Injectable Oxygen Keeps People Alive Without Breathing


http://imageshack.us/a/img850/2584/i...bleoxygen1.jpg


A team at Boston Children’s Hospital have invented a micro-particle that can be injected into your bloodstream to oxygenate your blood – without any help being required from your lungs.

The particles are able to keep a patient alive for up to 30 minutes after respiratory failure – which is normally enough time to prevent a heart attack or brain damage due to oxygen deprivation.

Each particle contains three to four times more oxygen than each of our own red blood cells. The oxygen is stored with a cell membrane made of fat. The membrane can be made of other materials but one issue in the past was that the particles became lodged in the body’s capillaries. These fat membranes however, are much more flexible and prevent this problem from happening.

Dr. John Kheir first began looking at ways to oxygenate the blood without breathing due to a tragic experience with one of his patients, a young girl. She was suffering from pneumonia and at one point her lungs started to fill with blood. It took 25 minutes to remove the blood from her lungs, but unfortunately it wasn’t enough time to prevent a cardiac arrest, leaving the girl in a serious condition which eventually lead to her death.

Potential uses for the new technology include medical, military and private. Military uses could include covert teams being able to stay submerged for 30 minutes at a time without having to come up for air. Private sector could include rescue teams being better protected, or an oil rig crew being able to fix underwater damage without the need for scuba equipment.


http://www.psfk.com/2013/05/indictab...breathing.html

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/QBK3QpQVnaw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Christians won't like this:

An experimental stem-cell treatment has restored the sight of a man blinded by the degeneration of his retinal cells. The man, who is taking part in a trial examining the safety of using human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) to reverse two common causes of blindness, can now see well enough to be allowed to drive.

People undergoing treatment had reported modest improvements in vision earlier in the trial, which began in 2011, but this individual has made especially dramatic progress. The vision in his affected eye went from 20/400 – essentially blind – to 20/40, which is considered sighted.

"There's a guy walking around who was blind, but now can see," says Gary Rabin, chief executive officer of Advanced Cell Technology, the company in Marlborough, Massachusetts that devised the treatment. "With that sort of vision, you can have a driver's licence."

In all, the company has so far treated 22 patients who either have dry age-related macular degeneration, a common condition that leaves people with a black hole in the centre of their vision, or Stargardt's macular dystrophy, an inherited disease that leads to premature blindness. The company wouldn't tell New Scientist which of the two diseases the participant with the dramatic improvement has.

In both diseases, people gradually lose retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells. These are essential for vision as they recycle protein and lipid debris that accumulates on the retina, and supply nutrients and energy to photoreceptors – the cells that capture light and transmit signals to the brain.

The company is testing treatments for both conditions by turning hESCs into fresh RPE cells, then giving each trial participant a transplant of the cells beneath the retina in one eye.

Although the aim of the trial is primarily to check that the stem cells are safe, participants have reported improvements in their sight. The company intends to publish the outcomes in full when all the results are in.

Not sure why that would be.

They have eyes too...

they think that stem cell research is the debil and a baby had to die for that man to see.

What about Christian doctors, dentists, surgeons, geneticists, biologists, etc?

Lung, heart, stem cell.

What's the difference?...

They were probably brain washed from day 1 by their parents. That shit can stick for life no matter what information is available to you, I'm sure.

I take it you haven't met many Catholics...

I met plenty of catholic girls in college. All of them ****ed on the first night. I love me some hot catholic girls.

Didn't take 'em long to "de-program" themselves, did it?

People find ways to validate whatever they want to believe in...

Makes you feel preposterously insignificant.

This.

My doctor's Jewish. Just sayin'.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/4yVE0We52Lc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

WTF?

http://img38.imageshack.us/img38/910...1738594613.jpg

Huge Hole Found in the Universe

The universe has a huge hole in it that dwarfs anything else of its kind. The discovery caught astronomers by surprise.

The hole is nearly a billion light-years across. It is not a black hole, which is a small sphere of densely packed matter. Rather, this one is mostly devoid of stars, gas and other normal matter, and it's also strangely empty of the mysterious "dark matter" that permeates the cosmos. Other space voids have been found before, but nothing on this scale.

Astronomers don't know why the hole is there.

"Not only has no one ever found a void this big, but we never even expected to find one this size," said researcher Lawrence Rudnick of the University of Minnesota.

Rudnick's colleague Liliya R. Williams also had not anticipated this finding.

"What we've found is not normal, based on either observational studies or on computer simulations of the large-scale evolution of the universe," said Williams, also of the University of Minnesota.

The finding will be detailed in the Astrophysical Journal.

The universe is populated with visible stars, gas and dust, but most of the matter in the universe is invisible. Scientists know something is there, because they can measure the gravitational effects of the so-called dark matter. Voids exist, but they are typically relatively small.

The gargantuan hole was found by examining observations made using the Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope, funded by the National Science Foundation.

There is a "remarkable drop in the number of galaxies" in a region of sky in the constellation Eridanus, Rudnick said.

The region had been previously been dubbed the "WMAP Cold Spot," because it stood out in a map of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation made by NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotopy Probe (WMAP) satellite. The CMB is an imprint of radiation left from the Big Bang, the theoretical beginning of the universe.

"Although our surprising results need independent confirmation, the slightly colder temperature of the CMB in this region appears to be caused by a huge hole devoid of nearly all matter roughly 6 to 10 billion light-years from Earth," Rudnick said.

Photons of the CMB gain a small amount of energy when they pass through normal regions of space with matter, the researchers explained. But when the CMB passes through a void, the photons lose energy, making the CMB from that part of the sky appear cooler.

Word......

http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/8...8684328317.jpg

Maybe someday we'll actually be able to fix stupid...

Fast and Painless Way to Better Mental Arithmetic? Yes, There Might Actually Be a Way

May 16, 2013 — In the future, if you want to improve your ability to manipulate numbers in your head, you might just plug yourself in. So say researchers who report in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on May 16 on studies of a harmless form of brain stimulation applied to an area known to be important for math ability.

"With just five days of cognitive training and noninvasive, painless brain stimulation, we were able to bring about long-lasting improvements in cognitive and brain functions," says Roi Cohen Kadosh of the University of Oxford.

