Show Me The Science Month Day 11

Imagine a world where the major source of human nutrition was beer. That may sound fantastic to some of you, but now imagine that, in this beer-world, there are no bottle openers and no twist-off caps. To get at the beer, you have to open the bottles with your teeth. Day in, day out, you're opening bottles with your teeth. If the world continued like this for a few thousand generations, how would the human jaw evolve into a better beer bottle opener?

2 million years ago, our ancestors lived in such a world. OK, so it didn't involve beer-bottles, but our ancestors did have to use their teeth to get at what was essentially armored but highly nutritious food - nuts and seeds.

Oramed Pharmaceuticals, a drug development company aiming to make alternative delivery systems to injectable medication, has dedicated research to finding a solution to make oral insulin, thus making managing diabetes easier and painless.

Parallel to developing an effective oral medication, they have come upon another delivery method, bypassing the harsh portion of the gastrointestinal system altogether. Oramed recently announced that they have concluded proof of concept on their other alternative to injectable insulin: insulin suppositories.

Based on their research, the insulin suppositories showed rapid insulin absorption and actively lowered blood glucose levels. These results were well tolerated by participants and no adverse symptoms were seen.

Throughout history, scientists, philosophers, mathematicians and PhD students lacking funding for actual research have turned to the thought experiment in hopes of discovering something publishable, thereby retaining tenure and/or attracting the admiration of comely undergraduates.



The best thought experiments throw light into dark corners of the universe and also provide other scientists, philosophers, mathematicians and destitute PhD students a way to kill time while waiting for the bus.



Below is a classic thought experiment, pillaged from my book The Geeks' Guide to World Domination (Be Afraid, Beautiful People). I'll post a new thought experiment each day this week.

Scientists can easily explain the structural order that makes steel and aluminium out of molten metal and they have discovered the molecular changes that take place as water turns to ice, but glass blowers have been plying their trade since the first century BC and we have only just begun to understand what makes molten glass solid.

One hundred and fifty years after the construction of Crystal Palace at the Great Exhibition, scientists at The University of Nottingham and the University of California, Berkeley in collaboration with the University of Bath, have presented an explanation of how atoms behave as glass cools and hardens. Their research has just been published online in Science Express, in advance of publication in Science.

According to popular stereotype, young teenagers are shortsighted, leaving them prone to poor judgment and risky decision-making when it comes to issues like taking drugs and having sex and a new study confirms that.    Teens 16 and younger do think about the future less than adults but the reasons may have less to do with impulsivity and more to do with a desire to do something exciting.

The study, by scientists at Temple University, the University of California, Los Angeles, Georgetown University, the University of California, Irvine, and the University of Colorado, is published in the the journal Child Development.

We may be a long way off from using genetics to reliably gauge our risks for specific diseases, say researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. Yet, many companies currently offer personalized genetic testing for diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabetes, and tout the ability of DNA testing to predict future health risks.