happy birthday Louis Pasteur

Happy birthday, Louis Pasteur!

Pasteur was a French chemist and microbiologist regarded as “the father of microbiology,” and is one of the reasons infectious disease does not have the grip on mankind that it once had. He is the namesake of pasteurization, which is a treatment used on milk and wine to curb contamination of bacteria. He is also widely regarded for his work regarding germ theory.

While Pasteur didn’t invent vaccines, he did refine the technique and developed safe and effective vaccines against rabies and anthrax. His technique was widely used by other scientists in the development of other vaccines which have saved countless lives over the years.

WebRep

currentVote

noRating

noWeight

This week in science

Anti-aging compound: http://bit.ly/J7CTQ1
Galaxy arms: http://bit.ly/18GPrJM
Crocodiles: http://bit.ly/1fz4YtZ
Neanderthal genome: http://bit.ly/1a2cgCJ
Flowering plants: http://bit.ly/J7CUn0
Hand bone: http://bit.ly/1bZHoWG
Water on Mars: http://bit.ly/1bbkVSI
Algae to oil: http://bit.ly/1icCpXo

This week in science

This week in science:

Chinese rover: http://bit.ly/1gy5Vq5
Holographic universe: http://bit.ly/1kN722I
Water on Europa: http://1.usa.gov/1c5Qi7A
Asteroids carrying life: http://bbc.in/19LXCzi
Lake on Mars: http://bit.ly/1gAoUjQ
Fresh water reservoirs: http://bit.ly/1cvnAYo
Proteins: http://bit.ly/1gXiwAD
3D printing pens: http://bit.ly/1ffFh1E

lightning

This picture shows a green lightning bolt that was spotted near a volcanic eruption in Chile (look to the right). The green coloration is created by excited oxygen atoms. It was initially thought that this was a very rare occurrence, but that might not be the case after all. According to some scientists, there could be green lightning during regular thunderstorms that remain hidden inside of the clouds. In this instance, the cloud of volcanic ash is structured differently and pushes the bolt to the exterior, into our full view. 

More info: http://bit.ly/1hQfocF 

This week in science

This week in science!

New exoplanet: http://bit.ly/IL1mtH
Lung tissue: http://bit.ly/18Nxc5I
Wasps: http://bit.ly/1iHrp5D
Ancient DNA: http://bit.ly/1dev0RW
Exoplanet imaging: http://bit.ly/IL1usY
Crocodilian tool use: http://bit.ly/1gQDZv4
Koalas second set of vocal cords: http://bit.ly/1buklUD
Atmospheric water on exoplanets: http://bit.ly/1d3Swk2

This week in science

Bionic Implant: http://bit.ly/17OmB7D 
Dinosaur: http://bit.ly/1iLQR7s 
MAVEN: http://bit.ly/1hSmq1x 
Purple bacteria: http://bit.ly/18CmRqM
Hominin Sex: http://bit.ly/1i9SIVP
Photons: http://bit.ly/17UuB9a
Gamma-ray Burst: http://bit.ly/1aOBt7d
Ancient DNA: http://bit.ly/19X75Tx

I believe I can flyyy

More on extreme weather in our solar system:http://bit.ly/1j0GpGI

This week in science

This week in science! 

Kuiper belt object: http://bit.ly/19xn3n3
Big cats: http://bit.ly/1apVBv2
Invisibility cloak: http://bit.ly/173ehAt
Dog domestication: http://bit.ly/1fJDuCu
Comet ISON: http://slate.me/1hQfqSV
Soala: http://bit.ly/18wwEer
Scorpion: http://bit.ly/17mPXqc
Sea-slugs: http://bit.ly/HYQZ50

Invisibility cloak

A bit busy now.
http://www.iflscience.com/technology/new-invisibility-cloak-completely-conceals-objects

This week in science

Nuclear waste: http://bit.ly/1cHqSxM
Hammerhead shark: http://bit.ly/17dEWHA
Exoplanets: http://bit.ly/17DDZOP
India mission: http://bit.ly/1bYNV2f
New human body part: http://bit.ly/1iMONtd
Asteroid with tails: http://bit.ly/17SZeKf
Carnivorous platypus: http://bit.ly/Hy2Wi2
Dinosaur: http://bit.ly/1c085Je

More information, plus a very cool video by Nature:http://bit.ly/HBxhfK

Go science!