Incredibly, the improvements held for a period of six months after training. No one knows exactly how this relatively new method of stimulation, called transcranial random noise stimulation (TRNS), works. But the researchers say the evidence suggests that it allows the brain to work more efficiently by making neurons fire more synchronously.

Cohen Kadosh and his colleagues had shown previously that another form of brain stimulation could make people better at learning and processing new numbers. But, he says, TRNS is even less perceptible to those receiving it. TRNS also has the potential to help even more people. That's because it has been shown to improve mental arithmetic -- the ability to add, subtract, or multiply a string of numbers in your head, for example -- not just new number learning. Mental arithmetic is a more complex and challenging task, which more than 20 percent of people struggle with.

Ultimately, Cohen Kadosh says, with better integration of neuroscience and education, this line of study could really help humans reach our cognitive potential in math and beyond. It might also be of particular help to those suffering with neurodegenerative illness, stroke, or learning difficulties.
"Maths is a highly complex cognitive faculty that is based on a myriad of different abilities," Cohen Kadosh says. "If we can enhance mathematics, therefore, there is a good chance that we will be able to enhance simpler cognitive functions."

Why is your voice all raspy and shit for the first few minutes after you wake up? Huh!? Riddle me that, mother****ers!

Vocal cords are cold and unstretched probably.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/coGfGmOeLjE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

You know there's something big and nasty and invisible in there that's eating entire galaxies.

Maybe the void is where they Big Bang originated.

Bitches.....

The next time you're stung by a bee or wasp or hornet, remember that only females have this ability. Males don't do that shit.. Similarly, male mosquitos don't bite animals, only females do.

A stinger is actually called an ovipositor, which is part of the female's reproductive organs.

http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/767...4931392314.jpg

http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/3...4374919418.jpg

http://www.scienceperspectives.com/h...a-nutshell.htm

Hummingbirds are among the smallest of vertebrates and have the highest metabolism of all animals (about 30 times the human metabolic rate). This high metabolism (converting food energy to energy the body uses) is due mostly to their small size. The cells of warm-blooded animals produce heat during metabolism. A large animal, such as an elephant, has so many cells inside its body producing heat that the problem becomes getting rid of excess heat. With a small animal, however, heat is lost much more quickly to the environment and the problem becomes getting enough energy to stay warm. In fact, a warm-blooded animal smaller than a hummingbird (or shrew--they are about the same size) could not exist because it could not take in food fast enough to keep itself warm. A hummingbird deprived of food would die within a few hours!

Hummingbirds have evolved a unique method of foraging--hovering. This ability allows hummingbirds to find a food source not available to other birds. Wildflowers typically grow too high off the ground for a standing bird to reach and are too flimsy to support a perching bird. Hummingbirds get energy by feeding on the sugar-rich nectar of wildflowers, consuming three times their own weight in nectar daily. They also eat a few insects during the day to provide protein and other nutrients.

Conserving Energy.

Because they lose heat so rapidly, hummingbirds are often not able to maintain normal body temperatures during the night. To conserve energy they shut down and become "torpid." Torpidity is a sort of temporary hibernation in which the hummingbird's temperature can drop from the normal 104 F to a mere 54 F and the metabolic rate decreases significantly. Also, studies have shown that the patterns hummingbirds follow when feeding are very efficient. In fact, most hummingbird behavior can be explained in terms of increasing energy efficiency. Although I like to think that hummingbirds will sit on my daughters' fingers while drinking at the feeder because the birds are able to recognize my daughters' kind intentions, I suspect they recognize the opportunity to rest while feeding and know they could escape instantly if they felt threatened in any way.

A Hummingbird Paradox?

If hummingbirds need so much energy, why do they spend so much time perched doing nothing? This question plagued scientists for some time. If you spent a day following a hummingbird (good luck keeping up!) you would find it spent about 75% of its day perching, and only 20% of its day feeding. A group a four scientists (science is seldom an individual effort) led by Jared Diamond discovered the answer. During the perching time, hummingbirds are digesting nectar as rapidly as possible and have nothing to gain by feeding until their storage crops are at least half-empty (Do most people fill up their cars with gas when the gauge reads three-fourths full or wait until it's less than half?). It turns out that with the typical pattern of feed for one minute, perch for three minutes, hummingbirds are taking in energy as fast as their digestive system allows.

Rationality, and why Spock is full of shit....

http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/3...inating1ts.jpg

Why Spock is Not Rational

Star Trek’s Mr. Spock is not the exemplar of logic and rationality you might think him to be. Instead, he is a “straw man” of rationality used to show (incorrectly) that human emotion and irrationality are better than logic.

Here is a typical scene:

MCCOY: Well, Mr. Spock, [the aliens] didn’t stay frightened very long, did they?

SPOCK: A most illogical reaction. When we demonstrated our superior weapons, they should have fled.

MCCOY: You mean they should have respected us?

SPOCK: Of course!

MCCOY: Mr. Spock, respect is a rational process. Did it ever occur to you that they might react emotionally, with anger?

SPOCK: Doctor, I’m not responsible for their unpredictability.

MCCOY: They were perfectly predictable, to anyone with feeling! You might as well admit it, Mr. Spock: your precious logic brought them down on us!

Of course, there’s nothing logical about expecting non-logical beings to act logically. Spock had plenty of evidence that these aliens were emotional, so expecting them to behave rationally was downright irrational!

I stole this example from Julia Galef’s talk “The Straw Vulcan.” Her second example of “straw man rationality,” or Hollywood Rationality, is the idea that you shouldn’t make a decision until you have all the information you need. This one shows up in Star Trek too. A giant space amoeba has appeared not far from the Enterprise, and Kirk asks Spock for his analysis. Spock replies, “I have no analysis due to insufficient information . . . The computers contain nothing on this phenomenon. It is beyond our experience, and the new information is not yet significant.”

Sometimes it’s rational to seek more information before acting, but sometimes you need to just act on what you think you know. You have to weigh the cost of getting more information against the expected value of that information. Consider another example from Gerd Gigerenzer, about a man considering whom to marry:

Such behavior is irrational, a failure to make the correct value of information calculation.

Galef’s third example of Hollywood Rationality is the mistaken principle that “being rational means never relying on intuition.” For example, in one episode of Star Trek, Kirk and Spock are playing three-dimensional chess. When Kirk checkmates Spock, Spock says, “Your illogical approach to chess does have its advantages on occasion, Captain.”

