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Science is Cool....
This is a repository for all cool scientific discussion and fascination. Scientific facts, theories, and overall cool scientific stuff that you'd like to share with others. Stuff that makes you smile and wonder at the amazing shit going on around us, that most people don't notice.
Post pictures, vidoes, stories, or links. Ask questions. Share science. Why should I care?: <iframe width="1148" height="646" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CbIZU8cQWXc" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> |
Your mom.
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**** you moon
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If you have time to kill... watch this ****ing documentary about the Mantis Shrimp, aka the Ninja Shrimp. One of the most fascinating crazy creatures I've learned about in quite a while. Seriously worth 45 minutes...
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Why Nikola Tesla was the coolest Geek ever to live. AKA, what I bet you didn't know about Nikola Tesla, and what you thought you knew about Thomas ****ing Edison:
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http://www.wordans.com/wordansfiles/...jpg?1273873553
Pretty much sums up life, death, and everything in between. Simply amazing. |
His band did some cool shit too.
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Tesla was also ****ing nuts.
He tried to develop an electrical energy weapon. |
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The planes wheels have nothing to do with its forward velocity. They are just rotating freely on the conveyer belt.
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My memory isn't great, but didn't he try to push it on a famous investor, but the investor kept telling him,"All that I want is to send telegrams long distance!" |
That pale blue dot.... Carl Sagan's famous speech.
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Isaac Newton told us that earth is pulling us down, but we are also pulling the earth up.
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Last week I had an extended conversation with a pre-med about the possibility of non-Carbon based life, and surprised myself on having a very brief grasp on the concepts necessary for that to occur.
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Did you know....
The sun is not yellow at all. It actually shines pure white, as white as snow. Only on the earth, when light streams through Earth's atmosphere, does the sun look yellow.. Color of the Sun In popular culture, the Sun is yellow. But did you know that the color of the Sun is actually white? It’s only when light from the Sun passes through the Earth’s atmosphere that in changes in color, from white, to the yellow we see here on Earth. All stars have a color. From red dwarfs and red giants, to white and yellow stars to blue giants and supergiants. The color of a star comes from its temperature. As photons escape the interior of a star out into space, they have different amounts of energy. A star can be emitting infrared, red, blue and ultraviolet light all at the same time. They’re even emitting X-rays and gamma rays. If a star is cool, less than 3,500 Kelvin, its color will be red. This is because there are more red photons being emitted than any other kind of visible light. If a star is very hot, above 10,000 Kelvin, its color will be blue. Once again, because there are more blue photons streaming from a star. |
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Did you know....
Polar bears aren't actually white. They have colorless transparent fur. Their outer layer of fur is not white, but completely transparent, consisting of clear hollow tubes. Polar Bears are nearly undetectable by infrared cameras, due to their transparent fur. |
Did you know...
The Earth spins at 1,000 mph, all the while traveling through space at an incredible 67,000 mph. |
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ITS NOT TRUE IF ITS NOT IN THE BIBLE
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Around a trillion neutrinos from the Sun will pass through your body while you read this sentence.
The Sun is one among the 200 billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy. The Sun is one among the 6000 stars, which is visible to naked eye from the Earth. The mass of Sun is 2 trillion trillion trillion tons. The Sun's energy output is 386 billion billion megawatt. The Earth receives 94 billion megawatts of energy from Sun. This is equivalent to 40,000 times the power requirement of United states. The reaction taking place in Sun is nuclear fusion, same as a Hydrogen bomb. Each second 700 million tons of Hydrogen are converted to 695 million tons of Helium and 5 million tons of energy in the form of gamma rays. Each second the Sun loses 5 million tons of material. The Sun's temperature at its core is 14 million Kelvin. The pressure at the Sun's core is 340 billion times the pressure at the Earth's atmosphere. The density of matter at the Sun's core is about 150 times the density of water in the Earth. It takes up to 50 million years for the energy produced at the core of the Sun to reach its surface. If the Sun were to stop producing energy today, it would take 50 million years for significant effects to be felt at Earth. If a drop sized matter from the core of the Sun is placed on the surface of the Earth, no living organism will survive for a distance of 150 km from that drop. The diameter of Sun is equivalent to the diameter of 109 earths. The surface area of Sun is equivalent to that of 11990 earths. The volume of Sun is equivalent to the volume of 1.3 million earths. If the Sun were the size of a beach ball then Jupiter would be the size of a golf ball and the Earth would be as small as a pea. The gravity at the surface of