Yesterday India launched a mission to Mars. This led to many complaints, even on this page, about their spending money on space missions while such a large number of people in India live in poverty.

However, this completely ignores the benefits of investment in science and technology. Study after study has shown that this only BENEFITS an economy. 

The rocket industry is worth $450 billion worldwide. Private spaceflight is due to take off in a massive way over the next few decades. If India can grab a piece of this industry, the benefits to its economy and people could be massive.

Invest in science, invest in technology and invest in education.

I don't often ask you to share something, but please SHARE this to show your support for investment in science and technology!

More information on the launch here:http://bit.ly/1bYNV2f

This week in science

This week in science.

Three new species: http://bit.ly/1iDfj8f
Hot water freezes faster than cold: http://bit.ly/19XIeC8
3D model of the common cold: http://bit.ly/16QvlGH
Artificial blood: http://bit.ly/1dzkA0l
Fly over video of Mars: http://bit.ly/16LoFig
Dinosaur walking: http://bit.ly/16Ttd0R
Lava covered exoplanet: http://bit.ly/HuEkHN
New species of dolphin: http://bit.ly/Hrc0Wx

Thermoelectric energy harvesters could potentially provide energy for different small electronic devices by converting temperature differences into electrical energy. An international team of researchers have investigated a thermoelectric energy harvester design based on quantum wells. Quantum wells are made of semiconducting materials, but are easier to make than quantum dots (nano-sized semiconducting crystals) and may be operated at room temperature.

Explanation of quantum wells: http://bit.ly/17gQ0cC
Read more: http://bit.ly/1fXaGJf

The image is a drawing of the proposed quantum well energy harvester, showing the central hot region in red, the quantum wells in green, and the cold electrodes in blue.

The leviton

The team of scientists named the single electron a leviton, in honour of physicist Leonid Levitov. It is hoped it will be possible to scale up the circuit so larger structures that could carry quantum information can be built. The technique could also be applied to cold atomic gases, leading to the possibility of atomic levitons.

Read more: http://bit.ly/1cgMZuY
Paper: http://bit.ly/1a4ay2e

The smell of the sea..

The sulphur-based molecule that gives the ocean its characteristic smell also protects corals from rising seawater temperatures and is important for the formation of water droplets in the atmosphere. If the production of this compound declines, fewer clouds would be produced and less heat would be reflected, which could lead to even warmer sea surface temperatures.

Read more: http://bit.ly/1fWIQNo

Physicists in the last few years have been discussing whether time can be an emergent property derived from quantum correlations. The new experiment confirmed that time is an emergent phenomenon for ‘internal’ observers but absent for external ones.

Read more: http://bit.ly/17dnrKV
Explanation of quantum entanglement: http://abt.cm/1abVv8Z
Paper: http://bit.ly/18dUQB7

The 8 Smartest People of the Year: 2013's Nobel Winners

Tie them in knots

Maxwell's equations are a group of partial differential equations that have been used as the basis for developing most modern electrical circuits and optic devices. Physicists have now used Maxwell’s equations to describe field lines that encode torus knots and links. 

Read more: http://bit.ly/H6x7xc

Magic number

The “magic number” is a quantity of protons or neutrons that makes an atomic nucleus unusually stable. Protons and neutrons fill up separate shells inside nuclei and each shell can accommodate only a certain number of particles. A nucleus holds a ‘magic number’ of protons or neutrons when the particles completely fill the shells without any room left for adding more. This renders the nucleus more stable and longer-lived than other nuclei. 

Researchers smashed beams of nuclei together at high speeds and discovered that calcium-54, which has 20 protons and 34 neutrons in its nucleus is stable – for a few milliseconds. This isotope is a radioactive variant of calcium and is not regularly found in nature. The new magic number could help scientists understand how atomic nuclei are formed in stars.

Read more: http://bit.ly/GQOwKq

This one is real enough.