But something that causes you to win at chess can’t be irrational (from the perspective of winning at chess). If some method will cause you to win at chess, that’s the method a rational person would use. If intuition will give you better results than slow, deliberative reasoning, then rationally you should use intuition. And sometimes that’s the case, for example if you have developed good chess intuitions over thousands of games and you’re playing speed chess that won’t permit you to think through the implications of every possible move using deliberative reasoning.

Galef’s fourth principle of Hollywood Rationality is that “being rational means [not having] emotions.”

To be sure, emotions often ruin our attempts at rational thought and decision-making. When we’re anxious, we overestimate risks. When we feel vulnerable, we’re more likely to believe superstitions and conspiracy theories. But that doesn’t mean a rational person should try to destroy all their emotions. Emotions are what create many of our goals, and they can sometimes help us to achieve our goals, too. If you want to go for a run and burn some fat, and you know that listening to high-energy music puts you in an excited emotional state that makes you more likely to go for a run, then the rational thing to do is put on some high-energy music.

Rationality done right is “systematized winning.” Epistemic rationality is about having the most probably true beliefs, and instrumental rationality is about making decisions that maximize your chances of getting the most of what you want. So, as Galef says,

I’ll return to the subject of the intelligence explosion shortly, but I want to spend two more chapters on rationality. There are laws of thought, and we need to agree on what they are before we start talking about tricky subjects like AI. Otherwise we’ll get stalled on a factual disagreement only to later discover that we’re really stalled because we disagree about how we can come to know which facts are correct.

It's pretty amazing to think that not even 60 years ago, organ transplants were future medical fantasy...

http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/613...4ab55a9fe4.jpg

The nocebo effect. The placebo effect's evil twin brother. It's basically the phenomena that one's health can be negatively affected by strong beliefs, even when the subject is not actually physically affected in any way whatsoever.

Research is starting to show some really startling conclusions due to this effect. And today's awful and dishonest media is causing a great deal of it. Pseudo science contributes a great deal to the nocebo effect, making people believe they're sick and in need of some magic pill, when they actually aren't. And it's much easier to prove than you'd imagine....

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/gPBzanM7wU0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

How to Convince People WiFi Is Making Them Sick

All it takes is an antenna on a headband. If you've got a breathless video report on the dangers of wireless internet connections, that will help your case. It doesn't take much, though, to turn an ominous hint into a real headache.

Some people consider themselves sensitive to electromagnetic fields. They report symptoms such as burning skin, tingling, nausea, dizziness, or chest pain, and they blame their malaise on nearby power lines, cell phones, or WiFi networks. A recent Slate article described such people moving to a remote West Virginia town where radio-frequency signals are banned. (The town is within the U.S. National Radio Quiet Zone, an area that's enforced to keep signals from interfering with radio telescopes there—telescopes that work because they receive the radio-frequency signals constantly hitting our planet from space.)

There's no known scientific reason why a wireless signal might cause physical harm. And studies have found that even people who claim to be sensitive to electromagnetic fields can't actually sense them. Their symptoms are more likely due to nocebo, the evil twin of the placebo effect. The power of our expectation can cause real physical illness. In clinical drug trials, for example, subjects who take sugar pills report side effects ranging from an upset stomach to sexual dysfunction.

Psychologists Michael Witthöft and G. James Rubin of King's College London explored whether frightening TV reports can encourage a nocebo effect. They recruited a group of subjects and showed half of them a clip from a BBC documentary about the potential dangers of wireless internet. (The BBC later acknowledged that the 2007 program was "misleading.") The remaining subjects watched a video about the security of data transmissions over mobile phones.

After watching the videos, subjects put on headband-mounted antennas. They were told that the researchers were testing a "new kind of WiFi," and that once the signal started they should carefully monitor any symptoms in their bodies. Then the researchers left the room. For 15 minutes, the subjects watched a WiFi symbol flash on a laptop screen.

In reality, there was no WiFi switched on during the experiment, and the headband antenna was a sham. Yet 82 of the 147 subjects—more than half—reported symptoms. Two even asked for the experiment to be stopped early because the effects were too severe to stand.

Witthöft says he expected to see a greater effect in people who had watched the frightening documentary. This wasn't the case overall. Instead, the movie mainly increased symptoms in subjects who described themselves beforehand as more anxious.

"It suggests that sensational media reports especially in combination with personality factors (in this case anxiety) increase the likelihood for symptom reports," Witthöft says.

Plenty of symptoms were reported without the sensationalist TV show, though. The antenna on the head, the researchers' allusion to a "new kind of WiFi," and the instructions to monitor their bodies closely were enough to trigger symptoms in many people who watched the other video.

Witthöft points out that his study would have been stronger if there were a third group of subjects who didn't wear the "WiFi" headband at all, but were simply told to pay attention to their bodies for 15 minutes. This kind of attentiveness might trigger symptoms on its own.

Still, Witthöft says, "I think the high percentage of symptom reports nicely shows how powerful nocebo effects are."

Though the researchers set out to show how irresponsible reports in the media can trigger a nocebo effect, they ended up showing how easy it is to make a person feel sick with just a a prop and a few choice words. Even a National Radio Quiet Zone can't protect against that.

I was waiting on her to show her tits the entire video before I realized this wasn't posted in the Pictures forum.

We get an erection every hour during sleep?


Interesting...

NASA’s Actual Plan to Deflect an Approaching Asteroid

Asteroids are frightening things. With the approach of QE2, a big one that would end civilization, the galaxy briefly put Earth on notice.

Thankfully, QE2 is slated to miss the planet tonight.

“Scientists have concluded that the asteroid poses no threat to planet Earth,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters on Friday, reassuring mankind it will live another day. ”I never really thought I’d be standing up here saying that, but I guess I am.”

But what if an asteroid were headed straight for Earth?

NASA evidently has us covered. In 2005, in a bill authorizing space-program funds, Congress asked NASA for a plan to identify, track and deflect – yes, deflect – all manner of PHOs (potentially harmful objects) that could pose a threat.

