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POPSVaseline - A cure for all your ills? From the article: It is useful as a face cream for the same reason - the more moisture that can be retained in the skin, the plumper and less wrinkled it looks. Dry skin conditions, including eczema and even psoriasis, benefit from this added moisturisation too, but also from the fact that a Vaseline barrier reduces the penetration of irritants. "Eczema is probably caused by allergy-causing molecules getting into the skin," says Prof Hawk. "Any occlusive moisturiser would help to prevent this, but Vaseline is more bland than most, there are no perfumes or colourants, so it is less likely to cause irritation."
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POPS10 Things you might be better off not knowing! The average male foot exudes half a pint of sweat each day. A person will pass about 11,000 gallons of urine in a lifetime. A man weighing 200lb would provide enough meat to feed 100 cannibals in one sitting.
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POPSHuge hidden biomass lives deep beneath the oceans They found simple organisms known as prokaryotes in every sample. Prokaryotes are organisms that often have just one cell. Their peculiarity is that, unlike any other form of life, their DNA is not neatly packed into a nucleus.
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POPS"Rats are more honest." "he started training giant pouched rats - an African species known for its large size, sunny disposition, and ultra-keen nostrils - to detect the faintest whiff of TNT and other explosives. Because the rats are too light to trigger the explosive, they are not harmed in the exercise; they simply signal the location of the explosive to a handler, who has it defused and removed."
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POPSImportant Comment made by "deadcowkid" to "Brain That Changes Itself" This is a very important comment by deadcowkid for the clip: 'Brain That Changes Itself" http://clipmarks.com/clipmark/378F24A4-D35D-43A7-9FF4-3C3BCF2C2CA5/ . I thank him for telling such an inspiring story. "He said the brain was misunderstood and capable of repairing itself. He told me to give it three good years".
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POPSScientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol “Our plan is to have a demonstration-scale plant operational by 2010 and, in parallel, we’ll be working on the design and construction of a commercial-scale facility to open in 2011,” says Mr Pal, adding that if LS9 used Brazilian sugar cane as its feedstock, its fuel would probably cost about $50 a barrel.
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POPSSex is the ultimate absurdity Isn't it ironic that we all suffer today the consequences of how single celled organisms that lived a billion years ago choose to procreate? :-)
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POPSThinking ahead: Bacteria anticipate coming changes in their environment To test this idea, the researchers exposed a population of E. coli to different temperatures and oxygen changes, and measured the gene responses in each case. The results were striking: An increase in temperature had nearly the same effect on the bacterium's genes as a decrease in oxygen level. Indeed, upon transition to a higher temperature, many of the genes essential for aerobic respiration were practically turned off. To prove that this is not just genetic coincidence, the researchers then grew the bacteria in a biologically flipped environment where oxygen levels rose following an increase in temperature. Remarkably, within a few hundred generations the bugs partially adapted to this new regime, and no longer turned off the genes for aerobic respiration when the temperature rose.
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POPSGirls Make History At Science Contest More: Dr. Hopkins helped start a national discussion about girls and science two years ago when she walked out of a talk by Harvard University’s president, Lawrence H. Summers, after he suggested that innate differences between men and women might be one reason that fewer women than men succeed in math and science careers. Dr. Summers apologized during the ensuing furor; he announced his resignation as Harvard’s president 13 months later James Whaley, president of the Siemens Foundation, which oversees the competition for Siemens AG, a global electronics and engineering company, said the competition results send a great message to young women Alicia Darnell, 17, a senior at Pelham Memorial High School in Pelham, N.Y., won second place and a $50,000 scholarship in the individual category for research that identified genetic defects that could play a role in the development of Lou Gehrig’s disease Pretty good for 16 and 17 year olds don't ya think?
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POPSBizarre Aquatic Creatures Are Secretly "Lesbian Necrophiliacs"
Upon patching up their own DNA, the bdelloids simultaneously incorporate random scraps of DNA from other organisms. This so-called horizontal gene transfer is extremely rare among animals, and in the bdelloids’ case can include DNA from almost anything that was in their soupy habitat at the time things dried up, including whatever they just ate. In only 1 percent of the bdelloid genome, Meselson found dozens of foreign genes from bacteria, plants, and fungi inserted among the native nucleotides. It’s likely, he says, that during recovery from dessication, bdelloids pick up genes from members of their own species, too—dead members, that is, whose genes spill out of ruptured cell membranes. That process would provide the kind of genetic reshuffling that other animals achieve through sexual reproduction. “It may be their form of sex,” Meselson says. “But their partner is essentially dead. So you’d have to call it necrophilia. Actually, since they’re all females, lesbian necrophilia.”
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POPSArtificial life will be created 'within months' more (at source): Carole Lartigue and colleagues removed the bacteria's entire genome and inserted it into the yeast - an organism that is distant from bacteria on the tree of life. Yeast is easier to manipulate in the lab and this process allowed the team to alter the genes - in this case, deleting one gene not necessary for bacteria to live.
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POPSHumanity May Hold Key For Next Earth Evolution If we recognize humanity is an integral part of the planet and begin working for a healthy Earth, then planetary evolution could move forward to some unknown future. On the other hand, Langmuir said, if we continue to view the Earth as something that is separate, that we merely use, then the resulting practices could damage the environment enough to stall planetary evolution, even causing it to fall back to a level where it supports just microscopic life. “The story of the Earth is our story. We are intimately connected in every fiber of our being, in every breath we take. We’re inseparable from the Earth,” Langmuir said.
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