Between the plastic surgeries and Neverland, some may conclude that Michael Jackson had lost his mind prior to his death. Well, now it’s being taken to literal levels: He’ll likely be buried without his brain.
Apparently, scientists need to remove the pop star’s brain to finish his autopsy. And because it takes about two weeks for a brain to “harden” before it can be examined, if he’s laid to rest before then, his body will have to be buried without it.
Letting a brain “harden” is standard autopsy protocol when the brain is suspected of playing an important part in the death, as it would with a drug overdose. According to Mind Hacks, a neuroscience and psychology blog:
[Hardening] involves removing the brain from the skull and leaving it to soak in a diluted mixture of formaldehyde and water called formalin. This soaking process usually takes four weeks and the brain genuinely does harden. A “fresh” brain is a pinkish colour and has the consistency of jelly, gello or soft tofu meaning it is difficult to examine and the various internal structures are often hard to make out.
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• Is the world’s most valuable source code currently out in the open? And has anyone told Goldman Sachs?
• A ramen-making robot lets Japanese customers choose the flavoring they want. So where’s the cheesecake robot?
• Who says gaming has no value? BigPharma firm Bayer has created a DS plugin to let diabetic kids turn monitoring their glucose levels into a game.
• An amazing spider builds life-size decoys of itself to distract hungry predators. Sarah Palin is reported to be examining a similar strategy.
• A popular online gamer ran up debt, stole from the virtual bank he ran, and exchanged it for actual cash on the black market. And then got busted. No doubt Paramount is buying the story rights as we speak.
Placentophagy, or the practice of ingesting the placenta after giving birth, has been inching its way into the mainstream. Animals do it, and mothers have been offering testimony that eating the nutrient-rich placenta can have health benefits, including regulating hormones that may cause postpartum depression. Granted, no empirical data exists to prove that this is true—but that hasn’t stopped some mothers from adopting the “what does science know about my body/my child” approach (a philosophy that has yielded less-than-stellar results in other health debates).
Still, no evidence has surfaced showing that placenta-eating causes any harm, so for now it remains a harmless endeavor—and one ripe for media commentary. Take a fringe health pseudo-trend and add a journalist’s personal experience, and you have Joel Stein’s witty Time magazine account of just how the mechanics of eating a placenta go down. Writes Stein:
When the placenta did come out, Cassandra, dazed from 21 hours of labor, somehow made sure the nurses delivered it to us in a flat plastic container, which I put into an ice-filled Monsters vs Aliens cooler I brought….
In a fog, I drove the placenta home, where I wrapped the container in a bag and wrapped that bag in a bag and wrapped that bag in every remaining bag we had in the house.
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Right now one of the most common ways quadriplegics move wheelchairs is through a sip and puff device, in which the person sucks or blows through a straw. But Georgia Tech University scientists are testing a headset that will allow wheelchair users to drive their chairs using only their tongues. New Scientist reports:
The device works by using two sensors to track a 5-millimetre-wide magnet attached to the tip of the user’s tongue. The sensors—embedded in a wireless headset—read the fluctuations in the strength of the magnetic field as the tongue moves and transmit the signals on to a computer, where they are interpreted and acted upon.
Of course, who needs a tongue when you can just think the wheelchair into action. Japanese researchers claim they’ve created a device that allows brain waves to control a wheelchair.
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The active ingredient in Viagra might hold information leading to new treatments for chronic pain, migraines, Alzheimer’s disease, and epilepsy. Brain cells contain active enzymes that help produce nitric oxide, which gives the little blue pill its power, and scientists think this molecule might help brain cells pass signals to on another. BBC tells us:
Researcher Adam Tozer said: “This prompts the question ‘Why is a molecule that can produce penile erections necessary in the brain? It is hoped that this research will go some way to solving the complexity of communication between brain cells, and therefore provide openings for therapeutic strategies against debilitating conditions. It will also help to shed light on communication in the healthy brain and this will enable a greater understanding of how we think.”
The Leicester team will focus on the junctions – or synapses – between cells that enable them to “talk” to each other. They will examine how nitric oxide can influence this communication.There is evidence to suggest that high levels of nitric oxide have a toxic effect, and may trigger serious brain diseases, such as Alzheimer’s. Rebecca Wood, chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Research Trust said: “It will be interesting to find out what nitric oxide does in the brain, and if it has any role in Alzheimer’s.”This study may help researchers understand how the brain works and how nerve cells communicate with each other. Understanding our thought processes and the brain is crucial to understanding and defeating diseases that affect it.”
