Tag Archive Science

They get to communicate with patients in vegetative state

For RorPieTh ^ - Science and Nature - February 5, 2010

If 2009 was a great year in terms of scientific discoveries concerning, 2010 strong start thanks to a team of neuroscientists from the Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge. These guys have succeeded for the first time ever communicate with a person in a vegetative state. This, as I imagine you can open many doors for both medicine and for family members of patients.

The vegetative state is caused various types of accidents causing permanent brain damage causing a person loses the ability to respond to external stimuli, to communicate and move. So far, no one knew for sure whether these people were aware of what was happening around him, but thanks to this discovery we now know that YES you can hear and feel.

Adrian Owen and his team of neuroscientists have been able to communicate directly with the brain of one of its vegetative patients and that it responded with a yes or no to a few simple questions. To achieve this had to do some tests first, both healthy volunteers and patients in a vegetative state in which individuals were asked first to imagine themselves in a paradise beach, then imagine that sitting on the couch from home. Using magnetic resonance imaging scientists found that each of those thoughts that people evoked in his mind is illuminated a very specific area of the brain, always the same. With these two thoughts have the capacity to make a patient who had 5 years in a vegetative state in which questions had to answer only yes or no. One thought was to say yes and another to say no. In this way they could have 5 fully consistent responses about whether his father was named in a way, if you lived in this city and so on.

As you can imagine this discovery has been greeted with much hope for relatives of people in this state are irreversible and they now know they can listen to and answer your questions. Likewise give medicine a giant step for these cases because they can ask things like whether the patient has pain or not and depending on the response can tailor treatment to your needs.

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The Sixth Extinction

For RorPieTh ^ - Science and Nature - January 25, 2010

There have been periods during the history of life on our planet where, by internal or external reasons, have become extinct more than half of the species that populate it. These periods are called mass extinction, and for some thousands of years, particularly since the emergence of humans, there is proof and evidence that we are at the sixth great mass extinction of species.

But first let's do a bit of biological memory. 440 million years ago, an abrupt climate change wiped out 60% of the species on our planet, this was the so-called first extinction. The second took place 380 million years ago, in theory, several asteroids falling on the face of the earth. The third species was undoubtedly the most devastating of all. The most prevalent theory for the third species is the fall of a large asteroid 250 million years ago, this caused the loss of 90% of species of land making this the largest to date. The fourth mass extinction of species on our planet occurred through the opening of the Atlantic Ocean. As happens with the second extinction, with the fourth is not known for certain how many species have disappeared ... but they were enough to catalog it as one of the great mass extinctions. The fifth and most famous took place 65 million years ago when another asteroid or comet struck the earth causing the extinction of the dinosaurs and 60% of the species of our world.

Unlike the five previous mass extinctions, the sixth is not taking place because of climatic or cosmic, but by the action of a single species. The first phase of this sixth extinction ago began about 100,000 years with the emergence of the most destructive species on planet earth has ever known: homo sapiens. This phase is characterized by disturbed ecosystems of the human hand when they started to hunt too massive and edible species. This and the dispersal of disease-causing organisms began to take the first extinctions.

And since 10,000 years ago, when humans began to develop agriculture, we enter the second and more terrifying phase. At this time we have transformed the landscape, overfished species, polluting the planet and introduced exotic species and destroying native ecosystems. The human being, thanks to its ability to leave their own ecosystem causing overcrowding, and no need to interact with other species to survive and may subject them or delete them, has become terminal cancer life on our planet, a cancer that is about to fulfill its mission and make the sixth extinction most impressive of which has been news.

Still not known for certain whether this extinction will ultimately eliminates that life on our planet. The issue is that to save the biodiversity of our planet, there are only two options now: The first and most unlikely is that human beings change their nature and cease to destroy everything. The second, and the one most likely to happen is that the human being itself out before leaving the land uninhabited.

Do not be clever to know that the option that advocate for 99% of the species is the second, but as a human being that I'd love it if you could make the utopian first choice and that our species, in an act of egocentrism has always seen himself as the good guy, realizes that being true role in this function and you begin to work seriously to change it.

To end this article I leave a small video-tribute, sent by my friend Irene, which resembles a tiny part of the species with which we finished recently. I hope more than one will serve to reflect.

YouTube Preview Image

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VA 2009 we demonstrated our fragility

For RorPieTh ^ - Science and Nature - November 17, 2009

Since ancient times mankind fantasizes about the idea that God plays dice with the fates of human beings without asking if we want what we think about it. This metaphor for the insignificance of our existence becomes even more apparent when, gradually, we become conscious of the huge events that happen around us. Events that make us increasingly fragile and small

In fact a few days, on 9 November and a new asteroid was "touching" the land without being discovered missing until only 15 hours to their approach. According to technicians Near NASA program, which investigates the asteroids that skim the earth, the distance of 15,000 km to our guest happened to us is to pass you a bullet grazing his ear. As if this were not so sinister figure, technicians also assured that if the asteroid had come to us did not give us time to avoid collision.

