Game of Thrones on Cello!

Amazing share h/t +Avinash Jaisinghani on the GOT theme song

The theme song of HBO’s “Game of Thrones” is considered just as awesome as the show, so it’s no wonder it has generated so many tributes and covers. However, the one above is perhaps the most jaw-dropping you’re likely to hear today, this week or this month.

Cello rock band Break of Reality has thought it fitting to pay tribute to the amazing opening theme from the show, by Ramin Djawadi, with their own, slightly different version.

“We are big fans of the show and have received many requests for this cover. Happy to have finally recorded it!” the band says in the description of the video posted on YouTube.

Courtesy: Game of Thrones theme song arranged and performed by cello rock band Break of Reality. Original composition and soundtrack by Ramin Djawadi.

Original post: https://plus.google.com/u/0/118032512240837957269/posts/EUvDtw8TgJx

#music #gameofthrones #gameofthronesseason3 #cello #breakofreality  

Kittehs

Studying the bond between Cats and their Humans

Article Extract
It took 120 hours of observing 40 cat-human pairs for scientists to conclude that the bond between the two can be similar to other human relationships. And, yes, I know that most of you who have cats—or know someone who has a cat—will not find that surprising, so let’s delve into the details. It turns out that this study isn’t as simple as it appears.

The scientists (whose study appears in the journal Behavioural Processes) sent a team of researchers repeatedly into the homes of cat-human pairs in Vienna, Austria. The team would visit for about 45 minutes around the cat’s feeding time, with one person interacting with the cat and human and the other wielding a video camera. They evaluated the personalities of both the human (with a personality test) and the cat, through both observations (e.g., did the cat accompany the human to the door?) and a series of tests that included the cat’s reaction to being picked up. The video of the cat’s behavior and interactions with the humans in the room was later coded and the researchers analyzed it all with a computer program that looked for patterns in the behaviors of the cats and the humans.

The scientists found some correlations between human personality and the behaviors of the cats—such as that cats with humans classified as “extroverted” or “conscientious” exhibited more complex patters of behaviors—and concluded that “it seems that an important area of negotiation between the owner and the cat is mutual attention and friendly tactile interactions” and that the patterns in the relationships between the cats and humans resemble other long-term and complex relationships, “such as those between humans.”


Article Link: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2011/02/studying-the-bond-between-a-cat-and-its-human/

Pic courtesy: reallycutecats.com

#science   #scienceeveryday   #caturday   #cats   #biology  

Stephen Hawking predicts end-of-Earth scenario

Stephen Hawking, one of the world's greatest physicists and cosmologists, is once again warning his fellow humans that our extinction is on the horizon unless we figure out a way to live in space. Not known for conspiracy theories, Hawking's rationale is that the Earth is far too delicate a planet to continue to withstand the barrage of human battering. "We must continue to go into space for humanity," Hawking said. "We won't survive another 1,000 years without escaping our fragile planet."

For years, Hawking has advised people to begin the search for new planets to inhabit. In 2006, he iterated some of today's sentiment saying the survival of the human race depends on its ability to find new homes elsewhere in the universe. In 2011, he said, "Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain lurking on planet Earth, but to spread out into space."

Hawking has achieved success in published academic works of popular science in which he discusses personal theories on the universe, its creation and cosmology in general. His book “A Brief History of Time” was on the British Sunday Times best-sellers list for a record-breaking 237 weeks.

Article Link: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57579003-76/stephen-hawking-predicts-end-of-earth-scenario/

Additional link: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-04/stephen-hawking-says-we-have-get-rock-within-1000-years

Pics courtesy: theresilientearth.com, wide-walls.blogspot.com

#science #scienceeveryday #earth #future #doomsday  

 Upgrade your body 

Powered Exoskeletons

Cyberdyne's robot-suit "HAL" (Hybrid Assistive Limb) is being mass produced at 500 units per year. It has been available for rent for around three years in Tokyo. Enquiries are coming in from around the world for use in hospitals and rehabilitation centers. At around $2000 per month, the HAL exoskeleton helps the wearer carry out everyday tasks, including walking, climbing up and down stairs, and lifting heavy objects. The suit can operate for almost five hours before it needs recharging.

http://www.upgradeyourbody.com/catalog/bionics/exoskeletons/hal/view-details.html

Flash news: New Page here +HASHTAGS Of The World, Unite To TREND Over… - circle them for some awesomeness - coming soon!

#science   #ScienceEveryDay   #exoskeleton  

First Tests For Fusion-Powered Spaceship Propulsion Successful

University of Washington researchers and scientists at a Redmond-based space-propulsion company are currently building components of a fusion-powered rocket, which could enable astronauts to travel to Earth’s neighboring planet Mars within weeks instead of months, at speeds considerably faster than feasible until now. The current travel speeds using fuel rockets make Mars travel a journey of about four years but the new fusion technology being tested by researchers at the University of Washington promises that in 30 to 90 days.

“Using existing rocket fuels, it’s nearly impossible for humans to explore much beyond Earth,” said lead researcher John Slough, a UW research associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics. “We are hoping to give us a much more powerful source of energy in space that could eventually lead to making interplanetary travel commonplace.”

The team has developed a technology using a special type of plasma that will be encased in a magnetic field. When the plasma is compressed with high pressure by the magnetic field, nuclear fusion takes place. The process has successfully been tested by researchers and they plan on having the first full test to be done by the end of this summer.

Article Link: http://www.scienceworldreport.com/articles/6067/20130405/first-tests-fusion-powered-spaceship-propulsion-successful.htm

Nuclear fusion, in which the nuclei of atoms are forced to join together, could produce vast amounts of energy. Most designs for fusion reactors drive the reaction by confining the fuel in a magnetic field, using a device called a tokamak.

Unfortunately, tokamaks are prohibitively heavy, so designs for fusion rockets tend to focus on another method of triggering fusion, called inertial confinement fusion.

Additional reference: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18283-engage-the-x-drive-ten-ways-to-traverse-deep-space.html

#science #scienceeveryday #nuclear #fusion #spacecraft #exploration  

Plasma Device Could Revolutionize Energy Generation and Storage

Scientists at the University of Missouri have devised a new way to create and control plasma that could transform American energy generation and storage. Randy Curry, professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Missouri’s College of Engineering, and his team developed a device that launches a ring of plasma at distances of up to two feet. Although the plasma reaches a temperature hotter than the surface of the sun, it doesn’t emit radiation.

"Launching plasma in open air is the 'Holy Grail' in the field of physics," said Curry, professor of electrical and computer engineering in the University of Missouri's College of Engineering. "Creating plasma in a vacuum tube surrounded by powerful electromagnets is no big deal; dozens of labs can do that. Our innovation allows the plasma to hold itself together while it travels through regular air without any need for containment." The plasma device at MU could be enlarged to handle much larger amounts of energy, according to Curry. With sufficient funding, they could develop a system within three to five years that would also be considerably smaller. He noted that they used old technologies to build the current prototype of the plasma-generating machine. Using newer, miniaturized parts, he suggests they could shrink the device to the size of a bread box.

“We have a world-class team at MU’s Center for Physical & Power Electronics, but that team will evaporate without funding.”

Article Link: http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1112824374/plasma-launched-into-open-air-for-energy-generation-041713/

Additional link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130416151931.htm

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-04-plasma-device-revolutionize-energy-storage.html#jCp

#science #scienceeveryday #plasma #energy #sustainability #power  

Coffee Chemistry

These latest findings suggest that the antioxidants present in coffee can also lower the risk of heart disease and cirrhosis of the liver.

Coffee contains hundreds of components including substantial amounts of chlorogenic acid, caffeine, magnesium, potassium, vitamin B3, trigonelline and lignans.

Chlorogenic acid has been shown in animal experiments to reduce glucose concentrations; coffee also contains tannin, which is beneficial for heart and arteries.

Researcher Dr. Rob van Dam of the Harvard School of Public Health, says that coffee, if taken in moderate amounts, can actually prevent colon, liver and rectal cancer. 

Link to Dr. Dam's article: http://www.news-medical.net/?id=24760

Need Fiber? Have a Cup of Coffee

Some good news for coffee lovers: a cup of joe may get you going in more ways than one. A new study shows that brewed coffee contains soluble fiber, the roughage found in oatmeal and apples that aids digestion, helps the body absorb vital nutrients and keeps a lid on cholesterol.

More about coffeechemistry

Joseph Rivera is the founder and creator of coffeechemistry.com. He began his career with the Coffee Quality Institute (CQI) over 10 years ago after receiving with a degree in Food Chemistry. As Director of Research with CQI, he utilized knowledge of chemistry with practical coffee science to develop a number of testing methodologies currently in use today. As such his work has allowed him to play a key role in the development of numerous international training and certification programs including the Q.

Joseph served as the Director of Science and Technology for the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) from 2001-2009 and served as the coffee industry’s coffee scientist/expert.

He has been a frequent contributor to numerous trade publications and has been featured on the History Channel’s Coffee documentary, Discovery Channel, National Public Radio (NPR), Australia Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

Link to cup of Joe: http://nordicbaristacup.com/2011/08/lecturer-profile-joseph-rivera/

Link to coffee chemistry: http://www.coffeechemistry.com/index.php/Page-2.html

Coffee science Link: http://www.scaa.org/chronicle/category/coffee-science/

Who drinks the most coffee? : http://io9.com/5948206/here-are-the-fifteen-professions-that-drink-the-most-coffee-guess-whos-number-one

Image courtesy: Coffeechemisty, ecosalon

#coffee   #science   #scienceeveryday  

Coffee isn’t just warm and energizing, it may also be extremely good for you.

Coffee Can Make You Smarter:
The active ingredient in coffee is caffeine, which is a stimulant and the most commonly consumed psychoactive substance in the world.
By blocking the inhibitory effects of Adenosine, caffeine actually increases neuronal firing in the brain and the release of other neurotransmitters like dopamine and norepinephrine. Many controlled trials have examined the effects of caffeine on the brain, demonstrating that caffeine can improve mood, reaction time, memory, vigilance and general cognitive function.

Coffee Can Help You Burn Fat and Improves Physical Performance
There’s a good reason why you will find caffeine in most commercial fat burning supplements. Caffeine, partly due to its stimulant effect on the central nervous system, both raises metabolism and increases the oxidation of fatty acids.

Coffee May Drastically Lower Your Risk of Type II Diabetes
In observational studies, coffee has been repeatedly associated with a lower risk of diabetes. The reduction in risk ranges from 23% all the way up to 67%. A massive review article looked at 18 studies with a total of 457.922 participants. Each additional cup of coffee per day lowered the risk of diabetes by 7%. The more coffee people drank, the lower their risk.

Even though coffee in moderate amounts is good for you, drinking way too much of it can still be harmful. The author would also like to point out that many of the studies above were epidemiological in nature. Such studies can only show association, they can not prove that coffee caused the effects.

Article Link: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-02/why-coffee-good-you-here-are-7-reasons

Earlier article on coffee: https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/103586346709495625226/110884604033336753419/posts/gHzt122N3Hz

Picture courtesy: coffeechemistry.

#science   #scienceeveryday   #coffee   #coffeechemistry   #goodmorning  

Brilliant Earth Time-lapse

Using footage from the International Space Station, photographer Bruce W. Berry, Jr. created a stunning compilation of our planet

Heaven meets the Earth in this moving time-lapse video showing gorgeous landscapes underneath an ever-changing night sky.

A time lapse journey round the Earth, first during the day and then through the night - day time passes over Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and California / Mexico, and night time passes over the UK, Ireland, mainland Europe, the USA, Canada and the Atlantic Ocean. Several night sequences feature the fabulous Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) and watch out for the Milky Way, and thunderstorms at night over mid-West USA.

Photograph sequences were taken by the crews of Expedition 30 and Expedition 31 on board the International Space Station (ISS) between December 2011 and June 2012. Images courtesy of the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center,  http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/video/Timelapse-Earth.html

#science #scienceeveryday #sciencesunday #earth #timelapse  

3D Printed Moon base

The European Space Agency (ESA) is looking to build a lunar base with 3D printing using local materials on the moon. The 3D structures are built layer-by-layer. The lunar material would be combined with magnesium oxide, which turns it into a "paper" to be printed with. Then, for the "ink," a binding salt is added to transform the material into a solid. The architects are trying to create a structure that can handle the harsh weather and environment that the moon can have. “3D printing offers a potential means of facilitating lunar settlement with reduced logistics from Earth,” said Scott Hovland of ESA’s human spaceflight team.

Dini's Plans for a Moonbase
Dini has lunar plans for the D-shape, and is in discussions with La Scuola Normale Superiore, Norman Foster (a UK architecture firm), and Alta Space, as part of the Aurora program run by the European Space Agency (ESA), to build a modified D-Shape that could use lunar regolith (moon dust) to build a moon base. Dini will carry out trials in a vacuum chamber at Alta Space’s facility in Pisa to ensure the process is possible in a low-atmosphere environment such as the moon.

Giant NASA spider robots could 3D print lunar base
Sintering is quite cheap, in terms of power as well as materials, and an Athlete rover should be able to construct a bubble volume in only two weeks, Rousek estimates. He said: "It would have a very good cost-value ratio as you don't need to import as much material from Earth. The whole expandable module, with the membranes to cover the base when built, would be carried by the same rocket that would bring other modules of the outpost, but it can build a volume four times bigger than a rigid cylindrical module. Since we don't have the necessary transport capacity to the Moon at the moment, estimating a price now would be very inaccurate.


ESA program article link: http://www.dailytech.com/ESA+May+Print+3D+Lunar+Base+out+of+Moons+Soil/article29806.htm

Dini's ESA program link: http://phys.org/news190873132.html

NASA Spiderbot 3D program link: http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/03/giant-nasa-spider-robots-could-3d-print-lunar-base/

NASA official program page: http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oce/appel/ask/issues/43/43i_international_partnerships_exploration.html

#science #scienceeveryday #moon #moonbases #robots #robotics #3dprinting #base #space #exploration  

When will wireless power reach the tipping point?

If you’re waiting to see when wireless power will hit the mass market, then you’re not alone. Delivering power wirelessly is perhaps one of the most hyped, long anticipated changes to the way we design and use products and machinery since the invention of electricity itself. But if you’ve been watching this space, you’ll know these solutions have been slow in coming to market and are anything but commonplace.

Why is that? What’s it going to take for this technology to hit the mainstream? Over the past two years we have witnessed first generation implementations of wireless power, mostly in the smartphone after-market. These come in the form of sleeves and charging pads but are rarely sighted amongst early adopters. Each claims to be supporting the best technology — the one that will lead the world in becoming completely unplugged. Yet, in my view, what we have seen and heard so far are a combination of impossible claims and poor end-user functionality.

WiTricity CEO Eric Giler imagines a future where power devices are embedded in the walls and carpets of homes, making for a truly wire-free household. He says with a big enough power supply and small wireless repeaters, one could even power a grocery store or office building. Conventional charging devices such as the cord for a cell phone use electromagnetic induction to transmit power. Through electromagnetic induction, an electric current is sent through a magnetic field generated by a power conductor to a smaller magnetic field generated by a receiving device. (See related quiz: "What You Don't Know About Electricity")

Eric Giler demo: Eric Giler demos wireless electricity

Article Link: http://venturebeat.com/2013/04/05/when-will-wireless-power-reach-the-tipping-point/

Natgeo article: http://news.nationalgeographic.co.in/news/energy/2012/12/121228-wireless-power/

WiTricity website: http://www.witricity.com/index.html (MIT commercial venture).

Thanks to +James Brine  and +Jonah Miller for mentioning Tesla.... well it got me thinking and researching!

#science #scienceeveryday #sciencesunday #electricity #wireless #wirelesscharging #wirelesselectricity  

Swarm robotics

Swarm robotics is a technological technique of using multiple simple robots to work as a team and follow instructions. This technology has been greatly inspired by the nature. There are many animals, insects and fishes which live in a swarm.

If you've ever seen a trail of ants streaming up a wall or over a counter, you'd be forgiven for thinking they were working in strict, militant harmony. Not so. A robotic test bed developed at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark shows that this apparent order can emerge in artificial bodies following just a few simple rules.

Symbrion (Symbiotic Evolutionary Robot Organisms) is a project funded by European Commissions to develop a framework in which a homogeneous swarm of miniature interdependent robots can co-assemble into a larger robotic organism to gain problem-solving momentum. One of the key-aspects of Symbrion is inspired by the biological world: an artificial genome that allows to store and evolve (sub)optimal configurations in order to achieve an increased speed of adaptation.

