February 2012
1 post
6 tags
The Forgetting Pill Erases Painful Memories →
A possible drug treatment for PTSD:
For example, in a recent experiment, Sacktor and scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science trained rats to associate the taste of saccharin with nausea (thanks to an injection of lithium). After just a few trials, the rats began studiously avoiding the artificial sweetener. All it took was a single injection of a PKMzeta inhibitor called ...
January 2012
3 posts
4 tags
How long is the longest-running lab experiment? →
You can actually watch the longest-running lab experiment in history live on a webcam. Note: it is not as exciting as you might think.
The experiment has been in progress for 85 years:
The pitch-drop experiment—really more of a demonstration—began in 1927 when Thomas Parnell, a physics professor at the University of Queensland in Australia, set out to show his students that tar pitch, a...
5 tags
The Man Who Studies The Fungus Among Us →
A discussion with fungal researcher Nicholas Money about his new book Mushroom.
“As a biologist, there’s so much to revel in, when we really study the fungi,” he tells Fresh Air’s Terry Gross. “This is a fantastic kingdom of microorganisms, and far more interesting than the animals and the plants.”
4 tags
Science Can Neither Explain Nor Deny the... →