| |
|
The
Weekly Science Talk Radio Program
With listeners in over 60 countries worldwide
|
|
|
|
|
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
It's World Aids Day Do we have a cure yet? No, and the numbers of cases keep increasing. Awareness is a crucial part of the battle.In the show this week: Complexity Abounds, Oxygen Deprived Mole Rats, TWi The End of The World!, Lagging Brain Time, That Hearing Feeling, Once Again... Man Woman Differences, TWIS In Space, Minion Mailbag, and Much More...
Listen to it all Here!
Donate now:
    The Complexity of Life
Simple cells are more complex than previously thought: three extensive quantitative studies of the bacteria mycoplasma pneumoniae were published in the journal Science. By taking a look at one of the simplest bacterial cells, researchers are figuring out what things are absolutely required for life to work: the shared features, the bare essentials of life. Blind! Naked!
Researchers have found that adult naked mole rat brains can sustain extreme oxygen deprivation. The mole rats live 6ft underground in colonies of up to 300 members where breathing can be a luxury. This low oxygen, high carbon dioxide environment would do irreversible brain damage in any other mammal. However, naked mole rats seem to have persistent neural characteristics that are associated with most other mammals only while in the womb.The Oceans Cant Take it Any Longer...
...or can they? What is the carbon dioxide carrying capacity of our oceans? A Yale geophysicist has found that the time frame of the interannual variation in CO2 and temperature changes, which was five months 20 years ago, has now increased to fifteen months. He suggests that this is because the oceans are absorbing less carbon dioxide, strengthening the predictions that the pace of future climate change will quicken. Between What We See and When We See It...
...there is a delay. Between eyeball capture and conscious recognition of the image there is time lost. If it was too long, our activities would have to be slower. However as it stands, this delay was measured to be around half a second, or 300-400 milliseconds.Do You Hear What I Feel?
Researchers have found that feeling puffs of air against your skin can influence how you hear. Certain "Pa" sounds (the "plosive" sounds) are associated with puffs of air, and during the study whether puffs of air were present or not influenced whether people heard accurately. Mismatched puffs of air influenced people to hear the wrong sound. This worked even with air puffs on people's ANKLES. Men and Women are Different
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study brain activation, researchers found that men and women respond differently to positive and negative stimuli. The differences indicate that women pay more attention to the emotional aspects of stimuli, while men process them in regards to the action that should follow. It also suggests that women may analyze positive stimuli in a broader social context.TWIS in space
NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) is taking picture of the sun at right angles. In Feb of 2009 it captured a sunspot eruption, helping scientists understand that solar tsunamis are real, and consist of a giant wave of hot plasma and magnetism. This can help us gather information about the sun's lower atmosphere and help forecast space weather. Saturn's Moon Titan
There are lakes on the moon's north pole, but not the south. Due to Saturn's eccentric orbital pattern, titan has tens of thousands of years of climate cycles, which may be similar to the climate effects of cycles on earth. Intel Inside... Your Brain?
A computer chip company wants to implant sensing devices into the brain to give people the ability to use their computers using thoughts alone.Listener mail bag
More skepticism about the car accident victim who was in a coma and is now supposedly communicating with the outside world.
Music this week was by Unbalanced Wheel, TMBG, Little Tin Frog, and The Gifted Apes.
Check Out A Book By Justin Jackson:
Donate to TWIS! We thank you for your support:
Let us know what you think and follow us on Twitter: @jacksonfly and @drkiki
Help Get The Word Out About TWIS!
Listen to the Broadcast - Link to TWIS - Write an iTunes Review - Get a TWIS Sig
current science news posted by bob at 12/01/2009 11:20:00 AM
Science News Archives
Info
on the This Week in Science Podcast
TWIS
- serving up cutting edge science on the radio since
2000 |
|
|
Scientists
& Engineers for America
RSS
