Archive for August, 2007

30 August, 2007

Scuba dive arachnoid

Scuba dive arachnoid

Scientists at the University of Bern, Switzerland, determined that spiders use these scuba tanks, called air bells, as reservoirs, monitoring and replenishing oxygen levels to enable the animals to live underwater. “The water spider’s air bell is in some ways working like an external lung,” said study co-author Michael Taborsky. But it also serves as […]

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25 August, 2007

Reversed memory

Reversed memory

Directly after a new experience, the brain of a rat plays the new experience backwards. Most likely this rewind-mechanism is being done to record the memory. The discovery has been done by rats while the activity of the brain cells in the hippocampus was been followed constantly. The experiment set-up is an old and famous […]

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23 August, 2007

Coffee, oh delicious coffee

Coffee, oh delicious coffee

Coffee contains several compounds which are known to affect human body chemistry. For instance caffeine, which acts as a stimulant. The word caffeine is also called guaranine when found in guarana, mateine when found in mate, and theine when found in tea; all these names are considered chemical synonyms for the same chemical compound. Caffeine […]

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23 August, 2007

Painfull food

Red and yellow chili pepper

The chili pepper is faking our nerves while eating: normal temperature appears incredibly hot. And this is quite useful, as this protects us from inflammations, but also protects the pepper from being eaten. On the 23rd of October 1997, David Julius and colleges wrote in Nature an article about their discovery, which got them the […]

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