The Discovery show “MythBusters” delighted investigative junkies and movie buffs alike in the years following its launch in the early 2000s. The stunt-filled show featured special effects experts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman testing out the validity of everything from duct tape islands to mechanical sharks using scientific methods.

Back in 2007, 39-year-old John Galvan was 21 years into serving a life sentence for a crime he didn’t commit, when he caught a rerun of “MythBusters” on the prison television.

The episode, “Hollywood on Trial,” which originally aired in 2005, shows Hyneman and Savage failing to light a pool of gasoline using a cigarette—a classic action film trope.

Not even a rolling fully lit cigarette could ignite a flame. In other words, the myth was officially “busted.”

This bit of information immediately caught Galvan’s attention, for it would be the very catalyst needed to prove his innocence and reclaim his freedom. –Read the rest

The Humble Potato Could Hold the Key to Beating Hospital Superbugs as Well as Crop Diseases

The humble potato, which contains a natural antibiotic that destroys harmful bacteria, could hold the key to beating hospital superbugs in the future, according to research from a multinational team of researchers in Europe.

The compound, called solanimycin, combats a host of fungi that wreak havoc on crops. In these recent experiments, it killed Candida albicans, which causes possibly-dangerous infections, like thrush in women.

Most current therapeutic antibiotic compounds originate from soil microbes—and the solanimycin findings show that plant-based microorganisms should get a closer look.

The research team see the discovery as an encouraging sign that plant pathogens could be coaxed to make compounds that may be used not only against plant fungi in crops that have developed resistance to treatments, but also against the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance in humans.

“We have to open to the exploration of everything that’s out there to find new antibiotics,” said Microbiologist Rita Monson, Ph.D., at the University of Cambridge who co-led the study.

This week in mBio, the team reported the discovery of solanimycin, initially isolated from a pathogenic bacterium that infects potatoes, that appears to be produced by a broad spectrum of related plant pathogenic bacteria. –Read the rest

Researchers Found Ancient Village Remarkably-Preserved by Vesuvius Eruption, 2,000 Years Before Pompeii

2,000 years before Pompeii, an Early Bronze Age village was almost perfectly preserved— then hidden for centuries—after Mount Vesuvius erupted one autumn day.

Uncovered during the construction of a high-speed railway near Naples, Afragola offers a rare glimpse into life in the Campania region during harvest time.

Like Pompeii, Afragola was encased in many feet of ash, mud, and silt, which preserved the site so well that archaeologists could identify the season in which the disaster occurred from the remains of a food storage area.

Covering an area over 1.2 acres (5,000 square meters), the site also features well-preserved footprints of fleeing adults and children.

“The site is exceptional, because Afragola was buried by a gigantic eruption of Vesuvius and it tells us a lot about the people who lived there, and the local habitat,” said Dr. Tiziana Matarazzo of the University of Connecticut.

“In this case, by finding fruits and agricultural materials, we were able to identify the season of the eruption, which is usually impossible.”

The course of the eruption happened in various phases, starting with a massive explosion that sent debris away from the village, to the northeast.

This gave the villagers a chance to escape, which is why preserved footprints were discovered, and not bodies as at Pompeii, before the wind changed and ash and sea water blew over the village—mainly dispersed to the west and northwest up to a distance of about 15 miles (25km) from the volcano. –Read the rest

Article posted with permission from Sons of Liberty Media