China is planning a trip to Mars — and they have the vegetables to prove it. In a recently concluded lab experiment, a 300 cubic meter cabin was converted into a grow-space that served as a "ecological life support system." The tiny biosphere could pave the way for a future mission to Mars in which plants will be used to take in carbon dioxide, while providing oxygen and sustenance for the pioneers living within in.

According to Deng Yibing, deputy director of the Beijing-based Chinese Astronaut Research and Training Center, the experiment was an attempt to create and study the complex interplay of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and water with people and plants — and all within a closed system. The study was conducted in Beijing with the help of German scientists.

The experiment, the first of its kind in China, produced four different types of vegetables. The system could someday allow astronauts to produce their own stocks of air, water, vegetables, and fruits.

Regrettably, the official press release was lacking in detail. Given that a truly functional closed biosphere has never actually been created, this would be a rather remarkable accomplishment. It's very likely that the Chinese are overstating the success of the experiment.

Writing in Discovery, Ian O'Neill agrees, saying that China may be getting ahead of itself. He also points to similar efforts elsewhere:

The US and Europe have been experimenting with food cultivation in closed environments for many years, ahead of proposed manned bases on the moon and Mars. Sadly, the funding for large scale tests off-Earth has not been forthcoming.

However, the International Space Station (ISS) has seen a variety of plants grown to observe their reaction to a microgravity environment. The impact of the higher radiation dose at low-Earth orbit has also been a focus of ISS tests on produce grown in space.

China is planing to land an exploratory craft on the Moon for the first time next year, the first critical stage in what is an ambitious space programme — one that includes a long-term plan for a manned Moon landing.

And according to the Xinhua news agency, Chinese astronauts may start a branch of China's ruling Communist party in space. The country's first astronaut, Yang Liwei, recently said, "If we establish a party branch in space, it would also be the 'highest' of its kind in the world."

Reds on a red planet? Kinda makes sense.

Source: Xinhua.

Image: A NASA Mars greenhouse concept. Credit: NASA via Discovery.

The line that separates water from land is a fascinating area for biologists to study. For some aquatic animals, like the orca whale, it's a place where they can briefly step outside the boundaries of their natural ecosystem and grab a quick bite to eat. The latest example of this unique feeding behavior was witnessed by French biologists who recently observed European catfish preying upon unsuspecting pigeons with frightening proficiency — an indication that these fish are more crafty and adaptable than previously imagined.

The study was conducted by Julien Cucherousset, Frédéric Santoul, and their colleagues at University of Toulouse, France. To observe the fish, they situated themselves on a bridge overlooking the Tarn River in Southwestern France. And what they saw came as a complete shock, as catfish have never been observed to do this before.

Just as remarkable was how good the fish appeared to be at it. Of the 45 breaching behaviors observed, 28% resulted in successful bird capture. A one-in-four success rate is incredible for any predatorial attack, let alone one that transcends the water-land barrier. These 'alien' catfish, which are invasive to the southwest region of France, have clearly stumbled upon an opportunity — one made possible by flexible behaviors which have allowed them to forage on completely new prey in a foreign environment.

While observing the catfish, the researchers also noticed that the fish only attacked when the pigeons were active in the water. Motionless birds, even when in the water, were left alone. This led them to conclude that the catfish were not using visual cues to spot the birds, but by sensing water vibrations instead. Essentially, the pigeons, by their movements, were triggering the attacks.

You can read the entire study at PLOS.

Geologists know that the most devastating earthquakes happen along subduction zones — those areas where tectonic plates slide beneath another. Less known, however, is where exactly along these danger zones an earthquake is likely to occur. But as new research from the University of Sydney suggests, scarred regions along the ocean floor — what are called fracture zones — are remarkably strong indicators of where great earthquakes are likely to happen. Based on this insight, the researchers have created a comprehensive map of our planet's most threatening danger zones.

According to geologists Thomas Landgrebe and Dietmar Müller, about 87% of the 15 largest earthquakes (8.6 magnitude or higher) and 50% of the 50 largest earthquakes (8.4 magnitude or higher) from the past 100 years can be linked to intersections between oceanic fracture zones and subduction zones. At the same time, smaller earthquakes don't tend to share this connection.

Not surprisingly, the catastrophic 2011 Tohoku-Oki and 2004 Sumatra quakes are located directly at these geological hotspots.

Other danger zones include the western coast of South America (especially Peru and southern Chile), western Central America, the west coast of North America, the southern Caribbean, and the continental ridges of the north Pacific.

In order to get the data required to make their map, Landgrebe and Müller analyzed 1,500 earthquakes that occurred since 1900. In addition, they studied the pre-existing geophysical evidence showing the Earth's fracture zones and subduction zones.

The information was then parsed through a data mining software program — one that was originally developed to analyze online user data. But instead of surveying items that are most likely to appeal to an Internet user, they used it to find tectonic environments most suitable for generating huge earthquakes.

But while the data mining technique helped to produce a map, it did not explain why great earthquakes are more prominent at these intersections.

The geologists theorize that it's on account of the physical properties of fracture zones — which result in strong, persistent coupling in the subduction boundaries. Essentially, the subduction areas become locked and capable of accumulating huge stresses over long periods of time. So when a critical threshold is reached, all the stored energy is released in a single cataclysmic event.

You can read the entire study at Solid Earth.

Image via Müller and Landgrebe.

On December 1, 2012, the American Psychiatric Association officially approved the final diagnostic criteria for the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V). The new ‘psychiatric bible' features a number of important changes to the existing canon, including the elimination and alteration of many familiar disorders. Here's what you need to know about the new guidebook.

Improvements in scientific understanding

The update, which is the first in twenty years, was compiled with the help of over 1,500 experts in psychiatry, psychology, social work, psychiatric nursing, pediatrics, neurology, and other disciplines from nearly 40 countries. The guidebook, which is used by clinicians and researchers to diagnose and classify mental disorders, will be released in the spring of 2013.

According to APA president Dilip Jeste, all of these revisions were the result of improvements in the scientific understanding of various mental illnesses made over the past two decades.

Unlike the classification of viral diseases and injuries, many psychological disorders lack validated diagnostic biomarkers, so psychiatrists often struggle to identify the right diagnosis. The APA hopes the DSM-V will provide clearer and more accurate diagnostic criteria for making clinical assessments.

