Cloned cats that glow :

When scientists insert rhesus macaque genes plus jellyfish genes into unfertilized cat eggs, the cats that result post-fertilization are resistant to feline immunodeficiency virus, which causes feline AIDS. They also glow fluorescent green under "special" lights. What if you do this to human eggs?

I don't really know, so let's just stick to talking about cat eggs. So yeah: Researchers at the Mayo Clinic have been creating glow-in-the-dark, FIV-resistant cats as part of their research on HIV/AIDS and other diseases. Through gamete-targeted lentiviral transgenesis, the official term for "messing with genes and cat eggs," the scientists don't actually cure the cats of FIV but gain a better understanding of what factors might thwart gene therapies. The glow effect helps scientists to track the activity of the cats' modified genes and cells.

As Mayo researcher Dr. Eric Poeschla told LiveScience, "We want to see if we can protect the domestic cat against its AIDS virus, if we can protect any species, eventually including ours, against its own AIDS virus." His group hopes their research can protect both humans and cats from their respective -IVs. Seems like the glow-in-the-dark aspect could also benefit both species by enabling humans to see their pet cats late at night en route to the bathroom, thereby preventing tripping accidents and cat-smotherings.

Scientific method could hack your brain :

And if the brain could be “hacked”? Based on this question, scientists from the Universities of Geneva, Oxford and California would be developing a methodology to decipher the brain waves, even giving their private information.

The study, which connected several helmets to students able to decipher some mindsets, measured brain activity and managed to find some important data of the participants.

In one test, for example, the researchers asked each student to think about the personal access code card debt. Then, random numbers were shown on a screen and the participants, at a subconscious level, the brain would eventually give the figures for the card password.

How is this possible?

The big story of snitch is classified as P300 brain signal. The researchers noted that this wave reached peaks when participants saw a familiar number to what they had thought (as the first digit of the password, for example). Thus, the search technique could reduce 10% to 40% of the random data, resulting in decreased random guessing.

This method, however, still need to go through to achieve improvements “hack” with full efficiency the brain – which is rated by many as the “computer” is more complex.

Living Snail Can Be Used As A Battery :

New and interesting bio-fuel cells of the future will generate power from glucose sugar present inside snail’s body. This could be achieved by drilling holes through the shell and implant enzyme-coated electrodes in the hemolymph (or snail blood) that naturally collects between the snail’s body and shell. This battery is also based on flow of electrons like any other battery. One electrode grabs electrons from glucose in the hemolymph. The electrons would then travel through an external circuit and will end up at the opposing electrode. The electrons react with oxygen present in the hemolymph to form water and energy. The power generated is however quite small, (in milliwatts) and runs out after a few minutes as the glucose is depleted. The snail loses energy in the process. It eats and drinks again and restores glucose levels of its body, so that it can generate power again. And the interesting and important part is that the snail isn’t harmed at all in the process.

There are two limits to the power output of the cell:

1. Amount of glucose in the body of snail

2. Time taken by glucose to diffuse over to the electrode

If such a bio-fuel cell is designed for a human then we can get a stronger and consistent flow of power because human blood has higher glucose content than a snail. Also the human circulatory system would constantly replenish the electrode with fresh glucose (snails don’t have a closed circulatory system). This concept in humans could be used to power devices such as pacemakers.

A snail cannot charge a cellphone, but still it can power small sensors. That’s another idea to employ snails, worms and insects for environmental monitoring and homeland security.

It Rains Diamond On Neptune and Uranus :

Yes this is very unbelievable to know that two of our celestial neighbors, Neptune and Uranus, may contain more bling than all the jewelry stores on Earth combined. It is theorized that diamonds fall like raindrops from the atmospheres of both planets.

Neptune and Uranus contain a high proportion of methane, which campus researchers have now shown can turn into diamond and complex organic matter compounds at the high temperatures and pressures found inside these planets.Shock compression studies performed by Hirai et el recorded the transition of methane into diamond at 19 GPa and between 2200 and 3000 degrees Kelvin. The conversion of methane into diamond is primarily dependent on temperature, but the ambient pressure of the atmosphere is also important to consider

In addition to being awesome, diamond rain could also account for the excess heat radiated from Neptune (in addition to heat from the sun). Energy released by diamonds falling and settling towards the planet’s core is thought to boost the magnetic field of Neptune, thus increasing the heat radiated from the planet (Sanders 1999 and Kerr 1999). Although diamond rain has not been a proven phenomenon, it is pretty amazing to imagine. Given the experimental evidence, it is also not an unlikely occurrence.

Remote control cockroach :

Researchers say they've figured out a way to create cyborg, remote-controlled cockroaches, hoping one day the resilient creatures could be steered into disaster zones to gather information and look for survivors.

Video footage from the experiments at North Carolina State University shows the part-robot roaches being directed along a curving path via remote control. The researchers say they attached a lightweight chip with a wireless receiver and transmitter onto Madagascar hissing cockroaches and wired a microcontroller to the insects' antennae and cerci — the sensory organs on the bug's abdomen that cause it to run away from danger.

With electrical signals, the researchers stimulated the cerci to trick the roaches into thinking they needed to scamper away from a predator. Once moving, charges sent to the antennae controlled the insects' direction. A signal sent to one antenna could make a roach think its feeler was touching a wall, sending it in the opposite direction, a statement from NC State explained.

DO YOU KNOW :

1. The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second.

2. It takes 8 minutes 17 seconds for light to travel from the Sun’s surface to the Earth.
3. In October 1999 the 6 billionth person was born.
4. 10 percent of all human beings ever born are alive at this very moment.
5. The Earth spins at 1,000 mph but it travels through space at an incredible 67,000 mph.
6. Every year over one million earthquakes shake the Earth.
7. The largest ever hailstone weighed over 1 kg and fell in Bangladesh in 1986.
8. Every second around 100 lightning bolts strike the Earth.
9. Every year lightning kills 1000 people. Lightning
10. In October 1999 an Iceberg the size of London broke free from the Antarctic ice shelf.
11. If you could drive your car straight up you would arrive in space in just over an hour.
12. All the hydrogen atoms in our bodies were created 12 billion years ago in the Big Bang.
13. The Earth is 4.56 billion years old…the same age as the Moon and the Sun.
14. The dinosaurs became extinct before the Rockies or the Alps were formed.
15. Female black widow spiders eat their males after mating. 16. When a flea jumps, the rate of acceleration is 20 times that of the space shuttle during launch.
17. The earliest wine makers lived in Egypt around 2300 BC. 18. If our Sun were just inch in diameter, the nearest star would be 445 miles away.
19. The Australian billy goat plum contains 100 times more vitamin C than an orange.
20. Astronauts cannot belch - there is no gravity to separate liquid from gas in their stomachs.
21. The air at the summit of Mount Everest, 29,029 feet is only a third as thick as the air at sea level.
22. One million, million, million, million, millionth of a second after the Big Bang the Universe was the size of a …pea.
23. DNA was first discovered in 1869 by Swiss Friedrich Mieschler. a dna b dna z dna
24. The molecular structure of DNA was first determined by Watson and Crick in 1953.
25. The thermometer was invented in 1607 by Galileo.
26. Englishman Roger Bacon invented the magnifying glass in 1250.
27. Alfred Nobel invented dynamite in 1866.
28. Wilhelm Rontgen won the first Nobel Prize for physics for discovering X-rays in 1895.
29. The tallest tree ever was an Australian eucalyptus - In 1872 it was measured at 435 feet tall.
30. Christian Barnard performed the first heart transplant in 1967 - the patient lived for 18 days.