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Tribal News
* "Vallejo’s Psychic Reality opens related classroom/art gallery downtown" (2016-02-09, timesheraldonline.com) [archive.is/N7EcH]
* Psychedelic and trippy Grande Dame images [giphy.com/grandedame]
Stranger News
* "Fungi funeral: Mushroom ‘death suit’ offers eco-friendly alternative to caskets & cremation" (2016-02-13, rt.com) [archive.is/ixpFp], video [https://youtu.be/_7rS_d1fiUc]
* "Our brain sabotages all efforts at breaking bad habits, Johns Hopkins study finds" (2015-02-13, rt.com) [archive.is/ST5f3]
* "Flying lessons: Scientists show world through a wasp’s eyes" (2016-02-13) [rt.com/news/332361-wasps-moving-arcs-video]
* "Taking the cake: Groundbreaking gravitational wave accidentally revealed in tweet" (2016-02-12, rt.com) [archive.is/SXCcf]
* "Scientists create 3D image of how dolphins see humans using sound" (2015-12-08, rt.com) [archive.is/dR1ts]
* "HRL demonstartes the potential to enhance human intellect's existing capacity to learn new skills" (2016-02-10, hrl.com) [archive.is/stWrF], video [youtube.com/watch?v=oIvdvG_zj6A]
The study, sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Global, involved the use of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation, or tDCS, on the mice. A noninvasive technique for brain stimulation, tDCS is applied using two small electrodes placed on the scalp, delivering short bursts of extremely low-intensity electrical currents.
“In addition to potentially enhancing task performance for Sailors and Marines,” said ONR Global Commanding Officer Capt. Clark Troyer, “understanding how this technique works biochemically may lead to advances in the treatment of conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety—which affect learning and memory in otherwise healthy individuals.”
The implications of this research also have great potential to strengthen learning and memory in both healthy people and those with cognitive deficits such as Alzheimer’s.
“We already have promising results in animal models of Alzheimer’s disease,” said Dr. Claudio Grassi, who leads the research team. “In the near future, we will continue this research and extend analyses of tDCS to other brain areas and functions.”
After exposing the mice to single 20-minute tDCS sessions, the researchers saw signs of improved memory and brain plasticity (the ability to form new connections between neurons when learning new information), which lasted at least a week. This intellectual boost was demonstrated by the enhanced performance of the mice during tests requiring them to navigate a water maze and distinguish between known and unknown objects.
Using data gathered from the sessions, Grassi’s team discovered increased synaptic plasticity in the hippocampus, a region of the brain critical to memory processing and storage. [end excerpt]
* "Watching new species evolve in real time" (2016-02-29, phys.org) [archive.is/3qiHV]
* "K-Glass 3 offers users a keyboard to type text KAIST researchers upgraded their smart glasses with a low-power multicore processor to employ stereo vision and deep-learning algorithms, making the user interface and experience more intuitive and convenient" (2016-02-26, The Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology KAIST) [archive.is/aSPvE], video [youtube.com/watch?v=If_anx5NerQ]
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* "South Koreans kick off efforts to clone extinct Siberian cave lions; Samples taken from cubs frozen in permafrost for at least 12,000 years" (2016-03-04, siberiantimes.com) [archive.is/NEz9C]
* "South Korean geneticists to try clone extinct Siberian lions" (2016-03-06, rt.com) [archive.is/lmUo9]: A South Korean researcher, who was once declared a “supreme scientist” has assumed the task of bringing Ice Age lions back to life, by using DNA from two 12,000 year old cubs which have been found phenomenally well-preserved in Siberia.
Photos: Cubs [archive.is/sdUUx] [archive.is/w8uTE], scientist [archive.is/HRP4W].
The frozen animals, nicknamed Uyan and Dina after the river where they were uncovered, date back thousands of years. They were located by a group of researchers who had originally been looking for mammoth tusks in Yakutia, eastern Russia, late last year.
South Korean geneticist Hwang Woo-suk has now reportedly taken up the mantle of responsibility and hopes to have the extinct creatures cloned in the not too distant future.
The scientific expert, previously embroiled in a huge scandal involving falsified embryo research, traveled to the Yakutian Academy of Sciences to take samples of the cub, Dina.
According to the The Siberian Times, the South Korean has been forced to use fewer cell samples than he initially wanted.
Russian researchers currently conducting investigations into the phenomenally-well preserved cubs are keen to keep much of the DNA intact, in the hope that future gains in technology will yield greater scientific results.
It’s for this reason that the animal known as Uyan is being kept completely intact.
“We intend to keep it for the future. The methods of research are constantly being improved, about once a decade there is a mini-revolution in this area.
“So we will do everything possible to keep this carcass frozen for as long as possible,” said Dr Albert Protopopov, head of mammoth fauna studies at the Yakutia Academy of Sciences.
Following the discovery of the two-to-three week old creatures, Dr Protopopov reported how radiocarbon analysis and molecular examinations would be carried out to find out more about the “origin of cave lions and their kin.”
Woo-suk’s research has also seen him try his hand at cloning the woolly mammoth, leading him to try rebuild the large animal’s DNA structure. The goal has been to create an embryo which would eventually be implanted in an elephant, which is the mammoth’s closest living relative.