Dr Roderich Gross, head of the Natural Robotics Lab, in the Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering at the University of Sheffield, says swarming robots could have important roles to play in the future of micromedicine, as 'nanobots' are developed for non-invasive treatment of humans. On a larger scale, they could play a part in military, or search and rescue operations, acting together in areas where it would be too dangerous or impractical for humans to go. In industry too, robot swarms could be put to use, improving manufacturing processes and workplace safety.

Sources: Wikipedia. Symbrion.eu, Newscientist, Phys.org

Further reading: http://phys.org/news/2013-03-swarming-robots-servants-future-video.html

Alicebots on NewScientist: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2013/03/swarming-alice-bots.html

Reference : http://www.symbrion.eu/tiki-index.php

#science #scienceeveryday #robots #robotics #swarm #swarming #artificialintelligence  

Concept Car which uses photosynthesis!

SAIC YeZ Concept Car inhales C02, emits Oxygen

Love this concept; how often do you hear Car and Photosynthesis in the same sentence?

The concept vehicle features solar panels, which are located on the rooftop and small wind turbines, placed on its wheels. Besides the solar panels, the roof of the YeZ will benefit from an innovative system that will capture carbon dioxide from the surrounding air and then release oxygen in the atmosphere.

The electric energy generated by the solar panels and the wind turbines it’s going to be stored in onboard batteries that will power the vehicle. No technical specifications are available, since the YeZ concept is only a dream of eco-friendly cars that will be used in 2030.

Not much info has been made available in the YeZ, but SAIC claims it will “work during both sunny and overcast days while also being able to leverage wind power”, enabling “mobility with zero greenhouse gas emissions.”

Unless solar panel efficiency evolves massively in the next two decades, we expect the YeZ will have a regular appointment at the powerpoint, but, that isn't all that bad.

Gizmag Article: http://www.gizmag.com/saic-yez-concept-car-inhales-c02-emits-oxygen/15152/

Article on SAIC: http://www.solaripedia.com/13/274/yez_zero_energy_concept_car_uses_no_gas.html

Additional information: http://concept-supercars.com/eco-friendly-cars/saicgm-yez-ecofriendly-concept-car-year-2030/

Video Link: Why SAIC's Yez Concept Car is a landmark automobile

#science   #scienceeveryday   #photosynthesis   #car   #technology   #vehicle   #green   #sustainability  

How The CIA Tried To Turn A Cat Into A Cyborg Spy

Misadventure though it was, the agency's Operation Acoustic Kitty was a visionary idea 50 years ahead of its time.

n the 1960s, the Central Intelligence Agency recruited an unusual field agent: a cat. In an hour-long procedure, a veterinary surgeon transformed the furry feline into an elite spy, implanting a microphone in her ear canal and a small radio transmitter at the base of her skull, and weaving a thin wire antenna into her long gray-and-white fur. This was Operation Acoustic Kitty, a top-secret plan to turn a cat into a living, walking surveillance machine. The leaders of the project hoped that by training the feline to go sit near foreign officials, they could eavesdrop on private conversations.

The problem was that cats are not especially trainable—they don’t have the same deep-seated desire to please a human master that dogs do—and the agency’s robo-cat didn’t seem terribly interested in national security.

Operation Acoustic Kitty, misadventure though it was, was a visionary idea just 50 years before its time. Today, once again, the U .S. government is looking to animal-machine hybrids to safeguard the country and its citizens. In 2006, for example, DARPA zeroed in on insects, asking the nation’s scientists to submit “innovative proposals to develop technology to create insect-cyborgs.”

Consider two of the tiny, completely synthetic drones that engineers have managed to create: The Nano Hummingbird, a flying robot modeled after the bird, with a 6.5-inch wingspan, maxes out at an 11-minute flight, while the DelFly Micro, which measures less than 4 inches from wingtip to wingtip, can stay airborne for just 3 minutes.

Article Link: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-05/cias-cyborg-cat

Additional link: http://io9.com/the-cias-secret-experiments-to-turn-cats-into-spies-453478752

#caturday #cats #robots #spy #science #scienceeveryday #kitty #surveillance #robotics  

Scientific illustrator Danny Quirk creates breathtaking anatomical illustrations on peoples bodies using Sharpie markers and acrylic on latex.

Description of Danny's work on his blog
My anatomical works combine classic poses, in dramatic chiaroscuro lighting, with a very contemporary twist... illustrating what's underneath the skin, and the portrayed figure dissects a region of their body to show the structures that lay beneath. 

Article h/t: http://designyoutrust.com/

Original Artist blog: http://www.behance.net/dannyquirk

#science   #scienceeveryday   #scienceart  

Henry Segerman’s Mathematical Sculptures

To say that Henry Segerman is schooled in mathematics is an understatement. The 33-year-old research fellow at the University of Melbourne, in Australia, earned a master’s degree in math at Oxford and then a doctorate in the subject at Stanford. But the mathematician moonlights as an artist. A mathematical artist. Segerman has found a way to illustrate the complexities of three-dimensional geometry and topology—his areas of expertise—in sculptural form.

First things first…three-dimensional geometry and topology? “It is about three-dimensional stuff, but not necessarily easy to visualize three-dimensional stuff,” says Segerman, when we talk by phone. “Topology is sort of split along low-dimensional stuff, which usually means two, three and four dimensions, and then high-dimensional stuff, which is anything higher. There are fewer pictures in the high-dimensional stuff.”

Since 2009, Segerman has made nearly 100 sculptures that capture, as faithfully as is physically possible, some of these hard-to-grasp lower-dimensional mathematical concepts.He uses a 3D modeling software called Rhinoceros, typically used to design buildings, ships, cars and jewelry, to construct shapes, such as Möbius strips, Klein bottles, fractal curves and helices. Then, Segerman uploads his designs to Shapeways.com, one of a few 3D printing services online. “It is really easy,” he says. “You upload the design to their Web site. You hit the ‘add to cart’ button and a few weeks later it arrives.”

Article Link: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/artscience/2013/03/fresh-off-the-3d-printer-henry-segermans-mathematical-sculptures

#science #scienceeveryday #art #3dprinting #3ddesign #scienceart  

Concept Waterscraper

For the last five years, eVolo Magazine has hosted a futuristic skyscraper design competition. Usually, the entrants imagine giant buildings taller than anything under construction today. However, the most impressive entry in this year's competition goes the opposite route, by dropping the building straight into the sea. This floating building would generate its own electricity and food, house thousands, and plunge deep beneath the waves.

Designed by Sarly Adre bin Sarkum of Malaysia, the waterscraper would be about as tall as the Empire State Building, but with only a couple of stories exposed above the surface. The whole building would be a self-sufficient, floating, arcology. Wind, solar, and wave power would provide energy, hydroponics and the green space at the top would provide food and oxygen, and the structure would provide housing, work spaces, and areas for recreation.

Ballast tanks would keep the structure level, like in a submarine, as would the tentacles. The tentacles would also move around in the ocean tides, generating electricity from kinetic energy.

Adre bin Sarkum deliberately designed this building to contrast with the skyscrapers that dominate the rest of the competition, and to highlight sustainable architecture.

Obviously, no one has any plans to build anything remotely like this. But if global warming throws us into a WaterWorld like future, Adre bin Sarkum's aqua-condo looks like much sweeter digs than a rickety boat captained by a urine-drinking fish-man.


Article link: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-03/concept-water-scraper-brings-monumental-architecture-open-sea

#science   #concept   #architecture

Beginnings of Bionic
Flexible, stretchable electronics could launch cyborg era

Michael McAlpine’s shiny circuit doesn’t look like something you would stick in your mouth. It’s dashed with gold, has a coiled antenna and is glued to a stiff rectangle. But the antenna flexes, and the rectangle is actually silk, its stiffness melting away under water. And if you paste the device on your tooth, it could keep you healthy.

The electronic gizmo is designed to detect dangerous bacteria and send out warning signals, alerting its bearer to microbes slipping past the lips. Recently, McAlpine, of Princeton University, and his colleagues spotted a single E. coli bacterium skittering across the surface of the gadget’s sensor. The sensor also picked out ulcer-causing H. pylori amid the molecular medley of human saliva, the team reported earlier this year in Nature Communications.

At about the size of a standard postage stamp, the dental device is still too big to fit comfortably in a human mouth. “We had to use a cow tooth,” McAlpine says, describing test experiments. But his team plans to shrink the gadget so it can nestle against human enamel. McAlpine is convinced that one day, perhaps five to 10 years from now, everyone will wear some sort of electronic device. “It’s not just teeth,” he says. “People are going to be bionic.”

McAlpine belongs to a growing pack of tech-savvy scientists figuring out how to merge the rigid, brittle materials of conventional electronics with the soft, curving surfaces of human tissues. Their goal: To create products that have the high performance of silicon wafers — the crystalline material used in computer chips — while still moving with the body. Beyond detecting bacteria to nip potential illnesses before they begin, such devices could comfortably monitor a person’s vital signs and deliver therapeutic treatments.


Full Article: http://www.sciencenews.org/view/access/id/346152/name/feat_flexible_opener.jpg

#science   #scienceeveryday   #transhumanism   #cyborg  

Who watches over us?

Our spaceship Earth got hit by a meteorite which exploded in the air over Russia. People have covered this pretty comprehensively, and I have included the link from Johnathan on the meteor.

Other interesting information on the 'Skywatchers' and telescopes can be found in this linkfest!

Can we know about all the space rocks? https://plus.google.com/u/0/110884604033336753419/posts/Js1S9sp17Qf
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Post about asteroids in the link titled 'Who cares" see here https://plus.google.com/u/0/110884604033336753419/posts/VthYjdFX7GY

Imminent closure of the Siding Spring observatory was covered here https://plus.google.com/u/0/103586346709495625226/posts/Cd2guSE7uE8

Details of the Lowell telescope here (DCT) https://plus.google.com/u/0/110884604033336753419/posts/CEYVj1uN2jW

News about the GMT (Giant Magellan Telescope) can be found here https://plus.google.com/u/0/103586346709495625226/posts/b7BJecN7VKd

More about ALMA ( Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) here https://plus.google.com/u/0/110884604033336753419/posts/cELP34z575n

+Johnathan Chung has posted about the meteor over Russia - https://plus.google.com/u/0/114424163811716070551/posts/64UKVJ2Qfhe (please see the edits in the OP).

Pictured on the left- Meade 12 inch LX200 Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope and on the right - the SDSS telescope.

#science   #scienceeveryday   #meteor   #telescope   #asteroid   #earth   #sky   #asteroidmappers  

Physicists burst bubble mystery

_With the help of high speed video, scientists have discovered that there is far more to bursting bubbles than meets the eye. Under the right conditions, a bursting bubble on a liquid surface does not simply vanish, but creates a perfect ring of tiny "daughter bubbles". This occurs as the ruptured bubble retracts into the liquid, forming a doughnut shape of trapped air. _

Eventually, the daughter bubbles are sufficiently tiny that they rupture to form sharp "jets" that propel small aerosol droplets into the atmosphere. James Bird from Harvard University, who led the research, explained that his main interest was in the fundamental physics of how bubbles behave. But his discovery could eventually help to fine-tune many manufacturing processes.

The scientists pointed that the finding could even have implications for health research - aerosol droplets from bursting bubbles have been implicated in the transmission of diseases in swimming pools and hot tubs.

Article Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10278567 (2010 article)

This post is dedicated to +Rajini Rao's Birthday, and wishing her a very happy B'day!

Video Description: the science of bubbles, how bubbles work and the amazing things we can do with them. That is exactly what my touring show for schools, museums, festivals... THE SECRET WORLD OF soap BUBBLES is all about.

#science #scienceeveryday #happybirthdayrajinirao #Wolverine2WonderWomanHappyBD #bubbles #bubbleart #physics  

And Man Created Dog - Brilliant program and worth watching!

On August 8, 2010 at 9pm ET/PT, National Geographic Channel premiered “And Man Created Dog,” a new two-hour, high-definition special that traces the evolution of the wolf into a dog–as well as our working partner, protector, and best friend.

Coinciding with this program is the publication of Made For Each Other, a book about this special relationship between man and dog and how it has evolved since prehistoric times. This book is authored by Meg Olmert, who also wrote the National Geographic Channel special.

The program not only traces the evolution of the dog/human relationship from its very beginnings but it also stresses the extent to which the dog as a species has been literally invented by humans. Backed by exhaustive research (after all, it is National Geographic) and illuminated by evocative visual set-pieces and computer-aided graphics, the program describes how mankind has shaped the dog’s evolution from wolf to man’s best friend.

First domesticated by ice age hunter-gatherers to help hunt their prey and guard their camps, the dog became more than a tame wolf, eventually evolving into a different species with characteristics treasured by their keepers. No wonder, then, that dogs now are the most varied mammal on the planet, coming in all shapes and sizes, but all sharing the same interdependence with humans.

Article link: http://www.dogtipper.com/blog/2010/08/national-geographic-channel-to-premier-and-man-created-dog.html

#dogs   #evolution   #science   #scienceeveryday   #sciencesunday  

Cat plays with optical illusion

Caturday post

Not that you need an additional reason to watch a cat video, but this clip of a cat looking at an optical illusion could be scientifically valuable, too. YouTube user rasmusab posted the clip of a cat attacking a version of the rotating snakes illusion like it just saw a laser pointer aimed at the ground, suggesting the cat might've seen the wheels "spinning" and tried to get a paw on them. Now rasmusab's created a Google doc for people to replicate the experiment and report their findings. (We could get so many cat videos out of this experiment, you guys.) For the record, other studies have found that animals--owls, in particular--might see and respond to optical illusions the same way people do.

this might be a tough experiment to get accurate results for--cats, after all, sort of seem to like paper in general, so it's tough to say if they're reacting to stimuli. But it's not like we could be against watching cat videos for science.

Main Article: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-03/cat-seeing-optical-illusion-video

Rotating snakes pic: Rotating Snakes:  Akiyoshi Kitaoka via RIKEN BSI Neuroinformatics Japan Center

#cat   #cats   #caturday   #science   #scienceeveryday   #sciencesunday   #opticalillusion  

3D holographic chats on the Telepod

Crystal balls and magic mirrors through which you can talk to others are simply mystical. Three dimensional tele communication has been on the mind of many people ever since they saw Princess Leia talk to Obi Wan Kenobi through a holographic image of herself in the smashing sci-fi hit Star Wars. But if research efforts of a team from Human Media Lab at the Canadian Queens University work out well, then you will be able to experience the thrill of holo chat in reality soon.

Dubbed as the telepod, this tubular cylinder will hold the image of the person you are taking to right in front of you. The life sized image will have sufficient depth and will look as good as real. You can view the person being telecast from all sides and even walk around them. Yeah, you got it right, this is a stark 3D image, and not the 2D shows with slight depth that you usually see. The mechanism is not as breathtaking as the 3D holograms in Star Wars as yet but the fine tuning is going on. And when it rolls out, it will completely transform the transmission of teleconferences and 3D advertisements.

Video Link: TeleHuman: Life-size hologram-like telepods revolutionize videoconferencing

Article Link: http://www.designbuzz.com/3d-holographic-chats-reality-telepod/

Human Media Lab website: http://www.hml.queensu.ca/telehuman

#science   #scienceeveryday   #technology   #hologram   #telepod  

Growing Batteries

My dream: to be able to drive a virus-powered car. — Angela Belcher

Inspired by an abalone shell, Angela Belcher programmes viruses to make elegant nanoscale structures that humans can use. Selecting for high-performing genes through directed evolution, Belcher has produced viruses that can construct powerful new batteries, clean hydrogen fuels and record-breaking solar cells.

As head of the Biomolecular Materials Group at MIT, Belcher brings together the fields of materials chemistry, electrical engineering and molecular biology to engineer viruses that can create batteries and clean energy sources.

Scientists at MIT used the viruses to build both the positively and negatively charged ends of a battery, the cathode and anode, the journal Science reports. Essentially, a battery turns chemical energy into electrochemical energy when an electron flow passes from the negative end to the positive end through a conductive chemical, the electrolyte. Researchers constructed a lithium-ion battery, similar to those used in millions of devices, but one which uses genetically engineered viruses to create the negatively charged anode and positively charged cathode. The virus is a so-called common bacteriophage which infects bacteria and is harmless to humans.

MIT scientists manipulated genes inside a virus that coaxed the particles to grow and self-assemble to form a nanowire anode one-tenth the width of a human hair. The microbes are encouraged to collect exotic materials - cobalt oxide and gold - and because the particles are negatively charged, they can be formed into a dense, virus-loaded film which acts as an anode and "grows" on a polymer separator.

