Adventure Ausrama Blog

Australian scientists attempt to understand the aging process. In a partnership with Harvard University, the University of New South Wales has found a way to stop aging. Though it has been achieved on mice it has already been applied to humans. Young youthful genes are turned on while older ones are turned off. Done in the right way, the process can halt and even reverse aging. The triggers are naturally occurring molecules and proteins. Change is made in the muscles and improvement begins in a week. Hopefully, drugs containing the triggers can be developed. At least this is what the researchers are planning. Tests on humans have shown great promise so far. An extra plus for the "treatment" is that it is anti-inflammatory. Such diseases as inflammatory bowel disease could be sent into remission. It makes one wonder, however, why findings aren't applied generally much sooner. Leader of the project, Professor David Sinclair a specialist in the fiel...

Minerals are classified into species like animals. You would think that all minerals had been identified by scientists. This is not the case. A completely new mineral has been found in Australia at Polar Bear peninsula, Southern Lake Cowan. It is named after the two scientists who discovered it, Christine and Andrew Putnis based at the University of Münster in Germany. Putnisite is now among the 4,000 known minerals. It was found on the surface of Lake Cowan in Western Australia. The mineral is composed of tiny 0.5 mm diameter crystals in volcanic rock. Its crystals are square and in a range of colors: white, pink, purple and dark green. The mineral is composed of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, sulphur, calcium, strontium and chromium. It glistens as light can penetrate the substance. Unlike other minerals which belong to families similar in structure, putnisite is unique. Nature joins things together to form minerals. Scientist did not believe a blend of these bases cou...

New cancer "curing" medications are announced to the public all the time. Unfortunately, what you are not told is when they will be available. It isn't much use if you have to wait ten years - if you have cancer you could be dead before then. It is not so much chemicals that attack dangerous "bugs" that are coming to the fore : modified molecules are increasingly being tested. In prostate cancer testosterone attaches to androgen receptors. Activation in this manner allows cancer growth to take place. A helix-mimicking molecule attaches to the particular docking point thus preventing the ideal cancer condition occurring. In animal and human tests protein supporting cancer growth was not produced when the molecules attached. Moreover, it was not found to be toxic to the body. This research opens up a completely new area of treatment. The future looks bright in the fight against cancer - it we can afford to pay for it. http://www.adventure--australia.blo...

Human beings perceive objects by seeing in the "normal" optical range. This is purely an evolutionary imperative. Evolution could just as easily given us eyes that work in the infrared to know what is going on around us. If this was the case we would experience no night at all. The night sky would be just as clear as the sky in the day. At night the sky would be lit by hydroxyl molecules emitting infrared light in the form of a mass of narrow emission lines. It would be like daylight, though a few stars could be seen along with the Sun and the Moon. Telescopes operating in the infrared get over this problem by using limited apertures and special filters. These filters use a photonic lantern system to move the light into parallel tracks. A Bragg filter reflects out the tracks and lets wavelengths between lines through. Many IR telescopes are in space where such a filter is unnecessary. The space telescopes beam data back to Earth. http://www.adventure--australia.bl...