Sun is 28 times that of Earth. A man weighing 60 kg in the Earth will weigh 1680 kg in the Sun. The Sun makes up 99.86% of the mass of the solar system. Unlike the Earth, the Sun is completely gaseous, there is no solid surface on the Sun. By weight, Sun comprises of 73% hydrogen, 25% helium, 1.5% carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen, and 0.5% all other elements. By volume, Sun comprises of 92.1% hydrogen, 7.8% helium and 0.1% all other elements. The Sun is at a mean distance of 149.60 million km from Earth. The light takes 8.3 minutes to travel from the Sun to Earth. The Sun's gravitational pull is so strong that, even Pluto, a planet 5.9 billion kilometer away from Sun, is kept in it's orbit. Escape velocity of any planet or star is the velocity required for any object to escape from the gravitational pull of that planet or star. The escape velocity of the Sun is 2.22 million km/hr. The light takes 5.5 hours to travel from the Sun to Pluto, the outer most planet. Proxima Centauri (Alpha Centauri C) is the star nearest to Sun. It is 4.3 light years away from Sun. If our Sun were just an inch in diameter, the nearest star would be 445 miles away. The Sun rotates about it's own axis once every 25.38 days. The Sun exhibits differential rotation. The rotation period in the equator is about 25 days, whereas in the polar regions it is as high as 36 days. The Sun orbits around the center of our Milky Way galaxy once every 240 million years. The Sun is at a distance of 30,000 light years from the center of our Milky Way galaxy and lies on one of it's spiral arms. The Sun along with the Solar family is orbits around our Milky Way galaxy at a velocity of 217 km/s. The Sun has circled the Milky Way galaxy for about 20 times only since it's formation. In addition to heat and light, the Sun also emits electrons and protons, known as the solar wind which travels at a speed of 450 km/sec. Around a trillion neutrinos from the Sun will pass through your body while you read this sentence. Solar flares are violent explosions taking place in the Sun's atmosphere occasionally. Solar flares can reach more than 100,000 miles away from the sun. Sunspots appear as dark spots on the surface of the Sun. Sunspots are the intense magnetic regions of Sun with magnetic field strengths thousands of times stronger than the Earth's magnetic field. Every eleven years, the magnetic poles of the Sun switch. This cycle is called "Solarmax". The luminosity of the Sun is equivalent to the luminosity of 4 trillion trillion light bulbs of 100 watt. All the coal, oil, gas, and wood on Earth would only keep the Sun burning for a few days. An area of the Sun's surface the size of a postage stamp shines with the power of 1,500,000 candles. The energy being emitted from 1 square centimeter of the Sun's surface is enough to burn 64 light bulbs of 100 watt. The amount of the Sun's energy reaching the Earth's atmosphere (known as the Solar constant) is equivalent to 1.37 kw of electricity per square meter. The amount of energy reaching the earth's surface from Sun is 6,000 times the amount of energy used by all human beings worldwide. The total amount of fossil fuel used by humans since the first civilization is equivalent to less than 30 days of energy reaching the earth's surface from Sun. If the sun stopped shining, all living organisms in the Earth would freeze to death, the tropics would be as cold as the poles, and the 7 seas would turn to solid ice. In Spit Bergen, Norway at one time of the year the sun shines continuously for three and a half months. At one time of the year, for 186 days you can not see the Sun in the North Pole of Earth. Solar eclipses are visible in a narrow path, a maximum of 269 km wide. No Total solar eclipse can last longer than 7 minutes and 40 seconds. At any place on the Earth, a Total solar eclipse occur on an average of once every 360 years. A maximum of 5 Solar eclipses only can occur in an year. Among the Sun and the Moon, which one is larger, when viewed from our Earth ? Both are almost similar sized, when viewed from the Earth. Since the orbits of both Moon and Earth are elliptical, at certain times the Moon will be larger than the Sun and at certain other times the Sun will be larger than the Moon. The age of Sun is 4.57 billion years. The expected life time of Sun is another 5 billion years or so. After 1.1 billion years from now, the Sun will be 10 % more brighter than today. The Earth's atmosphere will completely dry out as water vapour is lost to space. After 3.5 billion years from now, the Sun will be 40 % more brighter than today. The oceans will evaporate into space and it means the end of all forms of terrestrial life. After 5.4 billion years from now, the Sun's core will run out of Hydrogen. After 7.7 billion years from now, the Sun will become a Red giant. It will expand by 200 times and it will engulf the planet Mercury. After 7.9 billion years from now, the Sun will become a White dwarf. The orbital radius of other planets, including the Venus and the Earth will be almost double that of today. The Sun will remain as a White dwarf indefinitely after 7.9 billion years. |
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Did you know....
Belly button lint comes from your underwear Many people find that, at the beginning and end of the day, a small lump of fluff has appeared in the navel cavity. The reasons for this have been the subject of idle speculation for many years but in 2001, Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki of the University of Sydney, Australia undertook a systematic survey to determine the ins and outs of navel lint. His primary findings were as follows:
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6 media giants control 90% of what we read, watch, or listen to.
http://www.upworthy.com/the-real-rea...n-on-the-radio |
Did you know...