Article Link: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120626-using-nature-to-grow-batteries

Further reading: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7977585.stm

Additonal source: http://inhabitat.com/mit-develops-virus-powered-car-battery/

Picture credits: jayfnelson.wordpress.com and worldsciencefestival.com

#science #scienceeveryday #virus #bioengineering #battery #greentech #sustainability #genetics #virology  

Using Cornstarch to mine Gold

_ Northwestern University scientists have struck gold in the laboratory. They have discovered an inexpensive and environmentally benign method that uses simple cornstarch—instead of cyanide—to isolate gold from raw materials in a selective manner. _

This green method extracts gold from crude sources and leaves behind other metals that are often found mixed together with the crude gold. The new process also can be used to extract gold from consumer electronic waste.

Current methods for gold recovery involve the use of highly poisonous cyanides, often leading to contamination of the environment. Nearly all gold-mining companies use this toxic gold leaching process to sequester the precious metal.

He found that it was alpha-cyclodextrin, a cyclic starch fragment composed of six glucose units, that isolates gold best of all.  The Northwestern procedure is also more efficient than current commercial processes.

Article Link: http://phys.org/news/2013-05-gold-green-non-toxic-method.html#ajTabs

Additional reading: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-05/cornstarch-replaces-cyanide-clean-new-gold-extraction-method

#science #scienceeveryday #sciencesunday #gold #extraction #mining #cornstarch #chemisty  

2012 Orionid Meteor Shower Peaks This Weekend

The Earth will soon be traveling through the stream of debris left behind by Halley’s Comet, providing the annual sky show called the Orionid Meteor Shower. This usually reliable meteor shower is expected to peak this coming weekend, October 20-21, 2012, and should produce about 25 meteors per hour, according to the McDonald Observatory at The University of Texas in Austin.

The meteors for the Orionid shower meteors appear to fall from above the star Betelgeuse, the bright orange star marking the shoulder of the constellation Orion, so if you live in the northern hemisphere look towards the southeast, and in the southern hemisphere look towards the northeast during the best viewing times. The best viewing times are usually about midnight to 2 am, or in the hours just before dawn in your area. The quarter Moon will have set about midnight, so it won’t be a hindrance.
As always, for the best view get away from city lights. If your backyard is lit by too many streetlights, look to go to state or city parks or other safe, dark sites. Lie on a blanket or reclining chair to get a full-sky view. If you can see all of the stars in the Little Dipper, you have good dark-adapted vision, say the folks at StarDate, a bi-monthly publication put out by the McDonald Observatory.


Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/98078/2012-orionid-meteor-shower-peaks-this-weekend/#ixzz29iKT0kiS

Source : Universetoday

#universetoday   #science   #astronomy   #orionid  

PI facts

Pi day has rolled around once more: the day when mathematics fans everywhere – particularly in the US, where the date is written 3.14 – celebrate everyone's favourite mathematical constant.

If you are wondering about the best time of day to celebrate, unfortunately you have already missed it. The first few digits, 3.14159, translates this year into March 14 at 1:59 am. It will be at a more sociable hour in four years' time, when the festivities should kick off on 3.14.15 at 9:26:53.

If that sounds a bit dry, you might prefer Michael John Blake's  transformation of pi's digits into music (see video). And while you are on a musical tip, you might enjoy entertainer David C. Perry's tribute Talking Pi, which features "the most unsingable chorus ever".

Article Link: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20238-pi-day-celebrate-pi-by-eating-pies.html

Additional reading

Pi Jokes: http://www.popsci.com/category/tags/pi-jokes

3.1415926 Reasons to Celebrate Pi Day : http://www.wired.com/geekmom/2013/03/reasons-to-celebrate-pi-day/

#science #scienceeveryday #Pi #Piday  

Flowers Buzz with electricity

Bees and plants communicate via electric signals, say scientists

Plants use electric fields to communicate with bees, scientists have learned.

Bees are able to find and decipher weak electric signals emitted by flowers, according to the study. Tests revealed that bees can distinguish between different floral fields, as if they were petal colours. The electric signals may also let the insects know if another bee has recently visited a flower.

How bees detect the fields is unknown, but the researchers suspect the electrostatic force might make their hair bristle. A similar hair-raising effect is seen when placing one's head close to an old-style TV screen. Plants are known to emit weak negatively charged electric fields, and bees acquire a positive charge of up to 200 volts as they fly through the air.

But bees -- busy as they famously are -- don't have time to waste visiting pretty flowers whose nectar has just been taken by another insect. "The last thing a flower wants is to attract a bee and then fail to provide nectar," said Daniel Robert, co-author of the study, in a statement. "Bees are good learners and would soon lose interest in such an unrewarding flower."

So flowers, the researchers confirmed, emit a different electrical signal after their nectar has been harvested. They found that petunias became slightly more positively charged after a bee visited them, according to ScientificAmerican. That revised electrical charge acts as a kind of "No Vacancy" sign to other bees, which learn to trust the signals that the flowers emit.

Article Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/feb/21/bees-flowers-electric-fields-communication

Sources: Nature, Guardian, cbsnews, Scientificamerican

Pics courtesy: Fluidit.com, thetripatorium.com

#bees   #flowers   #symbiotic   #nature   #science   #scienceeveryday  

How Beer Gets Its Color

Two basic chemical reactions are responsible for beer being "beer-colored" rather than clear like water. One reaction couples amino acids to sugars; the other spurs sugars to decompose. In addition to adding color to beer, the products of these reactions also add significant flavor to the resultant brew.

A century ago in October, the Maillard reaction made its debut in the scientific literature thanks to the work of French chemist Louis-Camille Maillard. And the Maillard reaction is one of the most important reactions to understand how an amber beer looks different from a stout, which in turn looks different from a wit beer or pale ale.

The Maillard reaction is also known as "browning." When you toast bread or sear meat, that's the Maillard reaction. In beer making, kilning malted barley kicks off the Maillard reaction to produce darker malts such as Special B, chocolate malt and black patent malt. It and a process called caramelization are what gives roasted malts their characteristic caramel or toasty flavors, and beers such as stouts their characteristic dark color. (Long boil times will also spur these two reactions, so if you want a light-colored beer, make sure to keep boil times short.)

Caramelization, on the other hand, is a form of pyrolysis: thermochemical decomposition without the presence of oxygen. Basically: you heat sugar until it falls apart by itself. Again, there are many possible products of caramelization, but some of the main aroma compounds are furans, diacetyl and ethyl acetate. Caramelization only happens at elevated temperatures.

H/t to +Rajini Rao for reminding me about the Maillard reaction on another post!

Full Article: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-12/beersci-how-beer-gets-its-color

#science   #scienceeveryday   #beersci  

Hunt begins for Alien megaprojects

With scans for alien radio signals drawing a blank, three teams are now searching for signs of extraterrestrial engineering. Rather than trying to intercept alien communications, perhaps we should go looking for alien artefacts.

What they're after is something rather grander than flint arrowheads or shards of pottery. Something big. Planet-sized power stations. Star-girdling rings or spheres. Computers the size of a solar system. Perhaps even an assembly of hardware so vast it can darken an entire galaxy.

Humanity has already covered vast areas of Earth's surface with roads and cities, and begun sending probes to other planets. If we can do all this in a matter of centuries, what could more advanced civilisations do over many thousands or even millions of years?

In a similar position, alien civilisations could start building solar power plants, factories and even habitats in space. With material mined from asteroids, then planets, and perhaps even the star itself, they could really spread out. Dyson's conclusion was that after thousands or millions of years, the star might be entirely surrounded by a vast artificial sphere of solar panels.

All this guesswork seems futile to Walkowicz. "People spend a lot of time trying to psychoanalyse ET, but we have no info about what their technology would be like. The more you try to imagine what aliens would do, the more you limit your scope." That's why her team is looking for anything strange. Walkowicz thinks they should turn up interesting candidates in a matter of months.


Main Article: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829112.100-alien-megaprojects-the-hunt-has-begun.html?

Earlier post on search for Dyson's spheres: https://plus.google.com/u/0/103586346709495625226/posts/EPBnFtdwHAY

#science #scienceeveryday #sciencefiction #alien #seti #artefact  

The Whirring Dragonfly

Dragonflies were some of the first winged insects to evolve, some 300 million years ago. Modern dragonflies have wingspans of only two to five inches, but fossil dragonflies have been found with wingspans of up to two feet.

There are more than 5,000 known species of dragonflies, all of which (along with damselflies) belong to the order Odonata, which means “toothed one” in Greek and refers to the dragonfly’s serrated teeth.

In their larval stage, which can last up to two years, dragonflies are aquatic and eat just about anything—tadpoles, mosquitoes, fish, other insect larvae and even each other.At the end of its larval stage, the dragonfly crawls out of the water, then its exoskeleton cracks open and releases the insect’s abdomen, which had been packed in like a telescope. Its four wings come out, and they dry and harden over the next several hours to days.

Dragonflies are expert fliers. They can fly straight up and down, hover like a helicopter and even mate mid-air. If they can’t fly, they’ll starve because they only eat prey they catch while flying. Dragonflies catch their insect prey by grabbing it with their feet. They’re so efficient in their hunting that, in one Harvard University study, the dragonflies caught 90 to 95 percent of the prey released into their enclosure.

Nearly all of the dragonfly’s head is eye, so they have incredible vision that encompasses almost every angle except right behind them. Each compound eye contains as many as 30,000 lenses, or ommatidia.

Forced to follow the rains that replenish their breeding sites, the globe skimmer set a new insect world record when a biologist documented its 11,000 mile trip between India and Africa.

Sources: Smithsonianmag, MNN, Nature, Discoverychannel, Animalplanet, About.com

Video Link: Science Nation - Dragonflies: The Flying Aces of the Insect World

#science   #scienceeveryday   #dragonfly   #dragonflydreams   #lpsamazinganimalfacts  

Amazing Sea Butterflies

The chemistry of the ocean is changing. Most climate change discussion focuses on the warmth of the air, but around one-quarter of the carbon dioxide we release into the atmosphere dissolves into the ocean. Dissolved carbon dioxide makes seawater more acidic—a process called ocean acidification—and its effects have already been observed: the shells of sea butterflies, also known as pteropods, have begun dissolving in the Antarctic.

Tiny sea butterflies are related to snails, but use their muscular foot to swim in the water instead of creep along a surface. Many species have thin, hard shells made of calcium carbonate that are especially sensitive to changes in the ocean’s acidity. Their sensitivity and cosmopolitan nature make them an alluring study group for scientists who want to better understand how acidification will affect ocean organisms. But some pteropod species are proving to do just fine in more acidic water, while others have shells that dissolve quickly. So why do some species perish while others thrive?

It’s a hard question to answer when scientists can hardly tell pteropod species apart in the first place. The cone-shaped pteropod shown here is in a group of shelled sea butterflies called thecosomes, from the Greek for “encased body.” There are two other groups: the pseudothecosomes have gelatinous shells, and the gymnosomes (“naked body”) have none at all. Within these groups it can be hard to tell who’s who, especially when relying on looks alone. Scientists at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History are using genetics to uncover the differences among the species.

Article Link: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/artscience/2013/05/amazing-sea-butterflies-are-the-oceans-canary-in-the-coal-mine/

#science #scienceeveryday #biology #genetics #butterflies #sea #organisms  

How Two Makers Built A Customizable New Prosthetic Hand For $150 And Changed A Boy's Life

With 10,000 miles separating them, two makers designed and built a customizable 3-D-printed prosthetic hand for a 5-year old boy named Liam in South Africa for $150 in parts. No power necessary.

The idea for Liam's hand started out as Rich Van As's nightmare accident. When Van As, an artisan carpenter, chopped off four of his fingers with a table saw, he vowed to get mechanical replacements. So Van As, in South Africa, researched for months. But only found the X-finger, which costs thousands of dollars. That's when Van As stumbled on a YouTube video of a velociraptor-like claw made by Ivan Owen, a mechanical special effects artist in Bellingham, WA. Van As tried to replicate the design, but soon realized he needed Owen to "lend me a hand." And the two swapped ideas over email, a blog, Skype sessions, and finally in person at Van As's workshop in South Africa over four days in November, 2012.

There are other open source prosthetic ideas, but none quite as developed. The result is a way to blend low-tech mechanics and fast prototyping with 46 parts — sixteen 3-D-printed pieces, 28 off the shelf (which included nylon cord, nuts and bolts, elastic, and rubber thimbles). The 3-D parts were made possible by Makerbot, which donated two 3-D printers, one each for Van As and Owen so they could swap CAD files as they refined the designs.

And that’s how Van As and Owen gave Liam, who was born without fingers on one side, a new right hand in January on Liam’s birthday. Liam can hold a basketball, and even pick up small things like coins by activating his new lightweight hand with a bend of his wrist. The duo wants to raise funds to further develop the Robohand. Owen said the strength of the plastic exceeds human exertion, which means Liam can grow into the Robohand, which in turn can scale larger.

Article Link: http://www.popsci.com/diy/article/2013-02/how-two-makers-built-customizable-new-prosthetic-hand-150-and-changed-boys-life

Video Link: !Liam & his Robohand! (!!DAY 3!!)

#science   #scienceeveryday   #sciencesunday   #robotics   #prosthetics  

Fold a Paper R2-D2 and Other Awesome Star Wars Origami

Martin Hunt was studying math at Southampton University when he decided to start designing origami Star Wars vessels. He became obsessed with the X-wing, and then quickly moved on to other ships and droids — lots of others. He's now got more than 20 creations from the franchise on his website, starwarigami.co.uk, and a list of 83 more for future designs.
He attributes some of his proficiency to his math degree, saying origami isn't just art, it's also science.

"The rules of what you can do with a single square of paper are fixed," he says. "It's not just a case of putting brush to paper and letting your imagination run riot."

Hunt is taking his creations to the wider world. In October, he exhibited some large-scale versions at the London MCM Expo and Comic Con, and he's seeking a publisher for a book. But he's sharing some of his designs already, through his website and on YouTube. He's not the only one out there doing it — Chris Alexander of starwarsorigami.com just released a book — but Hunt's designs veer toward the more complicated and intricate. He recommends them for intermediate to advanced origami artists, but that didn't stop us from trying our inept hands at the Naboo Starfighter.

Full Article: http://www.wired.com/design/2012/11/starwarigami/

#starwars   #origami   #sciencefiction  

Prospero: Robot Farmer

Move over farmers: soon a swarm of robots could take over all the hard labour. A new robot developed by David Dorhout and colleagues from Dorhout R&D is designed to plant seeds in a field while coordinating with a gang of other robotic farmhands.

In this video, you can see the prototype in action. The robot can walk in any direction while avoiding obstacles, using a sensor underneath its body to detect where seeds have already been planted. Once it finds an untouched patch, it drills a hole in the ground and releases a seed, triggering an electronic eye that guides the planting.

The robot's communication system is inspired by the way ants self-organise. When an ant finds a food source, it releases a pheromone that attracts other ants. In a similar way, a robot can beam out an infrared signal to recruit help, overriding the random movement of the swarm and directing them to areas that need to be farmed. "There's no long-term memory, there's no centralised command and control: robots just follow simple rules from which complex behaviour arises," says Dorhout.

Whereas other automated systems are designed to replace people with electronics - tractors that drive themselves, for example - Dorhout's approach is to improve the farming process. By providing assistance, a robot swarm allows farmers to focus on the science and business side of their operation. "The farmer is like the shepherd that gives the robot instructions," says Dorhout. Robots are also able to transcend the limitations of farm equipment to maximise efficiency, for example by planting in a grid instead of rows.

Article Link and video: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/nstv/2012/10/farm-robots.html

#robots   #farming   #science   #scienceeveryday  

Floating Wind Turbines That Produce Power Even When There's No Wind

Critics of wind power keep coming back to the same old complaint: what happens when there’s no wind? A new design from researchers at MIT could finally offer a solution to this renewable energy conundrum. Engineers have conceived of an offshore wind turbine anchored by hollow concrete spheres that could also turn seawater into electricity. The turbine would allow offshore wind farm managers to store excess energy for a time when there’s no wind.

The design would use massive concrete orbs (think: the diameter of the dome on the U.S. Capitol building) to anchor floating wind turbines to the ocean floor. When it’s particularly windy and the turbines produce more power than is needed, some of the energy could be diverted to a pump that would remove the water from the hollow sphere. Then, if there comes a time when power produced by the turbines is insufficient, water would be allowed to flow back into the sphere through a turbine attached to a generator, and the resulting electricity would be sent back to shore.

“One such 25-meter sphere in 400-meter-deep water could store up to 6 megawatt-hours of power, the MIT researchers have calculated; that means that 1,000 such spheres could supply as much power as a nuclear plant for several hours—enough to make them a reliable source of power,” reports David Chandler for PhysOrg.

