Dolphins seem to be all over the news these days. Just last week we told you about a pod of sperm whales who adopted a malformed bottlenose dolphin, and how a dolphin tangled up on a fishing hook asked a deep sea diver for help. Now, according to a study published in the journal Marine Mammal Science, a group of dolphins were seen trying to prevent an ailing companion from drowning by teaming up and propping it up to the surface with their bodies. It's the first time this sort of behavior has ever been documented in dolphins.

Just as a warning, the video above is quite sad, as it does show a dying, drowning dolphin who eventually succumbs to the elements. You may want to avoid the video if you're particularly sensitive to this sort of stuff.

There are many documented accounts of dolphins coming to the rescue of humans, so it really shouldn't be a surprise to hear that they also work to help each other out during a crisis situation. And indeed, since the 1960s marine biologists have known about care-giving behavior of dolphins, but only so-called 'nurturance behavior' when a mother tries to help a stillborn calf to the surface by using her back.

But in this unprecedented case, a group of Korean researchers observed the dolphins conducting a rescue attempt on a dying adult member. They did so while surveying a large group of long-beaked common dolphins off the South Korean coast back in 2008. Kyum J. Park of the Cetacean Research Institute in Ulsan, Korea and colleagues were observing a group of hundreds of dolphins when they noticed that a small group of 12 had separated from the larger pod and were splashing near the boat.

On closer inspection, the marine biologists noticed that a female member of the pod was not doing so well. It had red marks on its belly, and its flippers appeared to be paralyzed — an indication of a severe and life-threatening injury. It was splashing its tail, its body constantly tipping over to one side, leaving its abdomen often visible to the researchers.

To prevent it from drowning, the group of dolphins took turns to support it from below, nudging it and correcting its balance. But after 30 minutes of this, they had to resort to more desperate measures: They formed a kind of raft by joining their bodies together. The biologists observed that five dolphins worked at a time, lining up horizontally so that the ailing dolphin could ride on their backs. The dolphins also used their beaks to keep the dying dolphin's head up.

But the rescue attempt was not to be. After a few minutes of this desperation measure, the ailing dolphin died, its body hanging vertically in the water. Several dolphins continued to interact with the corpse, frequently rubbing and touching it, swimming underneath, and blowing bubbles on it. Eventually, however, it sank to the bottom, and they moved on.

Now, as Michael Marshall of New Scientist is eager to point out, "The act does not necessarily mean dolphins are selfless or can empathise with the pain of their kin." He quotes biologist Karen McComb who suggests that the simple act of working together could bond the group more strongly, or that the effort could help maintain the group, and thus better control their territory.

That's all fine and well, and even plausible. But scientists shouldn't dismiss the possibility that dolphins are truly empathetic and acting out of a sense of compassion. In fact, cetaceans are one of only a few species, like humans, who possess mirror neurons — a cognitive attribute that endows animals with the ability to form a mental conception of another mind, a biological prerequisite for compassion. And in fact, genetic studies are showing that dolphins have a brain that's remarkably human-like in its capacities.

At any rate, more research needs to be done to prove that dolphins have the capacity for empathy. But if their actions are of any indication, it may be a mistake for us to withhold judgment on the matter.

You can read the entire study here.

Supplementary sources: BBC and New Scientist.

We've been told since we were children that we need to eat three square meals a day. But new research shows that we don't need to be eating throughout the course of the day. And in fact, it might even be undermining our health. These insights have given rise to what's known as "intermittent fasting" — the daily restriction of meals and caloric intake. Here's why some health experts believe you should starve yourself just a little bit each day.

Most people associate fasting with juice cleanses or religious rituals — a torturous affair that lasts an entire day if not longer, and the sort of thing that should only be done a couple of times each year. But fasts can encompass any number of different strategies, including routines that simply limit the times when you eat each day, or on certain days of the week.

For example, there's Alternate Day Fasting (ADF) and the Two Day Diet (also known as the 5:2 diet). We'll get into these in just a bit, but what's really starting to take off is daily fasting — the practice of eating only during an 8-hour window of your choosing, and then fasting for the remaining 16 hours of the day.

While some might be inclined to cynically dismiss intermittent fasting as just another fad diet, the scientific evidence in support of daily fasting (or any fasting for that matter) is compelling. Restricting caloric intake for extended periods seems to do a remarkable job of staving off a number of health problems, while yielding some definite benefits.

Now before we get into the details, it's important to note that intermittent fasting is not for everyone. Before you try any of this, you should probably check with your doctor to make sure you're healthy enough to go without food for an extended period — even if it's just a 16 hour stretch. It's also important to note that intermittent fasting is not really meant as a way to lose weight — though it happens to be a good way to regulate food intake.

Time restricted feeding

One of the most important studies in this area was conducted just last year at Salk's Regulatory Biology Laboratory. In an experiment, biologist Satchidananda Panda and colleagues restricted the feeding of mice to — conveniently enough — an 8-hour period each day. The researchers were attempting to study whether obesity and metabolic diseases like diabetes were the result of high-fat diets, or from the disruption of metabolic cycles.

To that end, Panda gave the mice lots of fat to eat. In fact, 60% of the calories consumed were derived from fat (which was meant to simulate foods like chips and ice-cream). The researchers also created a control group that ate the same thing, but these mice could eat any time they wanted (interestingly, as nocturnal creatures, they ate half their meals at night, while grazing on the remainders during the day). As for the restricted group, their 8-hour window was at night.

One hundred days later, the free-for-all group was a mess. They gained weight, developed high cholesterol, high blood glucose, and experienced liver damage and diminished motor control (ouch).