VA2009

VA The asteroid called 2009 was seven feet, far too little to cause a mass extinction, but we must bear in mind that the stone of 10 meters a few days ago exploded in the atmosphere over Indonesia did so with a potency similar to that of three atomic bombs. As I said the VA 2009 Media least 3 meters so that its destructive power equivalent to only two or two atomic bombs and a half, however enough to obliterate any city in the world and all its surroundings.

So insignificant are we? We are in our homes thinking the worst that could happen to mankind is that this or that politician comes to power when, on our heads, we are continuously threatening phenomena that could destroy a city, country or even all mankind without realizing time even to be aware of what is upon us.

How long before an asteroid of this range land catch them unawares? Would not it be wise for our leaders, who are paid to ensure our interests, stop spending millions on wars and armaments and spend on trying to find ways of avoid being the curtain closing early?

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Are we about to find life beyond Earth?

For RorPieTh ^ - Science and Nature, Society - 25 October 2009

On more than one occasion I mention you will have read that we are living through interesting times for science. We are beginning to discover things that were until recently science fiction, and this we are paving the way for what the day before were just the fantasies of a few madmen.

This statement can be applied to multiple fields. In the audiovisual technology have made incredible advances are getting machines that reproduce holographic images so we can almost touch. The field of physics not far behind, just two days ago started up again the largest particle accelerator ever created by mankind, the LHC, whose many experiments will help us learn more about the formation of the universe. This is not only interesting for theories to be confirmed but by those we have always taken for granted and that overnight it will become obsolete.

But astronomy is the leading captivating the imagination of billions of people for all mankind, and this field is the further acceleration is gained in surprising discoveries. A couple of years fantasized that it could be water on Mars for later, only weeks ago, stunned to discover that not only is there water on Mars but on the moon, right under our noses, no ice. And now, just days ago, NASA confirmed to have discovered two exoplanets (planets outside the solar system), rich in organic molecules such as carbon dioxide, which are essential for the emergence of life as we know.

The life beyond our planet is no longer a question of mathematics and a little common sense into a palpable reality. I would play something that, in not much more than a couple of years, humanity will finally find the first living beyond our planet, whether in the form of cell, bacteria or even in some kind of animal. Do not you think this interesting?
Although clear, worst of all is that our media, in an attempt to simply indulge in instead of us think, give greater priority in their reports to news like a balloon in a child who allegedly traveled to the latest American scientific discoveries, discoveries that lead us closer to our eternal dream of knowing that we are not alone in our universe.

Since this entry is more reflective than informative, I offer a good image that will delight while meditating on all this. This is a sunset, but not like any other. This image was taken on the surface of Mars by Spirit, one of the robots sent by NASA to explore the red planet.

AtardecerMarciano

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The Nazca Lines

For RorPieTh ^ - Science and Nature - October 12, 2009

In the Pampas de Jumana, Peru, near the Nazca desert lies one of the greatest mysteries of mankind: The Nazca Lines.

nazca-mapa

These pictures drawn by the Nazca culture for thousands of years have been challenging for researchers because it is not known yet sure of their purpose. Although the conquistador Pedro de Cieza de Leon made mention of these strange hieroglyphs in his book Chronicle of Peru in 1547, it was not until 1927 when the student discovers Xesspe Toribio Mejia, referring to them as sacred paths. Later the researcher Paul Kosok would refer to them as places of worship and ceremonies.

It was not until long after that, thanks to German mathematician Maria Reiche, who spent 50 years of his life investigators when it was discovered that these lines from the air took on a completely different meaning. In its continuing struggle against the Peruvian government to save the lines, this woman was even tied to the legs of the helicopters flying over the Nazca Desert to take aerial photos of the peculiar drawings.

Maria Reiche

The technique with which he made these drawings are so amazing he has left with his mouth open to researchers from half the world. Far from drawing lines on the floor or painting the stones, the ancient Nazca people were devoted to separate the first layer of dark stone exposing the bottom, which is much clearer. With this contrast stone color drawings created with animal forms which are only visible from the sky. This fact, that the creators were not able to see the results of his work, some drawings are more than 70 meters, has captured the imagination of locals and foreigners from being considered a method of communicating with alien visitors to, and this theory I find the right one, a star map to gigantic proportions.

There are many famous drawings in the Nazca desert like the Monkey, the Spider the Condor or The Hands (also known as Oakleaf). But the dream that has fueled more has been the call Astronaut, a design which could well represent an astronaut in his boots and diving ... but it is more possible that this is the representation of a shaman ritual with his mask.

astronauta-nazca

The Nazca Lines are and will be one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of human history, since we are still far from understanding the purpose for which they were drawn extrañísimos these drawings.

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