"Far from being just a tangle of wires, the brain's connections turn out to be more like ribbon cables -- folding 2D sheets of parallel neuronal fibers that cross paths at right angles, like the warp and weft of a fabric,"

"Two large-scale studies published in the journal Circulation, report that the chances of surviving cardiac arrest are no better -- and may be worse -- when bystanders perform mouth-to-mouth breathing than if they press on the chest without interruption."

"Scientists have been able to reach into the mind of a brain-damaged man and communicate with his thoughts."

The research, carried out in the UK and Belgium, involved a new brain scanning method.

Awareness was detected in three other patients previously diagnosed as being in a vegetative state.

"The synthetic alcohol, being developed from chemicals related to Valium, works like alcohol on nerves in the brain that provide a feeling of wellbeing and relaxation.

But unlike alcohol its does not affect other parts of the brain that control mood swings and lead to addiction. It is also much easier to flush out of the body.

Finally because it is much more focused in its effects, it can also be switched off with an antidote, leaving the drinker immediately sober. "

"The group is developing silk-silicon LEDs that might act as photonic tattoos that can show blood-sugar readings, as well as arrays of conformable electrodes that might interface with the nervous system."

"Of 180 claims for probiotic ingredients, the EU's food agency the European Food Safety Authority (Efsa) threw out every one. Ten were rejected outright and a 21-member expert panel could not assess the remaining 170 because the ingredients for which the claims were made could not be identified. ... However Britain's best-selling yogurt drinks, Actimel and Yakult, were excluded from Efsa's findings yesterday because Danone, Actimel's maker, and Yakult, the Japanese firm which introduced probiotic drinks to the UK in 1996, withdrew their claims before they could be scrutinised."

"If a nasal spray can improve memory, perhaps we're on our way to giving some folks a whiff of common sense, such as accepting the realities of evolution," said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal. "This is exciting piece of interdisciplinary science, since IL-6 had previously been considered a by-product of inflammation, not an agent that affects cognition."

"The scientists were searching the samples for variations in several genes thought to be related to the sleep cycle. In what amounts to finding a needle in a haystack, they spotted two DNA samples with abnormal copies of a gene called DEC2, which is known to affect circadian rhythms. They then worked back to find out who provided the samples and found a mother and daughter who were naturally short sleepers. The women routinely function on about 6 hours of sleep a night; the average person needs 8 to 8.5 hours of sleep."

"'It's always nice to knock down an urban myth with good data,' he said. "

"Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are developing this tongue-stimulating system, which translates images detected by a camera into a pattern of electric pulses that trigger touch receptors. The scientists say that volunteers testing the prototype soon lose awareness of on-the-tongue sensations. They then perceive the stimulation as shapes and features in space. Their tongue becomes a surrogate eye."

"However, what this research has shown is that this is not the case. The electron in fact takes several paths at once. ... This is actually very remarkable because it means that nature specifically engineered a molecule that manifests quantum behaviour on a larger scale then it usually appears."

"Ultrasound scans on 30 women uncovered G spots in just eight of them and when these women were asked if they had vaginal orgasms during sex, only five of them said yes. However, when the remaining three were shown their G spots on the scan and given advice on how to stimulate it, two of them subsequently "discovered" the joy of vaginal orgasms."

"'All the populations are quite similar, but the differences are sufficient that it should be possible to devise a forensic test to tell which country in Europe an individual probably comes from', said Manfred Kayser"

"An international team of researchers has created the first complete high-resolution map of how millions of neural fibers in the human cerebral cortex -- the outer layer of the brain responsible for higher level thinking -- connect and communicate."

"The following exchange is mirrored humbly and verbatim in case of disappearance. It represents pwnage on a scale most of us can only dream of."

"It looks like an ordinary baseball cap. But when you put it on, the cap detects and analyzes the electroencephalogram (EEG) signals from your brain. It can even tell you if you’re getting too sleepy when driving based on your brain wave patterns."

"Giving your house a weekly clean could be enough to give you asthma, according to research." - Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

"An Australian performer who has had an ear grafted onto his forearm ... The ear does not function, but he hopes to have a microphone implanted to allow others to listen to what his extra ear picks up."

Old, but; ""More than 100 Tainan city residents, mostly men, have reportedly gone to see the corpse to 'experience' the size of its penis," the newspaper reported."

"And this particular form of sexual dimorphism is apparently not shared with our relatives the chimps and gorillas, so it must have evolved during the same period that human speech and language did."

"Lead researcher Dr Georg Northoff added: "Our results may thus be seen as the first step towards establishing a neurobiology of paedophilia which ultimately may contribute to the development of new and effective means of therapies for this debilitating d

"The Blind Watchmaker algorithm was conceived by Richard Dawkins and is described in his book The Blind Watchmaker. ... demonstrates very effectively how random mutation followed by non-random selection can lead to interesting, complex forms."

"In what could be the most extreme case of transsexualism ever discovered, scientists have discovered that male African bat bugs sport female genitalia, and some females have genitalia that mimic the male’s version of the female bits - as well as their

"It's a fantastic time to be a mouse. Mouse with cancer? No problem. Mouse with alzheimers? No problem. Mouse with diabetes? Go ahead and have that Snicker bar, we have the cure for what ails ya."

Hur-hur.

"Natalie Portman is best known for her roles in Hollywood movies like Star Wars, Cold Mountain and V for Vendetta. What is less known is that she was co-author of a scientific paper on the neuroscience of child development. This is about her research."

"Scientists from the University of Bristol observed that, when ants were foraging on rough terrain, some of them used their own bodies to plug potholes. ... As the traffic diminishes, the ant pops out and heads home"

"They use a herpes virus - which usually causes cold sores. It is genetically modify so that it's attracted to growing cancer cells, but can't infect normal tissue. The virus gets into the cancer cells and once inside, replicates until the cells burst."

"Still, what would happen if a 100-meter tall 'dinosaur' stepped out of the sea and went on a rampage? I predict it would be a very short rampage. Short as in milliseconds."

"By comparing modern man with our ancestors of 37,000 years ago, the Chicago team discovered big changes in two genes linked to brain size. One of the new variants emerged only 5,800 years ago yet is present in 30% of today's humans, they believe."

What a headline!