Still, we have to wonder about which possible side effects of treatment with nitric oxide might, er, pop up.
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Image: flickr /
The idea of growing tissue or an organ isn’t new, but scientists are getting ever closer: A scientist at MIT is creating a liver chip that can act like human liver tissue and react to medicines or toxins, while another group is manufacturing synthetic skin that can be used for testing. Some are trying to create human blood vessels and organs in a petri dish, or even grow organs inside other animals.
Everyone wants their tissue structure to be the one that can replace animals in the lab—now add University of Cardiff’s cell biologist Kelly BéruBé to that list. She can grow lung cells on small plastic spheres, and the cells function just like the insides of human lungs.
Scientists normally need around 200 rats to test the potentially toxic effects of inhaling a single dose of a chemical, and 3000 rats for chronic studies. But the need for lab rats might soon be eradicated if BéruBé’s new microlung can be used to test the safety of thousands of chemicals or drugs.
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One Russian neurophysiologist certainly thinks so—in fact, he’s dead set on proving it. New Scientist reports that Yuri Moskalenko, former president of the Sechenov Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry, believes that trepanation—drilling a hole in the skull, once a tool of witch doctors to cure migraines—could help anyone from their mid-40s or older to “slow or even reverse the process of age-related cognitive decline.” His reasoning is described as follows:
As we age, the proteins in the brain harden, preventing [the cranial] system from working as it should. As a result, the flow of both blood and cerebrospinal fluid is reduced, impairing the delivery of oxygen and nutrients as well as the removal of waste. Moskalenko’s research suggests that this normally begins between the ages of 40 and 50. Moreover, in a study of 42 elderly people with dementia, he found that the severity of their cognitive disorder was strongly correlated with cranial compliance: those with the severest dementia had the lowest compliance…
So where does trepanation come into all this? “A hole made in the bony cavity would act as a pressure-release valve,” says Kennett, and this would alter the flow of fluids around the brain. This is exactly what Moskalenko observed when he carried out one of the first neurophysiological studies on trepanation.
Surprisingly, while some are criticizing Moskalenko’s proposed treatment, the part irking them isnt the fact that it involves drilling a hole in your skull—rather, it’s how the hole works to help. Meanwhile, fans of the idea admit that it’s going to be tough to sell to patients. Though finding the right drill shouldn’t be much trouble at all.
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Image: flickr/ josepy
Waiting for a healthy organ is one thing—waiting for a “moral” one is another. Despite the long wait time for many people awaiting organ transplants, some patients in the U.K. are reportedly willing to turn a healthy organ away…if it comes from a criminal.
While it may seem absurd, around a third of transplant patients have reported that they “take on” the personality traits of the organ’s original owner after a transplant, according to cognitive neuroscientist Bruce Hood at the University of Bristol. Some people claimed that their memory got sharper, or that they picked up new math skills — which could be attributed to the fact that the surgery makes people feel better mentally and psychologically.
Hood conducted a study to see if healthy people would also care about an organ donor’s moral tendencies. He asked 20 students to pretend that they were going to need a “life-saving heart transplant,” then showed them pictures of the potential donors and told them that some were murderers. Those who saw criminals were more likely to say they’d refuse the organ.
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For those of us with no discernible artistic talent, it may seem impossible to produce a recognizable sketch, sculpture, or painting. For Alan Brown, a 49-year-old father of three, however, all it took was a stroke and 16 hours of brain surgery to give him the artistic prowess to get a degree in fine arts and open his own gallery.
The U.K. Daily Mail reports that Brown was still recovering from his surgery when he realized that his doodles, once limited to stick men, had become strikingly more realistic. Brain surgery can cause significant changes in behavior and abilities. Luckily for Brown, his change was for the better. He began painting (examples of his work can be seen here) and eventually quit his day job to open a gallery, where he displays and sells his art.
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Good news for those who fear the dentist’s chair: Australian Nathan Cochrane at the Cooperative Research Centre for Oral Health Sciences has created a liquid that can re-grow tooth enamel, effectively curing cavities while you sleep.
It sounds awesome, but it only works if you catch the cavities before they start—long before any sign of a hole appears in the tooth. The liquid works because of a protein known as casein phosphopeptide, which can be isolated from cow’s milk. When this substance is mixed with calcium, phosphate, and fluoride ions, it forms a special liquid that can attach and seep into parts of the tooth enamel that need strengthening, helping any damaged enamel to re-grow. A tray will be used to keep saliva out, which can prevent the liquid from hardening properly inside damaged teeth.
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