The blood-brain barrier is a network of cells that separates the brain from the rest of the body, preventing harmful toxins and chemicals in the blood stream from entering the brain tissue. This blocking mechanism makes it very difficult to deliver drugs to the brain for the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders and cancer.
via Scientists have opened the blood-brain barrier for the first time.
Earth is rapidly being wired with fiber-optic cables—inexpensive, flexible strands of silicon dioxide that have revolutionized telecommunications. They’ve already crisscrossed the planet’s oceans, linking every continent but one: Antarctica. Now, fiber optics has arrived at the continent, but to measure ice sheet temperatures rather than carry telecommunication signals. A team of scientists using an innovative fiber-optic cable–based technology has measured temperature changes within and below the ice over 14 months. This technology, they say, offers a powerful new tool to observe and quantify melting at the base of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, the collapse of which may help drive a worldwide increase in sea levels of more than 3 meters.
via Fiber optics in Antarctica will monitor ice sheet melting | Science/AAAS | News.
After 116 days of being subjected to extremely frigid temperatures like that in space, the heart of the James Webb Space Telescope, the Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) and its sensitive instruments, emerged unscathed from the thermal vacuum chamber at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
We know how, but not why. This video is a great explanation of our knowledge thus far. Thanks MinutePhysics, or 6 Minute Physics in this case.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB3QWTYIYCs
Physicists have developed the first ever long-distance optical tractor beam, and it can both repel and attract objects.
via Australian scientists have created a tractor beam that can move particles up to 20 centimetres.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/oct/17/air-forces-x-37b-spy-plane-returns-to-earth-after-/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntQ7qGilqZE
This is an old but amazing video. Worth sharing again.
