A bacterium that sat dormant in a frozen pond in Alaska for 32,000 years has been revived by NASA scientists.
Once scientists thawed the ice, the previously undiscovered bacteria started swimming around on the microscope slide. The researchers say it is the first new species of microbe found alive in ancient ice. Now named Carnobacterium pleistocenium, it is thought to have lived in the Pleistocene epoch, a time when woolly mammoths still roamed the Earth.
John Negroponte’s nomination by President Bush yesterday to be his chief of intelligence represents the pinnacle of rehabilitation for a man who, for many people, will always be associated with US involvement in the “dirty wars” in Central America in the 1980s.
Iran has begun preparing for a possible U.S. attack, announcing efforts to bolster and mobilize recruits in citizens’ militias and making plans to engage in the type of “asymmetrical” warfare used against American troops in neighboring Iraq.
“Iran would respond within 15 minutes to any attack by the United States or any other country,” an Iranian official close to the hard- line camp, which runs the country’s security and military apparatus, said on the condition of anonymity.
The Senate Judiciary Committee—propelled by a unified Republican majority and with little public debate—voted 12 to 5 yesterday to approve legislation backed by the credit card industry and opposed by consumer groups that would make it harder for consumers to wipe out debt through bankruptcy.
A frozen sea discovered on Mars has fueled speculation that life exists on the planet and provided a target for future missions to find it.
The first concrete evidence of recent liquid water on Mars, the finding is further exciting scientists because high levels of methane in the same area mean that primitive microorganisms might survive on the planet today.
A synthetic mimic of the active component in marijuana reduces inflammation and prevents mental decline in an animal model of Alzheimer’s disease, suggesting that similar compounds?and perhaps marijuana itself?might do the same in humans.
The finding focuses on cannabinoids, compounds in marijuana that bind to cannabinoid receptors in the brain.
Astronomers claim they have discovered the first galaxy made entirely of dark matter.
The galaxy was found 50 million light years away using the University of Manchester’s Lovell Telescope in Cheshire and confirmed with the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico.
While it contains mass that rotates like a normal galaxy, it contains no stars. Rather, it appears to entirely comprise dark matter, mysterious matter that differs greatly from the normal (baryonic) matter with which we’re familiar.
A paste containing synthetic tooth enamel can seal small cavities without drilling.
Kazue Yamagishi and colleagues at the FAP Dental Institute in Tokyo say that the paste can repair small cavities in 15 minutes.
Currently, fillers don’t stick to such small cavities so dentists must drill bigger holes.
Hydroxyapatite crystals, of which natural enamel is made, bond with teeth to repair tiny areas of damage.
TOPEKA, Kan., Feb. 24 – Attorney General Phill Kline, a Republican who has made fighting abortion a staple of his two years in the post, is demanding the complete medical files of scores of women and girls who had late-term abortions, saying on Thursday that he needs the information to prosecute criminal cases.
Regular users of cannabis could be putting themselves at risk of stroke, while they are still young, indicates a case report, published in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.
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They are at pains to point out that despite the widespread use of cannabis, there have only been 15 other cases of stroke, which have been linked to cannabis consumption.
The active ingredient in marijuana may stall decline from Alzheimer’s disease, research suggests.
Scientists showed a synthetic version of the compound may reduce inflammation associated with Alzheimer’s and thus help to prevent mental decline.
They hope the cannabinoid may be used to developed new drug therapies.
The research, by Madrid’s Complutense University and the Cajal Institute, is published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
In a legislative initiative that heralds the arrival of a new bipartisan congressional coalition in support of public access to government information, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) today introduced legislation to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act. ...
The new legislation would make a series of changes to the Freedom of Information Act that would bolster requesters’ claims to fee waivers, strengthen the position of those who litigate FOIA requests, improve the timeliness and of FOIA processing, and impose disciplinary penalties for arbitrary withholding, among several other provisions.Humans have proven themselves to be infinitely ingenious at creating and using devices to overcome their limitations. From one perspective human history can be seen as a series of ever-more-efficient devices to help humans communicate, travel, trade, work, and even to think. Similarly, the history of violence, peace, and conflict can be seen as the history, or the evolution, of a series of ever-more-efficient devices to enable humans to kill and dominate their fellow human beings.
The concept of an “evolution” of weaponry is very appropriate, since the battlefield is the ultimate realm of Darwinian natural selection. With few exceptions, any weapon or system that survives for any length of time does so because of its utility. Nothing survives for long on the battlefield simply because of superstition. Anything that is effective is copied and perpetuated, anything ineffective results in death, defeat, and extinction. There are fads and remnants (the military equivalent of the appendix) but, over the long run, everything happens for a reason, and a valid theory of weapons evolution must make these reasons clear, explaining all extinctions and all survivals.
JOHN HALPERN clearly remembers what made him change his mind about psychedelic drugs. It was the early 1990s and the young medical student at a hospital in Brooklyn, New York, was getting frustrated that he could not do more to help the alcoholics and addicts in his care. He sounded off to an older psychiatrist, who mentioned that LSD and related drugs had once been considered promising treatments for addiction. “I was so fascinated that I did all this research,” Halpern recalls. “I was reading all these papers from the 60s and going, whoa, wait a minute! How come nobody’s talking about this?”