Slanted Science

Archive for November, 2009

Great news for vegetarians who miss the taste of meat: in a few years, you may be able to chow down on a slice of bacon or two with a clean conscience. Scientists report today the first ever production of a piece of meat grown entirely in vitro.

Where next with this? May we suggest co-culturing a piece of pork with a pair of pigeon wings? Hey presto: flying pigs. Read the rest of this entry »

New research is showing scientists how sperm production can be increased or decreased by altering the levels of hormone signaling in the testes.

This science is quite clearly a load of balls. Read the rest of this entry »

Scientists down under are attempting to eradicate what is, apparently, a world-threatening problem: sheep burps.

They’re trying to breed a strain of sheep which will be less prone to oral flatulence, in the hopes of reducing their country’s contribution to greenhouse gases (in this case, methane).

We suggest that their next target should be the regulars in SlantedScience’s local bar: on the average Friday night, we must burn a hole in the ozone layer as big as Texas. Read the rest of this entry »

Great news for men! You always thought it was true, but now scientists have confirmed it: being a bit dirty, and not obsessing over the odd discarded pizza slice laying around for a few days, is good for your immune system.

Read on as we tell you about the research, and provide you with a scientifically approved message to cut out and hand to your wife or girlfriend next time she asks you to wash the dishes. Read the rest of this entry »

What is it with Peruvians and the theft of body parts? Coming just a couple of months after someone stole a lung from a Bodies anatomical show touring the country comes this news:

Peruvian police have busted a gang which has been murdering people, rendering their bodies and then selling the extracted fat for use in cosmetics.

What the hell happened to good old fashioned bank robbery and extortion? Read the rest of this entry »

Oh dear. The Climate Research Center of the University of Anglia, UK, has had its computers hacked by persons unknown. Files stolen during the hack were posted to a rapidly-closed Russian server, but later disseminated across the internet. They seem to indicate that the field’s leading scientists have been colluding to silence those colleagues whose research does not promote their own hysterical viewpoints.
Photo credit: Fillies Wo/UNEP/Still Pictures Read the rest of this entry »

Hot on the heels of the news that bacteria in human guts make us fat comes this: scientists have shown that leafcutter ants also use the single-celled critters to give them some otherwise inacessible nutrients. They apparently use the bacteria’s ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen into a biologically usable form. Clever little fellas, eh? Read the rest of this entry »

Saliva science. Not the hottest of research fields, perhaps, but it is apparently drawing in some funding.

Because a new paper published in the Journal of Proteome Research is reporting that the wet stuff changes its chemical composition as women age. Read the rest of this entry »

Work carried out at several North American research institutes, and headed by Dr Stuart Lipton,has come up with a novel strategy for treating the terrible neurodegenerative condition called Huntington’s Disease (or Huntington’s Chorea).

They used a mouse model of the disease and found that, in the mice at least, disease progress can be halted by a drug currently being used to treat patients with Alzheimer’s. Read the rest of this entry »

What’s the secret to living to be 100? Vegetarianism? Lots of exercise? Making sure you never watch a Sandra Bullock movie, thus ensuring your blood pressure isn’t raised by contemplating the unfairness of a world in which so little talent can take a person so far?

Well sure, all of those things can help. But a new study shows that it may be our genes, more than our actions, which give us the chance of seeing out a century. Read the rest of this entry »