But as for the mice who practiced the intermittent fast, they weighed 28% less and showed no signs of adverse health. And what's remarkable is that both groups ate the same amount of calories from the same fatty food. Not only that, the fasting mice also performed better on exercise tests — including a control group of mice who were eating normal food. (You can check out the study for yourself: "Extended Daily Fasting Overrides Harmful Effects of a High-Fat Diet: Study May Offer Drug-Free Intervention to Prevent Obesity and Diabetes")

As a result, the scientists concluded that time restricted feeding can prevent metabolic diseases — and without having to restrict caloric intake. At least in mice. They theorize that eating willy-nilly throughout the day creates metabolic disturbances to naturally occurring metabolic cycles. Essentially, the scientists say that spreading caloric intake throughout the day perturbs metabolic pathways that are regulated by circadian clocks and nutrient sensors.

It's possible to extrapolate this to humans, too. Though anthropologists are not entirely sure how our paleolithic ancestors ate, it's unlikely that they sat down for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Those are eating routines from a more modern era — and even then, it's likely that only the wealthy could afford multiple meals in one day. In all likelihood, our ancestors ate one or two big meals a day. And that was it. Consequently, their bodies were likely both adapted for and accustomed to going for extended periods without food during much of the day.

Go Mode

Other studies point to similar conclusions. Take the work of Valter Longo, for example. Longo, who works out of the University of Southern California's Longevity Institute, has studied the effects of intermittent fasting on IGF-1, an insulin-like growth factor.

When we consume food, this hormone keeps our body in "go" mode, where our cells are driven to reproduce and facilitate growth. This is great when we need it, but not so much when we're trying to keep off the weight. Moreover, while it's good for growth, it can also speed up the aging process. And in fact, Longo compares the effect to "driving along with your foot hard on the accelerator pedal."

Intermittent fasting, on the other hand, decreases the body's expression of IGF-1. And it also appears to switch on a number of DNA repair genes. Restricted feeding, says Longo, makes our body go from "growth mode" to "repair mode."

Just As Effective as Caloric Restriction

Other research by Krista Varady of University of Illinois in Chicago has looked at the way fasting impacts chronic diseases, like cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer. Her work, which involves both animal and human test subjects, seeks to compare the effects of intermittent fasting with caloric restriction (an extended low-calorie dietary routine that has known health benefits).

What her animal models showed was that intermittent fasting (in this case, alternate-day fasting) lowers the chances of acquiring diabetes, while also lowering fasting glucose and insulin concentrations — and at rates comparable to caloric restriction.

Her tests on human subjects were not much different, which showed greater insulin-mediated glucose uptake. Her evidence suggested that fasting can increase HDL-cholesterol (that's the good kind), while lowering triacylglycerol concentrations. Fasting had no effect on blood pressure. She concluded her study by suggesting that fasting can modulate several risk factors that are known to bring about various chronic diseases.

Moreover, her study showed that intermittent fasting can offer many of the same benefits of caloric restriction, which includes a slight increase in longevity (though this has been recently thrown into question) and increased insulin sensitivity.

Varady recommends an alternate-day fasting routine in which there's no need to restrict the quantity of foods for one day (yes, really), followed by a day in which no more than 600 calories can be consumed.

Another typical intermittent fast is the so-called "5:2 diet." People using this strategy are encouraged to eat normally for five days of the week, but two days are set aside for the fast in which no more than 600 calories are consumed.

Other benefits

And there's more. In addition to Varady's study, other research shows that intermittent fasting can offer neuroprotective benefits. Studies on humans show that it can help with weight loss and reduce disease risk.

And incredibly, there may even be a link to cancer. Another study study by Varady and M. Hellerstein on mice indicated that both caloric restriction and alternate-day fasting can reduce cancer risk and reduce cell proliferation rates.

Short-term fasting can induce growth hormone secretion in men (which is a problem for guys after they hit 30), it reduces oxidative stress (fasting prevents oxidative damage to cellular proteins by decreasing the accumulation of oxidative radicals in the cell — what contributes to aging and disease onset), and it's good for brain health, mental well-being, and clarity.

And as a study published just last week has shown, restricting calories can also lengthen telomeres — which has a protective effect on our DNA and genetic material, which in turn helps with cellular health (i.e. it helps us extend healthy lifespan).

And for people who wish to maintain a ketogenic diet — a metabolic state in which the body is in a perpetual state of fat burning instead of carbohydrate burning — intermittent fasting is a good way to help the body stay in ketosis.

Not As Hard As It Sounds

I actually practice daily intermittent fasting, and I've been doing it for about five months. Admittedly, the first week was difficult, but now I don't give it a second thought. My cravings have largely disappeared, but my stomach starts to grumble in the late stages. I feel great, though, my mood is upbeat, and I'm often full of energy (I also do strength-and-conditioning work, which helps).

My particular routine — which is quite typical for daily intermittent fasters — sees me having my last meal of the day sometime between 6:00 and 8:00 PM. But then I don't eat until 1:00 PM the next day. My lunch is usually a big deal, and I savor every bite (a neat benefit of the daily fast is how much better food suddenly tastes). Likewise, my dinner is also a grand affair. So I basically eat two solid meals each day, and fast for a 16 hour stretch.

I also drink coffee and tea during the fasting period (both without cream and sugar). These are zero calorie foods that have little impact on the body's metabolism. And not only that, caffeine is a known appetite suppressant.

