gingerfeminist:

sojourner-truth-or-dare:

neurosciencestuff:

A sensational breakthrough: the first bionic hand that can feel

The first bionic hand that allows an amputee to feel what they are touching will be transplanted later this year in a pioneering operation that could introduce a new generation of artificial limbs with sensory perception.

The patient is an unnamed man in his 20s living in Rome who lost the lower part of his arm following an accident, said Silvestro Micera of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland.

The wiring of his new bionic hand will be connected to the patient’s nervous system with the hope that the man will be able to control the movements of the hand as well as receiving touch signals from the hand’s skin sensors.

Dr Micera said that the hand will be attached directly to the patient’s nervous system via electrodes clipped onto two of the arm’s main nerves, the median and the ulnar nerves.

This should allow the man to control the hand by his thoughts, as well as receiving sensory signals to his brain from the hand’s sensors. It will effectively provide a fast, bidirectional flow of information between the man’s nervous system and the prosthetic hand.

“This is real progress, real hope for amputees. It will be the first prosthetic that will provide real-time sensory feedback for grasping,” Dr Micera said.

“It is clear that the more sensory feeling an amputee has, the more likely you will get full acceptance of that limb,” he told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Boston.

“We could be on the cusp of providing new and more effective clinical solutions to amputees in the next year,” he said.

Hooooly shit

CYBORGS

THERE ARE TEARS. OH MY GOD. YES. YES. SCIENCE YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL.

lunatickingtimebomb:

See, tumblr is good for us

indeed.

ussdestiel:

deeeeeeeeeeeespookyaaaaaaaaaaaan:

dooooooooooooooooctor:

that-1one-guy:

psych-facts:

In a simple experiment, researchers at the University of Chicago sought to find out whether a rat would release a fellow rat from an unpleasantly restrictive cage if it could. The answer was yes.

The free rat, occasionally hearing distress calls from its compatriot, learned to open the cage and did so with greater efficiency over time. It would release the other animal even if there wasn’t the payoff of a reunion with it. Astonishingly, if given access to a small hoard of chocolate chips, the free rat would usually save at least one treat for the captive— which is a lot to expect of a rat.

The researchers came to the unavoidable conclusion that what they were seeing was empathy— and apparently selfless behavior driven by that mental state.

Source: http://0c6cada9.linkbucks.com

I know plenty of people that wouldnt do anything like that

I know I wouldn’t save my fucking chip for someone

that awkward moment when rats are more emphatic than people

This is why I love rats. They are the sweetest little things and make great pets and buddies.

angrybanette:

girljanitor:

IAAF Gender Testing Policy Denounced As Bad Science And Discrimination by Bioethics Panel

In 2009, South African athlete Caster Semenya won gold in the women’s 800m at the World Athletics Championships. With barely enough time to bask in her achievement, Semenya was thereafter subjected to a publicly humiliating “gender test” and forced to withdraw from the rest of the competition. Now, a Stanford bioethics panel is contesting this practice, citing it as an unnecessary, poor application of the science of hormones.

Semenya was essentially turned into a spectacle because she is an intersex person, a term that denotes a category of conditions that result in uncommon combinations of physical sex characteristics. In her case, her medal was contested because she does not have ovaries, she has internal testes, and consequently produces a larger amount of testosterone than most women.

In light of her testosterone levels, and the fact that she had won the race, the International Association of Athletics Federations instituted a policy that held that women with unusually high levels of testosterone would be banned from competition unless they lowered their hormone levels via surgery or drugs. This policy was based on the assumption that “androgenic hormones (such as testosterone and dihydrotestosterone) are the primary components of biologic athletic advantage.” The IAAF planned to instate these regulations as early as this year’s London Olympics.

However, a panel of scientists, sports experts, and bioethicists from the Stanford Center for Biomedical Research has recently stepped up to challenge this policy and the entire notion that higher levels of testosterone result in a fundamental physical advantage in sports, releasing a critique of the policy today in the American Journal for Bioethics.

Fuck tha gender police

This isn’t even gender policing, its just straight up cissexism, dyadism and sexism based on the presumption that men are better athletes and testosterone is the ‘better’ hormone

IAAF, you guys fucking SUCK. 

stophatingyourbody:

wheeliewifee:

Glamour Magazine Body Size Stereotypes Survey:

What the Glamour Magazine poll shows about the assumptions women hold

Heavy women are pegged as…

“lazy” 11 times as often as thin women; “sloppy” nine times; “undisciplined” seven times; “slow” six times as often.

While thin women are seen as…

“conceited” or “superficial” about eight times as often as heavy women; “vain” or “self-centered” four times as often; and “bitchy,” “mean,” or “controlling” more than twice as often.

Even the “good” labels are unfair.

An overweight woman may be five times as likely to be perceived as “giving” as a skinny one. “But it just fits into the stereotype that thin women are not that way,” explains Ann Kearney-Cooke, Ph.D. “It’s still putting women in a box based on their body size.”

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This is so interesting… and really sad. The fact that heavy women ALSO judge heavy women and thin women judge other thin women is so disheartening.

Hopefully places like Stop Hating Your Body can help change this even a little bit at a time… 

(click on the image for the entire article, it is worth the read!)

It’s very interesting that the article is about stereotypes, and yet both the women shown here, while their body sizes are different, are both white, blonde, and what the media would like to push as being ideally ‘beautiful’. 

Yes, I understand that the two bodies should be otherwise similar to drive home the point that the size of the body is the only thing affecting the opinion. But still, why choose a white, blonde, ‘beautiful’ person to begin with?

That being said, however, the article does make a good point. People are far too eager to place people in a box strictly on what the shape of their body, and it’s not okay. The only way to change is to question what you’re made to think, and why.

Not strictly science but still, for a poll done by a beauty mag it’s happiness.