Feb 18
Look, rats are a fact of life in NYC. They’re already hanging out in our grocery stores
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Feb 04
Do you hate rats? If so, you’re not going to like what Dr. Jan Zalasiewicz, a University of Leicester paleobiologist, has to say about the future of Earth. This week, Dr. Zalasiewicz reported on the heartiness—and ambitiousness—of rats, explaining how our rapidly changing planet is soon going to be filled with gigantic, super-evolved rodents. And, like most things that go wrong around here, it’s all our fault.
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Jan 23
A massive ghost ship has been missing in the Atlantic since last February, along with its potential cargo of "disease-ridden cannibal rats," via BBC Future. Now, it looks like it’s headed for the UK.
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Oct 02
Nothing about how a bunch of Oxford researchers recently pulled neural stem cells out of the brains of living rats seems feasible. The cells are hard to isolate. Brains are fragile. Okay, brains are very fragile. But they’ve done it, and the procedure could shed fresh light on diseases like Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis.
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Mar 07
Next time you see animals sniffing in each other’s presence, there might be more happening than you expect. New research suggests that a humble intake of breath actually allows rats to communicate with each other. More »
Mar 01
Some would say the internet already lets us share every minute detail of our thoughts, much to our followers’ dismay. Duke University isn’t deterred by our behavior — if anything, it just took oversharing literally by connecting two rats’ minds in an experiment, first in a lab and ultimately online. Electrodes attached to the brain of a host “encoder” rat in Brazil processed the motor-oriented mental activity for a desired behavior, such as pressing a lever on cue, and converted it into a signal that was then received by a “decoder” rat as far away as Duke’s US campus. The majority of the time, the decoder rat performed the same action as the encoder. Researchers also found that rewarding the encoder alongside the decoder created a virtuous loop, as treating the first rat for a job well done focused its attention and improved the signal strength.
We’re not sure that Vulcans would endorse this kind of mind meld, though: apart from immediately depriving the decoder rat of self-control, prolonged testing led to the same rodent developing additional sympathetic reactions to the encoder. There’s also concerns that the test was too binary and didn’t reflect the complexity of the whole brain. All the same, Duke’s study is proof enough that we can export brainwaves in a meaningful way.
Via: Discovery News
Source: Nature
Feb 28
Scientists Wire Two Rats’ Brains Together and Share a Thought Across the Internet
Posted in: Today's Chili
Telepathy isn’t real. You can’t read minds with nothing but the tools you were born with. But add a little bit of wiring and that starts to change. Scientists have now managed to get two lab rats to think in-sync with just a little augmentation. More »
Feb 14
Crazy Brain Implants Give Lab Rats a Sixth Sense and Let Them "Touch" Light
Posted in: Today's Chili
It’s not every day that science and crazy brain implants lead to the generation of what is essentially a new sense, but it is that day today. Scientists from Duke University have found a way to make rats “feel” invisible infrared light and someday that same tech could give sight to the blind, or give us humans extras senses for fun. More »
Jul 23
There’s a whole sea of jellyfish out there ready to sting indiscriminately. So, why do we keep trying to make them? Scientists from Harvard and Caltech have a pretty good reason for creating fake jellies — they hope to mend broken hearts by adapting their ‘pumping’ style of movement. Much like our own vital organ, the creatures are a mass of muscle adept at shifting fluid, meaning the research has several medical applications, such as bioengineered pacemakers for busted tickers. In creating the Medusoids, the team used a silicon scaffold coated in functional rat cardiac tissue, copying the muscle layout of a real jellyfish as best they could. When immersed in salt water and treated to bursts of current, the cells contract and cause the silicon sheet to move in a way eerily similar to the real thing. Next step for the team? An autonomous version that can move and potentially feed without their influence, of course. And, after seeing the little swimmers in action, we’ve certainly got palpitations. See what we mean after the break.
Continue reading Fake jellyfish made from rat cells have a place in our hearts (video)
Filed under: Science
Fake jellyfish made from rat cells have a place in our hearts (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Jul 2012 14:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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