And the APA trustees claim that they've been conservative in their approach to revising the new guidebook. The manual will include approximately the same number of disorders that were in the DSM-IV — going against the trend in other health fields. They did so by consolidating a number of conditions (like absorbing Asperger's Syndrome into the broader category of Autism Spectrum Disorder), while expanding more complex diagnoses into more discrete conditions (for example, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder now comprises four related sub-categories).

These changes, of course, come with ramifications. The introduction of new disorders may stigmatize people — potentially leading to discrimination, including difficulty in getting health insurance and finding a job. Also, narrowing certain criteria may result in fewer people getting formal diagnoses — having a heavy impact on insurance coverage and access to services. Needless to say, not everybody will be happy with these changes.

And on that note, here's what's new in the DSM-V:

Hoarding Disorder

Hoarding Disorder is now recognized as an official diagnosis — an addition that barely registers as a surprise, given its prevalence in today's society (there's even a reality television show dedicated to the condition). Psychologists will now be on the lookout for patients who have persistent difficulty throwing away or parting with their possessions — regardless of their actual value. Hoarding, quite obviously, has harmful effects, creating emotional, physical, social, financial, and even legal problems — both for the sufferer and family members.

Binge Eating Disorder

Binge Eating Disorder is also in. It got upgraded from its place in the "further study" area to the DSM-V's Section 2, with more details about the symptoms and behaviors of people with the condition. Unlike Bulima Nervosa, people with Binge Eating Disorder don't engage in follow-up behaviors like vomiting or the use of laxatives. Nearly 30% of patients enrolled in weight control programs suffer from this condition.

Excoriation Disorder

Compulsive skin-picking, what's called Excoriation Disorder, is also new to the DSM-V. It will be added to the section on Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders chapter. People with this disorder pick their skin for no apparent reason and target various parts of their bodies. It can involve picking, pulling, poking, squeezing, tearing, and even some scratching. Often, the condition escalates when scabs are persistently picked at; the disorder often escalates into a more overwhelming form of compulsive skin picking in which the urge to scratch is unbearable — what becomes a kind of neurotic excoriation.

Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder

Also new to the DSM-V is Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder — a diagnosis for children who exhibit persistent irritability and frequent episodes of behavior outbursts three or more times a week for more than a year. The APA trustees added DMDD to the manual to address a burgeoning problem in which bioplar disorder in children is being overdiagnosed and overtreated.

Autism Spectrum Disorder

As we reported a few days ago, Autism Spectrum Disorder got a significant overhaul. In addition to absorbing Asperger's Syndrome (which is now referred to as a high functioning form of autism), the Spectrum now includes Childhood Disintegrative Disorder (a condition in which children develop normally up until the age of 3 or 4 — but then quickly lose language, motor, social, and other skills already learned) and Pervasive Developmental Disorder (a nebulous term that has traditionally encompassed autistic-like characteristics).

Other changes

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder will be given special attention in DSM-V. Moving forward, PTSD will be broken down into four distinct diagnostic clusters instead of three. In particular, the new diagnostic criteria will pay more attention to the unique ways PTSD manifests in children and adolescents.

The APA trustees have also combined Substance Abuse and Substance Dependence into the singular Substance Use Disorder. According to a recent study, about 12% of people in the United States are addicted to alcohol, and 2-3% are addicted to illicit drugs.

The DSM-V also broadens Specific Learning Disorder to include issues with specific academic skills, a list that includes oral language, reading, written language, and mathematics.

The APA will stop using the term "pedophilia," instead referring to it as Pediophilic Disorder.

Though not official additions, disorders for 'further review' include Internet Use Gaming Disorder, Non-Suicidal Self Injury, and Suicidal Behavioral Disorder. These conditions, while they can be diagnosed, don't warrant reimbursement from insurance companies.

Rejections

The APA rejected several proposed diagnoses, including Anxiety-Depressive Syndrome and Attenuated Psychosis. Critics feared that this would have labeled millions of Americans with a mental disorder.

Other rejections included Hypersexual Disorder, Parental Alienation Syndrome, and Sensory Processing Disorder.

Images: Ambrophoto/shutterstock, PsychCentral, MCarper/shutterstock, Cresta Johnson/shutterstock.

In honor of Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, Lisa Hix of Collectors Weekly has put together a fascinating and sobering article that both commemorates and explains why members of the US Army Air Corp were allowed to customize their bomber jackets to such outlandish and extreme degrees. The Army, not known for its lax uniform standards, allowed their air-bound servicemen to decorate their jackets with pictures of scantily clad pin-up girls, favorite comic characters, lucky charms, and any other assortment of icons. The reason, says historian John Conway, may have something to do with the age of these soliders — but also the tremendous risks they had to endure.

Indeed, most of these guys were just out of their teens, with some as young as 18 years old. And they ways in which they emblazoned their military issued leather A-2 jackets were a reflection of their age and exuberance. Hix writes:

On the bawdiest of these jackets, scantily clad babes gleefully ride phallic bombs. On others, cuddly cartoon characters charge forward, bombs in tow, driven by a testosterone-fueled determination to kill. Some jackets depict caricatures of Native Americans or Pacific Islanders, usually drawn with bones in their noses. Even rarer are those showing Hitler being humiliated-while the number of bombs designated missions flown, swastikas represented German aircrafts destroyed.

The fact that the Army would allow their servicemen to decorate their jackets with such provocative images isn't really that surprising. Army Air Corps duty was one of the most hazardous professions of World War II.

John Conway, co-author of American Flight Jackets and Art of the Flight Jacket, explained to Collectors Weekly that, "When you were up there in a plane, you'd get shot at, and you couldn't call field artillery to support you. You had no ambulance, no medic. There was no tank to come in and run over the enemy. All it took was one accurate aircraft shot, and a plane full of 10 guys was gone."

Bombing missions over Europe carried incalculable risks. Actually, it was calculable — and to a disturbing degree; at the worst of times, a crew could expect a 1 in 15 chance of being shot down. And they would have most certainly known the odds — especially considering that many servicemen were required to fly upwards of 30 missions. Conway continues:

"We don't have any concept today of what losses are like," he says. "We hear, ‘We lost six guys in Afghanistan today,' and it's horrible. But it's not the same as losing a hundred B-17s in one raid, each one with 10 guys on it. That was happening day in, day out. In the old British Army, all the guys would come out of one town for each regiment. When they went to World War I, there were several cases where in one day, every man in a town was wiped out. So they stopped that old regimental system. During World War II, the attitude of the U.S. Army was, ‘Let's do whatever we can, try to keep these guys happy, they might not be here next week.'"

