This Week In Science

They call it ironic in the article...

I see no better way to say it... lol


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SUSPENDED ANIMATION HUMAN TRIALS ABOUT TO BEGIN

With traumatic injuries, timing in treatment can be the difference between life and death. What if surgeons could hit the pause button, giving them precious additional time to treat the wounds? Suspended animation has been featured in a wide array of fictional films, but could it actually work on humans? The FDA has approved a small study that will allow surgeons at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh to try to suspend human life later this month.

In Hollywood, suspended animation involves freezing solid (or nearly so), thawing at some point in the future when new medical advances have taken place to treat their conditions. This emergency preservation and resuscitation (EPR) technique isn’t quite so extreme, but it will reduce body temperature to 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) by inserting a cannula into the aorta and flushing cold saline into the system. This will slow the blood flow, which will prevent the body from bleeding out (which can be fatal within minutes). The low temperatures will also slow other biological processes as well.

This state of hypothermia can only be sustained by the human body for about two hours. While this isn’t as dramatic of EPR as some may have expected, that could easily provide enough time for surgeons to perform emergency lifesaving surgery. Trauma patients who suffer cardiac arrest have a 7% chance of survival, giving this technique some very real and amazing implications.

Peter Rhee first tried this technique on 40 pigs in 2000, with the results published in 2006. After inflicting a lethal wound to simulate real-world trauma scenarios, the pigs were cooled down so the surgeons could operate then resuscitate them. While all of the control pigs died, the surgeons were able to save 90% of the pigs. None of the surviving pigs were reported to have sustained cognitive or physical impairment.

Due to the extremely time-sensitive and dire nature of the injuries of the test subjects, the FDA has declared that the surgeons will not require informed consent. As a precaution, the team took out advertisements to inform the public of the upcoming study, and even set up a website that would allow people to opt out, if desired. As of yet, nobody has opted out.

The team will first use this technique on 10 trauma patients whose injuries would be otherwise fatal. That group will be compared against 10 other patients who are not able to undergo EPR, due to the surgical team not being available. After the first increments of 10 EPR and 10 control patients, the technique will be analyzed and refined. They will continue in this fashion until enough data points have been collected which will allow them to analyze the efficacy of suspending life in this manner, though a predetermined set number has not been made.

Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/suspended-animation-human-trials-about-begin#D2FLJmLIFxeZBeBA.99

Scientists Achieve Quantum Teleportation

One of the hurdles to teleportation has been overcome, with the reliable movement of quantum information between two objects separated by a short distance. The achievement is still a very, very long way from the movements familiar from science fiction, but strengthens our confidence in the theory of quantum entanglement, one of the most controversial aspects of modern physics. It may, moreover, assist the much closer goal of quantum computing.

Certain subatomic particles always exist in paired states. For example, two electrons may have opposite spins. This is fine initially, but creates a famous paradox if one particle is interfered with in such a way that its spin is changed. According to entanglement theory the other particle will instantly respond to the changes wrought on its pair so that the two remain opposite.

However, the distance between the two this means that the information of what has happened to the one particle must be transmitted infinitely fast – faster than the speed of light. Einstein famously mocked the idea as “spooky action at a distance”, and suggested our understanding of quantum mechanics must be in error. However, with quantum theory's subsequent success physicists have grown more comfortable with the idea that entanglement exists, although many argue it cannot be used to transmit information.

In 1964 physicist John Stewart Bell came up with an idea for an experiment to test whether entanglement is real. At the time the test was impractical, but with publication in Science a team from the Delft University of Technology, Netherlands have got close to conducting Bell's test.

The Delft team trapped electrons in very low temperature diamonds, which team leader Ronald Hanson describes as “miniprisons”. This allowed them to measure the spin for each electron very reliably. Alterations to this spin were reflected in the spin of an entangled electron trapped in a similar diamond prison on the next bench.

The small distance between the two diamonds makes it hard to demonstrate that the transfer of information is occurring instantly, rather than at light speed. Consequently, the next step will be to entangle caged electrons and expand their separation across town or around the world. Entanglement between islands more than 100km apart has already been demonstrated, but only statistically, rather than with 100% success.