Lastly, I also tend to eat very little carbs. As many people know, carbohydrates are notorious for creating food cravings — carbs cause a kind of negative feedback loop. But as all this new research it's showing, it's not necessarily the kind of foods you eat. Rather, it's the fasting that's important. But that said, I wouldn't tempt fate; it's probably prudent to keep the foods healthy.

As a final note, given that this is a restrictive dietary routine, it's important to keep our health goals in mind as they relate to our daily enjoyment of life. Limiting our eating to such a small window of time could certainly be construed as a draconian measure. If a routine like this threatens to make you miserable, it may simply not be worth the bother.

But for me, it's not a problem, and fits in rather nicely with my overall health strategies.

Images: lev dolgachov/Shutterstock, cath5/Shutterstock, Valter Longo, Krista Varady.

Back in 1903, the Lumière Brothers invented autochrome technology, an innovative photographic technique that allowed for extraorinarily vivid color images. Now, while some of these rare photographs might seem photoshopped or enhanced, they are the real deal — and a remarkable glimpse of what Paris looked like during the first part of the 20th century.

These images are courtesy of the Paris 1914 project, an effort to archive these images. The pictures were taken between 1907 and 1930.

*Correction: These images were taken by Paris1914 from the Albert-Khan Museum.

*Update: And it appears that these photos were in fact adjusted by having the brightness of the colors enhanced.

From the website (translated from French by Google):

The technique was based on a composite of black and white emulsion passed through a series of colored filters (red, blue and green).

The presence of these filters reduced the sensitivity of the emulsion, where the length of the pause time required and the difficulty of capturing the movement. The first shots were made ​​in Morocco in 1907. The process became a success such and some factories produced up to 6,000 plates per day! This technique was abandoned in 1935 in favor of the process Kodachrome, then Agfachrome the following year.

The banker Albert Kahn, eager to leave an imprint of the period, sent photographers across five continents to create the "Archives of the Planet." Its foundation is now a base of approximately 72,000 autochrome images

The images on this site are among others the work of Léon Gimpel, Stéphane Passet, Georges Auguste Chevalier and Leon.

Tons more here.

H/t Philly.com.

Introducing Tyrannoneustes lythrodectikos, a marine super-predator that lived over 163 million years ago. It looks like a cross between a dolphin and a crocodile — and for good reason. Scientists say it's a transitional species that separated marine crocodiles from their larger, more fearsome relatives.

The fossil was discovered way back in the early 1900s, but it was only identified recently by Mark Young and his colleagues. The specimen is the oldest known large-bodied predatory metriorhynchid, and its remains are currently housed at the Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow.

Tyrannoneustes had pointed, serrated teeth, and a large gaping jaw which allowed it to feed on large-bodied prey. And in fact, it likely fed on creatures far larger than what its rival predators were capable of. But it eventually branched off into crocodiles, a species that fed on much smaller animals.

You can read the entire study here.

Image: Photograph: Dmitry Bogdanov/University of Edi/PA.

Microorganisms have been found in virtually every corner of the Earth, from deep sea volcanoes to the tops of frozen mountains. They've also been discovered high up in the atmosphere — but scientists haven't been entirely sure as to nature and extent of these elusive high-altitude organisms. Now, new research suggests that there's a surprising amount of bacteria and fungi as high as 30,000 feet. And remarkably, these microbes could be affecting the climate, as well as contributing to the spread of diseases down on Earth.

To reach this conclusion, a team of scientists led by Athanasios Nenes rode aboard several NASA DC-8 aircraft to the middle and upper troposphere regions of the atmosphere above the Caribbean Sea and portions of the Atlantic Ocean. There, at about 6 miles (10 km) above the surface, they took samples of rarified air using onboard instruments and an array of filters.

The various trips that encompassed the Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes campaign were timed so that the researchers could take samples both before and after a pair of tropical hurricanes swept through the regions below, namely hurricanes Earl and Karl in 2010.

Once back at the lab, the scientists used genetic techniques (i.e. polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and gene sequencing) to determine which kinds of microorganisms were present at such extreme altitudes, and in what quantities. According to the researchers, it was the first study of its kind — a paper that has now been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

What they discovered came as a complete surprise — both in terms of the diversity of microbial life, and also the quantity. The troposphere, it would appear, is home to its own high-altitude microbiome.

Specifically, the researchers found mostly marine bacteria, while air masses that originated over land had mostly terrestrial bacteria. Clearly, the hurricanes were spewing these organisms high up into the atmosphere, creating a dynamic mixture. In terms of numbers, 20% of the particles detected were from bacterial cells ranging from 0.25 to 1 microns in diameter; and in terms of distribution, there were about 144 bacterial cells found in every cubic foot of air.

They also found fungi, but not nearly as much as the bacteria.

Of the bacteria discovered, there were 17 different types, including some capable of metabolizing atmospheric carbon compounds like oxalic acid. This may explain why the hardy bacteria is capable of surviving at such a height.

But not only that, researchers also speculate that these particular microorganisms could be affecting the weather. They theorize that these organisms could be contributing to cloud formation via ice accumulation — a kind of bacterial cloud seeding. "[T]he microbiome," write the researchers, "is a dynamic and underappreciated aspect of the upper troposphere with potentially important impacts on the hydrological cycle, clouds, and climate."

As another interesting note, the researchers also discovered Escherichia and Streptococcus bacteria — microbes that are associated with human and animal feces — and by consequence, diseases. The scientists now wonder — because what goes up must come down — if the tropospheric layer may be contributing to the spread of illnesses around the globe.

Finally, because these bacteria are able to survive such harsh conditions, this research is also of significance to the search for extraterrestrial life and the field of astrobiology. It's conceivable, given these observations, that microbial life may be discovered in the atmospheres of exoplanets.

