Nature's Surgeons: How Ants Perform Life-Saving Amputations
What if the world's first surgeons weren't human - and were only a few millimetres long? Long before sterile operating rooms and anaesthesia, Camponotus floridanus – the Florida carpenter ant – had already evolved a remarkably sophisticated system of trauma care. A 2024 study reveals, for the first time in non-human animals, deliberate surgical amputation performed on injured nestmates, a behaviour rooted in eusocial immunity. What makes this behaviour extraordinary is its a
Sanskriti Singh
5 hours ago2 min read
The Holmesburg Prison : Life of a prison guinea pig
Experiments that inmates did not fully understand years later became one of the most controversial chapters in the history of medical research Beyond the prison walls, echoes of forgotten stories hung in the air. Prisoners lined up not for the punishment but sometimes for something unexpected. Experiments that inmates did not fully understand years later became one of the most controversial chapters in the history of medical research. During the 1950s and 1960s, Holmesburg Pr
Gungun
Mar 142 min read
Mini Brains That Throw Seizures
What happens when you grow a patient’s disease inside a lab-grown brain and then try to cure it? What happens when you grow a patient’s disease inside a lab-grown brain and then try to cure it? A UCLA research team grew tiny blobs of human brain tissue, infected them with Rett syndrome - a rare disorder that robs young girls of speech and movement and watched them develop epilepsy. Brain organoids function as laboratory-developed neuron groups that use a patient's skin cells
Sanskriti Singh
Feb 282 min read
Beyond DNA: Epigenetics and Lifestyle
Genes provide the foundation of life, but lifestyle determines the expression of that foundation We learn that the DNA we get from our parents decides what we will be like and if we will be healthy. The DNA has all the information that our body needs to grow and work properly. This information is inside the genes; they tell our body how to make proteins. Just because we have a gene does not mean it is always working. The gene has to be turned on to work. This is called gene e
Khushi Gupta
Feb 212 min read