BREAKING NEWS: The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to Peter Higgs and François Englert for the theory of how particles acquire mass. In 1964, they proposed the theory independently of each other, and last year their ideas were confirmed by the discovery of a so called Higgs particle at the CERN laboratory in Switzerland.

Read more: http://bit.ly/18M1CRV and find out more about the Higgs boson in this fantastic Minutephysics video:http://bit.ly/LqIpgS

lepidosaurs

Lepidosaurs were reptiles closely related to lizards, snakes and tuatara, and roamed the planet during the Middle Triassic period. The two skull fossils, unearthed in Germany, were dated using a technique known as a ‘molecular clock’ and were found to predate all other lepidosaur records by 12 million years. The fossils are most closely related to the tuatara, a lizard-like reptile endemic to New Zealand and the sole survivors of a group that was once as globally widespread as lizards are today.

Read more: http://bit.ly/1aXT2jk

This skull fossil was found in a mudstone layer at the top of the Untere Graue Mergel of the Lower Keuper, Vellberg, Germany. Scale bar – 1 mm.

The team of researchers have observed that two large components of nuclear quantum effects (NQEs) somewhat cancel each other out, resulting in a small net effect on the boiling and melting points of water. They measured the competing quantum effects by using deep inelastic neutron scattering (DINS), and found that the melting and boiling points of light water differ very little from those of heavy water (which contains deuterium).The results further support the concept of competing quantum effects.

Read more: http://bit.ly/17HgVf4

Pre historic Brain

The brain was found in a Bronze Age settlement in western Turkey which is thought to have been flattened in an earthquake, with people buried before fire spread through the rubble. The flames would have consumed all oxygen and boiled the brains in their own fluids. The lack of moisture and oxygen then prevented tissue breakdown, and the chemistry of the soil also aided the preservation of the shape of the soft brain tissue.

Read more: http://bit.ly/GDrDtI

Forensic scientists may soon have a powerful new tool for estimating a victim's time of death: a microbial clock. A study in mice is proving that by monitoring the bacterial changes that occur postmortem as the body decays, we can work out when someone died. 

Love forensic science? Find out more about studying at theNational Centre for Forensic Studies (NCFS) at the University of Canberra. You can take their online Master program from anywhere in the world: http://bit.ly/19lmthH. 

Read the full story here: http://bit.ly/17a2W1l 

rainbow roses

The Golden Spiral in rose petals is quite functional, as it allows the petals to be very close together while in the bud phase. 

As they wrap around the center point, the petals are not on the same vertical line as their neighbors and do not draw up water from the same part of the stem. Splitting the stem will draw up the color and stain the petals based on their position in the spiral.

More info: http://bit.ly/19QUfrz

harder than diamond

More information: http://bit.ly/19ipR7i

new source of gasoline

While scientists have been able to generate biodiesel from bacteria, biogasoline has been much more elusive. A team in Korea have successfully engineered E. coli bacteria that produce the short-chain alkanes of gasoline.

More info: http://bit.ly/17ka3UI

The Golden Tortoise beetle is found in the Americas. They feed on the leaves of plants related to the sweet potato, including the morning glory and bindweed, though they rarely eat enough to cause serious damage to the plant. 

More info: http://bit.ly/1aFmHNU

New particle accelerator

This technology could be used to create smaller medical devices. The technique used to make these accelerators is low cost and could easily be mass produced.

More info: http://bit.ly/15GxAvz

cure for obesity?

By stimulating the area of the brain that controls eating behavior in the lateral hypothalamus, researchers could potentially treat obesity as well as eating disorders.

More info: http://bit.ly/17kYgWg

It has been revealed that the same steroid used to bulk up livestock does not break down in the environment completely, as previously thought. These steroids do partially break down when exposed to light, but can regenerate at night. This information could completely throw out risk assessments that are currently in place.

More info: http://bit.ly/16QG82c

Sorry for wrong info

A particle has NOT been awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize for Physics. But imagine if it did! Yesterday Ashutosh Jogalekar announced in a satirical blog for Scientific American magazinethat the Higgs Boson had won the Nobel Prize a week early, without any scientists, in an attempt to put an end to researchers fighting over credit. Although it's not true, it's caused a lot of confusion (sorry!).

