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Studies prove that humor and engaging in laughter stimulates parts of your brain involved in creative thinking and problem solving. You may be wondering, how the heck is laughing going to help me become more creative? You will see that laughing has a powerful and positive effect on our Physiology.

A research team led by Darthmouth psychologist William Kelley, PHD, asked participants to watch episodes of Seinfeld and The Simpsons while fMRI technology imaged their brain activity. Later, when they compared their brain scans with their laughing patterns, they found that about 2 seconds before participants burst out in laughter at a joke (this is when their mind is trying to be creative and working to “get” the joke), their posterior temporal lobes lit up, this is the same area of the brain that helps us resolve problems.

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Honda FC Hydrogen Car

Can you imagine getting up in the morning and instead of going to the bathroom, you go to the garage and pee in your car?? OK, that’s really sick but you may find yourself doing it soon. Scientists from Ohio University have developed a new technology that will power your car, batteries and any other house hold devices with Urine. This will be available in as little as 6 months.

A really weird and green concept. To accomplish this, scientist are using nickel based electrodes to create large amounts of hydrogen which can be burned or used in fuel-cells. Gerardine Botte, a professor at Ohio University said in an interview that ”One cow can provide enough energy to supply hot water for 19 houses”. Scientists are using a nickel based electrode to oxidize urea which is the major component of urine.

Lets take a look under the microscope, one molecule of urea contains 4 atoms of hydrogen lightly bound to two atoms of nitrogen. Now stick in a little strip of this special nickel based electrode and apply a little current (about 0.37 volts) in order to release hydrogen. This can also be done using water but it takes more current (about 1.23 volts)  to break down hydrogen from water molecules. Once broken, it can be stored and used to create power.

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Herminiimonas glaciei (Source: The society for general microbiology

New life has emerged from almost 2 miles under the glaciers of Greenland. Buried for almost 120,000 years, scientists have discovered a tiny frozen microbe who has come back to life.

Dr Jennifer Loveland-Curtze and a team of scientists from Pennsylvania State University said they don’t know as of yet if they were in a dormant state or slowly metabolizing. How could they remain in a dormant state for 120,000 years?? They were alive all along, cryogenically frozen.

“We were able to recover it and get it to grow in our laboratory,” said Jean Brenchley of Pennsylvania State University. “It was viable.”

Alive and well are tiny purple-brown microbes named Herminiimonas glaciei, which were brought to life by incubating samples at 36 degrees Fahrenheit for seven months, then four months at 41 degrees Fahrenheit.

Such cold and extreme conditions are similar to other planets and can provide clues into extraterrestrial life.  ”The exceptionally low temperatures can preserve cells and nucleic acids for even millions of years”, said Dr Jennifer Loveland-Curtze.

H Glaciei bacterias are about 10 to 50 times smaller than most bacterias such as E Coli. Maybe its size helped it survive, there are many speculations out there but no one knows for sure.

Too bad cryogenics is not an option for us mortals at this time as scientists are still unable to revive human cells. Maybe one day, hundreds of years from now, science will be able to preserve and revive human organs even brain after they have been frozen for many years instead of minutes. But what about the soul?

If we believe that soul cannot be revived then these organisms were never dead, they were only in a dormant state for 120,000 years which is pretty amazing.

Comments anyone?

An environmentalist’s dream comes true! Plastic is by far the most indestructible material which takes about a 1000 years to decompose. It piles up in the landfills and pollutes the environment around you. It won’t rot away like food does, it cannot be destroyed without spreading pollution. This will now change because a 16 year old boy has solved this global waste crisis which scientists have been researching for years on how to decompose plastic but no promising solution.

Daniel Burd, 16 year old high school student at Waterloo Collegiate Institute in Canada, presented his research on microorganisms that can rapidly biodegrade plastic during the Canada Wide Science Fair in Ottawa. He won the top prize of $10,000 and $20,000 college scholarship, not to mention the recognition for solving the biggest waste crisis and helping the environment.

Daniel didn’t know what he was getting himself into but he was tired of plastic bags and wanted to find a way to get rid of them. He set out by producing a solution with yeast and some other house hold chemicals and water and started experimenting. His goal was to isolate the bacteria that is responsible for the slow decomposition of plastic, and produce them in a large number (not present in nature). He grounded a few plastic bags into powder form and added them to the solution along with dirt and keep it in the shaker at 30 degrees. After 3 months, the bacterial culture was ready for testing.

He went on to add a few strips of shopping bag plastic to the culture while monitoring the progress and continuously tweaking and optimizing the temperature. He identified 4 microbes that were involved in the breakdown of plastic, out of these 4, he identified which ones were the most active and strongest. He then started interbreeding the strongest microbes to produce more of that kind. Not sure how a 16 year old knows about all this stuff

He started experimenting with grouping the microbes to see the effect. He found that only strain 1 and 2 together were the most productive and decomposed plastic 45% faster which was thought to be impossible. Once the strips were done, he added a few plastic bags to see how his solution will work on a large scale and they were decomposed as well.

Daniel has discovered what PHD scientists have been trying for years in his own little lab at home. This decomposition method is still to be tested for other health risks before it is used by waste management companies. There are decomposition methods out there which involve chemicals and burning and are really bad for the environment. Daniel’s method is 100% organic and environment friendly. A Green solution that produces water and a bit of carbon dioxide as the waste is still to be tried on industrial scale.

Source: The Record

Earth is a big planet, but it is nothing compared to some of the other planets and stars. See for yourself

I am pretty sure that you know about all the planets in our universe, if you dont, you are definitely not smarter than a 5th grader. Anyways, I wanted to provide a bit of information about the other stars.

1. Sirius is the brightest star in the night-time sky. It is located in the constellation Canis Major. Sirius can be seen from almost every inhabited region of the Earth’s surface. Under the right conditions, Sirius can be observed in daylight with the naked eye, ofcourse the sky must be very clear, with the observer at a high altitude, the star passing overhead, and the sun low down on the horizon. Read more about Sirius.
2. Pollux is an orange giant star approximately 34 light-years away in the constellation of Gemini (the Twins). Pollux is the brightest star in the constellation, brighter than its twin Castor. As of 2006, Pollux was confirmed to have an extrasolar planet orbiting it. Read more about Pollux.
3. Arcturus is the brightest star in the constellation Boötes. It is also the third brightest star in the night sky, after Sirius and Canopus. Read more about Arcturus.
4. Rigel  is the brightest star in the constellation Orion and the sixth brightest star in the sky. Read more about Rigel.
5. Aldebaran is the brightest star in the constellation Taurus and one of the brightest stars in the nighttime sky. Because of its location in the head of Taurus, it has historically been called the Bull’s Eye. NASA’s Pioneer 10 spacecraft, which flew by Jupiter in 1973 will reach and pass by Aldebaran in about two million years.
6. Betelgeuse is the second brightest star in the constellation Orion and the ninth brightest star in the night sky approximately 600 light-years away from Earth. It is a red giant. Read more about Betelgeuse.
7. Antares is a red supergiant star in the Milky Way galaxy and the sixteenth brightest star in the nighttime sky and about 600 light years away. Read more about Antares.

How big is this world? These are just some of the known stars and planets who are millions of years away. Well, I hope you enjoyed this little bit of info as I did.