According to Saudi Arabia’s Health Ministry pet camel was found to be infected by MERS — Middle Easter Respiratory Syndrome — a relatively young virus, first reported in 2012. While MERS has not been declared as a pandemic, the WHO has confirmed 149 infections and 63 deaths, as of October 2013. The owner of the camel was also recently hospitalized for MERS, which prompted the investigation of its origin.
Early 2013, scientists at the MIT have developed a new efficient candidate electrode for rechargeable lithium-oxygen batteries, which could potentially change the future of batteries and decrease their overall cost. Li-O2 batteries have been gaining popularity over the years for its high specific energy densities, meaning they can store a relatively large amount of power. During use, the battery undergoes a chemical reaction involving Li+ reacting with oxygen to produce Li2O2 and an electrical current. Then, the batteries can be easily recharged and used again. To recharge, the inverse reaction operates, converting Li2O2 back to Li+ ions. The convenience of Li-O2 batteries has spawned great acceptance of rechargeable batteries all around.
Indeed, there are strange, strange things lurking in the deep.
As the next wave of court hearings over patent disputes between Apple and Samsung rage on, investors are growing tepid over Samsung stock, which lost one fifth of its value from June to to mid-July. But it’s not Samsung’s viability that has some investors worried; the Korean handset maker currently makes 1 out of every 3 phones sold worldwide. It sells more than twice as many as its next closest competitor, Apple.
What if you could print your own bandages? Or skin grafts? How about a new liver? Living in the future is a strange and interesting place, and it grows more interesting by the year. Scientists at Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology are advancing the field of tissue engineering—developing biologically-derived tissue replacements—by automating tissue replication through the use of inkjet printers.
During the search for our doppelgangers in the world, we may miss the question that eludes many of our minds: What exactly makes each face so distinct? It’s common sense that we have eyes, a nose, and a mouth, but how is it possible that we can recognize between hundreds of our friends solely from these features? Geneticist Axel Visel of Berkeley Lab’s Genomics Division has made discoveries in the field that allow us to better answer this question.
Over the past decade, the scientific community has agreed that the average global temperature is rising. Some attribute this increase to the production of greenhouse gases; others believe that the rising temperatures are part of a bigger cycle, consisting of warm and cold periods. Nevertheless, there is an evident rise in temperatures. Recently, a research team from the University of Colorado Boulder presented convincing evidence that global warming is a result of greenhouse gas emissions.
Astronomers from the University of California, Riverside, working in collaboration with the University of Texas at Austin, the National Optical Astronomy Observatories, and other institutions nationwide have discovered what they believe to the be farthest known galaxy to date.
The next time you’re watching that baseball player hit a mammoth home run or that defensive linesman crushing the quarterback, or even that cyclist sprinting up an almost vertical hill well ahead of the competition, don’t only wonder if the athlete is on steroids, but also wonder if he or she has ever been on steroids. A new paper recently published in The Journal of Physiology written by researchers from the University of Oslo suggests that exposure to performing enhancing drugs (PEDs) may have a memory effect, i.e., the drug may produce its intended effect long after it is initially taken. This is in direct contrast to the current thinking that PEDs lose their effects shortly after administration. These findings can have serious implications with regard to drug testing policies.
The Amazon rainforest is filled with the sounds of chirping, buzzing, and howling. However, there is one sound you might not have expected. Purring. From a monkey. This monkey, the Callicebus caquetensis, is one of more than 440 new species discovered in remote parts of the Amazon rainforest, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
According to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, the agency that oversees the allocation of this scarce resource in the United States, the number of waitlist candidates for organs is 118,634 as of 2:47 PM on the 11th of July, 2013. The top three organs on the list: kidneys, livers, and hearts.
Researchers at NIH have been tackling problems in biological microscopy with the development of two new microscopes. The new technologies will allow researchers to see fast moving organisms at higher resolutions and to capture three-dimensional images with minimal light damage to the cells.
What is art? Tolstoy said it is a means of union among men. Fellini thought it was autobiography. Oscar Wilde defined it as the most intense mode of individualism the world has seen. Lexus, trying its hand at aesthetic philosophy, thinks art is motion.
Coffee, energy-shots and sugar drinks are faithful companions for those who cannot afford to sleep the required seven to nine hours a day. It is quite common for those with busy lifestyles to try to cheat sleep. But why do we need sleep to begin with? Taking up roughly 1/3 of our lives, sleep has been an intriguing phenomenon to scientists and philosophers alike ever since the late 400s BC.
For two years, the Silk Road was an online, underground marketplace for narco-traffickers and other criminals: an eBay for customers interested in purchasing all sorts of illegal drugs and miscellaneous merchandise, including firearms and contract killers. While most commercial websites, such as Amazon, require some form of registration, the Silk Road didn’t require any personal information. The anonymity of Silk Road was the key to attracting thousands of criminals to the online market. Fortunately, after two years of operating in impunity, the FBI was able to shutdown the site on Oct. 2.
The transformation in the mobile industry in the past eight years has been truly extraordinary. Phones have evolved from tools for simple telecommunications to mobile computing powerhouses. Mobile phone brands pride themselves on their commitment to continually to improve on their products; they manage to make their products slimmer, sleeker and faster year after year. And almost just as miraculously, demand in the mobile phone industry remains strong despite near market saturation in developed nations.
The first successful instance of genetic modification came in 1973 when Herbert Boyer and Stanley Cohen successfully modified an E. coli to produce a Salmonella gene. Since then, the area of genetic engineering has taken off, producing new and different genetically modified organisms every year.
Where did we come from? How come we, as humans, seem so different as compared to others in the animal kingdom.
The Journal of the American Medical Association published an article by Jon C. Tilburt et al., a former Greenwall Fellow at the Berman Institute, entitled “Views of US Physicians About Controlling Health Care Costs.” I sat down with Matthew DeCamp, MD, PhD, an Assistant Professor at the Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, to talk about the results of the survey.
In honor of one of the most largely recognized and creepiest of holidays, the Science and Technology section of The News-Letter presents to you, an assemblage of the absolute freakiest animals on Earth.
