Scientists Discover A New Organ
After all this time, you’d think scientists would have the human body figured out, but it seems they’ve just discovered something new. According to a new study, scientists have sound a new organ hiding in plain sight and it could be the human body’s largest.
As study co-author Dr. Neil Theise puts it, the interstitium [[in-TER-sti-SHUM]] is an interconnected system of itty bitty fluid filled spaces. They’re found throughout the entire body in a “highway” like system that moves our internal water supply. As you may know, the human body is made up of 60% water and though two thirds of that are inside cells, scientists didn’t realize where the rest was flowing until now.
Where is it? The interstitium is found within connective tissue underneath the skin. It must go through further research before becoming an "official" organ. Before this discovery, researchers weren’t able to find the interstitium due to the method of research that required scientists to thinly slice tissue, which ultimately destroyed its structure.
- It wasn’t until using a new probe-based method of research they were able to discover it. The interstitium could possibly act as shock absorbers for the other organs and may be linked to the spreading of cancer cells.
Source: Live Science
Yay science! Melt-Resistant ice cream is here
Forget going to Mars -- science has finally done something useful: created ice cream that doesn't melt quickly on a hot day.
Along with scientists from the University of Guelph in Canada, Columbian researchers Dr. Robin ZuluagaGallego and Jorge A. Velásquez Cock goosed an ice cream recipe with cellulose fibers from a banana plant to achieve the breakthrough.
The science site StudyFinds notes that the discovery was presented last week at the 255th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.
The delicious result? Ice cream that not only lasts longer, but tastes creamier and may be healthier than the usual kind.
Meanwhile, the "banana waste" additives -- microscopic stem fibers, thousands of times smaller than the width of human hair -- could replace some of the fats that make ice cream taste so good.
While Japanese researchers last year announced their own melt-resistant ice cream, their additive -- polyphenol compounds from strawberries -- didn't have the same mouth feel as the real McCoy.
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Walmart’s Taking Cosmo Out Of The Checkout Line
You’ll no longer be able to find “Cosmopolitan” magazine in the checkout line at Walmart stores. An activist group, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation says it’s been working with the biggest retailer in the U.S. for months to make checkout aisles “family-friendly and sexploitation-free.”
The group posted a victory statement on its website explaining that Walmart’s decision means that in over 5,000 stores across the country, people “will no longer be automatically exposed to Cosmo’s hypersexualized and degrading article titles.”
Walmart assures customers that the women’s magazine will still be available to customers who want to buy it, it just won’t be found in the checkout aisles. The retailer didn’t confirm that the National Center on Sexual Exploitation was the catalyst for the move, but Meggan Kring, a spokesperson for Walmart explains in a statement, “While this was primarily a business decision, the concerns raised were heard.”
That organization was called Morality in Media up until 2015 and they’ve been campaigning for years to get Cosmo moved from checkout lines, comparing its content to pornography. And in 2015, they did succeed in getting two big chains, Rite Aid and the parent company for Hannaford Stores and Food Lion to put the magazine behind blinders in their stores.
Source: CBS News
No, violent video games won't turn you into a real-life killing machine, claims study
A new study is hitting the reset button on the notion that playing violent video games make you more aggressive.
The study from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and the University Clinic Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany separated 77 people into three groups for two months: 25 played the super-violent Grand Theft Auto, 24 played the low-key social simulator The Sims, and the remainder didn't play any video games.
Head researcher Simone Kühn noted that questionnaires later filled out by all participants reflected no changes in empathy, impulsiveness, anxiety, mood, and other behaviors -- especially aggression. "We did not find relevant negative effects in response to violent video game playing," Kühn noted in a press release on the findings. "The fact that we assessed multiple domains, not finding an effect in any of them, makes the present study the most comprehensive in the field."She explained further, "Only three of the 208 statistical tests performed showed any significant changes that could allude to more violent behavior," adding "these are explained through coincidence."