Thursday, January 19, 2006
Dead Whales, Starving Snakes, and Brain Tricks
Greenpeace has dropped a 20 ton dead whale in front of the Japanese embassy in Berlin, to protest Japan's persistence in illegal whaling. Yum.
A Japanese rat snake at the Tokyo zoo has apparently 'befriended' a hamster that was intended to be its dinner. Cute, yes, but there is no explanation of what the snake eats instead.
A new study suggests that abnormal cell division could be responsible for Alzheimers Disease. Cells in pre-alzheimers mice showed cell division where normal mice did not, and often the damaged cells in diseased mice had extra chromosomes, indicative of division.
Another study sheds some light on why you can't tickle yourself. The research indicates that sensory attenuation to self-initiated stimuli may be evolutionarily critical - attention filters allow us to focus on what's important (i.e., something trying to eat us) rather than our own activities.
A Japanese rat snake at the Tokyo zoo has apparently 'befriended' a hamster that was intended to be its dinner. Cute, yes, but there is no explanation of what the snake eats instead.
A new study suggests that abnormal cell division could be responsible for Alzheimers Disease. Cells in pre-alzheimers mice showed cell division where normal mice did not, and often the damaged cells in diseased mice had extra chromosomes, indicative of division.
Another study sheds some light on why you can't tickle yourself. The research indicates that sensory attenuation to self-initiated stimuli may be evolutionarily critical - attention filters allow us to focus on what's important (i.e., something trying to eat us) rather than our own activities.