Bugs Bunny and other characters from Looney Tunes and Walt Disney cartoons were particularly popular motifs with young pilots, as were the Vargas Girls from Esquire magazine. (Disney artists, for what it's worth, designed many of the squadron patches or insignias.) Conway says we have to remember that American pop culture was a lot smaller and a lot more homogenous at the time. No one had the Internet, cable, or even a TV. The A-2 and nose art imagery tended to come from radio programs, newspaper funny pages, comic books, magazines, and cartoon reels shown before movies, which served as a common language for young Americans.

"Again, you're talking about guys who were 18, 19 years old," Conway says. "And this was the first place they'd ever been besides home. They tended to cling to things that were familiar to them. A lot of those guys read comic books and the comic strips in the newspapers when they were kids, and that stuff just stayed with them. They listened to popular radio shows like ‘The Lone Ranger' and ‘The Shadow,' and then they would visualize characters from those programs and paint them on the aircraft."

Be sure to check out our favorite jacket designs in the gallery (above), and read the entire article at Collectors Weekly (where there are more images).

Normally, our pupils dilate in response to changing light; as it gets darker, our pupils get larger. But they expand in size for other reasons as well, including when we're sexually aroused and when we're performing complex cognitive tasks. But it's also known that certain medications — including illicit drugs — can cause pupils to get larger.

Pupil dilation, what's also referred to as mydriasis, happens when one of two muscle groups become activated, namely the iris sphincter (yes, that's what it's called) and the iris dilator. The sphincter response is triggered by the parasympathetic nervous system (what regulates our autonomic bodily processes when we're at rest), and the dilator by the sympathetic nervous symptom (what controls physiological responses requiring a quick response — like fight-or-flight).

Needless to say, psychotropic drugs can have a profound effect on both of these systems.

Depending on the type of drug taken, therefore, either muscle group can become engaged. Essentially, if a drug can trigger a parasympathetic or sympathetic response, there's a good chance that it will also impact on pupil dilation. Specifically, mydriasis can be caused by stimulants and any drug that influences the adrenal glands — what can trigger certain parasympathetic responses.

For example, drugs like MDMA, ecstasy, cocaine, amphetamines, and some antidepressants (like SSRIs) can increase serotonin levels in the brain — a crucial neurotransmitter that regulates mood, including feelings of happiness and well-being. Serotonin agonizes to the 5-HT2A receptors in the brain — what has the downstream effect of triggering the mydriasis response, and in some cases, psychedelic episodes.

Consequently, mydriasis also occurs in people who take serotonin-inducing psychedelics like LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin.

Drugs that trigger the release of dopamine, a related neurotransmitter, can also induce mydriasis. Marijuana is a good example. Dopamine cause pupils to dilate by exciting the adrenergic receptors, what in turn increases adrenaline (which the autonomic nervous system is sensitive to).

It's important to remember that not all drugs will produce the same degree of pupil dilation. For example, MDMA will have a much more profound effect on pupil dilation than, say, an antidepressant.

And interestingly, other drugs, like opiates, cause the opposite effect — pupil contraction, or what's known as miosis.

Other sources: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Image: Shutterstock.

It's a fate that's only comparable to death. The coma, typically the result of a massive head injury or drug overdose, is a medical condition that continues to frustrate physicians, while also causing great anguish for friends and family members. But neuroscientists are starting to understand the condition a bit better — even catching a glimpse of what it's like to be trapped in a vegetative state.

Top image from the Sony Pictures 2012 miniseries, Coma.

The comatose state

Simply put, a coma is a deep and profound state of unconsciousness from which a patient cannot be woken.

A person in a coma is not brain dead — far from. In brain death, both conscious and cognitive functions have permanently ceased, what is typically the result of excessive damage to the cerebral neurons after the brain has been starved of oxygen. A comatose patient, on the other hand, is alive but completely unable to move or respond to their environment.

As far as neuroscientists can tell, patients in a coma have lost their thinking abilities and are utterly unaware of their surroundings; it's as if they're fast asleep. Comatose individuals are unable to respond to painful stimuli (like pin pricks or pinches), light, or sound. They're also unable to voluntarily move their bodies, feel, speak, or hear.

Recently, functional neuroimaging has provided new insights into the cerebral activity of patients in comas caused by severe brain damage. Unlike some patients in a vegetative state — a related condition we'll review in the next section — comatose patients do not exhibit any kind of neural patterns that would indicate conscious awareness, even after various forms of stimulation.

At the same time, however, comatose patients still have their non-cognitive capacities. They're able to breathe on their own, and their organs and blood circulation continues to function without external intervention. And they often twitch and move involuntarily.

Comas rarely last more than a month. It's more common than not for a patient to emerge from a coma after a few days or weeks. But in some unfortunate instances the comas persist. This scenario is often referred to as a vegetative state.

Most people who emerge from comas claim that they don't remember a thing — it's as if they were in a deep sleep. But some former comatose patients, like Geoffrey Lean and Aubrey Allyn, claim that they were conscious the entire time — they were just not able to control their bodies and wake up.

Even worse is the account of Rom Houben, a Belgian man misdiagnosed as being in a coma for 23 years — but was fully conscious the whole time. It turned out that he wasn't comatose at all — he was paralyzed, but unable to move or communicate. After successful treatments to alieviate the paralysis, he had this to say:

All that time I just dreamed of a better life. Frustration is too small a word to describe what I felt. I screamed, but there was nothing to hear. I shall never forget the day when they discovered what was truly wrong with me – it was my second birth. I want to read, talk with my friends via the computer and enjoy my life now that people know I am not dead.

The vegetative state

Indeed, as these accounts show, and as new technologies are revealing, there's a kind of grey area when it comes to comas. It's becoming evident that there is not just one kind of coma. Patients can have profoundly different experiences.

Take a person in a vegetative state, for example. This is a type of coma in which a patient does not emerge from unconsciousness — at least not fully. Some of these individuals are able to exhibit a higher degree of functioning. They often give the impression of a patient who is emerging from a coma. But unlike a person in a full coma, a vegetative patient is in a state of partial arousal, but still lacking in true or full awareness.