Read the entire study here.

Images: Top: Shutterstock/Lipskiy. Inset: NASA, Georgia Tech Photo: Gary Meek.

As if to tell the world that it's blazing a path into the mid-1950's, Iran's state news agency announced on Monday that the country's Defence Department has successfully sent a monkey into suborbital space. Iran insists that the project is part of its broader plan to send humans into space, but the international community is not buying it, saying that the same technology could be used to deliver a nuclear warhead. Meanwhile, monkeys around the globe have to once again live under the specter of being scooped up at any time and shot unceremoniously into space.

Images released by the Iranian Defense Department showed a small grey monkey being strapped into a padded contraption called an "indigenous bio-capsule." The restraining device was then loaded into the Iranian Kavoshgar rocket named "Pishgam" (which translates to "Pioneer"). State media says that the rocket reached a height of more than 75 miles (120 km), indicating a suborbital trajectory. The monkey survived the journey and was later retrieved.

Despite the reports, the launch has not yet been independently confirmed. But if true, the move would be in violation of UN resolution 1929 which bans Iran from any activity related to the development of ballistic missile technology.

"This success is the first step towards man conquering space and it paves the way for other moves," said Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi to state media. He added that the process of putting a human into space would be a lengthy one (Iran is aiming for 2020).

"Today's successful launch follows previous successes we had in launching (space) probes with other living creatures (on board)," he said. Back in 2010, Iran sent a mouse, a turtle (yes, really) and worms into space.

Sources: NBC, Fox.

Japanese inventor Shota Ishiwatari has developed a robotic tail that tracks its wearer's heart rate and wags accordingly. Called "Tailly" — worst name ever — the venture project has its own Kickstarter campaign.

Ishiwatari has developed a prototype of the moving tail, which uses sensors on the inside of the belt to measure the user's heart rate.

According to the Tailly Kickstarter project (which appears to have ended on January 6):

Tailly is not just a toy, nor is it a fashion accessory or a gadget. It is those three items combined, and, since it reacts to the heart beat rate, an extension of the users' body. Tailly is fun to wear to parties, while out with friends or playing with kids. You could even wear Tailly on a date and express your true feelings through the wagging tail. Even better, your partner could also wear one for the both of you to add a level of subconscious communication between the two of you.

The basic color of the tail is white, but the tail is interchangeable, and we also are offering covers in Black, Gray, and Golden Brown.

"When you wear Tailly," reads the website, "you'll radiate cuteness and happiness!"

Of course, heart rate is poorly correlated with having fun or being in a good mood. A frantically wagging Tailly could also be an indication of fear or even physical exertion. But this gadget does indirectly bolster arguments for why bobbing the tail off your dog's behind is a bad idea — it's a tragic snip that makes it very difficult for your canine to properly convey its intentions and emotions.

H/t Crave.

Check out this highly original light fixture developed by MADLAB called Bacterioptica. Its spaghetti-like structure consists of over 15,000 feet (4,572 meters) of fiber optic cables that are attached to a series of petri dishes. And according to the instructions, owners are encouraged to grow cultures taken from samples of skin, mould, the yard — whatever. And as the bacteria grows within the petri dishes, the light emanating from the chandelier will likewise change and evolve.

The modular composition contains hundreds of metal rods, couplings, caps, and canisters, which provides a near-infinite array of design configurations.

MADLAB describes it like this:

Bacterioptica breaks from design norms, a light fixture outfitted with petri dishes. Designed to be adaptive, not only in its form and mechanics, but more importantly, in the way it evolves. Bacterioptica is not your typical chandelier, just as no family is a typical unit of interactions. Its on/off switch does not control it. Bacterioptica is alive. It grows. It is itself a household organism. It is living and breathing the same air and bacteria we are.

H/t BitRebels.

In what is the largest and most significant effort to re-create the human brain to date, an international group of researchers has secured $1.6 billion to fund the incredibly ambitious Human Brain Project. For the next ten years, scientists from various disciplines will seek to understand and map the network of over a hundred billion neuronal connections that illicit emotions, volitional thought, and even consciousness itself. And to do so, the researchers will be using a progressively scaled-up multilayered simulation running on a supercomputer.

And indeed, the project organizers are not thinking small. The entire team will consist of over 200 individual researchers in 80 different institutions across the globe. They're even comparing it the Large Hadron Colllider in terms of scope and ambition, describing the Human Brain Project as "Cern for the brain." The project, which will be based in Lausanne, Switzerland, is an initiative of the European Commission.

According to scientists working on the project, HBP will build new platforms for "neuromorphic computing" and "neurorobotics," allowing researchers to develop new computing systems and robots based on the architecture and circuitry of the brain. The researchers will attempt to reconstruct the human brain piece-by-piece, and gradually bring these cognitive components into an overarching supercomputer.

"The support of the HBP is a critical step taken by the EC to make possible major advances in our understanding of how the brain works," said Swedish Nobel Laureate Torsten Wiesel in a recent statement. "HBP will be a driving force to develop new and still more powerful computers to handle the massive accumulation of new information about the brain, while the neuroscientists are ready to use these new tools in their laboratories." He added that the research may also give rise to fundamentally new computer architectures modeled after the brain.

"This cooperation should lead to new concepts and a deeper understanding of the brain, the most complex and intricate creation on earth," he said.

The researchers are also hoping that the insights gained will help in the treatment of neurological disorders like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Moreover, due to the nature of the research, no animals will be required for experimentation.