The directive, according to NASA, is known as the George E. Brown Jr. Near-Earth Object Survey Act, named after the late Democratic chairman of the Committee on Science, Space and Technology, who died in 1999 and didn’t live to see NASA’s asteroid plan on paper. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., successfully included it in the 2005 bill.

With that congressional prompt, NASA considered many science-reality options, including some that bore resemblance to film plots.

Among the solutions NASA studied were firing a nuclear missile at the asteroid, landing a nuclear bomb on the surface, drilling into the great space rock and exploding a nuclear bomb there (which Bruce Willis attempted to do in the film, “Armageddon”), and all those same strategies with conventional bombs.

The scientists also gamed out some weirder possibilities designed with more warning time in mind.

Those included flying a spacecraft near the asteroid for a long time to act as a “gravity tractor” and pull it off course (deemed ineffective, unsurprisingly); using a large mirror to focus sunlight and “boil off” some material from the asteroid; a spacecraft “rendezvous” with the asteroid to “boil off” some material using a “pulse laser”; landing on the asteroid, drilling into it, and “eject[ing] material from PHO at high velocity”; “attach[ing]” a spacecraft to the asteroid and pushing it out of the way; and what NASA called the “Enhanced Yarkovsky Effect” – altering the reflectiveness of a rotating asteroid and counting on the “radiation from sunheated material” to push the asteroid off course.
NASA charted how effectively each method could push a gigantic space rock off course.
The blue horizontal lines show different scenarios and the momentum change needed to deflect them. The top line (F) shows the amount of momentum change needed to deflect a comet with short (nine to 24 months) warning. The bottom lines, A1 and A2, show two scenarios for “[t]he 330 meter asteroid, Apophis, before its close approach to Earth in 2029.”

http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politic...0531_wblog.jpg

http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politic...0531_wblog.jpg

The winner: nuclear bomb. For a fast-approaching comet, the only recourse may be drilling into it and detonating a nuclear bomb, as the top line in the top graph shows.
But, in general, NASA favored simply firing a missile at a space rock and detonating it nearby. Landing on the asteroid, or drilling into it, would make for a better explosion, but NASA was wary of fragmenting the big rock.

Unfortunately, nuclear explosions in space are banned under a 1967 U.N. space treaty, so other nations would have to sign off on the plan.

From the 2007 NASA report to Congress:

In the impulsive category, the use of a nuclear device was found to be the most effective means to deflect a PHO. Because of the large amount of energy delivered, nuclear devices would require the least amount of detailed information about the threatening object, reducing the need for detailed characterization. While detonation of a nuclear device on or below the surface of a threatening object was found to be 10-100 times more efficient than detonating a nuclear device above the surface, the standoff detonation would be less likely to fragment the target. A nuclear standoff mission could be designed knowing only the orbit and approximate mass of the threat, and missions could be carried out incrementally to reach the required amount of deflection. Additional information about the object’s mass and physical properties would perhaps increase the effectiveness, but likely would not be required to accomplish the goal. It should be noted that because of restrictions found in Article IV of the “Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space,” including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, use of a nuclear device would likely require prior international coordination. The study team also examined conventional explosives, but found they were ineffective against most threats.

So there you have it: The government’s plan if an asteroid approaches is to shoot a nuclear missile at it. The planet has George E. Brown, Dana Rohrabacher and NASA to thank.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics...hing-asteroid/

Green Energy, replace your heater with a box filled with hummingbirds and nectar, with a fan on one side.

Save the World!!!

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/TMSzln0T9ZI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

First ever footage of an oarfish in the wild.

http://www.grindtv.com/outdoor/natur...h-in-the-wild/

skip to 7:00

I wonder if it's anywhere near the Great Attractor?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Attractor

http://i.imgur.com/yMgsZ.jpg

I can ID everyone in this pic except the guy who looks like the dad from Family Guy, the GIANT mustache guy, and the person who pops in between Hawking and Teller.

CP HELP ME

The guy between Hawking and Teller could be Fry.

ohhh BILL NYE?

I don't see anyone resembling Peter Griffin... Where do you see this guy?

The mustachioed guy could be Nikola Tesla.

Everyone is born an asshole. Some grow out of it...

http://img259.imageshack.us/img259/3...4307801790.jpg

XDF (eXtreme Deep Field) Hubble image. One of the most amazing images in human achievement. This photo contains light over 13 billion years old. And it's only just one little bitty patch of the visible night sky.

The universe is ****ing endless....

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/117...4290180721.jpg

Hubble Goes to the eXtreme to Assemble Farthest-Ever View of the Universe

Hubble pointed at a tiny patch of southern sky in repeat visits (made over the past decade) for a total of 50 days, with a total exposure time of 2 million seconds. More than 2,000 images of the same field were taken with Hubble's two premier cameras: the Advanced Camera for Surveys and the Wide Field Camera 3, which extends Hubble's vision into near-infrared light.

"The XDF is the deepest image of the sky ever obtained and reveals the faintest and most distant galaxies ever seen. XDF allows us to explore further back in time than ever before", said Garth Illingworth of the University of California at Santa Cruz, principal investigator of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field 2009 (HUDF09) program.


The universe is 13.7 billion years old, and the XDF reveals galaxies that span back 13.2 billion years in time. Most of the galaxies in the XDF are seen when they were young, small, and growing, often violently as they collided and merged together. The early universe was a time of dramatic birth for galaxies containing brilliant blue stars extraordinarily brighter than our sun. The light from those past events is just arriving at Earth now, and so the XDF is a "time tunnel into the distant past." The youngest galaxy found in the XDF existed just 450 million years after the universe's birth in the big bang.

Before Hubble was launched in 1990, astronomers could barely see normal galaxies to 7 billion light-years away, about halfway across the universe. Observations with telescopes on the ground were not able to establish how galaxies formed and evolved in the early universe.

Hubble gave astronomers their first view of the actual forms and shapes of galaxies when they were young. This provided compelling, direct visual evidence that the universe is truly changing as it ages. Like watching individual frames of a motion picture, the Hubble deep surveys reveal the emergence of structure in the infant universe and the subsequent dynamic stages of galaxy evolution.

http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/7...i1237by673.jpg

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/609...6290319524.jpg

Better way to turn ocean into fuel

UOW scientists have developed a novel way to turn sea water into hydrogen, for a sustainable and clean fuel source.

