Handgrip strength offers cheap, simple way to predict heart attack and stroke risk. We all know that a strong handshake can help you in a job interview, but it turns out it’s not just potential employers who will judge you on your handshake - doctors might soon do so too. An international study involving 140,000 adults from 17 different countries has associated a weak grip with an increased risk of heart attack and stroke, and a shorter survival time when diagnosed with a serious disease. The study also found that grip strength is an even better predictor of death than blood pressure, leading the team to suggest that it could be a good screening tool for doctors.
"Grip strength could be an easy and inexpensive test to assess an individual’s risk of death and cardiovascular disease," the study’s lead author, cardiologist Darryl Leong from McMaster University in Canada, said in a press release. The study, published in The Lancet, followed adults aged between 35 and 70 years from culturally and economically diverse countries for an average of four years. This awesome lamp works without batteries, electricity or sunlight. Although many of us take for granted the fact that we can simply hit a switch and be flooded with artificial light, around one billion people in the world still live without electricity.
This means a lot of people are relying on dangerous and expensive kerosene lamps to provide them with light to study, work and cook after dark. But a team of engineers from the UK has now come up with a new device called GravityLight that runs simply using the force of gravity. The set-up is pretty simple, the whole thing works a bit like a pulley - all you need to do is add 12 kg of weight to one end of the bead cord (this can be a bag of sand, rocks, whatever you like), and then lift that weight up by pulling down on the lamp attached to the other end. Thanks to gravity, the weight slowly descends back down to the floor, transforming potential energy into kinetic energy as it drops. This kinetic energy then powers a drive sprocket and polymer gear train that lights up the LED as it goes. Researchers figure out how to make home-made heroin without poppies. Researchers in the US have figured out how to make 'home-made' heroin using a modified form of sugar-fed yeast and an enzyme extracted from poppies, and warn law-enforcement officers that it’s only a matter of time before the drug hits the streets.
"We’re likely looking at a timeline of a couple of years, not a decade or more, when sugar-fed yeast could reliably produce a controlled substance (such as morphine)," lead researcher and bioengineer John Dueber, from the University of California, Berkeley, told John Ross at The Australian. "We need to be out in front so that we can mitigate potential abuse. " Dueber and his team came up with the 'recipe' when they discovered that a certain type of enzyme can turn glucose sugars into morphine, and have for the first time successfully expressed it in a simple form of genetically engineered yeast.
Now, publishing in Nature Chemical Biology, the team reports that they’ve found the perfect enzyme for the job. Scientists have discovered a new state of matter, called 'Jahn-Teller metals' An international team of scientists has announced the discovery of a new state of matter in a material that appears to be an insulator, superconductor, metal and magnet all rolled into one, saying that it could lead to the development of more effective high-temperature superconductors. Why is this so exciting? Well, if these properties are confirmed, this new state of matter will allow scientists to better understand why some materials have the potential to achieve superconductivity at a relativity high critical temperature (Tc) - "high" as in −135 °C as opposed to −243.2 °C. Because superconductivity allows a material to conduct electricity without resistance, which means no heat, sound, or any other form of energy release, achieving this would revolutionise how we use and produce energy, but it’s only feasible if we can achieve it at so-called high temperatures.
"This is what the rubidium atoms do: apply pressure. Search for signs of alien civilisations in 100,000 galaxies has turned up nothing. Scientists have searched 100,000 galaxies for signs of advanced extraterrestrial life, and come back empty-handed. Using NASA’s WISE satellite, the researchers were looking for energy signatures that would suggest the use of advanced alien technology elsewhere in the Universe. "The idea behind our research is that, if an entire galaxy had been colonised by an advanced spacefaring civilisation, the energy produced by that civilisation's technologies would be detectable in mid-infrared wavelengths - exactly the radiation that the WISE satellite was designed to detect," lead researcher Jason T. Wright, an astrophysicist at Penn State University in the US, said in a press release.
It sounds a little whacky, but the physics is solid - if a clever alien society has worked out how to harness the energy from its galaxy's stars and is using it to power technology, such as space flight, communication, or something beyond what we can imagine, then we should be able to detect it. Chinese scientists just admitted to tweaking the genes of human embryos. A group of Chinese scientists just reported that they modified the genome of human embryos, something that has never been done in the history of the world, according to a report in Nature News.
