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Real 'Benjamin Button'? Stem cells reverse aging

Benjamin Button

Scientists may one day slow down aging with a simple injection of youthful stem cells. They’ve just proven this can be done in mice, according to a study published Tuesday in Nature Communications. The mice, which had been engineered to mimic a human disease called progeria, would normally have grown old when they were quite young. But that changed when researchers injected muscle stem cells from healthy young mice into the bellies of the quickly aging mice. Within days, the doddering and frail mice began to act like they were living the storyline of “The Strange Case of Benjamin Button” as they started looking and acting younger.

Senh: That's getting scary. By the time this becomes useful, we'll hopefully have colonized the moon and Mars for the increasing population.

 

How Tetris became the world's favourite computer game

Henk Rogers and Alexey pajitnov, owners of Tetris

In 1984 a Russian scientist invented what would become one of the most popular computer games ever; today it is estimated that at least a billion people have played Tetris. It was created in 1984 by Alexey Pajitnov, a young researcher at Moscow's Academy of Science. Bored by his job in the cybernetics department, he began using his love for mathematical puzzles to create a new computer game.

 

Proposed calendar would make it same exact day, next year

Calendar

Each year, Jan. 1 falls on a different day of the week, and the entire following year shifts accordingly. Schools, sports teams, businesses and banks spend many hours and millions of dollars calculating on what day of the week certain dates will fall, to schedule holidays and set interest rates... Two professors have proposed a calendar in which each 12-month period is exactly as the year before, on into perpetuity.

 

Evidence of 'God particle' found

God Particle

Scientists say they have found evidence of the existence of the Higgs boson, a never-before-seen subatomic particle long thought to be a fundamental building block of the universe. In a highly anticipated press conference, researchers announced that two independent experiments at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva have turned up signs of the so-called "God particle."

Senh: The biggest problem with this claim is that because the amount detected is so tiny, it could have just been random fluctuations in measurement.

 

Shechtman Wins Chemistry Nobel for Quasicrystals Discovery

An Israeli scientist won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for changing the prevailing views about the atomic structure of matter with his discovery of quasicrystals. Dan Shechtman, 70, of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, will get the 10 million-kronor ($1.4 million) award, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said at a press conference in Stockholm today.

 

Studies of universe's expansion win physics Nobel

Studies of universe's expansion win physics Nobel

Three U.S.-born scientists won the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for their studies of exploding stars that revealed that the expansion of the universe is accelerating....

 

Sun delivers glancing solar storm blast at Earth

Sun delivers glancing solar storm blast at Earth

Warming up on its solar cycle, the sun uncorked a a strong solar storm that reached Earth on Monday, federal scientists said, posing a threat to satellites and radio communications, although no interruptions had been reported to date.

 

Scientists on trial for failing to predict quake

Scientists on trial for failing to predict quake

Six Italian scientists and one government official were set to go to trial in Italy on Tuesday on charges of manslaughter for not warning the public aggressively enough of an impending earthquake that killed more than 300 people in 2009.

Senh: Um... Your country's broke, and you're gonna waste time with this?

 

Gamers Unlock Protein Mystery That Baffled AIDS Researchers For Years

Gamers Unlock Protein Mystery That Baffled AIDS Researchers For Years

In just three weeks, gamers deciphered the structure of a key protein in the development of AIDS that has stumped scientists for years.

 

Face recognition IDs chimps from photos

Facial recognition isn't just for humans anymore — similar programs run on apes could help park rangers help identify chimps and gorillas, scientists have found.

 

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