January 2008

A misplaced tooth held the clue to the identity of one of the world's most powerful queen's, Hatshepsut, and it took the detective work of Egypt's Indiana Jones, Zahi Hawass, to figure it out.

Delivering more than just pretty pictures, the Cassini spacecraft returned an impressive collection of photographic firsts of Saturn and it environs this year.

Beginning this spring, the genomic start-up company Navigenics will sell spit kits for $2,5000 to those curious enough to learn more about their DNA. Along with results telling you the genetic disorders you can look forward to, you receive advice on how to reduce your chances of developing up to 20 diseases and an offer of genetic counseling sessions.

Traumatic brain injuries affect 6 million Americans. Of these 15,000 exist in a persistent vegetative state (PVS), wholly unaware of anything around them, and 14,250 of them will die within five years.

http://discovermagazine.com/2008/jan/diagnosing-consciousness/?searchterm=boonsri%20dickinson

While teaching physics of Ecole Polytechnique in France, physicist Jean-Baptiste Masson used hair fibers as an example of a complex system that could be modeled simply. The example made him wonder: Does curly hair get more tangled than straight hair? He thought that a person sporting, say, Shakira's mane of curls would have more kinks than someone with pin-straight hair, but he wasn't sure.

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/dec/counterintuitive-alert-straight-hair-gets-more-tangled/?searchterm=boonsri%20dickinson

November 2007

Cockroaches ate the rocks, proving their safety.

1. Apollo 11 astronauts used an aseptic sampler to avoid contaminating the rocks and dirt collected from the moon. The astronauts used an extension handle to hold a sterile plastic bag for the samples.

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/space/7-things-you-didn2019t-know-about-moon-rocks/?searchterm=boonsri%20dickinson

August 2007

At birth, the human immune system is pretty useless; for months newborns rely on immune factors acquired from their mothers while their own infection-fighting systems develop. Or so we thought. Columbia University immunologist Rachel Miller recently found evidence babies have pretty well developed immune systems by the time they're born.

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/sep/fetus-fight-club/?searchterm=boonsri%20dickinson

August 2007

For only $995, Space Services of Houston will pack a statistically insignificant 03 to 0.5 percent of your cremated remains in a lipstick-siza container and send it 72 miles up.

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/sep/how-final-is-a-space-burial/?searchterm=boonsri%20dickinson

July 2007

One of these claims is sure to make your blood boil: the assertion that humans have no soul. Or that we are alone in the universe. Or that the search for the origin of life is pointless. In What Is Your Dangerous Idea? Today's Leading Thinkers on the Unthinkable (Harper Perennial, $13.95), John Brockman, founder of Edge, an online salon, asks 108 thinkers and scientists to describe their "most dangerous idea."

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jul/books-dangerous-minds/?searchterm=boonsri%20dickinson

June 2007

This Is Your Brain on Ecstasy

Past research has attributed at least part of the "love effect" of Ecstasy to an increase in brain levels of the natural antidepressant serotonin. Australian neuropharmacologist Iain McGregor, of the University of Sydney, has another explanation. He says Ecstasy users are under the influence of a massive surge of oxytocin - the brain's "love" hormone, normally released during nursing or orgasm - which cements pair bonds.

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jul/this-is-your-brain-on-ecstasy/?searchterm=boonsri%20dickinson

June 2007

Was Lucy a Brutal Brawler?

Anthropologists have long assumed that the short stature of australopithecines like Lucy was related to treetop living: Have short legs makes it easier to climb trees and gives stability when balancing on branches. David Carrier, a biologist at the University of Utah has another idea. After taking measurements and collecting observations on nine living primate species, including humans, Carrier concluded that the living apes with the shortest legs for their body size, like gorillas and orangatans, are those that spend the lease time in trees.

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jul/lucys-legs/?searchterm=boonsri%20dickinson

March 2007

Eye Color Explained

Everything you know is wrong.

What most people know about the inheritance of eye color is that brown comes from a dominant gene (needing one copy only) and blue from a recessive gene (needing two copies).

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/mar/eye-color-explained