Using this method, as little as five litres of sea water per day would produce enough hydrogen to power an average-sized home and an electric car for one day.

The research team at UOW’s Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES) have developed a light-assisted catalyst that requires less energy input to activate water oxidation, which is the first step in splitting water to produce hydrogen fuel.

A major limitation with current technologies is that the oxidation process needs a higher energy input, which rules out using abundant sea water because it produces poisonous chlorine gas.

The research team, led by Dr Jun Chen and Professor Gerry Swiegers, have produced an artificial chlorophyll on a conductive plastic film that acts as a catalyst to begin splitting water.

The results were recently published in the journal Chemical Science.
Lead author, Dr Jun Chen, said the flexible polymer would mean it could be used in a wider range of applications and it is more easily manufactured than metal semiconductors.

“The system we designed, including the materials, gives us the opportunity to design various devices and applications using sea water as a water-splitting source.

“The flexible nature of the material also provides the possibility to build portable hydrogen-producing devices.”

The development brings UOW’s energy research a step closer to creating an artificial leaf-like device that can efficiently produce hydrogen.

ACES Executive Research Director Professor Gordon Wallace said: “In today’s world the discovery of high performance materials is not enough”.

“This must be coupled with innovative fabrication to provide practical high-performance devices and this work is an excellent example of that,” he said.

This one just blows my mind. The defined and reproducible patterns are just amazing. Each frequency is unique. Couple that with the fact that everything in the universe is vibrating. And each frequency of vibration brings its own individual pattern.

Click the link at the bottom for a much longer version of the video.

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wvJAgrUBF4w?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

What you're watching is the Chladni plate experiment, as performed by YouTube science-and-illusion wizard Brusspup (he can also coax water into a zig-zagging stream, and make Rubik's Cubes that aren't Rubik's Cubes).

When physicist Ernst Chladni performed this experiment in the 18th century, he did it with flour instead of sand, and made his metal plate vibrate with a violin bow instead of a tone generator, but the end result is the same: when the plate vibrates at a steady frequency, the particles on its surface arrange into a beautiful pattern.

The particles (sand, in this case) are arranging themselves along what are called "nodal lines" – narrow curves of motionless calm that criss-cross the otherwise vibrating surface. As the frequency changes, so does the distribution of these nodal lines, which becomes increasingly intricate at higher frequencies.

http://io9.com/the-most-incredible-t...s-vi-511739457

This is my favorite thread on CP.

Oil companies are sending hitmen to these guy's door as we speak.

There are 1,300,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 1.3sextillion liters of water in the earth's oceans.

Ditto.

Imagine that on a stupid football site?

What the math of music looks like:

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Av_Us6xHkUc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Ha ha, you're drinking dinosaur piss.....

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/4551/02gd.jpg

Oh yeah? Well, I've pissed out in the woods in the Dakotas where there undoubtedly are remains of dinosaurs buried deep under the landing spot of my pee stream. So I have in essence pissed on the creature that pissed in my drinking water millions of years ago.

Mind = blowed up.

And what's worse is we've all drank boar semen . HaHa !

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/mcw6j-QWGMo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Next time shithead calls me loon I can be proud. :)

It's been said before, maybe not in a Science discussion... but Wu Tang ain't nuttin to **** wit....

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YiNKyBALfuk?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Wu-Tang’s GZA Teaches Kids Science With Least-Lame Classroom Rap Ever

As part of a program created by Columbia professor Christopher Emdin, 10 New York City high school classes have been writing raps as a way to learn about science. The program is called Science Genius, and it sounds like the sort of patronizing pop-culture hijack kids hate more than anything. But when Wu-Tang’s GZA drops by a Bronx classroom to discuss the importance of scientific inquiry, you can see the actual moment when the students realize the program is legit.

More about the Science Genius program:

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-9rGb7muhTI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The future of data storage...

More data storage? Here’s how to fit 1,000 terabytes on a DVD

We live in a world where digital information is exploding. Some 90% of the world’s data was generated in the past two years. The obvious question is: how can we store it all?

In Nature Communications today, we, along with Richard Evans from CSIRO, show how we developed a new technique to enable the data capacity of a single DVD to increase from 4.7 gigabytes up to one petabyte (1,000 terabytes). This is equivalent of 10.6 years of compressed high-definition video or 50,000 full high-definition movies.

So how did we manage to achieve such a huge boost in data storage? First, we need to understand how data is stored on optical discs such as CDs and DVDs.

The basics of digital storage

Although optical discs are used to carry software, films, games, and private data, and have great advantages over other recording media in terms of cost, longevity and reliability, their low data storage capacity is their major limiting factor.

The operation of optical data storage is rather simple. When you burn a CD, for example, the information is transformed to strings of binary digits (0s and 1s, also called bits). Each bit is then laser “burned” into the disc, using a single beam of light, in the form of dots.

The storage capacity of optical discs is mainly limited by the physical dimensions of the dots. But as there’s a limit to the size of the disc as well as the size of the dots, many current methods of data storage, such as DVDs and Blu-ray discs, continue to have low level storage density.

To get around this, we had to look at light’s fundamental laws.

Circumnavigating Abbe’s limit

In 1873, German physicist Ernst Abbe published a law that limits the width of light beams.

On the basis of this law, the diameter of a spot of light, obtained by focusing a light beam through a lens, cannot be smaller than half its wavelength – around 500 nanometres (500 billionths of a metre) for visible light.

And while this law plays a huge role in modern optical microscopy, it also sets up a barrier for any efforts from researchers to produce extremely small dots – in the nanometre region – to use as binary bits.

In our study, we showed how to break this fundamental limit by using a two-light-beam method, with different colours, for recording onto discs instead of the conventional single-light-beam method.

Both beams must abide by Abbe’s law, so they cannot produce smaller dots individually. But we gave the two beams different functions:

http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/8310/9na3.jpg

• The first beam (red, in the figure right) has a round shape, and is used to activate the recording. We called it the writing beam
  
• The second beam – the purple donut-shape – plays an anti-recording function, inhibiting the function of the writing beam

The two beams were then overlapped. As the second beam cancelled out the first in its donut ring, the recording process was tightly confined to the centre of the writing beam.

