Science Tidbits Wednesday

One more day of new and exciting tantalizing news in the realm of science. New discoveries. New takes on old knowledge. The base of information and knowledge grows at a rate much too fast to keep up with all that is available. The following are some selections from my favorite science news site, e!Science News.

Smart clothes for real are on the horizon.

A carbon nanotube-coated "smart yarn" that conducts electricity could be woven into soft fabrics that detect blood and monitor health

Designed the right way the cloth could detect blood and trigger an alarm signal to an injured person.

It is conceivable that clothes made out of this material could be designed to harvest energy or store it, providing power for small electronic devices

One day we may be able to stop cancer in its tracks. Metastasis (the growth and spread of cancer to other sites) is the ultimate cause of death for most cancer patients. The discovery of an enzyme important in metastasis may one day allow a means of stopping that process.

Therefore PLCγ1 is critical for metastasis formation, and development and inhibition of this enzyme has a therapeutic potential in the treatment of metastasis dissemination.

We age. We lose bad memories in the process. Turns out there is a reason for that change. We "seniors" use our brains in a different way than younger people.

The older participants were using thinking rather than feeling processes to store these emotional memories.

And here I thought the effect was just early dementia in my life. Relief is just one short read away.

Over 1000 new species have been discovered in the Mekong Delta in the past decade. At least one species thought to be long extinct has been discovered in the region.

Laotian rock rat (Laonastes aenigmamus) or Kha-nyou, thought to be extinct 11 million years ago, but recently rediscovered by scientists.

With all the bad news about the environment today, this is welcome indeed.

NASA beauty picture of the day. For more see the NASA website. These are evidence of your tax dollars hard at work.


Trifid Nebula, NASA, Public Domain

Peace.