A recent biotech discovery - one that has been called the biggest biotech discovery of the century - showed how scientists might be able to modify a human genome when that genome was still just in an embryo. This could change not only the genetic material of a person, but could also change the DNA they pass on, removing "bad" genetic codes (and potentially adding "good" ones) and taking an active hand in evolution. Concerned scientists published an argument that no one should edit the human genome in this way until we better understood the consequences after a report uncovered rumours that Chinese scientists were already working on using this technology. Specifically, the team tried to modify a gene in a non-viable embryo that would have been responsible for a deadly blood disorder. First samples collected from under Antarctica’s blood falls. If you’re lucky enough to ever visit the McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica, you’re going to see some pretty bizarre things.
Snowless valleys cutting into an otherwise frigid landscape; the longest river on the entire continent, named the Onyx River, and a five-storey-tall waterfall that spills bright, rusty red pigment all over the face of an enormous glacier. The factors that all had to come together to make the blood falls happen started aligning around 5 million years ago. As sea levels rose and flooded the region, a salty lake formed in the area. Over millions of years, this salty lake was covered over by layers and layers of ice and snow, which accumulated into a massive glacier sitting on top of the lake, which now sat 400 metres underground. It also happened to be incredibly rich in iron, as the churning lake scraped against its bedrock foundations and muddied its waters with the highly reactive mineral. So far, not so mysterious. We can’t wait to see what they find. New jetpack helps soldiers run faster. Designed to boost the running power of American soldiers, this new jetpack will make you fly, without ever leaving the ground.
Developed by researchers at Arizona State University (ASU) as part of a project called 4MM, this new jetpack is designed to help its wearer run a mile (1.6 km) in four minutes. The project is being run in conjunction with the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and aims to develop new technology that helps soldiers on the ground move faster and carry more weight. Thomas Sugar of ASU’s Human Machine Integration Lab had been working on new robot technology that could assist amputees when DARPA asked if he could also develop robots that could help able-bodied people, allowing them to run faster and carry more weight while they were at it.
Together with engineering student Jason Kerestes, Sugar came up with a new jetpack device, and the pair is now in the process of testing and refining their prototype. 9 Freaky Scientific Discoveries. Most of the Universe is Dark Energy The universe as we know it, with its billions of stars and hundreds of billions of galaxies, amounts to only 4% of what it actually is. What's the rest?
According to recent reports, 23% is “dark matter” and 73% is “dark energy.” In other words - we have no idea. The Amazing Power of Quantum Levitation Forget about the stupid Hyperloop hype; we can use the power of quantum levitation to make all kinds of objects float around, and possibly create a transit system in the air. Parallel Universes Exist It turns out that parallel universes exist, at least according to the results of this freaky experiment/discovery.
ASMR Causes a Brain “Orgasm” Here's a freaky discovery bordering on a weird fetish. It's Easy to Turn On a Turkey Hey good lookin'! In 1963, Martin Shein and Edgar Hale of the University of Pennsylvania discovered that a male turkey would eagerly try and mate with a fake female turkey. Scientists Induce Out-of-Body Experiences “Who Farted?!” 4 Hilariously Dystopian Ways Science Is Reinventing Food. As you read these very words, the world's top minds are cloistered away in their laboratories, busy concocting healthy new foodstuffs like real-life Willy Wonkas (who care more for nourishing the planet and less about psychologically torturing British children). But if the following delectables are the best that food science can whip up, we can expect our great-great-grandchildren to subsist on a steady diet of irradiated dirt smoothies and rusty Terminator widgets ... by choice. #4. Stem-Cell Hamburgers As an alternative to resource-gobbling cows, researchers at Maastricht University in the Netherlands have developed a lab-grown hamburger woven out of 20,000 bovine muscle fibers.
But don't expect to slap two of these horror patties together for a "Big Cylon" anytime soon -- the R&D for this one burger was $332,000. Reuters/David Parry/pool"The seasoning from my unwashed hands is on the house. " But what would $300K worth of genetic manipulation mean for your next cookout? #3. . #2.
