Science is Cool....

[Fish]

This is a repository for all cool scientific discussion and fascination. Scientific facts, theories, and overall cool scientific stuff that you'd like to share with others. Stuff that makes you smile and wonder at the amazing shit going on around us, that most people don't notice.

Post pictures, vidoes, stories, or links. Ask questions. Share science.

Why should I care?:

[Fish]

Victory for humanity!




Laboratory Grown Vaginas Successfully Transplanted Into Patients

Tissue engineered hearts and lungs may be still at the laboratory stage, but replacement vaginas made from the patient's own cells have been around for a while. A paper in the Lancet confirms they continue to work years after surgery.

The four patients in the study had Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome, which affects women who are genetically and hormonally normal but have an absent or greatly shortened vagina. MRKH may also produce a missing or defective cervix and uterus. Sex is usually painful for women with the condition and more than half a million are affected worldwide.

While we are some way from being able to enable women most with MRKH to conceive, the Wake Forest School of Medicine created sheets from biodegradable scaffolds and epithelial and muscle cells of four girls aged 13-18 with MRKH. These were then “hand-sewn into a vagina-like shape” in the authors' words and implanted. Each vagina was shaped by the Federico Gomez Children's Hospital, Mexico, to best match the body of the woman it was for.

Follow-ups over the next 6-8 years using physical examination, tissue biopsies and MRIs indicated that blood vessels had connected to the implant and within months new cells formed spontaneously while the scaffold was slowly absorbed. A tri-layered structure remained in place after the scaffolding was gone and no abnormalities were observed. The women responded to a questionnaire with responses in the normal range in regard to arousal, lubrication, orgasm and painless intercourse. Most significantly, the patients reported high satisfaction with the replacement vaginas.

Other existing treatments for MRKH are much more traumatic and have a high rate of failure and complication. Team leader Anthony Atala has used a similar technique to build replacement bladders for nine children in need, and has implanted urethras in boys, although there is yet to be the long-term confirmation of success in that case.



"This pilot study is the first to demonstrate that vaginal organs can be constructed in the lab and used successfully in humans," Atala said. "This may represent a new option for patients who require vaginal reconstructive surgeries. In addition, this study is one more example of how regenerative medicine strategies can be applied to a variety of tissues and organs."

“I truly feel fortunate, because I’ll have a normal life,” a patient who wished to remain anonymous said in a video provided by the Federico Gomez Hospital . “It’s important to let other girls that have the same problem know that it does not end knowing that you have the disease, because there is a treatment.” Besides MRKH the process could be suitable for women whose vaginas have been damaged in trauma or by cancer. The announcement has generated excitement in the trans community.

[Rausch]

Originally Posted by Fish

What happens to your brain on caffeine?

So, it's a stimulant...

[Fish]

Pond life.

It seems like an alien world....



Full screen and HD on very much advised

For a little background on the creatures you're seeing here:

Water fleas are not actually related to fleas. Rather they are crustaceans. Common in freshwater environments they grow to 6mm long. They could be called water cyclops since they see through just one compound eye. They engage in cyclical parhenogenesis, reproducing mostly asexually, with the occasional bout of sexual reproduction to shuffle the genetic pack and produce eggs that survive harsh temperatures.

Bryozoa are filter feeding animals. While most species are marine, some such as these thrive in freshwater. Almost all live in colonies made up of animals with specialist roles that could not survive on their own. Freshwater species are hermaphrodites.

The short life of Mayflies is the stuff of legend and poetry; their adult lifespan can be anything from a few days down to a matter of minutes, depending on which of the more than 2000 species they come from. However, that ignores the months or years spent as nymphs beforehand. Most mayflies feed on algae or diatoms, but carnivorous species exist.

Mosquitoes are well known both as a pest and as a transmitter of malaria and dengue fever, but we see them here in the lesser known larval stage. Not all the 3500 mosquito species feed on the blood of mammals or birds. Even where bloodsucking occurs, it is only the pregnant females that partake, requiring the protein to allow their eggs to grow.

Water mites are aquatic relative of spiders, although they only have six legs in the larval stage, they gain an extra two when metamorphosing to the nymph stage.

Ostracods are crustaceans that recently provided a 450 million year old example of parental care.

Uniquely for this film, ciliates are not animals at all but single-celled protazoans, although the larger ones can be longer than some of the smaller animal species Stoupin has captured.

Hydra are radially symmetric predators, thus looking more like plants than animals until they try to eat you, at least if you are an invertebrate with the bad luck to be smaller than them. The have attracted interest in recent years for their ability to regenerate, and the fact that they don't appear to die of old age, or indeed age at all. They normally reproduce by budding off the body wall, but like water mites can turn to sexual reproduction when the going is tough.

Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and...life-timelapse

[Fish]

Who wants to hallucinate?

WARNING: Please use your discretion when viewing. If you suffer from photosensitive epilepsy, please do not view this video.



Who needs drugs when you have science?

