Infinite Unknown

- Even low-level radioactivity is damaging (University of South California, Nov 13, 2012):

Broad analysis of many radiation studies finds no exposure threshold that precludes harm to life

Even the very lowest levels of radiation are harmful to life, scientists have concluded in the Cambridge Philosophical Society’s journal Biological Reviews. Reporting the results of a wide-ranging analysis of 46 peer-reviewed studies published over the past 40 years, researchers from the University of South Carolina and the University of Paris-Sud found that variation in low-level, natural background radiation had small, but highly statistically significant, negative effects on DNA as well as several measures of health. Continue reading »

Tags: Environment, Global News, Health, Radiation, Science, Scientists

- GM Wheat May Damage Human Genetics Permanently (GreenMedInfo, Oct 18, 2012):

The Australian government, in the form of its science research arm, is joining Agribusiness profiteering by designing a GM wheat that could kill people who eat it & be inherited by their children.

We have not yet seen the worst damage that genetic engineering may do. Australia’s governmental agency, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), is developing a wheat species that is engineered to turn off genes permanently.

Professor Jack Heinemann at the University of Canterbury’s Centre for Integrated Research in Biosafety  has studied the wheat’s potential. Digital Journal reports that he says¹:

What we found is that the molecules created in this wheat, intended to silence wheat genes, can match human genes, and through ingestion, these molecules can enter human beings and potentially silence our genes. The findings are absolutely assured. There is no doubt that these matches exist.

The implications are clarified by Professor Judy Carman of Flinders University:

If this silences the same gene in us that it silences in the wheat—well, children who are born with this enzyme not working tend to die by the age of about five.

Silencing the equivalent gene in humans that is silenced in this genetically modified wheat holds the potential of killing people. But it gets worse. Silenced genes are permanently silenced and can be passed down the generations. Continue reading »

Tags: Agriculture, Australia, Children, DNA, Environment, Food, Genetically Modified Organisms, Global News, GMO, Government, Health, Science, Scientists, Technology, wheat

- Exclusive: Pioneering scientists turn fresh air into petrol in massive boost in fight against energy crisis (Independent, Oct 19, 2012):

A small British company has produced the first “petrol from air” using a revolutionary technology that promises to solve the energy crisis as well as helping to curb global warming by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Air Fuel Synthesis in Stockton-on-Tees has produced five litres of petrol since August when it switched on a small refinery that manufactures gasoline from carbon dioxide and water vapour.

Continue reading »

Tags: Global News, Science, Scientists, Technology

Chinese researchers have unveiled a system that allows users to control drones with their thoughts (Screenshot from video / courtesy Youtube user CCNTLab)

- Think hard to fly: Chinese scientists unveil mind-controlled drone (RT, Sep 2, 2012):

Chinese researchers have unveiled a system that allows users to control drones with their thoughts. The technology was designed to help handicapped people, but could have ample applications in other fields as well.

A video posted to YouTube by researchers at Zhejiang University shows how the system, called Flybuddy2, works. And it appears that you don’t have to be a nuclear scientist to build one. All you need is an EEG headset with a Bluetooth connection to a laptop – plus a quadrotor Parrot AR Drone linked to the computer.

YouTube

“The computer can receive EEG signals via Bluetooth and convert them to specific commands to control the AR drones through WiFi,” a presenter explains.

Continue reading »

Tags: China, Drones, Global News, Science, Scientists, Technology

Flashback:

- ‘Brain’ in a dish flies flight simulator (CNN):

A Florida scientist has developed a “brain” in a glass dish that is capable of flying a virtual fighter plane and could enhance medical understanding of neural disorders such as epilepsy.

The “living computer” was grown from 25,000 neurons extracted from a rat’s brain and arranged over a grid of 60 electrodes in a Petri dish.

- Neuroscientists successfully control the dreams of rats. Could humans be next? (io9, Sep 3, 2012):

Researchers working at MIT have successfully manipulated the content of a rat’s dream by replaying an audio cue that was associated with the previous day’s events, namely running through a maze (what else). The breakthrough furthers our understanding of how memory gets consolidated during sleep — but it also holds potential for the prospect of “dream engineering.”Working at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, neuroscientist Matt Wilson was able to accomplish this feat by exploiting the way the brain’s hippocampus encodes self-experienced events into memory. Scientists know that our hippocampus is busy at work replaying a number of the day’s events while we sleep — a process that’s crucial for memory consolidation. But what they did not know was whether or not these “replays” could be influenced by environmental cues.