Sources: Human Brain Project, Globe & Mail, Yahoo! News.

Image: Shutterstock/agsandrew.

Our sun isn't the only object in the sky that can produce spectacular optical effects. Take this photograph taken by Sebastian Saarloos on a cold, starlit Alaskan night. This is what's called a "moondog" — a rainbow-like ring around the moon that's caused by the reflection of moonlight (which is reflected sunlight) from ice crystals in the upper atmosphere.

The slightly overexposed photograph shows misty mountains in the background, along with an icy halo that surrounds the moon. Interestingly, because all ice crystals tend to have the same hexagonal shape, the moon ring is always the same size; moondogs, also known as paraselanae, are typically seen at an angle of 22 degrees.

Photograph courtesy Sebastian Saarloos. It was taken on January 17, 2013 from Lower Miller Creek, Alaska, USA.

_{Via NASA.}

Frank Herbert's Dune saga — a six book series that many consider to be one of the greatest ever written — has completely overshadowed many of his other works. But by the time he died in 1986, Herbert had penned over 26 novels — and not surprisingly, that includes a host of hidden treasures. Here are five novels by Frank Herbert — aside from the Dune saga — that you absolutely have to read.

Top illustration by John Berkey, who produced cover art for Frank Herbert's novels.

1. Destination: Void (1966)

Written in 1966 and revised by Herbert in 1978, Destination: Void kicked off a four book series that included The Jesus Incident (1979), The Lazarus Effect (1983), and The Ascension Factor (1988) (the latter books written with Bill Ransom).

This highly underrated series — his most significant outside of the Dune saga — is definitely worth the read, especially the second book, the imaginative and Darwinian-infused Jesus Incident — a novel that features a population of speciated humans who live alongside sentient kelp on a predominantly aquatic world (I guess Herbert grew weary of writing about deserts all the time).

But the book that launched the series, Destination: Void, is a remarkably prescient work — an early attempt to address the containment problem as it applies to greater-than-human artificial intelligence. Set in the near future, it chronicles the travails of a society that recently experienced a catastrophe while working to develop an AI — an effort that resulted in the cataclysmic destruction of the Puget Sound region.

Determined to learn from their mistake — and to keep the development of an AI as far away from Earth as possible — a group of scientists clone themselves and relocate their doppelgangers to an isolated colony on the moon. The clones are misled that they're going to be sent on a mission to Tau Ceti where they are to set up a colony. But in reality, the crew is there to serve the needs of the ship — a spacecraft that's controlled by an uploaded human brain called the Organic Mental Core (OMC). Unexpectedly, the OMC fails, along with its backups, leaving the clones with only one option: They have to develop an AI that will enable the ship to continue, or perish.

2. The Eyes of Heisenberg (1966)

A precursor to Gattaca, Herbert's The Eyes of Heisenberg explores the struggles of a society that has become deeply stratified along genetic and biotechnological lines. The story takes place 80,000 years from now, and addresses a number of themes familiar to many of today's transhumanists and futurists.

Herbert combines both Orwellian and Huxleyian elements to create a dystopian vision in which humanity finds itself divided into two genetic reproductive classes: the dictatorial and radically enhanced "Optimen," and the subservient "Folk." In this world, all humans must undergo genetic analysis and modification prior to birth. At the same time, the sterile Optimen have attained immortality through the use of special enzymes. Social control is maintained through propaganda, the promise of longer life, and the quasi-religious myth of Optimen superiority. Further, the populace is controlled by a hormone addiction that affects both the Folk and the Optimen.

But things are not as they seem, and the story culminates in the rise of an underground cyborg revolt — the result of an earlier attempt to improve humanity by merging flesh with machines.

3. Whipping Star (1969)

In what is probably his most conceptual work, Herbert's Whipping Star takes place in the far future after humanity has made contact with several other extraterrestrial civilizations. Together, they form the ConSentiency — a kind of intergalactic government akin to Star Trek's United Federation of Planets. But this system proves to be too efficient for its own good, enacting knee-jerk laws that disregard their own downstream consequences. In turn, a shadow organization is created to disrupt the system and slow it down. The protagonist, Jorj X. McKie, is a Saboteur Extraordinary, an agent of the Bureau of Sabotage who excels at his work — but he eventually becomes involved with the Calebans, a strange and mysterious species.

But as the story develops, the Calebans start to disappear one by one — and each disappearance coincides with the deaths of millions of other sentient beings and the onset of incurable insanity.

A sequel to Whipping Star was released in 1977 called The Dosadi Experiment.

4. The God Makers (1972)

A cross between Dune and the ConSentiency series, The God Makers is a novel that Herbert pieced together from four short stories he wrote between 1958 and 1960. And indeed, the story contains several elements near and dear to Dune fans, including the practice of "religious engineering" and the conversion of a character into a god-like being. It's not his best work, but it's a must-read for any fan curious to see Herbert's ideas evolve as he progressed towards his ultimate masterpiece, Dune.

Similar to how Bene Gesserits proactively embed religious beliefs within a society they're seeking to control, The God Makers involves a government agency that troubleshoots and rehabilitates "lost planets," namely potentially threatening civilizations that are unenlightened and warlike. The main character, Lewis Orne, travels to these planets and "fixes" them so that order can be maintained throughout the galaxy — a galaxy that is still reeling from a devastating war. But as Orne's assignments get increasingly complex, he soon learns that he has extrasensory capacities and is asked to join the company of "gods" — which would require life-threatening rites of passage.