If you follow the video’s instructions, when you look away you will continue to see wavy lines in your wall or on the floor. This happens due to an optical illusion that is the result of repeated psychological stimulation. When the video ends and you look away, your brain still expects to see the waves, and therefore it creates them for you. Saying the letters out loud doesn’t really play a role, it just ensures that you are focusing on the center of the screen, where you can best receive the stimulus.

For best results, view the video full screen on an HD display. The resultant hallucination is temporary and should wear off within a couple of minutes.


Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/brain/vide...hallucinations

[Anyong Bluth]

Originally Posted by Fish

NASA's collection of data across the electromagnetic spectrum....

The electromagnetic spectrum is the range of all possible frequencies of electromagnetic radiation.

The electromagnetic spectrum extends from below the low frequencies used for modern radio communication to gamma radiation at the short-wavelength (high-frequency) end, thereby covering wavelengths from thousands of kilometers down to a fraction of the size of an atom. The limit for long wavelengths is the size of the universe itself, while it is thought that the short wavelength limit is in the vicinity of the Planck length, although in principle the spectrum is infinite and continuous.



Light waves across the electromagnetic spectrum behave in similar ways. When a light wave encounters an object, they are either transmitted, reflected, absorbed, refracted, polarized, diffracted, or scattered depending on the composition of the object and the wavelength of the light.

Specialized instruments onboard NASA spacecraft and airplanes collect data on how electromagnetic waves behave when they interact with matter. These data can reveal the physical and chemical composition of matter.

Seen here is a sample of telescopes (operating as of February 2013) operating at wavelengths across the electromagnetic spectrum. Several of these observatories observe more than one band of the EM spectrum, and those are placed within the band of their primary instrument(s).

The represented observatories are: HESS, Fermi and Swift for gamma-ray, NuSTAR and Chandra for X-ray, GALEX for ultraviolet, Kepler, Hubble, Keck (I and II), SALT, and Gemini (South) for visible, Spitzer, Herschel, and Sofia for infrared, Planck and CARMA for microwave, Spektr-R, Greenbank, and VLA for radio.

Pretty sure I spotted R2D2 and Rosy in the picture- still looking for Waldo.
DON'T HELP ME. I want to find him all by myself.

[Anyong Bluth]

Originally Posted by Fish

Victory for humanity!




Laboratory Grown Vaginas Successfully Transplanted Into Patients

Tissue engineered hearts and lungs may be still at the laboratory stage, but replacement vaginas made from the patient's own cells have been around for a while. A paper in the Lancet confirms they continue to work years after surgery.

The four patients in the study had Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome, which affects women who are genetically and hormonally normal but have an absent or greatly shortened vagina. MRKH may also produce a missing or defective cervix and uterus. Sex is usually painful for women with the condition and more than half a million are affected worldwide.

While we are some way from being able to enable women most with MRKH to conceive, the Wake Forest School of Medicine created sheets from biodegradable scaffolds and epithelial and muscle cells of four girls aged 13-18 with MRKH. These were then “hand-sewn into a vagina-like shape” in the authors' words and implanted. Each vagina was shaped by the Federico Gomez Children's Hospital, Mexico, to best match the body of the woman it was for.

Follow-ups over the next 6-8 years using physical examination, tissue biopsies and MRIs indicated that blood vessels had connected to the implant and within months new cells formed spontaneously while the scaffold was slowly absorbed. A tri-layered structure remained in place after the scaffolding was gone and no abnormalities were observed. The women responded to a questionnaire with responses in the normal range in regard to arousal, lubrication, orgasm and painless intercourse. Most significantly, the patients reported high satisfaction with the replacement vaginas.

Other existing treatments for MRKH are much more traumatic and have a high rate of failure and complication. Team leader Anthony Atala has used a similar technique to build replacement bladders for nine children in need, and has implanted urethras in boys, although there is yet to be the long-term confirmation of success in that case.



"This pilot study is the first to demonstrate that vaginal organs can be constructed in the lab and used successfully in humans," Atala said. "This may represent a new option for patients who require vaginal reconstructive surgeries. In addition, this study is one more example of how regenerative medicine strategies can be applied to a variety of tissues and organs."

“I truly feel fortunate, because I’ll have a normal life,” a patient who wished to remain anonymous said in a video provided by the Federico Gomez Hospital . “It’s important to let other girls that have the same problem know that it does not end knowing that you have the disease, because there is a treatment.” Besides MRKH the process could be suitable for women whose vaginas have been damaged in trauma or by cancer. The announcement has generated excitement in the trans community.

It's not a success till you can take it for a test drive.

[Fish]

NASA to Ruskies.... **** you guys.....



Not really sure what to think about this. On one hand it may bring more funding and support since we'll again be competing with the Russians instead of relying on them for space missions. On the other, our program could regress simply because we have less to work with.

Holy hell we need more scientists in Washington....

NASA Cuts Ties with Russia

NASA says it will be suspending some contact with Russia. The exception, of course, are flights to the International Space Station. Since the space shuttle program retired in 2011, U.S. astronauts get rides into orbit aboard Russian Soyuz rockets, for $70 million a seat.

