Once again, South Korean scientists have made cloning headlines. This time around, though, it's not about cloned stem cells -- nope, it's about cloned glow-in-the-dark cats. Sounds ridiculous, maybe, but the scientists claim that what they've done could change medicine.
Continue reading 'The future of medicine = fluorescent kitties?' >
Mice aren't afraid of cats because they're bigger, have sharper teeth, and are natural predators. While that would be reasonable, the real factor is a genetic hardwiring to be terrified at the scent of cats. Japanese scientists, in yet another effort to create super-creatures that will doom us all, have changed that. "Mice are naturally terrified of cats, and usually panic or flee at the smell of one. But mice with certain nasal cells removed through genetic engineering didn't display any fear," said Ko Kobayakawa who leads a research team at Tokyo University.
My cat just had the last bath he's ever getting.
Continue reading 'Scientists create very, very brave mice' >
Dr. R. Quian Quiroga, of the University of Leicester Department of Engineering, is in your head. Actually his machines are just watching what's in your head. In 2005 he showed that specific neurons were fired when subjects were shown different pictures of Halle Berry or just letters from her name, but not for pictures of anyone else. (The test was apparently, and less excitingly, conducted with more mundane images, like that of the Sydney Opera House and other famous landmarks.) Now he's following up on that research and looking at those specific neurons to predict what the test subject is thinking.
Continue reading 'Scientists can read your mind. Stop thinking about Halle Berry.' >
Dogs, chimps, people, rats, mice and cows came first, but finally the finicky feline joins the club of mammals whose DNA has been decoded and sequenced. The breakthrough cat is a four-year-old Abyssinian named Cinnamon who lives in a lab-bred colony at University of Missouri-Columbia. No word on whether cans of tuna or catnip were used in luring Cinnamon down from her genomic pedestal, but as you can tell from the picture, she's way cuter than Dolly.
The now-decoded cat genome will provide insight into both human and feline diseases; as any cat lover knows, cats get hundreds of diseases that are similar to human counterparts, including HIV, leukemia and irritable bowel syndrome (believe it -- it ain't pretty).
Continue reading 'Cat genome sequenced, hit musical adaptation in the works' >
