Once you’ve been in the MRI field for any length of time, you start hearing all of the various horror stories about thing that have flown into a scanner. Often, newcomers don’t take the real danger of flying objects seriously until they witness an oxygen tank or gurney flying into a magnet themselves. This page will contain a collection of pictures and stories of metalic projectiles. Please show this page to all MRI newcomers, for their own safety and the safety of their patients!
Krulwich's essay, under the headline "The Love That Dared Not Speak Its Name, Of A Beetle For A Beer Bottle", includes this passage:
Looking even closer, they recognized it as an Australian jewel beetle, and looking closer, they noticed it had (as they wrote later) its "genitalia everted — attempting to insert the aedeagus," which is a very polite way to say they were looking at a beetle attempting to mate with a glass container. Clearly, this was a very confused individual. But then they found three more stubby beer bottles, and on two of them, surprisingly, were more male beetles, also "mounting" their bottles. That makes three frustrated males. Hmmm. That got them interested. So...
This BBC Plane Wild documentary looks, videographically, at the phenomenon:
The Journal of Molecular and Genetic Medicine boasts a largest editorial board, perhaps the world’s largest. The journal sent a note to investigator Kurt Verkest, who forwarded it to us. The note reads:
Dear Dr. K R Verkest,
Journal of Molecular and Genetic Medicine (JMGM), an Open Access peer-reviewed International journal promotes ongoing research and information exchange. Papers may be submitted from any discipline related to Molecular and Genetic Medicine and suggested content areas include but are not limited to Cancer biology and therapy…
Why with Us?
✓ Publishes the most important research in the field and distributes it to wide range of readers
✓ Quality Peer-review: More than 20,000 eminent scientists in the editorial board handling the review process…
We recently drew attention to the 1998 discovery at Cornell regarding the possibility of tweaking one’s cicadian rhythms by shining a bright light at the back of one’s knees. But continuing research into extraocular (outside the eye) light stimuli has turned to the possibility of a more direct route. Why not shine a light directly into one’s brain? Fortunately, there’s no need to resort to trepanning, because (at least) two convenient pathways already exist for brain illumination. Namely the ear canals. A research team from the University of Oulu, Finland (“Creating Innovation for the Future”) tested volunteers while they underwent blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning (fMRI) as a bright light was delivered via their external ear canal :
“Light was produced by two 3 W LEDs (main light spectrum peak at blue light 465 nm and a secondary peak at 550 nm) and delivered via 5 meters long polycarbonate colourless fiber optic light guides connected to ear-plugs in the subject’s ears while inside the scanner.”
Findings from the study :
“…suggest that the brain possesses photosensitive properties, which will have interesting implications for the modulation of brain function and understanding the basic physiology of the brain.”
But, the authors add :
“The mechanism for the phototransduction of the brain tissue remains to be discovered and we are currently investigating it in more depth.”
[1] “ Some of the authors have conflicts of interests with a company, Valkee Ltd., that develops and sells devices for bright light stimulation via ear-canal. Authors’ connections with Valkee Ltd. are: Nissilä and Aunio are company founders. Nissilä, Aunio, Takala and Timonen are share-holders (varying from major to minor). Nissilä, Aunio and live-in partner of Starck are employed by Valkee Ltd. Valkee Ltd. did not have a role in the decision to submit the paper for publication.”
In addition to the difficulties of communication, other biological limitations of humans may serve to explain some of the shortcomings of their agricultural practices. For example, while we can provide important liquid supplements to our fungi, individual humans appear unable to directly produce the nutrients needed by their crops, which are instead provided by the activity of specialized castes working in structures dedicated to this task. Studies have demonstrated that the fragrant anal paste produce by humans is a suitable substrate for plant growth; surprisingly, however, humans do not take advantage of this resource. Some researchers have suggested that humans may be unable to properly ensure the hygiene of crops grown in this manner and would thus be exposed to an unacceptable risk of parasitism, although others contend that the anal paste has in fact been used by some colonies. Clearly, further research is needed to understand this aspect of human agriculture….
In the same blog post, he also describes ant agriculture from the perspective of humans.
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