domani è oggi

CORR? vecchia: Le scienze 7 aprile Alligator blood antibiotics
Researchers are studying American alligator blood as a potential source for powerful new antibiotics. Apparently, proteins in the blood can kill E. coli, herpes simplex, and the nasty methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Apparently, many reptiles and amphibians have some of these powerful proteins flowing through their blood.
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/04/16/alligator-blood-anti.html

BT? World risks 'scientific apartheid', says top African scientist
The world risks "scientific apartheid" between rich and poor countries unless research and technology is better used to benefit the poor, says one of Africa's leading science experts.
http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=41877

BT Ayahuasca church spreads into UK
Steve Boggan writes about the Church of Santo Daime's spread into the UK. The church uses a powerful hallucinogen called ayahuasca as a sacrament. The Church of Santo Daime (“holy give me” in Portuguese) was born in the 1930s out of the experiences of a Brazilian rubber-tapper named Raimundo Irineu Serra, or Mestre (Master) Irineu, as followers call him. He was born in 1892 to African parents in Maranhão in the northeast of Brazil and travelled to Acre in the northwest in 1912 to find work during a boom time for the rubber industry. In 1930 he was given his first taste of ayahuasca by indigenous shamans - medicine men - and spent eight solitary days and nights in the rainforest, experiencing a series of visions and receiving instructions from the Virgin Mary, whom he called the Forest Queen, that formed the basis of a new religion.
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/04/16/ayahuasca-church-spr.html

BT? Smithsonian images migrated to Flickr for fair-er use

La parola all’uomo di Neanderthal (La Stampa - 18 ore fa)
Dopo aver studiato per anni la differenza nella struttura delle loro corde vocali, facendo supposizioni su come ciò potesse aver modificato e ostacolato lo sviluppo della parola, gli antropologi sono finalmente riusciti a riprodurre con un sintetizzatore il suono che doveva avere la voce dell’Homo neandertalensis. Non potevano pronunciare le vocali “a, i, u” e in generale potessero produrre una gamma di suoni più ristretta rispetto a noi.
http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSHAR66324620080416

La macchina per anziani
La casa automobilistica giapponese Nissan sta progettando una machina destinata agli anziani. Vengono studiati tutti i fattori che possono caratterizare le persone avanti con l’età e che rendono più difficile la guida (come vista ridotta, difficoltà nei movimenti, rigidità, appesantimento, ecc.) attraverso un apposito completo fatto indossare a un guidatore-cavia.
http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUST9224920080416