The agency told its officials yesterday morning that it's suspending all contact with Russian government representatives -- citing Russia’s “ongoing violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” In the internal NASA HQ memo obtained by The Verge, the suspension includes: travel to Russia, tele- and videoconferences, emails, and visits by Russian representatives to NASA facilities. Work with the ISS will continue, as well as meetings held outside of Russia with other countries that include Russia’s participation. This comes from Michael O'Brien, associate administrator for International and Interagency Relations.

Last night, NASA issued a statement, confirming that the agency is suspending the majority of its ongoing engagements with the Russian Federation, but will continue to work with Roscosmos on ISS operations. It also adds how Congress failed to increase the agency's funding. Here’s an excerpt:

NASA is laser focused on a plan to return human spaceflight launches to American soil, and end our reliance on Russia to get into space. This has been a top priority of the Obama Administration's for the past five years, and had our plan been fully funded, we would have returned American human spaceflight launches -- and the jobs they support -- back to the United States next year. With the reduced level of funding approved by Congress, we're now looking at launching from U.S. soil in 2017. The choice here is between fully funding the plan to bring space launches back to America or continuing to send millions of dollars to the Russians. It's that simple. The Obama Administration chooses to invest in America -- and we are hopeful that Congress will do the same.

NASA’s current budget is just under $18 billion, and it's likely underfunded as it is. Still, the move has been called “a manipulative money grab” that leverages the crisis in Ukraine. As recently as a few weeks ago, officials expressed optimism about the Russian-American partnership, with NASA administrator Charles Bolden saying: “Right now, everything is normal in our relationship with the Russians.”

"NASA's goals aren't political," a NASA scientist told The Verge on condition of anonymity. "This is one of the first major actions I have heard of from the U.S. government and it is to stop science and technology collaboration… You're telling me there is nothing better?"

There are currently two America astronauts aboard the ISS. And it’s unclear how much non-ISS contact U.S. has with Russia: There is a Venus mission, as well as work on potentially hazardous near-Earth space bodies.

Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/space/nasa...TEPxYH7eJFu.99

[Fish]

Spring.......... the smell of.. bacteria farts......

[Fish]

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket taking off, landing



Even as its Falcon 9 rocket blasted its Dragon cargo capsule towards the International Space Station last Friday, aerospace company SpaceX was preparing another feat. According to Voice of America, on Monday April 21, SpaceX launched a variant of the Falcon 9 design from its facility in Texas. The rocket in question is a prototype of the Falcon 9 Reusable (F9R).

The F9R successfully blasted off and rose to an altitude of 250 meters. The rocket briefly hovered at that altitude before safely descending back to the launch pad. The entire maneuver was captured on video by a drone aircraft.

SpaceX intends the F9R design eventually to become the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket; such reusability would substantially reduce the cost of space launches, which currently rely upon disposal rockets. Future assessments will see the F9R launched from SpaceX’s New Mexico test facility. During those evaluations, the rocket will be launched with the landing legs tucked away and to greater heights to more closely approximate conditions during an actual launch and landing.

In the meantime, SpaceX Dragon capsules will continue to ferry cargo, and eventually astronauts, to the space station. Friday’s launch was the third of 12 planned Dragon cargo runs to the station as part of SpaceX’s $1.6 billion contract with NASA.

[mikey23545]

Originally Posted by Fish

NASA is laser focused on a plan to return human spaceflight launches to American soil, and end our reliance on Russia to get into space. This has been a top priority of the Obama Administration's for the past five years, and had our plan been fully funded, we would have returned American human spaceflight launches -- and the jobs they support -- back to the United States next year. With the reduced level of funding approved by Congress, we're now looking at launching from U.S. soil in 2017. The choice here is between fully funding the plan to bring space launches back to America or continuing to send millions of dollars to the Russians. It's that simple. The Obama Administration chooses to invest in America -- and we are hopeful that Congress will do the same.

NASA’s current budget is just under $18 billion, and it's likely underfunded as it is.

[/url]

Un****ingbelievable!...

That one who sucks the penis Obama is the one who axed the space shuttle before we had anything to take it's place (after being shown a plan to keep the shuttle flying for another few years), and now he's being hailed as having a laser focus to end America's reliance on the Russians to get American astronauts into space?!?!?!

[Gadzooks]

Originally Posted by Fish

Who wants to hallucinate?



Who needs drugs when you have science?

Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/brain/vide...hallucinations

This didn't work for me. I just went into convulsions and swallowed my tongue.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by Gadzooks

This didn't work for me. I just went into convulsions and swallowed my tongue.

We just successfully diagnosed you with epilepsy.

Hail Science!

[Anyong Bluth]

Originally Posted by Gadzooks

This didn't work for me. I just went into convulsions and swallowed my tongue.

No. This is the intended effect.

[AussieChiefsFan]

[Fish]

Crazy...