5. Hellstrom's Hive (1973)

Aside from Dune, this is probably Frank Herbert's most accessible novel. Scifi fans who enjoy dystopian stories about hive minds and totalitarian collectives (like the Borg) will bask in what this novel has to offer.

Set in the Pacific Northwest, a government agency is investigating a curious filmmaker named Nils Hellstrom. Suspecting that he's either a communist or a cult leader, and alarmed that he might be developing a super weapon under the name Project 40, the investigators descend upon his hidden farm. But what they find is beyond horror; Hellstrom has created an underground collective of insectoid-humans. The ant-like colony consists of hundreds of miles of underground tunnels and thousands of workers, each one the product of genetic breeding and modification, chemical injections, and mental conditioning. But the colony runs (disturbingly) smoothly; everyone works for the benefit of the larger group, and there is no social strife or inequity. But as the investigators soon learn, there is indeed a larger plan at work — one that extends beyond the hive.

Herbert was inspired to write the novel after watching David L. Wolper's film, The Hellstrom Chronicle (now available on DVD and Blueray), which features a character of the same name. That said, the story is quite a bit different, one in which human evolution is pitted against the potential for insect domination.

It seems that every week, we hear about a new exoplanet that's located smack-dab within its solar system's habitable zone — that warm and cozy Goldilocks area that's suitable for the emergence of life. In turn, some skeptics have contended that the parameters defining the habitable zone are far too liberal and too often misunderstood, or that they're based on criteria that were developed 20 years ago — a time before the first exoplanet was even discovered.

In their zeal to correct this, the original team that worked to develop the boundary recently rejigged the parameters — and they've placed the Earth right on the inner edge of being considered "habitable".

This news comes to us from Space.com's Clara Moskowitz, who describes the work of research team leader, Ravi Kumar Kopparapu of Penn State University. The revised definition, which is set to appear in an upcoming edition of the Astrophysical Journal, will have a significant impact on the number of exoplanets that are categorized as being within a habitable zone.

For a planet to qualify as being habitable, it needs to meet certain conditions, including the ability to support liquid water on the surface, and atmospheric pressure high enough for water to exist without boiling off to vapor. It also needs an atmosphere that can alter the transfer of radiation to and from the surface (à la greenhouse effect). For a planet to have these characteristics, it obviously needs to be in the right place.

But as Kopparapu's work now reveals, the habitable zone wasn't exactly where astrobiologists and astronomers thought it was — but they weren't off by much. Moskowitz explains:

The new definition of the habitable zone is based on updated atmospheric databases called HITRAN (high-resolution transmission molecular absorption) and HITEMP (high-temperature spectroscopic absorption parameters), which give the absorption parameters of water and carbon dioxide - two properties that strongly influence the atmospheres of exoplanets, determining whether those planets could host liquid water...

...The new definition isn't radically different from the old one. For example, in our own solar system, the boundaries of the habitable zone have shifted from between 0.95 astronomical units (AU, or the distance between Earth and the sun) and 1.67 AU, to the new range of 0.99 AU to 1.7 AU.

Consequently, the Earth appears to sit quite close to the inner edge of the habitable zone — an unexpected revelation!

As a final note, it's important to remember that the "habitable zone" definition still does not take into account feedback effects from clouds and other local phenomenon, which will all affect a planet's habitability.

Read more at Space.com.

Top image: Cardens Design/Shutterstock. Interior image: Chester Herman

The Twycross Zoo in Leicestershire, U.K., has just announced the birth of an endangered Western Lowland gorilla. Born to parents Ozala and Oumbi on January 3, the yet-to-be-named baby's gender is still not known, because the mother is guarding it carefully.

The BBC reports:

The wildlife park said Ozala, who was born at Twycross in 1994, is a confident, attentive mother and is taking great care of her baby.

Charlotte Macdonald, curator of living collections, said: "Oumbie [the baby's father] is gentle but protective and is showing a lot of interest in the infant.

"On the day of the baby's birth he was very inquisitive, sitting beside Ozala and putting his face right up to the baby to smell it."

The infant, whose sex is not yet known, will stay close to its mother for the next couple of years but can be seen by visitors to the park.

According to IUCN Redlist of Threatened Species, Western lowland gorillas are perilously close to extinction due to hunting, habitat loss and the Ebola virus. There are now fewer than 100,000 left in the wild.

Images: BBC via Twycross ZOo

Geologists in New Zealand have a new tool to help them measure the effects of earthquakes. It's called T-Rex, a 64,000 pound (29,000 kilogram) shaker truck that's being provided by the U.S. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation.

The truck is being sent to New Zealand's South Island — location of the devastating 2011 earthquake that destroyed buildings and resulted in 185 deaths. Seismologists are hoping to gather data which will be used to create structures more resistant to quakes.

Writing in Wunderground, Beck Oskin explains:

The earthquakes caused widespread liquefaction, a phenomenon in which shaking of water-logged soils turns the sediment temporarily from a solid to a liquid. The jiggly, wet soils undermined buildings and other structures. As many as 7,500 homes were abandoned. Parts of downtown Christchurch remain cordoned off due to the extensive damage.

The seismic data gathered with T-Rex will inform engineers, on an area-by-area basis, how to rebuild structures in Christchurch to resist future earthquakes, according to a statement from the Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation. The seismic waves can find which soils are more likely to liquefy, and which soils are more stable. Engineers can design structures to withstand earthquakes, but first they need to know more about the soils in each area, the statement said.

More here.

Image: Network of Earthquake Engineering.

