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<p>NEW HAVEN, CT (CBS Local) – Has science gone too far? That’s the question some experts are asking after Yale University researchers announced that they have successfully reanimated a pig’s brain, which had been severed from its body.</p> <p>Yale neuroscientist Nenad Sestan revealed the breakthrough during a meeting at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on March 28. Sestan’s team reportedly experimented on over 100 pig brains obtained from a slaughterhouse and restored their circulation using a system of pumps, heaters, and artificial blood. The researchers said they managed to reactivate the brains for up to 36 hours.</p>

Klas Tybrandt has developed a new conductive material that is as soft as human tissue and can be stretched to twice its length. The material consists of gold coated titanium dioxide nanowires, embedded into silicone rubber. The material is biocompatible – which means it can be in contact with the body without adverse effects – and its conductivity remains stable over time. ... The electrodes are 50 µm in size and are located at a distance of 200 µm from each other. The fabrication procedure allows 32 electrodes to be placed onto a very small surface. The final probe, shown...

Saturday’s “Frankenfest” will include a “Franks-N-Steins beer garden and a special Frankenstein speakers bureau,” according to the excerpt. Other federally-funded programs throughout the year in Indiana will include talks about the book’s key themes and film and writing festivals. . . . Another $173,000 from the endowment awarded to Indiana will fund a two-week institute on Frankenstein, Cinderella and their adaptations in Arkansas.

Jill Stein has requested a full recount of the presidential election in Wisconsin, alleging that foreign hackers could have skewed the result by obtaining the state’s voter database and then filing bogus absentee ballots.https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/25/jill-stein-election-recount-clinton-trump-michigan-pennsylvania-wisconsin

You may have heard about the Italian Neurosurgeon, Sergio Canavero, who plans to carry out the world’s first human head transplant next year. Having secured a volunteer for the operation, the professor has just unveiled a virtual reality system that will hopefully “prepare patients for life in a new body,” an experience that could cause unexpected psychological reactions. Professor Canavero is determined to perform the operation in 2017 on wheelchair user Valery Spiridonov, who runs an educational software company in Russia and suffers from the muscle-wasting Werdnig-Hoffman disease. Assuming the complex transplant take place, Spiridonov will have his head nearly...

Happy Halloween! I thought you might enjoy this number from the 2007 musical "Young Frankenstein" (based on the 1974 movie.)

Scientists are now contemplating the fabrication of a human genome, meaning they would use chemicals to manufacture all the DNA contained in human chromosomes.

A shocking new report indicates scientists have found a way for human embryos to live outside the womb for 14 days, which is a record, so they can be experimented on for a longer period of time. Leading pro-life advocates are outraged that scientists would specifically create unique human beings to purposefully experiment on and later destroy just for research. They are worried scientists will continue creating more unborn human people who will be subjected to research for a longer duration of their embryonic life. In a piece made public today, commentators Insoo Hyun, Amy Wilkerson, and Josephine Johnston encourage...

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) – Wendy Davis, the former Texas state senator whose 2013 filibuster against an abortion bill vaulted her to national prominence, is in North Carolina raising money for a political group affiliated with Planned Parenthood. Davis, a Fort Worth Democrat who ran unsuccessfully for governor last year, is delivering the keynote address at three fundraisers this week, with two slated Wednesday in Greensboro and Charlotte.

Scientists in mainland China have successfully mass produced high-quality artificial sperm for the first time. "Our man-made sperms cells can be used to generate an army of half-cloned mice with ease and efficiency. These half-cloned mice will fight on the frontline in battles against cancer and other genetic health issues,” said professor Li Jinsong, lead scientist on the project with the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Shanghai Institute for Biological Sciences. Man-made sperm have been produced by scientists in labs around the world for years,but the quality of these sperm was a problem. For instance, only about 2 per cent of...

This year is the 10th anniversary of a book called "The Republican War on Science." I could just as easily write a book called "The Democratic War on Science." The conflict conservatives have with science is mostly caused by religion. Some religious conservatives reject evolution, and some oppose stem cell research. But neither belief has a big impact on our day-to-day lives. Species continue to evolve regardless of what conservatives believe, and if conservatives ban government funding of stem cell research, private investors will continue the work. By contrast, the left's bad ideas about science do more harm. Many on...

