. Matthew Bundle of the University of Wyoming claim from measuring physiological data that sprinters’ prosthetic legs can drop a runner’s 400 meter by up to 12 seconds.

 Weyand and Bundle respond that “more erect limb posture” in leg-amputees, coupled with lower ground force “co-reduce the muscular forces required to attain the same sprint running speeds to less than half of intact-limb levels,” saying Pistorius needs half the strength to reach the same speeds as runners on biological legs.

 The debate rages on however all involved no doubt recognize that one day the differences and gains that prosthesis’ will give will annhialate competition in competitive sports. Whether or not that day is today is still under question but a few facts remain Aimee Mullins has done more with no legs than you have done with two legs and is incredibly hot. Well I suppose that’s not a fact but all the same it’s hard to stay focused writing while I use my free hand to saw off these awful anchors I call legs.

sources via: Aimeemullins.com, Popsci.com

A goldfish whose beating heart can be seen through its skin has been created at Japan’s Mie University in Tsu city. The scientists attempted to mess with the already pathetic animal so that it has even less respect within the aquatic world. Yutaka Tamaru a professor of biology at the University created the fish in an attempt to decrease the need for dissections. Goldfish are one of the few animals that are cheaper to let die and replace than pay for food. I’m sick of losing pets and not caring, maybe paying $1000 for a goldfish will change that.

[source]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUN6c5yWJhQ

Maybe you’ve never seen an octopus before. Perhaps you have never in your life seen a coconut before. Or perhaps by some strangely fated misery you have never seen either. That is the only way this story is remotely interesting. Octopus’ are very smart and perhaps it can amaze as it climbs in a coconut shell! This is interesting I will admit as it uses tool like skill with the shell. However this is akin to a puppy dog sitting in a big hat, cute, but doomed to LOLCAT status. This story, however, is embarrassing octopus’ everywhere. Instead why don’t you watch an octopus open a jar and more here!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8cf7tPoN5o

Moments ago this fly was knee deep in dog poo

Fruit Flies have more in common with you than you think. When offered a choice between liquid food that had been spiked with 15% ethanol or regular liquid food, the fruit flies chose to party. The fruit flies showed clear signs of intoxication, exhibiting a loss of coordination and hyperactivity. The series of studies did not show if their performance in bed decreased but the scientists did note that it was hard to measure intoxication levels because “the fruit flies were so small”. Uhhh.

 Earlier studies found that alcohol has profound physiological effects on fruit flies, but the new study is one of the first to offer flies the choice to drink. Anita Devineni and Ulrike Heberlein, both of the University of California, San Francisco, devised a fly-sized drinking device reminiscent of the water bottles in hamster cages. Flies held inside vials could sip from thin tubes holding either liquid food spiked with 15 percent ethanol or plain liquid food. The researchers measured the descent of the liquids inside each tube to get a readout of which food the flies preferred.

 In fact even when the researchers spiked the spiked punch with a nasty toxic chemical such as quinine the fruit flies continued to drink, despite the harm it was causing and the trail of broken relationships left behind. So remember children, always know your dealer, especially if he is wearing a lab coat. In other experiments with the fruit flies, they were deprived of alcohol and showed tell tale signs of a relapse once introduced with alcohol again. This shows taht you don’t have to feel bad about your problem drinking, alcohol effects all of gods wonderous creatures just the same.  But wow, sometimes walking can be hard enough drunk especially when your pushing someone in a wheelchair, I can’t even imagine flying while drunk.

[source]

A machine has been developed to display on screen the thoughts seen or remembered on screen using only your thoughts! Finally the dark seedy underbelly of your mind can be on display for all to see. The device uses brainwave activity detailed by an MRI machine into a moving image on a computer screen. Professor Jack Gallant at the University of California says: “At the moment you want to see something and want to describe it you have to words or draw it and it doesn’t work very well. This technology might allow you to recover an eyewitness’ memory of a crime” 

Using a fMRI scanner,the American team scanned the brains of two volunteers while they watched videos. The results were fed into a computer which looked for links between colurs, shapes and movements on the screen, and patterns of activity in the brain.The computer software was then given the brain scans of the volunteers as they watched a different video and was asked to recreate what they were seeing. The software was close to the mark. In one scene featuring comic actor Steve Martin in a white shirt, the computer reproduced his white torso and rough shape, but was unable to handle details of his face. In another, the volunteers watched an image of a city skyline with a plane flying past.The software was able to recreate the skyline – but not the aircraft.

Steve Martin is one more memory that I would rather repress

Suddenly our innermost disgusting, repulsive, terrorist, secret or sensitive thoughts will be on display for the world to see. Crime fighting? If I can visualize big foot carjacking my 86 toyota corolla it doesn’t mean it happened. Most memories are generative, in that we re-create them on the fly and do not retrieve them from some static database. In fact some memories I argue should remain buried, like the time my uncle asked me to help him wax.

[source]

Like a zombie, but even WORSE hygeine..

What could go wrong you ask? Everything. The good people at DARPA have awarded $9.9 Billion dollars to Texas A&M Institute for Preclinical Studies (TIPS), to create a medical zombie vaccine which will put near dead soldiers who have mortal wounds into a hibernative state. This will put the body into a type of “suspended animation” the same way squirrels hibernate, which will allow the heart to stop beating and prevent blood loss.  The vaccine does this by exploiting a pancreatic enzyme used by the squirrel as it goes into hibernation. This allows it to emerge from winter both having to pee and having it amazingly unharmed by the months asleep. Here I thought the date rape drug was bad. The rampant misuse of any drug can be clearly anticipated and I look forward to the months of shut eye that await me.

After a soldier is wounded in the field they have about an hour before all damage is irreversible. The zombie vaccine will extend that time to possibly 10 hours. Then, thanks to the preservation of the vaccine the minimal damage can be repaired easily. That’s why you double tap the head of the zombie. ALWAYS aim for head. But before all that, they will first do the traditional animal sacrifices by shanking pigs and animal testing the procedure. The pigs, will not only ignore personal hygiene, but potentially death as well! There’s nothing more scary in my mind than a zombie pig potentially hibernating and I can’t wait to say “I told you So” as the hordes of pigs surround you in a shopping mall as their low calf height teeth begin gnawing at your ankles.

[source]

When your very own cells are pissed off and refuse to quit they begin to divide at an alarming rate and form a disgusting meatball type structure we lovingly call a tumor. The tumor is then given 1st class treatment by your own body and nutrients are generously supplied through your own neighbouring blood vessels. Sometimes the tumor will even stimulate your body to provide it with its own blood vessel to further PWN you. Tumors can kick your ass in 3 ways:

1. putting pressure on nearby organs
2. directly invading tissue and organs
3. make those neighbouring tissue’s and organs susceptible to infection

One of the more scary possibilities is if the Tumor undergoes metastasis. Where millions of malignant cells are released into the blood stream to “get the party started”. That’s the skinny and you can read more if curious at How stuff works.

Check out this cool clip below that shows exactly how a tumor grows and metastasizes.