Cockroaches are actually highly social creatures; they recognize members of their own families, with different generations of the same families living together. Cockroaches do not like to be left alone, and suffer ill health when they are. And they form closely bonded, egalitarian societies, based on social structures and rules. Communities of cockroaches are even capable of making collective decisions for the greater good. http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/17839642 |
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Not quite true. We are not "used to" the earths velocity. There is simply nothing to get used to. You can not feel velocity. You can feel the vibrations from velocity and you can feel things running into you, but velocity itself you cannot. When you are in a car, you can feel the acceleration because acceleration you can feel. You can feel the wind against you if the windows open because that is basically just air molecules running into you. You can feel the physical bumps in the road that the car hits on the road. Remember that velocity is relative. When you are saying that we are moving at some speed you have to have a point of reference. When you say The Earth spins at 1,000 mph you mean relative to the center of the earth. When you say that we hurl through space at 67,000 mph you mean relative to the sun. Also our solar system travels at about 560,000 mph around the center of the milky way. And the milk way hurls through the universe at some speed relative other galaxies. But it is all relative. And to answer Literature's other question, if the earth were to magically stop spinning and we stopped with it, we would not feel any different walking around. There would be other serious effects of it (things like the oceans changing and change in the magnetic field of the earth) but we would not really notice a physical difference walking around. |
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If you pour salt on a slug, a lot of "scientific" stuff happens.
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A couple more: In 1886, Tesla persuaded investors to fund the Tesla Electric Light & Manufacturing Company. Tesla invented a revolutionary arc lamp and the company made money. The investors then promptly reaped the profits and fired Tesla, who was forced into manual labor to survive. Although Tesla demonstrated his invention of the radio in 1893 and received a patent for it, the patent office stripped the award in 1904 and gave it instead to Guglielmo Marconi. Since both Thomas Edison and Andrew Carnegie had invested in Marconi and not in Tesla. Tesla fought for 29 years to reacquire his patent, finally getting a hearing in the US Supreme Court. With finding that 15 of Marconi's 16 patents were actually invented by Tesla himself, the court rules in Tesla's favor in 1944 – a year after his death. When inventor George Washington Carver’s paintings were displayed at the 1893 World's Fair Exposition, they were lit using Tesla's AC power – although Edison refused to allow use of his light bulbs. In order to keep electricity inexpensive to the public, Tesla sold George Westinghouse his own royalties, which were worth $12 million, for just $216,000. If Tesla had kept his royalties, he may have been the first billionaire, sharing financial history with the likes of John D. Rockefeller the worlds first in 1916, Howard Hughes, and Bill Gates who became the first man to reach $100 billion in 1999. Tesla and the great storyteller, Mark Twain, were very close friends. He claimed to have designed a death ray – or "peace ray,"(See... I wasn't joking. :D) as he preferred – that could electrocute an approaching army completely at a distance of 200 miles. Tesla adorned the cover of Time Magazine in 1931, and was praised by Albert Einstein as "an eminent pioneer in the realm of high frequency currents..." In 1928 he received his last patent, which was a forerunner to the modern day helicopter, which was initially conceived of by Leonardo da Vinci. In his lifetime some have stated that he had applied for 840 patents and received 700. What can be found is that he has 112 US Patents and 34 International Patents. Regardless, he was known as the Father of Radio, Television, Power Transmission, and the Induction Motor. Nikola Tesla's Death: On January 7, 1943: Tesla died penniless and alone in room #3327 of the Hotel New Yorker. Soon after his death, the United States Government (with the help of the FBI) seized all of his research materials and writings, most of which never again reappeared. |
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One of my favorite Tesla stories was how he lit up a bunch of lights by transmittng power to them wirelessly over a distance of several miles in the 1890s. Everyone assumed it was just a trick, because obviously something like that isn't really possible. Except that some scientists managed to do it again, but only from about 10 feet away. Also, they didn't manage to do it until 2007. Tesla was very good at being possibly the most intelligent person ever. Edison was very good at taking advantage of intelligent, naive foreigners (Tesla was not the only person he treated like this). |
Did you know....
Hippo sweat is red? Quote:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...amuses-actuall Also... hippo milk, which they feed their young, is actually very pink in color... |
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But that all assumes that there is a rigid 3-dimensional framework that everything in the universe moves through, which I've been told is not the case. And that's where I start to hit the limits of my small mind. Because maybe relativity would keep you on the earth, because it has the highest gravitational effect on you. |
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Did you know....
Ice worms. Seriously... <object style="height: 390px; width: 640px"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/1tr1wOl2SF0?version=3&feature=player_embedded"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/1tr1wOl2SF0?version=3&feature=player_embedded" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="360"></object> Quote:
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Yes science is cool, but I like it best when put to a practical application and it’s often the simplest devices I find the most intriguing.