Back in the late 1980s, a queer indigenous sex education group called the 2 Spirits Project, along with Queensland Health in Australia, launched a comic book series chronicling the exploits of Condoman — a superhero whose sole purpose was to raise awareness about the perils of not practicing safe sex. Now, several decades later, the comic has been revived — and Condoman has a new partner: The amazing Lubelicious.

This news comes to us via Amber Frost of Dangerous Minds, who lauds the effort to advocate for safe sex among Australia's indigenous youth:

It's actually a really impressive campaign. It's aware enough to know that 1) safe sex campaigns need to be tailored to specific communities, especially with regard to race and class, and 2) safe sex campaigns need to start with age groups that are probably not yet having sex. As some one from abstinence-only middle America, it's a little mind-blowing to see such a frank effort to destigmatize youth-based sex education.

And indeed, the first wave of the campaign was so well-received that a second issue has been released with an updated look. And as noted above, Condoman now has a partner in Lubelicious.

From the QAHC Healthy Communities website:

This comic book is the first time we see a range of new characters- in particular Lubelicious, who helps Condoman to fight a range of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI's) in Indigenous communities across Queensland. Lubelicious represents the image of a strong Indigenous woman who promotes the use of water based lubricant. Together with Condoman, they fight STI's and challenge the shame of talking about sexual health.

Also this is the first time we see a number of new characters representing STI's including:

HIV, Syphillis, Gonorrhoea, Chlamydia, HPV, Hepatitis B and C, Herpes.

Stigmalien - the leader of the STI's represents the stigma attached to living with STI's or being tested for STI's.

To support the Comic Book 2, a range of suits have been developed to bring to life the characters. Many people would have seen Condoman at a range of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander events across Queensland. Now suits for Lubelicious, and the STI characters are avaialble, which will extend the reach of the characters beyond the Comic Book.

You can check out the comics here.

You probably know that owls can rotate their heads a remarkable 270 degrees in either direction. It's practically their trademark — but it's a move that by all measure should result in a massive stroke or embolism, the result of torn blood vessel linings and the onset of fatal clots. Nobody's understood the physiology that lets owls do this — until now.

Finally, a collaboration between medical illustrators and neurological imaging experts has yielded the answer — and it has to do with the owls' remarkable bone structure and vascular network.

Necks aren't supposed to be able to move the way owls' do, as many studies on humans and other animals have proved. Tests on people who have suffered from sloppy chiropractic adjustments, whiplash, and even jarring roller coaster rides show that such sudden head and neck gyrations can be extremely damaging (if not fatal). These extreme contortions can cut off blood supply and damage fragile blood vessels.

Looking to figure out how owls are able to pull off such a remarkable feat, a multidisciplinary team from Johns Hopkins collaborated on a study that's set to appear in the February 1 issue of Science. Led by medical illustrator Fabian de Kok-Mercado and neuroradiologist Philippe Gailloud, the team has proposed that several distinct biological adaptations make the extreme twist possible — and they all have to do with the bone structure and vascular network that supports the owl's top-heavy head.

To conduct the study, the researchers used angiography and CT scans when examining the heads and necks of snowy, barred, and great horned owls, all of whom died from natural causes. In order to physically see what was actually happening inside the owls' heads, they injected a dye that enhanced X-ray scans of the blood vessels being studied.

Then, by mimicking blood flow, the scientists could see that blood vessels at the base of the head (just under the jaw bone) were getting increasingly larger as the dye was introduced, but before the fluid pooled in reservoirs. There is no equivalent to this in human anatomy; in fact, human arteries tend to shrink as they branch out — and they certainly don't balloon out.

The researchers surmise that these expandable blood reservoirs are what enables the owls to pool their blood, an adaptation that allows them to make radical gyrations of the head — and all without cutting off their energy supply. In turn, the supporting complex vascular network minimizes interruption in blood flow.

Among the anatomical variations discovered were bony holes in the vertebrae — hollow cavities in the neck where a major artery feeds the brain. These were about 10 times larger in diameter than the vertebral artery traveling through them. This extra space in the transverse foraminae (the holes surrounding the vertebral arteries) provides owls with a set of cushioning air pockets that allow the artery to move around when it's twisted. And in fact, 12 of the owl's 14 cervical vertebrae have this feature.

And interestingly, the scientists also discovered that the owl's vertebral artery enters the neck higher up compared to other birds. Normally, it's the 12th cervical vertebrae, but for the owl, it's the 14th (thus allowing for more vessel room and slack).

Another non-human-like feature included small vessel connections between the carotid and vertebral arteries that allow blood to be exchanged between the two blood vessels. This allows for uninterrupted blood flow to the brain — even in the event that a route is blocked during extreme neck rotation.

In future, the researchers will study hawks to see if they have similar features.

We'll add a link the paper once it's online.

Images: jadimages/Shutterstock, David Davis/Shutterstock, Johns Hopkins

To date, astronomers have catalogued over 860 exoplanets. If that wasn't remarkable enough, scientists have also been able to determine the atmospheric composition of many of these planets by analyzing their spectral shifts. But even more incredible would be the ability to actually chart landmasses and oceanic expanses. According to scientist Nicolas Cowan, this might actually be possible — and he says he knows how to do it.

Top image: An EPOXI mission image shows what an Earth-like exoplanet might look like from a great distance (NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD/GSFC).

Cowan, who works at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, presented his plan at this month's meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, California. His idea is that software will eventually be able to take reflected starlight and tease it apart to form rudimentary maps of exoplanetary surfaces. It's a technique that was inspired by a pre-existing technology that's currently being used to distinguish natural from unnatural surfaces on Earth.