Neuroscientists describe two categories for being in a vegetative state. Four weeks after entering a coma, a person is declared as being in a persistent vegetative state. But after one year, they're re-classified as being in a permanently vegetative state.

All this said, there's no real consensus on the line that divides a comatose from a vegetative patient. The terms are often used interchangeably.

In terms of potential ‘functioning,' patients in a vegetative state are often seen to make spontaneous movements. Their eyes may open in response to some external cues. Or they occasionally grimace, cry, and even laugh. But these movements tend to be unpredictable, and they're completely unable to speak or respond to commands.

But as already noted, there may be more going on inside their minds than meets the eye.

Indeed, as recent insights by neuroscientists working at Western University in Ontario have revealed, it is in fact possible to communicate with some patients locked in a vegetative state by using an fMRI scanner. It's a remarkable breakthrough which suggests that more meaningful dialogue with vegetative patients may be possible.

And in fact, just last month a team of neuroscientists used the same technology to communicate with a man in a vegetative state. He was able to relay information to them about his condition, saying that he was not in any pain. Though no verbal communication was relayed, the neuroscientists were able to understand him by studying and mapping the neural patterns flashing on their screen (for example, thinking ‘yes' produced a different neural signature than thinking ‘no').

Future refinements to the technology will likely increase the sophistication of communication efforts. It's conceivable that very basic dialogue may someday be possible.

Of course, neuroscientists and medical practitioners would never dare to ask a patient the all-important question: "Do you wish to keep on living?" Bioethics boards would have a conniption over this. And arguably it could be interpreted as a violation of the Hippocratic Oath — though a strong case can be made to the contrary.

But eventually, given the potential for full communication, patients may eventually bring up the topic themselves.

The neuroscience of the coma

In terms of the science, comas can come about for any number of reasons, including the result of a serious head injury, intoxication (like a drug overdose), central nervous system diseases, metabolic abnormalities, strokes, and hypoxia (oxygen deprivation). Comas can also be induced deliberately with pharmaceuticals — what's done to shield patients from intense pain during the healing process.

Comas brought about by physical injuries occur when there's been damage to the ascending reticular system (either temporarily or permanently), or when there's been substantial damage inflicted across both cerebral hemispheres.

The ascending reticular activating system is what transmits messages to the limbic system and the hypothalamus. It also triggers the release of hormones and neurotransmitters. And crucially, it also facilitates functions like learning, memory — and wakefulness.

When much or both of the cerebral hemispheres are damaged, what's referred to as diffuse axonal injury (DAI), the trauma occurs over a more widespread area than what's experienced in a concentrated brain injury. In these cases, a person suffers extensive lesions to their white matter tracts — a central part of the nervous system that's made up of neural cells and axons. It's these brain regions that transmit signals from one area of the cerebrum to another, and between the cerebrum and lower brain centers. This type of damage is one of the major causes of unconsciousness, comas, and persistent vegetative states. And when severe enough, it can also result in death. Approximately 90% of patients with severe DAI never regain consciousness, and those who do tend to experience severe cognitive impairments for the rest of their lives.

Perhaps surprisingly, poisoning accounts for nearly 40% of comas. In these cases, toxic agents like narcotics, tranquilizers, and alcohol depress the nervous system. They can also damage or weaken the synaptic functioning of the ascending reticular system — this is what prevents arousal.

An overdose can also render a person unconscious to such a degree that breathing stops, resulting in anoxic brain injury, or what is also called cerebral hypoxia. As noted, lack of oxygen can cause crucial brain cells to undergo severe and widespread necrosis. Anoxic brain injuries can also be brought about by such things as drowning, suffocation, glucose shock, carbon monoxide inhalation, and even electric shock.

Are there any treatments?

Like any kind of medical emergency, time is trauma. As the American Academy of Neurology states, "The earlier the process inciting the comatose state is treated, the greater the likelihood of a more rapid complete recovery."

Patients who have suffered a serious anoxic episode are typically rushed to intensive care and put on a ventilator, usually in a specialist neurosciences center. Drugs may be administered to maintain adequate blood pressure and normal heart beat, while CT scans can give doctors a sense of the damage. At this stage patients may suffer seizures.

In some cases, patients may undergo medically induced cooling, called therapeutic hypothermia. This creates a protective effect on the brain and facilitates recovery by decreasing the oxygen and energy requirements of brain cells. And in fact, this may explain why some people survive after surprisingly long periods of immersion in very cold water.

Once a patient's proximate injuries have been treated and their condition stabilized, there's not much more that medical professionals can do. Caregivers at this point have to prevent infections such as pneumonias, bedsores (decubitus ulcers) and provide a balanced diet via feeding tubes.

Some patients in a coma can become restless or go into convulsions. In these cases, medicines can be administered to calm them, and side rails put on beds to keep them from falling.

Physicians also use the Glasgow Coma Scale, a neurological metric that allows them to record the severity of their patients' unconscious state.

In addition, researchers at the Belgian National Fund for Research are working to develop a numerical measure of consciousness by pulsing the brain of vegetative patients with a brief electromagnetic wave, and then measuring any neural responses using electrodes applied to the scalp.

As for efforts to bring patients out of a comatose state, the science is not quite there yet. Doctors will try to reverse the cause of the coma depending on the nature of the injury. So for glucose shock, for example, patients are often administered sugar. And as already noted, therapeutic hypothermia can also be initiated.

Interestingly, some patients who were thought to be in an unrecoverable vegetative state are awakening after being administered a $5 over-the-counter sleeping pill called zolpidem. This pill seems to be invigorating brain cells that were once thought to be dead.

As a concluding note, it's clear that physicians need to be more conscientious about determining the degree of conscious awareness in their comatose patients. For those friends and family members who cling to the hope that that their loved ones will soon wake up, there's nothing wrong with talking and touching — and in fact, for comatose patients who have some awareness, it may mean a great deal.

Other sources:

• National Institutes of Health
• American Academy of Neurology
• Intelihealth
• Coma Decision Algorithm

• Images: Sony Pictures, S.Pytel/Shutterstock, GWImages/shutterstock, Guardian/MRC, BBC.

Researchers from Parabon NanoLabs have developed a new drug for combating a lethal brain cancer called glioblastoma multiforme. But what makes this particular drug unique is that it was printed — molecule by molecule — using a DNA self-assembly technique. And even more remarkable is that the DNA was custom designed with a drag-and-drop computer program. The breakthrough will not only drastically reduce the time it takes to both create and test medications, it will also open the door to completely novel drug designs.

