China to Map ‘Every
Inch’ of Moon Surface
CNN
A fossilised tooth found in a swamp
has allowed scientists to work out the DNA of a primitive North
American elephant
SCIENTISTS have worked out part of the
genetic structure of the mastodon, a giant primitive elephant, after
finding DNA preserved in the fossilised tooth of a beast that died
up to 130,000 years ago.
The creature is thought to have roamed
the forests and plains of North America before dying and sinking
into a swamp that preserved its tissues.
Researchers were hoping its teeth
might have preserved enough of the DNA for them to recover lengthy
chunks of it, and this week they will publish research detailing how
their hunch has paid off. The find has allowed them to reconstruct
the entire sequence of the DNA found in the creature’s mitochondria,
the parts of cells concerned with energy production. It is thought
to be the oldest DNA ever to have been recovered and decoded in this
way...
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Brain-Injured Man
'Jump Started' Awake
by Julie Steenhuysen, News in Science
A man with severe brain injuries who spent six
years in a near-vegetative state can now chew his food, watch a
movie and talk with family thanks to a brain pacemaker that may
change the way such patients are treated, US researchers say.
The 38-year-old man is the first person in a minimally conscious
state to be treated with deep-brain stimulation, a treatment that
uses a pacemaker and two electrodes to send impulses into a part of
the brain regulating consciousness.
The man's awakening may change the way doctors think about people
with severe brain injuries, who are largely unresponsive but still
have some level of consciousness...
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Cold-Fusion Graybeards
Keep the Research Coming
by Mark Anderson, Wired
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts -- At an MIT lecture hall on Saturday, a
convocation of 50 researchers and investors gathered to discuss a
phenomenon that allegedly does not exist.
Despite a backdrop of meager funding and career-killing derision
from mainstream scientists and engineers, cold fusion is anything
but a dead field of research. Presenters at the MIT event estimated
that 3,000 published studies from scientists around the world have
contributed to the growing canon of evidence suggesting that small
but promising amounts of energy can be generated using the infamous
tabletop apparatus.
How reproducible the experiments might be, however, and how the
mysterious phenomenon works are still very much open to
interpretation.
Demonstrating recent results of energetic radiation streaming from a
running cold-fusion experiment, Lawrence Forsley of JWK Technologies
in Annandale, Virginia, passed around samples of his group's
experimental apparatus -- all of which could be packed into a
shoebox with room to spare. The compact plastic and rubber tubing
illustrate the intrinsic paradox of this field: Compared to the
warehouses worth of billion-dollar gadgetry needed to run "hot
fusion," cold fusion research is cheap to fund. And yet cash is the
primary limiting factor holding the research back...
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Ancient DNA Boosts
Hope for Alien Life
Researchers see signs that microbes in
permafrost could repair themselves
MSNBC
Ancient bacteria can survive nearly
half a million years in the harsh, frozen conditions of the Arctic
and Antarctic, researchers said Monday in a study that suggests life
could exist in Martian permafrost or ice-covered oceans on alien
worlds.
The findings come just weeks after some of the same researchers
reported recovering DNA more than a mile beneath Greenland's icy
surface. The University of Copenhagen's Eske Willerslev, who was the
principal researcher for both studies, said the latest find
represents the oldest independently authenticated DNA to date
obtained from living cells.
Willerslev said the DNA discoveries could offer clues to better
understand aging — and point to the best places to look for traces
of alien life as well. “When it can live half a million years on
Earth, it makes it very promising it could survive on Mars for a
very long time,” Willerslev said. “Permafrost would be an excellent
place to look for life on Mars...”
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