Besides finally settling one of 20th Century physics greatest debates, reliable quantum teleportation could make possible the ultimate in secure communication channels, which would also be infinitely fast as well. Although this is starting to sound awfully close to Ursula Le Guin's ansible, most physicists dispute the possibility of such a device.

As usual, the result does not come out of nowhere. Other teams have also been able to teleport quantum information, but only in a minority of cases. Last year Hanson's team announced they had achieved quantum teleportation using diamond entrapment, but without the 100% reliability of the most recent work.

Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/physics/scientists-achieve-quantum-teleportation#9QwDqfdtfgtLV8Qy.99

A Computer Has Passed The Turing Test For The First Time.

This is big. A computer has successfully managed to fool a bunch of researchers into thinking that it was a 13-year-old boy named Eugene Goostman. In doing so, it has become the first computer in the world to have successfully passed the Turing Test.

The test is named after computer pioneer Alan Turing. To pass it, a computer needs to dupe 30 percent of human judges in five minute text-based chats, a feat that until now had never been accomplished.
What It's Like to Judge the Turing Test

"What are your favourite Sci Fi movies?" "I like Star Wars and The Matrix,"… Read more

"Eugene" was created by a team based in Russia, and passed the test organized by the University of Reading just barely, by duping 33 percent of the judges. It should also be noted that successfully pretending to be a 13-year-old boy for whom English is a second language ain't exactly Hal 9000.

It's still an obviously exciting breakthrough, though, one that has critics already raising red flags about its implications. "Having a computer that can trick a human into thinking that someone, or even something, is a person we trust is a wake-up call to cyber crime," said Kevin Warwick, a visiting professor at the University of Reading and deputy vice-chancellor for research at Coventry University told the Independent.

Are there serious concerns about what this means for online security in the future? Sure. But today they'll have to take a back seat to the understanding that we've entered a new era of computing. One that's alive with possibilities, or at least convincingly enough so.

http://gizmodo.com/this-is-the-first-computer-in-history-to-have-passed-th-1587780232

want one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7J-tlrkVEE

That witch dos not kill you makes you stronger,

hhahaha

Jestor wrote: They call it ironic in the article...

I see no better way to say it... lol


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Outstanding Time Lapse of Steller Explosion From Hubble

In January 2002, astronomers discovered a massive explosion coming from V838 Monocerotis. They initially thought they were witnessing a supernova, but after the initial flash of light began to dim (as expected), it began to brighten again in infrared wavelengths at the beginning of March. After that brightening faded, another one happened in April. While astronomers were certain they weren’t witnessing a supernova, they weren’t quite sure what it actually was.

Now the Hubble team have released an absolutely extraordinary time-lapse video of the event. Check it out here, and make sure you go full screen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1fvMSs9cps

othing like this has ever been observed before, making it hard to rule out many of the possible explanations. There are five hypotheses put forward in the literature about what is causing the event, and they really don’t have much in common.

Some scientists believe V838 Monocerotis was a supernova, just a fairly unique one. This idea doesn’t have much support, since the stars in that area are too young and too massive to have caused this type of event. Another unlikely explanation is that a dying star’s core exploded into a helium flash, like what happened in Sakurai’s Object. Again, this star is too young for a thermal pulse to be the most likely scenario.

Another model proposes the helium flash, but as a thermonuclear event in which a massive star would have been able to survive. While this does fit within the necessary age of the star, the star’s mass might not support this idea.

In planetary capture events, stars begin to consume planets in their system. For a very large planet, getting pulled apart would increase friction between the solar atmosphere and the planet. There could be enough energy generated to spark deuterium fusion, which releases large amounts of energy, such as was seen in the explosion. These types of events are predicted to be about five times more common for stars like V838 Monocerotis than for stars like our Sun.

Another possible explanation is an event known as a mergeburst, in which two main sequence stars collide. This hypothesis is supported by computer modeling, and the youth of the star systems in that region could provide the unstable orbits required for stars to merge in that fashion.

Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/space/outstanding-time-lapse-stellar-explosion-hubble#a12XRqQ2XlurZXkF.99


Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/space/outstanding-time-lapse-stellar-explosion-hubble#a12XRqQ2XlurZXkF.99

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/3492919.stm

Diamond star thrills astronomers
Concept image (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
A diamond that is almost forever
Twinkling in the sky is a diamond star of 10 billion trillion trillion carats , astronomers have discovered.