The new technology, which was in part funded by the National Science Foundation, is called the Parabon Essemblix Drug Development Platform, and it combines computer-aided design (CAD) software called inSçquio with nanoscale fabrication technology.

"What differentiates our nanotechnology from others is our ability to rapidly, and precisely, specify the placement of every atom in a compound that we design, " said lead investigator Steven Armentrout through the NSF's official release.

The inSçquio software allowed the scientists to design molecular pieces with specific, functional components. They then optimized their designs using a cloud supercomputing platform called the Parabon Computation Grid that searches for sets of DNA sequences that can self-assemble its new components.

To design the compounds, the researchers applied their knowledge of the cell receptors they were targeting or the biological pathways they were trying to affect. And they did so by applying the principles of basic chemistry to explore the space of all possible assemblies. Consequently, the process was very deliberate and methodical, what the researchers say is unique in the drug development industry.

And to hasten the drug production process, the researches took their new sequences and chemically synthesized trillions of identical copies of the designed molecules. So, in a matter of weeks — and sometimes days — the developers produced their drugs. The technique is considerably faster than traditional drug discovery techniques — many of which simply utilize trial-and-error screening.

Looking forward, Parabon is hoping to develop synthetic vaccines for biodefense and gene therapies that can target disease (what will be based on information from an individual's genome). And interestingly, the technology may be usable outside of medicine; future applications could also include the development of nanoscale logic gates, devices critical for computing, and molecular nanosensors.

Source: NSF

H/t: 3ders.

All images via Parabon.

Visitors to an Ikea in Toronto had to finish their Christmas shopping with some unexpected company this past weekend. A small, but stylish, monkey wearing a shearling-like winter coat was found on the loose and alone in the store's parking lot after escaping the confines of its owner's cage. The monkey was eventually lured into the store by Ikea staff, where it awaited capture by animal control.

The owners, who were shopping in the store at the time, have since been charged $240 for keeping a prohibited animal. As you might expect, the owners were not able to take the monkey back home.

The CBC reports:

Shopper Stephanie Yim said she believes she was the first person to spot the escaped monkey.

After parking her car on the upper-level parking lot, she saw the animal peeking out from behind another vehicle.

"It was the weirdest thing." she told CBC News. "I thought I was going insane."

Yim, along with other bystanders, began following the monkey as it skittered across the parking lot.

She said that while the monkey didn't appear to be scared, it cried out at times.

"It would start 'monkey-screaming,'" Yim said. "It seemed like it was screaming around for someone [it] knew. It was sad."

Images via National Post.

Geologists and paleontologists have been kicking around an idea for the past several decades which threatens to overturn the scientific canon surrounding the demise of the dinosaurs. Rather than an asteroid impact, say a growing number of researchers, it was extreme volcanic activity that drove the dinosaurs to extinction. Critics complain that there isn't enough evidence to support such a wild hypothesis — but new data is emerging in support of the claim.

The going theory, of course, is that a giant asteroid struck the Yucatan region of Mexico during the late Cretaceous period — a cataclysmic event that instigated a mass extinction across the entire globe. This theory, which gained popular acceptance several decades ago, supplanted the pre-existing notion that it was an ice age that drove the dinosaurs to extinction.

But it also cast aside the theory that volcanism might have been responsible.

The Deccan Traps

But now, the idea is resurfacing — and new evidence is shedding light on the possibility.

Back in 2008, Princeton geoscientist Gerta Keller rekindled the discussion by hypothesizing that dinosaurs died out gradually from climate change — what was caused by a series of severe volcanic eruptions in India at the end of the Cretaceous period.

Interestingly, this happened about 300,000 years after the Chicxulub impact in the Yucatan. Keller claims that the asteroid was too small, and that it had little to no effect on life. The real extinction action, argues Keller, didn't happen until a vast mountain range in India unleashed its pent-up fury.

Called the Deccan Traps, it's a rocky area that still covers much of India today. During the time of its eruptions — a phase that lasted tens of thousands of years — it spewed lava over an area the size of France, if not larger.

And indeed, the geological evidence points to a staggering geological event. According to Keller, these massive volcanic mountains poured out a relentless stream of lava that started to layer upon itself. Keller suggests that the total volume in cubic miles was greater than the Rockies and the Sierras combined.

Work by other researchers affirm Keller's claim; volcanologists Vincent Courtillot, Steve Self, Mike Widdowson, and Anne Lise Chenet have suggested that the lava eruptions occurred in pulses, with each lasting for about 10 to 100 years and in a phase that lasted anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 years. During the eruptions, the volcanoes would have shot sulphur dioxide and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, while the lava would have encroached on an area up to 650 miles (1,045 km) across.

So in addition to local destruction, the gasses would have caused climate cooling and eventual ocean acidification.

New evidence

Keller, whose work is being funded by the National Science Foundation, recently presented new evidence in support of this theory at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

As LiveScience is reporting, Keller's team recently analyzed ancient lava-filled sediments buried nearly two miles (3.3 km) below the ocean surface — samples that contained fossils from the K-T Boundary period, the time when the dinosaurs went extinct.

What the researchers discovered was that plankton species began to dwindle over the course of this time. The environmental stresses exerted on marine life resulted in plankton that were smaller and less elaborate — trends that were happening in the years after the eruptions.

Most species became extinct during this time, but a tough new plankton called Guembilitria exploded onto the scene. Keller's team found evidence of this species in marine sediments from Egypt, Israel, Spain, Italy, and Texas. During this time, Guembilitria represented between 80 to 98% of the fossils.

Tia Ghose explains the implications:

"We call it a disaster opportunist," Keller told LiveScience. "It's like a cockroach - whenever things go bad, it will be the one that survives and thrives."

Guembilitria may have come to dominance worldwide when the huge amounts of sulfur (in the form of acid rain) released by the Deccan Traps fell into the oceans. There, it would've chemically binded with calcium, making that calcium unavailable to sea creatures that needed the element to build their shells and skeletons.

Around the same time in India, fossil evidence of land animals and plants vanished, suggesting the volcanoes caused mass extinctions on both land and in the sea there.

