Most addictive drugs inhibit the growth of new brain cells. But injections of a cannabis-like chemical seem to have the opposite effect in mice, according to new research. Experts say that the results, if borne out by further studies, could have far-reaching implications for addiction research and the application of marijuana in medicine.
“I would prefer a two-state solution. My basic premise is that human beings are amphibious, in the etymological sense of ‘two lives’. We have one life in the solid material world that is most perfectly measured by science. Science is the most exquisite tool that we’ve developed for measuring that hard, physical, material world. Then there is the world of ideas which is inside our head. I would say that both of these worlds are equally real - they’re just real in different ways. The concept of a world of ideas, yes it’s intangible, it can’t be repeated in a laboratory, but pretty much the evidence for it is all around us. In that, every detail of our clothing, our mindsets, of the buildings and the streets and cities that surround us - that started life as an idea in someone’s head.”
Map of Scientific Collaborations, USA
by Oliver H. Beauchesne (via tiffanihillin)
Jaw dropping time-lapse video of the Earth from the International Space Station
“The western honeybee, misnamed Apis mellifera (“honey-carrier”) by Linnaeus who erroneously thought bees simply cull honey produced by flowers, is probably the most loved of all insects. And as one of the few “social insects,” it has been incorporated into folklore, mythology, poetry, and even political paradigms. Although the Egyptians were already keeping bees by the third millennium BCE, it was not until 1788 that the dance bees perform in the hive after finding a food source was finally observed. That the dance indicates precisely the location of food often miles away was not understood until the Austrian zoologist Karl von Frisch deciphered its meaning in the 1940s. In 1973, von Frisch was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work.
Hugh Raffles, professor in the Department of Anthropology at the New School, is currently writing The Illustrated Insectopedia (forthcoming, Pantheon), an ambitious book in the form of an abecedarium exploring our variegated relationship with insects. The chapter on “L” is dedicated to “Language,” specifically to von Frisch’s work on decoding the dance of the bees. Sina Najafi met with Raffles to discuss his research.”
The universe is littered with the weird and wonderful and GRB 060614 could turn out to be one of the weirdest and most wonderful of them all.
GRB 060614, which we’ll call Ralph to smooth things along, was a gamma-ray burst with some very puzzling properties detected by Nasa’s Swift satellite on June 14, 2006.
Gamma-ray bursts are the most powerful explosions in the universe. They usually come in two flavours: long bursts, which are normally caused by the sudden release of energy that occurs when a collapsing star forms a black hole in a massive supernova event, and short bursts, which occur when two neutron stars – the superdense remains of dead stars – collide.
Ralph’s gamma ray burst lasted 102 seconds, which put it firmly in the long burst camp. But there was a problem: no supernovae had been recorded anywhere in Ralph’s vicinity. At the time, its discoverers were baffled, and exclaimed: ‘This is brand new territory, we have no theories to guide us.’
Now, five years later, a theory has emerged: it could be a white hole.
A white hole is a theoretical beastie that exists as a set of equations that were a by-product of Einstein’s theory of relativity. It is basically a black hole in reverse. If a black hole is an object from which nothing can escape, then a white hole is an object into which nothing can enter – it can only radiate energy and matter.
Last month, we wrote about a new study by Santa Monica think tank RAND, which demonstrated that neighborhood crime actually increased after a number of medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles were closed. These data flew in the face of the anecdotal claims of California’s law enforcement community, which has argued for years that such dispensaries are a magnet for crimes like burglary. Well, in an illustration of what happens when scientists produce research that doesn’t serve the interests of the state, fierce criticism from LA’s city attorneys has led RAND to pull the study report from their website. According to spokesman Warren Robak, “As we’ve begun to take a look at the report, we decided it’s best to remove it from circulation until that review is complete.”
The surface of a microchip in a 3D reconstruction at 500x magnification.
(via fewdull, tiffanihillin)
“…a new study suggests that the connection between your food’s biochemistry and your own may be more intimate than we thought. Tiny RNAs usually found plants have been discovered circulating in blood, and animal studies indicate that they are directly manipulating the expression of genes.”
A “hidden” code linked to the DNA of plants allows them to develop and pass down new biological traits far more rapidly than previously thought, according to the findings of a groundbreaking study by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.