This new technique produces an effective focal spot of nine nanometres – or one ten thousandth the diameter of a human hair.

The technique, in practical terms

Our work will greatly impact the development of super-compact devices as well as nanoscience and nanotechnology research.

The exceptional penetration feature of light beams allow for 3D recording or fabrication, which can dramatically increase the data storage – the number of dots – on a single optical device.

The technique is also cost-effective and portable, as only conventional optical and laser elements are used, and allows for the development of optical data storage with long life and low energy consumption, which could be an ideal platform for a Big Data centre.

As the rate of information generated worldwide continues to accelerate, the aim of more storage capacity in compact devices will continue. Our breakthrough has put that target within our reach.

How about a space-based telescope, that could be accessible to the general public? A mini Hubble type telescope, that you could take a picture of a galaxy a billion light years away, directly from your smartphone?

Meet ARKYD, the space telescope for EVERYONE.

<iframe width="480" height="360" src="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1458134548/arkyd-a-space-telescope-for-everyone-0/widget/video.html" frameborder="0"> </iframe>

This Kickstarter campaign has already raised over $1M, but more is needed.

Click link for vid, the look on his face is AWESOME!!!

Today would have been Alan Turing's birthday.

http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/9052/hv3g.jpg

Apple owners everywhere have taken the day off to contemplate what could have been...

Hey Carol from Accounting! How's my ass taste?

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/9499/1kpp.jpg

For a spacecraft such as the Space Shuttle, the Mir, a Soyuz Capsule or the International Space Station to maintain an orbit around the Earth at relatively low altitudes (anywhere from approximately 175 to 575 kilometers [~95 to 310 nautical miles]) it must travel at approximately 32,500 km/hour (~17,500 nm/hr). At these altitudes and at this velocity it takes about 90 minutes to circle the Earth once, so every 45 minutes the astronauts and cosmonauts onboard see a sunrise and a sunset, a total of 16 each every 24 hours.

http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/9043/8cdk.jpg

You sent your email reply from work to the Blog... Nice!

So yeah, Carol from accounting, how's his ass taste! ****ing bitch, pay him his money (and add interest you slime bucket)!!

I had someone tell me several years ago, that orbit at low altitude such as the ISS does, isn't technically an orbit at all. It's a controlled fall, with the speed sufficient to keep it continually falling "over the horizon", so to speak. While that didn't blow my mind, I gotta admit it popped a little.

I'm certain you know this stuff, so: was he full of shit?

That's absolutely correct. Orbit is nothing more than a controlled free fall where tangential acceleration overcomes gravity such that the object if falling but always stays at the same distance from the Earth. The space station is free falling toward the Earth at all times. But it never crashes into the Earth, because it's going so fast it always overshoots the horizon, like you said. It's going at the perfect speed so that it always stays at the same distance from the Earth, even though it's always technically falling.

It's really no different than a skydiver in free fall after jumping out of a plane, except that the atmosphere isn't continually resisting and pushing back against the person. Because the space station is higher than most of the atmosphere. So you don't have the "Wind rush" pushing back up against the falling body. That's why free fall in outer space looks more like floating. But if you would take away the resistance of the atmosphere in the case of a skydiver, it would look and feel exactly like a "Floating" astronaut in orbit.

Here's a much lengthier and detailed explanation: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/sh.../microgex.html

Well, I'd still label it as an orbit, but yes, the ISS and the space shuttles were/are moving at speeds sufficient to be falling toward Earth at all times, but the speed is such that they are falling past the horizon.

That's very different that other orbits, such as geosynchronous.

Voyager reaches mystery interstellar doorstep

Voyager’s prolonged journey into interstellar space took another dramatic turn when the intrepid space probe last summer passed into a bizarre and unanticipated cosmic hallway between the bubble of space under the sun’s influence and whatever lies beyond.

On the celestial highway since September 1977, the Voyager 1 probe soared past Jupiter and Saturn in 1979 and 1980, respectively, then ended up an a path that led toward interstellar space. Eventually, the spacecraft will get there, but exactly when that will happen -- and what else it may encounter before then -- is anybody’s guess.

“The results of the measurements from Voyager have been surprising us not just since last August, but for about the last 2.5 years,” astronomer Stamatios Krimigis, with Johns Hopkinds University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, told Discovery News.

Scientists thought Voyager 1 had finally passed beyond the heliosheath, the outermost region of space touched by the solar wind, a stream of charged particles continuously flowing the sun. On Aug. 25, 2012, Voyager suddenly found itself in an uncharted region of space, marked by the abrupt disappearance of particles from the sun and the sudden rise of particles emanating from interstellar space.

“As far as we could tell there was absolutely no solar material in the vicinity of the spacecraft and there hasn’t been since then. At the same time, the cosmic rays coming from outside the system started to increase. We all thought at the time that, by God, we were probably out of the solar system,” Krimigis said.

But there were two other puzzling bits of data that didn’t fit that scenario.

The first mystery was why the magnetic field Voyager measured was still aligned like the sun’s -- and even more perplexing, why the magnetic field suddenly strengthened.

Scientists had expected to see a different magnetic orientation once Voyager was in interstellar space.

The second conundrum was why the cosmic ray particles were not evenly distributed. The thinking was -- and is -- that cosmic rays, which emanate from distant supernova explosions all over the galaxy, should be uniformly spread out in every direction in interstellar space.

The best scientists can conclude is that Voyager is in some sort of foyer where particles from inside and outside the solar system can easily flow, but which is not quite yet in interstellar space. The rather unpoetic name they came up for this zone is the “heliosheath depletion region.”

“What we have is kind of a hybrid. The magnetic field still seems to be the solar magnetic field, not the interstellar magnetic field, so how do you define interstellar medium if that’s the case? If you really need to finally reach the case where both the magnetic field and the plasma are from other stars, then we’re still not there,” lead project scientist Ed Stone, with the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, told Discovery News.

Scientists have no idea how much longer it will take Voyager to reach the next and presumably last leg of its journey into interstellar space, but the proverbial clock is ticking.

The spacecraft, which is powered by the slow decay of radioactive plutonium, will begin running out of power for its science instruments in 2020.

“By then, we would have shut off everything we can shut off other than the instruments and will have to turn off the first instrument. As time goes on, each year there are four watts less available, we’ll have to turn off the second instrument,” Stone said.

