2008 excavations at Hohle Fels Cave in the Swabian Jura of southwestern Germany recovered a female figurine carved from mammoth ivory from the basal Aurignacian deposit. The figurine is the earliest depiction of a human and one of the oldest known examples of figurative art worldwide and is at least 35,000 years old.
If you're looking closely at the Venus of Hohle Fels
below, you may also notice those are breasts, which radically changes our views of the context and meaning of the earliest Paleolithic art; maybe it's porn-eolithic.
A new report published in Cell says that a heart beat and blood circulation are critical signals for the production of blood-forming, or hematopoietic, stem cells in the developing embryo.
New research sheds light on how cocaine regulates gene expression in a crucial reward region of the brain to elicit long-lasting changes in behavior. The study in Neuron provides insight into the molecular pathways regulated by cocaine and may lead to new strategies for battling drug addiction.
It is well established that addictive drugs induce persistent changes in the brain's reward circuits. Previous research has indicated that addiction to drugs such as cocaine is associated with altered gene expression in the nucleus accumbens (NAc), a region of the brain that is involved in motivation, pleasure, and reward.
You probably envision ocean currents as a 'conveyor belt' - that's okay, so do oceanographers. But at least in the Atlantic, it doesn't work quite the way scientists have believed, according to new research led by Duke University and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Their analyses showed that much of this water, originating in the sea between Newfoundland and Greenland, rather than flowing southward from the Labrador Sea, is diverted generally eastward by the time it flows as far south as Massachusetts. From there it disperses to the depths in complex ways that are difficult to follow.
Laboratory experiments have demonstrated the immunological effects of ginseng, say researchers writing in the Journal of Translational Medicine. Their studies show that the herb, much used in traditional Chinese and other Asian medicine, does have anti-inflammatory effects.
The scientists treated human immune cells with different extracts of ginseng. They found that of the nine ginsenosides they identified, seven could selectively inhibit expression of the inflammatory gene CXCL-10. Allan Lau concludes, "Further studies will be needed to examine the potential beneficial effects of ginsenosides in the management of acute and chronic inflammatory diseases in humans."
Researchers in condensed matter physics at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago have created an experimental and computer model to study how jamming, the physical process in which collections of particles are crammed together to behave as solids, might affect the behavior of systems in which thermal motion is important, such as molecules in a glass.
The study presents the first experimental evidence of a vestige of the zero temperature jamming transition — the density at which large, loose objects such as gas bubbles in liquid, grains of sand or cars become rigid solids such as foam, sand dunes or traffic jams — in a system of small particles where thermal energy is important.
LONDON and SINGAPORE, May 13 /PRNewswire/ --
- **One Minute Tradable Brent and Gasoil Markers Available During the Asian Trading Day Beginning May 22**
IntercontinentalExchange, Inc.(R) (NYSE: ICE), a leading operator of regulated global futures exchanges and over-the-counter (OTC) markets, today announced the introduction of a one minute tradable marker facility for ICE Brent Crude futures and the ICE Gasoil futures contracts during the Asian trading day. The new markers, called the Singapore Brent and Singapore Gasoil markers, will be available for trading on May 22, 2009.
The recent Star Trek movie raised a new set of conundrums about time travel and alternative realities. As an astrophysicist, I am clearly most able to tackle these issues.
Basically, time travel theories fall into two classes. C. J. Ander posits
6 Theories of Time Travel, but Anders is more of a trek anthropologist. His work categorizes how time travel affects people and things, not entire universes. From a physics point of view, these can be simplified to two different energy perspectives.
OAK PARK, Michigan, May 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Azure Dynamics Corporation (TSX: AZD) - (Azure or the Company), a leading innovator in the development of environmentally friendly and cost effective hybrid electric and electric technologies for commercial vehicles, today reported its first quarter financial results for the period ending March 31, 2009. The Company also provided an update on corporate and product development activities.
We already have a war on drugs, a war on terror, and war against everything French (freedom fries anyone?) but our capacity for war is seemingly unlimited and the newest vendetta has targeted high BMIs. That's right, we're fighting a war on fat people and the soldiers have just added a new weapon to their arsenal.
Not only does obesity cause diabetes, heart diseases, stroke, cancers, depression, high blood pressure, asthma, arthritis, and urinary tract infections (i.e everything) but now obese people also cause global warming. If we could prove that obesity caused 9/11 and the AIDS epidemic, we would have found the root of all evil, hands down.