Surgery’s Far Frontier: Head Transplants Chinese doctor is doing head transplants in mice, in a sign of China’s focus on scientific research By SHIRLEY S. WANG June 5, 2015 HARBIN, China—Xiaoping Ren stood up after 10 hours hunched over an operating table and looked proudly at his patient, a small black mouse with a new brown head. When he took a ventilator off the tiny creature’s throat, the head began breathing spontaneously with its new body. An hour later, the body twitched, and, a few hours after that, the mouse opened its eyes, Dr. Ren recalls.

Could it be possible that large manufacturers of chemicals have encouraged and promoted hydroponic and hybrid agriculture in order to maintain sales and profit margins? Hydroponic tomatoes have finally arrived in Romania. A video from Antena 3 entitled,“Pofta Buna la Otrava,” (Good Appetite for Poison), describes how an entrepreneur from Reghin, Mures County, has grown last year nine huge tomato plants per square meter, the size of “tropical arbors.” The plants grew out of a special bed without soil. The seeds were treated with a special fungicide designed to resist disease, grew roots in a bed of cotton and other...

Wednesday on PBS “NewsHour,” Secretary of State John Kerry articulated the administration’s new position on Sen. Bob Corker’s (R-TN) bill demanding Congress get a vote on the merits of President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, in light of prominent Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) supporting the bill this week. Making it clear the bill can not “interfere” with the president’s deal, Kerry said “if it’s changed and adjusted and reflects the respect for the Constitution and the president’s prerogatives,” then Congress can vote.

http://www.ketv.com/politics/live-obama-on-iran-nuclear-talks/21863310

The Scientist Who Wanted To Bring A Death Row Inmate Back From The Dead Dr. Robert E. Cornish is probably best known for his 1930s revivification experiments with dogs, in which he claimed to bring dogs back from clinical death. He wanted to try a similar procedure on humans — and when a death row inmate volunteered, Cornish petitioned the state of California to let him play re-animator. Cornish's dog experiments would make most dog lovers cringe. Cornish would suffocate the dogs until they were clinically dead, and then he would place the bodies on a teeter board, rocking the...

Great Britain has voted to allow the world’s first “three-parent” in vitro fertilization. The new technique uses the DNA of three people to prevent mothers from passing mitochondrial diseases on to their baby. The new treatment that was allowed by the British Parliament on Tuesday is known as “three-parent” in vitro fertilization (IVF) because the babies, born from genetically modified embryos, would have DNA from a mother, a father and from a female donor. In Britain’s House of Commons on Tuesday, health minister Jane Ellison started the debate on mitochondrial donation by urging support for this change. “This is a...

Secretary of State John Kerry called criticism that no top U.S. officials attended Sunday's massive march against terrorism in Paris "quibbling" Monday, even as he announced a trip to the French capital later this week for talks on countering Islamist violence. Kerry announced his plans at a press conference in the Indian city of Ahmedabad, where he had made a long-scheduled appearance at an international investment conference Sunday ahead of President Barack Obama's planned visit to that country later this month. "I would have personally very much wanted to have been [in Paris]," Kerry said, "but couldn't do so because...

The cells from a human fetus have been injected into baby mice to create animals which have brains that are half human. Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical said it was like “ramping up the power” of the mouse brain, because human cells are so much more advanced. They found that mice with the human brain cells had memories that were four times better than their siblings who did not have the injections. […] The team created the hybrid mice by injecting “glial” cells from donated human fetuses—left over from IVF—into mouse pups. Glial cells provide support and protection...

“Potentially unethical.” That’s how one expert described an Italian scientist’s plan to perform a “head transplant” by severing two heads at the same time, then cooling and flushing out the ‘recipient’ head before attaching it to its new body with polymer glue.That is “POTENTIALLY unethical?” Making one person out of two, and throwing away the unused halves, is only “potentially” unethical?Shock and awe.* * * * *Neuroscientist Sergio Canavero is undeterred by criticism, however. Canavero now reports that it’s possible to merge bone marrow, surgically cut with an ultra-sharp knife, when fusing one person’s head onto another person’s spine. The...