Elixir of life: Immortality in our hands

Immortality doesn’t seem to be so far away. This concept of a substance that can make you live forever, comes from alchemists, the fathers of nowadays scientists. But no one have ever found the “philosopher’s stone”, till now.

Some scientists from Nazarbayev University in the capital, Astana, have been asked to develop a drink, similar to a yogurt, called “nar”. This idea came from their 72-year-old leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who has being reigning since 1990 and wants to keep doing it till 2020.

This drink is based on the idea that all the diseases are caused in the stomach. Apparently the digestive system has a hundred trillion microbes, which is ten times more the amount of the in the rest of our main organs. The mixture of this microbes causes diseases as diabetes, obesity and even cancer. Controlling them with special probiotics can be the answer to have a longer and healthier life.

Country rulers will always want to remind in power for a longer time, even queen Elizabeth is interested in this improvement.

This drink obviously won’t be sold on shops, but it has been already tested and openly presented in an international scientific conference at the beginning of this month, in the Nazarbayev University.

Did you know about microbes? Would you try “nar”? why? Do you think it’s ok for a country’s governator asked the scientific community to develop this kind of experiments?

(Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/9660827/Elixir-of-life-could-be-real-according-to-British-experts.html)

My bottled water can kill me!!!

As we all know, drinking water is good for our health and there are many reasons for drinking it, some of them as simple as to cure a headache or to detoxify our body, but is there any danger in drinking too much water?
The answer to this question is, believe it or not, Yes!

 Hyponatremia is the scientific term to call the unknown condition of water intoxication, mostly seen in infants and athletes. With the excesive perspiration people lose, not only water, but also electrolytes.

The more water we drink, the more water accumulates in our organism; When the water enters our body's cells, our tissues suffer an innflamation, but with the excessive water, our serum (the outside of the cells) starts drowing sodium from the inside to the outside to re-stablish the water concentration necessary for the body.

The other way that our cells have to re-establish the balance of electrolytes in our body is by osmosis; Electrolytes are more concentrated in the inside of our cells, so our body tries to move across the water that posses that amount of electrolytes outside the cell to the the inside in order to balance the perfect concentration that our body needs.

If there is nothing our body can do, the cells can swell untill the point of rupture and this can provoque something similar to drowning; the lost of electrolytes and the swelling of the tissues permit the water enters to the lungs. The swelling puts pressure in the brain and the nerves, provoquing a coma and the death.

The only solution to this case is to administrate a saline dosis, but only if the swelling of the cells did not provoque too much damage.

This is a very uncommon condition, but where is the risk in drinking water, is it in drinking too much, or the amount of water we drink at once?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=strange-but-true-drinking-too-much-water-can-kill  

Solar roadways

Can we imagine our roadways providing us the energy necessary to save our environment from pollution?

Nowadays, natural energy, has been one of the most important means of producing clean energy to keep big cities functioning, taking care of our environmenrt and nature.
When we think about water power, wind power and solar power, our idea of a better world came up to our mind, but how can that be possible?

Solar Roadways is a company that wants to create an intelligent roadway, capable of producing the necessary energy to show the signs to the drivers; The most interesting charasteristic: it warms  itself in order to melt the snow.  This interesting idea is just a functional prototipe  that has been seen as a good thing, because it could prevent much of the road accidents; moreover, it could be very helpful to the environment.

But what is this about? Solar Roadways is a very expensive project in this moment, that count with some solar cells that are in charge of transforming the solar energy into electricity. The solar energy transformed in electicity can be used by the roadway itself or could be connected to a small city providing it clean energy. With 1.6 kilometes of these pannels, it has been calculated that it is possible to supply more than 450 houses.

The only problem that this project presents, as stated before, is its high cost of construction. Every solar pannel costs 10.000 dollars, so do not expect this project to be approved soon. Perhaps, people will be able to see some solar pannels in parking lots as a test.

Roadways will not be the only ones that can be helping our environment with the use of solar pannels, cars are to come, too. But is it really effecctive to spend huge amounts of money creating solar pannels roadways, or is it more covenient to invest in solar cars?

Cats lovers: Be careful with the depression

Pets give us love and unconditional support when we feel alone. There is no chance that those tiny creatures can actually caused us feeling sad in any way… right?

A research directed by Doctor Teodor Postolache, psychiatrist who works in the University of Marylan in the school of medicine, has showed that the Toxoplasma gondii parasite can cause deep depression and suicide. Of course, the research hasn’t finished yet, scientist keep on finding connections between people who is affected by this parasite and mental diseases.

Suicide is almost one of the most common death causes nowadays, finding out that women who are infected are one and half times more likely to commit suicide.

