retrospectacle

The head of the Kresge Hearing Research Center here at UM (link to the left) is Dr. Jochen Schacht. His team recently discovered that taking the antioxidents Vitamin E and aspirin significantly reduced hearing damage after noise trauma (ie, a rock concert.) Info below the fold.......... From the…

This is the weirdest thing I've heard all week. A prisoner in Pakistan woke up last weekend and found a glass lightbulb in his anus, and a 1 and a half hour surgeyr was required to.....er....."unscrew" it. "We had to take it out intact," said Dr. Farrukh Aftab at Nishtar Hospital. "Had it been…

RNAi, or RNA interference, is a rapidly developing and powerful tool to achieve gene silencing (turning a gene "off"). Gene silencing shows what happened in a system or organism when that gene is no longer functional. In a recent study, described in a story in Technology Review, female mice lose…

Consider this scenario. A woman walks into a bank, and up to the teller's window. You are the teller. She pulls out a check from her purse, made out to her in the amount of $5,000. She slips it under the teller window, to you, and asks you to cash it for her. You look at the check--its from a…

I found an amazing plethora of free-access articles and resource material on stem cells (from the journal Nature). The author of one (Sean Morrison) is a very well-known researcher here at UM Neuroscience. (Links below the fold). A glossary for stem-cell biology Austin Smith Nuclear reprogramming…

A list of splendiferous gadgets compiled by yours truly! Below the fold! This Space Projector from Mathmos projects a constantly moving image (or chaotic oil swirls) onto walls or ceilings. Think of it as a cheap LCD projector; see it at work. Also from this company, Lunar Eclipse (mimics the night…

The NIDCD reported yesterday the discovery of a protein called protocadherin-15 (PC15)(which is associated with a form of genetic deafness called Usher Syndrome) as the likely player in the initial transduction of sound. As I have discussed here, the cochlea's sensory cells are called hair cells…

Stanley Kubrick is my favorite director. Now, you can download the movie that started it all: his seldom-seen 1951 debut "Day of the Fight." Shot by the 21-year-old filmmaker in 1950, the 16-minute documentary traces a day in the life of boxer Walter Cartier, culminating in his fight with Bobby…

Wanna see a bird just like Pepper entertaing everyone with his speech and mimicry skills? Thanks to Blas for this amazing YouTube movie that is a lot of fun. These birds are amazing talkers, check it out!!!

1. And it Rained All Night- Tom Yorke (Radiohead's frontman's solo album "The Eraser" has been leaked. Its Kid A-Ok.) 2. The Only Difference Between Marytrdom and Suicide is Press Coverage- Panic at the Disco (Fallout Boy's progeny become their betters.) 3. Jenny Was a Friend of Mine- The Killers (…

Whilst perusing my latest copy of SEED magazine, I came across an interesting poetry structure not unlike a haiku. What I'm talking about is "the Fib," which is a poetic structure based on the Fibonacci sequence; the lines consist of 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 (and so on) syllables. While SEED…

It's all over the news: elecrtomagnetic fields (EMFs) from cellular phones have been found to excite the brain close to where the phone is being held. As more than 500 million people in the world use cell phones, it is quite important to clarify the extent of the activation and whether it is…

Ok, this isn't Pepper, but it looked so close I just had to post this adorable African Grey. Sup fools!

Reuters (through Yahoo News) reports the discovery of a color-changing snake in the Borneo rainforest. The venomous snake represents an unknown species, and was found by biologists working with the WWF. The ability of reptiles to manipulate their skin pigmentation has been documented before, but is…

Are women in the field of neuroscience still under-represented? Does there exist obstacles to their getting published in top journals? According to a Nature Neuroscience editorial on the subject, the situation is looking up (for them, but not for women). Only one in five papers published in Nature…

I'm currently working on a paper regarding learning and memory in honeybees. Actually I've been working on it for about 3 years. It got put on the backburner when I entered graduate school, but I finally decided its time to get this thing published. So, why not give you a little preview of the…

Abel Pharmboy over at Terra Sigillata (or T-Sig, as I now say) tagged me for a Monday Morning Meme. How can I resist? These things always remind me of the "boy/job/car" games that we girls used to play in middle school. 4 jobs you've had: 1. Waitress at the Olive Garden 2. Surf shop chick (I guess…

I'm a newbie to carnivals, but they seem like a great idea! So go check out the first edition of The Synapse over at Pure Pedantry. I have contributed a few submissions, and the others I've read so far are fascinating. So go get your chai skim cappuccino and learn about brains. You boss will never…

Not ALL of us have inoperable brain tumors.

What makes a good science teacher? Honestly, I have no idea. Teaching is certainly not my cup of tea, and I thank my stars that UM only asked me to teach one semester. I probably know a lot more about what not to do, given the kind of teachers I had. Myself, I received a horrible science education…

As my esteemed Sciencebloggers Jake, Evolving Thoughts, Bora, and PZ have reported, "Darwin's Turtle" died. Named Harriet (actually Harry, but was found to be female 100 years later so it was changed), the tortoise was picked up in the Galapagos islands by Charles Darwin. It found its way to the…

I just couldn't resist that title. A more accurate title would have been "Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Prevents Migraines From Progressing," but, when in doubt, err on the side of drama. And, I actually wasn't THAT far off, really. (Note: Ray gun above is not real (duh). Real device under the…

Despite a lack of scientific evidence to back up their claims, herbal remedies are used by millions. effectiveness isn't the only issue. Could they be dangerous, too? A news story with this headline appeared in Delaware Online today, highlighting the complex relationship that Americans have with…

Oh the gems! I got a one-way ANOVA, do you know what that means? Thats when ya got three or more independent levels on tha scene..... This movie made my day. It will make yours too. The display of nerdy stat-related witticisms made me glad to be alive. From Cognitive Daily. Its sooooo "sig."

What if we lived in a world with no secrets? As the field of neuroscience matures, the need for a new brand of ethics--"neuroethics"--is becoming clear, as highlighted in this month's Nature. . Society would be a different place if all our lies, however trivial, were abandoned in favour of blunt…

The Midwest has been hit hard by the heroin/fentanyl overdoses. For more on the background see this; in a nutshell, drug dealers have been lacing heroin and cocaine with the dangerously powerful painkiller fentanyl. CNN reports tonight that 47 people, part of the Mickey Cobra's gang, were busted…

Courtesy of SEED's Daily Zeitgeist comes the newest addition to the People I'd Like To See Fight William Shatner (Stephen Hawking was recently added.). Yes, none other than the original Man In Space himself, Buzz Aldrin. Just cause he's been on the Moon doesn't mean he won't use gravity to its…

'If man in space, in addition to flying his vehicle, must continuously be checking on things and making adjustments merely to keep himself alive, he becomes a slave to the machine. The purpose of the Cyborg, as well as his own homeostatic systems, is to provide an organizational system in which…

These are amazingly nerdy-cool. MadeWithMolecules has got a great thing going--serotonin earrings, estogen necklace, even boxer shorts and baby apparel! I would LOVE the serotonin necklace, but alas, I am a poor graduate student.

Quite an interesting ethics debate, really. An 8-year-old boy is caught in the middle of his parent's court battle over whether he should be circumcised or not, and groups opposed to the procedure are keeping a keen eye on the case. The mother wants him to undergo circumcision in order to prevent a…