By 2025, Voyager, which was originally designed to last just five years, will be completely shut down.

Voyager is now about 122 times farther from the sun than Earth. At that distance it takes radio signals from Earth traveling at the speed of light 17 hours to reach the spacecraft.

A sister spacecraft called Voyager 2 is taking a different path toward interstellar space and has not yet encountered the panoply of twists and turns on the solar system’s exit ramp -- and it never may.

“Voyager 2 has seen exactly what the models predicted we would see, unlike Voyager 1, which didn’t,” Stone said.

The region where the heliosheath and interstellar space connect, where Voyager 1 is located, may be a local phenomenon, he added.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/...#ixzz2XpDNptHA

No, geosynchronous orbits obey the same satellite orbital gravitational/motion theories as any other orbiting object. The difference is that geosynchronous objects are far away enough to allow them to fall and advance so the resultant is at a rate that is very, very close to the rotation of the earth.

The same orbital theories can give us the Lagrange Points where the gravity effects of two large objects can give regions where a much smaller object suspended in these areas around the larger ones. We do find asteroids in those areas. These points are locations were an answer can actually be obtained analytically for 3 bodied orbital equations. The whole of the solar system, is actually more like constantly trying to remain balanced upon a bicycle. All the different forces seem to balance out on a 4 dimensional field though. These do seem different. Is this your meaning.

Imagine those canines going through your femur. And what's that chin all about. WOW!

http://images.designntrend.com/data/...trox.jpg?w=610

Millions of years ago, strange-pouched predator stalked South America with fangs bigger than those of the fearsome saber-toothed cat did. It stabbed its prey with its huge, saber-like teeth.
Now, new study reveals a bit more about the predator's dental profile and its hunting strategies, which may reveal a little bit more about saber-toothed animals in general. This ancient carnivore packed most of its power in a robust set of arms, strong neck muscles and knack for precision, researchers say.
Like Us on Facebook

The findings are published in the journal PLOS One.
Known as Thylacosmilus atrox, this animal looked and behaved like nothing alive today. Its closest living relatives are the Australian and American marsupials, but even they fail to show precisely the animal's behavior and skills of hunting.

Thylacosmilus atrox had larger teeth proportionally to its body in comparison with saber-tooth tiger Smilodon fatalis, making it one of the more interesting saber-toothed animals to study.

These animals were separated by at least 125 million years of evolution.
In the new study, scientists constructed and compared sophisticated computer models of both the saber-toothed tiger and Thylacosmilus to learn their behavior and hunting strategies. These models were then "crash-tested" in simulations of biting and killing behavior. This allowed the scientists to determine exactly how these creatures may have subdued their prey.

"We found that both saber-tooth species were similar in possessing weak jaw-muscle-driven bites compared to the leopard, but the mechanical performance of the saber-tooths' skulls showed that they were both well-adapted to resist forces generated by very powerful neck muscles," said Stephen Wroe, leader of the research team, in a news release. "But compared to the placental Smilodon, Thylacosmilus was even more extreme."

Thylacosmilus' bite was less powerful than a domestic cat, yet its skull easily outperformed the saber-tooth tiger in response to strong forces from hypothetical neck muscles, say researchers.

Then, how did they hunt? Thylacosmilus first held its prey to the ground with its powerful arms and then, with great precision, tore down with its relatively delicate teeth. This allowed it to make a quick meal.

Thylacosmilus became extinct 3.5 million years ago, and it had the largest canines of any known saber-toothed beast. Its fangs constantly grew throughout its lifetime and had roots extending even into its skull. The teeth also fit over long sheath-like ridges that extended down from the animal's lower jaw.
"It may not have been the smartest of mammalian super-predators-but in terms of specialization, Thylacosmilustook the already extreme saber-tooth lifestyle to a whole new level," said Wroe in a news release.

http://www.designntrend.com/articles...illed-very.htm

Hmm...then maybe you should consider the fact that we are in a "controlled" free fall towards the sun! :eek:

And our entire galaxy is on a collision course with the Andromeda galaxy at 200,000 mph. And our Local Group of galaxies is also on a collision course with the middle of the Virgo cluster at 1 million mph. Even our entire Virgo supercluster of galaxies is hurdling toward the Great Atractor at 14 million mph.

We're totally ****ed, and we only have maybe 100 million years to figure this shit out...

The Great Attractor is a pretty gnarly thing.

Scientists in Japan have cloned a mouse from a single drop of blood.

http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/9748/7kw4.jpg

Circulating blood cells collected from the tail of a donor mouse were used to produce the clone, a team at the Riken BioResource Center reports in the journal Biology of Reproduction.

The female mouse lived a normal lifespan and could give birth to young, say the researchers.

Scientists at a linked institute recently created nearly 600 exact genetic copies of one mouse.

Mice have been cloned from several different sources of donor cells, including white blood cells found in the lymph nodes, bone marrow and liver.

The Japanese research group investigated whether circulating blood cells could also be used for cloning.

Their aim was to find an easily available source of donor cells to clone scientifically valuable strains of laboratory mice.

The team, led by Atsuo Ogura, of Riken BioResource Center in Tsukuba, took blood from the tail of a donor mouse, isolated the white blood cells, and used the nuclei for cloning experiments, using the same technique that produced Dolly the sheep in Edinburgh.

The process, known as somatic cell nuclear transfer, involves transferring the nucleus from an adult body cell - such as a blood or skin cell - into an unfertilised egg that has had its nucleus removed.

Reporting their findings in the US journal, Biology of Reproduction, the scientists said the study "demonstrated for the first time that mice could be cloned using the nuclei of peripheral blood cells".

The secret about deodorant.... It's only for smelly people.

One million people who have non-body odour gene still use deodorant: study

http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/5353/0x71.jpg

Researchers have found that two per cent of the population have a genetic variant that means they do not suffer from under arm body odour yet more three quarters of them continue to use scents.

The 'cultural norm' in Britain is to use deodorant every day whether body odour is a problem or not, the researchers said. Where as elsewhere in the world most people with the genetic variant are aware that they do not smell and do not use deodorant, they said.

