Christmas Eve - Santa Movement "Confirmed"

On Christmas Eve, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, also known as Norad confirmed and tracked Santa and his reindeers across the world. Norad which has been tracking Santa for the past fifty years. How? With Santa Cams stationed across the globe and satellite, of course. Twitter users, for the first time followed the direction Santa headed from tweets, or Twitter messages from "Bitz the Elf," whose screen name is "noradsanta," according to Google, which has been giving Norad a hand in tracking Santa this year. Some web-based software which Google has used to help Norad include Google Maps and Google Earth. Below is one of the many video captures of Santa. Here he is shown at Beijing, China, travelling along the Great Wall and admiring some of the more well-known tourist attractions as well as some of the newer buildings made for the Olympics such as the Bird's Nest Stadium.

Regenerative Medicine Not So Far Away

The US Army has already developed a medicine to help regrow tissue and bone. Extracellular Matrix, he cream-colored crystallized powder, dubbed "magic dust," combines properties from the intestinal lining and the urinary bladder to make it into what it is. The medicine helps by giving the body`s natural healing powers a power boost, sort of tricking the body to think that it is back in the womb. One man who took part of the regenerative-medicine study after cutting off the tip of his finger in a model plane's propeller, had the substance applied to the wound, and after a month the body grew skin and tissue to renew the damaged finger. Whether it looked like a normal finger again, and to what extent the wound has healed was not told. Another medicinal breakthrough is a kind of engineered skin substitute. It is made from the patient`s own cells and about the size of a postage stamp. It could grow several times larger and can be used to prevent injection and can also placed over top of severely damaged skin to serve as new skin. The Army has also announced that a process to rebuild or regrow missing or damaged bone. A biodegradable scaffold is needed to be put in place of the missing/damaged bone to guide the regrowth. So far the only success the researchers have had is on test rats, which they have managed to restore 3cm of bone. They hope to achieve two more centimeters within two years. This technology is developped for injured soldiers and whether or not it will be available for the public was not told.

The picture to the right shows that the scaffold has already promoted bone regrowth in the rat. Before this, the bone was missing on the underside, and the new bone cells appears to be more greyish and transparent compared to the rest of the bones that were not damaged in this x-ray.

Mekong, Vietnam - "Treasure Trove" of Undiscovered Wildlife

Last week, the World Wildlife Fund released a report saying that parts of Vietnam and five other countries, is home to 1068 previously unknown wildlife species, including mammals, plants lizards and fish. The report has a timeframe of discoveries made from 1997 to 2007. Currently, the WWF averages two new discoveries a week. One such discovery is a lizard known as cyrtodactylus phongnhakebangensis, which has a brown body with a bright yellow tail for the most part, and white at the tip of the tail. It was discovered in 2002. Another discovery is an odd millipede, discovered in Thailand in 2007. It is bright pink and produces hydrogen cyanide for protection. Not all the discoveries made were absolutely new. Some of them are considered to be 'rediscovered', especially the Laotion Rock Rat, also known as Laonastes aenigmamus, which is a living fossil, thought to have been extinct for 11 million years. Oddly enough, it was spotted at a food market. In the report a total of 519 plants, 279 fish, 88 frogs, 88 spiders, 46 lizards, 22 snakes, 15 mammals, four birds, four turtles, two salamanders and a toad were found. Below are some pictures and footages of the wildlife.

Archeologists find 2000 year old Brain

Recently at an archeological excavation at York Universi cty in northern England, archeolgoists have found a human skull in a mud pit. These types of findings are quiteommon. The only difference is, is that parts of the brain inside the cranium has been preserved. Rachel Cubitt was the person who found the skull and noticed that there was something inside. When she tried to see, she noticed an unusual yellow substance from the bottom of the skull. Recognizing what it may be, she remembered a university lecture on the rare survival of ancient brain tissue, and looked for a professional opinion, which turned out to be that the yellow substance was in fact, portions of a preserved brain. The skull was then taken a CT scanner at York Hospital, which produced an extremely clear image. The fact that no flesh or soft tissue except the brain is extremely rare, says Dr Sonia O'Connor, Research Fellow in Archaeological Sciences at the University of Bradford. York University was in the middle of expanding the campus when an extensive prehistoric farming landscape of fields, track ways and buildings dating back to at least 300 BC, was found. Since then archaeological investigations have continued.

Exam Week

Tomorrow will be the first exam for Notre Dame. After this, a whole week of exams will follow and then a back-to-normal-school friday. Good Luck!

Dragonball Evolution

The new Dragonball Z movie is set to come out in the summer of 2009. A trailer was just leaked or realeased and named Dragonball Evolution. It appears to be a poorly thought-out movie. Everything that made Dragonball Z what it was has been entirely changed. For example, Master Roshi, originally an old and balding man in the Dragonball Z series, is now a much younger looking Chow Yun Fat with plenty of hair. The masculine Goku, the main character of the whole show, is now a feeble looking teenager played by Justin Chatwin. For all those Dragonball fans out there, I suggest having a look and deciding for yourselves whether this movie might actually be really big hit ( just as many people had thought that Transformers would be lame because it was a movie based on a toy ), or become a major flop. Click here to see the trailer or go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo4t8PeqJ6E

The Kiss of Deaf?

Yesterday in Zhuhai city in Guangdong province, China, a woman in her 20's had a slightly too passionate kiss in which the super suctioned kiss "reduced the pressure in the mouth, pulled the eardrum out and caused the breakdown of the ear." Because of this, newslines dubbed it the "Kiss of Deaf." Though the woman completely lost her hearing in her left ear, she is expected to make a full recovery in a couple month's time.