)According to the researchers, the trick is finding the correct concrete wall thickness to withstand the hydrostatic pressure while also providing enough ballast mass – this will depend on the strength of the concrete used. The concrete could incorporate significant amounts of fly ash from coal-fired power plants, and the spheres could double as artificial coral reefs._

Article Link: http://inhabitat.com/mit-developing-floating-wind-turbines-that-produce-power-even-when-theres-no-wind/

#science #scienceeveryday #wind #power #energy #sustainability #windpower #windmill  

My 'Awesome Engagers' Circle

Also sometimes called my 'VIP Circle'... Highly recommended folk with some extent of tech / geekiness / science / art and photography chops. But more importantly, people who I think are worth following. Their content is always great, engaging with them is a pleasure!

Some of them don't even have me in their circles, but they are totally worth it! try adding this as an evaluation circle and see the awesomeness in your stream!

If you want to see why some of them are added, follow the hashtag! Share this if you like the circle :)

#lacerantplainerscircles  

Tiny New Compound Camera Is Built Like a Bug’s Eye

Scientists have built a digital camera inspired by the compound eyes of insects like bees and flies. The camera’s hemispherical array of 180 microlenses gives it a 160 degree field of view and the ability to focus simultaneously on objects at different depths.

Human eyes, and virtually all cameras, use a single lens to focus light onto a light-sensitive tissue or material. That arrangement can produce high-resolution images, but compound eyes offer different advantages. They can provide a more panoramic view, for example, and remarkable depth perception.

The new artificial version, created by by John Rogers and colleagues at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and described today in Nature, could potentially be developed for use in security cameras or surgical endoscopes.

“The resolution is roughly equivalent to that of a fire ant or a bark beetle,” Rogers wrote in an email to Wired. “With manufacturing systems more like those in industry, and less like the academic, research setups that we are currently using, we feel that it is possible to get to the level of a dragonfly or beyond.”

Article Link: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/05/bugs-eye-camera/?pid=6793

#science #scienceeveryday #compoundeye #camera #nature #biology  

Artificial Island Skyscraper to fight global warming

Ever wondered where would humans live if the ice stored in the various glaciers and in the Polar Regions melt due to global warming and vast land areas get submerged under water? Architect Aleksander Krasinski surely has. He has designed a floating habitable structure keeping the danger of global warming and climate change in mind.


The idea is to create an artificial island with adequate infrastructure to sustain human living. The structure would be 1000 meters in height and diameter. The building would be able to house 52,096 people in its 48 floors. It will have its own sea ports, an airport with the capability to land helicopters, office spaces, public areas, gardens, etc. The island would also establish itself as an independent nation with its own set of laws and its own government. That is why the tower would also house governmental and administrative centers. An inner atrium will act as the core for the center where most of the commercial and recreational areas will be located.

The airport will be located at a height of 100 meters and it would only be capable of handling only choppers. The average height of the residential floors would be around 6m. Visualized for the Persian Gulf in the United Arab Emirates, this tower could be ideal for Japan, Netherlands and the United States as well. According to the architect, the concept is an answer to rising sea water as well as high taxes. That’s why it would function as an independent state with a different set of rules and regulation for its people.

Full Article: http://www.designbuzz.com/artificial-island-skyscraper-fight-global-warming/

#seascape   #architecture   #architecturalvisions   #skyscrapers  

NASA buys blow-up habitat for space station astronauts

The US space agency has signed a $17.8-million contract with Bigelow Aerospace of Nevada to build an inflatable crew habitat for the ISS.

According to details released today at a press briefing , the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, will launch in 2015. Astronauts on the ISS will test the module for safety and comfort.

BEAM will fly uninflated inside the trunk of a SpaceX Dragon capsule. Once docked and fully expanded, the module will be 4 metres long and 3 metres wide. For two years astronauts will monitor conditions inside, such as temperature and radiation levels.

The company has made progress, developing shielding that resists punctures from space debris and micrometeorites. BEAM's skin, for instance, is made from layers of material like Kevlar to protect occupants from high-speed impacts. The craft's skin has been tested in the lab alongside shielding used right now on the rest of the ISS, says Bigelow director Mike Gold.

"Our envelope will not only equal but be superior to what is flying on the ISS today. We have a strong and absolute focus on safety," he says.

Article Link: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23083-nasa-buys-blowup-habitat-for-space-station-astronauts.html

Picture courtesy: Bigelow airspace

#science   #scienceeveryday   #bigelow   #nasa   #space   #ISS  

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Earth may be crashing through dark matter walls

Article by Lisa Grossman
Earth is constantly crashing through huge walls of dark matter, and we already have the tools to detect them. That's the conclusion of physicists who say the universe may be filled with a patchwork quilt of force fields created shortly after the big bang.

Observations of how mass clumps in space suggest that about 86 per cent of all matter is invisible dark matter, which interacts with ordinary matter mainly through gravity. The most popular theory is that dark matter is made of weakly interacting massive particles.

WIMPs should also interact with ordinary matter via the weak nuclear force, and their presence should have slight but measurable effects. However, years of searches for WIMPs have been coming up empty.

Pospelov and colleagues have been examining a theory that at least some of the universe's dark matter is tied up in structures called domain walls, akin to the boundaries between tightly packed bubbles. The idea is that the hot early universe was full of an exotic force field that varied randomly. As the universe expanded and cooled, the field froze, leaving a patchwork of domains, each with its own distinct value for the field.

Article Link: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23094-earth-may-be-crashing-through-dark-matter-walls.html

Picture courtesy : hermenaut.org - An artist's rendition of the heliosphere and magnetic fields; On the right - A dark matter map was created by the Hubble Telescope by measuring light from distant stars thought to have been deflected by dark matter. The map of half the Universe reveals dark matter filaments, collapsing under the relentless pull of gravity and growing clumpier over time...dailymail.co.uk

#science   #scienceeveryday   #darkmatter   #Earth  

Is Cocoa the Brain Drug of the Future?

It's news chocolate lovers have been craving: raw cocoa may be packed with brain-boosting compounds. Researchers at the University of L'Aquila in Italy, with scientists from Mars, Inc., and their colleagues published findings last September that suggest cognitive function in the elderly is improved by ingesting high levels of natural compounds found in cocoa called flavanols.

Don't Binge on chocolate yet

A food's origin, processing, storage and preparation can each alter its chemical composition. As a result, it is nearly impossible to predict which flavanols—and how many—remain in your bonbon or cup of tea. Tragically for chocoholics, most methods of processing cocoa remove many of the flavanols found in the raw plant. Even dark chocolate, touted as the “healthy” option, can be treated such that the cocoa darkens while flavanols are stripped.

The Kuna Indians who live on the San Blas Islands off Panama drink an average of five cups of high-flavanol cocoa daily. The island population is also remarkable for extremely low rates of hypertension, unlike the Kuna on the mainland, who consume processed cocoa mix low in flavanols. Researchers, suspecting the island Kuna's staggering cocoa consumption might account for their superior health, began investigating the health effects of cocoa's raw compounds. This investigation led to the finding that (-)-epicatechin, one particularly abundant cocoa compound, supports circulation.


Article Link: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=is-cocoa-the-brain-drug-of-the-future

Related article: http://globalnews.ca/news/456058/reality-check-does-eating-chocolate-cut-risk-of-stroke/

Psychological effects : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-128858/Scientists-prove-chocolate-better-love.html

#chocolate #cocoa #bean #science #scienceeveryday #chocolatecravings  

Can scientists appreciate beauty? Over 30 years ago, physicist Richard Feynman claimed that a scientist can see more beauty in a flower than an artist. Since then, science and art have combined to bring the meaning of his words to life.

Since Feynman was interviewed in 1981, the field of digital photomicrography has flourished. The "beauty at smaller dimensions" that Feynman spoke about has now been illuminated by high magnification images which enhance both scientific understanding and are often works of art in themselves. Such images and techniques have provided a rich source of inspiration for artists. Sanders says: "I have always loved the minutiae of things. Macro photography has inspired my work."

Pictures by Rosie Sanders, an artist with a particular interest in flowers.

Article Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/0/22454785

Embedded Video in article: How science adds to the excitement, mystery and awe of a flower.

#science #scienceeveryday #flower #flora #biology #art #scienceart  

Giant Sequoias Grow Faster With Age

Aging giant sequoia trees are growing faster than ever, with some of the oldest and tallest trees producing more wood, on average, in old age than they did when they were younger. (Read about giant sequoias in National Geographic magazine.)

A 2,000-year-old giant sequoia is just cranking out wood, said Steve Sillett, a professor at Humboldt State University in California who has conducted recent research on the big trees.

Other long-lived trees like coast redwoods and Australia's Eucalyptus regnans also show an increase in wood production during old age, according to an article Sillett published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management.

That may be because a tree's leaf area increases as its crown expands over a long life span. The leaves produce more sugars through photosynthesis, Sillett said, and these sugars build wood across a growing cambium, or the living surface separating bark and wood in trees.

"What we're finding," Sillett said, "is that the rate of wood production in some species doesn't slow down until a tree gets to the end of its lifetime."

Earlier research on Redwoods by Steve Sillett: https://plus.google.com/u/0/103586346709495625226/posts/5nb2R6PFfY8

Article Link: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/12/121205-sequoia-redwoods-trees-old-national-park-science-environment/

#science   #scienceeveryday   #lpsamazingplantfacts  

VIP Top Circle 

2013 Special!
(If you're notified, you are in it!)

Wish all you people a very Happy New Year! Carefully curated top of the pops people in this circle.... who are in here? People from all walks of life, but mainly helpful, funny, kind, wonderful and people worth following. Don't believe me? add them as a separate circle and watch that stream :)

If you ever feel your Google Plus needs a boost, these are the people who you need to add!

Feel free to reshare if you like!
(added myself, but feel free to drop me)

#awesome   #happynewyear   #topcircles   #vip   #circleshare   #circlesharing   #sharingcircle   #sharingiscaring   #boost   #gplus   #googleplus  

Cybenetic Human news

A new material developed at Harvard and MIT adds a distinctly cybernetic element to the science of tissue engineering. The 3-D mesh of transistors and cells, which can support tissue growth while monitoring its health and progress, could even be a step toward prosthetic devices that connect directly to the nervous system.

Tissue scaffolds have been used successfully for some time to coax cells to grow, and they can even be used to grow artificial blood vessels. Previous research has tried to incorporate electronic sensors into these scaffolds, but they have been limited to two-dimensional flat planes, with cells growing on top of transistors or electrodes.

Lieber said the system will allow scientists to work with tissue without disturbing it. "Ultimately, this is about merging tissue with electronics in a way that it becomes difficult to determine where the tissue ends and the electronics begin,” he said in a statement.

#transhumanism  

Seahorse's Armor Gives Engineers Insight Into Robotics Design

The tail of a seahorse can be compressed to about half its size before permanent damage occurs, engineers at the University of California, San Diego, have found. The tail's exceptional flexibility is due to its structure, made up of bony, armored plates, which slide past each other. Researchers are hoping to use a similar structure to create a flexible robotic arm equipped with muscles made out of polymer, which could be used in medical devices, underwater exploration and unmanned bomb detection and detonation. UC San Diego engineers, led by materials science professors Joanna McKittrick and Marc Meyers, detailed their findings in the March 2013 issue of the journal Acta Biomaterialia.

McKittrick and Meyers had sought bioinsipiration by examining the armor of many other animals, including armadillo, alligators and the scales of various fish. This time, they were specifically looking for an animal that was flexible enough to develop a design for a robotic arm.

"The tail is the seahorse's lifeline," because it allows the animal to anchor itself to corals or seaweed and hide from predators, said Michael Porter, a Ph.D. student in materials science at the Jacobs School of Engineering. "But no one has looked at the seahorse's tail and bones as a source of armor."

The seahorse's tail is typically made up of 36 square-like segments, each composed of four L-shaped corner plates that progressively decrease in size along the length of the tail. Plates are free to glide or pivot. Gliding joints allow the bony plates to glide past one another. Pivoting joints are similar to a ball-and-socket joint, with three degrees of rotational freedom. The plates are connected to the vertebrae by thick collagen layers of connective tissue. The joints between plates and vertebrae are extremely flexible with nearly six degrees of freedom.

Article Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130501132123.htm

Bomb disposal armor created using a similar structure: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2318477/The-bomb-disposal-armour-inspired-seahorse-tail.html?ico=sciencetech^headlines

Pic on left: from sciencedaily showing a micro CT-scan of the seahorse.
Pic on the right: Artist's concept of a armored seahorse.

#science #scienceeveryday #seahorse #structure #tail #biology

This one is for +Mz Maau - Bling on a ladybug :)

It looks jewel encrusted, but it's just dew!

#ladybug   #amazingphotography  

Earth may be crashing through dark matter walls

Article by Lisa Grossman
Earth is constantly crashing through huge walls of dark matter, and we already have the tools to detect them. That's the conclusion of physicists who say the universe may be filled with a patchwork quilt of force fields created shortly after the big bang.

Observations of how mass clumps in space suggest that about 86 per cent of all matter is invisible dark matter, which interacts with ordinary matter mainly through gravity. The most popular theory is that dark matter is made of weakly interacting massive particles.

WIMPs should also interact with ordinary matter via the weak nuclear force, and their presence should have slight but measurable effects. However, years of searches for WIMPs have been coming up empty.

Pospelov and colleagues have been examining a theory that at least some of the universe's dark matter is tied up in structures called domain walls, akin to the boundaries between tightly packed bubbles. The idea is that the hot early universe was full of an exotic force field that varied randomly. As the universe expanded and cooled, the field froze, leaving a patchwork of domains, each with its own distinct value for the field.

Article Link: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23094-earth-may-be-crashing-through-dark-matter-walls.html

Picture courtesy : hermenaut.org - An artist's rendition of the heliosphere and magnetic fields; On the right - A dark matter map was created by the Hubble Telescope by measuring light from distant stars thought to have been deflected by dark matter. The map of half the Universe reveals dark matter filaments, collapsing under the relentless pull of gravity and growing clumpier over time...dailymail.co.uk

#science   #scienceeveryday   #darkmatter   #Earth  

Google plus...my experience

Please note I share my observations and tinkering on G+ from time to time. This is not a rant, it's how I process and rework what I'm doing here. 

For those who don't know me, I am a Science Fiction writer with a blog here www.lacerantplainer.com

Here goes

1. I have found that posting quality does not get you followers - not really, which is counter intuitive and surprising.

2. What gives you more people circling you? Circle shares... astonishingly. I circle shared aggressively in the past, and people hooping me jumped. I stopped sharing, and the numbers dropped by 90%. Some will say now I'm getting the more relevant people circling me. I seriously don't know.

3. Over time, the very people who pointed out that me sharing circles just creates followers with no relevance, have themselves moved to the SUL and they seem to also get random adds, but somehow this does not bother them.

4. My core group of people who follow me for my posts have gotten smaller and more topical. They are pretty awesome people, and I am honored to now start Notification circles for them (18 people in total).

5. Actually I'm quite at a loss - what am I doing right, what am I doing wrong.... Yes in one way it has not been about numbers, in another it is about numbers. I've tried to reinvent myself, but with limited success!


My earlier posts on experiences here on G+:
----------------------------------------------------------------
https://plus.google.com/u/0/110884604033336753419/posts/PVJpr2MvQGf

https://plus.google.com/u/0/110884604033336753419/posts/BbQ2YtY1vS1

#googleplus   #myexperience   #sciencefiction   #lacerantplainer   #lacerantplainerscircles  

My New Sci-Fi Book  'The Judgement Conundrum'  is now available!!

To download it for Free on Smashwords!! https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/169931

Please 'Like' the Page, download the short story and reshare this Post! I will be really grateful for your support and it will help me in my future endeavors! Free for a limited period only......
Also available on amazon..... for 99c - http://amzn.to/L1O1Me

About the book..... Lacerant Plainer’s new short story is set in the near future, and with its fast-paced action, dystopian world and warring humans and aliens it ticks all the boxes for a near-perfect first contact tale.  But is it? Or is there another point of view to the destruction of Earth, the concept of war and the perspective of aliens? Read this cracking account of the interaction between humans and Xylex, and the implications of greed, short-sightedness, violence and judgements.

If you happen to download from amazon.com, please mention that the sale price on smashwords is $0.00, since Amazon does not allow me to offer it for free.

'The Judgement Conundrum' is the result of the first 'Open Source Editor(s)' Program in Google+, and has been jointly edited by a wonderful group of people. All of you, here is "our" book! Couldn't have done it without you!

Editors (in no particular order) :-
+Shaun Dawson 
+Ninja On Rye 
+Mz Maau 
+Emil Hugo 
+Knut Torgersen 
+Jamez Frondeskias 
+Ted Ewen 
+Charles Strebor 
+Carrie Canup 
+Gita Jaisinghani 

* If you wish to be removed from notifications, please send me a message titled "opt out".

