Common Bacteria Discovered to be Mind-Altering, Improving Mood and Reducing Anxiety

On By A.P.In Anxiety, Bacteria, Bacteria, Gut Microbiome, Neuropsychiatric Disease, Science, The BrainLeave a comment

Hundreds of species of bacteria call the human gut their home. This gut “microbiome” influences our physiology and health in ways that scientists are only beginning to understand. Now, a new study suggests that gut bacteria can even mess with the mind, altering brain chemistry and changing mood and behavior.

John Cryan and colleagues at McMaster University in Canada fed mice a broth containing a benign bacterium, Lactobacillus rhamnosus. The scientists chose this particular bug partly because they had a handy supply and also because related Lactobacillus bacteria are a major ingredient of probiotic supplements and very little is known about their potential side effects, Cryan says.

In this case, the side effects appeared to be beneficial. Mice whose diets were supplemented with L. rhamnosus for 6 weeks exhibited fewer signs of stress and anxiety in standard lab tests, Cryan and colleagues reported yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/08/mind-altering-bugs.html

How do the animals know an earthquake is coming?

On By A.P.In Earthquake, NatureLeave a comment

 

Animals at the National Zoo in Washington, DC, appear to have sensed last Tuesday’s earthquake before humans did. Seconds before the ground began to shake, gorillas and orangutans dropped their food, grabbed their young, and climbed as high as they could. The zoo’s 64 flamingos huddled together, and an elephant made an unusual low-pitched noise just before the earthquake was felt, zookeepers tell the Washington Post.  Red-ruffled lemurs sounded an alarm cry a full 15 minutes before the quake.  The apes and other creatures who sensed the quake coming may have been reacting to the weak primary wave that a quake generates some 15 seconds before the ground shakes, but it is possible that the animals could have reacted to signals still undiscovered by humans.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/zoo-mystery-how-did-apes-and-birds-know-quake-was-coming/2011/08/24/gIQAZrXQcJ_story.html?hpid=z2

Colliding Galaxies Form Exclamation Point in Space

On By A.P.In Space and TimeLeave a comment

Rarely does a photo spell out the emotion it produces, especially in Space.

The stunning image, which you can see for yourself below, is actually a collision between two galaxies, now being called VV 340, according to NASA’s Chandra Observatory. The upper half of the picture is currently considered VV 340 North, while the spiral in the bottom half is considered VV 340 South.

NASA’s Chandra Observatory is mainly studying the images as part of a broader examination of galaxies emitting high levels of infrared radiation.

This example may actually be very similar to the early stages of a collision between our own galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy, which scientists expect to happen billions of years from now.

A Face In The Clouds

On By A.P.In UncategorizedLeave a comment

 

In the video, shot by YouTube user “denisfarmer” and posted on accuweather.com, the clouds are moving fast, which is actually pretty typical for a big storm front like this one. As they do, a man’s profile seems to emerge, and even resembles Abraham Lincoln at one point.

we probably wouldn’t recognize faces in the the clouds at all if not for a brain phenomenon called pareidolia, the technical term for the common human tendency to seek out and find familiar patterns in random objects. It’s why a camera artifact might look like a base station on Mars, or ice floes look like crashed UFOs to some folks.  But humans are especially geared toward seeing faces, which partly explains why people have reported seeing the face of Gandhi on Mars, as well as the iconic “Face on Mars.” 

http://www.livescience.com/15496-face-clouds.html

Dogs Can Sniff Out Lung Cancer

On By A.P.In Dogs, Health1 Comment

 

Sniffer dogs can be used to reliably detect lung cancer, according to researchers in Germany.

Writing in the European Respiratory Journal, they found that trained dogs could detect a tumour in 71% of patients.

However, scientists do not know which chemical the dogs are detecting, which is what they say they need to know to develop a screening program.

It was first suggested that dogs could “sniff out” cancer in 1989 and further studies have shown that dogs can detect some cancers such as those of the skin, bladder, bowel and breast.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14557224

Learning your sister is someone else’s twin…..

On By A.P.In FamilyLeave a comment

Thirty-seven years ago, identical twins Begona and Delia were born at almost the same time as another infant named Beatriz in a hospital in the Canary Islands. Due to a hospital mistake, one of the twins was switched with Beatriz.

“This caused the single child [Beatriz] to grow up with the wrong set of parents and caused an unrelated pair of girls to grow up in a family thinking all their lives that they were fraternal twins,” says Nancy Segal, a psychologist at California State University, Fullerton.

 the twins didn’t meet until they were 28 years old — an observant retail clerk confused one of them for the other one, who was her good friend.

“A meeting was arranged for that evening, and it turns out that these two twins who had been separated for 28 years realized that they really belonged together,” Segal says. “DNA tests followed, the twin-ship was confirmed, and everyone’s life just fell apart.”

The twins themselves were also shocked and overwhelmed at the number of similarities they shared, despite being raised in separate environments with separate families.

“They had a similar way of walking, and they had similar tastes and opinions on many, many topics,” Segal says. “They had similar tastes in clothing.”

read here:  http://www.npr.org/2011/08/15/138993130/learning-your-sister-is-someone-elses-twin

A Brief History of The Toilet

On By A.P.In EngineeringLeave a comment

 

No society can be healthy without the proper disposal of human waste. The World Health Organization predicts that in four years 2.7 billion people around the globe will still lack access to basic sanitation. Diseases transmitted via contaminated water include diarrhea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid and hepatitis A. Worldwide, diarrheal diseases are the second leading cause of death—after pneumonia—for children under the age of five.

Most of those deaths could be avoided with proper sanitation. The improvement of functional and effective sanitation has been a largely unsung force for development and infrastructure in the rise of cities throughout history. And it starts with a toilet that’s more than a hole in the ground.

Click here to see a slide show of the history of the toilet:  http://www.scientificamerican.com/slideshow.cfm?id=health-brief-history-of-toilet

Critters moving away from global warming faster

On By A.P.In UncategorizedLeave a comment

 

Animals across the world are fleeing global warming by heading north much faster than they were less than a decade ago, a new study says.

About 2,000 species examined are moving away from the equator at an average rate of more than 15 feet per day, about a mile per year, according to new research published Thursday in the journal Science which analyzed previous studies. Species are also moving up mountains to escape the heat, but more slowly, averaging about 4 feet a year.

The species — mostly from the Northern Hemisphere and including plants — moved in fits and starts, but over several decades it averages to about 8 inches an hour away from the equator.

Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Critters-moving-away-from-global-warming-faster-2107611.php#ixzz1VtDD8q4a

 
Thanks to Mr. C for bringing this to the attention of the It’s Interesting community.
 

A Decline in Predatory Species is Disrupting the Food Chain

On By A.P.In Nature1 Comment

The decline of large predators such as big cats, wolves, sharks and giant whales may be “humankind’s most pervasive influence on the natural world,” causing prey animals to swell in population and throw food chains out of balance, a new report says.

Humans have touched off the world’s latest mass extinction, according to the report, published Thursday in the journal Science, and the consequences are being felt on land and in water systems as large predators vanish.

Read about it here:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/decline-of-predators-such-as-wolves-throws-food-chains-out-of-whack-report-says/2011/07/14/gIQAaeY1EI_story.html

Thanks to Mr. Cuomo for bringing this to the attention of the It’s Interesting community.