T. gondii can be found in none-cleaned vegetables, or chicken, but it’s specially presented in our kitty’s litter.  This bacterium gets hided in our muscles and brain, causing no symptoms. About a third of the women this research tested (45.000 were the total) was found infected by this parasite.

The infection itself it’s called toxoplasmosis, and it’s also associated to schizophrenia or changes in the behavior.

Therefore, our cats can cause depression if we are not careful enough when we take care of their “restrooms”. Personally, I have three cats and keep them clean is essential to stay away from all this kind of infections we are exposed when we have animals.

Do you have pets? Do you agree with the idea of a careful owner won’t have any problems? Would you pay more attention to your vegetables and chicken the next time you clean them?

(source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9371006/Cat-ladies-more-likely-to-commit-suicide-scientists-claim.html)

Mermaid syndrome

Everytime we think about any disease, we start thinking that our organism is suffering from the inside
and can, eventually, kill us, but what if we start making connections between a syndrome and a mithical creature like mermaids?

Believe it or not, there is a syndrome called Mermaid syndrom, or sirenomelia that consists basically in having the legs fused together of a new-born child. The legs may be fused to the sides like flippers or having not feets at all, that is the reason that gives the name to this syndrom. There are two options of this syndrom, the new-born may not have bones at all, or just being fused entirely.

We may think that this syndrom should be fixed only by a simply surgery that devides the legs, but the bad news is that usually the children with this disease die a few days after birth. This abnormality usually brings another problems that  affect kidneys, bladder, genitals and rectum, and, in some cases, even lungs, are affected by the syndrom. Counting all these problems, it is not difficult to think that the probabilities of survival are limited.

The causes of this syndrom have not be discovered, but can be related to different situations, like poor prenatal care, or genetic predisposition. Hopefully, this disease can be detected by sonogram during the pregnacy but the only treatment that doctors give at that moment is the termination of the pregnancy.

As I posted before, the probabilities of surviving are very rare, but we have the case of three children who have the syndrom and have survived. One of these children is a little girl who was born in Peru. Although her leg bones were not fixed to each other, and could move independently, the situation with her internal organs is different; the kidneys were affected by this condition.

Milagros had an operation that separated her legs in 2005; the doctos said that probably she could be walking in a few years, but she will receive corrective surgery for her internal organs for the next 10 or 15 years.

The situation of these littlle children, doomed to death, seems to be very complicated, but in your case, if you  would be in this situation, what would be your decision; would you stop the pregnacy or just continue with your normal life in order to see what would be the future for your child?

Cancer: my inner friend.

What would you say if I told you thay everybody is equipped with cancer?

This is a question that everybody may know, but we do not want to think of. Cancer is not a germ neither  a parasite; this disease comes from our own body, our own organs and tissues, mainly created by our lungs, kidneys and brain.

We all know that our body grows and repare when it is necessary. Cells can divide themselves to fill the gaps  nedeed, but when these cells are damaged, our body is in charge of sweeping away these cells that are useless, because they die. The situation changes when these cells refuse to die and start doing copies of themselves, knowing that their DNA is damaged creatin the so-called tumors. When the tumor affects other body tissues, it is called malignat cancer.

One-third of the women and half of men in America get cancer in their lives, according to American Cancer Society various types of cancer lead the principal causes of dead in United States, like for example lungs, breast and colon. However, we have to have in mind that there are more factors that can affect our body to make it easier for cancer to develop: culture and biology. When cancer start striking in a more massive way, is when people, biologicaly past the childbearing years. According to the SEER (Surveillance Epidemiology and End Result) elderly people are the most affected by cancer: for every 100.000 people over 75 years old; 2.272 were diagnosed with cancer in 2011.

Everytime we think about cancer, we think in something negative, but can we take something positive from this disease? Of course!. People who have genes that carry a predisposition for cancer allow the body to activate the process of repearing damaged tissues and, believe it or not, keeps our body young.

All the negatives aspect that this disease brings to our lives, makes us think that our lives are near to an end, but certainly, presdisposition to cancer brings some positive things as I said before, what do you think about the last paragraph of this work, is it true or not? you decide.

Brain Plasticity: The Reinvention of The Brain

For those who might think that everything is lost once you are old or that there is no hope after an accident in which our brain could be damaged…You had better sit down and read my entry, because I have good news for you! Believe it or not, our brain has a special property which enables it to adapt to new experiences and create new neurons through its whole life—Yes, it can reinvent itself!