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Awesome presentation
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Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus....
Ever wonder how that comparison came to be? It's because Venus is the most ass backwards object in our solar system, that behaves completely opposite of the other celestial bodies. Venus is the only planet in our solar system that rotates clockwise. Scientists have no idea how it came to spin backwards. It's as perplexing as female driving. Some think that it might have entered our galaxy after a collision with another large body, that blasted it our way and possibly reversed its rotation. Venus rotates very very slowly. So slowly, that it orbits the sun faster than it can make one whole rotation on its axis. In other words, Venus has a longer day than year. Venus has zero axis tilt. Meaning that if it had a thin atmosphere, it would have no seasons at all. It's the hottest planet by far. At one time, Venus was thought to be two separate bodies, because it was visible both day and night. Venus was known as the morning star (Eosphorus) and the evening star (Hesperus). |
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Is it true that a volcano is just an angry hill?
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Comets... the universe's Johnny Appleseed?
http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/7...ebopp29031.jpg On January the 2nd 2004, a NASA probe named Stardust, 240,000,000 miles from Earth, made a fly by of the Comet Wild 2, dipping into its geyser-like jets of ice particles and collecting a sample. The subsequent analysis of the samples startled and thrilled Astrobiologists, altered our model of planetary formation and evolution, and sobered and arrested the rest of the thinking world. Although the mission went off without a hitch, this was no easy feat. Stardust first had to first align itself with the comet, which was seen to be flying through space at 60,000 mph, and, then, it had to make a dive through through the clouds of dust, nearing the icy center. Having completed this, it then had to endure the heavy bombardment of icy material inflicted on it by geysers shooting up at supersonic velocities (almost 14,000 miles per hour, roughly 6x the speed of a speeding bullet). Surviving this intact, it flew through the clouds of material and 'scooped' up samples with its "flypaper-like" aerogel collection grid, returning home on January 15th, 2006. With this being the first time a comet's interior had been sampled in its natural habitat, scientists the world over waited in anticipation as to what the samples contained. After three years of analysis the team studying the samples made an disturbing but remarkable discovery, in the dust from the comet, traces of an amino acid called glycine were found. This may seem rather mundane until the realization that this molecule is an integral part of living things and that comets are fairly common in our Solar System and throughout galaxies. Glycine is one of the most common amino acids, and amino acids are, of course, the building blocks of proteins and are, obviously, essential for life. This discovery supports and furthers the idea that some of life's ingredients were delivered to Earth by meteorite and comet impacts long ago and implies that the fundamental building blocks of life could be prevalent in the universe (the odds of us finding this amino acid on our first sample of a comet in space being astronomical, excuse the pun). and strengthens the argument that life in the universe may be more common than rare. But where could these vital comets have come from, and how could they be delivered to Earth? The proposed idea is that comets orbiting in the Kuiper belt in a chaotic fashion were dejected after a collision around 3.9 billion years ago in the early stages of the solar system by a planet like Uranus or Neptune. After gaining momentum and "our" desired trajectory, they were sent hurtling towards the proto-Earth to deliver the building blocks for life, the period known as the Late Heavy Bombardment. During this period it is thought that every square inch of Earth was impacted by a mixture of meteorites and comets. Comets: not only are they a beautiful phenomena, leaving hundreds and thousands of miles long streams of material in a tail like fashion (due to the strains brought on by solar winds that can be viewed with a telescope and an acute knowledge of their whereabouts), but they also may be the facilitators of life. Earth, other planets and moons in our Solar System and beyond could have the rudimentary building blocks for life, thanks to these wonderful astral objects. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80...dient-of-life/ |
It has occurred to me that Edison and Steve Jobs are the same person.
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Whales use rhymes in their long complex songs..
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Dear Germaphobes.... You've already lost... The human body is now composed of more bacteria cells than human cells. We are legion....