* "Russia: 10,000-year-old "exceptional" lion cubs go on display in Yautsk" [https://youtu.be/7bn1hiwNwR8]
Space News
* "No Big Bang? Quantum equation predicts universe has no beginning" (2015-02-09, phys.org) [archive.is/VBQy4]
* "Quantum Equation Suggests the Big Bang Never Occurred and the Universe Has No Beginning" (2015-02-13, themindunleashed.org) [archive.is/6Vvfn]
* " ‘Space exploring species’: Returning NASA astronaut grew 2 inches in orbit" (2016-03-04, rt.com) [archive.is/7Zgiy]
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* "Zoom to Mars in 6 weeks with new Russian nuclear-fission engine" (2016-03-03, rt.com) [archive.is/D7nCy]
* "Radiation makes Mars travel impossible today…let’s fly faster!" (2013-05-31, rt.com) [archive.is/WtylW]
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* "Propylene: Ingredient of Household Plastic Detected in Atmosphere of Saturn’s Moon Titan; Planetary scientists using the Composite InfRared Spectrometer aboard NASA/ESA’s Cassini spacecraft have detected propylene in the lower atmosphere of the Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. This is the first detection of the plastic ingredient on any moon or planet, other than Earth" (2013-10-02, sci-news.com) [archive.is/9wMW6], photo caption: This image is a composite of several images taken during two separate Titan flybys on October 9 and October 25, 2004. Credit: NASA / JPL / University of Arizona.
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* "Be Pluto’s Valentine! NASA colors dwarf planet’s ‘heart’ (to study terrain)" (2016-02-13, rt.com) [archive.is/vl4R5]
* "Stunning Pluto ice map reveals more frozen water than ever" (2016-01-30, rt.com) [archive.is/5oWQu]: A bright blue map highlighting H2O ice on Pluto reveals much more of the valuable liquid than previously thought.
The image, stitched together from snapshots and data sent from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, shows areas of frozen water covering a significant section of the dwarf planet.Making up Pluto’s crustal bedrock, “the canvas on which its more volatile ices paint their seasonally changing patterns” according to NASA, the solid H2O can be seen in a “combined multispectral ‘data cube’ covering the full hemisphere” based on two LEISA scans taken fifteen minutes apart last June from a distance of 67,000 miles away, Astronomy magazine reports.
The left size of the image released by NASA this week compares LEISA spectra with a “pure water ice template spectrum.”
NASA says there are limitations to the technique, as water ice can be masked by methane ice.
The map was only able to show areas that were rich in water ice and without much methane ice.
The image on the right combines the contributions of Pluto’s different ices together. This only includes ices that are included in the model, but the team continues to add new data as it is discovered.
Little water ice was found on the western side of Pluto, Sputnik Planum, and the far north, Lowell Regio.
This suggests the icy bedrock of Pluto remains hidden under other methane, nitrogen, and carbon monoxide in those regions.
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* "Apollo 10 declassified tapes to reveal puzzling ‘musical’ transmission from Moon’s dark side" (2016-02-21, rt.com) [archive.is/kbxAw], attached videos [https://youtu.be/bjLZBrQ-Oq4] [https://youtu.be/_QYRVCqwuYI]
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Ancient News
* "25,000 Year Old Buildings Found In Russia" (2016-02-14, boopow.com) [archive.is/RbMcq]
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* "Neanderthals may have used manganese dioxide for fire" (2016-03-01, UPI newswire) [archive.is/pbH8R]
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* "New evidence suggests Stone Age hunters from Europe discovered America" (2012-02-28, independent.co.uk) [archive.is/lvWk6]
* "Harvard Professor Confirms Bering Strait Theory Is Not Fact" (2012-07-31, indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com) [archive.is/z0rAW]
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* " 'Alien in Chelyabinsk': 2,000-yo skeleton with cone head dug up at Russian Stonehenge" (2015-07-28, rt.com) [archive.is/GYojy], attached video [https://youtu.be/fnS1hvpThB8]
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* " 'UFO Drone' Found on Mars is Proof of Ancient Civilization on Red Planet; Aliens exist, UFO hunters claimed after a new set of pictures of an identified object, which some said was none other than a UFO drone, were published on YouTube last Sunday, according to Inquisitr.com" (2015-11-04, sputniknews.com) [archive.is/nlMGB]
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* "Deeper underground: Drone films incredible Chinese cave homes" (2016-03-05, rt.com) [archive.is/YI5ef], video [https://youtu.be/sj1ysrtPDnw]:
A drone has captured a bird’s eye view of a spectacular underground village in the province of Henan, central China.
The footage reveals a subterranean village complex consisting of man-made caves in the city of Sanmenxia, which has the largest collection of such homes - at around 100 clusters.
Two-meter wide wells prevent the cave homes and courtyards from flooding, Channel News Asia reports.
The structures prevent temperatures dropping too low in winter and too high in summer as they protect inhabitants from strong winds and scorching surface temperatures.
These Yaodong, as the homes are known, carry on the cave-dwelling tradition of ancient China.
The cave homes provide ideal conditions as they are warm in winter, and cool in summer, with temperatures ranging between 10 and 20 degrees Celsius (50 to 68 Fahrenheit).
The video shows stairs the residents use to get in and out and reveals how residents lead normal lives underground.
The cave home building technique has been listed as a National Intangible Cultural Heritage since 2010 and many tourists visit Sanmenxia to see the underground homes.
The technique originated during China's Bronze Age when people began living in dwellings built within deep pits but reached its peak during the Ming and Qing dynasties.
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