Choose a pint over a coffee. For medical reasons. Live longer.
- The substances influence the length of telomeres – the end parts of DNA
- Telomeres get shorter as a person ages, when they’re too short, the cell dies
- Shorter telomeres are associated with poor health and an increased chance of premature death
- Caffeine was found to shorten telomeres, but alcohol lengthened them
This is a reminder to myself before I embark on one of those things that seem trivial …
- If anything can go wrong, it will.
- Nothing is as easy as it looks.
- Everything takes longer than you think it will.
Two thousand mice dropped on Guam by parachute — to kill snakes
Snake traps, snake-sniffing dogs and snake-hunting inspectors have all helped control the population, but the snakes have proved especially hardy and now infest the entire island. Guam is home to an estimated 2 million of the reptiles, which in some areas reach a density of 13,000 per square mile — more concentrated than even in the Amazonian rainforests, the government says.
But brown tree snakes have an Achilles’ heel: Tylenol.
For some reason, the snakes are almost uniquely sensitive to acetaminophen, the active ingredient in the ubiquitous over-the-counter painkiller. If you can get a tree snake to eat just 80 milligrams, you can kill it. That’s only about one-sixth of a standard pill — pigs, dogs and other similarly sized animals would have to eat about 500 of them to get into any trouble.
Thorium-Fueled Automobile Engine Needs Refueling Once a Century
Current models of the engine weigh 500 pounds, easily fitting into the engine area of a conventionally-designed vehicle. According to CEO Charles Stevens, just one gram of the substance yields more energy than 7,396 gallons (28,000 L) of gasoline and 8 grams would power the typical car for a century.
The idea of using thorium is not new. In 2009, Loren Kulesus designed the Cadillac World Thorium Fuel Concept Car. LPS is developing the technology so it can be mass-produced.
Human head transplant, anyone?
Slashdot is reporting that human head transplants are now possible:
Technical barriers to grafting one person’s head onto another person’s body can now be overcome, says Dr. Sergio Canavero, a member of the Turin Advanced Neuromodulation Group. In a recent paper, Canavero outlines a procedure modeled on successful head transplants which have been carried out in animals since 1970. The one problem with these transplants was that scientists were unable to connect the animals’ spinal cords to their donor bodies, leaving them paralyzed below the point of transplant. But, says Canavero, recent advances in re-connecting spinal cords that are surgically severed mean that it should be technically feasible to do it in humans.
The technology progress to make this happen is amazing. But it still feels creepy to me. Even after reading all the hilarious comments in the Slashdot thread.