Stinky Farts, Shrinking Breasts, and Cancer Fighting Beer.
Medical research boring? Not with headlines like these…
MSNBC led with a new study reporting how Stinky farts may help regulate blood pressure. Seems that a smelly rotten-egg gas (scientific name – hydrogen sulfide) in farts controls blood pressure, at least in mice. This gas, made natural in cells lining the mice’s blood vessels, apparently relaxes the blood vessels which, in turn, helps prevent hypertension (high blood pressure). Wow, wonder if this will open up a whole new avenue of treatments for hypertension based on ’stinky farts”?
Meanwhile, the Telegraph wrote about how Drinking too much coffee ‘could shrink women’s breasts’, based on …read more
NASA Wants You…to stay in bed!
So who hasn’t dreamed of spending a day or two in bed? Maybe even a week?
But what about lying around in bed for three months and getting paid $5000 a month for doing so?
Well, according to Wired Science that’s just what NASA is asking people to volunteer for.
NASA is running a ‘Bed Rest Study’ at it’s Human Test Subject Facility at Johnson Space Center to examine the effects of microgravity on the human body.
Want to know more – check out this Q&A with a NASA Scientist about the study.
It might sound like a dream but it could easily turn into …read more
Foldit for Science.
Protein folding as a competitive sport?
Sounds bizarre but researchers at the University of Washington are hoping that Foldit, a new computer game will help uncover the key to medical mysteries ranging from Alzheimer’s Disease to vaccines.
There are more than 100,000 different kinds of proteins in the human body. These proteins form cells, make up the immune system, and determine the speed of chemical reactions.
Scientists already know the genetic sequence of many of the proteins but not how they fold up into the complext shapes that play the crucial biological roles within the human body.
This is where Foldit comes in.
This computer …read more
