Science

She Blinded Me With,

Skin in the Game
L'Oreal has developed an artificial human skin product they call Episkin, grown from donor skin left after cosmetic surgery.

The reason? So they can test products on it instead of animals.

Tests have shown it gives more accurate results than animal skin.

The new skin has been cleared for use and will now be available to use in the cosmetic industry.

Dr Estelle Tinois-Tessonneaud, who led the research said: "It was very important because following regulation in 2009 the cosmetic industry will not be allowed to sell a cosmetic with raw materials that have been tested on animals so it was absolutely fundamental that we get this model."

...

From next year, EU laws will ban animal testing of cosmetics across Europe.

But we all know that regulation kills innovative private industry! This cannot be so!

Damn you Europe!!!

Source: Sky News

Spinal Tap
US scientists, on the other hand, have taken a step forward in the fight to fix the spine after injury to restore function in paralyzed patients.

According to a report in New Scientist today, in experiments on rats with spinal injuries, a team led by John Martin, a neuroscientist at Columbia University in New York, cut away a nerve from just above the injury that normally stretches into the body to control abdominal muscles and reattached it to the spine below the injury. The rats went on to show an increase in movements of previously-paralysed limbs, Martin told a meeting of the New York state spinal cord injury research programme.

Again, science isn't always nice, and I feel badly for the rats, but still. Progress.

Nobody knows if this will actually translate into useful results, yet, though.

Anderson, who was not involved in the research, said: "It's quite an exciting response, it's novel and no one's achieved quite that before.

"The exciting thing is that it's got some distinct physiological evidence for functional circuits being formed. Whether that would enable an animal to consciously produce a movement they wanted is guesswork."

All in all, though, hooray for science.

Source: The Guardian

Social Studies
As it turns out, Britons are in need of a refresher course on history.

The survey found that 47 percent thought the 12th century English king Richard the Lionheart was a myth.

And 23 percent thought World War II prime minister Churchill was made up. The same percentage thought Crimean War nurse Florence Nightingale did not actually exist.

Three percent thought Charles Dickens, one of Britain's most famous writers, is a work of fiction himself.

Indian political leader Mahatma Gandhi and Battle of Waterloo victor the Duke of Wellington also appeared in the top 10 of people thought to be myths.

Meanwhile, 58 percent thought Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective Holmes actually existed; 33 percent thought the same of W. E. Johns' fictional pilot and adventurer Biggles.

That is, for the record, almost the whole blurb/article.

I mean, about Churchill, a lot of his life has been... shall we say, creatively embellished after his WWII successes (ignoring completely his humiliating, Bush-grade idiocy in Turkey in World War I, for example). But as far as being a myth? They show the guy on tv constantly. He's probably in half the programming on the Hitler/History Channel.

Source: Raw Story

Celestia
Science-related, at least.

Celestia is a nifty sounding tool for displaying astronomical images and data. I'd probably just use it to create gorgeous shots for my desktop wallpaper.

Need to get computer fixed up... Need to abuse science.... for pretty....aghghghg

Source: Wikipedia

Just look at this... aghghghg

Oops, Should Have Looked Up That Word
The Italian parliament is apparently about to accidentally legalize P2P mp3 trading. The reason?

. According to Italian lawyer Andrea Monti, an expert on copyright and Internet law, the new Italian copyright law would authorize users to publish and freely share copyrighted music (p2p included). The new law, already approved by both legislative houses, indeed says that one is allowed to publish freely, through the Internet, free of charge, images and music at low resolution or "degraded," for scientific or educational use, and only when such use is not for profit. As Monti says in the interview, those who wrote it didn't realize that the word "degraded" is technical, with a very precise meaning, which includes MP3s, which are compressed with an algorithm that ensures a quality loss. The law will be effective after the appropriate decree of the ministry, and will probably have an impact on pending p2p judicial cases.

This is getting a bit non-sciency, but it's always important to know what a word means, folks.

There's that rhyme about drinking H2SO4 that springs to mind...

Source: Slashdot