Fundamentally, Brain Plasticity, which is also known as Cortical Remapping, Neuroplasticity or Brain Malleability, is a term that refers to the capacity of the brain to change and adapt as a result of experience. Even though it was believed in the past that these kinds of changes only occurred during childhood, it’s been demonstrated that the brain continues creating new neural pathways, being able to adapt to new experiences, learn new information and create new memories during its whole life.

How does Brain Plasticity work? According to some findings I made, the human brain is composed of approximately 100 billion neurons and because of neurogenesis—the process in which the brain produces more neurons—it possesses the remarkable capacity to recognize pathways, create new connections and even create new neurons. Additionally, neurons that are used—frequently--develop stronger connections and those that are rarely or never used, eventually, die. By developing new connections and pruning away weak ones, the brain is able to adapt to the changing environment.

In short, there are two types of Brain Plasticity: Functional Plasticity (the brain’s ability to move functions from a damaged area to other undamaged areas) and the Structural Plasticity (the brain's ability to change its physical structure as a result of learning).

There are four relevant characteristics you should know about Neuroplasticity!

• It occurs throughout the lifetime; nevertheless, certain types of changes are more predominant during specific life ages.
• It can happen for two different reasons: As a result of learning, experience and memory formation, or as a result of damage to the brain.
• Environment plays an essential role in the process, but genetics can also have an influence.
• It also involves a variety of processes, where glial and vascular cells are protagonists.

This is an amazing video which portrays the story of a nine-year-old girl, whose brain had been threatened by a strange electrical disease when she was a toddler. Out of the blue, when everything seemed to be lost for her, after a  medical surgery she was capable of recovering almost all of her mental capacities because of her brain’s plasticity.

After having watched the video, what do you think about it? Do you believe in her experience?

Ok, it’s about time I ate dinner, otherwise, I’ll die of hunger. See you next week!

Is someone out there?

Do you believe in aliens? When I was little I really liked the idea of having super intelligent neighbors that would come to visit us and help us out with all our problems. For a nine-year-old girl it might be interesting, but what about science itself. Can we call ufology a pseudo-science?

The Extraterrestrial hypothesis (ETH) has being totally rejected by the scientific community. Mostly because there is no evidence that living creatures can travel in the space, plus our closest planets are totally empty. Therefore, all the Hollywood’s ideas that have been showed on the movies are just pure fiction.

Two hypotheses have made lot of noise. One is the portal theory, which was proved by Nasa’s researchers in the university of Iowa. It says that maybe those “travelers” came from portals that open in our galaxy and are connected with others.

The historic aspect has also being really important. It’s believed that the Entities presented in the mythology could have been these special visitors. Some answers could be found, like how some civilizations could have developed advanced technology tools. Even the pyramids construction mystery could be solved.

Some researchers attribute our race to a mutation made by aliens to create a similar intelligence, which could also explain the difference between us and the rest of the animal kingdom.

Do you think all this is going too far? Would you like to find out that your religion is based on aliens’ visits? Is it really important for us to know all this? 

(source: http://www.educatinghumanity.com/2012/03/ufo-theory-sightings-research-reports.html)

Infrared nights

Have you ever asked yourself why the night sky is black? Well, what most of us may think is that, it happens because the sun’s light is not reaching our side of the world directly.

Sadly I have to tell you that’s not totally true. 

Our sky is blue during the day time because of the ozone in the atmosphere, but if we didn’t have it, we would see the space directly, like from the moon. Then, why is the universe dark?

If you look through a telescope the universe you will appreciate the light and starts from billions of years ago. You can even see the background light from the bigbang. Therefore, all the light from those “babies stars”, that now are 13 billion of years older should be seen by us every night including the bigbang background in the edge of the universe. Then, nights should be as brighter as sunlight.

Lately an astronomic research has showed that the universe expansion is not the only cause of this blackish night sky. The stars movements also make their light change into an infrared light, including the bigbang background radiation. This kind of light can’t be appreciated by human eyes.

What we can’t perceive by ourselves it’s really impressive, Did you know about this? Do you think that books should be changed? What else had been ignored by our none-complete sensorial system? 

(source: http://youtu.be/gxJ4M7tyLRE)

Beaked Whales Respond to Simulated and Actual Navy Sonar

In this presentation, Camila and I talk about an interesting research on whales and their response to sonar sounds, which may be the source of mass stranding. The media coverage was very varied, some sources were true to the article, while others actually invented information. We tried to show how media manipulates the data for their own purposes.

So, we would like to pose the following questions: What do you think about the Telegraph's decision of inventing information about the research? Do you think this is a common practice in journalism? Why? Why not? What do you think about the damage that the US government is causing to beaked whales?

As you can see, there are different questions that arise from this subject, and we would like you to watch the following video to contextualize a little bit this issue.

We hope you find this presentation insightful.