Brain controlled robotics in Argentina, talking about bats in Costa Rica, and outsourcing science research of Bolivia’s salt flats

ANTARCTICA

The West Antarctic began to form approximately 22,000 years ago according to a study recently published in the journal Nature. They found, while analyzing a block of ice two miles deep, that a part of the white continent was formed long before the rest of the continent.

Bolivian scientists are not happy that their government has outsourced to foreign researchers the study of extremophiles in the salt flats of Bolivia. Credit: Rabbit Hole via Flickr.

ARGENTINA

The South Atlantic, specifically the Gulf of San Jorge, will be studied jointly by Argentine and Canadian scientists, says the Ministry of Science and Technology of Argentina. The project will start in January 2014, will be done aboard the ship Coriolis II and require an investment of one million dollars.

For 10 years the Faculty of Agronomy at the UBA has been working with farmers in the municipality Daireaux, located 400 km from Buenos Aires. Through tax benefits, producers are encouraged to conserve soil and rotate crops in addition to adopting traditional farming practices in the area. The producers involved in the project have seen significant improvements in organic matter content and soil stability.

A group of scientists in Cordoba has created an innovative technology that allows people with physical disabilities to switch on the lights or lower the blinds in their homes through a system that decodes their brainwaves and transforms them into intelligible orders.

Continue reading “Brain controlled robotics in Argentina, talking about bats in Costa Rica, and outsourcing science research of Bolivia’s salt flats”

Burial chamber discovered in the middle of Machu Picchu, recording sounds for posterity in Mexico, and coffee rust continues to devastate plantations.

ARGENTINA Argentine researchers are part of an international consortium that is developing new drugs to combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria like MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). The scientists identified a gene, FapR, which inhibits the synthesis of lipids—fats required by bacteria to build new cells. The research was published in the journal PLoS Pathogens. BOLIVIA UPDATE: The story … Continue reading Burial chamber discovered in the middle of Machu Picchu, recording sounds for posterity in Mexico, and coffee rust continues to devastate plantations.

Thursday August 2

Villagers immune to rabies found in the Peruvian Amazon, Chile’s Very Large Telescope spots a spiral galaxy, and scientists strap a camera to a diving cormorant in Argentina. ARGENTINA Argentine scientists with the Wildlife Conservation Society have captured video of never-before-seen behavior from a cormorant diving 150 feet to the sea floor in search of … Continue reading Thursday August 2