Keller's research also suggests that it took the Earth about half a million years to recover, mostly on of account of at least four additional Deccan eruptions, which occurred about 280,000 years after the initial mass extinction.

Read more at LiveScience.

Other source: National Science Foundation.

Top image via. Image: Credit: National Science Foundation, Zina Deretsky & Gerta Keller.

The U.S. Air Force's use of unmanned aerial drones is typically regarded as one of the more futuristic ways in which the Pentagon goes about its business in the 21st century. But as a recent article in Wired suggests, the era of the combat drone has only just begun. According to reports, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman are secretly working on new stealth drones — an advanced piece of military technology that's being developed in anticipation of high-tech warfare over the Pacific.

Indeed, as David Axe notes, the U.S.'s multi-billion-dollar drone fleet may have helped against the insurgents of Iraq and Afghanistan. "But in a fight against a real military like China's, the relatively defenseless unmanned aerial vehicles would get shot down in a second," he writes. Hence the need for something a bit more... invisible.

In fact, it makes sense for UAV development for the post-Iraq and -Afghanistan era to favor "black" programs. As America's wars become more high-tech and its foes more heavily armed, the Air Force will need truly cutting-edge drones - the robot equivalents of the Cold War F-117 and B-2 stealth warplanes, both of which were designed and initially produced in total secrecy in order to protect their pricey new technologies.

In a recent article for Aviation Week, reporter Sweetman laid out the evidence for no fewer than two new, jet-powered, radar-evading Air Force UAVs still cloaked in black funding. In 2008 Northrop Grumman, maker of the B-2 stealth bomber, scored a $2-billion Pentagon contract that the company took pains to keep off the books. At the same time, Northrop hired as a consultant John Cashen, the man most responsible for devising the B-2′s radar-defeating shape.

The funding and Cashen's expertise were applied to a secret effort to build a larger successor to the Lockheed Martin-made Sentinel, according to Sweetman. The new drone "is, by now, probably being test-flown at Groom Lake," a.k.a. Area 51, Sweetman wrote.

Axe also speculates that the stealth drone could be used to fly ahead of the Air Force's new bomber; it could jam enemy radars and spot targets for the larger, manned plane.

More.

Image: af.mil.

Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer passed away last week at the tender age of 104 (he died two weeks shy of his 105th birthday). Regarded as a pioneer in the development of modern architecture, he will be primarily remembered for his design of Brasilia's civic buildings — the planned city that became Brazil's capital in 1960. Niemeyer also leaves behind an incredibly impressive portfolio of buildings and monuments that are considered absolute works of art — many of them designed with a futuristic flair. We've put together a gallery of our favorites.

Here's an excerpt from The Guardian's obituary:

The scale and invention of Niemeyer's work expanded with the growth of the Brazilian economy, and when in 1955 Kubitschek rode to power as president on a wave of trade union and Communist party votes, Niemeyer found himself on the brink of the greatest commissions of his life. The event was the realisation of a dream enshrined in the 1891 constitution, to transfer the capital from Rio to a location on the central plateau some 600 miles to the north-west and 3,000ft above sea level. The new capital would be called Brasilia, and Kubitschek decreed that it would have a population of 500,000 and would be built in four years, before his term of office expired.

In 1956 Costa won the competition for a masterplan of the new capital, and Niemeyer was commissioned to design all the principal public buildings. Within two years, the city was employing a workforce of 40,000, and an epic series of modern public buildings designed by Niemeyer was under construction. These included the Square of the Three Powers, the National Congress building (with the twin towers of the secretariat, the dome of the senate and the bowl of the lower house), the diaphanous lakeside residence of the president (better known as the Alvorada Palace), the high court, the national theatre and the endless rectangle of the Brasilia Palace hotel. Living and working in a timber cabin – the Catetinho, a national monument today – architects, engineers and even the president himself on his many visits to Brasilia, "went to the same dances and bars as the workers", according to Niemeyer.

"This was a liberating time. It seemed as if a new society was being born, with all the traditional barriers cast aside." Images of these structures, to be joined later by the foreign ministry and the circular cathedral, were published and marvelled at across the world, to this day retaining their awe-inspiring impact.

In his memoirs, The Curves of Time, published in 2000, Niemeyer declared: "I am not attracted to straight angles or to the straight line, hard and inflexible, created by man. I am attracted to free-flowing sensual curves. The curves that I find in the mountains of my country, in the sinuousness of its rivers, in the waves of the ocean, and on the body of the beloved woman. Curves make up the entire universe, the curved universe of Einstein." In an interview with Architectural Record, he said, "My work is not about form follows function, but form follows beauty or, even better, form follows feminine." Niemeyer made modern architecture sensual and alluring, even in the great red desert-like plains of Brasilia, far from ocean and mountains.

Image captions and credits:

Belo Horizonte, Brazil
Anthony Correia / Shutterstock.com

Aviles, Spain: Niemeyer Center, August 10, 2011 in Aviles. Designed by Oscar Niemeyer, the building offers a multidisciplinary program dedicated to the most diverse art and cultural events.
pedrosala / Shutterstock.com

Niteroi Contemporary Art Museum, in Rio de Janeiro
Niterói Contemporary Art Museum and Sugar Loaf, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Elder Vieira Salles / Shutterstock.com

Niteroi Contemporary Art Museum, in Rio de Janeiro
Giancarlo Liguori / Shutterstock.com

Cathedral of Brasilia
gary yim / Shutterstock.com

Niemeyer Center
pedrosala / Shutterstock.com

National Congress of Brazil, with Senate at the left, Chamber of the Deputies to the right, and office towers in between
Frontpage / Shutterstock.com

New cultural complex national library brasilia city capital of brazil
ostill / Shutterstock.com

Asturias
gary yim / Shutterstock.com

Serpentine Gallery Pavilion
Source

Procuradoria Geral da República
Source via Alamy

Niterói Contemporary Art Museum
Source

The Copan Building, became a symbol of Sao Paulo in the 1950s. More than 5,000 people live there, it is the largest residential complex in the country.
Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP

The man himself
Antonio orza/AFP

The Esplanade of Ministries in Brasilia.
AP Photo/Eraldo Peres/Keystone

The Museum of the Republic in Brasilia
CNN

Federal Supreme Court in Brasilia
CNN

Brasilia's Cathedral Interior
CNN

Planalto Palace, Brazil
CNN

Footbridge in Rocinha
CNN

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Sure, making robots for our animal companions seems like a good idea right now — but just wait until this bites us in the ass. The latest experiment in animal/machine integration comes from an electrical and computer engineering student from the University of Florida who has designed and built a mobile robot that's controlled by his pet parrot, Pepper. The parrot has quickly taken to the machine, which it's able to control by manipulating a joystick with its beak.