According to Euromonitor, the deodorant industry was worth £604m in 2011, representing a potential saving of over £12m to the two per cent of UK adults who don’t produce underarm odour if they shunned deodorants.

Only around five per cent of people do produce body odour do not use deodorant, the researches suggested.

The gene variant is known as ABCC11 and the study authors said that the consistency of earwax is a good indication of those who have it. People who have dry earwax as opposed to sticky earwax are highly likely to have the ABCC11 variant and therefore do not produce under arm body odour.

The research was carried out on a sample of 6,495 women who were part of the wider Children of the 90s study at the University of Bristol.
The researchers found that about two per cent of mothers carried the gene variant.

They discovered that almost one in four of people with the gene do not use deodorant, suggesting they are aware of their special status and do not waste the money.

The findings were published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology
Lead author Professor Ian Day said: "An important finding of this study relates to those individuals who, according to their genotype, do not produce underarm odour.

"One quarter of these individuals must consciously or subconsciously recognise that they do not produce odour and do not use deodorant, whereas most odour producers do use deodorant.

"However, three quarters of those who do not produce an odour regularly use deodorants; we believe that these people simply follow socio-cultural norms. This contrasts with the situation in North East Asia, where most people do not need to use deodorant and they don’t."

Co-author of the paper, Dr Santiago Rodriguez added: "These findings have some potential for using genetics in the choice of personal hygiene products. A simple gene test might strengthen self-awareness and save some unnecessary purchases and chemical exposures for non-odour producers."
Sweat glands produce sweat which, combined with bacteria, result in underarm odour.

The production of odour depends on the existence of an active ABCC11 gene. However, the ABCC11 gene is known to be inactive in some people.

More 3D printing awesomeness...

http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/8937/tmlb.jpg

Disabled duck gets new foot thanks to 3D printing

Born with a backwards foot, Buttercup could only walk in great pain — until his owner came up with a novel idea for a duckie prosthetic.

When he was born in a high school biology lab in November last year, little Buttercup wasn't like all the other ducklings: his left foot was turned backwards, making getting around a bit of a trial for the little guy. Although his carer at the school worked on turning the foot around the right way, it couldn't quite get there.

"With his deformed foot, he would have been in pain and had constant cuts and foot infections walking on the side of it even at our sanctuary here; and foot infections on these guys is always a serious matter," Garey said.

After Buttercup had his foot amputated in February, Garey — a software engineer by trade — started looking into options for a replacement limb. Sure, Buttercup could have a peg leg; but what if Garey could replace the entire foot?

After shopping around for a service, he found 3D printing company NovaCopy, which agreed to donate its services to helping Buttercup walk again. Together, using photos of the left foot of Buttercup's sister Minnie, they designed a brand new left foot for Buttercup.

Because the foot needs to be flexible, the usual plastics used in 3D printing aren't viable. Instead, NovaCopy printed a mould, which will be used to cast a silicone foot for the lucky duck, creating several iterations of the design to come up with the perfect one. It will be attached to his foot via a silicone sheath.

"This version will have a stretchy silicone sock instead of the finger trap, which will roll up on his leg, be inserted into the foot and then have a fastener in the bottom," Garey said. "If you saw Dolphin Tail, this material is similar to the WintersGel that they used." WintersGel is a prosthetic liner that grips the amputated limb.

Buttercup, currently walking around on his stump, is due to get his new foot very soon, with the final design arriving in the next two weeks. You can follow Buttercup's story on his Facebook page.

From the article:

Ummmmm.......What is going on here?

This Thorium Reactor Has the Power of a Norse God

http://gizmodo.com/this-thorium-reac...ium=socialflow

The Uranium-235 and -238 we use in modern nuclear fission reactors are humanity's single most energy-dense fuel source (1,546,000,000 MJ/L), but that potent power potential comes at a steep price—and not just during natural disasters. Its radioactive plutonium byproducts remain lethally irradiated for millennia. That's why one pioneering Nordic company is developing an alternative fuel that doesn't produce it.

When uranium is used in a conventional Light Water Reactor, it's converted into plutonium (and if the U238 isotope is used, the result can be fissable Pu239). Even without the danger of weapons-grade plutonium proliferating from a country's stores of radioactive waste, there's not really an easy way to dispose of the byproduct. Our best answer so far has been burying it and hoping for the best. Instead, Thor Energy—a subsidiary of the Oslo-based Scatec group—wants to burn up that store of plutonium to power the very reactors that created it. All its system needs is the addition of thorium. A lot of it.

Luckily, thorium (Th232) is an abundant—albeit slightly radioactive—element. It's estimated to be four times as common as uranium and 500 times as much as U238. It's so common that it's currently treated like a byproduct in the rare-earth mining industry. Problem is, naturally occurring thorium doesn't contain enough of its fissable isotope (Th231) to maintain criticality. But that's where the plutonium comes in. What Thor energy did was mix ceramic thorium oxide (ThO2) with plutonium oxide (nuclear waste) in a 90:10 ratio to create thorium-MOX (mixed-oxide). The thorium oxide acts as a matrix that holds the plutonium in place as its used up.

This stuff could very well revolutionize nuclear power. Thorium-MOX can be formed into rods and used in current generation (Gen II) nuclear reactor with minimal retrofitting. Ceramic thorium has a higher thermal conductivity and melting point than uranium, meaning it can operate at a lower (and safer) internal pellet temperature with less chance of a meltdown, fewer fission gas emissions, and extended fuel cycles.

Most importantly, thorium doesn't convert into plutonium—precisely the opposite, in fact. That is, the process consumes plutonium. We could be looking at a means of not only halting the growth American nuclear waste sites but actually reducing our stores of plutonium while simultaneously reducing the danger of nuclear proliferation. Sure, the thorium system does create waste of i's own, but irradiated thorium doesn't oxidize and remains more stable as it decays. What more could you want?

Thor Energy is currently testing the new technology on the small scale. A prototype reactor will power a paper mill in the town of Halden, Norway for the next five years. If the fuel proves to be commercially viable during that test, we could see a sea change in nuclear power by the end of the decade.

[Extreme Tech - Thor Energy - Thorium 100 - Thor Energy - Wikipedia - Britannica - Image: Thor Energy]

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/ZMByI4s-D-Y" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>


Found this interesting, history of the kilogram and how they are working on defining it again.