Amazing DNA

DNA: the 'smartest' molecule in existence?

DNA is structured like a ladder, opens and closes like a zip, codes data like Morse code and coils tightly

_DNA is the molecule that contains and passes on our genetic information. The publication of its structure on the 25th of April 1953 was vital to understanding how it achieves this task with such startling efficiency.
In fact, it's hard to think of another molecule that performs so many intelligent functions so effortlessly._

For such a huge molecule, DNA is very stable so if it's kept in cold, dry and dark conditions, it can last for a very, very long time. This is why we have been able to extract and analyse DNA taken from species that have been extinct for thousands of years.DNA's structure is a bit like a twisted ladder. The twisted 'rails' are made of sugar-phosphate, which give DNA its shape and protect the information carrying 'rungs' inside. Each sugar-phosphate unit is joined to the next by a tough covalent bond, which needs a lot of energy to break.

Our cells need to divide so we can grow and re-build, but every cell needs to have the instructions to know 'how to be' a cell. DNA provides those instructions - so a new copy of itself must be made before a cell divides. One side of the double-stranded DNA helix can be used as a template to produce a new side that perfectly complements it. A bit like making a new coat zip, but by using half of the old zip as a template.

DNA is one of the longest molecules in the natural world. You possess enough DNA, stretched out in a line, to reach from here to the sun and back more than 300 times. Yet each cell nucleus must contain two metres of DNA, so it has to be very flexible. It coils - much like a telephone cord - into tight complex structures called chromatins without corrupting the vital information within.

Just one gram of DNA can hold about two petabytes of data - the equivalent of about three million CDs. That's pretty smart, especially when you compare it to other information-storing molecules. Using the same amount of space, DNA can store 140,000 times more data than iron (III) oxide molecules, which stores information on computer hard drives.

Article link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/0/22199991

Links to Watson and Crick's announcement: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/crick_and_watson.shtml

#science #scienceeveryday #dna #genes #code #amazing #molecule #data #largemolecule  

Computers Made Out of DNA, Slime and Other Strange Stuff

Everybody knows a computer is a machine made of metal and plastic, with microchip cores turning streams of electrons into digital reality. A century from now, though, computers could look quite different. They might be made from neurons and chemical baths, from bacterial colonies and pure light, unrecognizable to our old-fashioned 21st century eyes.

Far-fetched? A little bit. But a computer is just a tool for manipulating information. That's not a task wedded to some particular material form. After all, the first computers were people, and many people alive today knew a time when fingernail-sized transistors, each representing a single bit of information, were a great improvement on unreliable vacuum tubes.

Pic on Left: Slime Computation
"The great appeal of non-traditional computing is that I can connect the un-connectable and link the un-linkable," said Andy Adamatzky, director of the Unconventional Computing Center at the University of the West of England. He's made computers from electrified liquid crystals, chemical goo and colliding particles, but is best known for his work with Physarum, the lowly slime mold.

Pic on right: Sea Slug Neuron
It's easy to think of minds as computers, and accurate in the sense that brains are information-processing systems. They are also, however, exponentially more complex and sophisticated than any engineered device. Even as quantum computing remains a far-off dream, some scientists think quantum physics underlies our thoughts. The question is far from settled, but quantum processes have been observed in a variety of non-human cells, raising the alluring possibility of a role in thought..

Article Link: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/04/strange-computers/

#science #scienceeveryday #computers #organiccomputer #slime #neuron #alternativecomputing #computing  

Rebooting Manufacturing

Smarter, safer robots could be the first step for expanding automation to new areas of production and help manufacturers gain a competitive edge against competition which uses low-cost labor.

Designed to work side by side with technicians and researchers without safety cages, the Baxter Research Robot is available for $22,000, which includes a service plan plus built in sensors such as cameras, force, sonar and rangefinder. The Research Robot’s extremely low price point will allow Baxter to become an integral part of robotics labs in higher education institutions and manufacturers’ research centers.

_ One robot methodically moves widget after widget onto a conveyor belt, the animated face on its LCD screen displaying an expression of quiet concentration. The task is mundane, but the robot is not: This is Baxter, the culmination of nearly five years of secretive development, based on the vision of Rodney Brooks, possibly the world’s most celebrated roboticist. Now founder, chairman, and CTO of Rethink Robotics, the company that built Baxter, Brooks has his sights set characteristically high: to unleash a revolution in manufacturing with a friendly faced factory robot.
_

With US $62 million in funding from top-tier investors such as Bezos Expeditions and Charles River Ventures, Rethink Robotics has been the subject of a great deal of interest and speculation since its founding in 2008. Like others who track robotics, we’d heard the rumors: Rethink was focusing on manufacturing; its robots would be so inexpensive every factory would be able to afford one.

Article Link: http://www.technologyreview.com/photoessay/429680/rebooting-manufacturing/

Rethink robotics website: http://www.rethinkrobotics.com/index.php/products/baxter/

Additional link: http://spectrum.ieee.org/robotics/industrial-robots/rethink-robotics-baxter-robot-factory-worker

Youtube video link: How Baxter Robot Works

#science #scienceeveryday #sciencesunday #bezos #robot #robotics #manufacturing #competition  

In a village in India's poorest state, Bihar, farmers are growing world record amounts of rice – with no GM, and no herbicide.... how?

Sumant Kumar was overjoyed when he harvested his rice last year. There had been good rains in his village of Darveshpura in north-east India and he knew he could improve on the four or five tonnes per hectare that he usually managed. But every stalk he cut on his paddy field near the bank of the Sakri river seemed to weigh heavier than usual, every grain of rice was bigger and when his crop was weighed on the old village scales, even Kumar was shocked.

This was not six or even 10 or 20 tonnes. Kumar, a shy young farmer in Nalanda district of India's poorest state Bihar, had – using only farmyard manure and without any herbicides – grown an astonishing 22.4 tonnes of rice on one hectare of land. This was a world record and with rice the staple food of more than half the world's population of seven billion, big news.

What happened in Darveshpura has divided scientists and is exciting governments and development experts. Tests on the soil show it is particularly rich in silicon but the reason for the "super yields" is entirely down to a method of growing crops called System of Rice (or root) Intensification (SRI). It has dramatically increased yields with wheat, potatoes, sugar cane, yams, tomatoes, garlic, aubergine and many other crops and is being hailed as one of the most significant developments of the past 50 years for the world's 500 million small-scale farmers and the two billion people who depend on them.

Instead of planting three-week-old rice seedlings in clumps of three or four in waterlogged fields, as rice farmers around the world traditionally do, the Darveshpura farmers carefully nurture only half as many seeds, and then transplant the young plants into fields, one by one, when much younger. Additionally, they space them at 25cm intervals in a grid pattern, keep the soil much drier and carefully weed around the plants to allow air to their roots. 

Article Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2013/feb/16/india-rice-farmers-revolution

#science   #scienceeveryday   #scienceongplus   #rice   #agriculture  

To Sail beyond the Sunset

Two new sails are being looked at as possible variants to the solar sail...(the title is taken from a book by Robert A Heinlein).

New satellite sail is propelled by solar protons

A tiny new satellite is propelled by repulsion. ESTCube-1, which went into orbit recently, will put proton-powered electric solar sails to the test for the first time. It could pave the way for speedy trips through the solar system.  Regular solar sails have large, thin mirrors that reflect photons from the sun to push the spacecraft forward. The new electric sail, harnesses solar protons instead. Wires with a positive charge will extend from the craft and repel protons – also positively charged – to propel the tiny satellite.

ESTCube-1 is 10 centimetres wide and has a 10-metre-long wire just half the width of a human hair. It is within the Earth's magnetosphere, so is shielded from the solar wind, but it will still interact with charged particles, says Mart Noorma of Tartu University in Estonia, who helped develop the satellite.

Once the wire is fully extended and powered up, the satellite's rotation rate should alter, letting the team measure the thrust generated by the electric sail. If the tests are successful, the hope is that a full-sized craft with 100 wires, each 20 kilometres long, could reach speeds of 30 kilometres per second, fast enough to get to Pluto in under five years. Smaller sails could act as a brake for retired satellites, slowing them down enough to fall safely back to Earth.

Article link: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23498-new-satellite-sail-is-propelled-by-solar-protons.html (Pic on left)

The Electric Sail

IKAROS would do well to watch its back, for the Japanese solar-sailing spacecraft may just have some competition that's fast enough to catch up. The EU is funding a three-year project at the Finnish Meteorological Institute to build the fastest man-made device in the universe: an electric sail, or ESAIL, that researchers say could make Pluto in just five years' time. Like the more well-known solar sail, the ESAIL is propelled by solar radiation and therefore requires no chemical or ion propellant. But rather than actually unfurling a huge membranous sail to catch photons from the sun to provide thrust, the ESAIL repels protons.

The ESAIL consists of a bunch of thin metallic tethers that unfurl in a huge circular array around the craft. A solar-powered electron gun aboard the tiny central spacecraft keeps the tethers charged at a high positive potential. Since particles of the same charge repel one another, the protons in the solar wind push on the tethers, propelling the sail away from the sun.

Article Link: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-12/eu-backed-electric-sail-could-be-fastest-man-made-device-ever-built (pic on right).

#solarsail #protonsail #science #scienceeveryday #solarpower #space #spaceexploration #repulsion  

3D Printer Art

To be on forefront of a cutting edge field like 3D printing, the skill set required is pretty stacked. You need to be a designer, engineer, researcher, innovator, and technologist. You should be a good public speaker to present new discoveries to others. And it doesn’t hurt to be a professor at MIT.

Neri Oxman fits the bill, and her creations are demonstrating the powerful combination of 3D printing and new design algorithms inspired from nature.

At this early stage in its development, 3D printing is being used mostly to generate replicas of natural and man-made structures. Just as a computer printer makes copies of 2D images, 3D printers have copied a variety of objects that we’ve profiled previously, such as robots, chairs, prosthetics, kidneys, and jaw bones, to mention a few. But Neri Oxman and her colleagues are discovering new design and engineering principles that will help to mature 3D printing into a technology capable of producing complex structures impossible by other manufacturing techniques.

Article Link: http://singularityhub.com/2012/06/04/3d-printing-is-the-future-of-manufacturing-and-neri-oxman-shows-how-beautiful-it-can-be/

#science #scienceeveryday #art #makerbot #3dprinting  

Cyborgs walk among us

There are already sites now dedicated to Cyborg rights and conversion. It is the harbinger of the future, in my opinion.

No reason why Cyborgs should not have rights just like everyone else... read on!

Cyborg citizenship is a conception of rights based on personhood rather than on"humanness.” Not all persons are humans, and not all humans are persons. Cyborg citizenship is the opposition to conceptions of rights based on Human racism.

As a form of Non-anthropocentric personhood ethics, cyborg citizenship recognizes the rights of cyborgs, but also the rights of the more cognitively complex animals with extensive capacities for feeling, and the rights of posthumans. On the other hand, cyborg citizenship is not concerned with the rights of humans who have not reached or are past the point of being persons, such as embryos and the brain dead.

Cyborg citizenship also recognizes the rights of cryonics patients to be preserved and revived when the appropriate technologies become available.

Article link: http://ieet.org/index.php/tpwiki/Cyborg_citizenship

Neil Harbisson helped found The Cyborg Foundation in 2010 and stepped up in his role as a cyborg activist. The Cyborg Foundation aims to help people become cyborgs, defend cyborg rights, and promote the use of cybernetics in the arts. The Cyborg Foundation also provides support to sense development projects like those Harbisson and Montandon collaborated on. Other Cyborg Foundation works include the speedborg, which lets people detect movement through vibrations, and the earborg, which translates sound into color.

Article link: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/122174-Worlds-First-Cyborg-Speaks-Out

Additional links: http://www.cyborgfoundation.com/

Earlier post on Jeri Ryan (Original Borg 7 of 9) - https://plus.google.com/u/0/110884604033336753419/posts/6SpBhABkwoW

Pics courtesy: zerochan.com. tib.cjcs.com

#science   #scienceeveryday   #borg   #cyborg   #transhumanism  

Patterning graphene with DNA

Folded DNA templates allow researchers to precisely cut out graphene shapes, which could be used in electronic circuits.

DNA’s unique structure is ideal for carrying genetic information, but scientists have recently found ways to exploit this versatile molecule for other purposes: By controlling DNA sequences, they can manipulate the molecule to form many different nanoscale shapes.

Chemical and molecular engineers at MIT and Harvard University have now expanded this approach by using folded DNA to control the nanostructure of inorganic materials. After building DNA nanostructures of various shapes, they used the molecules as templates to create nanoscale patterns on sheets of graphene. This could be an important step toward large-scale production of electronic chips made of graphene, a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon with unique electronic properties.

Using single-stranded tiles, Yin’s lab has created more than 100 distinct nanoscale shapes, including the full alphabet of capital English letters and many emoticons. These structures are designed using computer software and can be assembled in a simple reaction. Alternatively, such structures can be constructed using an approach called DNA origami, in which many short strands of DNA fold a long strand into a desired shape.

Article Link: http://mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/patterning-graphene-with-dna-0409.html

Related article: http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2010/jul/21/graphene-could-revolutionize-dna-sequencing

#graphene #dna #science #scienceeveryday #dnasequencing  

Organic Computers

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute in California and the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology have developed a “biological computer” made entirely from biomolecules that is capable of deciphering images encrypted on DNA chips. Although DNA has been used for encryption in the past, this is the first experimental demonstration of a molecular cryptosystem of images based on DNA computing.

Instead of using traditional computer hardware, a group led by Professor Ehud Keinan of Scripps Research and the Technion created a computing system using bio-molecules. When suitable software was applied to the biological computer, it could decrypt, separately, fluorescent images of The Scripps Research Institute and Technion logos.

The hardware and software in these devices, Keinan notes, are complex biological molecules that activate one another to carry out some predetermined chemical work. The input is a molecule that undergoes specific, predetermined changes, following a specific set of rules (software), and the output of this chemical computation process is another well-defined molecule.

Article Link: http://www.scripps.edu/news/press/2012/20120207keinan.html

Additional reading: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/01/rat_btbi_organic_computers/

Earlier article: http://www.gizmag.com/organic-molecular-computer/15041/

Additional sources: Wikia, Wikipedia, Sciencedaily.

#science #scienceeveryday #computer #wetware #organiccomputer  

Rail-launched scramjet

Emerging Technology
As NASA studies possibilities for the next launcher to the stars, a team of engineers from Kennedy Space Center and several other field centers are looking for a system that turns a host of existing cutting-edge technologies into the next giant leap spaceward. 

An early proposal has emerged that calls for a wedge-shaped aircraft with scramjets to be launched horizontally on an electrified track or gas-powered sled. The aircraft would fly up to Mach 10, using the scramjets and wings to lift it to the upper reaches of the atmosphere where a small payload canister or capsule similar to a rocket's second stage would fire off the back of the aircraft and into orbit. The aircraft would come back and land on a runway by the launch site. 

Engineers also contend the system, with its advanced technologies, will benefit the nation's high-tech industry by perfecting technologies that would make more efficient commuter rail systems, better batteries for cars and trucks, and numerous other spinoffs. 

It might read as the latest in a series of science fiction articles, but NASA's Stan Starr, branch chief of the Applied Physics Laboratory at Kennedy, points out that nothing in the design calls for brand-new technology to be developed. However, the system counts on a number of existing technologies to be pushed forward. 

The good news is that NASA and universities already have done significant research in the field, including small-scale tracks at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., and at Kennedy. The Navy also has designed a similar catapult system for its aircraft carriers. 

As far as the aircraft that would launch on the rail, there already are real-world tests for designers to draw on. The X-43A, or Hyper-X program, and X-51 have shown that scramjets will work and can achieve remarkable speeds. 

The group sees NASA's field centers taking on their traditional roles to develop the Advanced Space Launch System. For instance, Langley Research Center in Virginia, Glenn Research Center in Ohio and Ames Research Center in California would work on different elements of the hypersonic aircraft. Dryden Research Center in California, Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and Marshall would join Kennedy in developing the launch rail network. Kennedy also would build a launch test bed, potentially in a two-mile long area parallel to the crawlerway leading to Launch Pad 39A. 

A rail launcher study using gas propulsion already is under way, but the team is applying for funding under several areas, including NASA's push for technology innovation, but the engineers know it may not come to pass. The effort is worth it, however, since there is a chance at revolutionizing launches. 

Article link: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/technology/features/horizontallaunch.html

#raillaunch    #scramjet    #science   #sciencesunday   #scienceeveryday  

Zombie Snake

Just because you've cut the head off a venomous snake, that doesn't mean that the snake is done with you. One Santa Cruz homeowner learned that after he decapitated a rattlesnake that wandered into his garage and the head kept on going.

