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-- Archive RSS Ask us anything Submit a post View Separately The scientific link between stress and bad skin is finally discovered As any good 90’s teen movie shows, an outbreak of acne before an important first date or school performance seems to be an unavoidable tragedy. Now, scientists find that the onset of bad skin that precedes stressful situations isn’t merely bad luck, but the result of stress-induced chemical reactions in our nervous systems. Though commonly linked anecdotally, deciphering the physiological relationship between stress and outbreaks of inflammatory skin conditions like acne has proven notoriously difficult. “Nearly everyone has some form of stress in their life, so it’s difficult to determine whether stress can actually make the skin’s appearance worse,” explains Richard Granstein, a researcher from the American Academy of Dermatology who led the study. “However, it’s been known for a long time that the nervous system, which processes our stress, has an impact on conditions such as psoriasis.” So how does stress, which is translated by our nervous systems, cause an inflammatory response in the skin? Under stress, nerve endings increase their firing rate of chemical signals called neurotransmitters, which regulate the activity of cells lining blood vessels, including immune cells and endothelial cells. Increased secretion of these chemicals can cause both inflammation and vasodilation, which gives skin the appearance of redness. Scientists found that interrupting the path of nerves that service a patch of inflamed skin can greatly reduce the effect of a skin condition. “If we could block specific steps in certain pathways between the nervous system and the skin - without impacting the whole body - we would likely have new ways to prevent or treat some skin disorders,” says Granstein. By Daisy Dunne #acne #skin #stress 5 years ago 1 Permalink Share Short URL Twitter Facebook Pinterest Google+ Pop-up View Separately Tortoises master the tablet A team of tortoises have successfully learnt to use touchscreen technology to win treats from scientists, who hope to learn more about the reptile’s unique method of processing spatial information by monitoring their ability to remember the location of rewarding blue circles on a touchscreen. Whilst mammals use the hippocampus for matters of geography, reptiles are thought to use a similar but more enigmatic structure known as the reptilian medial cortex. “Tortoises are perfect to study as they are considered largely unchanged from when they roamed the world millions of years ago,” says Anna Wilkinson from the University of Lincoln, who trained the tortoises using strawberry rewards, “this research is important so we can better understand the evolution of the brain and the evolution of cognition.” Impressively, two of the tortoises even went on to use the information they had learnt in a real life scenario. After learning to peck blue circles on one side of a screen in exchange for a reward, the reptiles chose to approach the same side of an experimental chamber when presented with two empty blue bowls similar to the virtual circles. This outcome suggests that like the majority of animals, reptiles rely on ‘landmarks’, and not just simple motor processing, to orientate in their environment. Wilkinson hopes this study will open the door for a wider use of touchscreens in animal behavioural studies. “The touchscreen is a brilliant solution as all animals can interact with it, whether it is with a paw, nose or beak. This allows us to compare the different cognitive capabilities", she says. By Daisy Dunne #tortoise #animal behavior #tablet 5 years ago 9 Permalink Share Short URL Twitter Facebook Pinterest Google+ Pop-up View Separately The games up! Today, Rosetta finally catches it’s comet After a decade of cosmo-chasing, Rosetta has managed to catch comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. But now, things really start to get interesting… At around 10:30 this morning, the Rosetta Spacecraft confirmed it had arrived at the “mysterious mini ice world”, comet 67/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The ten-year adventure, that took the solar-winged aluminium box 405 million kilometres from earth, has today become the first mission to successfully make contact with a comet. Now, Rosetta will accompany the cosmic iceberg as it travels into deep space at nearly 55,000 kilometres an hour, and will eventually land on the comet’s surface after an appropriate landing site is located in September. What can we learn from today’s rendezvous? Comets are often described as the building-blocks of the universe; they harbour water vapour, volatile elements and possibly even organic molecules such as amino acids, the universal compounds of life. Using a myriad of probes and instruments, Rosetta hopes to characterise the comet’s enigmatic dust, gas and crust, to potentially shed light on the evolution of the Solar System and even the origins of life. Finding organic material would greatly strengthen the controversial Panspermia Hypothesis, the theory that life travelled to earth from across the stars. What to find out more? Check Issue 7 of to get a dissection of Rosetta’s high-tech instruments and hear more from Rosetta’s project scientist. 5 years ago Permalink Share Short URL Twitter Facebook Pinterest Google+ Pop-up View Separately Issue ten of out now! The latest issue of the world’s best and brightest science magazine goes on sale in the UK this Thursday, and as ever it’s packed with in-depth features exploring the science world’s latest discoveries. In this month’s issue: Space : We investigate the future of talking with aliens and try to decipher why we haven’t heard from them yet. In addition, find out the latest in space tourism – how numerous companies are planning to build permanent hotels in space. Humans : Recent research suggests the lifestyle choices we make and are subjected to can affect the expression of our own, and even our grandkids, DNA. How? Find out how our hardwiring can be manipulated by epigenetics in this month’s issue. Engineering : We bring you the FIA-approved Formula E, the lithium-powered global competition that hopes to transform the future of electric motoring. Plus, discover how slanted buildings and wind farms could protect millions against natural disasters. Nature : Our cover feature this month looks at some of the seemingly sci-fi abilities from the animal kingdom. From regenerating jellyfish to electric platypuses, we bring you the planet’s most unlikely superheroes. Technology : We find out how 3D printing is getting serious, replacing wobbly plastic junk with complex creations made out of different materials. Plus, we take a look at the shrinking future of X-rays and discover how gravity-powered lights could aid the developing world. 5 years ago Permalink Share Short URL Twitter Facebook Pinterest Google+ Pop-up View Separately Ways the Universe could end #1: Heat Death (This is an extract from issue eight of . For more possible fates for our Universe, head to www.science-uncovered.com for details on how to purchase your copy) The Universe is becoming less and less structured. That’s a result of the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the disorder (or ‘entropy’, in a physicist’s language) of any closed system will always increase. The so-called heat death of the Universe may be the endgame of this process, and would happen when entropy reaches a maximum and the temperature of the entire cosmos becomes uniform. If that happened, ordered structures such as planets, stars and galaxies would no longer exist. Just as a sandcastle eventually collapses into particles of sand, they would have disintegrated into a sparse gas of photons, electrons and neutrinos. With all matter in the Universe at a single temperature, there would be no temperature gradients to drive the reactions that make the Universe an active, dynamic place, leaving behind a dead expanse where nothing interacts. But...