200 year old uni

The sea urchin (also known in sushi restaurants as uni) may be able to live to be 200 years old. Previous research has suggested that the spiny sea creatures can live to be about 55. A new study confirms this, and goes further to suggest that they can live to be centuries old. Studies on the aging of the animal began in the 1980s when sea urchin populations off the coast of California plummeted due to the wave of sushi restaurants that were appearing there. It takes an urchin about seven years to grow big enough (about nine centimeters in diameter) to be harvested for their eggs. The largest urchin ever found was 19 centimeters in length, which would take 200 years of growth according to scientists.
-Zoe Cormier
Source: Science

Scientists spoiling mysteries of love

New research shows that the rush of new love is biologically different from mature love. Scientists examined the brains of college students in new and long term relationships using imaging scanners. Brain activity in long-term lovers corresponded to emotional areas of the brain, whereas new lovers brains’ lit up in the areas associated with reward and motivation. Researchers therefore presume that what we experience in the first throes of love is not so much an emotional feeling as a drive or motivation. They also determined that the same areas of the brain in men and women get activated when we orgasm. They achieved this by scanning the brains of subjects while their partners “manually provided the necessary stimulation.”
-Z.C.
Source: Science

Face off

Although it has never been done, scientists think we may one day be able to perform face transplants. A face transplant on a dog, performed at Columbia in 2002, failed when the dog died six days later when its body rejected the new face. But studies in rats have been relatively successful. A similar operation in India was successful when an 11 year old girl had her face torn off after her hair caught in a piece of farm machinery and doctors managed to graft her face back on. People with severe burns or facial cancer have been hoping for this procedure for several years.
-Z.C.
Source: New Scientist