Category Archives: Science

Science Postercasts

I wrote about SciVee, over a year ago, saying I thought they could become a valuable resource. It has been taking longer to really get going than I thought it would but this new feature, Postercasts, is great. I am glad to see SciVee living up to my high expectation. Keep up the great work SciVee. The experience can still use improvement but this is a great start.

They have provided a tutorial on: How to Synchronize my Poster to my Video. I hope some of our readers try this out.

via: Interactive Virtual Posters

Related: Engineering TV – Science Webcasts – Magnetic Movie

2007 National Medals of Science and Technology

photo of 2007 Medals of Science Presentation at the White House

2007 National Medal of and Technology and Innovation

Paul Baran for the invention and development of the fundamental architecture for packet-switched communication networks, which provided a paradigm shift from the circuit-switched communication networks of the past, and later was used to build the ARPANET and the Internet.

Armand V. Feigenbaum for his leadership in the development of the economic relationship of quality costs, productivity improvement, and profitability, and for his pioneering application of economics, general systems theory and technology, statistical methods, and management principles that define The Total Quality Management approach for achieving performance excellence and global competitiveness. See the Curious Cat Management Improvement portal.

Adam Heller for his fundamental contributions to electrochemistry and bioelectric chemistry, and the subsequent application of those fundamentals in the development of technological products that improved the quality of life across the globe, most notably in the area of human health and well-being.

Carlton Grant Willson for the creation of novel lithographic imaging materials and techniques that have enabled the manufacturing of smaller, faster, and more efficient microelectronic components that have improved the competitiveness of U.S. microelectronics industry.
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The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2008

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2008 is evenly shared by Osamu Shimomura, Boston University Medical School, USA; Martin Chalfie, Columbia University, New York, USA and Roger Y. Tsien, University of California, San Diego, USA for discovery and work with glowing green fluorescent protein.

The remarkable brightly glowing green fluorescent protein, GFP, was first observed in the beautiful jellyfish, Aequorea victoria in 1962. Since then, this protein has become one of the most important tools used in contemporary bioscience. With the aid of GFP, researchers have developed ways to watch processes that were previously invisible, such as the development of nerve cells in the brain or how cancer cells spread.

Tens of thousands of different proteins reside in a living organism, controlling important chemical processes in minute detail. If this protein machinery malfunctions, illness and disease often follow. That is why it has been imperative for bioscience to map the role of different proteins in the body.

This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry rewards the initial discovery of GFP and a series of important developments which have led to its use as a tagging tool in bioscience. By using DNA technology, researchers can now connect GFP to other interesting, but otherwise invisible, proteins. This glowing marker allows them to watch the movements, positions and interactions of the tagged proteins.

Researchers can also follow the fate of various cells with the help of GFP: nerve cell damage during Alzheimer’s disease or how insulin-producing beta cells are created in the pancreas of a growing embryo. In one spectacular experiment, researchers succeeded in tagging different nerve cells in the brain of a mouse with a kaleidoscope of colors.

Osamu Shimomura, a Japanese citizen, was born 1928 in Kyoto, Japan. He received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry 1960 from Nagoya University, Japan. first isolated GFP from the jellyfish Aequorea victoria, which drifts with the currents off the west coast of North America. He discovered that this protein glowed bright green under ultraviolet light.

Martin Chalfie demonstrated the value of GFP as a luminous genetic tag for various biological phenomena. In one of his first experiments, he coloured six individual cells in the transparent roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans with the aid of GFP.

Roger Y. Tsien contributed to our general understanding of how GFP fluoresces. He also extended the colour palette beyond green allowing researchers to give various proteins and cells different colours. This enables scientists to follow several different biological processes at the same time.

Stanford Gets $75 Million for Stem Cell Center

Stanford gets $75 million for stem cell center

With today’s announcement, Lokey more than doubles his commitment. School officials say he is the lead contributor for a $200 million stem cell research building that will break ground Oct. 27 and be finished in the summer of 2010. In a statement released by the medical school, Lokey said stem cells would be “as significant as the silicon chip that created Silicon Valley,” producing treatments for disease and saving lives.

