Hey there science lovers! We have another big bang boom bounty of beautiful science to share with you happy learners today, including two men cured of AIDS, oxygen on Mars, an explosion of planets, lava on ice, the coolest cast to ever hold a broken arm together, and the creepiest science story of the year so far.

We will start with lava on ice, as it is not exactly science news, just really fucking cool.

Lava Pour No. 5 from robert wysocki on Vimeo.

In case you are wondering, no, they did not go to an active volcano, slam a bunch of lava into the world’s toughest Thermos, then hightail it North.

Instead, they cooked up their own lava from basalt. Much cheaper, I would imagine. And as cool as it is to watch, the point of the experiment is to observe how lava and ice interact in order to better study how certain geological features form.

What I love about the vid is how the lava at the very edge of the flow is thinnest, and therefore the cold from the ice is enough to make it solidify, and therefore the lava in effect makes its own channel.

And I mean… molten lava on ice. How metal is that?

From the molten bowels of the Earth, we now go to the absolute chill of outer space!

First, in local news, evidence is really piling up that billions of years ago Mars had an oxygen atmosphere.

The Mars Spirit Rover has been busy examining meteoric and other rocks on Mars, and according to everything we know about planetology, the only way those rocks could end up like they are now is if there was a big time oxygen atmosphere on Mars around 4 billion years ago.

Blue sky on Mars?

Here on Earth, we did not get our oxygen atmosphere till one and a half billion years later. But in our defense, we kept ours.

And we know ours comes from all that plant life. And where there are plants, insects follow.

Mars having had life at one point is looking more and more likely.

Moving from next door to way across town, a recent study suggests that the number of potentially habitable planets in our galaxy might be twice as large as previously thought.

They were studying red dwarf stars, which are by far the most common kind.

Then this happened.

Researchers found that the atmospheric circulation and cloud cover on these exoplanets meant these worlds could orbit their stars more closely than previously thought—expanding the habitable zone around red dwarf stars.

This, of course, is more good news for us Drake’s Equation fans. Number of habitable worlds is one of the most important, controlling variables in it, and when that goes up, that means the likelihood of their being other intelligent life out there goes up too.

Granted, it will be a while before we can go find out for sure. Heck, Mars is next door and we still don’t have it figured out.

But it’s nice to know we are not alone in the cosmos.

Next up, a quantum leap forward in the technology of immobilizing limbs : the Cortex Exoskeletal Cast.

Imagine a cast that breathes, is completely washable and shower friendly, is lightweight and thin, and is built to fit the patient’s arm precisely.

Actually, don’t imagine it. Look at it!

The coolest thing from a technology point of view is that the thing is 3D printed. The injured part is first X-rayed to the get the inside view, then 3D scanned to get the outside view, then those two pictures are merged to make a model of injured part. Based on that model, the cast is designed and printed.

I am kind of curious as to how the cast then gets onto the injured limb.

Also in the world of medicine, two men appear to have been completely cured of AIDS via a stem cell transplant.

The procedure was meant to address the men’s cancer (cancer and AIDS… holy crap. ), but seems to have had the additional benefit of clearing their bodies of the AIDS virus.

And that’s… pretty freaking awesome. The men have been off their antiretroviral meds for weeks now and their tests come back absolutely clean. No AIDS virus detectable whatsoever.

It’s not a cure, not yet, but it’s amazing nevertheless. The procedure was a bone marrow transplant, and that is not going to be an option for most AIDS sufferers. It’s a dangerous and extremely painful operation, and of course, requires a very dedicated donor.

But when combined with all the other stem cell derived therapies showing extraordinary results these days, it suggests that we might just be on the precipice of a new medical revolution.

And finally, the Big Story for this week and guaranteed to be the creepiest fucking thing you have heard in a long time, an Italian neuroscientist claims that we now have the technology for full head transplants.

Yes, you read that right. Full head transplant. Taking your head and putting it on a completely different body. How Mad Science is that?

It’s a mind-blowing concept. How weird would it be to wake up with a body that is not your own? You would have to learn to walk and talk all over again, practically.

And of course, we’re talking about transplanting your head onto a live body, which kinds means that you would have to murder someone to pull this off.

Or use someone who is brain dead, I suppose.

And if it is possible to transplant an entire head, is brain transplant next?

You have to admit that even if you were old and evil and very rich, and wanted to have your life extended via head transplant onto a young and healthy body, it would kind of suck to have your head and your body not match afterwards.

Imagine how gross an old head would look on a young body!

Still, as horrifying as the idea might be, and setting aside where the healthy headless body came from, there is nothing actually wrong about the idea.

Sure, it gives us all the Cronenberg Creeps, but there’s nothing immoral about it. We all agree that the brain is the center of individuality, personality, and identity, so it doesn’t violate those ideas at all. And we don’t think someone with other sorts of transplants suddenly stops being themselves.

So while the squick factor is very high, it’s not actually wrong, per se.

Still gives me the willies thinking about it, though.