World's first lab-grown burger to be cooked and eaten. 4 August 2013Last updated at 22:31 ET By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News Professor Mark Post of Maastricht University explains how he and his colleagues made the world's first lab-grown burger The world's first lab-grown burger is to be unveiled and eaten at a news conference in London on Monday. Scientists took cells from a cow and, at an institute in the Netherlands, turned them into strips of muscle which they combined to make a patty. Researchers say the technology could be a sustainable way of meeting what they say is a growing demand for meat. Critics say that eating less meat would be an easier way to tackle predicted food shortages.
BBC News has been granted exclusive access to the laboratory where the meat was grown in a project costing £215,000. Prof Mark Post of Maastricht University, the scientist behind the burger, said: "Later today we are going to present the world's first hamburger made in a lab from cells. "That's just weird and unacceptable. “Start Quote. Jack Andraka, the Teen Prodigy of Pancreatic Cancer. CORTEX - JAKE EVILL. In Vivo, In Situ Tissue Analysis Using Rapid Evaporative Ionization Mass Spectrometry - Schäfer - 2009 - Angewandte Chemie International Edition. Intelligent knife tested on cancer patients in London hospitals | Science. An intelligent knife that knows when it is cutting through cancerous tissue is being tested in three London hospitals. Experts believe the wand-like device, the first of its kind in the world, will revolutionise cancer treatment by removing uncertainty from surgery. In an early study, the iKnife identified malignant tissue in cancer patients having operations with 100% accuracy.
After more extensive trials it could be approved for general use in operating theatres within three years. Surgery is often the best hope of a cancer cure, yet even the best surgeons cannot be sure of removing every part of a tumour. In the case of breast cancer, more than 20% of the cancerous tissue may be left behind. This can result in a recurrence of disease, or patients having to undergo repeated operations. The iKnife helps the surgeon by indicating exactly where the cancerous tissue is, and when it has all been removed. 5 Unbelievable New Ways Science Can Modify the Human Body.
Science fiction taught us that when science starts modifying the human body, it's going to involve robot parts and genetic modification gone terrifyingly wrong. But the reality is that the body modifications that are right around the corner are way less frightening and quite a bit more useful. It won't be too many more years before a trip to the doctor can ... #5. Change Your Eye Color Jupiterimages/Brand X Pictures/Getty Images We'll wager that there are more than a few brown-eyed people out there who feel like they got the short end of the genetic stick.
However, eye color is one of those things that you probably thought science could never change. Andrea Chu/Photodisc/Getty ImagesThere are worse ways to spend thousands of dollars in 40 seconds. How is this even possible, you ask? Basically, the procedure consists of laser-burning the shit out of the brown pigment in each of your eyes. Getty Images/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty ImagesWith none of the raging alcoholism. #4.
. #3. Edge.org. During the 20th century the search for a theory of how the physical world works at its most fundamental level went from one success to another. The earliest years of the century saw revolutionary new ideas including Einstein's special relativity and the beginnings of quantum theory, while the decades that followed each were times of surprising new insights. By the mid-1970s all the elements of what is now called the Standard Model were in place, and the final decades of the century were ones dominated by endless experimental results confirming this theory's predictions. By the end of the millennium, we were left in an uncomfortable state: the Standard Model was not fully satisfactory, leaving various important questions unanswered, but no experimental results disagreeing with it.
Physicists had little to nothing in the way of hints as to how to proceed. The LHC was supposed to be the answer to this problem. For the experimentalists, this leaves the way forward unclear. 5 Ways Science Could Make Us Immortal. We'll take back every bad thing we've ever said about science if it will just make us immortal. That doesn't seem like too much to ask. The thing is, it might be closer than we think. There are a lot of different ways to keep a human body and mind going long after its expiration date, and experiments are ongoing. The most promising techniques involve ... Unlocking What Your Genes Can Already Do Really, the only thing keeping you from having the lifespan of a vampire or a Highlander is an enzyme called telomerase. Bob Barker has none of that. So if you've decided you want to live until squid evolve to start swinging from trees, the first thing you should know is that while we accept aging as an unquestioned constant of the universe, it really isn't.
With us, there is that enzyme, telomerase, which acts like the little plastic thingy on the end of your shoelaces for your DNA -- it keeps the ends of your DNA from unraveling. And one way or the other, the answer to aging is in our genes.