This Is What A Star Nursery Looks Like

Oh hey, not a big deal, but the hubble took a picture of a star that’s nearing supernova status 

Class in session as Planet X starts it off with our favorite dense objects: 

Neutron Stars!

http://www.space.com/22180-neutron-stars.html

TYPES OF COLOR-BLINDNESS

1. Normal vision

2.  Deuteranopia 

3.  Tritanopia

4. Monochromacy - An extremely rare type of color-blindness in which sufferers can see only in shades of grey, and perceive no color at all. About 1 in 33,000 people is born with this condition.

(Source)

So they found this adorable little dinosaur called Anchiornis

See those feathers? The skeleton they found was so well-preserved that scientists were able to examine the pigment cells in the feathers and compare them to those of modern day birds.

And they were able to do this with such accuracy that they know the coloration of this dinosaur. In life it looked something like this.

It just baffles me that we know the color patterns of an animal that has been dead for 161 million years

Drone with grabbing claw arms can lift 44 pounds

Prodrone’s latest creation could lift a four-year-old child, and uses its 5-axis metal claws to perch on fences like a bird.

The Brain Can Reveal Drinking Status Even After Death

Scientists who use postmortem brain tissue to study alcohol’s effects on brain structure and function will find this research interesting. Phosphatidylethanol (PEth) is an alcohol metabolite and its concentration in whole blood samples is a biomarker of drinking habits. For this study, scientists examined PEth levels in postmortem brains of individuals known to have had alcohol use disorders (AUDs).

Researchers divided 30 postmortem brains into three groups: 10 with AUDs that had positive serum alcohol levels present at the time of autopsy; 10 with AUDs that did not show positive serum alcohol levels at the time of autopsy; and 10 normal brains. PEth levels were measured in the cerebellum and orbital frontal cortex (OFC) regions.

Results showed that PEth was present in the cerebellum and OFC of all brains in all three groups of subjects, including the controls. The AUD group with detectable serum alcohol levels at the time of autopsy had much higher levels of PEth in both brain areas than either the control group or the AUD group whose subjects did not have detectable serum ethanol at autopsy. Thus, the ability to measure PEth levels in postmortem human brains can be helpful in classifying drinking status in individuals with AUDs at the time of death.

Babies don’t just look cute, scientists find

What is it about the sight of an infant that makes almost everyone crack a smile? Big eyes, chubby cheeks, and a button nose? An infectious laugh, soft skin, and a captivating smell? While we have long known that babies look cute, Oxford University researchers have found that cuteness is designed to appeal to all our senses.

They explain that all these characteristics contribute to ‘cuteness’ and trigger our caregiving behaviours, which is vital because infants need our constant attention to survive and thrive. The study is published in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

Morten Kringelbach, who together with Eloise Stark, Catherine Alexander, Professor Marc Bornstein and Professor Alan Stein, led the work in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford, said: ‘Infants attract us through all our senses, which helps make cuteness one of the most basic and powerful forces shaping our behaviour.’

Reviewing the emerging literature on how cute infants and animals affect the brain, the Oxford University team found that cuteness supports key parental capacities by igniting fast privileged neural activity followed by slower processing in large brain networks also involved in play, empathy, and perhaps even higher-order moral emotions.

The data shows that definitions of cuteness should not be limited just to visual features but include positive infant sounds and smells. From an evolutionary standpoint, cuteness is a very potent protective mechanism that ensures survival for otherwise completely dependent infants.

Professor Kringelbach said: ‘This is the first evidence of its kind to show that cuteness helps infants to survive by eliciting caregiving, which cannot be reduced to simple, instinctual behaviours. Instead, caregiving involves a complex choreography of slow, careful, deliberate, and long-lasting prosocial behaviours, which ignite fundamental brain pleasure systems that are also engaged when eating food or listening to music, and always involve pleasant experiences.’

The study shows that cuteness affects both men and women, even those without children.

‘This might be a fundamental response present in everyone, regardless of parental status or gender, and we are currently conducting the first long-term study of what happens to brain responses when we become parents.’ said Kringelbach.

Your body is an incredibly bizarre machine.

“What you see is a myosin protein dragging an endorphin along a filament to the inner part of the brain’s parietal cortex which creates happiness. Happiness. You’re looking at happiness.”