Biology
Electrified Sheep
& Elephants on Acid
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Categories
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48 Hours With Plants (September 2011)
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The Quest for Bulletproof Skin (Aug 2011)
An August 2011 Associated Press story reported that Dutch artist Jalila Essaidi, in collaboration with Utah State researcher Randy Lewis, created "bulletproof skin". Or, at least, skin that's somewhat bulletproof. The material was able to stop a bullet fired at reduced speed from a .22 caliber rifle, though not one fired at normal speed.
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 The Virtual Rat Project. (Aug 2011) A group of American researchers (led by Dan Beard of the Medical College of Wisconsin) is joining forces to build a virtual rat. It'll be a computer simulation of a rat's physiology, which researchers will then be able to use to run virtual experiments. Apparently the idea is not to have the virtual rat replace real rats, but rather to use the virtual rat to help design better experiments using real rats. Link: jsonline.com.
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Monkey-Head Transplant (1970)
 When Vladimir Demikhov unveiled his two-headed dogs in 1954, it inspired a strange kind of surgical arms race (or rather, head race) between the two superpowers. Eager to prove that its surgeons were actually the best in the world, the American government began funding the work of Robert White, who then embarked on a series of experimental surgeries, performed at his brain research center in Cleveland, Ohio, resulting in the world's first successful monkey-head transplant. |
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Ivanov’s Human-Ape Hybrid (1927)
For decades dark rumors circulated alleging that the Soviets had conducted experiments to try to create a human-ape hybrid by breeding chimpanzees and humans, but it wasn't until the collapse of the Soviet Union and the opening of Russian archives that the rumors were confirmed. Dr. Il'ya Ivanov was a world-renowned expert on veterinary reproductive biology, but he wanted to do more in life than breed fatter cows. So in 1927 he traveled to Africa to pursue his vision of interbreeding man and ape. |