Bacteria ‘R’ Us Emerging research shows that bacteria have powers to engineer the environment, to communicate and to affect human well-being. They may even think. Today’s revelation in the journal Science that researchers have found a bacterium in California’s Mono Lake that can thrive on arsenic — usually implicated in killing life, not sustaining it — is quickly revolutionizing our conception of what is life and where it might be found. To help in deciphering the direct contribution bacteria make to human life, we’re reposting this story which originally debuted on Oct. 18. A few scientists noticed in the late 1960s that the marine bacteria Vibrio fischeri appeared to coordinate among themselves the production of chemicals that produced bioluminescence, waiting until a certain number of them were in the neighborhood before firing up their light-making machinery. This behavior was eventually dubbed “quorum sensing.” It was one of the first in what has turned out to be a long list of ways in which bacteria talk to each other and to other organisms. Some populations of V. fischeri put this skill to a remarkable use: They live in the light-sensing organs of the bobtail squid. This squid, a charming nocturnal denizen of shallow Hawaiian waters, relies on V. fischeri to calculate the light shining from above and emit exactly the same amount of light downward, masking the squid from being seen by predators swimming beneath them. For their lighting services, V. fischeri get a protected environment rich in essential nutrients. Each dawn, the squid evict all their V. fischeri to prevent overpopulation. During the day, the bacteria recolonize the light-sensing organ and detect a fresh quorum, once again ready to camouflage the squid by night. This tale of bobtail squid would be just another mildly jaw-dropping story in a natural world full of marvels if it weren’t a portal into an unsuspected realm that has profound consequences for human beings. Regardless of the scale at which we explore the biosphere — whether we delve into the global ocean or the internal seas of individual organisms — bacteria are now known to be larger players than humans ever imagined. Strictly by the numbers, the vast majority — estimated by many scientists at 90 percent — of the cells in what you think of as your body are actually bacteria, not human cells. The number of bacterial species in the human gut is estimated to be about 40,000, according to Daniel Frank and Norman Pace, writing in the January 2008 Current Opinion in Gastroenterology. The total number of individual bacterial cells in the gut is projected to be on the order of 100 trillion, according to Xing Yang and colleagues at the Shanghai Center for Bioinformation Technology, reporting in the June 2009 issue of PLoS One, a peer-reviewed online science journal. Xing calculated a ballpark figure for the number of unique bacterial genes in a human gut at about 9 million. In fact, most of the life on the planet is probably composed of bacteria. They have been found making a living in Cretaceous-era sediments below the bottom of the ocean and in ice-covered Antarctic lakes, inside volcanoes, miles high in the atmosphere, teeming in the oceans — and within every other life-form on Earth. These facts by themselves may trigger existential shock: People are partly made of pond scum. But beyond that psychic trauma, a new and astonishing vista unfolds. In a series of recent findings, researchers describe bacteria that communicate in sophisticated ways, take concerted action, influence human physiology, alter human thinking and work together to bioengineer the environment. These findings may foreshadow new medical procedures that encourage bacterial participation in human health. They clearly set out a new understanding of the way in which life has developed on Earth to date, and of the power microbes have to regulate both the global environment and the internal environment of the human beings they inhabit and influence so profoundly. There’s such ferment afoot in microbiology today that even the classification of the primary domains of life and the relationships among those domains are subjects of disagreement. For the purposes of this article, we’ll focus on the fundamental difference between two major types of life-forms: those that have a cell wall but few or no internal subdivisions, and those that possess cells containing a nucleus, mitochondria, chloroplasts and other smaller substructures, or organelles. The former life-forms — often termed prokaryotes — include bacteria and the most ancient of Earth’s life-forms, the archaea. (Until the 1970s, archaea and bacteria were classed together, but the chemistry of archaean cell walls and other features are quite different from bacteria, enabling them to live in extreme environments such as Yellowstone’s mud pots and hyperacidic mine tailings.) Everything but archaea and bacteria, from plants and animals to fungi and malaria parasites, is classified as a eukaryote. [...] Bacteria can live solitary lives, of course, but they prefer to aggregate in biofilms, also known as “slime cities.” Biofilms usually form on a surface, whether it’s the inner lining of the intestines or inside water pipes or on your teeth. In these close-knit colonies, bacteria coordinate group production of a slimy translucent coating and fibers called “curli” and “pili” that attach the colony to something else. Biofilms can harbor multiple types of bacteria as well as fungi and protists (microscopic eukaryotes). A complex vascular system for transporting nutrients and chemical signals through a biofilm may also develop. As Tim Friend described in his book The Third Domain, explorers diving to the wreck of the Titanic found these features in “rusticles” — draped colonies of microbes — feeding on the iron in the Titanic‘s hull and skeleton, more than 2 miles under the surface. The abilities of bacteria are interesting to understand in their own right, and knowing how bacteria function in the biosphere may lead to new sources of energy or ways to degrade toxic chemicals, for example. But emerging evidence on the role of bacteria in human physiology brings the wonder and promise — and the hazards of misunderstanding them — up close and personal. Because in a very real sense, bacteria are us. In 2007, the National Institutes of Health began an ambitious program called the Human Microbiome Project, which aims to take a census of all the microorganisms that normally live in and on the human body. Most of these live in the digestive tract, but researchers have also discovered unique populations adapted to the inside of the elbow and the back of the knee. Even the left and right hands have their own distinct biota, and the microbiomes of men and women differ. The import of this distribution of microorganisms is unclear, but its existence reinforces the notion that humans should start thinking of themselves as ecosystems, rather than discrete individuals. As of early 2010, the Human Microbiome Project had collected samples of microbial DNA from about 300 people and had sequenced or prepared to sequence the genomes of about 500 bacterial strains from these samples. Fifteen studies