Human cells cloned for the first time ever

An international team of scientists announced today that for the first time ever, they were able to create new human stem cells by cloning older, fully mature human cells. The process cannot be used to create full human clones, as the scientists involved were quick to point out, but it does allow for cells to be grown to fit specific functions within an individual's body — resulting in new, patient-specific liver cells or heart cells that actually pulse on their own, for example.

Eventually, scientists hope to refine the process to the point it could be used to help treat disease and even create whole custom organs, but that is likely to be several years away at the earliest. "While there is much work to be done in developing safe and effective stem cell treatments, we believe this is a significant step forward in developing the cells that could be used in regenerative medicine," said Shoukhrat Mitalipov, the leader of the research team and a senior scientist at the Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC), in a news release.

The research team was led by scientists at the Oregon Health & Science University, who used a technique similar to the one that created Dolly the sheep, the first mammal cloned from adult cells, back in 1996. In a basic sense, this method involves taking an adult cell from a patient's body, sucking out the central portion containing DNA (the nucleus), then injecting this material into an empty egg cell donated by another human volunteer. The genetic material from the adult cell tells the empty egg cell what type it should mature into.

The ice on Mt Everest are melting

A warming climate is melting the glaciers of Mount Everest, shrinking the frozen cloak of Earth’s highest peak by 13% in the last 50 years, researchers have found.

Rocks and natural debris previously covered by snow are appearing now as the snow line has retreated 590 feet, according to Sudeep Thakuri, a University of Milan scientist who led the research.

 Researchers said they believe the observed changes could be due to human-generated greenhouse gases altering global climate, although their research has not established a firm connection. 

Average temperatures have risen about 1 degree Fahrenheit since 1992, according data from the Nepal Climate Observatory stations and Nepal’s Department of Hydrology and Meteorology, the researchers found. Since 1992, precipitation has declined nearly four inches during the pre-monsoon and winter months, they found.

Earth's center is out of sync

We all know that the Earth rotates beneath our feet, but new research from ANU has revealed that the center of the Earth is out of sync with the rest of the planet, frequently speeding up and slowing down.

Associate Professor Hrvoje Tkalcic from the ANU College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences and his team used earthquake doublets to measure the rotation speed of Earth's inner core over the last 50 years.

They discovered that not only did the inner core rotate at a different rate to the mantle the layer between the core and the crust that makes up most of the planet's interior but its rotation speed was variable. compared with the mantle, the inner core was rotating more quickly in the 1970s and 1990s, but slowed down in the 80s. The most dramatic acceleration has possibly occurred in the last few years, although further tests are needed to confirm that observation. Scientists have so far assumed the rotation rate of the inner core to be constant because they lacked adequate mathematical methods for interpreting the data, says Associate Professor Tkalcic. A new method applied to earthquake doublets – pairs of almost identical earthquakes that can occur a couple of weeks to 30 or 40 years apart – has provided the solution.

"It's stunning to see that even 10, 20 or 30 years apart, these earthquakes look so similar. But each pair differs very slightly, and that difference corresponds to the inner core. We have been able to use that small difference to reconstruct a history of how the inner core has rotated over the last 50 years,"  Professor Hrvoje Tkalcic said. 

Analyses of sediment cores show that Arctic summers 3.6 million years ago were a good 8 degrees C warmer than they are today.

The Arctic wasn't always covered in ice. Samples of sediment layers beneath a frozen lake show this region used to be a lot warmer and may thaw out again in the future. The work is in the journalScience. 

El'gygytgyn, a Russian lake 100 kilometers north of the Arctic Circle, contains layers of sediment that date back to the lake's formation 3.6 million years ago. Analyses of sediment cores have revealed that back then summers reached about 15 to 16 degrees Celsius, a good 8 degrees warmer than modern Arctic summers. These warm temperatures, which supported plants like Douglas fir and hemlock, lasted until about 2.2 million years ago.

Using a sediment core as a detailed history of climate change, scientists can see how the forested Arctic gradually became covered in ice and snow. These changes help us understand details about the development of Ice Ages. In addition, the sediment comes from a window of time during the Pliocene Epoch, when greenhouse gas levels were only slightly higher than they are today. Such sensitivity to small carbon dioxide changes hint at a warm Arctic future.

University of Georgia developed a way to make energy through photosynthesis

There's a more efficient way to harvest energy from the backyard than by wiring up hapless critters. Researchers at the University of Georgia have proof: they've discovered a way to generate electricity from plants through hijacking the photosynthesis process. By altering the proteins inside a plant cell's thylakoids, which store solar energy, scientists can intercept electrons through a carbon nanotube backing that draws them away before they're used to make sugar. While the resulting power isn't phenomenal, it's still two orders of magnitude better than previous methods, according to the university. The protein modification method may have a rosier future, as well: the team believes that it could eventually compete with solar cells, producing green energy in a very literal sense.

Ammonia Leak on ISS ‘Very Serious,’ Emergency Spacewalks Scheduled

At the risk of starting your Friday of with bad news, an ammonia leak in the system that cools the International Space Station may be more severe than initially thought, say officials familiar with the situation. Ground crews are working overtime to try and determine the cause of the leak, and emergency spacewalks  that will let astronauts on board diagnose — and ideally fix — the problem are being scheduled  for the coming days.

The leak in power channel 2B — where energy collected by the station’s solar arrays is converted into power for the spacecraft — was known to ISS crew members and ground control, but slow enough that it wasn’t a concern. That was the situation until last night, when the rotation of the solar panels seemed to worsen the leak. Crew members were first alerted when they began to see white flakes drifting near the station, a sign that ammonia was not staying in the cooling system where it belonged. This morning saw power channel 2B shut down, transferring its critical responsibilities to another channel and diminishing the station’s power production capabilities by more than 12%.

A slow leak in the 2B channel has been apparent since 2006, but the amount of ammonia escaping the space station was so minimal as to not require immediate attention. A spacewalk last November was meant to repair the leak, which was likely caused by a tiny asteroid or debris strike like the one that punctured the station’s solar panels recently.

We’re probably not at the point where anyone needs hold a good thought for the ISS crew yet — after all, there’s a reason these guys get to go to the ISS and we don’t. They’re pretty well-equipped to handle this kind of thing, whereas I would probably just be rocking back and forth slowly in zero gravity right now. Instead of that, flight engineers Tom Marshburn and Chris Cassidy will be spacewalking out to attempt to divert ammonia flow around the leak and restore the power channel to working order tomorrow. Yes, because they’re better men than I, but I don’t think it’s necessary to point that out.

What is the centre of the milky way and is it a threat?

When you look at a picture of our milky way some of you may think to your selves. What is that very bright light in the middle of our milky way and why is our milky way in a spiral motion.

Well its because there is super massive black hole Called Sagittarius A*. most of us know that black holes spin around in a circle motion that is why our milky way is in a spiral Shape.Black holes have a very strong gravitation pull witch pulls all the stars into the back hole this is why it is so bright.Your probably wandering why we cant see the blinding light also is that black hole a threat to us.Well its not a threat to us don't worry we are 28,000 light years away from the center of the milky way. Also we can see the arm of the milky way sometime but rarely.The reason we cant see the center of the milky way is because there is a mass amount of stars,dust and other materials that are light years wide.