Three articles of scientific import for the first month of the new year. The first one is about stem cells. Nothing really exciting except that it demonstrates, if in a rather grisly manner, how magically effective they work at staving off the effects of aging. The second one is about liquid diamond on the planets Uranus and Neptune. The last one is about a new theory on how human brains understand music and why we find it appealing.

Stem cells are old news by now but this article from Harvard Magazine describes a simple experiment that nonetheless successfully demonstrates the regenerative powers of stem cells in a very dramatic fashion. The experiment, led by Amy Wagers of Harvard University, surgically joined two mice so that their blood supply became shared. One of the animals was old. The other was young. The idea was that the blood from the young mouse would awaken the stem cells of the old mouse and enhance its regenerative abilities.

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