of microbial involvement in human disease have been funded. “These sorts of trials take time,” says Microbiome Project program director Susan Garges, so clinical treatments based on the research from the project could be years off unless, she says, “in the shorter term, specific microorganisms are associated with a disease state.” In that case, protocols for clinical diagnosis and treatment might be accelerated. But the microbiome project is not just about disease-causing microbes such as E. coli and Staphylococcus strains. Many of the organisms it is identifying are responsible for regulating the digestive tract and keeping humans healthy in a variety of ways. The human gut is filled with large numbers of a wide variety of bacteria; clearly those that cause disease must rank high on the priority list of those to be studied, but the picture emerging from new research is that pathogens and beneficial bacteria are not necessarily mutually exclusive organisms. A microbe’s effects on the human body can depend on conditions. And if you approach the human body as an ecosystem, some researchers are finding, it may be possible to tune that system and prevent many diseases — from acute infections to chronic debilitating conditions — and even to foster mental health, through bacteria. Recent research has shown that gut microbes control or influence nutrient supply to the human host, the development of mature intestinal cells and blood vessels, the stimulation and maturation of the immune system, and blood levels of lipids such as cholesterol. They are, therefore, intimately involved in the bodily functions that tend to be out of kilter in modern society: metabolism, cardiovascular processes and defense against disease. Many researchers are coming to view such diseases as manifestations of imbalance in the ecology of the microbes inhabiting the human body. If further evidence bears this out, medicine is about to undergo a profound paradigm shift, and medical treatment could regularly involve kindness to microbes. Still, in practice, the medical notion of friendly microbes has yet to extend much past the idea that eating yogurt is good for you. For most doctors and medical microbiologists, microbes are enemies in a permanent war. Medicine certainly has good reason to view microbes as dangerous, since the germ theory of disease and the subsequent development of antibiotics are two of medical science’s greatest accomplishments. But there’s a problem: The paradigm isn’t working very well anymore. Not only are bacteria becoming antibiotic-resistant, but antibiotics are creating other problems. Approximately 25 percent of people treated with antibiotics for an infection develop diarrhea. Moreover, people who contract infections just by being hospitalized are at risk of developing chronic infections in the form of biofilms. These not only gum up the works of devices such as IV tubes, stents and catheters, but also protect their constituent microbes from antibiotics. In addition to antibiotic-resistant E. coli and Salmonella that often spread through our food supply, common pathogens that make doctors’ blood run cold include Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Clostridium difficile. P. aeruginosa is responsible for about 40 percent of all fatalities from hospital-acquired infections. C. difficile is the culprit in at least a quarter of diarrhea cases caused by antibiotics. A 2007 study by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health found that mortality rates from C. difficile infections in the United States quadrupled between 1999 and 2004. C. difficile will invade an antibiotic-cleansed colon and “poke holes in it,” says Vincent Young, a gastrointestinal infection specialist at the University of Michigan. Some people in this situation rush to the bathroom 20 times a day. “It’s not just an inconvenience,” Young says. Continue reading: http://www.psmag.com/science/bacteria-r-us-23628/ |
http://bigthink.com/ideas/14657
Question: How will nanotechnology help us live longer? Kurzweil: Nanotechnologies are broad concept, it’s simply refers to technology where the key features in measuring the small number of nanometers. A nanometer is the diameter 5 carbon atom so it’s very close to the molecular level and we already have new materials and devices that had been manufactured at the nanoscale. In fact, chips today, the key features are 50 or 60 nanometers so that is already nanotechnology. The true promise of nanotechnology is that ultimately we’ll be able to create devices that are manufactured at the molecular level by putting together, molecular fragments in new combinations so, I can send you an information file and a desktop nanofactory will assemble molecules according to the definition in the file and create a physical objects so I can e-mail you a pair of trousers or a module to build housing or a solar panel and we’ll be able to create just about anything we need in the physical world from information files with very inexpensive input materials. You can… I mean, just a few years ago if I wanted to send you a movie or a book or a recorded album, I would send you a FedEx package, now I can e-mail you an attachment and you can create a movie or a book from that. On the future, I’ll be able to e-mail you a blouse or a meal. So, that’s the promise of nanotechnology. Another promise is to be able to create devices that are size of blood cells and by the way biology is an example of nanotechnology, the key features of biology are at the molecular level. So, that’s actually the existence proof that nanotechnology is feasible but biology is based on limited side of materials. Everything is built out of proteins and that’s a limited class of substances. With nanotechnology we can create things that are far more durable and far more powerful. One scientist designed a robotic red blood cell it’s a thousand times more powerful than the biological version so, if you were to replace a portion of your biological red blood cells with this respirocytes the robotic versions. You could do an Olympic sprint for 15 minutes without taking a breath or sit at the bottom of your pool for 4 hours. If I were to say someday you’ll have millions or even billions of these nanobots, nano-robots , blood cell size devices going through your body and keeping you healthy from inside, I might think well, that sounds awfully futuristic. I’d point out this already in 50 experiments in animals of doing exactly that with the first generation of nano engineered blood cell size devices. One scientist cured type 1 diabetes in rats with the blood cell size device. Seven nanometer pores let’s insulin out in the controlled fashion. At MIT, there’s a blood cell size device that can detect and destroy cancer cells in the bloodstream. These are early experiments but keep in mind that because of the exponential progression of this technology, these technologies will be a billion time more powerful in 25 years and you get some idea what will be feasible. |
This is really bad ass... Bees are so fascinating.... Hive mind capabilities that allow them to collectively burn alive intruders that they can't kill using their stingers. **** that.....