National Geographic has a video of Thomas Scott cornering the snake and then chopping off its head. But it's what happens afterward that's strange. The snake's head, zombie-like, keeps on moving and keeps baring its deadly fangs. According to the segment, a rattlesnake's head can still deliver a venomous bite up to an hour after it's been decapitated. Because we didn't need more reasons to fear snakes.

Article link: http://io9.com/rattlesnake-heads-can-keep-biting-up-to-an-hour-after-d-476591576

Youtube link:Rattlesnake Continues to be a Danger even after Decapitation

Yes, I know it's not new, but its still post-worthy!

#science #scienceeveryday #rattlesnake #zombie #decapitate  

Heart on fire: Our galaxy's black hole is set to blow

The dark monster at the centre of the Milky Way has been a gentle giant – but that could change this year as it gets its first meal for centuries. The centre of our galaxy is a place of extremes. "It has the highest density of stars, the fastest-moving stars, the most concentrated reservoir of gas and the strongest magnetic fields in the galaxy," says Mark Morris, an astronomer at the University of California, Los Angeles. And lurking at its very heart is the most enigmatic object of all: our galaxy's very own supermassive black hole.

Known as Sagittarius A* – SgrA* for short – this dark presence whirls stars around at speeds approaching 20 million kilometres per hour, and is as massive as 4 million suns. Yet it is a docile monster. It merely snacks on the tenuous interstellar gas, which emits a faint glow of radio waves before disappearing into the gravitational maw.

Its character is about to change. SgrA* has in the past been responsible for mega eruptions that shaped the Milky Way into the galaxy it is today. Later this year, we are due to get our first glimpse of how a black hole springs into life, when a gas cloud called G2 nears its edge. It will give us an unprecedented insight into what makes a galaxy's dark heart tick.

Should we be worried? Probably not. G2 is a weakling on the galactic scene – it weighs only as much as three Earths – so no one is expecting a fully-blown quasar to flare up in the galaxy's centre. An outburst of that size is perhaps 10 million years away, says Morris. Even then, it is unlikely that our descendants, if still on the scene, would need to head for the nearest bomb shelter. "While the explosions and quasar episodes that take place at the galactic centre are a fantastic opportunity for astronomers, they are very unlikely to have a major effect on Earth," says Morris. "At a distance of 25,000 light years, we are pretty far from the danger zone."

Article Link: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21829142.200-heart-on-fire-our-galaxys-black-hole-is-set-to-blow.html

Pictures courtesy NASA article : http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2001/ast05sep_1/

#science #scienceeveryday #g2 #chandra #milkyway #blackhole  

Cats take on owners' habits — good and bad

Cats really do become part of our families, to the point that they take on human habits — good and bad — and adapt their lifestyle with that of their owners, says new research.

The finding shows how profoundly captivity can affect certain animals. While genetics help to explain some aspects of personality and behavior, an individual's environment clearly is a factor too.

For the Journal of Veterinary Behavior study, the researchers studied two groups of cats. Each group received excellent care, in terms of food, medical attention and grooming. The owners of all the cats worked during the day and returned home in the evenings.

The first group of cats, however, lived in smaller homes and stayed closer to their owners. The second group lived more of an indoor/outdoor lifestyle on larger property. These cats were also kept outside at night.

Over time, the cats in the first group mirrored the lives of their owners. Their eating, activity and sleeping patterns were very similar. The cats left out at night became more nocturnal, matching the behaviors of semi-dependent farm cats with more feral ways.

"Cats are intelligent animals with a long memory," Jane Brunt, DVM, and the executive director of the CATalyst Council, told Discovery News. "They watch and learn from us, (noting) the patterns of our actions, as evidenced by knowing where their food is kept and what time to expect to be fed, how to open the cupboard door that's been improperly closed and where their feeding and toileting areas are."

While it's now known that owners greatly influence their cats, the reverse is true as well. Cats can influence that habits and lifestyle of their owners. Brunt said that we often adjust our schedules to fit theirs, such as getting up earlier and responding to their needs.

"I also think we can learn a lot from cats," she added. "When they sit on our lap softly purring with rhythmic breathing and half-closed eyes, the sense of serenity and calm that comes over us is like a private lesson in inner peace and meditation."

Article Link: http://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/17/16570076-cats-take-on-owners-habits-good-and-bad?lite

#science   #scienceeveryday   #cats   #caturday  

Clock

This is the exposed beating heart of a Quantum Time Machine... also called a Clock.

BEHOLD, the beating heart of a time machine! Or "clock", as most people call them, but this one is nothing like your grandfather's. This super-accurate timekeeper is an optical atomic clock built by the UK's National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and its tick is governed by a single ion of the element strontium.

The ion is trapped in an electromagnetic field within the small cube at the centre and cooled with lasers to just a fraction above absolute zero. The lasers are fired through three of the glass shafts emanating from the cube, but must be carefully directed out of the other side to prevent them scattering within the clock, which is why there are six shafts in total.

Once the ion is cooled, another laser makes it resonate between two energy states with an incredible regularity governed by quantum mechanics. It gives off a regular pulse of optical radiation exactly 444,779,044,095,485 times per second.

Article Link: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2013/02/strontium-atomic-clock.html#more

#science   #scienceeveryday   #clock   #time   #machine   #steampunk  

First Ever Family Tree for All Living Birds Reveals Evolution and Diversification

The world's first family tree linking all living bids and revealing when and where they evolved and diversified since dinosaurs walked the Earth has been created.

Experts used the family tree to map out where the almost 10,000 species of birds live to show where the most diversification has taken place in the world.

"The current zeitgeist in biodiversity science is that the world can fill up quickly," says biologist and co-author Arne Mooers of Simon Fraser University in Canada. "A new distinctive group, like bumblebees or tunafish, first evolves, and, if conditions are right, it quickly radiates to produce a large number of species. These species fill up all the available niches, and then there is nowhere to go. Extinction catches up, and things begin to slow down or stall. For birds the pattern is the opposite: Speciation is actually speeding up, not slowing down."

In their analysis, the researchers also expose significant geographic differences in diversification rates. They are higher in the Western Hemisphere than in the Eastern, and higher on islands than mainlands. But surprisingly, they said, there is little difference in rates between the tropics and high latitudes. Regions of especially intense recent diversification include northern North American and Eurasia and southern South America.

Article Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121031141906.htm

#birds   #speciesextinction   #evolution   #science   #scienceveryday   #sciencesunday  +ScienceSunday 

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Merely a Taste of Beer Can Trigger a Rush of Chemical Pleasure in the Brain

If you take just a sip of beer, and moments later—before you’ve had close to enough alcohol to get intoxicated, perhaps even before the beer has hit your stomach—feel a distinctly pleasurable sensation, it might not be strictly due to subtle aromas that result from the beverage’s blend of malt, hops and yeast. The cause of your pleasure might be due to tangible changes in your brain chemistry—specifically, a surge in levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine.

Scientists have long known that part of the reason alcohol induces pleasure is that intoxication leads to the release of dopamine, which is associated with the use of other drugs (as well as sleep and sex) and acts as a reward for the brain. But new research suggests that, for some people, intoxication isn’t necessary: Simply the taste of beer alone can provoke a release of the neurotransmitter within minutes.

Interestingly, the amount of dopamine release per person wasn’t random. People who had a family history of alcoholism (as reported on a survey) showed notably higher dopamine levels after tasting beer as compared to others. But participants who were heavy drinkers but didn’t have the family history had merely average dopamine levels.

Article Link: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2013/04/merely-a-taste-of-beer-can-trigger-a-rush-of-chemical-pleasure-in-the-brain/

#science #scienceeveryday #dopamine #beer #beersci #chemistry  

Butterflies Drink Turtle Tears

In Ecuador's Yasuní National Park, butterflies sip a yellow-spotted river turtle's tears. The mineral-rich liquid helps the insects reproduce. In exchange, the reptile gets a good eye-cleaning. | Photo by Pete Oxford/Minden Pictures

The Yellow-spotted River Turtle (Podocnemis unifilis) is one of the largest South American river turtles.

Weighing up to 25 pounds, they are found mainly in the Amazon and Orinoco River drainages, large rivers, backwaters, lagoons and flooded forests, living for around 20 years.

Spending most of their time in the water, they only come out to bask in the sun on logs or stones. They make their nests in sandy areas on the banks of rivers where the eggs will hatch two to three months after they are laid. In the wild, eggs are laid at the peak of the dry season so the nest will not be washed away.


Main Article: http://goo.gl/FlCOv

Article about Baby Turtle hatching: http://goo.gl/tGGRB

Additional sources: TOL and Wikipedia.

Article and pic link: http://goo.gl/YKeoe

#science   #scienceeveryday   #turtle   #turtletuesday   #turtlethursday  

Caturday Post

Fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus)

As its name suggests the fishing cat is perfectly happy to dive into water for fish as well as scooping them out of the water from above. The fishing cat has a long stocky body and relatively short legs, a short thick tail, a broad head and elongated muzzle.

Fishing cats are good swimmers and have been observed diving for fish, as well as scooping them out of the water with their paws. These cats will also prey on small land-based animals. Surprisingly there is no evidence that the membrane between the fishing cat's toes is specifically adapted to swimming.

The solitary living fishing cats are thought to be primarily nocturnal. They are very much at home in the water and can swim long distances, even under water.

The fishing cat is classed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List, meaning that it is ‘facing a very high risk of extinction in the wild.'

Fishing cat links: http://fishing-cat.wild-cat.org/

WWF link: http://www.wwfindia.org/about_wwf/small_grants_program/fishing_cats/

Sources: Arkive.org, bbc.co.uk, zooborns.com, Smithsonian.com, Wikipedia.

Video Link: FISHING CAT Species Spotlight - Big Cat TV

Pics courtesy: wildlifeanimals.blogspot, zooborns.com

#science   #scienceeveryday   #cat   #cats   #caturday   #fishingcat  

Artery Glass Art

Gary Farlow can make art out of arteries. He and his team of 10 at Farlow’s Scientific Glassblowing are able to transform the body’s vasculature—and nearly all of its other parts—into an ornate borosilicate glass sculpture, from the heart’s ventricles to the brain’s circle of Willis. “We do almost every part of the body,” Farlow says. “It can take a pretty artistic mind to make some of these things.” With the help of cardiologists, the team creates custom see-through systems for science and medical training.

Their anatomically correct models can be designed to simulate blood flow, teach placement of catheters and angioplasty devices, or simply test or demo new surgical gizmos. Individual arteries, veins, and capillaries are shaped and fused together, one at a time. Ground-glass joints are added at the exposed ends so a head, say, can be connected to the carotid arteries should customers want to expand their model.

Full Article: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/10/artists-transform-molten-glass-into-anatomical-wonders/?pid=4825&viewall=true

Picture on the left: This model, known as Mrs. Einstein, is the most complete vascular system from the head to the toes that FSG makes. It's used to demonstrate the path that catheters make. |  Picture on the right: This close up, shows a stent entering the coronary artery for a balloon catheter placement.

#science   #scienceeveryday   #artery   #arteries   #art   #glassart   #glass  

Merely a Taste of Beer Can Trigger a Rush of Chemical Pleasure in the Brain

If you take just a sip of beer, and moments later—before you’ve had close to enough alcohol to get intoxicated, perhaps even before the beer has hit your stomach—feel a distinctly pleasurable sensation, it might not be strictly due to subtle aromas that result from the beverage’s blend of malt, hops and yeast. The cause of your pleasure might be due to tangible changes in your brain chemistry—specifically, a surge in levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine.

Scientists have long known that part of the reason alcohol induces pleasure is that intoxication leads to the release of dopamine, which is associated with the use of other drugs (as well as sleep and sex) and acts as a reward for the brain. But new research suggests that, for some people, intoxication isn’t necessary: Simply the taste of beer alone can provoke a release of the neurotransmitter within minutes.

Interestingly, the amount of dopamine release per person wasn’t random. People who had a family history of alcoholism (as reported on a survey) showed notably higher dopamine levels after tasting beer as compared to others. But participants who were heavy drinkers but didn’t have the family history had merely average dopamine levels.

Article Link: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2013/04/merely-a-taste-of-beer-can-trigger-a-rush-of-chemical-pleasure-in-the-brain/

#science #scienceeveryday #dopamine #beer #beersci #chemistry  

Is extinction really such a bad thing?

A thoughtful exhibition at London's Natural History Museum explores the benefits of extinction, and the possibility of humanity eradicating itself. It's not something that you would expect London's Natural History Museum to extol, but its new exhibition says extinction may not be so bad after all.

"Extinction, like death, is a natural part of life," declares a sage epigraph at the start of this thoughtful exhibition. "Extinction isn't necessarily the end of the world, it could be just the beginning..." The exhibition aims to make visitors question their ideas on extinction. Is it any worse when caused by humans than by meteorites or volcanic eruptions? Should conservation be our watchword, or should some organisms go extinct?

The five mass extinctions in Earth's history wiped out swathes of life, but out of the devastation new species rose - shaped and honed by evolution - to inherit the Earth. More than 99 per cent of species that ever lived are now dead, and the exhibition hammers home the point that extinction drives evolution, which results in life in all its wondrous forms. But it tempers this message strongly with a second sobering one: human actions are causing extinctions in a way never before seen. "If we don't do anything about it, make no mistake - it will hugely affect the world we live in," says Adrian Lister, a palaeontologist at the museum whose work on the extinct Irish elk forms part of the exhibition. "It would take the biosphere millions of years to recover."

Article Link: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2013/03/extinction.html

#science #scienceeveryday #sciencesunday #extinction #species #survival  

Wonderful Video on UK Space Agency (see Video Link)

From swirling star formations deep in the cosmos, to sat-nav in cars and the daily weather forecast, the UK has played an significant role in space exploration and technology over the past 50 years. And it is big business - with the UK space industry worth more than £9bn a year.

Take a colourful look at how it all started - and where it is now heading - with the acting chief executive of the UK Space Agency, David Parker.

(Music by Focus Music. Slideshow by Paul Kerley. Publication date 29 December 2012.)

*_Article & Video link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20691288_* -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Picture description: Artist’s impression of the star about to be ripped apart. (Space science) Credit: University of Warwick / Mark A Garlick, UK space agency http://www.bis.gov.uk/ukspaceagency/what-we-do 

The Placebo Effect

Don't try this at home. Several times a day, for several days, you induce pain in someone. You control the pain with morphine until the final day of the experiment, when you replace the morphine with saline solution. Guess what? The saline takes the pain away.

This is the placebo effect: somehow, sometimes, a whole lot of nothing can be very powerful. Except it's not quite nothing. When Fabrizio Benedetti of the University of Turin in Italy carried out the above experiment, he added a final twist by adding naloxone, a drug that blocks the effects of morphine, to the saline. The shocking result? The pain-relieving power of saline solution disappeared.

So what is going on? Doctors have known about the placebo effect for decades, and the naloxone result seems to show that the placebo effect is somehow biochemical. But apart from that, we simply don't know.

Why some people respond to treatments that have no active ingredients in them may be down to their genes, a study in the journal PLoS ONE suggests. link: http://goo.gl/ISp9F

Could you be tricked into believing a sugar pill will ease your pain? A brain scan could reveal whether you would respond to a placebo or not. Tor Wager at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and colleagues took another look at two studies that involved scanning the brains of people given a painful stimulus. Each consisted of two trials where volunteers were given an ineffective cream to ease the pain. In one trial they were told it was a fake, in the other an analgesic.

When comparing brain responses from each trial, the group identified several brain structures that were more or less active before and during the painful stimulus in those who experienced a placebo effect.

In placebo responders, activity dropped in areas processing pain, but increased in areas involved in emotion. This suggests that, rather than blocking pain signals into the brain, the placebo is changing the interpretation of pain. Link: http://goo.gl/HWJal

Of course, nurturing is no replacement for science — care won’t shrink a tumor or set a broken bone. But mainstream medicine could stand to learn something important about caring from the alternative forms. Suffering people reflexively seek care, but in mainstream medicine, “care” tends to mean treatment and nothing more. Many patients who really need empathy and advice are instead given drugs and surgery. Link: http://goo.gl/YrVVm

Sources: Newscientist.com, bbc.com, Wired.com, Havardmagazine.

Further reading: http://harvardmagazine.com/2013/01/the-placebo-phenomenon

Pics courtesy: extension.unicen.edu.ar, bigthink.com

#science   #scienceeveryday   #placebo   #placeboeffect  

Happy Valentine’s Day! Here’s a space rose

Here’s something truly out-of-this-world… Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Overnight Scentsation.