The cosmic diamond is a chunk of crystallised carbon, 4,000 km across, some 50 light-years from the Earth in the constellation Centaurus.

It's the compressed heart of an old star that was once bright like our Sun but has since faded and shrunk.

Astronomers have decided to call the star "Lucy" after the Beatles song, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

Twinkle twinkle

"You would need a jeweller's loupe the size of the Sun to grade this diamond," says astronomer Travis Metcalfe, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who led the team of researchers that discovered it.

The diamond star completely outclasses the largest diamond on Earth, the 546-carat Golden Jubilee which was cut from a stone brought out of the Premier mine in South Africa.

The huge cosmic diamond - technically known as BPM 37093 - is actually a crystallised white dwarf. A white dwarf is the hot core of a star, left over after the star uses up its nuclear fuel and dies. It is made mostly of carbon.

For more than four decades, astronomers have thought that the interiors of white dwarfs crystallised, but obtaining direct evidence became possible only recently.

The white dwarf is not only radiant but also rings like a gigantic gong, undergoing constant pulsations.

"By measuring those pulsations, we were able to study the hidden interior of the white dwarf, just like seismograph measurements of earthquakes allow geologists to study the interior of the Earth.

"We figured out that the carbon interior of this white dwarf has solidified to form the galaxy's largest diamond," says Metcalfe.

Astronomers expect our Sun will become a white dwarf when it dies 5 billion years from now. Some two billion years after that, the Sun's ember core will crystallise as well, leaving a giant diamond in the centre of the solar system.

"Our Sun will become a diamond that truly is forever," says Metcalfe.

Scientists Develop Bionic Pancreas For Type 1 Diabetics.

About three million Americans have Type 1 Diabetes, which occurs when the patient's immune system attacks the beta cells that produce insulin in the pancreas. Individuals with the disease typically have to receive insulin injections or infusions. A collaboration between researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston University has resulted in the development of a bionic pancreas that outperformed an insulin pump. The device was described in detail in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The device involves a sensor which is implanted under the skin that relays information to an iPhone app. Every five minutes, it sends information about blood sugar levels in the body, and facilitates insulin dispersal from a pump when needed.

The user doesn’t have to determine how many carbs were eaten in a meal in order to input the information into the pump. According to the paper, a small amount of information is needed from the user, and the device handles the rest: “The user interface displayed the continuous-glucose-monitor tracing and insulin and glucagon doses, and allowed announcement of meal size as “typical,” “more than usual,” “less than typical,” or “a small bite” and the meal type as “breakfast,” “lunch,” or “dinner.” This triggered a partial meal-priming bolus, which automatically adapted insulin dosing to meet 75% of the 4-hour postprandial insulin need for that meal size and type.”

The study was fairly small, using only 20 adults and 32 children for a span of 5 days each. The adults stayed in a hotel for five days for monitoring and were given dietary freedom, though they were told to limit alcohol consumption. The children were at a facility sort of like a summer camp, and were also not restricted in what they could eat. To be sure the devices were functioning properly, their blood sugar was periodically tested via finger pricks.

At the end of the five day period, the study participants had overall healthier blood sugar levels using the bionic device than with using traditional management options. Typically, diabetics monitor their blood sugar several times per day and calculate how much insulin they need. The insulin can either be administered with a pump, or measured and injected. If insulin is not given properly, sugar can build up in the body, putting the patient at an increased risk for seizure, stroke, or heart disease.

In addition to just dispersing insulin, which lowers blood sugar, the device is also able to deliver glucagon, which increases it. This helps keeps blood sugar levels even, rather than experiencing large fluctuations.

A great deal of further study will be needed before this device can be approved by the FDA, though researchers hope the device will be ready within the next three years. The next phase of study will involve 40 adults who will use the implanted device for 11 days.

Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/scientists-develop-bionic-pancreas-type-1-diabetics#w8uyltZapIgqGr8b.99

We all know that the Lorax speaks for the trees, but what do they sound like when they speak for themselves?

Rings on a tree can give information about the age of the tree, as well as indicate environmental conditions such as rain levels, disease, and even forest fire. Light colored rings indicate quick growth, while darker rings indicate times when the tree did not grow as quickly. Slices of trees are not uniform, and they all tell a story about the tree’s history.
What Do Tree Rings Sound Like When Played Like A Record?

