Mr. Hartan's Science Class
"Knowledge is a reckoning . . . a way to assess your location, your true position, not a strategy for improving your position." -Walter Kirn-Archive for April, 2009
NG: Spider “Resurrections”
SPIDER “RESURRECTIONS” TAKE SCIENTISTS by SURPRISE
for National Geographic News
Spiders in a lab twitched back to life hours after “drowning”—and the scientists were as surprised as anyone.
The bugs, it seems, enter comas to survive for hours underwater, according to a new study. READ ON.
The salt marsh-dwelling wolf spider Arctosa fulvolineata can revive itself from comas after up to 40 hours of “drowning,” according to an April 2009 report.
Photograph by Sonia Dourlot
The Woman Who Can’t Forget
UCI Studies the Woman Who Can’t Forget:
ILLUSTRATION BY ROBERT ZAVALA, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
The “human calendar.”
That’s what some people call the woman who contacted UC Irvine neurobiologist Jim McGaugh six years ago and said, “I have a problem. I remember too much.”
She wasn’t exaggerating. McGaugh and fellow UCI researchers Larry Cahill and Elizabeth Parker have been studying the extraordinary case of a person who has “nonstop, uncontrollable and automatic” memory of her personal history and countless public events. READ ON.
Bizarre Skin Conditions (Argyria: Blue Skin)
Click on the above picture for more information on Argyria.
Are Humans Evolving?
Modern Life’s Pressures May be Hastening Evolution:
By Robert S. Boyd | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — We’re not finished yet. Even today, scientists say that human beings are continuing to evolve as our genes respond to rapid changes in the world around us. Click on the link below to continue reading the article.
5 Things Humans No Longer Need
New Scientist: Vestigial Organs (Remnants of Evolution)
14 May 2008 by Laura Spinney
VESTIGIAL organs have long been a source of perplexity and irritation for doctors and of fascination for the rest of us. In 1893, a German anatomist named Robert Wiedersheim drew up a list of 86 human “vestiges”, organs “formerly of greater physiological significance than at present”. Over the years, the list grew, then shrank again. Today, no one can remember the score. It has even been suggested that the term is obsolete, useful only as a reflection of the anatomical knowledge of the day. In fact, these days many biologists are extremely wary of talking about vestigial organs at all. READ ON.
Live Science: Adult Heart Cells Grow New Cells
By Clara Moskowitz, Staff Writer
posted: 02 April 2009 02:00 pm ET at LiveScience.com
It was long thought that the human heart, like the brain, was unable to grow new cells after birth. But today scientists announced the first evidence that new heart cells are made throughout a person’s life. Read On.
