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Category: food – Page 85

The study aims to induce hibernation in monkeys and, eventually, in humans.

In a new study, researchers reduced the core body temperature of crab-eating macaques purely by controlling their brains. The study aims to find a way to induce hibernation in monkeys and, eventually, in humans.

Gremlin/iStock.

Hibernation enables mammals such as bears and rodents to survive adverse weather conditions or a lack of food. During this deep sleep state, they enter a kind of energy-saving mode. Breathing, heart rate, and energy consumption are all drastically reduced; their body temperature plummets, and their metabolism and the chemical reactions that keep them alive slow. Scientists call this condition’ torpor.’ Animals hibernate by alternating between long periods of torpor and brief periods of arousal, during which they wake up to feed.

Continue reading “Neural control of monkeys’ body temperatures could be useful for space travel” | >

Atherosclerosis is a cardiac-based disease where plaque builds up inside the body’s arteries, the blood vessels responsible for carrying oxygen-rich blood to the heart and other organs of the body. Plaque is made up of immune blood cells, known as macrophages, fat, cholesterol, calcium, and other substances found in the blood.

As this plaque hardens it narrows the arteries, limiting the flow of oxygen-rich blood around the body. This, in turn, can lead to serious problems, including heart attack, stroke, or even death.

Now, a study from researchers led by Michigan State University engineers a nanoparticle capable of eating away, from the inside out, heart attack causing plaques. The team states their nanoparticle reduces and stabilizes plaque, providing a potential treatment for atherosclerosis, a leading cause of death in the United States. The study is published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

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Oto_feja/iStock.

John DeLong and his colleagues at the University of Nebraska have discovered that a species of Halteria—microscopic ciliates prevalent in freshwater habitats worldwide—can consume a sizable number of infectious chloroviruses. For the first time, the team’s laboratory tests have also demonstrated that a virus-only diet, or “virovory,” can support an organism’s physiological growth and even population increase.

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Nature, red in tooth and claw, is rife with organisms that eat their neighbors to get ahead. But in the systems studied by the theoretical ecologist Holly Moeller, an assistant professor of ecology, evolution and marine biology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, the consumed become part of the consumer in surprising ways.

Moeller primarily studies protists, a broad category of unicellular microorganisms like amoebas and paramecia that don’t fit within the familiar macroscopic categories of animals, plants and fungi. What most fascinates her is the ability of some protists to co-opt parts of the cells they prey upon. Armed with these still-functioning pieces of their prey, the protists can expand into new habitats and survive where they couldn’t before.

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Although genetically modified foods still get a bit of a bad rap, there are actually many good reasons why modifying an organism’s genetics may be worthwhile. For example, many breeds of genetically modified foods have made them more resistant to disease.

It’s also possible to modify foods to make them more nutritious. Take, for example, golden rice. This grain was engineered to have higher levels of vitamin A in order to tackle deficiencies of this nutrient in impoverished countries.

A purple tomato, created using genetic modification, may be available to buy in the U.S. as soon as 2023.

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This video gives an interesting theory as to where the lost city of Atlantis was (a location known today as the Eye of the Sahara), and it seems to be a pretty reasonable conjecture. What is relevant to this group however is how it might have been destroyed by a tsunami caused by a massive landslide in the Mediterranean — which is especially notable because the location is a great distance away from the Mediterranean, yet the evidence points to such a tsunami flooding a path all the way across Africa to the Atlantic, regardless of whether the city of Atlantis was in that path.

I think of our interconnected world today and wonder what would happen if such an unexpected event were to happen now, targeting a region that was in some way or another vital to modern civilization (such as with a concentration of all talent in an important field) without any suitable alternatives available.

This is one reason why I think it is dangerous to rely on trade networks that stretch to the opposite side of the earth for vital sectors such as food or energy.

Continue reading “Lost Roman Map has ATLANTIS at Eye of Sahara Africa! (Richat Structure)” | >