This miniature rose was grown in space, on NASA’s Space Shuttle Discovery Flight STS-95, in an Astroculture commercial plant growth chamber. Scientists wanted to see whether a rose grown in space really would smell as sweet as its terrestrial counterpart.

Turns out, its scent was different to what it would have been on Earth. Volatile compounds are what make a flower smell the way it does, and they act differently in microgravity.

From NASA: In low gravity the rose actually produced fewer volatiles than it did on Earth. But the fragrance that it did generate was critically altered. The flower in space had a more “floral rose aroma,” which is aesthetically pleasing.

The rose’s scent was so different from anything earthly that International Flavours & Fragrances (who conducted the research with NASA) commercialised the new fragrance, meaning you can now buy perfume with the ‘space rose’ note.

Article Link: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/basic-space/2013/02/13/happy-valentines-day-heres-a-space-rose/

#science   #scienceeveryday   #space   #rose   #fragrance   #biology   #valentinesday   #valentinesday2013  

Bat-Eating Spiders: The Most Terrifying Thing You’ll See Today

A bat’s enemies: owls, hawks, snakes, the Joker, spiders. Spiders? Yes.

The incidence of spiders eating bats could be more widespread than initially suspected, reports a study published March 13 in PLoS ONE. To reach this conclusion, the authors spoke with scientists, conducted an extensive scientific literature review, dug through the blogosphere, and looked for pictures of spiders eating bats on Flickr.

The search turned up 52 reports of bat-eating spiders, less than half of which had been published before. The authors report that bat-munching spiders live on every continent except Antarctica. Most catch bats in webs, like the giant golden silk orb-weavers (Nephilidae). As adults, these spiders’ leg spans can be 10-15 centimeters across, and they weave webs more than a meter in diameter. Bats have also been observed in the webs of social spiders, such as Parawixia. But a minority of spiders, like huntsman and tarantulas, forage for prey without a web, and have been spotted munching on bats on forest floors.

Perhaps most surprisingly, “An attempt by a large fishing spider Dolomedes triton to kill a bat pup has been witnessed below a bridge in Indiana,” the authors report. That spider’s plot was foiled after it became frightened by photographers.

Article Link: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/03/bat-eating-spiders/

#science #scienceeveryday #bats #spiders #lpsamazinganimalfacts  

Brain Cells to Control The Power Plants Of The Future?

Researchers have hooked up living brain cells, grown in a petri dish, to a computer. The computer runs a simulation of a power plant and sends the neurons problems about electricity distribution. Scientists then take the solutions the brain cells come up with as possible equations for controlling the U.S. electrical grid in the future. (Actual solutions for controlling electricity around the U.S. wouldn't use living neurons; they would just use computer code written after scientists studied what the neurons came up with.)

"In a lab, in simulation studies, we have shown that we can intelligently control a power plant with such biologically inspired neural networks," Kumar Venayagamoorthy, one of the project scientists, tells Popular Science. Venayagamoorthy is an engineer at Clemson University in South Carolina. A lab-grown network of neurons, he says, "learns the dynamics of the power plant and based on the learned dynamics, it's able to predict future states."

_the engineers successfully “taught” the living brain cell network how to respond to complex data and incorporated those results into a bio-inspired artificial network, according to LiveScience.com. The overall project, dubbed Brain2Grid, ultimately aims to come up with a smart brain-like control system for the power grid. While the scientists are using living brain cells for their research, they say they don’t plan to have them hooked up forever. Instead, they want to emerge with a super-intelligent computer program that can handle the electrical grid of the future. Forget smart. The next generation electrical grid could be sentient.

Article link: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-04/brain-cells-will-control-power-plants-future

Additional source: http://news.discovery.com/tech/biotechnology/brain-in-a-dish-controls-power-grid-130417.htm

#science #scienceeveryday #brain #power #energy #powerplant #powergrid #braincells #sentient  

Higgs Boson like particle may be bad news for the Universe

Add up the numbers and it's not looking good for the future of the universe, scientists said Monday.

"If you use all the physics that we know now and you do what you think is a straightforward calculation, it's bad news," Joseph Lykken, a theoretical physicist with the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, told reporters.

"It may be that the universe we live in is inherently unstable and at some point billions of years from now it's all going to get wiped out," said Lykken, who is also on the science team at Europe's Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator.

"It may be that the universe we live in is inherently unstable and at some point billions of years from now it's all going to get wiped out," said Lykken, who is also on the science team at Europe's Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator.

Article Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/19/universe-lifespan-finite-unstable-higgs-boson_n_2713053.html

Additional article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/19/higs_data_says_universe_unstable_will_end_when_alternate_reality_bubble_erupts/

Image Sources : express.co.uk, MIB

#science   #scienceeveryday   #higgsboson   #higgsteria   #higgsupdate  

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NASA buys blow-up habitat for space station astronauts

The US space agency has signed a $17.8-million contract with Bigelow Aerospace of Nevada to build an inflatable crew habitat for the ISS.

According to details released today at a press briefing , the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, will launch in 2015. Astronauts on the ISS will test the module for safety and comfort.

BEAM will fly uninflated inside the trunk of a SpaceX Dragon capsule. Once docked and fully expanded, the module will be 4 metres long and 3 metres wide. For two years astronauts will monitor conditions inside, such as temperature and radiation levels.

The company has made progress, developing shielding that resists punctures from space debris and micrometeorites. BEAM's skin, for instance, is made from layers of material like Kevlar to protect occupants from high-speed impacts. The craft's skin has been tested in the lab alongside shielding used right now on the rest of the ISS, says Bigelow director Mike Gold.

"Our envelope will not only equal but be superior to what is flying on the ISS today. We have a strong and absolute focus on safety," he says.

Article Link: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23083-nasa-buys-blowup-habitat-for-space-station-astronauts.html

Picture courtesy: Bigelow airspace

#science   #scienceeveryday   #bigelow   #nasa   #space   #ISS  

The “anomaly” that almost destroyed SpaceX’s rocket launch

According to a statement released by SpaceX:

Approximately one minute and 19 seconds into last night's launch, the Falcon 9 rocket detected an anomaly on one first stage engine. Initial data suggests that one of the rocket's nine Merlin engines, Engine 1, lost pressure suddenly and an engine shutdown command was issued. We know the engine did not explode, because we continued to receive data from it. Panels designed to relieve pressure within the engine bay were ejected to protect the stage and other engines. Our review of flight data indicates that neither the rocket stage nor any of the other eight engines were negatively affected by this event.

As designed, the flight computer then recomputed a new ascent profile in real time to ensure Dragon's entry into orbit for subsequent rendezvous and berthing with the ISS. This was achieved, and there was no effect on Dragon or the cargo resupply mission.

In other words, the rocket did exactly what it was supposed to do (kind of), namely: deal with its pesky engine situation (i.e. one of the more explosive-looking non-explosion we've ever seen) and carry out the mission of lifting Dragon safely into orbit. According to SpaceX, "no other rocket currently flying has this ability."

#spacex   #science   #scienceeveryday  

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Hyperbolic Triangles

Shared via +Charles Strebor  :) thanks for pointing this out:-

Where do triangles internal angles not add upto 180 degrees?

Hyperbolic geometry is also known as saddle geometry or Lobachevskian geometry. It differs in many ways to Euclidean geometry, often leading to quite counter-intuitive results. Some of these remarkable consequences of this geometry's unique fifth postulate include:

1. The sum of the three interior angles in a triangle is strictly less than 180°. Moreover, the angle sums of two distinct triangles are not necessarily the same.
2. Two triangles with the same interior angles have the same area.

See more: Models of Hyperbolic space. One special case is to describe the curvature of space time:

Einstein's brilliance was to suggest that although gravity manifests itself as a force, it is in fact a result of the geometry of spacetime itself. He suggested that matter causes spacetime to curve positively. The sun, for instance warps spacetime, and it is this warping of geometry to which the planets react and not directly to the sun itself. This is a central tenet of the General theory of Relativity. This local curvature can be described in mathematical terms using tensor calculus, an incredibly elegant tool which provides consistent results, regardless of the chosen frame of reference.

This predicts that if a giant triangle was to be constructed around the sun, the angles at its vertices would in fact add up to more than 180o. This is easy to imagine if one thinks of the sun as warping geometry, causing the triangle to have "wonky" sides. However it is incredibly important to note that these lines are in fact the straightest lines possible (geodesics) in this warped geometry.
These predictions can be tested, and have been to a very high degree of accuracy.

#science   #scienceeveryday  

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Ideal Hyperbolic Triangles

In hyperbolic geometry, the angles of a triangle add up to less than 180°. One model for hyperbolic geometry is the Poincaré disk model. The Poincaré disk is the interior of a circle. Hyperbolic triangles whose vertices lie on the circle (at infinity), are called ideal triangles.

Geometry is not true, it is advantageous.
Henri Poincaré

#sciencesunday   #mathematics (the construction  http://bit.ly/NFvcxU )

3D Printed heels

I just love the names of the shoes. So here goes for an atypical post :) These are not meant for walking as yet, but they should be!

3D printing may not be at the level where it can print out food or readymade good just yet but that isn’t stopping pioneers from experimenting in that direction. Created by Janina Alleyne, UK-based fashion footwear designer, the collection of shoes, including pairs called The Exoskeleton, The Reptile and The Scorpion, are all printed out via a 3D printer and the crafty high heels promise to usher in an era of customized shoes with their advent.

Using 3D modeler Inner Leaf, three very unusual sets of shoes were printed out by the designer in separate pieces which were later joined and finished by hand. With a set of sinister teeth-like finish at the end, texturing that makes the shoes look like bones and very pointy edges, the shoes look like a cross between an ivory antique and an alien artifact.


Article Link: http://www.designbuzz.com/3d-printed-exoskeleton-shoes-meant-walking/

#shoes   #heels   #3dprinting   #exoskeleton  

Updated my blog with my new SF Flash fiction story 'The End'

Visit the link for the free story :)

http://www.lacerantplainer.com/



#flashfiction   #story   #sciencefiction   #scifi  

The Dyson Tree

If you’re a fan of science-fiction (or Star Trek), you might have heard the term ‘Dyson Sphere’ before. Therorized by 20th century physicist Freeman Dyson in the 1950s, a Dyson Sphere is a colossal spherical structure constructed around a star, completely surrounding it. The interior of the sphere would absorb the entire energy output of that star, allowing lifeforms to live on the interior surface almost indefinitely.

A Dyson tree is a hypothetical genetically-engineered plant, (perhaps resembling a tree) capable of growing in a comet, suggested by the physicist Freeman Dyson. Plants could produce a breathable atmosphere within hollow spaces in the comet (or even within the plants themselves), utilising solar energy for photosynthesis and cometary materials for nutrients, thus providing self-sustaining habitats for humanity in the outer solar system analogous to a greenhouse in space or a shell grown by a mollusc.

A Dyson tree might consist of a few main trunk structures growing out from a comet nucleus, branching into limbs and foliage that intertwine, forming a spherical structure possibly dozens of kilometers across.
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Sources: wikipedia, Inhabit.com, scienceblogs,

Further reading: http://scienceblogs.com/authority/2009/03/27/co2-freeman-dyson-magic-trees

Mention in entry: http://itsf.org/resources/factsheet.php?fsID=98

Pic on the right courtesy picc.it, pic on left courtesy sentientdevelopments.com.

h/t to Yuriy Fazylov for putting me on this path.

#dyson #tree #space #dysonswarm  

Solar Paint

Imagine if you could just paint your roof with solar paint and harness the free energy of the Sun

The method spray-coats a photovoltaic active layer by an air based process—similar to spraying regular paint from a can—to develop a cheaper technique which can be mass produced.

“Spray coating is currently used to apply paint to cars and in graphic printing,” says David Lidzey, professor at the University of Sheffield.  “We have shown that it can also be used to make solar cells using specially designed plastic semiconductors. Maybe in the future surfaces on buildings and even car roofs will routinely generate electricity with these materials.

Extract from Scientific American
_The paint contains nanoparticles of titanium dioxide—which gives whiteness to sunscreen and powdered sugar. The particles are coated with semiconducting cadmium nanocrystals, and mixed with water and alcohol, to create a golden yellow paste. The researchers dubbed the product “Sunbelievable.” They brushed it onto a conductive glass electrode, and attached that to a counter-electrode, to create a complete circuit. When they shined light on the tiny solar cell, it pumped out a small current. The efficiency of the light-to-electricity conversion was only about one percent—much lower than the 10 to 15 percent efficiency of conventional silicon cells.

Extract from Article about Graphene : Graphene may be a very thin material, but studies have shown it can absorb enough sunlight to produce solar energy that competes with the amount of energy that is able to be culled using solar panels. The Telegraph reported the news on Friday, noting that energy for paint on buildings is a big focus, but that graphene could potentially be used for other solar panel applications.

Article Link: http://www.futurity.org/science-technology/for-cheap-solar-cells-use-spray-paint/

Scientific American Article: http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=solar-paint-converts-light-to-elect-11-12-30

Sciencedaily Article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120425140455.htm

#science #scienceeveryday #paint #solar #solarpaint #solarenergy #solarpower #sustainability #greenenergy  

Ultrasonic popping sounds from Trees

When drought hits, trees can suffer—a process that makes sounds. Now, scientists may have found the key to understanding these cries for help. In the lab, a team of French scientists has captured the ultrasonic noise made by bubbles forming inside water-stressed trees. Because trees also make noises that aren't related to drought impacts, scientists hadn't before been able to discern which sounds are most worrisome.

The noise comes from air bubbles rising up and then disappearing, a process called cavitation. As leaves on a tree collect carbon dioxide, they open their pores, leaving them vulnerable to losing water. To counteract this, trees collect water from the ground through their root system. The effort of trying to pull this moisture in from the ground creates the air bubbles. 'We can track the articulation of bubbles, and what we found is the majority of the sounds that we hear are linked to bubbles,' said a researcher.

To ensure that these air bubbles were the culprits behind the acoustic signature of drought-parched trees, the researchers mocked up a tree in the lab. They placed a thin piece of pine wood, complete with its xylem intact, into a capsule filled with a gel. As the researchers evaporated the water out of the gel -- a test "drought" -- they simultaneously recorded video and sound of the cavitation in the xylem. The researchers discovered that about half of the sounds made by a tree are due to cavitation, and that the process has its own unique acoustical signature. In the future, the researchers say, forest managers could use a hand-held acoustic device to identify water-stressed trees before permanent damage sets in.


Main Article: http://news.nationalgeographic.co.in/news/2013/04/130415-trees-drought-water-science-global-warming-sounds/

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2318495/Gasping-drink-Ultrasonic-popping-sound-trees-thirsty-heard-time.html

Additional source: http://www.popsci.com/environment/article/2013-04/sound-thirst

#tree #trees #lpsamazingplantfacts #biology #botany #xylem #science #scienceeveryday  

Solid or Liquid? Physicists Redefine States of Matter

Why can you stand on a glacier but not the ocean? The answer seems simple enough: Liquids flow. Solids don’t. The atoms in liquids can slosh around. In solids, they fall lockstep into a crystal lattice. A crystal’s endlessly repeating pattern is so stable that it takes a considerable infusion of energy to make the atoms break rank. Or so physics textbooks say.

But this long-accepted explanation for the rigidity of solids fails to account for quasicrystals — bizarre solids first discovered in the lab in 1982 and found in nature in 2009. Atoms in quasicrystals are arranged in patterns that never repeat, but the material is nonetheless rigid. So is glass, an amorphous mass of stationary atoms that behaves like a solid but, upon closer inspection, looks more like a liquid frozen in time. “Glasses have been around for thousands of years,” said Daniel Stein, a professor of physics and mathematics at New York University. “Chemists understand them. Engineers understand them. From the point of view of physics, we don’t understand them. Why are they rigid?”

Physicists in France and the United States are proposing new answers to this fundamental question. As outlined in a March article in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society, the researchers have identified two characteristics of materials that dramatically change form at the intersections of temperature and pressure where liquids turn solid. These characteristics, the physicists say, could define the difference between the two states of matter.

Article Link: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/04/solid-liquid-states-of-matter/

Pic on left: The glass walls and floor of the Willis Tower Skydeck in Chicago behave like a solid but look more like a liquid at the atomic level. Photo: Olga Bandelowa.

Pic on right: First frictionless superfluid molecules created (http://www.zmescience.com/research/frictionless-superfluid-hydrogen-helium-19012011/)

#science #scienceeveryday #liquid #glass #fluid #solid #matter  

This hydrogen-burning hypersonic airliner could fly more than twice as fast as the 1,350mph Concorde—and its passengers would travel absolutely guilt-free

Modern air travel is a marvel. It's also a source of endless delay, annoyance and planet-killing greenhouse gases. A proposed hydrogen-powered hypersonic airliner could change all that. The plane is Reaction Engines's A2 concept, a Mach-5 (3,400mph) craft for 300 passengers funded in part by the European Union's Long-Term Advanced Propulsion Concepts and Technologies project (Lapcat). Lapcat wants an airliner that can fly from Brussels to Sydney in less than four hours. If built, the A2 will do just that—without producing a trace of carbon emissions.