Called the BirdBuggy, the avian-friendly machine was constructed by Andrew Grey. The four-wheeled rover was part of a project to design robots that don't require continuous human guidance or remote controls to perform various tasks. The parrot, whose wings are clipped, can move the bot in any one of four different directions. The BirdBuggy also features front bump sensors that prevent Pepper from steering it into objects.

Interestingly, Grey was inspired to build the machine as a way to suppress Pepper's shrieking — a problem that seems to have now gone away. From the Alligator:

He first tried a robotic squirt gun that would squirt the African grey parrot every time he screamed. But when Pepper started using it as a birdbath, Gray decided to try a rattling device. Pepper eventually ignored the rattle.

The Bird Buggy is the latest in Gray's attempts to silence the screeches. Pepper is more calm when around Gray, so he wanted to enable the bird to follow him around the house.

The buggy is a square-shaped, four-wheeled metal vehicle lined with newspapers for Pepper's occasional droppings. In the front stands the joystick, which Pepper can control with his beak, and behind it is the bird's perch. Sensors in the front prevent the robot from bumping into anything, such as the occasional wall or chair leg.

When not navigated by the parrot, the Bird Buggy will go into autonomous mode and dock itself, a feature Pepper particularly dislikes.

"If you leave him on, he gets really angry because he tries to move the buggy, and it doesn't respond to him," Gray said, "so we just take him off. Otherwise, he has a fit."

Just wait until Pepper hacks into it. Then we'll see who starts shrieking.

More.

The Civil War ended a long time ago, but every once in a while we're reminded that it wasn't really that long ago. Take for example the game show participant from 1956 who actually saw Lincoln get assassinated. And now, as the Denver Post is reporting, an 87 year-old Denver woman is providing yet another modern day example of just how temporally close we still are to the Civil War. Her father, Hugh Tudor, was an infantry private in the Union Army from early 1864 through the summer of 1865.

How is such a thing possible? The Star-Telegram explains:

Tudor moved with his unit through Kentucky and Tennessee to the East Coast. He probably would have participated in Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's march to the sea except that an apparent case of the measles kept him back.

Born in Iowa in 1847, the son of Welsh immigrants lived in Missouri most of his life. That he has a daughter proudly talking about him in the year 2012 is a remarkable mathematical stretch, but not a stretch of the truth.

After the war, Lowrey's father settled in Dawn, Mo., a farming community south of Chillicothe, with his wife, Elizabeth Watkins. They had been married 50 years when she died in 1917. They had no children.

Three years later, at age 73, Tudor married 36-year-old Mary Morgan, who hadn't been married before but who had known "Mr. Tudor" her whole life.

Besides romance, Lowrey says, probably there were practical concerns. He likely needed a housekeeper and she security. And it seemed he still fancied having children.

Indeed, to the new union came two daughters, HuDean Grace in 1924 and Juanita Mary in 1926.

There the four are in a photo on their farm property — "That's the chicken house in the background, not our house," Lowrey says — Tudor looking grandfatherly with a white beard and head of white hair.

What's even crazier is that Juanita Tudor's story is not even unique; according to Sarah Anderson of the Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War, there are still 10 surviving Union veteran daughters. For context, there are less than 25 veterans still left alive from the First World War. Period. That includes veterans from all countries. And this is a war that ended more than half a century after the Civil War.

As for the Second World War, only 10% of American vets are still alive today. The fact that there are 10 women still alive whose fathers fought in the American Civil War is nothing short of astounding.

via the Star-Telegram

Image: Star-Telegram.

Hobbit fans looking to celebrate their victories by pouring back a cool one in the same tradition as Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin are in for a real treat. The Green Dragon, a New Zealand pub that recreates the look and feel of the same drinking establishment as seen in the Lord of the Rings films, is officially open for business.

Located in the tourist village of Hobbiton — a town that has been open to the public since 2002 — the new pub is intended to make the visiting experiences all the more Hobbit-like.

The pub manager, Russell Alexander, estimates that the release of the new Hobbit film will bring in at least 100,000 visitors over the next year. That would be quite an increase, as Hobbiton has been visited by 300,000 people over the past decade. The Green Dragon opened to the public in late November after New Zealand Prime Minister John Key conducted a "chain cutting" ceremony.

Located near Matamata, the Hobbit village was built in 1998 by Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema as a set for the films. But now, in preparation for the upcoming Hobbit trilogy, it has been expanded to include 44 "Hobbit Holes," or dwellings, which feature the characteristic circular doors made famous in the movies.

Hobbiton Board director and former Tourism New Zealand boss George Hickton said that in future it may be possible to convert the facility to allow for overnight stays.

Sources: Noosa News, Design Taxi.

Images via the official Green Dragon Facebook page, Stephen Barker, thisisbanannaz.

Check out this horrifying yet strangely compelling futuristic vision put together by artist Miles Johnston. Called "Substitution," it's the portrayal of a man who's brain-jacked himself into a fully immersive virtual reality — one so compelling that he has completely detached himself from the outside world.

Johnston writes, "I was thinking about how creepy it would be if in the future, people start neglecting their real bodies to exclusively live in downloaded indistinguishably real simulations. There would be all kinds of interesting philosophical debates to have, and loads of conflicting opinions on the technology. It's an idea I might explore more, especially if people dig it."

We dig it, Miles. More like this, please.

Be sure to check out Johnston's Deviantart site.

H/t GreyDay.

A team of international researchers has completed a study that suggests we will probably never find a ‘gay gene.' Sexual orientation is not about genetics, say the researchers, it's about epigenetics. This is the process where DNA expression is influenced by any number of external factors in the environment. And in the case of homosexuality, the researchers argue, the environment is the womb itself.

The Epigenetic Key

Writing in The Quarterly Review of Biology, researchers William Rice, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Urban Friberg, a professor at Uppsala University in Sweden, believe that homosexuality can be explained by the presence of epi-marks — temporary switches that control how our genes are expressed during gestation and after we're born.

