Humanity – Page 137

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Inner Ear Hairs Provide Optimum Sensitivity

August 9, 2004

The inner ear cochlea is lined with hair cells that transduce mechanical vibrations into electrical signals for the auditory nerve. European scientists publishing in PNAS1 measured the sensitivity of inner ear hair cells to mechanical motion, and considering the noise caused by thermal motion, calculated that the ear operates at the optimum level. The ear […]

Amazing Facts

Your Brain Learned Physics and Calculus Before You Did

July 29, 2004

Tilt your head to the right while moving to the left. The neurons in your brain just solved Newton’s equations of motion, and performed complex vector calculus equations almost instantaneously. That’s what four neurologists Washington University of Medicine (St. Louis, MO) essentially claimed in Nature July 29,1 describing how your brain interprets the information coming […]

Human Body

Think Before You Speak

July 25, 2004

Children are capable of thoughts before they have the words to vocalize them, according to a study published in Nature July 221 (see also summary by Paul Bloom in the same issue2 and report on Science Now). This contradicts the postmodernist view that thought is conditioned by language, and instead suggests that humans are innately […]

Amazing Facts

You Have Motorized Sunscreens in Your Eyeballs

July 19, 2004

The pain of walking suddenly into a bright light sets up an amazing reaction, according to EurekAlert. An alarm is sent to the fire station in the retinal cell. There, protein firefighters hop onto a motorized shuttle on the molecular railway, and once firmly attached, are ferried swiftly to the scene of danger. There, they […]

Human Body

Blame Evolution

July 19, 2004

Men can’t help themselves. Evolution made them that way. That’s the gist of a science story on ABC news. Accompanied with a picture of rebel without a cause James Dean, it begins, “Research shows that simply being male means you’re more likely to die as a young adult. Why? Blame evolution…and pursuit of the opposite […]

Human Body

Haemoglobin More Complex than Thought: Regulates Blood Flow

July 16, 2004

Physiologists have long known that haemoglobin, the molecule that adds the redness to red blood cells and carries oxygen to the tissues, releases its oxygen as the blood vessels constrict. Now, increasing evidence shows that haemoglobin (composed of four complex proteins that surround a central iron atom) is not just a passive oxygen carrier. It […]

Health

Parasitic Worms Regulate Immune System

July 13, 2004

Most people will not be ready to stomach a suggestion from the July 9 issue of Science1: parasitic worms can be good for you. Yikes: what’s next– worm therapy? According to Joel Weinstock of the University of Iowa, evidence is increasing that worms help regulate the immune system, and show promising results for […]

Human Body

Babies Walk in the Womb

June 29, 2004

New vivid ultrasound imaging technologies reveal a nursery of activity inside the womb, reports the BBC News. Click the link to see the amazingly clear pictures. Unborn babies have been observed stretching, kicking and leaping from 12 weeks, before the mother is aware, and “From 26 weeks, they appear to exhibit a whole range of […]

Human Body

Can Natural Processes Create a Mind?

June 16, 2004

No problemo, says H. Clark Barrett (UCLA), getting a mind from mindless matter. In a review of a book by developmental psychologist Gary Marcus published in Science June 11,1 Barrett was reassured by Marcus’ book that evolutionary theory working within natural law is up to the task: “The strengths of The Birth of the Mind […]

Health

MRI Overtaking X-Rays

June 11, 2004

The British Medical Journal 12 June cover story1 says that recent advances in magnetic resonance imaging may soon make MRI supersede X-ray as the preferred technology for whole body imaging. MRI avoids the damage caused by X-rays and provides more contrast and detail, especially in the detection of cancer. MRI is also replacing traditional autopsy […]

Health

Weeds to Your Health

June 8, 2004

Why traverse the rain forests for miracle drugs, EurekAlert asks, when the weeds we yank out of our gardens may hold promise for curing a host of common health woes. John Richard Stepp (University of Florida) claims that fast-growing, herbaceous field plants are more likely to hold useful substances than those deep in jungles. Indigenous […]

Amazing Facts

How Many Neurons Does It Take to See a Picture?

June 8, 2004

Israeli scientists publishing in Current Biology1 attempted to determine how many neurons participate in the representation of a single image. At least a million was their conservative answer: probably more like 30 or 300 million or more. They made careful measurements of neural activity when subjects were shown a face or a house. In the […]

Bible and Theology

Neural Darwinism: The Evolution of Truth

June 3, 2004

Can evolutionary theory build a bottom-up explanation of higher cognitive functions? David Papineau (King’s College) doubts it. In his review of The Physiology of Truth: Neuroscience and Human Knowledge by Jean-Pierre Changeux (transl. Malcolm DeBevoise, Belknap Press: 2004), published in the June 3 issue of Nature,1 he gives the author high marks, but concedes that […]

Health

Exercise Your Nerves

May 27, 2004

A team of neurologists from UCLA and duPont Hospital for Children in Delaware found that voluntary exercise improves regeneration of neurons, both for those who work out, and for those recuperating after injury. The abstract in PNAS1 states: Recent advances in understanding the role of neurotrophins on activity-dependent plasticity have provided insight into how behavior […]

Health

Stem Cell Cover-Up?

May 24, 2004

Stem cells, most have heard, hold promise for many life-saving cures. Michael Fumento in Insight Magazine claims that while adult stem cells have shown many positive results, the media and science establishments tend to hype the benefits of embryonic stem cells while glossing over the ethical and moral problems they present. Recently, Nature1 […]

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