Bartholomäus Traubeck created equipment that would translate tree rings into music by playing them on a turntable. Rather than use a needle like a record, sensors gather information about the wood’s color and texture and use an algorithm that translates variations into piano notes. The breadth of variation between individual trees results in a individualized tune. The album, appropriately titled “Years,” features spruce, ash, oak, maple, alder, walnut, and beech trees. It is available to download now, though it will be available to purchase on vinyl in August. The end product of these arbor “records” is haunting and beautiful and you need to check it out.

Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/what-do-tree-rings-sound-when-played-record#A5lQMGBvWl2cQhYf.99

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYLaPVi_I2U

Quadriplegic Man Uses Thoughts To Move His Limb.


In a groundbreaking clinical trial, a quadriplegic man moved his fingers and hand with his thoughts thanks to a brain implant developed by researchers at Ohio State University and Battelle.

The paralyzed man, named Ian Burkhart, is the first of five potential participants to trial the new system which has been dubbed Neurobridge. The technology, which was designed for spinal cord injury patients, translates and transmits brain signals to muscles via a chip, effectively re-joining the brain with paralyzed limbs.

“It’s much like a heart bypass, but instead of bypassing blood, we’re actually bypassing electrical signals,” research leader Chad Bouton said in a news-release. “We’re taking those signals from the brain, going around the injury, and actually going directly to the muscles.”

The treatment involves the implant of a tiny chip into the motor cortex of the individual’s brain which records and decodes neural impulses that would usually result in the initiation of limb movement. This brain activity is then forwarded to a computer that uses algorithms to translate the signals which are ultimately directed to a high-definition stimulation sleeve fitted onto a particular limb of the individual. This non-invasive sleeve is then able to stimulate precise muscles in the paralyzed limb which results in the execution of movement.

With the addition of a sophisticated software system which acts as a “virtual spinal cord” the individual can execute movements of individual fingers as well as coordinated hand and wrist movements.

While this may sound like it could take some time from the initial thought to the execution of movement, incredibly it takes just seconds for intention to be translated into action.

“I’ve been doing rehabilitation for a lot of years, and this is a tremendous stride forward in what we can offer these people,” said Dr. Jerry Mysiw, chair of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Ohio State. “Now we’re examining human-machine interfaces and interactions, and how that type of technology can help.”




Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/quadriplegic-man-uses-thoughts-move-his-limb#oL2meT4WOxzICLja.99

For people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the form of motor neurone disease affecting Stephen Hawking, good news is rare. Now, however, hot on the heels of treatment success in mice comes an announcement of progress at a more fundamental level.

“ALS/MND is characterized by the progressive loss of nerve cells (motor-neurons) that connect the brain with the muscles to control movements. As the disease progresses, patients may lose the ability to walk, move, eat, talk and finally breathe,” says Professor Mimoun Azzouz of the University of Sheffield

Inherited ALS is a result of faulty SOD1 genes. When the gene is defective it produces proteins that become misshapen and kill the motor neurones in which they function. A program at the University of Sheffield aims to fix the genes to prevent the production of the warped proteins.

"Silencing the SOD1 gene that is associated with 20% of familial MND cases may be as close as we can get to a cure for MND in the near future,” Azzouz says. “Our ultimate goal is to get the gene therapy for SOD1-related MND into the clinic as soon as possible. Gene therapy is regarded as an innovative technique with huge potential for the treatment of neurological conditions including Motor Neurone Disease.”

The project has been funded by a £2.2 anonymous donation, allowing preclinical trails to start immediately. Professor Pam Shaw, who is leading the team jointly with Azzouz says, “We plan submission for regulatory approval by August 2015, for permission to take this therapy to patients in the clinic." They are also preparing for a trial of gene therapy for Spinal Muscular Atrophy, a childhood onset form of MND.

Despite some successes, gene therapy is still in its infancy, so progress may prove slower than the approach being tested at Melbourne University of enriching the spinal fluid with copper. However, if Azzouz and Shaw's work succeeds it should provide something closer to a cure than the alternative. Meanwhile a third approach, using pluripotent stem cells to slow the disease's progress in mice, has also been announced in the last month.

Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/progress-gene-therapy-motor-neurone-disease#laOTTm2ALIvqfBCb.99