Page 9 - Science Facts

Beards keep you healthy!

A study from the University of Southern Queensland published a study in which they found that beards block 90 to 95% of UV rays. Beards slow down the aging process and reduce the risk of skin cancer.

Not just that, they found that beards also reduce the number of pollens and dust that cause asthma attacks. Beards also protect your face from the wind, keeping you looking young.

Other studies have also shown that women are more attracted to men with beards than without. Although those claims might not be 100% scientifically proven, it seems like there's a pretty good case for all you guys out there to grow out that facial hair.

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Scientists have produced brain cells from pee!

You read that right. A team of Chinese researchers have found a way to extract ordinary cells from human urine and repurpose them into fully functional neurons. They hope that this advancement will lead to the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.

This is a particularly big breakthrough because it eschews the use of embryonic stem cells, which pose ethical dilemmas, but most importantly, have been known to cause tumors. Other types of stem cells are not as easily obtained, so they're not as viable for treatment as either embryonic stem cells or these new urine cells.

The method produced usable cells within 12 days, which is half the time required using the second fastest method. The cells were then acting like functional neurons with no tumors or mutations. The urine cells can be taken from almost any patient's urine.

Learn more about this exciting development at the source.

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The sum of a tree's branches equals the thickness of its trunk!

It’s also called Da Vinci’s Rule of the Trees; and knew about this rule 500 years ago and it was recently validated by scientists who used ‘a lot of grad students’ to measure it. The rule hadn’t really been tested until recently.

Now scientists are trying to figure out *why* this holds true. There are currently two leading explanations for why this is true: One is that it’s because this ratio is conducive to effectively transporting sap.

The second, and the one that a new paper has given a lot of credence to, is that it’s the optimal size for resisting wind damage. They built sophisticated computer models that simulated a full tree, and then measured how thick branches had to be to minimize wind damage, and the Da Vinci rule always seemed to be validated.

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In 2005, a baby was born with a second head that could blink and smile!

In 2005, an Egyptian girl named Manar Maged was born with a condition called craniopagus parasiticus. It’s a very rare birth defect that happens when an embryio starts splitting into identical twins, but the process doesn’t complete.

It’s usually manifested as an extra limb or trunk, but in her case, it was an extra head. The twin could blink and smile but it was not capable of independent live. She underwent a 13-hour operation to remove the twin.

There had been 10 previous surgical cases like hers, but she was the only one who survived the operation. Unfortunately, while the original operation was successful, she died of complications a little over a year after the surgery.

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Many people who read the word yawn or yawning begin to feel the urge to yawn.

Most people, when they see someone else yawn, quickly feel the urge to yawn as well. Between 40 and 60% of people automatically find yawning contagious and yawn themselves. The standard answers from scientists as to why people find yawning contagious used to be that, although it was clearly a real phenomena, there was no obvious reason for it.

Research conducted in 2005 by Finnish scientists, however, may point to certain parts of the brain as being responsible. When a person witnesses someone else yawning, he or she has a mostly unconscious urge to do the same. People may become conscious of the urge, but scientists suggest the beginning of the yearn to yawn is unconscious. This means that the signal must bypass the mirror neuron system, which is a process that would make this response a conscious and imitative act.

Scientists have often, in the past, suggested that the mirror neuron system causes yawning. Instead, researchers found that seeing someone else yawn seems to render the periamygdala sections of the brain inactive. This is a tiny part of the brain on either side of the head that helps interpret things like facial expressions. If it was working, the conscious response to yawning might be, “Oh, he’s tired.” By temporarily blocking such a reading, however, the response cannot at first be a conscious perception.

(Source)