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?:

[Pants]

Originally Posted by Fish

In case the need comes up sometime....

Check Out This Video of a Complete Heart Transplant!

Heart disease is the number one cause of death around the globe. While approximately 50,000 people are candidates for transplants, only about 5,000 are performed each year.

The first heart transplant surgery was in 1967 in Cape Town, South Africa. After a 25-year-old woman died in a car accident, her heart was given to a 55-year-old man. Unfortunately, the man died only 18 days later. Rejection was common in early surgeries with most patients not lasting more than a couple of weeks, so not many were performed. In the coming decades, meticulous tissue-matching and improved medications increased survival rates.

Today, recipients of donated hearts have a survival rate of 90% after one year and 74% after five years. As research involving replacement organs from stem cells continues to progress, those numbers will hopefully increase.

Potential recipients undergo psychological evaluation for the surgery and they are also given a variety of tests regarding tissue type and to make sure they are healthy enough to sustain the new organ. Once a donor heart becomes available, recipient selection based on a number of factors, including time on wait list, prognosis, and proximity to the available donor organ.

When everyone is ready to proceed with the transplant, the recipient is put under general anesthesia and connected to a cardiopulmonary bypass machine. After the blood has been completely diverted from the heart, the old heart is extracted and replaced with the donor organ. After the new heart is sewn into place and the blood is brought back to the heart, the heart will be shocked into beating. Before they close up, the surgeon will monitor the heart is functioning properly without any leaks.

Quite obviously, the following video that shows this process is graphic, yet totally amazing. I mean, you’re watching someone’s heart get cut right out of their chest, so please view with discretion.

Damn. That looks hearter than I thought.

[aturnis]

The above study seems to lend credence to the "idle hands" adage.

[ThaVirus]

Originally Posted by Fish

In case the need comes up sometime....



Check Out This Video of a Complete Heart Transplant!



Heart disease is the number one cause of death around the globe. While approximately 50,000 people are candidates for transplants, only about 5,000 are performed each year.



The first heart transplant surgery was in 1967 in Cape Town, South Africa. After a 25-year-old woman died in a car accident, her heart was given to a 55-year-old man. Unfortunately, the man died only 18 days later. Rejection was common in early surgeries with most patients not lasting more than a couple of weeks, so not many were performed. In the coming decades, meticulous tissue-matching and improved medications increased survival rates.



Today, recipients of donated hearts have a survival rate of 90% after one year and 74% after five years. As research involving replacement organs from stem cells continues to progress, those numbers will hopefully increase.



Potential recipients undergo psychological evaluation for the surgery and they are also given a variety of tests regarding tissue type and to make sure they are healthy enough to sustain the new organ. Once a donor heart becomes available, recipient selection based on a number of factors, including time on wait list, prognosis, and proximity to the available donor organ.



When everyone is ready to proceed with the transplant, the recipient is put under general anesthesia and connected to a cardiopulmonary bypass machine. After the blood has been completely diverted from the heart, the old heart is extracted and replaced with the donor organ. After the new heart is sewn into place and the blood is brought back to the heart, the heart will be shocked into beating. Before they close up, the surgeon will monitor the heart is functioning properly without any leaks.



Quite obviously, the following video that shows this process is graphic, yet totally amazing. I mean, you’re watching someone’s heart get cut right out of their chest, so please view with discretion.

What's up with the decline in survival rates of heart transplants after 5 years?

Is it attributable to rejection? It seems if your body doesn't reject the tissue after a year you'd be good to go.

Or maybe people that need heart transplants are generally older and/or less healthy than most and so they tend to die quickly?

[Fish]

Originally Posted by ThaVirus

What's up with the decline in survival rates of heart transplants after 5 years?

Is it attributable to rejection? It seems if your body doesn't reject the tissue after a year you'd be good to go.

Or maybe people that need heart transplants are generally older and/or less healthy than most and so they tend to die quickly?

