- AskScience AMA Series: I'm Thomas Hurting, we make tiny human brains out of skin cells, modeling brain development to help research treatments for diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s or Multiples Sclerosis, and to help develop personalized medicine. Ask me anything!
- Is there any evidence that dogs behave differently around human infants compared to around human adults?
- Is there an evolutionary reason that aquatic reptiles (such as ichtyosaurs) moved their tails horizontally, while aquatic mammals move their tails vertically?
- Why aren't local anaesthetics used for all surgery?
- Is there a point when children become sentient? Like, is it just a sudden "I exist", or is it more of a gradual thing?
- Would firing a bullet in a highly polluted area (ex: Beijing) have different ballistics than if it were fired in a clear environment (ex: montana)?
- How is there native fish in Lake Titicaca?
- Does the confirmation of gravitational waves contradict String Theory?
- Does light moving in a medium have a reference frame?
- Where in the universe does the Earth sit?
- Does our brain use more calories if we are actively doing something mentally stimulating?
- If in the ancestral environment hunter-gatherers humans lived in groups of 150-200 members, what caused the limit size or the consequent split?
- Would it be possible to release large amounts Dopamin, just by thinking of it?
- I get on a spaceship and travel at nearly the speed of light. When I come back to earth, I've aged less than you. But given that speed is relative, how does the universe "know" which one of us was moving quickly?
- Do humans work better under pressure?
- Does gravity increase as mass increases?
- Are we currently able to observe what a thought 'looks like' in the brain, i.e. see the exact path it takes between neurons?
- Is the LIGO experiment using the same design/layout with Michaelson's and Morley's experiment?
- Speed of the gravitational wave detected?
- What are the hazards of Fusion technology?
- Does one addiction reinforce the brain's Dopamine reward-loop for other addictions?
- How important was Clifford's work in the developpement of General Relativity?
- Put someone on bypass when a heart stops?
- [Physics]How do we really know speed affects time?
| Posted: 13 Feb 2016 04:34 AM PST Hi Reddit, Making your skin cells think – researchers create mini-brains from donated skin cells. It sounds like science fiction, but ten years ago Shinya Yamanaka's lab in Kyoto, Japan, showed how to make stem cells from small skin donations. Now my team at Johns Hopkins University is making little brains from them, modeling the first two to three months of brain development. These cell balls are very versatile – we can study the effects of drugs or chemicals. This promises treatments for diseases like Parkinson's, Alzheimer or Multiples Sclerosis. But also the disturbance of brain development, for example leading to autism, can be studied. And we can create these mini-brains probably from anybody. This opens up possibilities for personalized medicine. Cells from somebody with the genetic background contributing to any of these diseases can be invaluable to test the drugs of the future. Take autism – we know that neither genetics nor exposure to chemicals alone leads to the disease. Perhaps we can finally unravel this with mini-brains from the skin of autistic children? They bring the genetic background – the researchers bring the chemicals to test. And the mini-brains are actually thinking. They fire electrical impulses and communicate via their normal networks, the axons and neurites. The size of a fly eye, they are just nicely visible. Most of the different brain cell types are present, not only various types of neurons. This is opening up for a more human-relevant research to study diseases and test substances We've started to study viral infections, but stroke, trauma and brain cancer are now obvious areas of use. We want to make available mini-brains by back-order and delivered within days by parcel service. Nobody should have an excuse to still use the old animal models. And the future? Customized brains for drug research – such as brains from Parkinson patients to test new Parkinson drugs. Effects of illicit drugs on the brain. Effects of flavors added to e-cigarettes? Screening to find chemical threat agents to develop countermeasures for terroristic attacks. Disease models for infections. The list is long. And the ultimate vision? A human-on-chip combining different mini-organs to study the interactions of the human body. Far away? Models with up to ten organs are actually already on the way. This AMA is facilitated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) as part of their Annual Meeting Thomas Hartung, director of the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing, Johns Hopkins University Bloomburg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD. Understanding Neurotoxicity: Building Human Mini-Brains From Patient's Stem Cells I'll be back at 2 pm EST (11 am PST, 7 pm UTC) to answer your questions, ask me anything! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 12 Feb 2016 05:55 PM PST I often hear anecdotes of dogs acting more gently or protectively around babies/infants, but I wonder how much of this is just anthopomorphizing. Is there any scientific evidence to back this up? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 12 Feb 2016 03:13 PM PST |
| Why aren't local anaesthetics used for all surgery? Posted: 13 Feb 2016 06:34 AM PST After all, it's far safer, and doesn't involve putting somebody into a coma. I mean, local anaesthetic is used for some major surgeries (I.e. Brain surgery), so why isn't it used for all surgeries? Even so, why can't a patient just request local anaesthesia if they're afraid of going under? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 13 Feb 2016 06:16 AM PST |
| Posted: 12 Feb 2016 08:53 PM PST Specifically I am wondering if it would be more (or less) difficult to make extreme long range shots in a location that has high air pollution density. In addition, are there any factors other than just the PPM that would affect the ballistics of the round? [link] [comments]  |
| How is there native fish in Lake Titicaca? Posted: 12 Feb 2016 09:13 PM PST I understand how invasive especies can be introduced, but how did the fish that are native got there in the first place, after the lakes formation? [link] [comments]  |