Continue reading »

Tags: Brain, Dreams, Global News, Neuroscience, Rats, Science, Scientists, sleep

Must-see … for those who understand German and/or French.

Tags: Aspartame, Brain, Cancer, DNA, Documentary, Donald Rumsfeld, Efsa, Endocrine system, Environment, EU, Europe, FDA, Food, Global News, Government, Health, Herbicides, Immune System, Marie-Monique Robin, Monsanto, Notre Poison Quotidien, Pesticides, Politics, Science, Scientists, Society, U.S., Unser täglich Gift

- Discovery of magnetic sensors in fish and rats may explain why some people can ‘feel’ wi-fi, smart meters, power lines and electropollution (Natural News, July 11, 2012):

It is well known that many people are sensitive to electromagnetic pollution. Wi-fi gives them headaches. Being near high-voltage power lines can bring on migraines. Using a cell phone unleashes similar symptoms. Until recently, there was no medically-understood mechanism by which electromagnetic waves could be sensed by humans. But now, thanks to some fascinating science summarized here, that mystery may be closer to being solved.

Scientists from the University of Munich, led by geophysicist Michael Winklhofer, say they’ve located and identified “internal compass needles” in the noses of rainbow trout. These are called magnetosensory cells, and they turn out to be far more sensitive to magnetic fields than anyone previously thought.

As TGdaily.com reports: (http://www.tgdaily.com/general-sciences-features/64572-source-of-anim…)

The cells sense the field by means of micrometer-sized inclusions composed of magnetic crystals, probably made of magnetite. These inclusions are coupled to the cell membrane, changing the electrical potential across the membrane when the crystals realign in response to a change in the ambient magnetic field.

“This explains why low-frequency magnetic fields generated by powerlines disrupt navigation relative to the geomagnetic field and may induce other physiological effects,” said Winklhofer.

Electro-smog is getting worse by the day

Continue reading »

Tags: Cell Phone, Electrosmog, Global News, Health, Mobile Phone, Science, Scientists, Smart Meters, Technology, Wi-Fi

- Particle’s Discovery Points to a Firmer Grasp of Physics (The New York Times, July 4, 2012):

ASPEN, Colo. — Physicists working at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider said Wednesday that they had discovered a new subatomic particle that looks for all the world like the Higgs boson, a potential key to an understanding of why elementary particles have mass and indeed to the existence of diversity and life in the universe.

“I think we have it,” Rolf-Dieter Heuer, the director general of CERN, said in an interview from his office outside Geneva, calling the discovery “a historic milestone.” His words signaled what is probably the beginning of the end for one of the longest, most expensive searches in the history of science. If scientists are lucky, the discovery could lead to a new understanding of how the universe began.

Continue reading »

Tags: CERN, Higgs Boson, Large Hadron Collider, Physics, Quantum Physics, Science, Scientists, Technology

- God particle is ‘found’: Scientists at Cern expected to announce on Wednesday Higgs boson particle has been discovered (Daily Mail, July 1, 2012):

• Scientists ‘will say they are 99.99% certain’ the particle has been found
• Leading physicists have been invited to event – sparking speculation that Higgs boson particle has been found
• ‘God Particle’ gives particles that make up atoms their mass
• Fermi Lab in Chicago also ‘closing in’ on proof of Higgs boson

Scientists at Cern will announce that the elusive Higgs boson ‘God Particle’ has been found at a press conference next week, it is believed.

Five leading theoretical physicists have been invited to the event on Wednesday – sparking speculation that the particle has been discovered.

Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider are expected to say they are 99.99 per cent certain it has been found – which is known as ‘four sigma’ level.

Continue reading »

Tags: CERN, Higgs Boson, Large Hadron Collider, Physics, Quantum Physics, Science, Scientists, Technology

YouTube

Description:

06/21/2012

Researchers in Japan say they have grown a tiny human liver from pluripotent stem cells. If the findings prove accurate, it would be the first time anyone has managed to grow a functional human organ from stem cells produced from human skin.

Tags: Japan, Science, Scientists, Stem Cells, Technology