As Ker Than of LiveScience reports, Cowan tested his software program on images of Earth taken by NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft from a distant vantage point in space. He was able to parse out critical features, including land, ocean, and clouds.

The technique, called "rotational unmixing," analyzes the changing color of starlight reflecting off a distant exoplanet as it spins. The software calculates the mix of planetary features that generate a specific hue. It's akin to watching a TV image reflected off a surface; it's far from perfect, but a basic image emerges.

Than writes:

Lisa Kaltenegger, an exoplanet researcher at the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, said Cowan's technique was very interesting– but with a few caveats. For example, the exoplanet must have highly contrasting surfaces, such as ocean and land, or ocean and clouds, for this technique to work well.

"If you have an ocean planet or a planet that is all land, it would be very challenging because you don't have different surfaces," said Kaltenegger, who also did not participate in the study.

Another challenge would be distinguishing between clouds and ice on a planet's surface, according to Aomawa Shields, an astrobiologist at the University of Washington in Seattle who was not involved in the study.

"Being able to tell whether a planet is simply undergoing significant cloud cover, or is in the midst of a global glaciation is important from the standpoint of habitability," Shields said.

In terms of when this technique can be used to study the surfaces of distant planets, Cowan said it will require "a next-gen" telescope, something that may become available in the early 2020s.

Read more at LiveScience.

Interior image by Andy McLatchie

Several years ago we told you about ActiveLink's Power Loader, a mecha-like exoskeleton that looked like something right out of Aliens. Now, following the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, ActiveLink has started work on Power Loader Light — a more compact version that would allow for increased physical strength, but not at the cost of agility.

The "power amplification robot" works in precisely the way sci fi says it should: The device receives the force input by the user through its sensors, and amplifies it using motors.

Interestingly, the designers say it's not really something that's worn; rather, it's something a person gets into. This distinction, they say, makes it safer to operate.

In terms of the specs, each sole has a six-axis force sensor, and in line with the force vectors detected there, three axes for each leg are used to control motors in the ankle, knee, and hip, which exerts force in the direction of the support.

Ideally, the Power Loader will help a user carry about 110 to 125 pounds (50-60 kg) while remaining highly mobile and agile.

In the future, ActiveLink hopes to develop a larger version — the Big Power Loader. Once complete, it'll be driven by 20 motors and be capable of lifts exceeding 220 pounds (100 kg).

H/t Techi.

Japanese researchers have recorded a real-time video of thoughts forming in the brain of a live animal as it stalks its prey. The breakthrough was made possible by using zebrafish — a species with a translucent head — and a fluorescent protein that lights up when single neurons are activated. And this study may give rise to an entirely new way to study and track brain patterns in living creatures.

The study, which now appears in Current Biology, was conducted by a team of researchers at Japan's National Institute of Genetics in Shizuoka Prefecture.

In order to create the visual effect, the scientists used green fluorescent proteins (GFPs) which light up when calcium concentrations arise. Scientists typically use custom-made GFPs to create an image of cellular activity in real time — but until now, it hadn't been attempted on live fish as they freely move about.

Once the GFP was developed (a genetically engineered protein called GCaMP7a), the team tested it on genetically modified zebrafish larvae, that were between four and seven days old. At this stage in their life they are still transparent, allowing the scientists to peer non-invasively into their brains.

The researchers were particularly interested in the zebrafish's optic tectum, the area where its visual processing takes place. The researchers created a special transgenic zebrafish that expresses the protein in this particular region.

Once the fluorescent microscope was set up, the scientists conducted a series of different experiments designed to stimulate the fish's visual processors. The first experiment involved a dot on a screen that the fish watched move back and forth, and the second involved a paramecium — a tiny organism that the zebrafish preys upon.

When the fish watched these stimuli move, the neurons flashed like waves across the brain — a pattern of lights that the scientists say corresponds to the neurological activity linked with visual processing.

And in fact, when the paramecium was motionless, the scientists recorded no activity. Incredibly, the scientists were able to track these patterns when the fish were immobilized — and also when they were allowed to freely swim around searching for prey.

Moving forward, the scientists hope to observe and map the neural activity across the entire brain, including the areas required for learning and thinking.

Check out the entire study here.

Supplementary sources: SciAm and New Scientist.

Images: Kawakami Group/NIG.

London-based design firm Foster+Partners aims to partner-up with the European Space Agency, and build structures on the Moon from the regolith found on the surface. The inflatable scaffolding would be manufactured on Earth, then transported to the Moon and covered with a durable shell constructed by robotically-driven 3D printers.

All images courtesy Foster+Partners.

This is such a brilliant idea. The scheme would take advantage of the raw materials already found on the lunar surface, while at the same time offering a highly scalable and efficient model for construction.

Indeed, the idea of using the lunar dust — known as regolith — has been considered for many years. And in fact, back in 2010, researchers from Washington State University discovered that artificial regolith — a compound consisting of silicon, aluminium, calcium, iron, and magnesium — could be used by 3D printers to create solid objects, including tools.

Should the plan be put into action, a research expedition or colony would set up base in the southern polar regions of the Moon where sunlight is constant.

During construction, the base would be inflated to become a dome to provide the initial scaffolding. Layers of 3D printed material would be iteratively layered over the dome to create a strong, protective shell. To ensure strength, the structure would be made of hollow closed-cellular structures.

Each house would be able to accommodate four people, and could be extended should the need arise.

For now, Foster+Partners is still in the design and proof-of-concept phase. So to that end, they're looking to create a smaller version using artificial regolith in a vacuum chamber.

Sources: Foster+Partners | DesignTaxi | BBC