As Jogalekar said: "The real point of this post was to stress the fact - through satire – that what really matters are the discoveries themselves. As Richard Feynman put it, the real prize is the pleasure of finding things out."

The REAL winners will be announced in the coming week. Who do you think will win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Physics and Medicine this year?

Read more: http://bit.ly/15Fr6NB via Scientific American

Nobel prize goes to.....

BIG NEWS: For the first time in the 113 year history of the prizes, the Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to the Higgs Boson ahead of the scheduled date of October 8. According to Prof. Lars Brink, the chairman of the Nobel physics committee, the decision to award the prize to a discovery rather than scientists was made to put an end to arguments over division of credit and authorship.

“The decision was gruelling, but we thought about it a long time and finally reached a consensus. We said, look, it’s not really about the theorists or the experimentalists, it’s really about the particle; this fundamental, all-encompassing particle that underpins the very existence of matter."

Read more in Ashutosh Jogalekar's excellent blog for Scientific American magazine: http://bit.ly/15Fr6NB

The discovery provides a new target for drugs that could potentially stop brain tumours from spreading. Gliomas account for about a third of brain tumours and survival rates are poor because of the disease's ability to invade the surrounding tissue and resist chemotherapy.

Read more: http://bit.ly/16plgPs

This week in science

This week in science.

Cancer: http://bit.ly/167lkrE
Whispering: http://bit.ly/1biP5Ke
New form of matter: http://bit.ly/18CYkz3
Climate change: http://bbc.in/19P6vax
Mars: http://bit.ly/1bkPA6A
Oxygen: http://bit.ly/1bUtZkO
Jaw & backbone: http://bit.ly/15Dv3HJ
Solar panels: http://bit.ly/167lCyT

Kamikaze!

Carpenter ants (Camponotus cylindricus) are found in Borneo and expel the lethal sticky substance to defend their colony. Both ant and invader are killed in these attacks; they fall from the canopy as a pair into the leaf litter below, to eventually be eaten by something. Most of the bodies of the south-east Asian Camponotus cylindricus ants are for storage of the deadly secretion. The insects react quickly: when researchers lightly touched them with forceps their abdomen walls ruptured.

Read more: http://n.pr/18lrAKG

No aliens then

Late last week, a news story was going around that alien life was found in our atmosphere. Unfortunately, the paper was incredibly flawed. 

After launching a balloon up into the atmosphere, a portion of a diatom was discovered. The author concluded that it had to have come from somewhere else in the cosmos and serves as definitive proof of aliens. Um, no.

Here’s a quick rundown of the flaws in the paper:

-In the paper, the authors never confirm that it had been positively identified by diatom expert. Instead, they “assume” that one would be able to confirm its identity.
-The diatom was not connected to a meteorite that would have allowed it to travel through space.
-Diatoms are abundant on Earth, but the authors are quick to dismiss possibilities that it could have remained suspended due to a dynamic atmosphere. Just because you don’t know how something got there does not mean it was aliens.

Bad Astronomer Phil Plait has more on why this story is bad science: http://slate.me/1aZkCgw

Read the original paper here: http://bit.ly/1bCf4LT

Atomic clocks are awesome!

The output frequency of the caesium standard or caesium atomic clock is controlled by electronic transitions between the two hyperfine ground states of caesium-133 atoms. The clocks serve as the primary standard for the definition of the second in the metric system.

Caesium fountain clocks are more precise than caesium beam clocks as slower, laser-cooled atoms are used in them; more time is available to measure the resonance frequency of the caesium atoms. Fountain clocks are referred to as such because they use a fountain-like movement of atoms to obtain improved reckoning of time.

For more on how the clock works:http://1.usa.gov/1g6tx0f

This week in science.

This week in science.

Typo in the third entry: perceive time SLOWER, not faster.

Mathematical jewel: http://bit.ly/16EvzDl
Fossils: http://bit.ly/1eQEJTa
Small animals: http://bbc.in/1eN3JLi
Imagination: http://bit.ly/18zCU9U
Microbes: http://bit.ly/1f2JFlF
Ginger gene: http://bit.ly/14tJJXh
4D black hole: http://bit.ly/1f1V9FS
Limbless lizards: http://bit.ly/1brXudq