| Does the confirmation of gravitational waves contradict String Theory? Posted: 13 Feb 2016 02:24 AM PST So I'm new to reddit, but i don't know where to ask this. Since the discovery of gravitational waves has confirmed that Einstein was right: gravity is a property of Space-Time, as Space-Time is deformed by mass, thus giving objects their trajectory through space; does this mean that String Theory is wrong? I might have no understood String Theory right, but if i understand correctly, it, like some of the theories that are being tested at the LHC are looking for the graviton, the particle that transfers the force of gravity. To me it seems that these two theories are incompatible. I may be very wrong, since it's unlikely that I understood String Theory. Thank you. [link] [comments]  |
| Does light moving in a medium have a reference frame? Posted: 12 Feb 2016 02:09 PM PST I've heard that something moving at the speed of light doesn't have a reference frame. Does this mean when light is moving slower it suddenly has a reference frame? [link] [comments]  |
| Where in the universe does the Earth sit? Posted: 12 Feb 2016 04:41 PM PST Are we above most things? Are we near the bottom? How far would would fall to the bottom? [link] [comments]  |
| Does our brain use more calories if we are actively doing something mentally stimulating? Posted: 12 Feb 2016 01:17 PM PST If our brains use around 20% of our calories, is this a general flat rate the brain just uses, or if we're doing something like learning or problem solving does it require more calories? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 12 Feb 2016 01:26 PM PST |
| Would it be possible to release large amounts Dopamin, just by thinking of it? Posted: 13 Feb 2016 04:29 AM PST |
| Posted: 12 Feb 2016 04:04 PM PST |
| Do humans work better under pressure? Posted: 13 Feb 2016 07:12 AM PST If I point a gun in someone's head and require a specific task done will the pressure of a life-threatening situation speed up the process or slow it down ? [link] [comments]  |
| Does gravity increase as mass increases? Posted: 13 Feb 2016 06:43 AM PST My son and I were discussing how you can never reach the speed of light because as you get closer to the speed of light you mass increases until you have almost infinite mass and it would take almost infinite energy to accelerate that mass to the actual speed of light. He wondered if there would be any harmful effects for a person going that fast and I wasn't sure how to answer. My first thought is that as you increase in mass, your own gravity would increase to the point that your bone and muscles could no longer support you and you would collapse into a gooey ball. Is there any truth to this? Does your own gravity increase as you increase velocity? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 13 Feb 2016 12:42 AM PST When we think of the same thing twice, are the thoughts physically identical (i.e same path)? Or am i asking the wrong questions? [link] [comments]  |
| Is the LIGO experiment using the same design/layout with Michaelson's and Morley's experiment? Posted: 13 Feb 2016 06:05 AM PST From what I have understood in both the LIGO and the Michaelson and Morley experiments a light beam is splitted and let run across some km. Then it is combined through the same prism and the energy change is measured through symbolometry. This energy change is caused because one of the two beams runs quickier. The only difference I can see is the size (LIGO is some km long amd M&M built it within an library) and most importantly that in LIGO one of the beams runs faster because of the space-time distortion (caused by the Gravitational waves) while in the Michaelson's and Morley's experiment the speed change is caused by the fact that one of the beams is running through the aether amd being affected by the earth's movement. I am not trying by any means to demote the importance of this discovery or the LIGO team. What they found is astonishing. I am just observing some similarities and asking for more info. Thanks! [link] [comments]  |
| Speed of the gravitational wave detected? Posted: 12 Feb 2016 08:02 PM PST So the gravity wave that was just detected came from over 1 billion light years away, but does that mean it began its travel more than 1 billion years ago? How fast does a ripple in space time propagate? I know the speed of light is the universal speed limit, but does this phenomena follow that rule? [link] [comments]  |
| What are the hazards of Fusion technology? Posted: 12 Feb 2016 07:19 AM PST Generally speaking, what are the hazards of the process of harnessing energy through nuclear fusion and more specifically what is the worst case scenario while operating the Stellarator or Tokamak type reactors? [link] [comments]  |
| Does one addiction reinforce the brain's Dopamine reward-loop for other addictions? Posted: 12 Feb 2016 06:15 PM PST |
| How important was Clifford's work in the developpement of General Relativity? Posted: 13 Feb 2016 04:31 AM PST |
| Put someone on bypass when a heart stops? Posted: 13 Feb 2016 03:57 AM PST So.. I was just wondering the other night, I'm sure there a lots of cases where a patients heart stop in a hospital during surgery/medical ward. I was wondering how often, after failed attempts of resuscitation, do they put a patient on bypass (blood pump of somekind - we have those,right?) Or would it take too much time to set up and the damage done would be irreversible? [link] [comments]  |
| [Physics]How do we really know speed affects time? Posted: 12 Feb 2016 01:42 PM PST I know that there was an atomic clock kept on the ground and they put an atomic clock in a plane and flew it around the world, and the clocks showed different times. Now I like to ponder the mysteries of the universe like a curious fellow I am. Now my question is, how did they arrive at the conclusion that speed affects time, when they used a device that counts the tiny vibrations of a cesium atom, which requires the movement of it. Now the reason I have this question is because if the speed of light is the fastest something can go, wouldn't the vibrations be reduced to zero? If the atom is moving at the speed of light, it wouldn't be able to vibrate in the direction of travel, thus giving a false positive right? I may be wrong here, or I am missing something stupid that slips my mind, I don't know. Can anyone here shed some light here? [link] [comments]  |
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