"Bee-balling," the act of Japanese honeybees surrounding an enemy wasp and then all vibrating their flight muscles to raise the internal temperature of the ball high enough to cook their enemy, has been known about for some time. And now researchers at the University of Tokyo believe that the bees may actually be using their brains to act collectively to take down the threat. Set off if bees posted as "guards" at the entrance to the colony detect an intruder, the move evolved because the bee's stingers aren't strong enough to penetrate the hornet's tough exoskeleton, researchers said. The research team, whose latest research on the phenomenon appeared in the scientific journal PLoS ONE in mid-March, was astounded by the fact that the collective heat generated by the group, while fatal for the hornet, leaves the bees unaffected. "When an outsider enters, the honeybees are immediately on their guard. Then, all at once, they gather to attack," he said. "So, it isn't one commanding all the rest, we believe in this moment of emergency they're acting collectively." <iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/0EZtXNIT5QQ?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> |
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This is a cool thread.
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Honey. Seems inconspicuous enough right? Until you realize that it's nothing but bug vomit.
Sweet delicious bug vomit... The bees collect the nectar from flowers and store it in their "honey stomachs," separate from their true stomachs. On their way back to the hive they secrete enzymes into it that begin converting the stuff into honey. Once in the hive they puke up the nectar and either turn it over to other workers for further processing or else dump it directly into the honeycomb. The bees then beat their tiny wings to fan air through the hive to evaporate excess water from the honey. Last they cover the honeycomb cell with wax, figuring hey, we worked like dogs, but at least now we'll be able to get a snack whenever we want. Suckers. The humans steal the honey, pack it in bottles, and there you go--direct from the bees' guts to yours. http://img600.imageshack.us/img600/2294/805t.jpg |
A Profusion of Pressurized Penguin Poo
<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Pxuy9I5dxyo?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> What variables do you need to consider when you are contemplating penguin poo pressure? First, you need to consider how WIDE the opening of your "gun" is. using "a few 'spot-on' photographs", taken during the event, they estimated the diameter of the cloaca during at about 8mm when the penguin pinches a loaf. You then need to work out height. As the penguin moves up to the edge of its nest to do its business, the cloaca is going to be a bit higher than normal, around 20cm. And then you need to determine the viscosity of your poo, whether its more liquidy or more solid. Once you have all of these and the distance the poo travels, you can calculate the velocity of the dump using this model: http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/896...oopressure.png Once you have an idea of velocity, you can start working out pressure for fluids of different viscosities. The authors started out with the "ideal" viscosity of something near water. While they got a pressure of around 34mmHg (not too bad), the low viscosity, and the constant pressure, would result in the poo taking on a parabola. This would be great if the penguin could REALLY get its butt in the air, but since it stands upright and can't...it may be implausible. However, a higher viscosity works better. If you use a viscosity of say...below glycerine, but above glycol (they tried to take poo samples and measure the viscosity directly, but things like bits of shrimp and fish bones and scales kept getting in the way. The things people will do for science), and you assume that you're working with only initial pressure (to propel the mass away from the nest, but relax immediately after), you get a pressure between 77 and 450 mmHg. This number takes into account friction in the intestintal tract. That's a lot of pressure. Really. Humans usually poop at around 55mmHg (100 if you're feeling stopped up). So up to 450mmHg is pretty substantial. And it'd be interesting to look at the muscles and see how they do it (also the authors refer to "non-Newtonian mechanisms of mucus participation", which, whatever it is, is probably both awesome and kind of gross). http://scientopia.org/blogs/scicurio...d-penguin-poo/ |
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Did you know that boners don't actually have bones in them?
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If the whole bacteria plays a part in human health, then it's like we've swung from natural/holistic treatments (apothecaries) to "technological" synthetic treatments back to natural in balance. Maybe it'll swing back to technological in nanomedicine.
