Tag: science!

Holy shit.

"A handout released from Japan’s natural science research center Riken shows a functional human brain tissue made from stem cells at their laboratory in Kobe. Japanese researchers said they had created functioning human brain tissues from stem cells, a world first that has raised new hopes for the treatment of disease."

This is why we have to ditch the superstitions of the Bronze Age.
This is why anyone who wants to throw their Bible into the science room should be considered for the nuthouse.
This is why the Republicans have to get rid of their neo-con usurpers.

This is why.
We are no longer the leaders of the Scientific Revolution.
This is why.

A great article by Michael Shermer. I highly recommend it to everyone.

My favorite line:

“The reason for this cognitive disconnect is that we have evolved brains that pay attention to anecdotes because false positives (believing there is a connection between A and B when there is not) are usually harmless, whereas false negatives (believing there is no connection between A and B when there is) may take you out of the gene pool.”

ScienceDaily (Jan. 9, 2008) — An extraordinary new scientific study, which for the first time documents marked improvement in Alzheimer’s disease within minutes of administration of a therapeutic molecule, has just been published in the Journal of Neuroinflammation.

This new study highlights the importance of certain soluble proteins, called cytokines, in Alzheimer’s disease. The study focuses on one of these cytokines, tumor necrosis factor-alpha(TNF), a critical component of the brain’s immune system. Normally, TNF finely regulates the transmission of neural impulses in the brain. The authors hypothesized that elevated levels of TNF in Alzheimer’s disease interfere with this regulation. To reduce elevated TNF, the authors gave patients an injection of an anti-TNF therapeutic called etanercept. Excess TNF-alpha has been documented in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with Alzheimer’s.

(thanks )