You have around 3,000 million letters in you genome. And so does your neighbour, your boss or your gym instructor. They go like this: ATGC…and so on. The four same letters over and over in endless different combinations. What makes you yourself and, extensively, what makes your boss a distinctive and unique human being, is […]
Trying to know the cause/s of cancer is nowadays a key issue for our society. Scientists and doctors from all over the world are working to study how cancer appears and what factors can increase its risk to help developing new ways of prevention and treatment. Accordingly, government and charity budgets dedicated to cancer research […]
Scorpion fly first to feed on human corpses Researchers working with human cadavers were surprised to see scorpion flies arrive first to feed on the remains instead of blowflies, which are commonly thought to be first responders, according to a study. The finding could have an impact on forensic investigations. The Washington Post Surprise!: fish […]
The cover of this post probably shows the world’s most famous carnivorous plant (Figure 1). It´s name is Audrey II and it appeared in the music film “Little shop of horrors”, directed by Franz Oz in 1986 adapting the film “The Little Shop of Horrors” directed by Roger Corman in 1960. Audrey II is a […]
Sunlight is the most important energy source of Earth. All earthlings live thanks to the ability of plants and bacteria to transform solar energy into chemical one. As sunlight is a free, and practically unlimited, energy source it is easy to understand the general interest in finding efficient ways of transforming it into electrical power […]
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Renowned researchers pen letter to outline benefits, pitfalls of AI Renowned scientists and technology leaders including Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk have issued a warning about the dangers of artificial intelligence. The group signed a letter that touts the many benefits of AI, and outlines the many risks. “Because of the great potential of AI […]
Tracking back human civilization there are evidences of dog domestication as far as 10,000 years ago. During this time, the ancient wolves’ genome evolved to give rise to the domestic dog that gradually adapted to human habitat as many organic functions were selected in detriment of others. Dogs have similar circadian rhythms, have adapted to […]
In 1968, the Canadian psychologist from McGill University Ronald Melzack described pain as being multidimensional and complex, with sensory-discriminative, affective-motivational and cognitive-evaluative components . Such definition may be a hint as to why the biological meaning of pain has been an (to date) unceasing matter of debate since Aristotle, who thought pain is just a […]
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Rhesus monkeys can be taught to recognize their images in mirrors Mirror recognition can be taught to rhesus monkeys, according to researchers who say the findings could help them better understand how self-awareness develops in the brain. “Our findings suggest that the monkey brain has the basic ‘hardware’ [for mirror self-recognition], but they need appropriate […]
In the 1930s Clive McCay, a biochemist working in Ithaca, New York, made an interesting observation: rats that were kept on a low calorie diet lived longer than rats that had unrestrained access to food. In the next years this seemingly counterintuitive observation was extended to virtually all animals, including worms, flies and other rodents […]