He said he was driven to fund research after President Bush, in August 2001, forbid the use of federal funds for stem cell research that involved the destruction of human embryos. “It’s very narrow-minded,” Lokey said of the position. “This is about lives being saved.”
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Some 350 scientists will work in the 200,000-square-foot Lorry I. Lokey Stem Cell Research Building, the school said. The center is also getting a $43.6 million grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. The institute, the state’s $3 billion stem cell funding unit, was created by a 2004 state initiative from research advocates opposed to Bush’s restrictions.

Why is it Colder at Higher Elevations?

John Hunter at Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park

I know it is colder at higher elevations (there is snow on the top of mountains when no snow is left on the bottom). When I was hiking this summer in Colorado and it started snowing I thought about why it was colder in higher elevations. My guess was that it was mainly due to lower air pressure and being higher up in the atmosphere where air was cooler than is was closer to sea level.

So I did some research online and the main explanations seem to be that at higher elevations the air pressure is lower (molecules and atoms under less pressure move more slowly which means the temperature is less).

Hot air does rise, but the amount of hot air is minor compared to the existing cold air in the atmosphere. So when hot air rises from the ground it is cooled down before getting far off the earth’s surface. And as it rises the pressure decreases, which cools it down.

Mountain Environments report, United Nations Environment Programme:

Air temperature on average decreases by about 6.5Â° C for every 1,000 m increase in altitude; in mid latitudes this is equivalent to moving poleward about 800 km. The dry dust-free air at altitude retains little heat energy, leading to marked extremes of temperature between day and night.

Photo of John Hunter at Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park.

Astronomers Find a Planet Denser Than Lead

Astronomers find a planet denser than lead

Meet the planet COROT-exo-3b. It orbits a star slightly larger, hotter, and brighter than the Sun. The star is not an unusual one in any way, but the planet is definitely weird: it orbits the star in just over 4 days, which is pretty close in, though not a record breaker in and of itself. What’s bizarre is that it has about the same diameter of Jupiter, but has 21.6 times Jupiter’s mass. That makes it denser than lead.
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This planet is challenging to models. How did it form? It most likely formed farther out from the star — gravitational influences make it hard for a large planet to form close to a star — and then gradually moved in.
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It was discovered by COROT, an orbiting European Space Agency mission designed to look for stars that dip in brightness as an orbiting planet passes in front of them. That gives the size of the planet (the amount the light dims is proportional to the size of the planet).

As a planet (the alternative is classifying it as a brown dwarf – a failed star, not a planet), COROT-exo-3b would be the densest known planet.

Milestones on the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

Dive! Dive! Dive!

0 FEET: EPIPELAGIC ZONE
Ample sunlight penetrates down to 650 feet, making photosynthesis possible. With abundant plant life (read: food), this zone is the most densely populated with fish.
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656 FEET: MESOPELAGIC ZONE
Too deep to support photosynthesis: The fish that survive here are sit-and-wait predators that tend to have large mouths and specialized retinas to increase light reception.
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1,640 feet: Maximum diving depth of the blue whale.
1,969 feet: The Deep Sound Channel, a layer in which acoustic signals travel far and fast.
1,969 feet: Maximum diving depth of nuclear-powered attack subs.

3281 FEET: BATHYPELAGIC ZONE
The ocean is dark at this level; the only glow is from bioluminescent animals. There are no living plants, and creatures subsist by eating the debris that falls from the levels above, including dead or dying fish and plankton.