Specifically, the researchers discovered sex-specific epi-marks which, unlike most genetic switches, get passed down from father to daughter or mother to son. Most epi-marks don't normally pass between generations and are essentially "erased." Rice and Friberg say this explains why homosexuality appears to run in families, yet has no real genetic underpinning.

Epigenetic mechanisms can be seen as an added layer of information that clings to our DNA. Epi-marks regulate the expression of genes according to the strength of external cues. Genes are basically the instruction book, while epi-marks direct how those instructions get carried out. For example, they can determine when, where, and how much of a gene gets expressed.

Moreover, epi-marks are usually produced from scratch with each generation — but new evidence is showing that they can sometimes carryover from parent to child. It's this phenomenon that gives the impression of having shared genes with relatives.

Masculinization and Feminization

To reach this conclusion, Rice and Friberg created a biological and mathematical model that charted the role of epigenetics in homosexuality. They did so by applying evolutionary theory to recent advances in the molecular regulation of gene expression and androgen-dependent sexual development.

This data was integrated with recent findings from the epigenetic control of gene expression, especially in embryonic stem cells. This allowed the researchers to develop and empirically support a mathematical model of epigenetic-based canalization of sexual development, or the tendency of heredity to restrict the development of some characteristics to just one or a few traits. Their model successfully predicted the evolution of homosexuality in both sexes when canalizing epi-marks carry over across generations with nonzero probability.

In their study, the team writes that they "tracked changes in chromatin structure that influence the transcription rate of genes (coding and noncoding, such as miRNAs), including nucleosome repositioning, DNA methylation, and/or modification of histone tails, but not including changes in DNA sequence."

The resulting model predicted that homosexuality can be produced by transgenerational epigenetic inheritance.

Normally, sex-specific marks that are triggered during early fetal development work to protect boys and girls in the womb from undergoing too much natural variation in testosterone, which should normally happen later in a pregnancy. Epigenetic processes prevent female fetuses from becoming masculinized when testosterone exposure gets too high, and vice versa for males.

Moreover, epi-marks also protect different sex-specific traits from swinging in the opposite direction; some affect the genitals, and others may affect sexual orientation. These epi-marks can be transmitted across generations from fathers to daughters, or mothers to sons.

Essentially, Rice and Friberg believe they have discovered the presence of "sexually antagonistic" epi-marks — which sometimes carry over to the next generation and cause homosexuality in opposite-sex offspring.

And importantly — in order to satisfy the rules of Darwinian selection — the researchers noted through their mathematical modeling that these epigenetic characteristics can easily proliferate in the population because they increase the fitness of the parent; these epi-marks normally protect parents from natural variation in sex hormone levels during fetal development. They only rarely reduce the fitness of offspring.

The entire study will appear online at The Quarterly Review of Biology later this week and go by the title, "Homosexuality as a consequence of epigenetically canalized sexual development."

Image: Shutterstock/Anton Gvozdikov; University of California.

The data that's analyzed by seismologists following a large earthquake is usually the record of a catastrophe — it typically means something really bad has just happened. But what if you could take this data and turn it into something beautiful instead? That's the thinking of designer James Boock who has rigged together an elaborate paint-globbing mechanism that uses seismic wave data to generate colorful abstract images. The end result is one-half geology, one-half art.

It's called the Quakescape 3D Fabricator and its construction was inspired after a major quake hit Christchurch, New Zealand last year. It works by taking earthquake data from the site GeoNet and converts it into a series of visual patterns.

The canvas is a moulded, topographical landscape that's shaped like a real section from Christchurch. The colors, which are ejected from a series of hanging cartridges, represent the magnitude of the seismic waves.

Boock put this together with the help of Josh Newsome-White, Brooke Bowers, Hannah Warren, George Redmond, Richie Stewart and Philippa Shipley.

Australian anthropologist Susan Hayes from the University of Wollongong has completed the first ever forensic facial reconstruction of Homo floresiensis, an extinct human relative that lived on the island of Flores as early as 17,000 years ago. And perhaps surprisingly, her interpretation reveals a face that was startlingly human. This species, which measured only three feet (one meter) in height and weighed about 70 pounds (32 kilograms), would have been very Hobbit-like indeed.

Hayes, who has a background in forensic science, completed the 2D reconstruction using high-resolution 3D imaging and CT scan data obtained from a female floresiensis skull found in the Liang Bua cave in Flores. The data was fed into a computer graphic program, allowing Hayes to create a virtual model of the skull. From there, Hayes was able to reconstruct the facial features.

Interestingly, Hayes also referenced the work of other paleo-artists — many of which were dominated by monkey features. Hayes's interpretation, on the other hand, suggests something a bit more human-like.

Looking at the reconstruction, floresiensis featured a wide face, a short chin, and a small forehead (which shouldn't be entirely surprising given that its brain was a third of the size of our own).

"She's not what you'd call pretty, but she is definitely distinctive," said Hayes.

Writing in Scientific American, Kate Wong explains the significance to anthropology:

[The Flores hobbit's] proportions are completely out of whack with what scientists expected to see in a human species that lived so recently in the grand scheme of things and instead call to mind much earlier human precursors such as Lucy's species, Australopithecus afarensis, which lived more than three million years ago. Thus experts have been debating the hobbits' place in the family tree ever since the bones were unveiled in 2004.

One intriguing theory holds that the hobbits may indicate that human ancestors left Africa far earlier than previously supposed. Conventional wisdom holds that the australopithecines never made it out of the mother land, leaving it to taller, larger-brained Homo to colonize the rest of the old world. But maybe, some researchers have suggested, the hobbits were a remnant population of australopithecine that made it out of Africa early on. That would help explain the creature's short stature and small brain, among other primitive features.

Hayes's work was recently presented at the Australian Archaeological Conference being held from December 9 to 13 at the University of Wollongong. While interesting, it's important to note that Hayes's reconstruction has yet to be accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal (which is not to suggest that it won't).

Images: Susan Hayes.

We're not entirely sure what's going on in the new "My Revenge" video from San Francisco indie rockers King Loses Crown — but it features a bunch of robots who are seriously pissed off and clearly up to something. The high-end video was directed by Jim Mitchell, who has done work as the VFX director for such projects as the Harry Potter films, Sleepy Hollow, and Jurassic Park III.

King Loses Crown's upcoming EP, You Can't Escape, will be released on February 19, 2013.