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For example... this is a raccoon penis bone.. http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/164...66e9d47ff7.jpg Here it is in "action"... if you care to gander at an erect raccoon penis... http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/9...isxcoon244.jpg |
Warp drive and other faster-than-light (FTL) propulsion technologies were the lynch pin of an interstellar civilization, making trade and exploration across vast interstellar distances viable. Without these technologies, these distances could not be crossed in any reasonable period of time, making interstellar civilization usually limited to a single sector. (TNG: "A Matter of Time") To put this in perspective, planets that were years away with impulse speeds could be reached in days with ships equipped with warp drive. (TOS: "Where No Man Has Gone Before")
Cultures in the galaxy discovered warp drive at their own pace and rate of development, as most of the cultures had to do. The Vulcans were an interstellar civilization by 9th century BC. (ENT: "The Andorian Incident") They invented warp drive some time after 1947 and had reached the level of warp 7 by 2151. (ENT: "Fallen Hero"; DS9: "Little Green Men") Klingons had interstellar travel capability around the time of Kahless in the 9th century. They also invented warp drive some time after 1947 and had achieved the capability of warp 6 by 2151. (TNG: "Rightful Heir"; DS9: "Little Green Men"; VOY: "Day of Honor"; ENT: "Judgment") Romulans were once considered a group of thugs and warp drive was regarded as the key technology that allowed the founding of their Star Empire. (Star Trek: Insurrection) The Vissians developed warp drive around the 12th century. (ENT: "Cogenitor") The Borg in the Delta Quadrant began to establish their interstellar collective by the 15th century. (VOY: "Dragon's Teeth") However, it was the rapid progress of Humanity which led to the wide-scale exploration of the galaxy and the formation of the United Federation of Planets. |
And speaking of painful penis....
http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/3...bedbug3sta.jpg Of all the disturbing things about bedbugs, their mating habits may be the worst. Cimex lectularius have evolved a breeding technique called "traumatic insemination," and it's even more horrible than it sounds. A male bedbug's penis is literally a weapon—a sharp, brown hypodermic hook that forgot about the female reproductive canal long ago. Here's how he uses it: The male pounces on the female, holds her firmly while she struggles, and gouges his hook through her exoskeleton, squirting his sperm directly into her body cavity. The sperm swims through her hemolymph (a bug's version of blood) and, if the mating wound doesn't develop a serious infection and kill her, eventually swims to her ovaries. Biologists used to believe males and females of a given species evolved together for sexual fitness, the Darwinian version of romance. But bedbugs, scientists have found, have engaged in a millennia-long struggle of "sexually antagonistic coevolution" in which individual males damage individual females for overall reproductive advantage. Female bedbugs have counterevolved "spermalege," a special sperm-receptacle organ in the abdomen that helps absorb the trauma—if the hypodermic penis hits it. Bedbugs aren't exactly careful maters. Male bugs sometimes traumatically inseminate each other, though scientists aren't sure whether this is a function of sexual competition or just carelessness. Regardless, sex is bad for female bedbugs. A 2003 study for the Royal Society of London found that the more sex a female bedbug has, the shorter her life will be. A bed infested with bedbugs isn't just a party for bloodsuckers that will make you itch—it's also a Verdun of buggy sexual warfare. http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/b...nt?oid=3210060 |
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CANDIRU CATFISH
Candiru asu candiru catfish More Candiru Catfish Fish Swims Up Urine Stream (video) | Fish Attacks Man's Urethra (video) Maximum Length: Up to 6 inches The Amazon's Most Feared Fish: The Candiru is a terrifying fish, even when stacked up against its fellow river monsters of the Amazon. But this parasitic freshwater catfish does not instill fear by way of its monstrous size. On the contrary, it's small, eel-like and so translucent that it can be nearly impossible to spot in the water, which makes it even more terrifying. Some claim this fish is the most feared in the entire Amazon region, and the fear stems from the fact that it has a knack for finding open orifices and working its way inside. Once inside another organism, the Candiru feeds on its host's blood, becoming increasingly swollen. The Candiru is the star of an urban legend — which turns out to be true — of a man who was urinating in the Amazon River when a 6-inch Candiru swam up his urine stream into his penis. The fish remained there for days, until a surgeon was able to remove it. http://animal.discovery.com/fish/riv...sh-324x205.jpg |
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Weird isn't the word I was thinking of.
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How it works: potassium chlorate (KClO3) is a powerful oxidizer, used in matches and fireworks. Sucrose is an easy-to-oxidize energy source. When sulfuric acid is introduced, potassium chlorate decomposes to produce oxygen: 2KClO3(s) + heat —> 2KCl(s) + 3O2(g) The sugar burns in the presence of oxygen. The flame is purple from the heating of the potassium (similar to a flame test). |
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