Human Body – Page 77

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Computer Programmers Borrow Eye Technology

June 28, 2009

Computer processing of video images may become twice as accurate with 10 times the speed of earlier models, thanks to what scientists are imitating in the human eye. “The linear solution to one of the most vexing challenges to advancing computer vision has direct applications in the fields of action and object recognition, surveillance, wide-base […]

Biomimetics

Discovering Health and Technology in the Human Body

June 7, 2009

Why invent technology from scratch, when the body contains substances that point the way to high tech, and can heal almost like magic? Several articles show that harnessing the body’s own resources is the wave of the future. Umbilical cords were usually tossed into the maternity ward biowaste can, but now they are […]

Birds

Is Darwinism Useful Explaining Cognition?

April 15, 2009

One would think the evolution of mind involves a straightforward account of improving cognition as one progresses up the evolutionary tree. It’s not so simple, said two researchers in a Nature essay:1 Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is broadly accepted among biologists, but its implications for the study of cognition are far from […]

Amazing Facts

Your Eye Works a Precision Jigsaw Puzzle

April 7, 2009

You have twin 125 megapixel video cameras in your eyeballs. Each pixel, a rod or cone connected to a neuron, sees only a small bit of the total image. How do these bits, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, fit together? Scientists at the Salk Institute have found that they are finely tuned to fit […]

Dumb Ideas

Can Evolution Be Programmed?

April 6, 2009

Some researchers are employing “evolutionary computing” as an algorithm to solve problems. But is it really evolution? Evolved machines: A company called Evolved Machines in Palo Alto announced a 40-teraflop machine that will be used for the “artificial evolution of neural circuitry” (see press release on United Business Media). “It is self-evident that in biological […]

Dumb Ideas

Ye Are the Salt of the Evolution

March 11, 2009

Salt is good, the good book says (Mark 9:50). Another good thing it may do for you, according to Science Daily, is act as “Nature’s Antidepressant.” Presumably it’s hard to have a good mood about a steak with no salt on it. In the midst of this article about the mood-enhancing effects of salt, an […]

Amazing Facts

Assassins Roam Our Highways

February 22, 2009

Slinking surreptitiously through our blood streams, the assassins prowl about, looking for their targets. These are not terrorists or vigilantes. They have a license to kill. Be glad they are there; they have saved your life many times. They are called natural killer cells. PhysOrg reported on work going on at Howard Hughes […]

Early Man

Language Is Not a Simple Genetic Matter

February 18, 2009

It sounds so simple. The title on an article in PhysOrg announced, in Kipling Just-So Story Format, “How gorilla gestures point to evolution of human language.” Because gorillas have an extensive repertoire of over 100 gestures, human conversation was only a matter of evolutionary time. Is this mere storytelling, or do such explanations have scientific […]

Darwin and Evolution

Exploring the Malleability of Evolutionary Explanation

January 23, 2009

Is evolutionary theory just a very malleable and ductile idea, able to adapt to changing observations, or should it be described as a strong theory, powerful in its explanatory breadth?

Amazing Facts

Biology Now Includes Fluid Dynamic Construction

January 13, 2009

There’s an old legend that Tibetan monks built a wall by levitating heavy stones with sound by beating their drums and gongs. Something not quite so fantastic but still amazing is done by cells in the embryo. Scientists have filmed zebrafish embryos using beating cilia to build little stone structures that they use for balance. […]

Amazing Facts

Your Brain Decides Best Unconsciously

January 4, 2009

A report on Science Daily claims your subconscious brain makes the best decisions possible. This is based on work by cognitive neuroscientists at the University of Rochester. Alex Pouget believes the brain is hard-wired to make optimal decisions – when we are not consciously thinking about them. Pouget has been demonstrating for years that certain […]

Amazing Facts

Cilium Likened to GPS

December 27, 2008

A story on Science Daily says that the primary cilium, a protrusion on most human cells that looks like an antenna, acts like a GPS system. They “orient cells to move in the right direction and at the speed needed to heal wounds, much like a Global Positioning System helps ships navigate to their destinations.” […]

Amazing Facts

That Spring in Your Step Is Semi-Automatic

December 2, 2008

Cross-country runners know the challenge of running on uneven terrain. What they may not know is that they are executing one of the most difficult operations for robot designers: how to make an upright, walking machine make rapid decisions on irregular surfaces without falling. Monica Daley of the Royal Veterinary College wrote about […]

Dumb Ideas

How Floppy Feet Produced Marathoners

November 26, 2008

A picture of a muscle-bound furry gibbon adorns a story on Science Daily that claims, “Floppy-footed Gibbons Help Us Understand How Early Humans May Have Walked.” The story describes how two European researchers photographed the footwork of wild gibbons to find connections to human evolution. It turned out that gibbon footfalls are very different from […]

Cell Biology

Far-Out Science

November 25, 2008

The following list of bizarre stories coming from science news outlets is jarring on two fronts: it shows how little scientists understand, and calls into question what counts as science these days. Some stories illustrate one or the other; some both. Roar of the aurora aura: Both Saturn and Mars turned up auroras that are […]

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