gross/awesome

unregulated use of stem cells in plastic surgery yields bone...

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 12:54:12 -0500

unregulated use of stem cells in plastic surgery yields bone growth in your eyeball! vanity is a killer, ladies. scientific american

I can’t decide if I want to vomit or bid on this lot of...

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 16:54:18 -0500

I can’t decide if I want to vomit or bid on this lot of vintage stereoscopes featuring images of skin diseases. LINK

Chinese researchers have genetically modified a herd of cattle...

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 12:44:11 -0400

Chinese researchers have genetically modified a herd of cattle to produce something like human breast milk.

“The genetically modified cow milk is 80 percent the same as human breast milk,” said Li Ning, a professor and the project’s director as well as lead researcher.

Details from Reuters

Can this help babies whose mom’s can’t produce boob juice? Or adoptive parents? How do cows feel about being used so hard by humans that they can’t even control the milk they make? O, humans.

From National Geographic “Known as yartsa gunbu—or...

Thu, 16 Jun 2011 12:21:43 -0400

From National Geographic

“Known as yartsa gunbu—or “summer grass winter worm”—by Chinese consumers, the nutty-tasting fungus is highly valued for its purported medicinal benefits, for instance, as a treatment for cancer and aging and as a libido booster. Far away in the booming cities of Beijing and Shanghai, demand for the fungus has soared.

“Medically, it seems to deliver,” according to Daniel Winkler, a fungus researcher and head of Eco-Montane Consulting in Seattle, Washington.

“Even the whole thing that it’s an aphrodisiac—yes, it might really help.”

Some Chinese grind up the fungus and sell it as a powder, and others use it whole as a garnish—and therefore a display of wealth.

“When you want to impress your business partner, you stuff some kind of fowl with it to show that money doesn’t really matter to you, because you just stuffed your goose with $100 worth of mushrooms,” Winkler said.

In Tibet (see map) and other Himalaya regions of Nepal and Bhutan, yak herders who harvest the fungus are getting rich from fungus sales.

By one account, the value of caterpillar fungus shot up 900 percent between 1997 and 2008, said Winkler, who has studied the phenomenon.

Nomadic yak herders now ride motorcycles, own apartments in the city, send their kids to schools, and pay someone else to do their village chores, he said.”

The fungus is parasitic—it grows from caterpillar larva.

So is this fungus vegan? What is your opinion of the longevity of markets fueled by parasitic fungi? Would you woo a business partner with a meal based around this? So many questions…