34,000-Year-Old Organisms Found Buried Alive! | Climate Research, Salt Crystals & Ancient Organisms. It's a tale that has all the trappings of a cult 1960s sci-fi movie: Scientists bring back ancient salt crystals, dug up from deep below Death Valley for climate research. The sparkling crystals are carefully packed away until, years later, a young, unknown researcher takes a second look at the 34,000-year-old crystals and discovers, trapped inside, something strange. Something … alive. Thankfully this story doesn't end with the destruction of the human race, but with a satisfied scientist finishing his Ph.D.
"It was actually a very big surprise to me," said Brian Schubert, who discovered ancient bacteria living within tiny, fluid-filled chambers inside the salt crystals. Salt crystals grow very quickly, imprisoning whatever happens to be floating — or living — nearby inside tiny bubbles just a few microns across, akin to naturally made, miniature snow-globes. "They're alive, but they're not using any energy to swim around, they're not reproducing," Schubert told OurAmazingPlanet. Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons' // Current. To Our Faithful Current.com Users: Current's run has ended after eight exciting years on air and online. The Current TV staff has appreciated your interest, support, participation and unflagging loyalty over the years.
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We are incredibly proud of what we have been able to accomplish together! – The Current TV Staff. New species discovered in 2010 | Environment. A long-tailed slug (Ibycus rachelae) Perhaps the rarest of the extensive invertebrate species group are slugs which, according to scientists, are infrequently encountered. At great altitudes on Borneo, several rare and highly endemic species appear to exist, including one new colourful green and yellow species, Ibycus rachelae, described from Sabah, Malaysia, in the Heart of Borneo. Discovered on leaves in primary montane forest at altitudes up to 1,900m on Gunung Kinabalu, the species has a particularly long tail, three times the length of its head, with a body length of 4cm.
According to scientists, the slug has the habit of wrapping the long tail around its body when resting. From the Ariophantidae family, this unusual species makes use of so-called ‘love darts’ in courtship. Guardian.co.uk From invisible squids to bald parrots to deep-sea fish with teeth on their tongues, here is the pick of this year's newly discovered animals. NASA finds extra-terrestrial amino-acids in Sudan meteorites. Earlier this month, NASA announced the discovery of bacteria living in arsenic in a California lake. Now they have uncovered ET amino-acids in meteorite fragments that landed in northern Sudan. The meteorite was a fragment of a parent asteroid measuring 13-feet-wide (4m), and weighing 59-tons. Scientists were given the first opportunity to observe a celestial object before it entered our atmosphere in October 2008 after a collision about 15 million years ago sent the asteroid closer to Earth.
During expeditions in the Sudanese desert, scientists later recovered nearly 600 meteorite fragments from the meteor shower. Just a few weeks ago, the bacteria living in arsenic finding presented by NASA, was preceded by media speculation about the possibility that the space agency would announce that it had found life in outer space. Read more... Canadian scientists transform human skin into blood.
Dr. Mickie Bhatia (photographed in his McMaster University lab in Hamilton on November 5, 2010) director the of stem cell and cancer research institute at McMaster University in Hamilton and his team of researchers have been able to create blood directly from adult skin cells. Photograph by: Glenn Lowson , National Post Canadian scientists have transformed pinches of human skin into petri dishes of human blood — a major medical breakthrough that could yield new sources of blood for transfusions after cancer treatments or surgery.
The discovery, by researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., could one day potentially allow anyone needing blood after multiple rounds of surgery or chemotherapy, or for blood disorders such as anemia, to have a backup supply of blood created from a tiny patch of their own skin — eliminating the risk of their body’s immune system rejecting blood from a donor. Researchers predict the lab-grown blood could be ready for testing in humans within two years. Rinderpest virus has been wiped out, scientists say. 14 October 2010Last updated at 17:32 By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News The disease arrived in Africa at the end of the nineteenth century Scientists working for the UN say that they have eradicated a virus which can be deadly to cattle.
If confirmed, rinderpest would become only the second viral disease - after smallpox - to have been eliminated by humans. Rinderpest was once prevalent in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has said that it will now suspend its efforts to track and eliminate the virus. The FAO said it was "confident" the virus has been eradicated from those parts of the world where it is prevalent. When the disease arrived in Africa at the end of the nineteenth century between 80% and 90% of cattle and buffalo on the continent were killed. These are the regions afflicted by the viral disease in the recent past.
Dr Mike Baron of the IAH told BBC News that it had been too dangerous for outsiders to enter those areas. First-Ever Patient Treated In Stem Cell Study. Groundbreaking news! For the first time ever in the United States, a patient has been treated with embryonic stem cells. It’s part of the first study authorized by the Food and Drug Administration to test this controversial therapy. (Experimental stem cell treatments have already taken place in China.)
Millions of embryonic stem cells were injected into a patient who was partially paralyzed by a spinal cord injury, according to an announcement this morning by the Geron Corporation of Menlo Park, California, which is sponsoring this study. Two Million Stem Cells Injected In the treatment, scientists injected about 2 million “oligodendrocyte progenitor cells,” created from embryonic stem cells, in the hopes that the cells will form a restorative coating around the damaged spinal cord. Room For Hope Supporters of these privately funded, government-approved tests are confident that research has been thorough. But Some Are Concerned But many scientists are worried. Medical Milestone. New Species A Little Nipper.
Virtual Frog Dissection.