3,281 feet: Maximum diving depth of the sperm whale. To navigate in the darkness, these whales emit high pitched sounds and use echoes to determine the location of prey.
3,937 feet: Maximum diving depth of the leatherback sea turtle.
4,000 feet: The domain of the Pacific sleeper shark, the largest toothed shark ever photographed. It can reach lengths of 28 feet.
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5,187 feet: Maximum diving depth of the elephant seal.
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13,123 FEET: ABYSSOPELAGIC ZONE
In the pitch-dark of the abyss, there is no light at all, the water temperature is near freezing. Of the few creatures found at these crushing depths, most are blind and have long tentacles – tiny invertebrates such as shrimp, basket stars, and small squids.
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19,685 FEET: HADOLPELAGIC ZONE
Despite the intense pressure and frigid temperature in the deepwater trenches and canyons, life still exists here, especially near hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor. Invertebrates such as starfish actually thrive.

MicroRNAs Emerged Early in Evolution

New Research Shows MicroRNAs Emerged Early in Evolution

“MicroRNAs have been available to regulate and shape gene expression as far back as we can go in animal evolution—they might even predate animals,” says Bartel, a leader in the discovery and functional study of microRNAs. “They might have helped to usher in the era of multi-cellular animal life.”

First discovered in 1993, microRNAs are strands of RNA that are 21-24 nucleotides in length. They dampen gene expression by intercepting messenger RNA before it can turn the cellular crank that translates a gene into a protein. Earlier, Bartel’s research team showed that each microRNA can regulate the expression of hundreds of genes.

The ability of microRNAs to silence gene expression likely evolved from a more ancient defense against viruses, bacteria, and other mobile genetic elements that can mutate host DNA.
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The scientists determined that the starlet sea anemone has both microRNAs and piRNAs. In addition, the anemone makes proteins resembling those that interact with these small RNAs in humans. Both types of small RNA were also found in the sponge. The third target of their search, Trichoplax, did not contain any microRNAs, though Bartel suspects they may have existed in ancestral forms and later disappeared.

New Neurons are Needed for New Memories

New neurons are needed for new memories

Around 15 years ago, researchers discovered that the adult rodent brain contains discrete populations of stem cells which continue to divide and produce new cells throughout life. This discovery was an important one, as it overturned a persistent dogma in neuroscience which held that the adult mammalian brain cannot regenerate.
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This study shows that inhibiting neurogenesis has strikingly different consequences in two distinct regions of the brain. In the olfactory bulb, it leads to significant shrinkage but apparently does not alter smell-related behaviour. In the hippocampus, the effect on structure is not so marked, but it is clear that newly-generated neurons are necessary for the processes of learning and memory. Exactly how the new cells contribute to memory formation is still unknown.

More interesting stuff. Related: How The Brain Rewires Itself – Scientists Witness the Birth of a Brain Cell – New Neurons in Old Brains – No Sleep, No New Brain Cells

Foreign Cells Outnumber Human Cells in Our Bodies

This is one of those area I find very interesting: People Have More Bacterial Cells than Human Cells. Colin Nickerson has written an interesting article on the topic: Of microbes and men

Scientists estimate that 90 percent of the cells contained in the human body belong to nonhuman organisms – mostly bacteria, but also a smattering of fungi and other eensy entities. Some 100 trillion microbes nestle in niches from our teeth to our toes.

But what’s setting science on its heels these days is not the boggling numbers of bugs so much as the budding recognition that they are much more than casual hitchhikers capable of causing disease. They may be so essential to well-being that humans couldn’t live without them.

In this emerging view, humans and their microbes – or, as some biologists playfully put it, microbes and their attached humans – have evolved together to form an extraordinarily complex ecosystem.

The understanding of the complex interaction is something I came to through reading on the overuse of antibiotics. And the more I read the more interesting it gets.

“We can’t take nutrition properly without bacteria. We can’t fight bad germs without good germs,” he said. “It may turn out that secretions from bacteria affect not only long-term health, but hour-by-hour moods – could a person’s happiness depend on his or her bugs? It’s possible. Our existences are so incredibly intertwined.”

However, in the opinion of some researchers, this strange union may be headed for trouble because of profligate use of antibiotics and antiseptic lifestyles that deter the transfer of vital strains of bacteria that have swarmed in our systems at least since early humans ventured out of Africa.