Nov 20, 2019
How the Brain Can Rewire Itself After Half of It Is Removed
Posted by Paul Battista in category: neuroscience
New scans showed how the brains of people who had a hemisphere removed in childhood continue to function.
New scans showed how the brains of people who had a hemisphere removed in childhood continue to function.
Do you agree? 😁.
By now, it’s undeniable: regular exercise comes with a range of health benefits for people who stick with it over time. But is it ever too late to start?
Education and bravery are the key to our survival. In this article we dig into the correlation between health and longevity.
With so many supplement salesman and scientists talking about longevity it can get confusing as to exactly what that might mean. Of course we all want to live as long as we can but most would agree to it only if they were able to be healthy and active. After all how would life be worth it if you were confined to a bed or wheelchair in constant pain?
As we improve health we also extend life. One drawback to extending life is that we face health problems we might have avoided by simply not being alive. However as we extend life we will also extend health and find ways to cure all diseases. For most of humanity throughout the ages Cancer or Alzheimer’s was rarely a cause for concern. Cancer and Alzheimer’s was not as prevalent because most people did not live long enough to be stricken with them. Many humans died from infections, starvation, and injury and thus the expected life span was much lower than today. Every time a new advancement is made in healthcare we improve the odds of living longer. Hospitals, handwashing, and vaccines all improved a human beings chance of survival and also their chance of contracting a new or otherwise unusual disease.
Scientists have long theorized that the energy stored in the atomic bonds of nitrogen could one day be a source of clean energy. But coaxing the nitrogen atoms into linking up has been a daunting task. Researchers at Drexel University’s C&J Nyheim Plasma Institute have finally proven that it’s experimentally possible—with some encouragement from a liquid plasma spark.
Reported in the Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, the production of pure polymeric nitrogen—polynitrogen—is possible by zapping a compound called sodium azide with a jet of plasma in the middle of a super-cooling cloud of liquid nitrogen. The result is six nitrogen atoms bonded together—a compound called ionic, or neutral, nitrogen-six—that is predicted to be an extremely energy-dense material.
“Polynitrogen is being explored for use as a ‘green’ fuel source, for energy storage, or as an explosive,” said Danil Dobrynin, Ph.D., an associated research professor at the Nyheim Institute and lead author of the paper. “Versions of it have been experimentally synthesized—though never in a way that was stable enough to recover to ambient conditions or in pure nitrogen-six form. Our discovery using liquid plasma opens a new avenue for this research that could lead to a stable polynitrogen.”
The American X-plane series has a long and storied history stretching all the way back to the Bell X-1 that made supersonic flight a reality. NASA, the Air Force, and other parts of the government have used X-planes to explore the flight mechanics of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL), movable wings, and much more. Now, NASA is working on the first manned X-plane in decades, the all-electric X-57 Maxwell.
NASA started working on the X-57 in 2015, but it’s not building its electric plane from the ground up. The team started with a Tecnam P2006T twin-engine propeller plane, which it is modifying in stages. NASA hasn’t flown the aircraft yet, but it has deemed the X-57 ready for its public debut. The press was allowed to view the X-57 last week at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards Air Force Base.
The X-57 is currently in its “Mod II” configuration, which is the first featuring entirely electric flight hardware. The plane has electric cruise motors where two combustion motors were in the original aircraft. Mod III and IV will complete the X-57’s transformation from a noisy combustion plane to a quieter, more efficient electric one.
Thank you Dr. Francesca Ferrando for organizing this fantastic Posthuman event at NYU. What an honor to have been invited as one of the speakers among such great minds. Thank you 🙏.
An unforgettable night!
More information:
Yihong Zhang et al, A flexible optically re-writable color liquid crystal display, Applied Physics Letters (2018). DOI: 10.1063÷1.
The military is developing a shapeshifting wheel that is capable of transforming in just 2 seconds.