Engineers created the A2 with the failures of its doomed supersonic predecessor, the Concorde, very much in mind. Reaction Engines's technical director, Richard Varvill, and his colleagues believe that the Concorde was phased out because of a couple major limitations. First, it couldn't fly far enough. "The range was inadequate to do trans-Pacific routes, which is where a lot of the potential market is thought to be for a supersonic transport," Varvill explains. Second, the Concorde's engines were efficient only at its Mach-2 cruising speed, which meant that when it was poking along overland at Mach 0.9 to avoid producing sonic booms, it got horrible gas mileage. "The engine has two modes because we're very conscious of the Concorde experience," he says.

(The A2 runs on liquid hydrogen, which produces water vapor and a small amount of nitrous oxide as exhaust and is energy-dense enough to fly this plane all the way from Brussels to Sydney. To be truly green, however, the A2 must use hydrogen produced in a carbon-neutral process such as electrolysis powered by a nuclear, solar or biofueled power plant. )

Article Link: http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-space/article/2008-01/green-skies-mach-5

Reaction Engine news links: http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/news_updates.html

Video link: http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/sabre_howworks.html

#science   #scienceeveryday   #skylon   #lapcat   #travel  

Are you a Human Chimera?

chimera, in genetics, an organism or tissue that contains at least two different sets of DNA, most often originating from the fusion of as many different zygotes (fertilized eggs).

Chimeras are distinguished from mosaics, organisms that contain genetically different populations of cells originating from a single zygote, and from hybrids, organisms containing genetically identical populations of cells originating from a cross of two different species. Included among the different known types of animal chimeras are dispermic and twin chimeras, microchimeras, and parthenogenetic and androgenetic chimeras.

There was a case, not too long ago, when a blood test showed that a woman, and the children she had actually born, were not mother and child. This woman continued to undergo blood tests trying to prove that she was the mother of her own children, even when one such test showed that she was not the mother of the child she had just birthed. Either this woman was undergoing some fairly advanced medical procedures on her own, or something was up. Eventually it was found that this woman had had a fraternal twin. She didn't remember it, because it was while they were both basically blastocysts when that twin had ceased to be. Her twin had been absorbed into her, and the combined tissue created a composite body, despite having different DNA. A tissue sample taken from the woman's thyroid later showed that she was the children's biological mother. It's just that her ovaries belonged to that long-lost twin. Another woman found out that her children weren't carrying her DNA when she needed a kidney transplant and neither was a match. Again, her ovaries were made from different DNA. Both mothers were chimeras.

And it turns out a lot of mothers are chimeras. Not as completely as these women were, but fetal stem cells are tenacious things. They stay in the body of the mother, and have even been shown to slip into that sacred space where we believe that all of human individuality resides; the brain. It's possible that part of every mother's brain literally is that of her child. And if you're a child, it's likely that part of you is your mother. A mother's cells cross the placenta during pregnancy and squat in the liver, bloodstream, thymus gland, and that old sentimental favorite, the heart.

Article Links: http://io9.com/5911357/theres-a-good-chance-youre-a-human-chimera

*Amazing story of Lydia Fairchild: http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=2315693&page=1*

Further reading: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1826423/chimera

http://www.scq.ubc.ca/the-truth-about-chimeras/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_(genetics)

Picture courtesy : learn.genetics.utah.edu, medinab.blogspot.com

#science   #scienceeveryday   #chimera  

Sharing my circle of top Engagers!
(highly curated circle)

Pretty much the awesomest of the awesome. Top engagers. Why does it matter? They support you when it counts! From all areas, but almost all of them are interested in SF or science :))

Friends in Deed :) Thanks all for being in my circles - appreciate you being there! 

Add these people and share if possible :) 

#topcircles   #sharingcircles   #science   #sciencefiction   #sharedcircles   #sharedpubliccircles   #sharedcircleoftheday   #sharingiscaring   #circlesharing   #circleshare  

Kitteh eats Dalek

Happy Birthday +Knut Torgersen :)

#PeanutKnutterAndJelly #HappyBirthdayKhanun .#HappyBirthdayKnut

China’s designs to engineer genius babies

At BGI Shenzhen, scientists have collected DNA samples from 2,000 of the world’s smartest people and are sequencing their entire genomes in an attempt to identify the alleles which determine human intelligence. Apparently they’re not far from finding them, and when they do, embryo screening will allow parents to pick their brightest zygote and potentially bump up every generation's intelligence by five to 15 IQ points. Within a couple of generations, competing with the Chinese on an intellectual level will be like challenging Lena Dunham to a getting-naked-on-TV contest.

While the full article has gone viral before, a note of caution about selective breeding and being able to design babies.

More realistically, this is what a researcher had to say: We’re pretty far behind. We have the same technical capabilities, the same statistical capabilities to analyze the data, but they’re collecting the data on a much larger scale and seem to be capable of transforming the scientific findings into government policy and consumer genetic testing much more easily than we are. Technically and scientifically we could be doing this, but we’re not.

Why not?
We have ideological biases that say, “Well, this could be troubling, we shouldn’t be meddling with nature, we shouldn’t be meddling with God.” I just attended a debate in New York a few weeks ago about whether or not we should outlaw genetic engineering in babies and the audience was pretty split. In China, 95 percent of an audience would say, “Obviously you should make babies genetically healthier, happier, and brighter!” There’s a big cultural difference.

Even if this is not something which is possible it does raise ethical questions (as mentioned in the Slate Article) here http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/superman/2013/03/is_china_engineering_genius_babies_not_exactly.html

#science #scienceeveryday #eugenics #china #genetics  

DARPA looks at recycling satellites

The new video serves as a progress report through last November for the Phoenix program, a project by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to recycle space junk back into valuable satellite parts, or even completely new spacecraft. DARPA scientists began the project in July and are working toward launching the first demonstration mission in two years or so.

The Phoenix program plans to use a robot mechanic to grab still-working antennas from the many retired and dead satellites in geosynchronous orbit, about 22,000 miles (35,406 kilometers) above Earth. These large, bulky antennas would then be attached to small "satlets," or nanosatellites, launched from Earth, creating new space systems on the cheap.

The goal is to demonstrate a way to turn part of the ever-expanding cloud of space junk around our planet into space resources, saving money in the process, DARPA officials have said. The first on-orbit demonstration mission is targeted for 2015.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pic Details (Artist's concept): Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) describes the Phoenix program: "The goal of the Phoenix program is to develop and demonstrate technologies to cooperatively harvest and re-use valuable components from retired, nonworking satellites in GEO and demonstrate the ability to create new space systems at greatly reduced cost." CREDIT: DARPA

Video in Article Link: http://www.space.com/19446-darpa-phoenix-satellite-recycling-video.html

Additional Article: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/01/darpa-phoenix/

#space   #satellite   #sattelitestories   #science   #scienceeveryday  

Human race 'will be extinct within 100 years', claims leading scientist

While Humans now have the technology or have the ability to ostensibly create such technology in the near future, the responsible use of the planet's resources is still a big question mark.

"As we move to a civilization that's so much more powerful in terms of controlling nature and manipulating nature, and becoming ever more powerful in our tools and capabilities, there's an inherent risk in that," said Benny Peiser, a social anthropologist and director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation in London, England.

And now Professor Frank Fenner, emeritus professor of microbiology at the Australian National University, has predicted that the human race will be extinct within the next 100 years.

He has claimed that the human race will be unable to survive a population explosion and 'unbridled consumption.’

_In another article, a geologist, Zalasiewicz seems very concerned with the opinions of the distant future, vexing over the fact that they might call us the "amazingly clever and utterly foolish two-legged ape." _

Extracts from articles:
http://io9.com/5059833/what-will-remain-of-us-100-million-years-after-the-apocalypse

http://www.livescience.com/9956-humans-survive.html

Main Article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1287643/Human-race-extinct-100-years-population-explosion.html#axzz2K2mZJXTx

#science   #scienceeveryday   #apocalypse   #humans   #survival   #future   #extinction  

Travelling at FTL

(A Theoretical perspective)

Imagine: you’ve traveled all the way across the galaxy to some faraway, potentially life-embracing planet orbiting a faraway star, only to obliterate your destination upon arrival. It’s a very real threat according to few physicists at the University of Sydney. It turns out that a spacecraft emerging from a so-called Alcubierre warp drive does so quite violently, releasing an accumulation of high energy particles that would annihilate anything in their path.

The Alcubierre warp drive--proposed by a Mexican physicist of the same name back in the 1990s--is a theoretical mechanism by which a spacecraft could deform the space-time continuum in a bubble around itself so it could travel faster than the speed of light while still staying within the parameters of special relativity. So a couple of honors students and their professor at the U. of Sydney School of Physics decided to take the Alcubierre warp drive for a theoretical spin. Their findings: there’s no soft landing at the other end of warp speed.

It turns out that bending the space-time continuum has its hazards. During faster-than-light travel, particles that come in contact with this Alcubierre bubble get trapped and accumulate in front it. Some particles can even enter the warp bubble. There is an aggregating effect here, the physicists found, so the longer the bubble travels, the more particles accumulate in front of it.

_When the spacecraft is finally decelerated at its destination, that energy is released all at once with such high energy that virtually anything they come in contact with would be instantly destroyed. The particles that wormed their way inside the bubble could also threaten the spacecraft itself. This could be handy if your cruiser drops out of warp speed in the midst of an asteroid field, but it also means that if you dropped out of warp too close to your destination planet you could inadvertently wipe it off the interstellar map. _

Article Link: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-03/pro-tip-flying-faster-speed-light-could-have-devastating-consequences

Link for NASA testing and Pic on right: http://futuristicnews.com/nasa-test-rig-to-measure-artificially-generated-warping-of-space-time/

Additional reading: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-03/warp-factor

#ftl #science #sciencefiction #FTL #space #warp #drive #speedoflight #fasterthanlight #fasterthanlighttravel  

Owl

The Order Strigiformes is further divided into two families, the barn owls (Family Tytonidae) and the typical owls (Family Strigidae). Owls are a diverse group of birds, with over 220 species of owls belonging to the Order Strigiformes.

Large and forward facing, Owl eyes may account for one to five percent of the Owl's body weight, depending on species. The forward facing aspect of the eyes that give an Owl its "wise" appearance, also give it a wide range of binocular" vision. An Owl's eyes are large in order to improve their efficiency, especially under low light conditions. In fact, the eyes are so well developed, that they are not eye balls as such, but elongated tubes. They are held in place by bony structures in the skull called Sclerotic rings. For this reason, an Owl cannot "roll" or move its eyes - that is, it can only look straight ahead.

The Owl is able to turn its head up to 270 degrees left or right from the forward facing position, and almost upside down. 

Owls have developed special feather adaptations that enable them to minimize the sound made when flapping their wings. For instance, the leading edges of their primary feathers have a stiff fringes that reduces noise while the trailing edge of their primaries have soft fringes that helps to reduce turbulence. Downy feathers cover the surfaces of the wing to further reduce sound.

Barn owls have exceptional hearing and can find prey by sound alone. They have ears at different places in their head to help them locate and zero in on prey. They can even do this in the complete darkness. The flattened facial disk of an owl funnels sound to the bird's ears and magnifies it as much as ten times to help the bird hear noises humans can't detect. 

Owls have zygodactyl feet with two toes pointing forward and two toes pointing backward. This gives the birds a stronger, more powerful grip so they can be more effective predators. 

Do you know what a group of Owls is called?


Sources: natgeo.com,owlpages.com, twistersifter.com, bbcnature.com. birding.about.com, wikipedia.com

Pics courtesy: twistedsifter.com, newscientist.com

#science   #scienceeveryday   #lpsamazinganimalfacts   #owl  

The Day the Probes Hit

Only a few science fiction fans and futurists had heard of Von Neumann probes before that day in November when the pods smashed down. Some long-dead alien civilization had sent them out before they burped their last methane breaths. The probes' single goal was to spread life to the galaxy, which sounds great on paper. The problem was that they did it by sterilizing every planet they encountered, then planting the genetic seeds of their makers.

That's what happens when you assume the galaxy is lifeless, I guess. You don't pause to consider that your big, benevolent "spread life everywhere" technology might actually be a a distributed, automated mass extinguisher.

This image was created by Mark Molnar, an illustrator and concept artist who lives in Central Europe. He's worked in film and games designing creatures, environments, and more. See more of his gorgeous work on his website.

From and iO9 Article (Science Fiction) : http://io9.com/the-day-the-probes-hit-458797373

#sciencefiction #vonneumman #probes #scifi #automation #robotics  

Can we know about every space rock?

The meteor event in Russia on Friday is a sobering reminder that space is a busy place, and that space rocks can take us by surprise.

But take note of its name. Near-Earth objects like these have for a number of years been named starting with the year of their discovery; we only found out about this Olympic-swimming-pool-sized rock kicking around in our cosmic neighbourhood a year ago.

The point is that astronomers say that we don't know anything about 5 or 10% of the near-Earth asteroids that are larger than 1km in size - 20 times larger than this week's visitor. That's possible civilisation-ending stuff. Below that 1km size, the fraction of as-yet undiscovered objects gets a lot larger.

"People think that in this day and age we've got this problem covered," said Stephen Lowry of the University of Kent. "We're far from covering this problem."

The good news is that below a certain size, depending on what they're made of, some near-Earth asteroids don't pose any danger, burning up as they pass through the atmosphere. Friday's example in Russia was not actually too far above that threshold.

Some help is potentially at hand - the dedicated Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System or Atlas, designed to give at least a few days' notice of impending asteroids by scanning the whole sky every night. And as Alan Fitzsimmons of Queens University Belfast points out, the existing surveys are slowly chipping away at the problem.

Article Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21459861

Additional post on 'Skywatchers' : https://plus.google.com/u/0/110884604033336753419/posts/aCz2sKhJ1Az

#science   #space   #meteors   #asteroid   #scienceeveryday  

GROVER

Unlike its famous cousin Curiosity, unheralded GROVER, the NASA rover takes on Greenland ice sheet.

Like its cousin Curiosity, currently busy exploring Mars this NASA rover is exploring a cold and inhospitable land. It hasn't had to travel so far to get there, though. The Goddard Remotely Operated Vehicle for Exploration and Research, or GROVER, is trundling across Greenland to measure changes in the ice sheet with ground-penetrating radar. This should help researchers to better understand the effects of climate change.

The tank-like GROVER prototype stands six feet tall, including its solar panels. It weighs about 800 pounds and traverses the ice on two repurposed snowmobile tracks. The robot is powered entirely by solar energy, so it can operate in pristine polar environments without adding to air pollution. The panels are mounted in an inverted V, allowing them to collect energy from the sun and sunlight reflected off the ice sheet.

A ground-penetrating radar powered by two rechargeable batteries rests on the back of the rover. The radar sends radio wave pulses into the ice sheet, and the waves bounce off buried features, informing researchers about the characteristics of the snow and ice layers.

Article Link: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23537-grover-the-nasa-rover-takes-on-greenland-ice-sheet.html

Additional Link: http://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/56058.php

NASA Link (with video and backstory) : http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/grover.html

#science #scienceeveryday #rover #GROVER #rover #nasa  

Turning Water in Wine

* Not quite; but Lockheed Martin wants to turn Salt Water into Drinking Water.*

It's surprisingly hard to find safe drinking water on Earth--this on a planet covered in water. A new project by Lockheed Martin hopes to change that, and do it cheaply. Using a graphene filter, Lockheed hopes to transform salt water into drinking water by the end of the year.

The timing couldn't be better. Ending water scarcity is one of the United Nations's millenium development goals. But it is a daunting task: while there’s enough freshwater for everyone on earth, it isn’t very evenly distributed, and untangling that distribution is a Herculean feat. For the 44 percent of the world’s population that lives within a hundred miles of coasts, technology that can convert salt water into fresh water is an important alternative.

Lockheed’s proposed desalination project filters through graphene, a material already touted as a modern marvel. A thousand times stronger than steel, it's also just one atom thick. Last July, Popular Science covered its potential use in water filtration. Passing seawater over tiny pores, just one nanometer wide, the filter will let water molecules through, while blocking out the atoms that make salt. These filters are a much less energy-intensive option, and much better at filtration. Lockheed expects to have a prototype filter available by the end of 2013.

Article Link: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-03/smooth-refreshing-seawater

#science #scienceeveryday #graphene #seawater #saltwater #drinkingwater #water