Eventual rejection mostly. From what I know.

Eventually we'll be able to just extract a little tissue from the person, apply stem cell magic, and build a replacement part out of the person's own cells. Which would hopefully completely eliminate rejection issues.

[aturnis]

I thought they could currently give donor organs a bath in a "stem cell slurry" of sorts to aid in the process? Our wash it first then bathe it. Whatever.

Maybe that doesn't work with a heart, I assume the allotted time for the exchange is pretty tight.

[Fish]

Originally Posted by aturnis

I thought they could currently give donor organs a bath in a "stem cell slurry" of sorts to aid in the process? Our wash it first then bathe it. Whatever.

Maybe that doesn't work with a heart, I assume the allotted time for the exchange is pretty tight.

Turns out that didn't hold up to scrutiny...

Call for acid-bath stem-cell paper to be retracted

Less than 40 days after a team led by Haruko Obokata of the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan, presented two stunning papers claiming a method of using a simple acid-bath method to reprogramme mature mammalian cells back to an embryonic state — so called STAP cells — researchers in Japan, including one of the papers’ co-authors, are calling for them to be retracted.

Within weeks of their 30 January publication, the paper was criticized for irregularities and apparent duplicated images. Numerous scientists also had difficulty reproducing the supposedly simple method. The team responded with the promise of corrections and a list of tips to help other scientists to reproduce the results.

[Dave Lane]

Originally Posted by Fish

Hundreds of participants were left in a room by themselves for several minutes with nothing to do but think. Rather than complete the task, many of them chose to administer electric shocks to themselves. As it turns out, most people prefer to do something rather than nothing, even if that something is negative, according to a study published in Science last week.

In a series of 11 experiments, a team led by Timothy Wilson from the University of Virginia asked 409 college students to be alone with their thoughts in a bare room for 6 to 15 minutes: no phones, books, pens for doodling, or distractions of any kind. Just stay awake, be quiet, and sit idly in their seats. Some were given specific prompts, like plan a food outing, while others could think about whatever.

“We went into this thinking it wouldn’t be that hard for people to entertain themselves,” Wilson tells Science. “We have this huge brain and it’s stuffed full of pleasant memories, and we have the ability to construct fantasies and stories.”

But daydreaming may not be as enjoyable when we’re forced to do it on command. Half the volunteers reported on a 9-point scale that the experience was not enjoyable. Most found it difficult to concentrate, and even more said their minds continually wandered, even when nothing was competing for their attention. A group asked to perform the same task at home found the experience even less enjoyable; a third of them reported cheating.

Those assigned an external activity, like listening to music or reading a book, liked that twice as much as “thinking time.” When the team repeated the experiment with people ages 18 to 77 recruited from a farmers’ market and a church, they got similar results. There were some general trends: People who thought about future events with friends or family fared better than those who thought about work.

In one last experiment, 67 percent of the men and 25 percent of the women chose to give themselves a mild electric jolt -- like a little static electricity shock -- rather than complete the entire “thinking period.” Beforehand, when given a sample, most said they’d pay $5 not to be zapped again -- but when the time came, they still pushed the button.

“The mind is designed to engage with the world,” Wilson says in a news release. “Even when we are by ourselves, our focus usually is on the outside world.” The team is working on the exact reasons why people find it difficult to be alone with their own thoughts.

Wilson intends to pursue ways to tame this “disengaged mind.” He often imagines being a castaway on an deserted island as he’s falling asleep. “There are lots of times in our daily lives, when we have a little bit of time out, or are stuck in traffic or trying to get to sleep,” he explains to Nature. “Having this as a tool in our mental toolbox as a way to retreat or reduce stress would be a useful thing to do.”

Man I could so mess up this curve.

