First Full Face Transplant in the U.S.

On March 22, 2011March 22, 2011 By A.P.In Face Transplant, UncategorizedLeave a comment

A 25 year old former construction worker from Dallas – Forth Worth who was horribly disfigured in a power line accident underwent the first full face transplant in the U.S. with a 15 hour operation at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston last week. He received a new nose, lips, skin, muscle and nerves from an unidentified dead person in an operation paid for by the U.S. military, which wants to use what is learned to help soldiers with severe facial wounds. As the new tissue is molded onto his bone structure, he will not resemble either what he used to look like, or what the donor looked like.

Read about it here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110321/ap_on_he_me/us_face_transplant

Zombie Ants

On March 7, 2011March 6, 2011 By A.P.In Ants, Nature, UncategorizedLeave a comment

For at least 48 million years, the fungus Ophiocordyceps unilateralis has been taking over the minds of infected ants, making them desert their colonies and move to leaves that provide the ideal conditions for the parasite to reproduce.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/aug/18/zombie-carpenter-ant-fungus

Thanks to Kebmodee for bringing this to the attention of the Its-Interesting community.

Bacteria fossils found in the middle of meteorites?

On March 6, 2011March 6, 2011 By A.P.In Origins of Life, Uncategorized1 Comment

Dr. Richard Hoover of NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center has discovered fossils similar to cyanobacteria from Earth inside meteorites, bolstering the hypothesis held by many scientists that life is widely distributed throughout the universe, and that life here on Earth may have come from other planets.

read about it here: http://journalofcosmology.com/Life100.html

and here: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20039647-71.html

Thanks to kebmodee for bringing this to the attention of the Its-Interesting community.

Eating dog food for a month

On March 1, 2011February 18, 2011 By A.P.In UncategorizedLeave a comment

Today, Hanna Mandelbaum and Alison Wiener, owners of Evermore Pet Food, Inc., are starting a campaign they call Evermore Me. They will subsist exclusively for one month on their human-grade dog food, and will document the process and its results on their company website.

http://evermorepetfood.com/interact/evermore-me/

The First Synthetic Organism Created

On February 10, 2011January 30, 2011 By A.P.In Uncategorized1 Comment

In May 2010, after 15 years and $40 million, Criag Venter succeeded in synthethesizing the entire genome of a bacterium (Mycoplasma mycoides, which ordinarily invades goats) and transplanting it into another one, creating the first self-replicating species on the planet whose parent was a computer. Some are concerned that artificial life forms could escape the laboratory and become an invasive species with unforeseen dangers, while others believe that this paves the road to a new era in which we will synthesize microbes for specifica purposes, such as cleaning pollutants or producing drugs and biofuels. Venter has founded a company based on this new technology, Synthetic Genomics, that hopes to work with Novartis to make new flu vaccines, and with ExxonMobil to create fuel-producing microbes.

Click here to read more, and hear Venter describe his work: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/may/20/craig-venter-synthetic-life-form