Scientists Grow Kidney in Lab

BBC reports -

A kidney “grown” in the laboratory has been transplanted into animals where it started to produce urine, US scientists say. Similar techniques to make simple body parts have already been used in patients, but the kidney is one of the most complicated organs made so far. A study, in the journal Nature Medicine, showed the engineered kidneys were less effective than natural ones. But regenerative medicine researchers said the field had huge promise. Kidneys filter the blood to remove waste and excess water. They are also the most in-demand organ for transplant, with long waiting lists.

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Scientists Resurrect Extinct Frog Species

Popular Science reports -

In 1983, the world lost one of its weirdest frogs. The gastric-brooding frog, native to tiny portions of Queensland, Australia, gave birth through its mouth, the only frog to do so (in fact, very few other animals in the entire animal kingdom do this–it’s mostly this frog and a few fish). It succumbed to extinction due to mostly non-human-related causes–parasites, loss of habitat, invasive weeds, a particular kind of fungus. There were two subspecies, the northern and souther gastric-brooding frog, and they both became extinct in the mid-80s sometime. Except–what if they didn’t?

Taking place at the University of Newcastle, the quest to revive the gastric-brooding frog became known as the Lazarus Project. Using somatic-cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), a method for cloning, the project has achieved the major step forward of creating an early embryo of the extinct frog. Essentially, they found a related frog–the great barred frog, which also lives in Queensland and has cool eye markings, like it’s wearing sunglasses–deactivated its eggs, and replaced them with eggs taken from the extinct frog. Even though the gastric-brooding frog has been extinct for decades, it’s possible to do this because individual specimens were kept preserved in, believe it or not, everyday deep freezers. When going through somatic-cell nuclear transfer, the eggs began to divide and form into the early embryo stage. The embryos didn’t survive much longer than that, but it was confirmed that these embryos contain genetic information from the gastric-brooding frog–that yes, in fact, they have brought it back to life. The researchers are confident that this is a “technical, not biological” problem at this stage to breed gastric-brooding frogs to adulthood. This is a big step forward for the worldwide attempts to revive extinct animals–the Lazarus Project researchers will soon meet with those working to revive the woolly mammoth, dodo, and other extinct beasties to share what they’ve learned. Oh, and in case you were wondering: the gastric-brooding frog lays eggs, which are coated in a substance called prostaglandin. This substance causes the frog to stop producing gastric acid in its stomach, thus making the frog’s stomach a very nice place for eggs to be. So the frog swallows the eggs, incubates them in her gut, and when they hatch, the baby frogs crawl out her mouth. How delightfully weird!

original source

 

Motion Magnification – Seeing The Invisible [video]

Asteroids Can Be Redirected With Spray Paint

Phys.org reports -

There is research that is off the wall, some off the charts and some off the planet, such as what a Texas A&M University aerospace and physics professor is exploring. It’s a plan to deflect a killer asteroid by using paint, and the science behind it is absolutely rock solid, so to speak, so much so that NASA is getting involved and wants to know much more.

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Google Wants To Replace Passwords With USB Dongles

According to Wired -

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California — Want an easier way to log into your Gmail account? How about a quick tap on your computer with the ring on your finger? This may be closer than you think. Google’s security team outlines this sort of ring-finger authentication in a new research paper, set to be published late this month in the engineering journal IEEE Security & Privacy Magazine. In it, Google Vice President of Security Eric Grosse and Engineer Mayank Upadhyay outline all sorts of ways they think people could wind up logging into websites in the future — and it’s about time.

Thus, they’re experimenting with new ways to replace the password, including a tiny Yubico cryptographic card that — when slid into a USB (Universal Serial Bus) reader — can automatically log a web surfer into Google. They’ve had to modify Google’s web browser to work with these cards, but there’s no software download and once the browser support is there, they’re easy to use. You log into the website, plug in the USB stick and then register it with a single mouse click.

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Research Study Finds The Sight of Meat Calms Men Down

LA Weekly reports -

Forget massages, soothing music or aromatherapy. If you want to calm down a stressed-out man, just show him a few photos of meat. Preferably just-cooked hunks of beef filet, lamb chop and T-bone steaks, still sizzling and etched with blackened grill marks. Okay, perhaps not those exact cuts of meat, but researchers at McGill University in Canada did find that images of meat actually calmed men down and made them less aggressive.

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Smarter Nuclear Power – LFTR Explained [video]

Lighter-Than-Air Material Created

EuroNews reports -

German material scientists from Kiel University and the Hamburg University of Technology have created the world’s lightest material, dubbed aerographite. One cubic centimeter of aerographite weighs just 0.2 milligrams, which is four times lighter than the previous record holder, 5,000 times less dense than water, and six times lighter than air. Aerographite is so light that it is difficult to work with it in a normal lab. Any small movement in the lab can create winds that blow the material around. “If you wanted to have one kilogram of this material it would be five cubic metres large.

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Exoskeleton Allows Paralyzed Patients To Walk

NBC Los Angeles reports -

This week, Aaron Bloom did something he hasn’t been able to do since his accidental fall in July 2010: he took a walk. The 27 year old is one of three patients testing the Ekso, a battery-powered bionic suit or exoskeleton, which is strapped over his clothing. “I don’t really need anybody holding on to me,” he said. “I can lift my hands up and put a little weight through these crutches, and feel pretty comfortable.”

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Energy Breakthrough? Biofuel From Algae

University of Michigan reports -

ANN ARBOR—It looks like Mother Nature was wasting her time with a multimillion-year process to produce crude oil. Michigan Engineering researchers can “pressure-cook” algae for as little as a minute and transform an unprecedented 65 percent of the green slime into biocrude.

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9 Products That Were Radioactive Before We Knew Better

Mental_floss presented a list of products that contained radium before the dangers of radioactivity were understood. Food products and cosmetics are included along with the expected medical products.

Read about all 9 products HERE

Mondays Aren’t So Bad, But Weekends Are Better

The BBC reports -

We may say we hate Mondays, but research suggests Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are equally loathed. US investigators who looked at a poll of 340,000 people found moods were no worse on Mondays than other working days, bar Friday. People were happier as they approached the weekend, lending support for the concept of “that Friday feeling”. The report authors told the Journal of Positive Psychology that the concept of miserable Mondays should be ditched.

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