Today in Lab History: May 23, 1962- Successful replantation of a human limb
In 1962, a 12-year-old boy’s severed arm was reattached in the world’s first successful replantation of a human limb with microvascular repair of vessels by a team of surgeons led by Ronald Malt and J. McKhann at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston.
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Life as we know it may not have existed if the Earth wasn’t repeatedly bombarded by massive planetary bodies more than four billion years ago according to new research conducted by scientists at the Univ. of New Mexico and NASA Johnson Space Center. The results of the massive collisions indicate that much of Earth’s supply of chlorine was blown away creating a habitable environment suitable for the existence of complex forms of life – including humans.
In a paper published recently in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, UNM Regents’ Prof. Zach Sharp, UNM Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, and David Draper of the NASA Johnson Space Center (formerly of UNM’s Institute of Meteoritics), research suggests the removal of the chlorine through these collisions helped provide Earth the means necessary for its own evolution.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/massive-planetary-impacts-made-earth-habitable
Humans, Dogs Evolved in Parallel
A team of scientists from China have found that the lengthy and intimate association between dogs and humans has resulted in the genomes of both species evolving in parallel over the past 32,000 years.
To study early dog domestication, a team of researchers led by Guo-Dong Wang and Ya-Ping Zhang of the Kunming Institute of Zoology, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, sequenced the genomes of four grey wolves from across Eurasia, three indigenous dogs from Southwest China, and three representatives of modern dog breeds. Geneticists believe that indigenous dogs of South China represent the first stage of canine domestication – their genomes may thus hold insights into the transition from wolves to ancestral dogs.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/humans-dogs-evolved-parallel
Rapid Climate Change Sparked Human Culture
Rapid climate change during the Middle Stone Age, between 80,000 and 40,000 years ago, sparked surges in cultural innovation in early modern human populations, according to new research.
The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, was conducted by a team of scientists from Cardiff Univ.’s School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, the Natural History Museum in London and the Univ. of Barcelona.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/rapid-climate-change-sparked-human-culture
Experiment to Examine the Beginnings of the Universe
When did the first stars and galaxies form in the universe? How brightly did they burn their nuclear fuel? Scientists will seek to gain answers to these questions with the launch of the Cosmic Infrared Background ExpeRIment (CIBER) on a Black Brant XII suborbital sounding rocket between 11 and 11:59 p.m. EDT, June 4 from the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
/Jamie Bock, CIBER principal investigator from the California Institute of Technology, says, “The first massive stars to form in the universe produced copious ultraviolet light that ionized gas from neutral hydrogen. CIBER observes in the near infrared, as the expansion of the universe stretched the original short ultraviolet wavelengths to long near-infrared wavelengths today. CIBER investigates two telltale signatures of first star formation – the total brightness of the sky after subtracting all foregrounds, and a distinctive pattern of spatial variations.”
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/experiment-examine-beginnings-universe
Today in Lab History: May 20, 1851- Emil Berliner
Emil Berliner German-American inventor who made important contributions to telephone technology and developed the phonograph record disk, the microphone in 1877 and the gramophone in 1887. Whereas Thomas Edison invented cylindrical records, Berliner came up with the idea of using disks. He coined the word gramophone as is trademark. Later, he became a pioneer in helicopter design.
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Agriculture in China Pre-Dates Rice
Univ. of Leicester archaeologist used new analysis techniques to shatter conventional ideas of how agriculture emerged.
Archaeologists have made a discovery in southern subtropical China which could revolutionize thinking about how ancient humans lived in the region.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/agriculture-china-pre-dates-rice
X-Rays Can Read Fragile Rolled-Up Historical Documents
Pioneering X-ray technology is making it possible to read fragile rolled-up historical documents for the first time in centuries.
Old parchment is often extremely dry and liable to crack and crumble if any attempt is made to physically unroll or unfold it. The new technology, however, eliminates the need to do so by enabling parchment to be unrolled or unfolded “virtually” and the contents displayed on a computer screen.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/x-rays-can-read-fragile-rolled-historical-documents
Today in Lab History: May 15, 1923- Listerine introduced
In 1923, Listerine was registered as a trademark. The modern Listerine is a mouthwash, but the original amber-colored product was a disinfectant for surgical procedures, dating back to its formulation in 1879 by Joseph Lawrence and Jordan Lambert. The name they chose incorporated the name of the English surgeon, Joseph Lister, famous for performing the first antiseptic surgical procedure on Aug 12, 1865 and pioneering wider use of antiseptics by surgeons.
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Rewriting Darwin’s Sinking-Island Theory
The three different formations of South Pacific coral-reef islands have long fascinated geologists. Tahiti’s coral forms a “fringing” reef, a shelf growing close to the island’s shore. The “barrier” reefs of Bora Bora are separated from the main island by a calm lagoon. Finally, an “atoll,” such as Manuae, appears as a ring of coral enclosing a lagoon with no island at its center.
The question of how reefs develop into these shapes over evolutionary time produced an enduring conflict between two hypotheses, one from English naturalist Charles Darwin and the other from geologist Reginald Daly. But in a paper recently published in the journal Geology, researchers at MIT and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) use modern measurements and computer modeling to resolve this old conundrum.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/rewriting-darwin%E2%80%99s-sinking-island-theory
Today in Lab History: May 13, 1875- Joseph Henry
Joseph Henry was one of the first great American scientists after Benjamin Franklin. Although Henry at an early age appeared to be headed for a career in the theater, a chance encounter with a book of lectures on scientific topics turned his interest to science.
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Earliest Evidence of Human Ancestors Hunting, Scavenging
A recent Baylor Univ. research study has shed new light on the diet and food acquisition strategies of some the earliest human ancestors in Africa.
Beginning around two million years ago, early stone tool-making humans, known scientifically as Oldowan hominin, started to exhibit a number of physiological and ecological adaptations that required greater daily energy expenditures, including an increase in brain and body size, heavier investment in their offspring and significant home-range expansion. Demonstrating how these early humans acquired the extra energy they needed to sustain these shifts has been the subject of much debate among researchers.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/earliest-evidence-human-ancestors-hunting-scavenging
Today in Lab History: May 8, 1961- Seawater conversion
In 1961, the first practical seawater conversion plant in the U.S. was opened in Freeport, Texas, by the Office of Saline Water, U.S. Dept of the Interior. The plant was designed to produce about a million gallons of water a day at a cost of about $1.25 per thousand gallons.
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Climate, Not Humans, Caused Megafauna Extinction
Most species of gigantic animals that once roamed Australia had disappeared by the time people arrived, a major review of the available evidence has concluded.
The research challenges the claim that humans were primarily responsible for the demise of the megafauna in a proposed “extinction window” between 40,000 and 50,000 years ago, and points the finger instead at climate change.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/climate-not-humans-caused-megafauna-extinction
Today in Lab History: May 7, 1992- Endeavour launched
In 1992, the space shuttle Endeavour blasted off on its maiden voyage. The Endeavour launch, as the two billion dollar replacement for the Challenger, was the 47th shuttle mission.
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