[Baby Lee]

Way too many amazing photos to direct link;

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/amazing-ph...ble-1605378889

[Baby Lee]

Full movie on life of Tesla

[Fish]

NASA Announces Plans To Launch Chimpanzee Into Sun



WASHINGTON—In what is being called a crucial step forward in solar exploration, NASA officials announced Wednesday a new mission to launch a chimpanzee directly into the sun. “Chimpanzees are our closest biological relative, so we can learn a great deal by observing how they react to being deposited into the sun’s plasma core,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, adding that the single-occupant capsule would contain sophisticated instruments that would monitor the effects of the sun’s 27 million-degree interior on the physiological functions of the animal. “Hopefully, what we learn from this mission will pave the way for sending human astronauts into the sun on a regular basis.” Bolden went on to suggest that, should humans be successfully launched into the sun, there may one day be a permanent colony there.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/nas...nto-sun,36478/

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by Fish

[B][SIZE="3"]new mission to launch a chimpanzee directly into the sun.

TheOnion is slipping

http://waterfordwhispersnews.com/201...l-news-agency/

[Baby Lee]

http://www.apollomoonimages.com/

[ThaVirus]

I mentioned in the Poison Ivy thread that I recently discovered that I apparently have a pretty severe allergic reaction to wasp stings.

I developed an extremely uncomfortable itch ALL over my body, hives showed up about an hour after I got stung, and a little bit of chest pain. I didn't have any issues with breathing or slowed/sped up heart rate so I don't think I was dealing with anaphylaxis..

Anyway, the reason I'm posting here is to try and glean some more information. One thing I can't figure out is why I would just spontaneously develop this ****ing allergy in the first place..

I've been stung by bees and wasps in the past and never had an issue. The last time I got stung by a wasp I was roughly 11 and only had to deal with my hand swelling up to twice it's size. About two months ago I was stung by a bee and only had a slight pain. Did the exposure to that bee sting make me allergic to all bee/wasp/hornet venom?

GIVE ME ANSWERS, FOLLOWERS OF THE SCIENTIFIC ORDER.

[Bob Dole]

Originally Posted by ThaVirus

What's up with the decline in survival rates of heart transplants after 5 years?

Is it attributable to rejection? It seems if your body doesn't reject the tissue after a year you'd be good to go.

Or maybe people that need heart transplants are generally older and/or less healthy than most and so they tend to die quickly?

Bob Dole's neighbor had one and just wore out the replacement in 5 years because he would not slow down. Got a second one and was fine for a couple of years, then started having rejection issues. Then he started having gout issues due to complications from the drugs being used to deal with the rejection.

[Fish]

Science! Mostly...

Making Oobleck!

Our cornstarch goo (sometimes referred to as “oobleck” from the Dr. Suess book) is what scientists call a “Non-Newtonian” liquid. Basically, Sir Issac Newton stated individual liquids flow at consistent, predictable rates. As you likely discovered, cornstarch goo does NOT follow those rules – it can act almost like a solid, and then flow like a liquid. Technically speaking, the goo is a SUSPENSION, meaning that the grains of starch are not dissolved, they are just suspended and spread out in the water. If you let the goo sit for an while, the cornstarch would settle to the bottom of the bowl. So why does this concoction act the way it does? Most of it has to do with pressure. The size, shape, and makeup of the cornstarch grains causes the cornstarch to “lock-up” and hold its shape when pressure is applied to it. People have filled small pools with oobleck and they are able to walk across the surface of it (as long as they move quickly.) As soon as they stop walking, they begin to sink. - See more at: http://www.sciencebob.com/blog/?p=60....JNkU5rmQ.dpuf

Applying pressure to the mixture increases its viscosity (thickness). A quick tap on the surface of Oobleck will make it feel hard, because it forces the cornstarch particles together. But dip your hand slowly into the mix, and see what happens—your fingers slide in as easily as through water. Moving slowly gives the cornstarch particles time to move out of the way.

What to do with Oobleck?

Make a disposable fleshlight, of course...



http://chinalert.com/2010/09/13/make...wn-fleshlight/