Guess what, science fans! It’s SCIENCE TIME again!

And this time, we will be doing our science roundup in two parts : non brain science, and….

…wait for it, wait for it…

….actual brain science.

No extra points for getting that right so you can all put your hands down now.

Our first brain unrelated items comes from the fascinating world of DNA and the almost as fascinating world of carnivorous plants.

It turns out that recent developments in sequencing the genome of a plant called Utricularia gibba (or “Uggie”, to its friends) have yielded some very interesting results.

Turns out that Uggie baby’s genome consists of 97 percent active genes and only three percent “junk” DNA that doesn’t code for any proteins.

This is a sharp contrast to us naked beach apes, whose genome consists of only 2 percent active DNA and 98 percent rubbish DNA that just lays about without coding a single protein.

Thus, the puck is pushed back into the “junk DNA truly is useless” end of the rink and away from the “junk DNA is somehow very important even though it codes for no proteins” side of things. After all, it seems you can at least have a complex multicellular plant with almost no junk DNA.

The article (and the research) assumes that Uggie has somehow “deleted” nearly all junk DNA but I consider that assumption unwarranted. It may never have had junk in its DNA sequence in the first place, in which case the question is, why does any species have junk DNA?

My armchair scientist theory is that adding new DNA without getting rid of the old and just changing which genes are active allows for a faster rate of stable mutation and hence benefits species which have had to adapt to various conditions, like people, or our food crops.

Next up in the brainless science field (so to speak), we have this story of a natural reservoir with billion year old water in it recently discovered in Ontario.

Scientists found it while working 2.4 km under the ground and chemical and isotope analysis show that the water in this underground lake has definitely not been in contact with Earth’s atmosphere for at least a billion years, and is abundant with hydrogen and methane, two of the building blocks of life.

This is exciting news because it means that somewhere in that reservoir may be life that has not been part of Earth’s surface biosphere for a billion years. Who knows what strange and previously unheard of avenues of evolution such life could take?

It might even be its own shadow ecosystem that works on different principles than our own.

However, don’t expect anything multicellular, as I can’t imagine what the energy inputs for an ecosystem like that would be. Chemical? Geothermal? Who knows.

For those of us in the primary biosphere, it’s sunlight.

OK, now on with the brain science!

First off, we will talk about recent progress made in the scientific understanding of individuality.

A study has shown that mice who explore more develop more new neural connections than ones who do not. This difference in neurogenesis provides an important clue in the mystery of individuality, because all of these mice were genetically identical. Forty mice, all twins.

And yet, there were differences. And the mystery really takes off when you realize that there was differences in behaviour in these genetically identical mice before they even started the study.

So obviously, individuality is not a solely genetic thing. There must be another factor that somehow tells us “you are bold and exploratory” or “you are cautious and neophobic”.

And if that factor is not in our genes, then where the heck is it?

I would like to know if these differences in temperament appear even in genetically identical mice raised in isolation with one another.

It might be that somehow we communicate with others of our species (via pheromones, perhaps) and “negotiate” who has what job in the community.

“You’re already bold and exploratory? OK, I’ll be cautious and sensible. ”

And if that held true in humans, it might be that this genetic negotiation happened when we were all sitting in the maternity ward together.

As a distinctly cautious type, that prospect both intrigues and disturbs me.

And now, onward to the edge : University of Oxford scientists think they may have come up with a way to make you better at mental arithmetic.

And all you have to do is train for five days while they use something called transcranial random noise stimulation (TRNS) on your brain.

After that, you will have a sharper, faster brain that manipulates numbers more easily than ever before, and the effect will even still be there six months later.

Frankly, this smells a tad off to me. Nowhere in the article does it say there was a control group that had the stimulation without the training, and without that control, you cannot say the transcranial stimulation had anything to do with it.

Maybe five days’ training is all anyone needs to get better at maths.

But who knows? The science of transcranial magnetic stimulation is still quite new. Maybe they are on to something after all.

Still quite spooky to imagine a bunch of kids studying math with brain stimulation helmets on, though.

Plus, this caught my eye because I have had a lovely resurgence of my own mental arithmetic skills lately. I used to be quite food at it as a child but as I grew I somehow lost the ability.

And now it’s back! Wow, I wonder if I can get my old singing voice back too.

On a more serious note, scientists from the University of Adelaide and the University of Colorado have collaborated to create what might just be a cure for heroin and morphine addiction.

Turns out, they both bind to the same receptor in the brain, and the scientists thing they can create a drug that blocks access to those receptors, and thus eliminate the craving for the opiods.

That would certainly shoot the main mechanism of addiction right between the eyes. No cravings, no addiction, basically. And it might even lead to a cure for another serious problem, morphine tolerance.

Patients with long term intractable pain often develop a high level of resistance to morphine and its derivatives, leading to the inevitable point where the only dosage strong enough to stop their pain is one that would be fatal.

If we could cure the cravings for the morphine, we could slow down the development of tolerance and thus give the patient more time where the drug works for them.

And that… would be awesome.

That’s enough for this week, folks! But stay tuned, more brain science soon.