Science

Scientists are one step closer to knowing what you've seen by reading your mind. Having modeled how images are represented in the brain, the researchers translated recorded patterns of neural activity into pictures of what test subjects had seen.

Though practical applications are decades away, the research could someday lead to dream-readers and thought-controlled computers. "It's what you would actually use if you were going to build a functional brain-reading device," said Jack Gallant, a University of California, Berkeley neuroscientist.

A lack of sleep could help toxic plaques develop in the brain, accelerating the progression of Alzheimer's disease.

David Holtzman looked at how sleep affected the levels of beta-amyloid protein in mice and humans. This protein causes plaques to build up in the brain, which some think cause Alzheimer's disease by killing cells.

I want to live forever. I want to learn how to fly. High. I feel it coming together. And, thankfully, so does celebrated large brain and, who knows, maybe "Kids from Fame" aficionado Ray Kurzweil.

In an article reported by the Telegraph, Kurzweil says that our technological and genetic know-how is marching at such a furious pace that in 20 years' time we should be holding in our sweaty, excitable hands the nanotechnological secrets of our existence.

HOW far could an astronaut travel in a lifetime? Billions of light years, it turns out. But they ought to be careful when to apply the brakes on the return trip.

Ever since cosmologists discovered that the universe's expansion is accelerating, many have wondered just how much this will constrain what we could see with telescopes in the future. Distant regions of the universe will eventually be expanding so fast that light from any objects there can never reach us.

In 1988, 44-year-old Russian bioweapons researcher Dr. Nikolai Ustinov while working at Russia's Vector Institute on the Marburg virus, a potent pathogen, accidentally pricked himself with a needle he was using to inject guinea pigs. The researcher was kept in quarantine, and he kept a detailed journal of his symptoms, even as his fingers bled onto the pages. In the end he died and Russia harvested his blood to produce Variant U, named in his honor, which was one of the most pathogenic bioweapons to date.

The Tyrannosaurus Rex is arguably the most iconic symbol in paleontology and the study of dinosaurs. Its gaping jaws; massive hind legs; stocky, sweeping tail; and tiny arms form a distinct image that captures the imagination of many, particularly children just becoming interested in the field. Thus it is a major breakthrough that a species that is either a T. Rex ancestor or closely-related co-descendant has been discovered.

As if we didn't already have enough germs and toxins to deal with in our home environments (the lead in our paint; flame retardants in our furniture; indoor air quality and even the resulting air purifiers; to name a few), we now get to fret over another perpetrator: the showerhead.

SO FAR this year, about 4000 people have died in Mexico's drugs war - a horrifying toll. If only a good fairy could wave a magic wand and make all illegal drugs disappear, the world would be a better place.

Dream on. Recreational drug use is as old as humanity, and has not been stopped by the most draconian laws. Given that drugs are here to stay, how do we limit the harm they do? The evidence suggests most of the problems stem not from drugs themselves, but from the fact that they are illegal. The obvious answer, then, is to make them legal.

A NASA strategy proposal shifts the US human space program away from returning to the moon in favour of a stepping-stone approach aimed at reaching Mars, including using commercial space launch services, according to a document seen by Reuters.

The proposal is not yet official policy but is the US space agency's response to one of five options contained in review ordered by President Barack Obama of Nasa's post-shuttle program that plans to put humans on the moon again by 2020.

The Miller-Urey experiment, conducted by chemists Stanley Miller and Harold Urey in 1953, is the classic experiment on the origin of life. It established that the early Earth atmosphere, as they pictured it, was capable of producing amino acids, the building blocks of life, from inorganic substances.