59724
submission
spellraiser writes:
Reuters reports that a team at Seoul National University has produced three cloned copies of a female Afghan hound. This is the same team that produced Snuppy, the world's first cloned dog last year, also an Afghan hound. However, Hwang Woo-suk, who was the leader of the team back then, has since resigned in disgrace, after it was discovered that the team had fabricated data in two papers on human embryonic stem cells. The team is now headed by Lee Byung-chun.
From the article:
Lee said his team had used the same technology as before under Hwang but had made it more efficient. Hwang has said that he chose Afghan hounds because of their striking looks.
A total of 1,095 reconstructed embryos were transferred into 123 surrogates to create two living puppies last year — Snuppy and another dog that died after 22 days from pneumonia.
This time, 167 reconstructed embryos were transferred into 12 surrogate mothers to produce the three living clones, Lee said.
49624
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spellraiser writes:
It seems that a new breed of bartender has emerged all over North America; the mixologist.
"It's about bringing bartending back to what it used to be, where you created everything yourself," said Brock Shepherd, a Toronto mixologist.
Molecular mixologists follow in the footsteps of molecular gastronomy, a type of cooking pioneered by French scientist Herve This, where instruments and techniques from the lab are brought into the kitchen.
It also relies heavily on tools and techniques that have been used in the kitchen for decades.
Among the interesting results created by this experimentation is edible booze:
Under the headline "Edible Cocktails/AKA Boozy dessert" on his new menu, Shepherd has remade the traditional slushy tequila-based margarita into a sweet ending to a meal.
He forms an egg by surrounding orange vanilla tequila with a lime sorbet then encasing it in a shell of white chocolate.
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spellraiser writes:
Stephen Hawking spoke out on the future of mankind in an interview with the BBC. He said that humans would sooner or later be forced to leave the Earth to colonize other solar systems or face extinction through, for example "a nuclear disaster or asteroid hitting the planet". However, he is optimistic that a method for travelling such great distances could be devised via "matter/anti-matter annihilation".
Professor Hawking also jested about his own possible space travelling plans:
"I am not afraid of death but in no hurry to die," he said.
"My next goal is to go into space, maybe Richard Branson will help me."
Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group has contracted a firm to design and build a passenger spaceship.
