Coptic Tombstone Unearthed At Sphinxes Avenue In Luxor

If you want to study better and learn faster or even teach, using the Feynman Technique is good starting point!

Jimmy Kimmel sends a message to the Anti-Vaccine movement.

He invited some real medical professionals to address the issue of the anti-vaccine movement, watch the full clip here.

10 Smartest Living People on Earth

Cannabis Linked to Bipolar Symptoms in Young Adults

Cannabis use in youth is linked to bipolar symptoms in young adults, finds new research by the University of Warwick.

Researchers from Warwick Medical School found that adolescent cannabis use is an independent risk factor for future hypomania – periods of elated mood, over-active and excited behaviour, and reduced need for sleep that are often experienced as part of bipolar disorder, and have a significant impact on day-to-day life.

Led by Dr Steven Marwaha, a clinical academic Psychiatrist, the research analysed data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children and found that teenage cannabis use at least 2–3 times weekly is directly associated with suffering from symptoms of hypomania in later years.

There was a dose response relationship such that any use still increased the risk but less powerfully.

The Warwick research is the first to test the prospective association between adolescent cannabis use and hypomania in early adulthood, whilst controlling for important other factors that might explain this connection (e.g psychotic symptoms).

Full open access research for “Cannabis Use and Hypomania in Young People: A Prospective Analysis ” by Steven Marwaha, Catherine Winsper, Paul Bebbington, and Daniel Smith in Schizophrenia Bulleting. Published online November 28 2017 doi:10.1093/schbul/sbx158

Biologists create beetle with functional extra eye

On “Game of Thrones,” a three-eyed raven holds the secrets of the past, present and future in a vast fantasy kingdom. But for real-world biologists, a “three-eyed beetle” may offer a true glimpse into the future of studying evolutionary development.

Using a simple genetic tool, IU scientists have intentionally grown a fully functional extra eye in the center of the forehead of the common beetle. Unraveling the biological mechanisms behind this occurrence could help researchers understand how evolution draws upon pre-existing developmental and genetic “building blocks” to create novel complex traits, or “old” traits in novel places.

The study’s results appear in the journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The work also provides deeper insights into an earlier experiment that accidentally produced an extra eye as part of a study to understand how the insect head develops.

“Developmental biology is beautifully complex in part because there’s no single gene for an eye, a brain, a butterfly’s wing or a turtle’s shell,” said Armin P. Moczek, a professor in the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Biology. “Instead, thousands of individual genes and dozens of developmental processes come together to enable the formation of each of these traits.

Eduardo E. Zattara, Anna L. M. Macagno, Hannah A. Busey, Armin P. Moczek. Development of functional ectopic compound eyes in scarabaeid beetles by knockdown oforthodenticle. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2017; 114 (45): 12021 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1714895114

The creation of three-eyed beetles through a new technique developed at IU provides scientists a new way to investigate the genetic mechanisms responsible for the evolutionary emergence of new physical traits.Credit: Photo by Eduardo Zattara

Outrage after Kyrgyzstan reburies its only ancient mummy

Scientists have called for Kyrgyzstan’s only mummy to be immediately dug back up after the 1,500-year-old relic was taken from a museum and hastily reburied on the eve of a presidential election in a decision celebrated by self-professed psychics.

The female mummy was put back in the ground in mid-October in the same dusty corner of southern Kyrgyzstan where it was discovered in 1956 after a sudden ruling by a state commission.

The decision was made despite strong opposition from the only archaeologist on the commission and culture minister Tugelbai Kazakov, who played the decisive role in the call, resigned on Saturday. 

Kazakov said the mummy had been largely neglected by scientists and the country lacked the finances to keep it in good condition. Read more.

Just 1°C of ocean warming can upend marine ecosystems 

For 9 months, the researchers monitored the distribution and growth of marine species that settled on the heated boxes and compared them with those that lived above unheated boxes. All it took was one look to notice the difference, Ashton says. In the 1°C increase experiment, a single species of moss animal, Fenestrulina rugula, doubled its growth rate. Within 2 months, the calciferous shelves it created dominated the community, the team reports today in Current Biology. What’s more, overall species diversity plummeted by 50%.